Booker t washington up from slavery. Booker T. Washington, 1856 2022-11-01
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Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery is a classic American autobiography that tells the story of Washington's rise from slavery to becoming one of the most influential African American leaders of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Born in Virginia in 1856, Washington was the son of a white man and an enslaved woman. He grew up in poverty and worked as a slave on a plantation until the Civil War ended in 1865. After the war, he attended school for the first time and eventually made his way to Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (now Hampton University), where he excelled in his studies and became a teacher.
In 1881, Washington was asked to lead the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Alabama, which was a school for African Americans. Under his leadership, the school became a leading institution for African American education and training, and Washington became a respected and influential figure in the African American community.
Washington believed that education and hard work were the keys to uplifting African Americans and improving their social and economic standing. He argued that African Americans should focus on acquiring practical skills and trades rather than seeking higher education, and he believed that by building strong communities and businesses, African Americans could eventually achieve economic independence and social equality.
Washington's ideas were controversial at the time, and some African American leaders, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, opposed his focus on vocational education and his willingness to compromise with white segregationists. However, Washington's influence and reputation grew over time, and he became a leading spokesperson for African Americans and a respected advisor to presidents and other political leaders.
Up from Slavery is a powerful and inspiring story of Washington's journey from slavery to leadership, and it remains an important work in American history. It is a testament to the resilience and determination of one man and a reminder of the challenges and triumphs of the African American experience.
Up From Slavery: Themes
Some of the slaves were seventy or eighty years old; their best days were gone. I did not mean to inconvenience anybody. Basically, it speaks of the hardships the slaves endured before independence and their joys and hassles arguments after liberty. When Washington arrives at the Hampton Institute for the first time, dirty and disheveled, he is not immediately admitted. This is emblematic of how Washington believes former slaves should embrace whatever opportunities are available for labor in their respective communities.
"Up from Slavery" by Booker T. Washington Analysis
They were, however, more cruel than the "patrollers. It was enough for us to know that we were pleasing General Armstrong, and that we were making it possible for an additional number of students to secure an education. Every hour was occupied in study or work. I recall that I looked forward with an anxious appetite to the "teacher's day" at our little cabin. The Secret of Success in Public Speaking. The work was hard and taxing, but I stuck to it. Just as the fire had gotten well started a large black snake fully a yard and a half long dropped down the chimney and ran out on the floor.
The fact that my flesh was soft and tender added to the pain. Having been so long without proper food, a bath, and change of clothing, I did not, of course, make a very favourable impression upon her, and I could see at once that there were doubts in her mind about the wisdom of admitting me as a student. Three weeks before the time for the opening of the term at Hampton, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a letter from my good friend Miss Mary F. Toward the end of the first month, I went to a place a considerable distance from my home, to try to find employment. The first night I slept under both of them, and the second night I slept on top of both of them; but by watching the other boys I learned my lesson in this, and have been trying to follow it ever since and to teach it to others.
It is almost equal to the feeling that one would experience if he had a dozen or more chestnut burrs, or a hundred small pin-points, in contact with his flesh. In addition to this I had to speak before the church and Sunday-school, and at various other places. Woe be to any one who would have attempted to disturb the buried treasure. . Washington 1856-1915 Text scanned OCR by Don Sechler Text encoded by Natalia Smith First edition, 1997.
The whites were often in great straits. One of the Indian boys was taken ill, and it became my duty to take him to Washington, deliver him over to the Secretary of the Interior, and get a receipt for him, in order that he might be returned to his Western reservation. There was no wooden floor in our cabin, the naked earth being used as a floor. Throughout the whole of Up From Slavery, Washington searches for and obtains work. Everything that I possessed was in a small hand satchel.
30+ quotes from Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington
At this period in the progress of our race a very large proportion of the young men who went to school or to college did so with the expressed determination to prepare themselves to be great lawyers, or Congressmen, and many of the women planned to become music teachers; but I had a reasonably fixed idea, even at that early period in my life, that there was need for something to be done to prepare the way for successful lawyers, Congressmen, and music teachers. In talking to me about this, the man told me that he knew that he did not have to pay the debt, but that he had given his word to his master, and his word he had never broken. Du Bois rejected Washington's self-help and demanded recourse to politics, referring to the speech dismissively as "The Atlanta Compromise". No one section of our country was wholly responsible for its introduction, and, besides, it was recognized and protected for years by the General Government. I do not even know his name.
He seemed to me to be the one young man in all the world who ought to be satisfied with his attainments. Once there, I knew that I could make myself so useful as a janitor that I could in some way get through the school year. I found that during my absence from Hampton the institute each year had been getting closer to the real needs and conditions of our people; that the industrial teaching, as well as that of the academic department, had greatly improved. On Sundays I taught two Sunday-schools, one in the town of Malden in the afternoon, and the other in the morning at a place three miles distant from Malden. For some time, while a student at Hampton, I possessed but a single pair of socks, but when I had worn these till they became soiled, I would wash them at night and hang them by the fire to dry, so that I might wear them again the next morning.
Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington Plot Summary
W315 Rare Book Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Source Description: Up From Slavery: An Autobiography Booker T. General Armstrong spent two of the last six months of his life in my home at Tuskegee. It is easy to find fault, to remark what might have been done, and perhaps, after all, and under all the circumstances, those in charge of the conduct of affairs did the only thing that could be done at the time. But, I repeat, in many communities in the South the character of the ministry is being improved, and I believe that within the next two or three decades a very large proportion of the unworthy ones will have disappeared. I told him I thought it was worth three dollars.
