Booker T. Washington (1856–1915)

The first half of this book gripped me and had the feel of a classic. The author’s account of his birth, manumission, and youth are a valuable record of the last years of slavery and the first years of reconstruction. His struggles to find work and the obstacles he overcame to gain an education are inspiring. The second half of the book, in contrast, let me down. I don’t begrudge the author his victory lap, recounting how the hard work and sacrifice paid off in the success of the show more Tuskegee Institute or the encomia he received from Harvard, the White House, and other centers of learning and power. But along with this, he dispenses advice reminiscent of the self-satisfied tone of businessmen and political leaders of his day on how to succeed. More disquieting is his persistent optimism. While acknowledging in passing the problems of lynching, vote suppression, as well as the day-to-day disabilities brought on by segregation, his tone is consistently one of optimism, that racial prejudice is passing, and that if his fellow blacks would simply bathe daily and work hard, then the last barriers to full citizenship would fall away. What this Panglossian attitude may have cost him personally is suggested by the fact of his death before turning sixty. An autopsy showed that he suffered from chronic hypertension. All in all, this book is a poignant record of the life of one of the greatest Americans. show less

1865. End of the Civil war. Booker T. Washington, still a child, is, as every other slaves, emancipated.

Here was a sudden freedom, though, which was then like a difficult burden to carry. Yes, slaves were finally free! But.. What of them now? The future, uncertain, seemed to be full of challenges. And yet... Booker T. Washington might have been just a child, but he understood something crucial: the key importance of education. Without education, one cannot go anywhere in life, and, so, show more started here for him a lifelong journey, that of educating himself and promote education as a way to empower oneself. Obviously, it wasn't an easy endeavour...

His family was poor. His step-father (his real father was a White man who never bothered to care about him) needed him to financially help the struggling family. He therefore worked in a coal mine. The work was tough, brutish, exhausting, but the child still found the time to go to school; one of these schools for Black people that were then blossoming all across the South, and where teaching was done mostly by ex-soldiers from the Northern army. It was very rudimentary, but never mind! He learnt how to read, and he read everything he could, sharpening his mind and growing more and more ambitious in the process. More: he wanted to attend a better school, with 'real' teachers.

Supported by his mother, he therefore went on to Hampton University. Here was a key turning point in his life. Hampton indeed was the first school founded by Black people. It was, also, the most prestigious of its kind. When Booker T. Washington was admitted, the principal was General Samuel C. Armstrong, a White man who had fought under the Union flag; and, Armstrong didn't mess about: 'mind, heart and hands', education to him was as much about sharpening the intellect as about learning a trade, and, gain solid moral values. Such vision will stay with Booker Washington for the rest of his life.

He was a brilliant pupil too; so much so that, when Samuel C. Armstrong decided to open another school in Alabama, he will be asked -when he was barely 25!- to become its principal. The school in question? Tuskegee University. The rest is history.

The rest is history, first, because he became thus the first African-American ever to manage a University. This wasn't an easy fate -he knew perfectly well that, were he to fail, his failure would reflect upon Black people as a whole. Then, because the pupil surpassed the master. At Tuskegee indeed, learning was more than about books. Girls were taught about household chores, boys about farming or construction works, and all about the importance of hygiene and health. Learning a trade or gaining practical skills were as important as sharpening the mind, and when students weren't busy engrossed in books, they were working on the constructions of the surrounding buildings! The school quickly acquired a reputation...

Booker T. Washington, in fact, will use such reputation to raise founds and further his cause. For he was more than a pedagogue; he was, most importantly, an activist and campaigner, and education was at the heart of his ideas. When others were battling for political reckoning and civil rights, he considered all that as merely 'secondary causes'. It's not that they weren't important, but, his goal in educating the still then largely marginalised Black people was to teach them useful trades, requiring skills, and, therefore, rendering them indispensable to society. If anybody, including White people, could benefit from such education and usefulness, then, he thought, the rest -political reckoning and civil rights, let alone respect- would follow.

His ideas were scandalous at times, including among Black people themselves (e.g. his Atlanta speech, in which he asked them to don't engage in political lobbying, but, focus on vocational training instead, didn't go as well as he had planned...) he, nevertheless, attempted to be a bridge between Whites and Blacks, at a time when the country was still trying to recover from slavery. Booker T. Washington, of course, was deeply naïve when it comes to how strongly entrenched racism was; yet, there is no denying that his views on education were indeed empowering, if not as much as he would have wished. Here were the early days of emancipation, and a whole century of battle and challenges will follow, but his work, as such, remained a foundation stone, and inspirational to many. 'Up from Slavery' is a great insight into his views (it includes the infamous Atlanta speech). show less

Whatever charges of too much faith in white folks giving black folks their rights,
via their "pleasure" or "duty,"
Booker T. Washington created The Tuskegee Institute with No building or supplies!

He borrowed $500, bought 10 acres of land (in Alabama!) and built a school based on agriculture,
construction, education and a successful brick foundry.

Along with his many other gifts - advisor to Theodor Roosevelt and fund raiser supreme among them -
he was well known as a Great Teacher!

Unfortunately, show more his lightweight descriptions of the horrors of slavery contradict all of his
fellow men and women who had been enslaved. show less

You can read this book on many levels. As literature, as historical document, as propaganda. But what shines through, on every page, is Washington’s love of his people and his belief in human dignity and the power of hard work. At a nadir in Black American history, he saw a nation about to be lifted up. This autobiography testifies to his incredible contribution to that uplifting.