Brief Summary: The Life Of Booker T. Washington

710 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: booker t washington summary

Booker Taliaferro Washington was born a slave. Despite his past, he was determined to make a better future for himself. Even though he had no schooling as a slave, he learned to read after the Civil War, when he was freed. When he was about nine, he and his mother moved to West Virginia to live with his stepfather. He made it his goal to get an education and attended Hampton Institute. He ended up starting Tuskegee institute. Booker T. Washington showed the black community that no matter where they started, they could still make a better future for themselves if they worked hard. Booker T. Washington was born in Hale’s Ford, Virginia. He was born as a slave.
His job as a slave was carrying grain to a mill, cleaning, and sometimes helping The men in the fields. When he was about ten years of age, Booker moved to West Virginia. He lived with his step father, who had been living there for a while. His step father worked in a salt mine, and later, that was where Booker started to work. Ever since he was young, Booker had a strong desire to read. His mother got him a “blue-backed speller” with which he taught himself how to read. He was greatly inspired by a young man who was from Ohio. Booker desired to be like him for not many blacks were able to read (Washington,19). …show more content…

The head mistress told him,” The recitation room needs sweeping. Take the broom and sweep it.” These words must have sounded like music to his ears. I’m pretty sure that in that moment, Booker T. Washington realized that picking up that broom and sweeping that room would determine whether or not he would be able to attend that school and pursue his dreams of getting and education. Putting everything he had learned into practice, he swept between every nook and cranny making sure to not leave a single trace of dirt behind. After she checked his thorough work, he was accepted into the school. To help pay off his education, he became a janitor at Hampton

Show More
Related

  • Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBoise

    1614 Words  | 4 Pages

    Booker T. Washington believed that blacks should not push to attain equal civil and political rights with whites. That it was best to concentrate on improving their economic skills and the quality of their character. The burden of improvement resting squarely on the shoulders of the black man. Eventually they would earn the respect and love of the white man, and civil and political rights would be accrued as a matter of course. This was a very non-threatening and popular idea with a lot of whites.

    Read More

  • Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery

    1462 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...to be equally educated. His speeches not only attracted the black people but also, northern and southern white people. Booker worked hard for all that he achieved during his life time. People all over were followers of Booker T. Washington. One example of how much these followers appreciated Washington is through raising money for a trip to Europe. Not just anyone went to Europe in those days. The trip showed how much the people appreciated Booker’s efforts for civil rights and education of blacks. They sent

    Read More

  • Booker T. Washington vs W.E.B. DuBois

    1392 Words  | 3 Pages

    Booker T. Washington was born on the fifth of April in 1856, in Hale’s Ford, Virginia. Washington’s generation was the last to be born into slavery. He was an African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents of the United States. This gentlemen attended Hampton University and Virginia Union University. During that time Washington became famous nationally with a speech he gave in 1895 in Atlanta. His speech consisted of how African- Americans would be able to make progress in the South. Washington believed that progress could be made through entrepreneurship and education, he also believed that Jim Crow segregation and that black’s not being able to vote should not be challenge at that point and time. Overall Booker T. Washington supported segregation during this point in time because, he knew that soon enough blacks would be treated better.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Booker T Washington Speech

    66 Words  | 1 Pages

    Booker T. Washington indicates equivocal descriptions to explain the importance of education for the black

    Read More

  • george washington carver

    1041 Words  | 3 Pages

    As word of Carver's work at Tuskegee spread across the world, he received many invitations to work or teach at better-equipped, higher-paying institutions but decided to remain at Tuskegee, where he could be of greatest service to his fellow African Americans in the South. Carver epitomized Booker T. Washington's philosophy of black solidarity and self-reliance. Born a slave, Carver worked hard among his own people, lived modestly, and avoided confronting racial issues. For these reasons Carver, like Booker T. Washington, became an icon for white Americans.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between Booker T. Washington And Jane Addams

    1541 Words  | 4 Pages

    Washington wanted to ensure the white race that education of colored individuals would not lead to a decrease in domestic services, as this was one of the main fears presented throughout. The beginning of the Institute started with only Washington as the teacher, and thirty students (Washington 58). While the Tuskegee Institute did an excellent job in developing students minds and reading abilities, Washington wanted to also teach his students practical life skills. Understanding that his students came from homes with little opportunities, Washington made it a priority to teach students how to care for their themselves. Students were taught how to bathe, care for their teeth, wash their clothing, and even what to eat and how to eat properly (Washington 61). Along with these basic skills, students were taught in a way so they could both become teachers and return to the plantation districts (Washington 61). Rather than simply studying books, students engaged in labor and physically saw what it meant to pave one’s own way. Washington wanted to implement a set of agricultural skills that would allow students to gain a new set of ideas and energy that could improve the industry. Soon after Washington found a new location to move his growing school, students were in charge of completing all the chores needed to successfully move to the farm. While

    Read More

  • Booker T Washington And Du Bois Analysis

    1372 Words  | 3 Pages

    The United States after the Civil War was still not an entirely safe place for African-Americans, especially in the South. Many of the freedoms other Americans got to enjoy were still largely limited to African-Americans at the time. At the beginning of the 20th Century, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois emerged as black leaders. Their respective visions for African-American society were different however. This paper will argue that Du Bois’s vision for American, although more radical at the time, was essential in the rise of the African-American society and a precursor to the Civil Rights Movement.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Frederick Douglass And Booker T Washington

    584 Words  | 2 Pages

    Booker went on to found Alabama's Tuskegee institute in 1881. Though with a mere plot of land, he would mold the school into a center for industrial and agricultural training. Fredrick Douglas became America’s first African American nominated Vice President. As you can see these prestigious black leaders have many differences and similarities. Their paths to freedom where nothing alike. They shared a passion for learning and teaching their people. And they had many differences in their methods, ambitions, and goals. While some may judge their actions, it is no mystery the good that they have done for their

    Read More

  • Booker T. Washington

    1169 Words  | 3 Pages

    Booker Taliaferro Washington was born a slave on April 5, 1856, in Franklin County, Va. His mother, Jane Burroughs, was a plantation cook. His father was an unknown white man. As a child, Booker swept yards and brought water to slaves working in the fields. Freed after the American Civil War, he went with his mother to Malden, W. Va., to join Washington Ferguson, whom she had married during the war.

