In the book Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington, Booker writes his story after the war. This book is an autobiography sharing all the life challenges for the African American race during slavery and after. Washington is a very brilliant African American that did an impeccable job of delivering an eye opening book about these tough times. Booker T. Washington had the idea that to be successful you would need to be educated, and he believed that during his youth labor helped him become a better person. Up from Slavery tells a story of a boy’s journey through life as he becomes a better man than he had ever dreamed of becoming. The story starts when he was a boy that is uncertain of who he is or where he is from. He states that “My life had its beginning in the midst of the most miserable, desolate, and discouraging surrounding.”1 Although he started from a discouraging place he continues on through his life working in the salt furnaces and coal mines, when he overhears of a college called Hampton Institution. To be educated was Washington’s dream. Soon after he heads out into the world heading for Hampton where he gets an education and graduates, and where he later put his education to good use becoming a teacher. He uses his knowledge to go back to his home town and help provide an education to the people that were like him before Hampton. In the process for all the help from his brother he sends him off to Hampton so he can get the same education he did. During this life journey of his, he comes across many hardships but this is not enough to stop his determination. He continues on with his life going all around the world giving public speech’s, making a difference, helping others, and going down in history for his achievement.
In the book Up From Slavery, Washington explains the hardships of slavery, you would think it would take a strong person to make it through the slavery time period.