Up From Slavery (Arcturus Classics)

by Booker T. Washington

There was little chance for black men and women in the south to educate themselves and escape the grinding poverty of life.

Booker T. Washington proposed to change that.

Washington was often in conflict with his fellow civil rights activists. His focus on self-improvement and his unwillingness to challenge the status quo, in particular his acceptance of segregation, rubbed people like W. E. B. DuBois the wrong way.

The picture of several dozen boys and girls in a schoolroom engaged in study made a deep impression upon me, and I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.

pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery.

have long since ceased to cherish any spirit of bitterness against the Southern white people on account of the enslavement of my race. No one section of our country was wholly responsible for its introduction, and, besides, it was recognized and protected for years by the General Government.

Having once got its tentacles fastened on to the economic and social life of the Republic, it was no easy matter for the country ...

The wild rejoicing on the part of the emancipated coloured people lasted but for a brief period, for I noticed that by the time they returned to their cabins there was a change in their feelings. The great responsibility of being free, of having charge of themselves, of having to think and plan for themselves and their children, seemed to take possession of them. It was very much like suddenly turning a youth of ten or twelve years out into the world to provide for himself.

To some it seemed that, now that they were in actual possession of it, freedom was a more serious thing than they had expected to find it.

Few people who were not right in the midst of the scenes can form any exact idea of the intense desire which the people of my race showed for an education.

The great ambition of the older people was to try to learn to read the Bible before they died.

I have always felt proud, whenever I think of the incident, that my mother had strength of character enough not to be led into the temptation of seeming to be that which she was not—of trying to impress my schoolmates and others with the fact that she was able to buy me a “store hat” when she was not.

have always felt proud that she refused to go into debt for that which she did not have the money to pay for.

There was never a time in my youth, no matter how dark and discouraging the days might be, when one resolve did not continually remain with me, and that was a determination to secure an education at any cost.

I used to envy the white boy who had no obstacles placed in the way of his becoming a Congressman, Governor, Bishop, or President by reason of the accident of his birth or race.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.

I have been made to feel sad for such persons because I am conscious of the fact that mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless he has individual worth, and mere connection with what is regarded as an inferior

race will not finally hold an individual back if he possesses intrinsic, individual merit.

The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women.

Instead of studying books so constantly, how I wish that our schools and colleges might learn to study men and things!

Whenever it is written—and I hope it will be—the part that the Yankee teachers played in the education of the Negroes immediately after the war will make one of the most thrilling parts of the history of this country.

I have begun everything with the idea that I could succeed, and I never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed.

The “Ku Klux” period was, I think, the darkest part of the Reconstruction days.

During the whole of the Reconstruction period our people throughout the South looked to the Federal Government for everything, very much as a child looks to its mother.

This was a letter from General Armstrong, inviting me to return to Hampton at the next Commencement to deliver what was called the “post-graduate address.” This was an honour which I had not dreamed of receiving. With much care I prepared the best address that I was capable of. I chose for my subject “The Force That Wins.”

but no white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man’s clothes, eats the white man’s food, speaks the white man’s language, and professes the white man’s religion.

“They cannot degrade Frederick Douglass. The soul that is within me no man can degrade. I am not the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment, but those who are inflicting it upon me.”

From the very beginning, at Tuskegee, I was determined to have the students do not only the agricultural and domestic work, but to have them erect their own buildings.

Thr modern world seems to have lost this art ..teaching our children how to work w their hands

My plan was to have them, while performing this service, taught the latest and best methods of labour, so that the school would not only get the benefit of their efforts, but the students themselves would be taught to see not only utility in labour, but beauty and dignity; would be taught, in fact, how to lift labour up from mere drudgery and toil, and would learn to love work for its own sake.

but that in the teaching of civilization, self-help, and self-reliance, the erection of buildings by the students themselves would more than compensate for any lack of comfort or fine finish.

As an additional result, hundreds of men are now scattered throughout the South who received their knowledge of mechanics while being taught how to erect these buildings. Skill and knowledge are now handed down from one set of students to another in this way, until at the present time a building of any description or size can be constructed wholly by our instructors and students, from the drawing of the plans to the putting in of the electric fixtures, without going off the grounds for a single workman.

The value of learning a trade! Brings dignity and a path out of poverty

For the third time we had failed.

But he did it a fouth and succeeded

The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of race.

But gradually, with patience and hard work, we brought order out of chaos, just as will be true of any problem if we stick to it with patience and wisdom and earnest effort.

It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for one’s self.

I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred.

I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.

It is now long ago that I learned this lesson from General Armstrong, and resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow...

Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.

Time and time again I have been asked, by people who are trying to secure money for philanthropic purposes, what rule or rules I followed to secure the interest and help of people who were able to contribute money to worthy objects. As far as the science of what is called begging can be reduced to rules, I would say that I have had but two rules. First, always to do my whole duty regarding making our work known to individuals and organizations; and, second, not to worry about the results.

I am learning more and more each year that all worry simply consumes, and to no purpose, just so much physical and mental strength that might otherwise be given to effective work.