Young Moton spent his early years on the plantation of Samuel Vaughan of Prince Edward County, Va. , where his father "led the hands" and his mother was cook.
His early lessons in reading were taught by his mother surreptitiously because she was not sure of her employer's attitude.
When her meager efforts were discovered, however, Vaughan not only approved but made more systematic arrangements for the boy's instruction by the youngest daughter of the Vaughan family.
Education
The observed examples of gracious living and his own burdens and slights as a household servant in homes of Virginia gentlemen gave him, in spite of his youth, an insight into the value of education.
In 1885, at the age of eighteen, Moton entered Hampton Institute.
Though not a brilliant student, he was one of the most popular, and while still a student he was marked for a position on the faculty.
Career
He had two younger half-brothers.
Growing up on the Vaughan and other plantations, he knew both hard work and the boyhood pleasures of hunting and fishing with congenial white and Negro playmates.
The genuine friendliness of the faculty, the incentive furnished by association with other boys and girls of resolution and ambition, and above all, the example of a recent graduate of Hampton--Booker T. Washington [q. v. ]--bolstered his pride in himself and his race and strengthened his determination to succeed.
During the first World War, Moton successfully threw the weight of Tuskegee's influence behind the proposal to establish a camp for the training of Negro officers.
He also appeared before Secretary of War Newton D. Baker [q. v. ] to urge the establishment of a Negro combat division and suggested that Emmett Scott, a Negro, be appointed an assistant to the Secretary of War.
Both recommendations were adopted.
Theodore Roosevelt found him "a very powerful and at the same time an engaging and attractive personality" (Letters, Elting E. Morison, et al. , eds. , VIII, 1954, p. 997).
He received honorary degrees from Oberlin and Williams colleges and Virginia Union, Wilberforce, Lincoln, Harvard, and Howard universities, and he was the recipient of the Harmon Award in Race Relations (1930) and the Spingarn Medal (1932).
[Moton's writings include Finding a Way Out (1920), an autobiog. ; What the Negro Thinks (1929); and "Progress of Negro Education in the South, " in Proc.
Nat.
Educ.
Asso. , 1916, pp. 106-11.
Writings about him include W. H. Hughes and F. D. Patterson, eds. , Robert Russa Moton (1956); obit.
articles in Jour.
I (1942). ]
Religion
Negro Hist. , July 1940, School and Society, June 8, 1940, and N. Y. Times, June 1, 1940; Who Was Who in America, vol.
Connections
On June 7, 1905, Moton married Elizabeth Hunt Harris; she died in July 1906.
child:
,
Moton, Robert Russa, (Aug. 26, 1867 - May 31, 1940), 1867 1940 Male educational administrator, was born in Amelia County, Va., the only child of Booker and Emily (Brown) Moton, former slaves.
married:
Jennie
On July 1, 1908, he married Jennie Dee Booth, by whom he had five children: Catherine Elizabeth, Charlotte Ellen, Robert Russa, Allen Washington, and Jennie Dee.
Wife:
Catherine
Catherine later became the wife of Frederick Douglass Patterson, Moton's successor as president of Tuskegee.
children:
Jennie
On July 1, 1908, he married Jennie Dee Booth, by whom he had five children: Catherine Elizabeth, Charlotte Ellen, Robert Russa, Allen Washington, and Jennie Dee.
