Alabama Women's Hall of Fame
Called "one of the greatest women of her century," Margaret Murray Washington spoke to national audiences as first president of the National Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. But her greatest service came as a graduate of Fisk University and teacher at Tuskegee, where she founded country schools, taught women how to live and attend to their homes, worked for the improvement of prisons, started the Mt. Meigs school for boys and an industrial school for girls, and constantly worked for the betterment of the poor and neglected.
Born in Macon, Mississippi, married to Booker T. Washington in 1893, she stood steadfastly beside her husband in making his dream of a great institute come true. A woman of great compassion, intelligence and independence of judgment, she became one of the greatest forces at Tuskegee Institute and among African-American leaders and thinkers of the country.
Bibliography
“Mrs. Washington Passes.” Tuskegee Messenger, 27 June 1925, 1.
Schmidt, Minna Moscherosch, comp. 400 Outstanding Women of the World. Chicago: Minna M. Schmidt, 1933.
Smith, Jessey Carney, ed. Notable Black American Women. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1992.
“The Three Wives of Booker T. Washington.” Ebony (September 1982): 29-34.
Tuskegee, Alabama. Tuskegee University. Washington Room. Booker T. and Margaret Murray Washington Collection.
Washington, Booker T. The Booker T. Washington Papers. Urbana, Illinois: University Of Illinois Press, 1977. Vol. 3, 6, 7,and 13.
----, ed. Tuskegee and Its People. New York: Appleton, 1905.
----. Up from Slavery: An Autobiography. Williamstown, Massachusetts: Corner House Publishers, 1971.
Washington, Mrs. Booker T. “The Advancement of Colored Women.” New York: American Missionary Association. n.d.
Wilson, Cynthia. Tuskegee University Archives. Tuskegee, Alabama. Interview, 3 June 1993.
Other Inductees
Alabama Women's Hall of Fame