Tuskegee University (www.tuskegee.edu) is a national, independent, and state-related institution of higher learning that is located in the rural east Alabama town of Tuskegee. Tuskegee University was developed through the efforts of Lewis Adams, a former slave, and George W. Campbell, a former slave owner, who saw in the late 1870s a need for the education of African Americans in rural Macon County, Alabama. Founded in 1881 as the Tuskegee Normal Institute for Teachers through the efforts of Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee University is rooted in a history of successfully educating African American men and women to understand themselves against a background of a rich academic heritage and the promise of their individual and collective future.