1901 UP FROM SLAVERY Booker T. Washington
11901UP FROM SLAVERYBooker T. WashingtonWashington, Booker T. (1856-1915) - American writer andeducationist.Born a slave in Virginia, he was later educated at theHampton Institute and went on to establish and head the TuskegeeInstitute in Alabama. Up From Slavery (1901) - Booker T.Washington’s autobiography details his rise from slavery to theleadership of his race. This is a simple yet dramatic record ofWashington’s dedication to the education of black Americans.
2Table Of ContentsPREFACECHAPTER I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A SLAVE AMONG SLAVESCHAPTER II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .BOYHOOD DAYSCHAPTER III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .THE STRUGGLE FOR AN EDUCATIONCHAPTER IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .HELPING OTHERSCHAPTER V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .THE RECONSTRUCTION PERIODCHAPTER VI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .BLACK RACE AND RED RACECHAPTER VII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .EARLY DAYS AT TUSKEGEECHAPTER VIII. . . . . . . . .TEACHING SCHOOL IN A STABLE ANDA HEN-HOUSECHAPTER IX . . . . . . . .ANXIOUS DAYS AND SLEEPLESS NIGHTSCHAPTER X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A HARDER TASK THAN MAKING BRICKSWITHOUT STRAWCHAPTER XI . . . . . . . . . . .MAKING THEIR BEDS BEFORE THEY COULDLIE ON THEMCHAPTER XII . . . . . . . . . .RAISING MONEYCHAPTER XIII. . . . . . . . . .TWO THOUSAND MILES FOR A FIVE-MINUTESPEECHCHAPTER XIV . . . . . . . . . . .THE ATLANTA EXPOSITION ADDRESSCHAPTER XV . . . . . . . . . . .THE SECRET OF SUCCESS IN PUBLIC SPEAKINGCHAPTER XVI. . . . . . . . .EUROPECHAPTER XVII . . . . . . . . . .LAST WORDS41524344248556169768491101111121136149
3PREFACEThis volume is the outgrowth of a series of articles, dealing withincidents in my life, which were published consecutively in theOutlook. While they were appearing in that magazine I wasconstantly surprised at the number of requests which came to mefrom all parts of the country, asking that the articles bepermanently preserved in book form. I am most grateful to theOutlook for permission to gratify these requests.I have tried to tell a simple, straightforward story, with no attemptat embellishment. My regret is that what I have attempted to dohas been done so imperfectly. The greater part of my time andstrength is required for the executive work connected with theTuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, and in securing themoney necessary for the support of the institution. Much of what Ihave said has been written on board trains, or at hotels or railroadstations while I have been waiting for trains, or during themoments that I could spare from my work while at Tuskegee.Without the painstaking and generous assistance of Mr. MaxBennett Thrasher, I could not have succeeded in any satisfactorydegree.B. T. W.
4CHAPTER IA SLAVE AMONG SLAVESI was born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia. Iam not quite sure of the exact place or exact date of my birth, but atany rate I suspect I must have been born somewhere and at sometime. As nearly as I have been able to learn, I was born near across-roads post-office called Hale’s Ford, and the year was 1858 or1859. I do not know the month or the day. The earliest impressionsI can now recall are of the plantation and the slave quarters- thelatter being the part of the plantation where the slaves had theircabins.My life had its beginning in the midst of the most miserable,desolate, and discouraging surroundings. This was so, however,not because my owners were especially cruel, for they were not, ascompared with many others. I was born in a typical log cabin,about fourteen by sixteen feet square. In this cabin I lived with mymother and a brother and sister till after the Civil War, when wewere all declared free.Of my ancestry I know almost nothing. In the slave quarters, andeven later, I heard whispered conversations among the colouredpeople of the tortures which the slaves, including, no doubt, myancestors on my mother’s side, suffered in the middle passage ofthe slave ship while being conveyed from Africa to America. I havebeen unsuccessful in securing any information that would throwany accurate light upon the history of my family beyond mymother. She, I remember, had a half-brother and a half-sister. Inthe days of slavery not very much attention was given to familyhistory and family records- that is, black family records. Mymother, I suppose, attracted the attention of a purchaser who wasafterward my owner and hers. Her addition to the slave familyattracted about as much attention as the purchase of a new horse orcow. Of my father I know even less than of my mother. I do noteven know his name. I have heard reports to the effect that he wasa white man who lived on one of the near-by plantations. Whoeverhe was, I never heard of his taking the least interest in me orproviding in any way for my rearing. But I do not find especialfault with him. He was simply another unfortunate victim of theinstitution which the Nation unhappily had engrafted upon it atthat time.The cabin was not only our living-place, but was also used as thekitchen for the plantation. My mother was the plantation cook. The
