Robert Russa Moton - Biography

Biography

Robert Russa Moton was born in Amelia County, Virginia on August 26, 1867. He graduated from the Hampton Institute in 1890. He married Elizabeth Hunt Harris in 1905, but she died in 1906. He then married his second wife, Jennie Dee Booth in 1908. He had three daughters, Charlotte Moton Hubbard, a State Department aide; Catherine Moton Patterson; and Jennie Moton Taylor.

In 1891, he was appointed commandant of the male student cadet corps at Hampton Institute. In 1915, after the death of Dr. Booker T. Washington, he succeeded Washington as the principal of the Tuskegee Institute, a position he held until retirement in 1935. He also wrote a number of books. He attended the First Pan African Congress in Paris in 1919.

Moton was a member of the Gamma Sigma graduate chapter of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., along with George Washington Carver.

Robert R. Moton died in Capahosic, in Gloucester County, Virginia in 1940 at age 73.

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