From Rags to Respectability: A Study of Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery

Abstract

This qualitative study explores Booker T. Washington’s journey from slavery to an eminent educator in his autobiography Up From Slavery (1901). It examines a narrative of a young child growing morally and psychologically into an adult. Washington shows his rise from working in a plantation with his mother to his position as the nation’s educational leader. This struggle is an indispensable part of his identity construction. While he faced racism throughout his life, it was that experience and the memory of that experience which developed his power to resist all forms of discrimination. This study, therefore, argues that such self-made humans are not myths but are products of long, enduring struggle against adversities. Reflecting the larger society with its complex power play along the line of race, this personal narrative shows the way to the marginalized people like him to carve the way to identity and freedom. In order to highlight these aspects of his life, this study derives the insights about Bildungsroman as developed by Karl Morgenstern and Wilhelm Dilthey.