    Read More

  • A Comparison Of Web Du Bois And Booker T. Washington

    1261 Words  | 3 Pages

    and challenges to African Americans from 1910 until about 1930. Du Bois felt that Americans

    Read More

  • Booker T. Washington

    1862 Words  | 4 Pages

    Booker T. Washington was a great leader. He was all for helping the black community become stronger. His goal was very hard to achieve considering the period in which he lived. America, during Washington's time was under reconstruction. The Civil War was over and blacks were, by law, equal to any other human being. Slavery was abolished and many southerners had a problem with that. To many whites, black people didn't deserve and weren't intellectually "ready" for such freedoms. The South had such a hard time accepting it that Union troops were stationed in southern states who couldn't cooperate. Booker T. Washington is a prime example to southerners who think that blacks can amount to nothing. In my paper I will talk to you about the many accomplishments he has made and the hardships that were attached to his achievements. As always a lot of people tried to pull Booker down. Some were even of the same race as Mr. Washington. But along the way a lot people helped Booker. People who he helped, his family, his community, and others who felt he was just a really great guy.

    Read More

  • Of Booker T Washington And Others Summary

    804 Words  | 2 Pages

    While trying to help make life easier for African Americans in the south, Washington also tried to ease the fears of the whites on blacks wanting to integrate socially. Even though Du Bois understood the importance of the speech, he felt Washington was asking’s blacks to give up pushing and wanting equality in education for their youth and civil rights, which he felt were the exact things that they needed to be trying to

    Read More

  • Up From Slavery Book Report

    1215 Words  | 3 Pages

    This book was about Booker T Washington who was a slave on a plantation in Virginia until he was nine years old. His autobiography offers readers a look into his life as a young child. Simple pleasures, such as eating with a fork, sleeping in a bed, and wearing comfortable clothing, were unavailable to Washington and his family. His brief glimpses into a schoolhouse were all it took to make him long for a chance to study and learn. Readers will enjoy the straightforward and strong voice Washington uses to tell his story. The book document his childhood as a slave and his efforts to get an education, and he directly credits his education with his later success as a man of action in his community and the nation. Washington details his transition from student to teacher, and outlines his own development as an educator and founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He tells the story of Tuskegee's growth, from classes held in a shantytown to a campus with many new buildings. In the final chapters of, it Washington describes his career as a public speaker and civil rights activist. Washington includes the address he gave at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895, which made him a national figure. He concludes his autobiography with an account of several recognitions he has received for his work, including an honorary degree from Harvard, and two significant visits to Tuskegee, one by President McKinley and another by General Samuel C. Armstrong. During his lifetime, Booker T. Washington was a national leader for the betterment of African Americans in the post-Reconstruction South. He advocated for economic and industrial improvement of Blacks while accommodating Whites on voting rights and social equality.

    Read More

  • Booker T Washington Industrial Education Analysis

    2047 Words  | 5 Pages

    Born into slavery, but freed shortly after, Booker T. Washington grew into an influential leader that caught the attention of many blacks, northerners, and even southerners. He proposed an idea of “industrial education”, in which blacks were to go to school and learn a trade. He believed in this way blacks would prove themselves valuable to the community and eventually grow into an equal member. Giving them something new to focus on they were able to direct their confusion into a positive outcome, but the solution would only be a temporary one. Like many things in history, Washington 's notion of industrial education was considered a compromise that sought to calm the people, but later raised more problems. Although Washington’s idea did send

    Read More

  • Up From Slavery, by Booker T. Washington

    1135 Words  | 3 Pages

    Booker T. Washington was a young black male born into the shackles of Southern slavery. With the Union victory in the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, Washington’s family and blacks in the United States found hope in a new opportunity, freedom. Washington saw this freedom as an opportunity to pursue a practical education. Through perseverance and good fortunes, Washington was able to attain that education at Hampton National Institute. At Hampton, his experiences and beliefs in industrial education contributed to his successful foundation at the Tuskegee Institute. The institute went on to become the beacon of light for African American education in the South. Booker T. Washington was an influential voice in the African American community following the Civil War. In his autobiography, Up from Slavery, Washington outlines his personal accounts of his life, achievements, and struggles. In the autobiography, Washington fails to address the struggle of blacks during Reconstruction to escape the southern stigma of African Americans only being useful for labor. However, Washington argues that blacks should attain an industrial education that enables them to find employment through meeting the economic needs of the South, obtaining moral character and intelligence, and embracing practical labor. His arguments are supported through his personal accounts as a student at Hampton Institute and as an administrator at the Tuskegee Institute. Washington’s autobiography is a great source of insight into the black education debate following Reconstruction.

    Read More

More about Brief Summary: The Life Of Booker T. Washington

Open Document