This post is getting out a little late because I really struggled to find a Bonus Quote this morning. I would walk away from writing, come back, and search some more, but nothing seemed to fit until I stumbled across the story of Booker T. Washington and the tweet below. I am a bit ashamed to say I couldn’t remember his story. I remember being taught about him in school, and I think I remember the Power Tales book we had about him…but his actual story eluded my memory. Anyway, that is a long-winded way of saying this is a great story, and if you are like me and need a little refresher, I hope you enjoy it too. Here is a small sample:
Booker T. Washington was born into slavery on a Virginia tobacco farm. He slept on a dirt floor, never knew his birthday, and never learned who his father was.
After emancipation his family moved to West Virginia, and by age 9 he was packing salt in a furnace and later working in a coal mine. He taught himself the alphabet from an old spelling book. On his first day of school the teacher asked his last name. He didn’t have one, so he made one up on the spot: Washington.
At 16 he heard about a school for Black students called Hampton Institute and set out for it, about 500 miles away, much of it on foot. He ran out of money in Richmond, slept under a wooden sidewalk, and loaded ships to earn his way. When he finally showed up, dirty and broke, his entrance exam was sweeping a room. He swept it three times and dusted it four. They let him in.
At 25 he was picked to open a new school in Tuskegee, Alabama. There was no campus. He started with about 30 students in a leaky shanty next to a church, then bought an abandoned plantation. The students made their own bricks to build the place. The first three kilns failed. Out of money, he pawned his watch to fire the fourth. It worked, and they built the campus brick by brick.
Booker T. Washington was born into slavery on a Virginia tobacco farm. He slept on a dirt floor, never knew his birthday, and never learned who his father was.
After emancipation his family moved to West Virginia, and by age 9 he was packing salt in a furnace and later working in a coal mine. He taught himself the alphabet from an old spelling book. On his first day of school the teacher asked his last name. He didn’t have one, so he made one up on the spot: Washington.
At 16 he heard about a school for Black students called Hampton Institute and set out for it, about 500 miles away, much of it on foot. He ran out of money in Richmond, slept under a wooden sidewalk, and loaded ships to earn his way. When he finally showed up, dirty and broke, his entrance exam was sweeping a room. He swept it three times and dusted it four. They let him in.
At 25 he was picked to open a new school in Tuskegee, Alabama. There was no campus. He started with about 30 students in a leaky shanty next to a church, then bought an abandoned plantation. The students made their own bricks to build the place. The first three kilns failed. Out of money, he pawned his watch to fire the fourth. It worked, and they built the campus brick by brick.
He hired a young scientist named George Washington Carver. Harvard gave him an honorary degree, the first it ever gave a Black American. His autobiography, Up From Slavery, became a bestseller. Theodore Roosevelt invited him to dinner at the White House in 1901, and the Southern press went berserk over it.
His critics, led by W.E.B. Du Bois, said he gave up too much ground on civil rights. What they didn’t know was that he was quietly funding court cases against segregation and the laws stripping Black men of the vote.
He also teamed up with Julius Rosenwald, the head of Sears, on a program that went on to build nearly 5,000 schools for Black children across the rural South.
In 1915 he collapsed from exhaustion in New York. Doctors told him he was dying. He insisted on going home, saying he was born in the South and wanted to be buried there. He made it back to Tuskegee and died a few hours later. He was 59. The kid who started with nothing left behind a school with more than 100 buildings and 1,500 students.
He became the first African American on a U.S. postage stamp and the first on a U.S. coin.
Ask most people today what he did and you’ll get a blank stare.
— Echoes of War (@EchoesofWarYT) November 9, 2026
Lunch Box Quotes are notes I usually include in the kids’ lunches. Since Number 1 is off in college and Number 2 is skipping lunch now (he’s trying to cut weight for lacrosse), they both get a text. Number 3 and Number 4 get handwritten notes on napkins.
Visual credit to – Featured Image: Photo Credit: @CraftOfMastery
Quotes: @VoltaireQuote @CraftOfMastery @WordsnWisdom26 @Mythos_Man @AccentsSouthern
Quotes:
1. “Politics is the path for men without principles to lead men without memory.” – Voltaire
2. “No matter how deep the darkness or how impossible the situation, there is always a possibility you haven’t considered, a strength you haven’t discovered, or a door you haven’t found.” – Unknown
3. “Vision without action is a daydream, action without vision is a nightmare.” – Japanese Proverb
4. “A great flame follows a little spark.” – Dante Alighieri
Bonus Quote: “Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.” – Booker T. Washington
Sources:
“Politics is the path for men without principles to lead men without memory”
Voltaire
— Voltaire Archive (@VoltaireQuote) October 30, 2026
No matter how deep the darkness or how impossible the situation,
there is always a possibility you haven’t considered, a strength you haven’t discovered, or a door you haven’t found. https://t.co/uCHuwWDa8e
— Crafty (@CraftOfMastery) October 27, 2026
Vision without action is a daydream, action without vision is a nightmare.
~ Japanese Proverb https://t.co/VDhLmm3TOI
— Words & Wisdom (@WordsnWisdom26) November 7, 2026
“A great flame follows a little spark.”
— Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, Canto I
— Man of Myth (@Mythos_Man) October 31, 2026
“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”
-Booker T. Washington https://t.co/y7hTjXU6NM
— Southern Accents (@AccentsSouthern) November 9, 2026