booker t washington up from slavery an autobiography

He details that while on his travels there, through many Virginia towns, he finally learned what the color of his skin meant. He learned of the Hampton Institute in Virginia, a boarding school for negros where they could get expenses paid for and work for their boarding. He said, In school, white children expected to succeed, while negro children expected to fail. However, he emphasized that, “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles he has overcome while trying to succeed.” He later found out that his mom had given him the name of Taliaferro so he added it later as a middle name. He said that when he was in class and the teacher called on him and asked him his full name he added: Washington.

For most of his early life, he only knew one name: Booker.

But Washington was so determined to learn that he did night school which influenced his interest in promoting night school later on.Īnd now to his name. His father recognized his financial value so he kept him working in the salt mines instead of school.

Washington says that from early on, he had a determination to learn to read and there became a “great intensity among negros to learn to read, get an education, and read the Bible for themselves.” Washington says that now that they were in possession of it, “freedom was a more serious thing than they had expected to find.” In essence, while slavery is obviously hard (that’s an understatement), freedom isn’t easy – especially for a population that was never used to providing for themselves.įreed blacks soon realized education was needed to better advance and there was much discussion among negros in his community in Virginia to open a school for the negro children but the biggest question was where to find a teacher. “Within a few hours, the great questions that Anglo Saxons had been grappling with for centuries had to be solved : questions of providing a home, a living, food, and churches.” “The great responsibility of being free suddenly took possession of the freed slaves,” he said. He saw the emancipation of slaves as one of the great challenges ever facing humankind.

Washington was clearly a Christian and in the book he talks about at a certain point in his life he began each day by reading the Bible, at least one chapter per day.

Booker t washington up from slavery an autobiography