Böcker av Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington recalled his childhood in his autobiography, Up From Slavery. He was born in 1856 on the Burroughs tobacco farm which, despite its small size, he always referred to as a "plantation." His mother was a cook, his father a white man from a nearby farm. "The early years of my life, which were spent in the little cabin," he wrote, "were not very different from those of other slaves." He went to school in Franklin County - not as a student, but to carry books for one of James Burroughs's daughters. It was illegal to educate slaves. "I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study would be about the same as getting into paradise," he wrote. In April 1865 the Emancipation Proclamation was read to joyful slaves in front of the Burroughs home. Booker's family soon left to join his stepfather in Malden, West Virginia. The young boy took a job in a salt mine that began at 4 a.m. so he could attend school later in the day. Within a few years, Booker was taken in as a houseboy by a wealthy towns-woman who further encouraged his longing to learn. At age 16, he walked much of the 500 miles back to Virginia to enroll in a new school for black students. He knew that even poor students could get an education at Hampton Institute, paying their way by working. The head teacher was suspicious of his country ways and ragged clothes. She admitted him only after he had cleaned a room to her satisfaction. In one respect he had come full circle, back to earning his living by menial tasks. Yet his entrance to Hampton led him away from a life of forced labor for good. He became an instructor there. Later, as principal and guiding force behind Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, which he founded in 1881, he became recognized as the nation's foremost black educator. Washington the public figure often invoked his own past to illustrate his belief in the dignity of work. "There was no period of my life that was devoted to play," Washington once wrote. "From the time that I can remember anything, almost everyday of my life has been occupied in some kind of labor." This concept of self-reliance born of hard work was the cornerstone of Washington's social philosophy. As one of the most influential black men of his time, Washington was not without his critics. Many charged that his conservative approach undermined the quest for racial equality. "In all things purely social we can be as separate as the fingers," he proposed to a biracial audience in his 1895 Atlanta Compromise address, "yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress." In part, his methods arose for his need for support from powerful whites, some of them former slave owners. It is now known, however, that Washington secretly funded antisegregationist activities. He never wavered in his belief in freedom: "From some things that I have said one may get the idea that some of the slaves did not want freedom. This is not true. I have never seen one who did not want to be free, or one who would return to slavery." By the last years of his life, Washington had moved away from many of his accommodationist policies. Speaking out with a new frankness, Washington attacked racism. In 1915 he joined ranks with former critics to protest the stereotypical portrayal of blacks in a new movie, "Birth of a Nation." Some months later he died at age 59. A man who overcame near-impossible odds himself, Booker T. Washington is best remembered for helping black Americans rise up from the economic slavery that held them down long after they were legally free citizens. (source: Booker T. Washington National Monument)

I have been a slave once in my life-a slave in body. But I long since resolved that no inducement and no influence would ever make me a slave in soul, in my love for humanity, and in my search for truth.

This is an essay by Booker T. Washington about slavery. It was originally published in 1913.

A compilation of more than 30 addresses from Booker T. Washington explaining the importance of personal responsibility, self-reflection and economic independence in the Black community. Character Building is an inspiring series of anecdotes that speak to the issues of his contemporary audience. Booker T. Washington was a strong supporter of education and entrepreneurship among African Americans. He believed a degree or certification could provide access and elevate one's social and economic status. In Character Building, he provides his basic tenets of success that are rooted in individual behavior. He encourages productivity and the need for a positive home life. To succeed, each person's environment must be conducive to their goals. Washington's life-long mission was to inspire and uplift the most vulnerable in his community. In Character Building he discusses the many tools that can be used to change a person's station. It's an open declaration of the core beliefs that helped shaped his life. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Character Building is both modern and readable.

From a child slave put to hard labor to a college president and advisor to presidents, Booker T. Washington¿s autobiography powerfully describes his journey and what it taught him about the possible future of Blacks in the United States.This autobiography is a cornerstone work of African-American literature. Washington tells of his experience in bondage as a child-slave, the hard labor he performed in salt mines post-slavery, and the role of his mother in demonstrating the strength and values that enabled him to continue to strive and rise above these often brutal circumstances. His hard-won education led him to become a teacher and build Tuskegee University with bare minimum resources, much of it literally one brick at a time. Despite these challenges, and encountering white opposition to the very concept of educating blacks, Washington believed that failing to make the university a reality would be a disservice to blacks nationwide. Inspiring throughout, the author advocates self-reliance through productive work, community service, and perseverance, and without bravado presents himself as a worthy example of how successful this path can be. His book still generates controversy as his conception of the rise of blacks through personal industry, leading gradually to their advancement in society, was deemed by some to be a slow and costly compromise. Others saw it as an example of pragmatic realism borne of necessity in the Reconstruction era South. Regardless of latter-day interpretations, Up From Slavery is a powerful document of how one man rose to prominence against terrible odds, then used his success and fame in a sustained attempt to better the lives of his fellows. This is an indispensable document of Black lives in an era scarcely more than 100 years in the past and its account of courage and dedication will not be forgotten.With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Up From Slavery is both modern and readable.

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all timeIn Up from Slavery, Washington recounts the story of his life—from slave to educator. The early sections deal with his upbringing as a slave and his efforts to get an education. Washington details his transition from student to teacher, and outlines his own development as an educator and founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. In the final chapters of Up From Slavery, Washington describes his career as a public speaker and civil rights activist.

This biography, written by Booker T. Washington, one of most important post-Civil War African-American thinkers, is an account of the life and career of Frederick Douglass. The biographical account is set within a nation struggling to solve one of the most excruciating social problems that any modern people facedslavery

Born into slavery on a Virginia plantation, Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) educated himself tirelessly in the years after the American Civil War. In 1881, he was appointed head of the Tuskegee Institute, a teacher-training college for African Americans. As a writer, orator and fundraiser, he became one of the leading figures of the black community. Washington argued that the best way of bettering the social position of African Americans was through vocational education, which would make them indispensable and productive members of society. In this 1901 autobiography, he uses his life as an example to illustrate these principles, covering particularly the work of the Tuskegee Institute and his fundraising on behalf of black education. The book also contains the full text of his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech, which created the model for Southern race relations until Washington's death and the emergence of more overtly assertive African-American civil rights leaders.

This biography, written by Booker T. Washington, one of most important post-Civil War African-American thinkers, is an account of the life and career of Frederick Douglass. The biographical account is set within a nation struggling to solve one of the most excruciating social problems that any modern people faced¿slavery

The dramatic autobiographical account of Booker T. Washington's unique American experience-a struggle against social and ideological bias that he began as a slave and never stopped. "Washington's story of himself, as half-seen by himself, is one of America's most revealing books."-Langston HughesHistorically acknowledged as one of America's most powerful and persuasive orators, Booker T. Washington consistently challenged the forces of racial prejudice at a time when such behavior from a black man was unheard of. While his stance on the separation of the races would become controversial, he worked tirelessly to convince blacks to work together as one people in order to improve their lives and the future of their race. Spanning from his fight for education through his founding of the world-renowned Tuskegee Institute, Washington's Up from Slavery remains one of the most significant and defining works in American literature.

Vividly recounting Washington's life--his childhood as a slave, struggle for education, founding and presidency of the Tuskegee Institute, and meetings with the country's leaders, this book reveals the conviction he held that the black man's salvation lay in education, industriousness and self-reliance.

Originally produced in two volumes, and published here for the first time in one paperback volume, the first part of The Story of the Negro covers Africa and the history of slavery in the United States while the second carries the history from the Civil War to the first part of the twentieth century.