Robert Rusa Moton
Robert Rusa Moton was Tuskegee Institute's second president.
Like his close friend Booker T. Washington, Moton felt that vocational education was the best way for Blacks to establish economic independence and respectability in the eyes of Whites. Moton helped raise money for his school and the Industrial Home School for underprivileged Black girls. He was also a trustee for several other Black colleges. In 1915, Moton succeeded Booker T. Washington as President of the Tuskegee Institute. There, Moton expanded the campus and academic programs. One of his most important accomplishments at Tuskegee was the building of a federal hospital for Black World War I veterans that would be staffed by Black doctors and nurses. Whites opposed giving the money to Black staff and threatened to kill Moton unless he hired White doctors exclusively. The hospital, called Tuskegee Home, and opened in 1923. In 1997, it merged with other local Veterans Administration hospitals to become part of the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System East Campus. Moton was honored to be the speaker at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall in Washington D.C. Moton was awarded several honorary degrees and received the Harmon Award in Race Relations and the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal. Moton retired in 1935. He died in 1940. |
Robert R. Moton, “A Life of Achievement”
Moton, Robert R. (1867-1940)
Dr. Robert Russa Moton at The Gloucester Institute
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This was created by Kelly Walker