5cabin was without glass windows; it had only openings in the sidewhich let in the light, and also the cold, chilly air of winter. Therewas a door to the cabin- that is, something that was called a doorbut the uncertain hinges by which it was hung, and the large cracksin it, to say nothing of the fact that it was too small, made the rooma very uncomfortable one. In addition to these openings there was,in the lower right-hand corner of the room, the “cat-hole”- acontrivance which almost every mansion or cabin in Virginiapossessed during the ante-bellum period. The “cat-hole” was asquare opening, about seven by eight inches, provided for thepurpose of letting the cat pass in and out of the house at willduring the night. In the case of our particular cabin I could neverunderstand the necessity for this convenience, since there were atleast a half-dozen other places in the cabin that would haveaccommodated the cats. There was no wooden floor in our cabin,the naked earth being used as a floor. In the centre of the earthenfloor there was a large, deep opening covered with boards, whichwas used as a place in which to store sweet potatoes during thewinter. An impression of this potato-hole is very distinctlyengraved upon my memory, because I recall that during theprocess of putting the potatoes in or taking them out I would oftencome into possession of one or two, which I roasted andthoroughly enjoyed. There was no cooking-stove on our plantation,and all the cooking for the whites and slaves my mother had to doover an open fireplace, mostly in pots and “skillets.” While thepoorly built cabin caused us to suffer with cold in the winter, theheat from the open fireplace in summer was equally trying.The early years of my life, which were spent in the little cabin,were not very different from those of thousands of other slaves. Mymother, of course, had little time in which to give attention to thetraining of her children during the day. She snatched a fewmoments for our care in the early morning before her work began,and at night after the day’s work was done. One of my earliestrecollections is that of my mother cooking a chicken late at night,and awakening her children for the purpose of feeding them. Howor where she got it I do not know. I presume, however, it wasprocured from our owner’s farm. Some people may call this theft.If such a thing were to happen now, I should condemn it as theftmyself.But taking place at the time it did, and for the reason that it did, noone could ever make me believe that my mother was guilty ofthieving. She was simply a victim of the system of slavery. I cannotremember having slept in a bed until after our family was declaredfree by the Emancipation Proclamation. Three children- John, my
6older brother, Amanda, my sister, and myself- had a pallet on thedirt floor, or, to be more correct, we slept in and on a bundle offilthy rags laid upon the dirt floor.I was asked not long ago to tell something about the sports andpastimes that I engaged in during my youth. Until that questionwas asked it had never occurred to me that there was no period ofmy life that was devoted to play. From the time that I canremember anything, almost every day of my life has been occupiedin some kind of labour; though I think I would now be a moreuseful man if I had had time for sports. During the period that Ispent in slavery I was not large enough to be of much service, still Iwas occupied most of the time in cleaning the yards, carryingwater to the men in the fields, or going to the mill, to which I usedto take the corn, once a week, to be ground. The mill was aboutthree miles from the plantation. This work I always dreaded. Theheavy bag of corn would be thrown across the back of the horse,and the corn divided about evenly on each side; but in some way,almost without exception, on these trips, the corn would so shift asto become unbalanced and would fall off the horse, and often Iwould fall with it. As I was not strong enough to reload the cornupon the horse, I would have to wait, sometimes for many hours,till a chance passer-by came along who would help me out of mytrouble. The hours while waiting for some one were usually spentin crying. The time consumed in this way made me late in reachingthe mill, and by the time I got my corn ground and reached home itwould be far into the night. The road was a lonely one, and oftenled through dense forests. I was always frightened. The woodswere said to be full of soldiers who had deserted from the army,and I had been told that the first thing a deserter did to a Negroboy when he found him alone was to cut off his ears. Besides,when I was late in getting home I knew I would always get asevere scolding or a flogging.I had no schooling whatever while I was a slave, though Iremember on several occasions I went as far as the schoolhousedoor with one of my young mistresses to carry her books. Thepicture of several dozen boys and girls in a schoolroom engaged instudy made a deep impression upon me, and I had the feeling thatto get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about thesame as getting into paradise.So far as I can now recall, the first knowledge that I got of the factthat we were slaves, and that freedom of the slaves was beingdiscussed, was early one morning before day, when I wasawakened by my mother kneeling over her children and ferventlypraying that Lincoln and his armies might be successful, and that
