Born in a Virginia slave hut, Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) rose to become the most influential spokesman for African Americans of his day. In this eloquently written book, he describes events in a remarkable life that began in bondage and culminated in worldwide recognition for his many accomplishments. In simply written yet stirring passages, he tells of his impoverished childhood and youth, the unrelenting struggle for an education, early teaching assignments, his selection in 1881 to head Tuskegee Institute, and more.
A firm believer in the value of education as the best route to...

The life of ex-slave Booker T. Washington embodied the legendary rise of the American self-made man, and his autobiography gave prominence for the first time to the voice of a group which had to pull itself up from extreme adversity. This book places Washington's achievement in its historical context.

For the 50 years that followed its publication in 1901, Up from Slavery was the most widely known book written by an African American. The life of Booker T. Washington embodied the legendary rise of an American self-made man, and his autobiography gave voice for the first time to a vast group that had to pull itself up from nothing. In the well-documented ordeals and observations of this humble and plainspoken schoolmaster we find traces of Washington's other nature: the ambitious and tough-minded analyst. Here was a man who had to balance the demands of his fellow blacks with the constraints...

Up from Slavery" is the autobiography of Booker T. Washington sharing his personal experience of having to work to rise up from the position of a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton Institute, to his work establishing vocational schools—most notably the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama—to help black people and other disadvantaged minorities learn useful, marketable skills and work to pull themselves, as a race, up by the bootstraps. Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856 – 1915) was an American educator, author,...