 It produced one of the nation's most respected leaders, eminent black educator Booker T. Washington, who was born April 5, 1856, on the Burroughs Plantation, approximately sixteen miles northeast of Rocky Mount.His childhood was spent as a slave, and he lived in a one-room cabin.After emancipation and a successful quest to educate himself, Washington established a new black school in 1881 in Tuskegee, Alabama.