Up from Slavery
Matt King
HIS 112
June 17, 2012
Up From Slavery
1. Up From Slavery is used by Doubleday, Page, and Company as the title of Booker T. Washington’s because they want to help whites in America realize who African-Americans really are and how Washington was able to rise above it all and become a successful citizen in the US even through his hard times. Washington had a first autobiography published called The Story of My Life and Work, and he did not believe that this book told the real story of his life and hated it. As he wrote the articles for Up From Slavery, Washington was able to better explain the details of his life through facts and not just generalizations. These articles went through his life and characterized what he went through to get where he was. If one looks at this title from the literal point of view, slavery is the absolute bottom for any human. You have no rights and are told what to do everyday. The only place one can go from slavery is up and Booker T. Washington through this series of essays, showed whites and blacks that going up can be done. Up From Slavery is a perfect title for Washington’s compilation of essays because he was able to start with nothing as a born child slave in Virginia and then later in his life write multiple books and founded the Tuskegee Institute. At the end of Up From Slavery, Washington states that he was back in Richmond, Virginia, a city which only twenty-five years before saw him sleeping under a sidewalk with no money and no home. He was now back to speak at a hall which blacks had only just been allowed to use. This is exactly what the title meant, from poverty to riches, Washington came Up From Slavery to live a successful life.
6. As Booker T. Washington looked back on his years at Hampton, he emphasized just a couple of things. He talked a lot about the people at the school who became his mentors as the years went on and how they impacted him more than his textbooks could educate him.
HIS 112
June 17, 2012
Up From Slavery
1. Up From Slavery is used by Doubleday, Page, and Company as the title of Booker T. Washington’s because they want to help whites in America realize who African-Americans really are and how Washington was able to rise above it all and become a successful citizen in the US even through his hard times. Washington had a first autobiography published called The Story of My Life and Work, and he did not believe that this book told the real story of his life and hated it. As he wrote the articles for Up From Slavery, Washington was able to better explain the details of his life through facts and not just generalizations. These articles went through his life and characterized what he went through to get where he was. If one looks at this title from the literal point of view, slavery is the absolute bottom for any human. You have no rights and are told what to do everyday. The only place one can go from slavery is up and Booker T. Washington through this series of essays, showed whites and blacks that going up can be done. Up From Slavery is a perfect title for Washington’s compilation of essays because he was able to start with nothing as a born child slave in Virginia and then later in his life write multiple books and founded the Tuskegee Institute. At the end of Up From Slavery, Washington states that he was back in Richmond, Virginia, a city which only twenty-five years before saw him sleeping under a sidewalk with no money and no home. He was now back to speak at a hall which blacks had only just been allowed to use. This is exactly what the title meant, from poverty to riches, Washington came Up From Slavery to live a successful life.
6. As Booker T. Washington looked back on his years at Hampton, he emphasized just a couple of things. He talked a lot about the people at the school who became his mentors as the years went on and how they impacted him more than his textbooks could educate him.