Up From Slavery is an autobiography written by Booker T. Washington in 1901. Washington is most famous as the founder and first principal of the Tuskegee Institute, later Tuskegee University, a school for Black students in rural Tuskegee, Alabama. As the school became famous world-wide, Washington also became known as a public speaker, addressing diverse audiences around the world to promote his philosophy of industrial education. Historically, Washington is remembered as the first major Black conservative. The accommodationist strategy he articulated in his speeches and writings, in which he argued that Black Americans must gradually earn their civil rights through hard work rather than through political “agitation,” was strongly criticized by more radical Black leaders including W. E. B. Du Bois.

This guide refers to the 1901 Doubleday, Page, & Co edition of Up From Slavery.

Content Warning: This guide and the associated autobiography include detailed depictions of racism, slavery, and racial violence. The book uses outdated language to refer to Black and Indigenous people and expresses outdated views about race. This guide repeats this language only where necessary in direct quotes and organization names.

Summary

Up From Slavery begins in Washington’s boyhood, when he is enslaved alongside his mother and two brothers on a Virginia plantation. The Civil War is near its end, and both Black and white people on the plantation can feel that change is imminent. Washington writes that although all enslaved people dream of freedom, they genuinely care about the white planters. When a government employee comes to deliver the Emancipation Proclamation, he can see that both white and Black listeners are uneasy about what their future will hold.

Once they are free, Washington and his family move to Malden, West Virginia to live with his stepfather. He spends the rest of his childhood there, working first in the salt mining industry and later in a coal mine, taking every opportunity he can to learn. At first, he resents those who are able to attend school and not work, but he later appreciates that his upbringing taught him the value of labor and set him up for a lifetime of overcoming hardship. As a teenager, Washington hears about the Hampton Institute, a new school for Black people in Virginia. Through a combination of savings and community generosity, he is able to attend, and his life is changed.

At Hampton, Washington encounters the concept of industrial education for the first time. While many schools teach only academic topics, Hampton teachers train their students in practical tasks and establish a system in which every student must work hard both inside and outside the classroom to achieve. Washington embraces this system wholeheartedly. Upon graduating from Hampton, he works there for a few years, and is then asked to lead a new, similar school in Tuskegee, Alabama.

The Tuskegee Institute begins in a small shack with no funding and Washington as the only teacher. Finding that the population in the surrounding area is desperately in need of education, he never gives up. Soon, other teachers like Miss Olivia Davidson join Washington, and together they begin to raise funds from the local community as well as wealthy Northern donors. They buy an old plantation, and students are tasked with building all necessary infrastructure. As the years progress, the Tuskegee school becomes a thriving institution of industrial learning.

With Tuskegee’s notoriety growing, Washington begins to receive invitations to speak at events around the country. At first, he does not want to involve himself in the wider civil rights discussion, preferring to hold to his philosophy that local community building is the most important type of work. Eventually, he begins accepting speaking engagements, and his fame grows exponentially after he gives the opening address for the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta in 1895. His focus remains solidly on industrial teaching and his work with the Tuskegee Institute, and he hopes to promote his educational philosophy to all parts of the country.

By the end of the autobiography, Washington is confident that by slow, steady progress, the Black community will eventually overcome racial prejudice and segregation. He sees himself as an example. He is Black, was born into slavery, and experienced poverty through much of his life, but through his own hard work, he eventually found himself moving in the same circles as wealthy businesspeople and US presidents.