Booker Taliaferro Washington was born on a farm near Hale’s Ford in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Franklin County, Virginia, most likely on April 5, 1856. Washington spent the first eight years of his childhood as a slave. Following emancipation he moved with his mother, brother, and sister to join his stepfather, who had found employment in the saltworks in Malden, West Virginia. Emancipation did not significantly raise the economic wellbeing of the family. The young Washington alternated between working in the saltworks and attending school.