Up from Slavery (Dover Thrift Editions: Black History)

…when he said that this book should be required reading for all AmericansIt is not just inspiring. It is surprisingly instructive. Much of what we think we know of the era in which he lived is completely wrong. Read this book and back it up with deeper research about what you find. But only if you truly care about the truth.

Up From Slavery is a book by the prominent African-American leader Booker T. Washington. This book was so important that I had to include a discussion of it in my book: The Real Wakandas of Africa. He was a very important part of the Black community in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Up From Slavery is a must read for all who feel that people have the ability to succeed despite their circumstances. Booker T. Washington was born into slavery, yet he rose to become one of the leading Black figures of his day. Yearning to read at an early age, he took a journey by himself to go to school. Facing segregated facilities and without money, he had to work to pay for his travel (hundreds of miles away) to the school. Upon arriving at school he worked at the school to pay his way through school. Eventually, he established Tuskegee University and his students built many of the buildings there. Booker T. Washington is often looked down upon because he did not advocate publicly for voting rights. However, there is some evidence that he was funneling money to support voting rights campaigns. Marcus Garvey looked up to Booker T. Washington because he focused upon industry and upon controlling businesses in the black community. Up From Slavery is an important read along with other books like that of WEB Du Bois. In many ways his book serves as the foundation for the importance of black owned businesses. Despite its shortcomings, you will enjoy this book and the development of Booker T. Washington as he often presents himself as having the perfect solution for any given situation. If there was a shortcoming to Booker T. Washington, it was that he did not publicly advocate for political rights for Black people. Like Booker T. Washington‘s book, I also discuss the importance of economic development of black businesses in the African-American community in my book The Real Wakandas of Africa. However, unlike Washington I also discuss the rich history of Africa before slavery and before colonialism. Prior to slavery Africans performed surgery on the eye to remove cataracts 700 years ago. In Central Africa they conducted cesarean sections with antiseptics several hundred years before they were done anywhere else in the world. They smelted carbon steel 2000 years before the present and Africans built the tallest building in the world. This building stood as the tallest building for more than 4000 years. To add to this, Africans also constructed a wall for which I wrote a book called: The Great Wall of Africa: The Empire of Benin’s 10,000 Mile Long Wall. This wall would almost wrap around the United States of America. It is stories like these that are often missing from African-American history. Nevertheless, the book Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington is a classic and a must read. It will keep you captivated with the life of Booker T. Washington as he struggled as a child to learn to read, pursued advanced degrees, and became a prominent Black leader in American society. Pick up a copy today!

This was a great book. Absolutely loved the testimonials. This book was meant to bring education to all races backgrounds nationalities and peoples. This is the perspective of slavery that Needs to be heard🙌🏽👍🏾🙏🏽👏🏽

Did you ever wonder where the right-wing meme came from that slaves were happy with slavery, that they loved their masters and even that blacks benefitted from slavery? If you had told me, prior to reading this book, that it came from a black man, a former slave at that, I would never have believed it. How wrong I would have been.Washington opens his book alternating between his early memories as a slave in early childhood – horrific memories of overwork, deprivation, desperation and despair for one so young – and assuring us that he, like all former slaves, has never harbored a single ill thought of his former masters or any white man. Neglecting the historical records of widespread rebellions and escapes and the wholesale flight of former slaves to Union lines during the Civil War, Washington avows that the slaves, even once freed from slavery, remained devoted to their white masters and cared for them as they would their own kith and kin.Further along in the book, we learn the struggles Washington went through to acquire his own education. How he traveled, on foot, with hardly a penny to his name, to the Hampton School, earning his way by the sweat of his brow and sleeping in barns and under sidewalks along the way. He was admitted to the school not on the strength of his mind, but on the strength of his cleaning skills (which he learned during his “opportunity” to work under a demanding mistress), and he continued cleaning the school to earn his continued right to exist at the school. His studies were secondary to his work, which Washington stresses is a noble pursuit, and he scorns those uppity Negroes who dared to think that after 200 years of stolen manual labor, perhaps they could put such labor behind them.The Hampton School was an industrial school, preparing its former slave graduates to join society on the bottom rung in the trades. When he got the opportunity to open the Tuskegee Institute, Washington modeled it on his own experience of schooling, including the focus on the trades, the requirement that all students engage in manual labor, and the scorning of the life of the mind.Washington is quick to assure us throughout the book that his students were grateful for the opportunity to join proper society and how much they appreciated being set straight on the proper habits of work, diligence, personal hygiene and humility (slaves apparently didn’t know much about work or humility, ahem). Likewise, he is eager to assure us of his (and all decent black people’s) fervent belief in the fundamental goodness of the white man. Once the Negro has proven himself in the lower ranks of society, whites will not be able to help promoting him to the rank which he will earn (or not) by the quality and diligence of his own humble work. Once Negros have proven themselves worthy and capable, whites will be sure to grant them equal rights such as voting and holding elected office. In the meantime, it is very forward and arrogant of some Negroes to be pushing for such unearned privileges. Ahem.Washington would have us convinced that never did a white man (or woman) ever fail to help him to the maximum of his or her ability when asked (even as he tells us of days and weeks of despair as Tuskegee’s bills came due and no money came in, and the long wearying days of going door-to-door without success).From start to finish, the book reeks of obsequiousness and pandering to the prejudices of the dominant culture while exploiting the vulnerability of the newly freed slaves. If Washington is ever aware that he is being used and exploited by a white population eager to assuage their guilt yet simultaneously keep the blacks in their place, he never shows it. Never a bitter word or reproach for the white man slips from his pen – his harsh words are reserved for those of his own race who are insufficiently diligent and grateful.What, then, are we to make of this? Did Washington suffer from a form of “Stockholm Syndrome” so to speak? Did he truly internalize, lock, stock and barrel, the beliefs and viewpoints of the dominant white society? Or did he simply know where his bread was buttered, that Tuskegee’s survival – and his own – depended on the white man’s approval – and his money?This is (so far) the only work I have read by Booker T. Washington, so I am not really I a position to answer that questions. Perhaps his more personal writings – letters, diaries if he kept any – might reveal more of his inner motivations. But given the white man’s world he had to navigate for his own and Tuskegee’s survival, it is doubtful if he could have endured the cognitive dissonance of full awareness of his position and his role in keeping blacks submissive in the dominant white culture.Which is not to say that Washington was not, in his own way, a noble figure. Starting from nearly nothing, he suffered much and succeeded in building a school that did give a number of newly freed slaves the opportunity to obtain more education than they otherwise would have had access to and the ability to earn a living to support themselves and their families, which did provide some route out of dire poverty for those lucky enough to be able to take advantage. But he also helped to perpetuate the myth that the only thing standing between a black man and success is his own dedication, motivation and ambition – if a black man fails to succeed, it is because he did not work hard enough and properly apply himself.The “race riot” of the “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the coup d’état in Wilmington, North Carolina (among many other such incidents) testifies to the fallacy of “respectability politics”. No matter how well educated, “respectable” or affluent blacks become, they are always at the mercy of the white man’s dominance. This book must be read in conversation with the work of W.E.B. DuBois who accurately saw and understood blacks’ situation – a black man’s mere presence, not his behavior or attitude, is the problem. After keeping blacks in slavery for hundreds of years, what are whites to do with these newly “freedmen” that does not threaten their own position as the dominant culture, especially when the economic value of their enslaved labor has already been lost? It is important to understand that blacks’ situation has been determined much less by their own actions than by their standing within a nation built on white supremacy and the theft of black humanity.

