Up from Slavery

Rating:
Summary: very enlightening
Review: "Up From Slavery" brought to light the real deal behind the man Booker T. Washington. Before reading it, I was taught to believe that he accommodated and assimilated himself and the African American race to that of the white race. It has to be made known that Booker T. Washington was born into an era where the slave mentality was not only prominent but socially acceptable. To understand his conservative efforts, you'd have to understand the fact that he achieved everything in life by hard labor. Therefore, in order to promote economic and social equality, he had to promote issues that led to these things. In other words, he felt that the newly freed blacks were not ready to integrate themselves into white society, a society that did not respect their freedom at all. He wanted African Americans to embrace a nationalistic attitude before asking white society to embrace it. If blacks were seen as the uncouf beings that we were thought to be...acceptance would never occur. So, in using every resource available including accommodation, Washington underhandedly promoted social and racial equality for all.

Rating:
Summary: The power of a positive thinker
Review: "Up from slavery" documents the rise of Booker T. Washington, from a plantation slave to the head of Tuskegee college in Alabama. Along the way his narrative details the squalor and humiliations of his childhood and ends with a number of journalistic adulations regarding his career and speeches. It is a wonderful book, yet curious.

Unlike Frederick Douglass, the severe critic of the slaveholding South, Washington's outlook is decidedly postive. He refuses to get into any kind of individual or group bashing, but prefers to dwell on the successes of blacks, improving race relations, and the success of his school- and students. He becomes enamored of his own success on the stump, but such is the case with most ambitious, forward looking individuals. I would have liked a bit more criticism, and fewer excerpts from the newspapers of his time (regarding his speech-making ability.) His repeated refrains about service and merit (being the only true measure of a man), are sound. All in all, this is an upbeat, inspiring story from a man who truly defied the odds, and his winning attitude is sorely needed today.

Rating:
Summary: Up From Slavery Booker T. Washington
Review: ...Up From Slavery Booker T. Washington

Up From Slavery is an autobiography by Booker Taliaferro Washington. Booker T. Washington was a great man who fought his way out of slavery to become an educator, statesman, and political power. He was born near a crossroads post-office called Hale's Ford, in the year 1858 or 1859. He does not remember the exact year, month or date because it was the time of slavery. He lived in a cabin with his mother, his older brother John and his sister Amanda until after the Civil War when they all were declared free. He does not know any of his history beyond his mother, and less beyond his father. For most of his boyhood life he lived in an old broken down cabin containing no windows and no beds. Almost everyday of his life was occupied by some kind of labor. He had no time for himself or sports. On several occasions he went as far as the schoolhouse door with one of the young mistresses to carry her books. The picture of several dozen boys and girls in a classroom engaged in study had always made a big impression on him. He felt that to get into a schoolhouse and study in the way they did would be about the same as being in paradise. After the slaves were freed there were two points that the blacks throughout the south agreed on: That they must change their names and they must leave the old plantation for at least a few days or weeks to feel sure that they were free. After freedom was declared Booker's stepfather sent for his mother and the whole family to come to the Kanawha Valley, in West Virginia. Booker always had an intense longing to learn to read. When he was young he determined that if he accomplished nothing else in life, he would some way get enough education to enable him to read common books and newspapers. He worked in a coal mine to help pay for his education. He overheard a few people talking about Hampton University it struck his interest. He set many of his goals to go there and get a good education. One teacher that influenced Booker T. Washington was Mrs. Ruffner. She encouraged and sympathized with him in all of his efforts to get an education. While working for her he was allowed one hour a day to go to school. While living with her he began to get his first library together. In 1872 he set out to Hampton Institute a school in West Virginia, he didn't know how much it would cost or where it was. His brother helped him out with the money. When he left his mother was very weak and broken in health he hardly expected to see her again, so parting with her was very hard for him. He had to sleep on the streets because the white would not let him stay in the hotel. He had many interactions like this one. He began working for a captain in a seaport unloading crates. Booker gained his entrance to Hampton Institute by cleaning a room for Miss Mary Mackie, the lady principal. Mr S. Griffths Morgan of New Medford, Mass. from 1872-1876 donated his tuition scholarship. Booker graduated from Hampton Institute in 1875. Booker returned to Hampton Institute and started the night school to aid deserving students. In conclusion this book Up From Slavery is a very well written book. It has many details on the life of Booker T. Washington. I recommend it to young kids who enjoy reading about history and how the slaves were freed.

