The primary voice of the African American community from 1890 to 1915, and the author of Up from Slavery, Booker T. Washington was an educator and orator as well as a founder of the Alabama school that developed into Tuskegee University. Washington proposed that most African Americans would benefit from a practical trade rather than a liberal arts education-a position opposed by other black leaders, including W. E. B. Dubois, and the source of a debate...

Born a slave in Virginia in 1856, Booker T. Washington rose in prominence to become black America's foremost spokesman. This is the dramatic autobiographical account of Washington's struggle to succeed and prosper in a country that refused to acknowledge his existence. From his fight for an education to his founding of the world-renowned Tuskegee Institute, Up From Slavery is one of the most significant and defining works in American literature.

African American educator, author, speaker, and advisor to presidents of the United States, Booker Taliaferro Washington was the leading voice of former slaves and their descendants during the late 1800s. As part of the last generation of leaders born into slavery, Booker believed that blacks could better progress in society through education and entrepreneurship, rather than trying to directly challenge the Jim Crow segregation.