Margaret Murray Washington

It was at Fisk that Murray first met Booker T. Washington. Regarding her as a model student, Washington asked her to take over the position of lady principal, formerly held by his deceased second wife. By 1890, Murray was writing to Washington to express her deep feelings for him. He proposed the following year and, after some hesitation, Murray accepted Washington's proposal and they were married in 1893. Murray and Washington shared a home with Washington's relatives and his children from his previous marriage until they moved into The Oaks, the homestead which the Tuskegee Institute built for their family in 1901.[2] Washington was reluctant to share his feelings with Murray, and often left her to tend his children while he was away on business. Though Washington never got over the loss of his first two wives, he believed that Margaret provided a well-ordered household, and the two were generally happy with their marriage. Margaret wrote Washington's speeches and she helped her husband in expanding the school and traveled with him on his tours and speaking engagements.[3]

In 1890, Murray was hired as lady principal of Tuskegee Institute. In this role, she was responsible for supervising women students and supporting women on Tuskegee's faculty. She established the women's division curriculum for the lower and post-graduate division in sewing, laundering, millinery, soap-making, table-setting, cooking, and broom-making.[4]

During her tenure as lady principal of Tuskegee, she also created the Tuskegee Woman's Club. A significant endeavor of the Woman's Club was the restoration of the Elizabeth Russell plantation, located eight miles outside of Tuskegee. the place was described by Washington as an area populated with former convicts, where children were undisciplined and the homes were unkempt. For twelve years, she alongside other social reformers in Tuskegee sought to rehabilitate this community through the strengthening of family structures. Implementing Tuskegee's "Bath, Broom, and Bible" program, she centered her social-uplift theory around improving motherhood and wifehood.[4]

The Tuskegee Woman's Club later merged local organizations with women clubs to help improve the values and liberation of womanhood in black women of the Jim Crow south. In 1895 she gave an influential speech titled "Individual Work for Moral Elevation" at the First National Conference of the Colored Women of America was elected President of the newly established National Federation of Afro-American Women. As President, Washington insisted that the thrust of the organization be "industrial training and practical housewifery." This differed from some women's clubs in the North, such as the Colored Women's League of Washington, D.C. headed by Mary Church Terrell which refused to join the newly formed National Federation of Afro-American Women [5][4] She is credited with co-founding the National Association of Colored Women in 1896.[6] She founded country schools, taught women how to live and attend to their homes, worked for the improvement of prisons, started the Mt. Meigs School for boys and an industrial school for girls at Tuskegee, and constantly worked for the betterment of the poor and neglected. In 1912, she became the fifth president for the National Association of Colored Women.

After the death of her husband in 1915, Washington worked to improve the educational system for black Americans. She became deeply involved in domestic education for mothers in Tuskegee and in supporting schools for children at surrounding plantations.

As with the programs advocated by her husband, Margaret Murray Washington focused on domestic and vocational education. She became involved in interracial cooperation and participated in the path-breaking Memphis Women's Inter-Racial Conference in 1920.

Margaret Murray Washington remained at The Oaks until her death in 1925. She is buried in the university cemetery, next to her husband.[2]