African-American landscape architect. The campus was designated as the Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site by the National Park Service in 1974. The university has been home to a number of important African American figures, including founder and first principal/president Booker T. Washington, scientist George Washington Carver, and World War II's Tuskegee Airmen.
== History ==
=== Planning and establishment ===
The school was founded on July 4, 1881, as the Tuskegee Normal School for Colored Teachers. This was a result of an agreement made during the 1880 elections in Macon County, Alabama, between a former Confederate Colonel, Wilbur F. Foster, who was a candidate for re-election to the Alabama Senate, and a local black leader, Lewis Adams. Wilbur Foster offered that, if Adams could persuade the black constituents to vote for Foster, then Foster, if elected, would push the state of Alabama to establish a school for black people in the county. The majority of Macon County's population was black, so …
