Such intentional comparisons helped Washington establish his credentials as a self-made man in both the American and African American traditions, thereby widening the appeal of his autobiography. Several literary critics have pointed out that many of these set pieces echo the autobiographies of Ben Franklin and Frederick Douglass.
His narrative is marked by memorable set pieces, most famous among them an account of Washington’s 500-mile walk from the West Virginia coal mines to the Virginia coast so that he could attend Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. Despite the debate about whether the values espoused in Up From Slavery ought to be praised or condemned, Washington’s autobiography defined, as no other work did, the course of African American public life in the early years of the twentieth century.Įmploying direct prose and lively anecdotes, Up From Slavery depicts Washington’s rise from enslavement to prominent educator. For these readers, Washington’s program of racial uplift was too conciliatory, and his vision of black economic success at the expense of social advancement or political power was too narrow. Others, however, believed that Washington’s rags-to-riches tale, written while he was living in Alabama, failed to hold white racism fully accountable for the condition of blacks in the South. In the work, Washington-educator, social critic, and founder of Tuskegee Institute-praised the virtues of thrift, patience, and industrial training and drew lavish praise from white reviewers, who hailed it as a classic American success story.
Washington’s Up From Slavery (1901) remains one of the most influential and controversial accounts of Black life in the United States. Acclaimed in its day as a landmark autobiography, Booker T.
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