Booker T. Washington 
Up from Slavery 
An Autobiography

Booker T. Washington’s famous 1901 memoir,
Up From Slavery, charts Washington’s rise from an enslaved child with a passion for learning to the nation’s most prominent Black educator and first president of Tuskegee University. A tireless advocate for Black economic independence, Washington attempted to balance his public acceptance of segregation with behind-the-scenes lobbying against voter disenfranchisement and financing anti–Jim Crow court cases. His memoir is both a crucial American document and an exercise in understanding the “double consciousness” coined by W.E.B. Du Bois, himself one of Washington’s most vocal critics.  

A propos de l’auteur

Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856–1915) was born in Franklin County, Virginia. At twenty-five he became the first principal of the Tuskegee Normal School for Colored Teachers, now Tuskegee University. He spent his life working tirelessly to advocate on behalf of Black Americans.