Up from Slavery

Nineteenth-century African American businessman, activist, and educator Booker Taliaferro Washington's Up from Slavery is one of the greatest American autobiographies ever written. Its mantras of black economic empowerment, land ownership, and self-help inspired generations of black leaders, including Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan. In rags-to-riches fashion, Washington recounts his ascendance from early life as a mulatto slave in Virginia to a 34-year term as president of the influential, agriculturally based Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. From that position, Washington reigned as the most important leader of his people, with slogans like "cast down your buckets," which emphasized vocational merit rather than the academic and political excellence championed by his contemporary rival W.E.B. Du Bois. Though many considered him too accommodating to segregationists, Washington, as he said in his historic "Atlanta Compromise" speech of 1895, believed that "political agitation alone would not save [the Negro]," and that "property, industry, skill, intelligence, and character" would prove necessary to black Americans' success. The potency of his philosophies are alive today in the nationalist and conservative camps that compose the complex quilt of black American society. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Historically acknowledged as one of America's most powerful orators, Washington challenged racial prejudice when such behavior from a black man was unheard of. Here is the dramatic, autobiographical account of how he stood fast against the social and ideological bias prevalent in his day.

Introduction
Author's Preface
I. A Slave Among Slaves
II. Boyhood Days
III. The Struggle for an Education
IV. Helping Others
V. The Reconstruction Period
VI. Black Race and Red Race
VII. Early Days at Tuskegee
VIII. Teaching School in a Stable and a Hen-House
IX. Anxious Days and Sleepless Nights
X. A Harder Task than Making Bricks without Straw
XI. Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie on Them
XII. Raising Money
XIII. Two Thousand Miles for a Five-Minute Speech-
XIV. The Atlanta Exposition Address
XV. The Secret of Success in Public Speaking.
XVI. Europe:
XVII. Last Words
Notes
Afterword
Selected Bibliography