Brief History of Tuskegee, Alabama

Brief History of Tuskegee, Alabama. . Tuskegee consists of 80 square miles and is the county seat of Macon County, Alabama. Tuskegee rests in the heart of the rural Alabama Black Belt and is 40 miles east of Montgomery. Tuskegee was founded by General Thomas S. Woodward in 1833 after he was appointed to form a seat of government in Macon County. Tuskegee was later incorporated in 1843 and continues to be a site of major African-American achievements for more than a century. The city of Tuskegee played a vital role in the Civil Rights Movement and is the birthplace of Rosa Louise Parks (1913). Tuskegee is also the home of the first African-American fighter squadron known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Voting rights and equal education for African-Americans was guaranteed through famous civil rights court cases such as Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1958) and Lee v. Macon County (1963) both taking place in Tuskegee. Tuskegee is also the location where Samuel Younge, Jr., the first African-American college student killed as a result of his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement., Many educational institutions originated from Tuskegee. The Baptist College for Women was founded in 1848; the Tuskegee Female College (later known as Huntingdon College of Montgomery, AL) in 1856; and Park High School (later known as Tuskegee Military Institute for Boys) were among the early schools that flourished before public schools were established in 1898. The most famous of these educational institutions is the Tuskegee Normal School for Colored Teachers founded by Lewis Adams and George Campbell in 1881. Booker T. Washington became the first principal and remained the schools’ first President until his death in 1915. Tuskegee Institute was home to inventor and teacher, George Washington Carver, whose name is synonymous with innovative research into Southern farming methods and crops. Today, Tuskegee University remains a center for African-American education. Tuskegee Institute became a part of the National Park Service in 1974 as is the only U.S. college designated as a National Historic Landmark.