7one day she and her children might be free. In this connection Ihave never been able to understand how the slaves throughout theSouth, completely ignorant as were the masses so far as books ornewspapers were concerned, were able to keep themselves soaccurately and completely informed about the great Nationalquestions that were agitating the country. From the time thatGarrison, Lovejoy, and others began to agitate for freedom, theslaves throughout the South kept in close touch with the progressof the movement. Though I was a mere child during thepreparation for the Civil War and during the war itself, I nowrecall the many late-at-night whispered discussions that I heard mymother and the other slaves on the plantation indulge in. Thesediscussions showed that they understood the situation, and thatthey kept themselves informed of events by what was termed the“grape-vine telegraph.” During the campaign when Lincoln wasfirst a candidate for the Presidency, the slaves on our far-offplantation, miles from any railroad or large city or dailynewspaper, knew what the issues involved were. When war wasbegun between the North and the South, every slave on ourplantation felt and knew that, though other issues were discussed,the primal one was that of slavery. Even the most ignorantmembers of my race on the remote plantations felt in their hearts,with a certainty that admitted of no doubt, that the freedom of theslaves would be the one great result of the war, if the Northernarmies conquered. Every success of the Federal armies and everydefeat of the Confederate forces was watched with the keenest andmost intense interest. Often the slaves got knowledge of the resultsof great battles before the white people received it. This news wasusually gotten from the coloured man who was sent to the postoffice for the mail. In our case the post-office was about three milesfrom the plantation and the mail came once or twice a week. Theman who was sent to the office would linger about the place longenough to get the drift of the conversation from the group of whitepeople who naturally congregated there, after receiving their mail,to discuss the latest news. The mail-carrier on his way back to ourmaster’s house would as naturally retail the news that he hadsecured among the slaves, and in this way they often heard ofimportant events before the white people at the “big house,” as themaster’s house was called.I cannot remember a single instance during my childhood or earlyboyhood when our entire family sat down to the table together,and God’s blessing was asked, and the family ate a meal in acivilized manner. On the plantation in Virginia, and even later,meals were gotten by the children very much as dumb animals get
8theirs. It was a piece of bread here and a scrap of meat there. It wasa cup of milk at one time and some potatoes at another. Sometimesa portion of our family would eat out of the skillet or pot, whilesome one else would eat from a tin plate held on the knees, andoften using nothing but the hands with which to hold the food.When I had grown to sufficient size, I was required to go to the“big house” at meal-times to fan the flies from the table by meansof a large set of paper fans operated by a pulley. Naturally much ofthe conversation of the white people turned upon the subject offreedom and the war, and I absorbed a good deal of it. I rememberthat at one time I saw two of my young mistresses and some ladyvisitors eating ginger-cakes, in the yard. At that time those cakesseemed to me to be absolutely the most tempting and desirablethings that I had ever seen; and I then and there resolved that, if Iever got free, the height of my ambition would be reached if Icould get to the point where I could secure and eat ginger-cakes inthe way that I saw those ladies doing.Of course as the war was prolonged the white people, in manycases, often found it difficult to secure food for themselves. I thinkthe slaves felt the deprivation less than the whites, because theusual diet for the slaves was corn bread and pork, and these couldbe raised on the plantation; but coffee, tea, sugar, and other articleswhich the whites had been accustomed to use could not be raisedon the plantation, and the conditions brought about by the warfrequently made it impossible to secure these things. The whiteswere often in great straits. Parched corn was used for coffee, and akind of black molasses was used instead of sugar.Many times nothing was used to sweeten the so-called tea andcoffee.The first pair of shoes that I recall wearing were wooden ones.They had rough leather on the top, but the bottoms, which wereabout an inch thick, were of wood. When I walked they made afearful noise, and besides this they were very inconvenient, sincethere was no yielding to the natural pressure of the foot.In wearing them one presented an exceedingly awkwardappearance. The most trying ordeal that I was forced to endure as aslave boy, however, was the wearing of a flax shirt. In the portionof Virginia where I lived it was common to use flax as part of theclothing for the slaves. That part of the flax from which ourclothing was made was largely the refuse, which of course was thecheapest and roughest part. I can scarcely imagine any torture,except, perhaps, the pulling of a tooth, that is equal to that causedby putting on a new flax shirt for the first time.
