Lewis Adams
Lewis Adams was a tinsmith. He made things out of metal and he also made shoes. He had been a slave, but he could read and write, and speak several languages. His wife was "Sallie" Sarah Green Adams and they had 16 children. They also taught colored people in Butler Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church.
In 1880, Lewis Adams and George Campbell, a white banker and businessman, helped a politician get in the Alabama Legislature. In exchange, Adams and Campbell asked for and received funds for a school to teach colored people. They received money for the teachers' salaries and wrote General Samuel C. Armstrong, principal at Hampton University, for a school principal. He sent Booker T. Washington.
The first graduate from Tuskegee Normal was Virginia Adams, Lewis Adams' daughter. Another daughter, Martha N. Adams and her husband Charles P. Adams, opened another school and called it, "Grambling University."
In 1880, Lewis Adams and George Campbell, a white banker and businessman, helped a politician get in the Alabama Legislature. In exchange, Adams and Campbell asked for and received funds for a school to teach colored people. They received money for the teachers' salaries and wrote General Samuel C. Armstrong, principal at Hampton University, for a school principal. He sent Booker T. Washington.
The first graduate from Tuskegee Normal was Virginia Adams, Lewis Adams' daughter. Another daughter, Martha N. Adams and her husband Charles P. Adams, opened another school and called it, "Grambling University."
VIrginia L. Adams
Virginia L. Adams was one of Lewis Adams' daughters. She became the first graduate to receive her diploma from Tuskegee's Normal school from Booker T. Washington.
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Lewis Adams Biography
Born in slavery in Tuskegee (Macon County) Alabama, on October 27, 1842, Lewis Adams spent the early years of his life in his father's plantation service shops, where he mastered the trades of tinsmithing, harnessmaking and shoemaking. He also taught himself to read and write by going over some of the lessons the other Adams children received from a hired tutor.
Martha Norman Adams
Charles Phillip Adams, Sr., was born in 1873 in Brusly, Louisiana. He was an African-American educator and administrator. He worked his way through Tuskegee Institute. During this time he became a committed student of Booker T. Washington. In 1901, the North Louisiana Farmers’ Relief Association (NLFRA) asked the now- graduated Adams to return to Louisiana. The group had asked Tuskegee’s Booker T. Washington to find a man capable of setting up an agricultural and industrial school in North Louisiana. Adams was that man and that school eventually became Grambling University.
In 1904, he married Martha N. Adams. She was the daughter of Lewis Adams, the one that brought Booker T. Washington to Tuskegee. He lectured in nearby communities, and through his connection with Washington, he secured some financial assistance from the northern states and from Canada to keep the struggling institution alive. The school’s first faculty consisted of three people: Adams, as principal and teacher, his wife, Martha, co-founder as well as domestic science teacher, and A. C. Welcher, a farm instructor. Information on Charles P. Adams hometown. |
