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Booker Taliaferro Washington\xa0(April 5, 1856\xa0\u2013 November 14, 1915)[1]\xa0was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several\xa0presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary\xa0black elite.[2]\xa0Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by\xa0disenfranchisement\xa0and the\xa0Jim Crow\xa0discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction\xa0Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.