Booker Washington Institute

An educational concept, which involved theoretical and practical concept of learning.

 

The Phelps-Stokes Foundation was authorized to research the possibility of establishing an institution in Africa to fulfill the desire of philanthropist Olivia Phelps-Stokes. One of the researchers was James Longstreet Sibley, who later became the first principal of the Booker Washington Institute in Liberia. Researchers found out that president C. D. B. King had expressed his desire to take Tuskegee Institute with him to Liberia, which was founded on the educational philosophy of Booker T. Washington, in whose honor Ms. Olivia Phelps-Stokes would like to name the institution. Based upon the result of the study, Liberia was the first country targeted for the establishment of a Tuskegee type institution.

 

After few visits to Liberia by the Phelps-Stokes delegation to negotiate with the Liberian Government, amicable agreement was reached between Phelps-Stokes Fund and the Republic of Liberia to establish the Booker Washington Agricultural and Industrial Institute in Kakata, Liberia. The agreement stipulated, among cardinal points, that the government of the Republic of Liberia will donate land upon which the institution would be built and US$5,000 per year for ten years and Phelps-Stokes fund would budget an initial amount to finance beginning construction.

 

In fulfillment of the commitment of the Government of Liberia to the agreement, 1000 acres of land was donated in Kakata, 41 miles from Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. The Phelps-Stokes foundation made an initial grant of $10,000. In March, 1929, ground was broken in Kakata, where the Sibley Monument is presently located establishing what we know today as the Booker Washington Agricultural & Industrial Institute (BWI for short), our revere Alma Mater. James Longstreet Sibley was named the first principal by the then Board of Trustees.