Rating:
Summary: THE CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING "UP FROM SLAVERY"
Review: A lot of things have been said and written concerning Booker Taliaferro Washington's book, "Up From Slavery". Some were hot, and some were cold. But one focus that unites all the varying opinions is that every critic or reviewer agreed that the book is superb. Also, most people acknowledged that Booker T. was a distinguished scholar (despite the overwhelming odds that weighed him down).
However, one big fact that most reviewers of this work have consistently overlooked is the circumstances that surrounded both the book and its writer. In order to have an accurate perspective of this book, we must not fail to evaluate what life was like for Booker T. After all, the book in question is his autobiography: written in a country where he was born and nurtured as a slave, before becoming a freeman whose basic human rights were consistently denied.
One fact that pops up in this regard is that Mr. Washington was never free in the real sense of the word. The type of freedom a typical Black American enjoys today was an unseen luxury throughout Booker T's life: (1856-1915).
In the same period, the life expectancy of an average Black American was less than half of what it is today. This was not because the folks then were all HIV-positive, but simply because any White man could barbecue a Black man right on the street and nothing would happen.
That Booker T. chose not to criticize the grievous atrocities that the ubiquitous racists meted on American Negroes is understandable. It was not a matter of choice per se, rather, the swain wanted to stay alive. He understood his environment well, and had a first-class knowledge of how racist America worked. Again, it is only a dummy who wouldn't know that the (first) publisher of "Up From Slavery" wouldn't have considered the manuscript if it contained anything that will embarrass or infuriate White America. And, Booker T. Washington might be made to pay a ghastly price for authoring an "offensive write-up". We must not forget that this book was written a century ago: when "freedom" and "justice" were very different from what it is today. In those days, many "critical" Black-oriented manuscripts ended-up in dustbins; and their authors were vilified and hunted down.
Today's critics who relax in comfortable armchairs and bellow that this book "lacked depth" in this way and that way, weren't born as Booker T. was; and I forgive them each time they use that word: 'slavery', in vain. Booker T. died in 1915, and history will always attest that Black Americans continued to struggle for freedom more than fifty years after his death.
An old adage has it that: 'A word is enough for the wise'. Thus, I will like to end my comments here. "Up From Slavery" is a very fine book. It is small: less than 250 pages. Hence, I don't need to review or analyze it with a thousand pages. Mr. Booker T. Washington did his best: given the insurmountable circumstances that surrounded his world.

Rating:
Summary: An Extraordinary Struggle Fueled by Boundless Optimism!
Review: A riveting account of Washington's extraordinary struggle fueled by boundless optimism.

However, Washington's faith appears overly buoyant when he writes the following about the Ku Klux Klan: 'To-day there are no such organizations in the South, and the fact that such ever existed is almost forgotten by both races. There are few places in the South now where public sentiment would permit such organizations to exist.'

Of course, a hundred years later the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations are alive and well in the U.S.

I was surprised to discover that this book - although published in 1901 - employs British (rather than American) spellings for words such as "labour" (labor) and "colour" (color).

This is an important document of its time that must be read by anyone with the mildest interest in world history and the human condition that shapes it.

Rating:
Summary: Up From Slavery
Review: Alina Stanton Nov.15

Up From Slavery

The author of this book is Booker T. Washington. This book is about Booker T Washington. It's an autobiography of how he grew up as a slave and as a free man. It shows the struggles that a lot of poor slaves had when they were freed from slavery.

