Can I conjoin two sentences like this with a semicolon?

Question

My example

Booker T Washington was a former slave who learned to read and write; he worked for equal rights in his later life and founded the Tuskegee institute.

Is this grammatically correct? or is there a better way to write that? It HAS to be one sentence, as it's the topic sentence of my third paragrahp

what about this?

Booker T Washington was a former slave who learned to read and write; he worked for equal rights in his later life

Cut out the last "and...." bit, as i just realized it's unnecessary to the sentence

I can't make it 2 paragraphs as my essay is
1)persuasive
and
2) already 7 parragraphs long


sorry bout the spelling, i'm typing over top of a book

Answer 1

Those are two complete sentences and should be written as such (not with a semi-colon). The introduction to a paragraph does not HAVE to be only one sentence. Also - those two thoughts are two very separate thoughts you could easily expound upon. Perhaps you should make them two separate paragraphs?

Answer 2

Yes, it can be combined with a semi-colon. I would normally make it two sentences, but it is grammatically correct.

Another way to write it would be:

Booker T. Washington, a former slave who learned to read and write, worked for equal rights in his later life and founded the Tuskegee institute.

Answer 3

It cannot possibly be one sentence... What makes a sentence? A complete subject and a complete predicate, so lets look at this problem you have here "Booker T Washington (subject) was a former slave who learned (Learned is the predicate or the verb as you may call it) to read and write. He (subject) worked (verb) for equal right's in his later life and founded (compound predicate) the Tuskegee institute (compound subject)

So saying that those HAVE to be two sentences

Answer 4

Yes that would work. Another way to write it would be to say:

Booker T. Washington was a former slave who learned to read and write, prior to being the founder of the Tuskegee Institute and working for equal rights in his later life.

That would be grammatically correct.

Answer 5

I would write it with a period at the end of "write". Usually semi-colons join two sentences with similar ideas.

Answer 6

Yes, that's fine. You have two complete sentences that are closely related.

Answer 7

Yes, it is correct