Booker T. Washington - Up From Slavery - Notes

I started this book with a goal of wanting to like Booker T. Washington.  After all, he is an icon of American history who accomplished the founding of Tuskegee University, a big part of the history of my native Alabama as well as the whole country.  After reading the book, I find reasons to like him, but I also find reasons to question him.

Based on this famous book, BTW had a rosy picture of American race relations as he was writing at the turn of the 20th Century.  What would he say about what the riots and protests going on in our country at this very minute?  No way to know since he isn't here, but I cannot help but believe that he would be surprised that with his optimistic view of things that the country would have all of this behind us by now.  Today's racial atmosphere in this country can make Washington look pollyannish.

I remind myself that this reminiscence was written at a particular point in his life.  He lived for 15 more years.  As far as I know, this is the only biographical book he would ever write.  This is his view at the turn of the century before he lived for 15 more years.  Some of his views could have changed before he died.

Born into slavery but young enough to have lived until 1915, he lived through a country that went thru a lot of changes.

"Of my ancestry I know almost nothing."  P. 1  This is one of the harshest thing about slavery.  Most slaves were probably in the same situation.

He speaks of the sometimes close attachment of slaves and white owners yet all slaves wanted freedom.  Since I wasn't there, this is a hard thing to wrap my head around.  P. 5

No bitterness against Southern whites on account of the enslavement of his race?  He had a big heart is all I can say.  P. 5

Faith in the future to overcome slavery.  I think he might be disappointed today.  P. 6

A theme in the book is his strong belief in eduction.  Inspiring how he shows up at Hampton with 50 cents in his pocket.

His entrance exam was a sweeping job!  You can't beat a story like this.  P. 17

Throughout the book he talks about General Samuel C. Armstrong, a Yankee general I take it, because "fought the Southern white man."  Gen. Armstrong, the finest man Booker ever knew, is the man who gets him the job at Tuskegee.  P. 18

Mother's death.  P. 23

Goes very lightly over the KKK.  P. 26

Proud that he wasn't "called" to preach.  P. 28

Seems to equate Southerners reaching to the federal government for help during Reconstruction like a child reaching for his mother.  Not a good analogy, Booker.  P. 28

Preferred a Reconstruction approach of education and property.  He may have been right.  P. 28

Reluctant to punish Southern white men.  Wrong on this.  P. 28

Points out unworthy blacks taking positions of responsibility during Reconstruction.  This is not good politics today.  P. 29

Industrial training over Latin and Greek.  P. 30

Got along well with Indians.  P. 33

Meeting Frederick Douglass.  P. 33

Big fan of "night schools" to give working people a chance at an education.  P. 35

General Armstrong (a Bluecoat who killed Southerners) led Booker to Tuskegee, Alabama, to start a "normal" school.  A normal college was to train teachers.  Tuskegee seemed like a good place to start a school.  Five miles from the railroad.  In the midst of the great bulk of Negro people.  The white people of Tuskegee seemed more educated and sophisticated than most Alabama white people.  The colored people were ignorant, but had not the typical vices of lower classes.  Relations between the races were pleasant.  Booker also put the best light on everything.  P. 37

He reached Tuskegee in June of 1881.  The story of the building of Tuskegee Institute by students with BTW scouring the country for funds is the highlight of this book.  P. 38

From the beginning of Tuskegee BTW kept claiming that race relations were getting better in the South.  P. 38

He certainly put the Tuskegee students to work!  P. 39

He makes fun of the caricature of what white people thought an educated black person would look like.  P. 40

He always stressed practical, vocation, industrial education.  Better master the multiplication tables before banking and discount.  P. 42

Live by your wits or live by your hands?  BTW seemed to want his students to live by their hands if they found it meaningful.  I agree.  P. 43

Students erected the buildings at Tuskegee.  This is quite amazing.  P. 50

Big emphasis on brick making at Tuskegee.  Making something white people desired made for better racial relations.  P. 51

"The individual who can do something that the world wants will, in the end, make his way regardless of race."  Maybe this is his philosophy in a nutshell.  Is BTW right? P. 52

He never heard Gen. Armstrong say a single bitter word against the people of the South.  P. 55

He says he rid himself of any hatred of Southern white people for the wrongs they inflicted on blacks.    He pitied anyone holding race hatred.  It's hard to believe this.  Either BTW was a great man or a naive fool.  P. 56

He says he never received a single personal insult from a white person in the South.  Hard to believe. P. 57

The students made their own furniture.  Tuition was $50 a year.  The first building was Porter Hall.  I wonder what happened to it.  P 60

He was certainly successful in cultivating rich people for donations to Tuskegee.  He deserves all the credit in the world for this.

It is as if he felt that blacks had to earn their way to full citizenship.  If this is correct, he is wrong.  P. 69

The most famous episode in Washington's life was his address in 1895 at the Atlanta Exposition.  Call it his Atlanta Exposition Address.  In this book he quotes the entire speech.  His most famous words were: "In all things that purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in things essential to mutual progress."  Historians have said here he was endorsing segregation, which is not acceptable.  This is the source of most of the negativity directly towards Washington over the years.  Does he deserve this criticism???  P. 75

In this address he goes on to say:
"The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must the result of severe and constant struggle rather than artificial forcing.  No race that anything to contribute to markets of the world is long in  any degree ostracized.  It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but is vastly more important that we be prepared for these privileges.  The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera house."  P. 76  What do we make of this???

Southern whites will give Blacks their rights as soon as they earn them.  This seems to be what he is saying.  It will not be through artificial forcing.  P. 79

The time will come when the South will encourage all of its citizens to vote.  Ha!  Yet at this point he endorses "protections" in the way of property or education.  What about poll taxes?  P. 80

He travels the country.  He and the Misses have a grand trip touring Europe.  BTW was known worldwide.

He liked pigs and chickens.  Yuk!  P. 90

He was impressed with the Holstein cattle.  Somehow I find this funny.  P. 94

Blacks have to earn their way, make themselves indispensable.  I hate to say it, but it seems in places that he too readily accepts white privilege, but then I have to remember the time and place where he was.  I cannot put myself in his place in his time.  P. 95

Reading a life of Frederick Douglass.  P 97

He closes his account in the city of Richmond, the ending capital of the Confederacy.  Perhaps this is appropriate.  P. 109

Finis