When Booker was young he lived with his mom on one plantation, his dad lived on another. He lived with his mom, half brother, half sister and step dad. Booker really wanted an education, so he started to teach himself to read. He had an English dictionary that emphasized on the alphabet and he read it all the time. Soon the slaves were freed. Booker started going to a day school once it opened up. He was not able to go to school later on because he had to work in a coal mine with his dad. He made a deal with his dad to work on the coalmines early in the morning till nine then goes to school. When he was a little older he decided to go to a school called Hampton Institute in West Virginia. You can live there and work as well as go to school.

While he lived there he had to work hard. He had to make money all the ways he could. He worked as a waitress a maid and a janitor. He met a general by the name of Armstrong. He respected this man a lot because he was very important. Booker felt honored to meet such a wealthy man, he liked the general a lot because he was very kind. General Armstrong gave Booker a personal check, which he had been saving for his own use, to help Tuskegee. That summer after his first year in the institute he had to work to pay off a sixteen-dollar debt. His mother died during the summer, he knew that he would never see her again. He graduated that year and then went to teach at the school that he attended when he was a boy. In 1878 he entered Wayland Seminary in Washington D.C. for a year of study. While he was there he made speeches in West Virginia for General Garfields presidency campaign. He graduated first class in Tuskegee in 1885.

In my opinion, this is a descent book. It shows how the poor slaves grew up in a white world and how they struggled. It has a lot of information on Bookers life and how he struggled to make a good living and get a good education. I think Booker T. Washington is a well mannered, honorable man.

Rating:
Summary: Inspirational. Timeless principles. Yet Flawed.
Review: As a 21st century African American, I must take issue with Mr. Washington's statement regarding how in all things social we can be totally seperate and unequal.

Even though I can understand the practicality and expediency of making that sort of concession At That Time in history I still must question whether or not a statement such as that is a representation of true liberty and justice for all. In my mind it is not. It wasn't true then and it still isn't true today.

Despite the tremendous Economic strides that have been made by people of color globally and particularly in the U.S., thanks in no small part to the efforts of great people like Mr. Washington, the society at large has remained very stratified. Attitudes though much improved have largely remained the same. Statements like the esteemed Mr. Washington's have too often served to dismiss the responsibility of offenders to remedy past wrongs which still have impact in the present day. They also serve to deny true equality of opportunity to all citizens. It also accomodates the offenders far greater than is deserved and does grave injustice to black and white alike. Mr. Washington makes reference himself to how injustices done to the black populace are just as injurious to the white population. Yet he does not view social seperatism as an injustice. With that I must take issue.

All that notwithstanding it is an interesting, informative, and enjoyable read. Many of the principles by which he lived are as true today as they were during Reconstruction. However, certain opinions that he expressed could have the effect of limiting economic opportunity by confining Blacks to the ranks of laborers rather than entrepreneurs, managers, and other professionals if too stringently adhered to. These pursuits require concentrated study and effort by themselves.

So read it but be sure to place it in the proper context.

Rating:
Summary: TIMELESS HUMAN QUEST FOR IDENTITY AND DIGNITY
Review: As a school child in New York City assigned to read Booker T. Washington's memoir, as a parent raising four children by the Golden Rule while referring to the insitutiton of slavery that spawned racism in America, and now as a grandfather reviewing old literature, "Up From Slavery," held for me different messages. Having observed first hand people putting their lives at risk in their quest for freedom and dignity, I always sensed this book basically discussed that sort of thing.

Booker T. Washington's collection of essays provides a window into the soul of a child beginning life under a slave master who decided: what Booker was, who he was and how much he was worth. The worst part of slavery is not working without compensation. Rather it is working without identity and dignity. Like air, water and food humans need dignity to live. Without air, water and food they die quickly. Without dignity, they die slowly.