9It is almost equal to the feeling that one would experience if he hada dozen or more chestnut burrs, or a hundred small pin-points, incontact with his flesh.Even to this day I can recall accurately the tortures that Iunderwent when putting on one of these garments. The fact thatmy flesh was soft and tender added to the pain. But I had nochoice. I had to wear the flax shirt or none; and had it been left tome to choose, I should have chosen to wear no covering. Inconnection with the flax shirt, my brother John, who is severalyears older than I am, performed one of the most generous acts thatI ever heard of one slave relative doing for another. On severaloccasions when I was being forced to wear a new flax shirt, hegenerously agreed to put it on in my stead and wear it for severaldays, till it was “broken in.” Until I had grown to be quite a youththis single garment was all that I wore.One may get the idea from what I have said, that there was bitterfeeling toward the white people on the part of my race, because ofthe fact that most of the white population was away fighting in awar which would result in keeping the Negro in slavery if theSouth was successful. In the case of the slaves on our place this wasnot true, and it was not true of any large portion of the slavepopulation in the South where the Negro was treated withanything like decency. During the Civil War one of my youngmasters was killed, and two were severely wounded. I recall thefeeling of sorrow which existed among the slaves when they heardof the death of “Mars’ Billy.” It was no sham sorrow but real. Someof the slaves had nursed “Mars’ Billy”; others had played with himwhen he was a child. “Mars’ Billy” had begged for mercy in thecase of others when the overseer or master was thrashing them.The sorrow in the slave quarter was only second to that in the “bighouse.” When the two young masters were brought homewounded, the sympathy of the slaves was shown in many ways.They were just as anxious to assist in the nursing as the familyrelatives of the wounded. Some of the slaves would even beg forthe privilege of sitting up at night to nurse their wounded masters.This tenderness and sympathy on the part of those held in bondagewas a result of their kindly and generous nature. In order todefend and protect the women and children who were left on theplantations when the white males went to war, the slaves wouldhave laid down their lives. The slave who was selected to sleep inthe “big house” during the absence of the males was considered tohave the place of honour. Any one attempting to harm “youngMistress” or “old Mistress” during the night would have had tocross the dead body of the slave to do so. I do not know how many
10have noticed it, but I think that it will be found to be true that thereare few instances, either in slavery or freedom, in which a memberof my race has been known to betray a specific trust.As a rule, not only did the members of my race entertain nofeelings of bitterness against the whites before and during the war,but there are many instances of Negroes tenderly caring for theirformer masters and mistresses who for some reason have becomepoor and dependent since the war. I know of instances where theformer masters of slaves have for years been supplied with moneyby their former slaves to keep them from suffering. I have knownof still other cases in which the former slaves have assisted in theeducation of the descendants of their former owners. I know of acase on a large plantation in the South in which a young whiteman, the son of the former owner of the estate, has become soreduced in purse and self-control by reason of drink that he is apitiable creature; and yet, notwithstanding the poverty of thecoloured people themselves on this plantation, they have for yearssupplied this young white man with the necessities of life. Onesends him a little coffee or sugar, another a little meat, and so on.Nothing that the coloured people possess is too good for the son of“o
B. T. W. 4 CHAPTER I A SLAVE AMONG SLAVES I was born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia. I am not quite sure of the exact place or exact date of my birth, but at any rate I suspect I must have been born somewhere and at some time. As nearly as I have been able to learn, I was born near a
3 Climate-induced migration and modern slavery Contents About the authors 4 Acknowledgements 5 Executive summary 6 Chapter 1: What is ‘modern slavery’? 11 1.1 What is modern slavery and what forms does it take? 11 1.2 Who is impacted and at risk? 12 1.3 Drivers of modern slavery 13 Cha
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