Booker Taliaferro Washington, the distinguished American educator, author, and orator, passed away on November 14, 1915, at the age of 59, in Tuskegee, Alabama. He died from kidney failure, a complication of hypertension. His funeral service, attended by nearly 8,000 mourners, was held on November 17, 1915, in the Tuskegee Institute Chapel, where he was laid to rest in the Tuskegee University Campus Cemetery.