HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 42

(By Delegates Rowe, Mr. Speaker, (Mr. Armstead), Guthrie, Pushkin,

                        Byrd, McCuskey, Moore, Hornbuckle, B. White, Upson and Shott)

Requesting the Division of Highways to identify bridge number 20-77-95.81 (20A643), locally known as the interstate bridge over Campbells Creek, carrying Interstate 77 northbound and southbound lanes over US Route 60 west bound lane and the Norfolk and Southern Railroad, in Kanawha County, as being located at the" Boyhood Home of Booker T. Washington".

            Whereas, Booker T. Washington was born a slave on a farm in Franklin County, Virginia in the year 1856; and

            Whereas, Booker T. Washington is recognized as one of America's great educators, statesmen, authors and orators for his leadership for ten million African Americans who continued to struggle after the Civil War into the twentieth century; and

            Whereas, Booker T. Washington's formative years were in Malden, Kanawha County, West Virginia from age nine until he was twenty-five years old, at which time he started Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, building the Institute into America's most prominent educational institution for African Americans; and

            Whereas, Booker T. Washington attended Hampton Institute in Virginia and returned to teach school in Malden where he observed freed slave families, including his own family, succeeding in an integrated community with valuable education and equal compensation for work unlike in many areas in the Old South; and

            Whereas, Booker T. Washington published his autobiographical classic, Up From Slavery in 1900. The book has been recognized as the third best nonfiction book written in America in the twentieth century and details his great public career where he was one of the nation's first celebrities regularly touring to speak to thousands of Americans, black and white, about his success as a freed slave positing the best of the American Dream, for a degraded people to have their families succeed, when they have equal opportunity for education and fairly compensated work, just as he experienced in Malden, West Virginia; and

            Whereas, Booker T. Washington's first family home was on property owned by Lewis Ruffner at the mouth of Campbells Creek, now known as Port Amherst on the Great Kanawha River near Malden, West Virginia; and

            Whereas, Booker T. Washington died one hundred years ago on November 14, 1915, at fifty-nine years of age; and

            Whereas, Booker T. Washington is one of West Virginia's most enduring national celebrities; and

            Whereas, It is proper that the historical significance of the area as the site of Booker T. Washington's first family home be recognized; therefore, be it

            Resolved by the Legislature of West Virginia:

            That the Division of Highways is hereby requested to identify bridge number 20-77-95.81 (20A643), locally known as the interstate bridge over Campbells Creek carrying Interstate 77 northbound and southbound lanes over US Route 60 west bound lane, and the Norfolk and Southern Railroad, in Kanawha County, as being located at the "Boyhood Home of Booker T. Washington"; and, be it

            Further Resolved, That the Commissioner of the Division of Highways is hereby requested to erect signs at both ends of the bridge containing bold and prominent letters proclaiming the bridge as being located at the "Boyhood Home of Booker T. Washington"; and, be it

            Further Resolved, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates forward a certified copy of this resolution to the Commissioner of the Division of Highways, the Booker T. Washington Family Association, the Ruffner Family Association, and the Kanawha Valley Historical and Preservation Society.