History of Tuskegee University

Tuskegee University is one of the few private universities in the United States which has a predominantly black student body. Its long history has been chronicled in books and film, and the academic excellence of the university ranks among the top universities in the world. Tuskegee is consistently rated among the top research universities in America, thanks to The National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care

Significance

• Tuskegee was founded in 1881 as an all-black school, designed to help impoverished post-Civil War African Americans learn job skills. It was the first school of its kind in the United States.

Famous Ties

• Booker T. Washington was Tuskegee University's first principal of the school, and was part of everyday life at Tuskegee for nearly 35 years, until his untimely death.

Misconceptions

• Tuskegee wasn't founded as a traditional university. Instead, it was founded as a "Negro Normal School," or basically a trade school for those wishing to learn viable trades during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War. Under the leadership of Dr. Washington, it became the top university of African American students in the nation.

Identification

• Tuskegee University has been home to such programs as the Tuskegee Flight Training Program, which spawned the famous Tuskegee Airmen. The Tuskegee Airmen were all-black squadrons of pilots during World War II.

Size

• Tuskegee was founded with a two-thousand dollar grant from the Alabama legislature, in order to fund teacher salaries. It started in a small building in rural Alabama before being moved to its current location, comprising over 5,000 acres.