Booker Washington’s story of hard work and resilience in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, with an outlook on the struggles of life that would seem other worldly or even racist to utter on a college campus today, is a fantastic reminder of what a driven individual can accomplish. Too many blame the world and society for their failings. This book proves once and for all that this whining, name calling and deflection practiced by modern cry bullies that make up university faculty, student body and administration is nothing but an poor excuse for their own, or someone else’s in a “marginalized” groups’, failures.

Must have

I read this on a website for those who have asphasia. (difficulty reading after a stroke or anyone with reading difficulties) and this was a fascinating read. You hear so much negativity and focus on what white people did to black people that unless you are studying the subject we do not realise just how much black and white worked together to resolve the problems had by becoming free. Where many considered they had a home, family and a life and security they suddenly found they had options but no idea how to go about getting them or what it was they should be trying to get and many did not want to change. This well written story was written by someone who started as a poor black young man who could not read but who had determination and belief and with help from other, whte black, poor and rich he made little more than a room into a school and tought basic living, good skills and education and by his and other who helped him find quality of life over the years with strong morals and rules. Refused to accept that having money and acquiring 'things' was the answer but that learning from the bottom up gave personal pleasure. He educated hundreds and the students built the schools and grew what they ate. He like many similar were amazing people and he and his friends, black, and white, woman and men, educated, poor and rich at one time ensured that he travelled by boat to England where he met Queen Victoria who knew of his work. Read it. It is an important part of history.

I found this book inspirational.Firstly, it gives a look at what it was like to be a child around the time of the Civil War, when slavery was about to be abolishes. It gives an incite I had never thought about which is how slaves really felt about their masters – it was quite surprising.I found the book well-written and eloquent.I found Washington to be a very likable, noble, and innovative character. I really enjoyed reading about all he had done and achieved around this time.I love books which take you on a journey while teaching you something, so books based on reality of autobiographies or biographies.This book didn’t disappoint in that regard; it taught me a lot about how things were back then whilst also inspiring me with Washington’s antics of making the world a better place.I’ve come to admire this man greatly, and will read some of his other works now!The book is short and I read it in about two days. It was a page Turner and something you can read through easily.

This book is amazing - While there are books talking from a slaves point of view what life was like. Booker's experience is more about once he was made free, an in depth biography of the extent he went to .., to learn to read and educate himself. Then he sets about assisting and helping many many other former slaves get a technical and academic education which helped them be productive people to society and to themselves for the rest of their lives. This man devoted his life in the persute of lifting others from lowly station to be educated and productive. Many of and most of those he educated only lacked education simply because of the color of their skin and race prejudice that still existed many many years despite slavery being abolished

At the time this book was written black writers were few. What makes the book so incredible was not the book itself but a self educated slave could have written it and that a former slave could have come out of slavery and educate himself to be a teacher. This is why so many African-Americans are able to rise to be teachers at many collages and universities in the USA. It is a positive book that shows that hard work and determination can over many obstacles and that education can lead to success in life even for a former slave.

This is one of the greatest books I have ever read. Booker T lived one of the most interesting and inspirational lives in recent history. Booker T's life is one from being born into slavery, working hard to achieve his goals and then try to better his race for the future. He takes a different view on how African Americans can integrate into society. His views on education and the importance of practical skills and academia is something I have not come across and opened my eyes up to how people should be taught. This is a must read.