Up From Slavery
Melissa Acevedo
EN 272
Book Analysis
Up From Slavery: An autobiography on disregarding your own race?
Up from Slavery is the 1901 autobiography of Booker T. Washington chronicling over fifty years of his personal experiences. It starts from working to rise 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 University. It also explores 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. He reflects on the generosity of both teachers and philanthropists who helped in educating blacks. In this text, Washington climbs the social ladder through hard, manual labor, a decent education, and relationships with great people. Booker tells the story from a different perspective - what life was like growing up as a free man. In this autobiography of his life, Washington’s generalizations and accommodations of the treatment and disregard for the African American by people of the White race was nonchalant, as though he felt that for some reason it was okay or necessary for African Americans to be treated as second-class.
During his lifetime, Booker T. Washington was a national leader for the African Americans in the post-Reconstruction South. He supported economic and industrial improvement of Blacks while accommodating Whites on voting rights and social equality. Washington recalls his life from his being born a slave to an educator. His writings and speeches, though initially was very influential for his race, later in his life began to be challenged by the new generation of African Americans and died as he did in 1915 with him.
As a child Washington remembers what life was like as a slave. Like many slaves he was unaware of neither his exact date a birth nor the year. Unlike many tales that have been told about the
EN 272
Book Analysis
Up From Slavery: An autobiography on disregarding your own race?
Up from Slavery is the 1901 autobiography of Booker T. Washington chronicling over fifty years of his personal experiences. It starts from working to rise 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 University. It also explores 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. He reflects on the generosity of both teachers and philanthropists who helped in educating blacks. In this text, Washington climbs the social ladder through hard, manual labor, a decent education, and relationships with great people. Booker tells the story from a different perspective - what life was like growing up as a free man. In this autobiography of his life, Washington’s generalizations and accommodations of the treatment and disregard for the African American by people of the White race was nonchalant, as though he felt that for some reason it was okay or necessary for African Americans to be treated as second-class.
During his lifetime, Booker T. Washington was a national leader for the African Americans in the post-Reconstruction South. He supported economic and industrial improvement of Blacks while accommodating Whites on voting rights and social equality. Washington recalls his life from his being born a slave to an educator. His writings and speeches, though initially was very influential for his race, later in his life began to be challenged by the new generation of African Americans and died as he did in 1915 with him.
As a child Washington remembers what life was like as a slave. Like many slaves he was unaware of neither his exact date a birth nor the year. Unlike many tales that have been told about the