Up from Slavery Summary
Booker T. Washington

Up from Slavery Summary

Booker T. Washington is not certain of the date or location of his birth, though he believes he was born near a post office called Hale's Ford in Franklin County, Virginia. He doesn't know his father but says there were rumors that he was a white man from a nearby plantation. Washington spent his early years - from his birth in 1858 or 1859 until the end of the Civil War in 1865 - as a slave on that plantation with his mother, his brother John and his sister Amanda. He later mentions an adopted brother named James. He is known then only as Booker, though his mother named him Booker Taliaferro. It isn't until he has the opportunity to go to school that he selects Washington as his surname.

Washington learns of a school in Hampton, Virginia, for Negroes and that some deserving students are given aid with... View more of the Up from Slavery Summary