• Complain

Booker T. Washington - Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Annotated)

Here you can read online Booker T. Washington - Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Annotated) full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2013, publisher: Seahorse Publishing, genre: Science. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Booker T. Washington Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Annotated)
  • Book:
    Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Annotated)
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    Seahorse Publishing
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    2013
  • Rating:
    5 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 100
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Annotated): summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Annotated)" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

This Edition Features
A Detailed Biography of Booker T. Washington
A Fully Interactive Table of Contents
Superior Kindle Formatting
Born in a Virginia slave hut, Booker T. Washington rose to become the most influential spokesman for African-Americans of his day. In this eloquently written book, he describes events in a remarkable life that began in bondage and culminated in worldwide recognition for his many accomplishments.
Seahorse Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in e-book production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the Seahorse Classics collection to build your digital library.

Booker T. Washington: author's other books


Who wrote Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Annotated)? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Annotated) — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Annotated)" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make
UP FROM SLAVERY: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Booker T. Washington
Contents
Up from Slavery: An Autobiography
: A Slave Among Slaves
: Boyhood Days
: The Struggle For An Education
: Helping Others
: The Reconstruction Period
: Black Race And Red Race
: Early Days At Tuskegee
: Teaching School In A Stable And A Hen-House
: Anxious Days And Sleepless Nights
: A Harder Task Than Making Bricks Without Straw
: Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them
: Raising Money
: Two Thousand Miles For A Five-Minute Speech
: The Atlanta Exposition Address
: The Secret Of Success In Public Speaking
: Europe
: Last Words
Extras
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 cross-roads post-office called Hale's Ford, and the year was 1858 or 1859. I do not know the month or the day. The earliest impressions I can now recall are of the plantation and the slave quartersthe latter being the part of the plantation where the slaves had their cabins.
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, as compared with many others. I was born in a typical log cabin, about fourteen by sixteen feet square. In this cabin I lived with my mother and a brother and sister till after the Civil War, when we were all declared free.
Of my ancestry I know almost nothing. In the slave quarters, and even later, I heard whispered conversations among the coloured people of the tortures which the slaves, including, no doubt, my ancestors on my mother's side, suffered in the middle passage of the slave ship while being conveyed from Africa to America. I have been unsuccessful in securing any information that would throw any accurate light upon the history of my family beyond my mother. She, I remember, had a half-brother and a half-sister. In the days of slavery not very much attention was given to family history and family recordsthat is, black family records. My mother, I suppose, attracted the attention of a purchaser who was afterward my owner and hers. Her addition to the slave family attracted about as much attention as the purchase of a new horse or cow. Of my father I know even less than of my mother. I do not even know his name. I have heard reports to the effect that he was a white man who lived on one of the near-by plantations. Whoever he was, I never heard of his taking the least interest in me or providing in any way for my rearing. But I do not find especial fault with him. He was simply another unfortunate victim of the institution which the Nation unhappily had engrafted upon it at that time.
The cabin was not only our living-place, but was also used as the kitchen for the plantation. My mother was the plantation cook. The cabin was without glass windows; it had only openings in the side which let in the light, and also the cold, chilly air of winter. There was a door to the cabinthat is, something that was called a doorbut the uncertain hinges by which it was hung, and the large cracks in it, to say nothing of the fact that it was too small, made the room a very uncomfortable one. In addition to these openings there was, in the lower right-hand corner of the room, the "cat-hole,"a contrivance which almost every mansion or cabin in Virginia possessed during the ante-bellum period. The "cat-hole" was a square opening, about seven by eight inches, provided for the purpose of letting the cat pass in and out of the house at will during the night. In the case of our particular cabin I could never understand the necessity for this convenience, since there were at least a half-dozen other places in the cabin that would have accommodated the cats. There was no wooden floor in our cabin, the naked earth being used as a floor. In the centre of the earthen floor there was a large, deep opening covered with boards, which was used as a place in which to store sweet potatoes during the winter. An impression of this potato-hole is very distinctly engraved upon my memory, because I recall that during the process of putting the potatoes in or taking them out I would often come into possession of one or two, which I roasted and thoroughly enjoyed. There was no cooking-stove on our plantation, and all the cooking for the whites and slaves my mother had to do over an open fireplace, mostly in pots and "skillets." While the poorly built cabin caused us to suffer with cold in the winter, the heat 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. My mother, of course, had little time in which to give attention to the training of her children during the day. She snatched a few moments for our care in the early morning before her work began, and at night after the day's work was done. One of my earliest recollections is that of my mother cooking a chicken late at night, and awakening her children for the purpose of feeding them. How or where she got it I do not know. I presume, however, it was procured from our owner's farm. Some people may call this theft. If such a thing were to happen now, I should condemn it as theft myself. But taking place at the time it did, and for the reason that it did, no one could ever make me believe that my mother was guilty of thieving. She was simply a victim of the system of slavery. I cannot remember having slept in a bed until after our family was declared free by the Emancipation Proclamation. Three childrenJohn, my older brother, Amanda, my sister, and myselfhad a pallet on the dirt floor, or, to be more correct, we slept in and on a bundle of filthy rags laid upon the dirt floor.
I was asked not long ago to tell something about the sports and pastimes that I engaged in during my youth. Until that question was asked it had never occurred to me that there was no period of my life that was devoted to play. From the time that I can remember anything, almost every day of my life had been occupied in some kind of labour; though I think I would now be a more useful man if I had had time for sports. During the period that I spent in slavery I was not large enough to be of much service, still I was occupied most of the time in cleaning the yards, carrying water to the men in the fields, or going to the mill to which I used to take the corn, once a week, to be ground. The mill was about three miles from the plantation. This work I always dreaded. The heavy 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 as to become unbalanced and would fall off the horse, and often I would fall with it. As I was not strong enough to reload the corn upon the horse, I would have to wait, sometimes for many hours, till a chance passer-by came along who would help me out of my trouble. The hours while waiting for some one were usually spent in crying. The time consumed in this way made me late in reaching the mill, and by the time I got my corn ground and reached home it would be far into the night. The road was a lonely one, and often led through dense forests. I was always frightened. The woods were 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 Negro boy 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 a severe scolding or a flogging.
Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Annotated)»

Look at similar books to Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Annotated). We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Annotated)»

Discussion, reviews of the book Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Annotated) and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.