West Windsor, N.J. – According to Donald Generals Jr., Ed.D., Vice President for Academic Affairs at Mercer County Community College, Booker T. Washington, African-American educator, author and orator, has largely been ignored in the history of American education.  In his new book, Booker T. Washington: The Architect of Progressive Education, Generals hopes to set the record straight.

An extension of the dissertation he completed for his doctorate from Rutgers University, Generals notes that Washington’s role has been mostly overlooked.  “Out of a sense of duty to my profession, I felt the need to complete this important American story with this book,” he said.

Examining Washington at the height of his career between the years of 1881 and 1915, when the progressive movement in education was growing, the book presents Washington’s considerable contributions to the development of progressive education in America, while exposing the ignorance of his critics and the distortions that have defined his legacy.