Booker T. Washington is known as a prominent African American intellectual and civil rights activist during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born into slavery in Virginia, he became the president of Tuskegee Institute and founded the National Negro Business League (NNBL). Furthermore, he created academic publications to track advancements made by black businesses and engaged in discussions with other prominent intellectuals regarding the best approaches for advancing the African American race.

While Washington's conciliatory stance, known as the policy of accommodation, was criticized by his opponents, particularly W.E.B. Du Bois, for offering little political or social progress for African Americans, it was an important message in a time when African Americans were transitioning from enslavement to freedom. With the withdrawal of Union troops from the South, African Americans were subjected to disenfranchisement, Jim Crow laws, and brutal lynching and mob violence by white supremacists. Washington argued that the development of black enterprise would serve as a median position between civil rights and the right to vote. He believed that economic stability would eventually lead to the realization of civil rights for African Americans.

As the president of Tuskegee Institute, established in 1881, Washington had to build both the physical structure and an ideology that fostered economic success for African Americans. He enlisted students to grow plants that would improve the grounds, construct buildings, and initiate research that could be commercially viable, contributing to the state and larger society. Tuskegee Institute became the first research university in the South under his stewardship and became one of the most prominent historically black colleges and universities established after the Civil War.

Washington became a national figure following his speech during the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta in 1895. The address highlighted the industrial progress made in the South. During the speech, Washington remarked that the greatest danger for African Americans was failing to recognize the importance of learning to produce their own goods as a means of prosperity and growth. He emphasized the need to distinguish between the superficial and essential in order to prosper.