“Success should not be measured so much by the position one has reached in life as by the obstacles he has overcome” – Booker T. Washing. Booker Taliaferro Washington was born in Hale's Ford, Virginia, on April 5, 1856, to Jane Burroughs and an unknown white man. Washington was married three times. His first wife was Fannie N. Smith of Malden, West Virginia. Booker and Fannie married in the summer of 1882 and had a child together named Portia M. Washington. Fannie died two years later in May 1884. Second wife was Olivia A. Davidson in 1885. Olivia was a teacher in Mississippi and Tennessee. She then worked as a schoolteacher in Tuskegee and that's how she met Booker T. She was an assistant principal. Olivia and Booker had two sons, before he died in 1889, Booker T. Washington Jr. and Ernest Davidson Washington. His third wife was Margaret James Murray, they married in 1893. Margaret and Booker never had children together, but she treated his children as her own. She died after Booker T. Washington in 1925. When Booker T. was nine years old, his stepfather insisted that he go to work. He worked in the mines and dreamed of going to college one day. At the age of sixteen, he went to make his dreams come true. Washington traveled to Hampton, Virginia. He attended Hampton Institute and graduated with honors in 1875. Washington returned home to Malden where he taught school for a few years. He moved to Washington DC. He returned to teach at Hampton where he befriended Samuel Chapman Armstrong, a white man who was the director of the institute. After two years on staff, Armstrong approved Washington to become director of a trade school for African Americans in Tuskegee, Alabama, they hired him middle of paper....... Np. Internet. November 20, 2013. .McGill, Ralph. “The debate between WEB Du Bouis and Booker T. Washington.” PBS.ORG 1965. web. November 20, 2013. “Booker T. Washington.” Info please. NDWeb. November 20, 2013. “The “Old Negro” of Booker T. Washington versus the “New Negro” of WEB Du Bois. » Issues and controversies in American history. Infobase Publication, July 19, 2006. Web. November 20, 2013. .Worknik. NDWeb. November 20, 2013. Booker T. Washington “The Road to African American Progress,” Annals of American History. [Accessed November 20, 2013].