Booker T. Washington National Monument

Booker T. Washington National Monument occupies about 224 acres in Franklin County, Virginia, on the former Burroughs tobacco plantation where Washington was born into slavery in 1856. James and Elizabeth Burroughs bought the land in 1850 and 1854, growing tobacco, corn and wheat with ten enslaved people, including Washington's mother, Jane, who cooked in the kitchen cabin where he was born. Later owners altered or removed most buildings, and the main house burned in 1950. Today the site operates as a living historical farm with replica cabins, barns and pens, along with a museum, trails, a visitor center and cemeteries. Only the Burroughs and Sparks cemeteries and traces of two historic roads date from Washington's years here. The listing rests on the property's role as the birthplace and boyhood home of Washington, a leading educator and the founder of Tuskegee Institute and the National Negro Business League.