"Up From Slavery," begins with Booker telling us he did not know for sure whether he was nine or eleven years old during his emancipation from slavery by the Union Army. Slaves had no use for birthdays and so there was no acknowledgement of Booker's birth. He knew his mother who cared for him and his half brother. But under slavery they never sat down to eat together as a family even once. Slave children ate scraps of food on the run!

Emancipation brought panic to the former slaves, Booker tells us. Suddenly, they had no place. Booker worked in a mine staffed with other boy miners. Underground in the dark, he dreamed about learning to read and getting educated ... for beginning his seemingly impossible quest to discover his identity and find dignity. Telling his mother he heard boys in the mine talk about a school for former slave children, without money or food Booker set out on foot to find it. He was not sure the school existed. His mission was based on pure faith. To keep body, mind and soul together, Booker worked at odd jobs for food along the way.

Many months later, after having slept under sidewalks in the rain and being chased out of many towns during his long trek, by word of mouth a ragged Booker found his way to the school. Reading changed Booker's life, and historically he changed our lives. He worked ceaselessly from the beginning of his life to the end. Moreover, he would later lose his beloved wife to overwork. She could not endure his level of labor as they built Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and she died from exhaustion.

To me, "Up From Slavery" transcends the sad history of Americans whose ancestors were brought by force from Africa to be sold as slave laborers; first in the British Colonies and later continued in the United States. It is the story of a people stripped of their identity and dignity, who many generations later must work mercilessly hard to find ways of getting it back. Booker T. Washington explains how he managed to do it with exceptional skill, hard work and good luck.

"Up From Slavery" is a sad true story filled with hope about the human spirit and one man's unstoppable pursuit of his identity and dignity which he was robbed of by the evils of slavery. It is also the story of Amercia's tragic history and how slavery destroyed the nation's very soul by the insidious forces of racism that eat away at its social fabric to this very day.

Everyone should read Booker T. Washington's "Up From Slavery" because most readers will enjoy it while absorbing many very important lessons from it.

Rating:
Summary: The American Dream Fulfilled
Review: Booker T. Washington had every reason to complain and be resentful. He was born a slave, and although national manumission occurred while he was still a boy, very few opportunities offered themselves to the newly emancipated. He fought against the odds to get an education and while he was away at school, his beloved mother died. His biological father was a slave owner who never expressed any interest in his son's life. When he was asked to be headmaster of the Tuskegee Institute, he found himself faced with empty land in a poverty-stricken area. Married three times, his first two wives died very young. His first spouse left him a single father with a young child, and the second time he faced widowhood he had three small children to raise all by himself.

He could certainly have cursed fate and just given up; in stead his autobiography is the work of an unspeakably grateful and patriotic American. Washington could not find enough good things to say about nearly everyone he encountered in life or the country he felt blessed to call his home. He worked very, very hard and success followed all his endeavors. Rather than boast of his many accomplishments, he seemed to feel unworthy of the nationwide respect he earned. He humbly described his friendships with Presidents Grover Cleveland and William McKinley, talked of his constantly sought after speeches throughout the United States and Europe, and detailed his phenomenal money-raising skills that brought the Tuskegee Institute up from a converted hen-house to a campus of over 40 buildings.

Throughout all his trials and successes, he constantly advocated forgiveness, humility, and gratitude. Not only did he recommend these three virtues, he lived a life that embodied them. Perhaps that's why a person born with no realistic chance at getting ahead, died one of the most admired and well-known individuals of his day.

Rating:
Summary: Worth reading
Review: Booker T. Washington has always been a figure that history teachers use, in my opinion, to support the so-called "Good" African-Americans. In other words, those who don't cause trouble. "Up From Slavery" displays this side of Mr. Washington. This book is worth reading because of Booker's determination that allowed him to rise above his former conditions. Yet, one can't help but get the feeling that he is all-to-ready to forget what has happened to him. Booker continues to explain, rather naively, in my opinion, how racism is to soon be erased. I feel it's unfortunate how things later came to contradict his predicitons, but he is foolishly optimistic. Overall, "Up From Slavery" is a decent book, but occasionally tedious.