507- MY ALL-TIME AMERICAN LEADER HEROES.......

a) George Washinton...THE leader and first presidential creator!
b) Thomas Jefferson...THE intellect when our beginning America needed him the most!
c) Booker Taliaferro Washington...THE AMERICAN of pure fortitude and CHARACTER!
d) 1865-1915.
e) This dynamic American was born Booker Taliaferro as a slave in Franklin County, Virginia. His mother was a plantation cook, and his bio father was Caucasian and took no interest in the child. She then married another slave, with all escaping to now West Virginia and to freedom!
f) I DID travel once upon a time to Frankling County, below Lynchburg on the map, to visit the farm site and BARN simply to quietly "feel" and honor one of my Virginia/American heroes....
g) WAIT until THIS admirer of BTW shares with you the fascinating strength and character of this young boy into manhood, over the years.
h) Booker was conned, by stepfather, to work in early and late in salt mines in W.Va. in exchange for going to school during day! During that early time, he answered only to one name, Booker. Other students had two names. He picked a famous last name---Washington. When his mother then informed him that he actually had a last name, Taliaferro, he BECAME BOOKER T. WASHINGTON!
i) While working as a houseboy for the mine's owner, Booker developed great work habits and did overhear a conversation about a school fo blacks in Hampton, Va....Hampton Institute!
k) In 1872 the young boy set out for Hampton Institute. When his money ran out, along the way, he worked at any odd job, sleeping under wooden sidewalks along the way...begging rides...walking. And he still had a good 80 miles to go to Hampton on the Chesapeake Bay!
He did make it, dirty, little sleep and penniless to Hampton...Institute! Asked to speak to the school officials and immediately asked for admission and help to being his studies. After testing him, by having him clean a room, they "passed" him for admission...and gave him a job, also, as a...a...janitor.
l) .....more coming....... (Can you SEE, so far, why ron squire had a tear or three when I first read this history data?)......