Navigating the Print Line: Shaping

Readers' Expectations in Booker T.

Washington's Autobiographies
ANTONIO T. BLY
O O O K E R T A L I A F E R R O WASHINGTON WAS NOT A.N EASY PERSON TO KNOW. " H e

was wary and silent," recalled W. E. B. Du Bois. "He never expressed

himself frankly or clearly imtil he knew exacdy to whom he was talking andjust what their wishes and desires were." A skillful diplomat,
Washington mastered the prickly art of sycophancy. Tactfully, he navigated the precarious minefield, the problematic "color-line" to use
Du Bois's words, in America. In her Works Progress Administration
interview, Sarah Fitzpatrick expressed a more pragmatic view of
the late African American leader. Booker T. Washington, the former Alabama slave recollected, "waiz a wise man . . . he al'ays let de
white man shine, so he could live an' wurk he'er."' More recently,
Louis R. Harlan likened him to the artful Br'er Rabbit of African
Antonio T. Bly is an Assistant Professor of History at Appalachian State University. His work
explores the interplay between Airican American Studit-ii and the histoi^ of the Ixxik in
America. A version of this article was presented at the SHARP (Society for the History of
Authoi*shijj, Reading, and Piibli.'ihing) 9th Annual Conference at the College of Williiim
8c Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, njiily 22, 2001. Much like Booker T. Washington, I am
indebted to my ghostwriters. In that regard, I would like thank William (arroll, Joanne M.
Bmxton, and Robert A. Gross, all of whom have encouraged my interest in Washington.
I also wish to tliank the anonymous readers of the Alabama RenUw and of coune its editcv
rial staff, especially Carey Cauthen. As always. I owe a special debt ol" gratitude to my wife
Dotmamaria who has endured me, my work, and has commented on several di-afts of this
article.
' Interviews with former slaves were recorded by the Works Progress Administration (WPA),
1936-38. WPA interviewers were instructed to record the dialect used by these former
slaves as they recounted their experiences in order to capture the "essential truth" present
in their words. "These life histories [were] taken down as far as possible in the narrators'
words,... Rich not only in folk songs, folk tales, and folk speech but also in folk humor and
pot-try, crude or skillful in dialect, uneven in tone and treatment, they constancy reward
one with earthy imagery, salty phrase, and sensitive detail." Works Progress Administration
for (he District of Cohmibia, Slave Narratives: A Eolk History of Slavery in the Uniled Stales from
IntfTiiews xih Former Slaves (Washington, D.C., 1941), viii-x.

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American folklore who used craftiness to outsmart his adversaries

and deference to achieve influence and sway. Those who have taken
Washington's "conventional public utterances," he went on to explain, "as evidence of a simple mind have underestimated the man.
He manipulated platitudes as though they were checkers in the game
of life, sometimes crowning platitude on platitude to increase their
force. His aim was not intellectual clarity, but power. His genius was
that of stratagem,"^
Perhaps nowhere is Washington's genius better exemplified than
in his autobiographical work. Shortly after he rose to prominence in
1895, Booker T. Washington set about publishing two difFerent accounts of his life story. Autobiography, he believed, gave him an of>portunity to spread his philosophy of industrial education, thrift, and
progressive social reform. To that end, the principal of the Tuskegee
Normal and Industrial Institute employed two separate ghostwriters to assist him iu the work, two copyeditors to oversee the proofs,
and two publishing firms who commanded different segments of the
book industry. In true Washingtonian fashion, the Wizard, as many
of his contemporaries dubbed him, had two separate audiences in
mind when he decided to write. In 1900, The Story oj My Life and Work
appeared in print. It was written primarily for rural, southern African
American readers. Less than one year later, Doubleday, Page, 8c Co.
published Washington's Up from Slavery. It was written largely for urban, northern whites.^
'^W. E. B. Dii Rois, Ihi.sk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of it Rare Concept {1940;
repn. New Bnuiswit k, N.J., 1984), 78-79; W. E. B. DLI Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, in T/ie
Norton Anthology of African American Aleiature, eu. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie Y McKay
{New York, 1997), 613; Sarah Fitzpatrick, "WTA Interview," in Slave Testimony: Two Onturies
of Letters, Speeches, Intennews, and Autofoiographie.i. ed. John W. Blassingame {Baton Rouge,
1977), 654; L<niisR. Harlan, Booker T. Wa.sfnngton: The Making of a Black Lradn. IS56-I9()J
(New York, 1972), 9'2.
^Almost a year before Doubleday, Page, & Co. published Washington's second life story in 1901, Up from Slavery appeared in print in seiial form in Outlook magazine. For a
fuller account of the history behind these two autobiographies, see Louis R. Harlan, ed..
The Boiler T. Washirigion Papers {Urbana, III., 1972-89), l:xv-xl; Harlan, Makmg of a Black
Leader, 229-53; Antonio T Bly, "'We Can Be as Separate as' the Pages of the Book; Booker
T Washington and the Work of Autobiography," Pmspec.ts: An Annual of Arrwriran Cultural
Studies 26 (2001): 163-81. Washington was principal of Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee
University) from 1881 to his death in 1915. Significantly, in the fall of 1898 {if not before)

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Both accounts achieved success. Not surprisingly, Washington

emerges as the unrelenting hero in each. His was a real life Horatio
Alger rags-ta-riches stoiy. In an era defined by graft and industry, the former Virginia slave overcame the challenges of slavery.
Reconstruction, and southern prejudice. And through hard work
and perseverance, Washington became the foremost voice of southern African Americans and of industrial education.
Although much has been written about Up from Slavery^ which has
become an American classic, comparably little has been done with
Washington's first autobiography.' Always mindful of those to whom

Washington enlisted Edgar Webber {an African American Journalist) as the ghostwriier,
and T. Thomas Fortune {a Friend and editor of a leading Airican American weekly) as
the copyeditor for Slo^y. By Webber's account, he worked primarily fnun ihe materials tJie
Wizard provided him. Similarly, when Washington began writing UpJmm Slavery, he enlisted
Max Bennett Thrasher {a whitejuurnalisi) as the ghostwriter and LjTnan Abbot! {the editor of Outlook magazine) as the copyeditor. Interestingly, by Harlan's accouni Washington
played a more active role in tJie development and publication of Up from Slavery than he
had in the earlier work. But considering Washington's meticulous nature and his efforts to
restrict Story to a subscription market. I find this assessment impersuasive. Harlan, Booker
T. Washington Papers. l:xix; Kdgar Webber to Washington. January 16, 1989, Harlan, Booker
T Washington Papers, ^-.W.

''For a fuller account of thai body of scholarship, see Roger J. Bresnahan, "The Implied
Readers of Booker T. Washington's Autobiographies," Black Amrrican Literature Forum 14
{Spring 1980): 15-20: Frederick L. McElroy, "Booker T Washington as Literary Trickster,"
Southern Folklore 49 {1992): 89-107; Charlotte 0. Filz^erd\. "The .St(ny of My Life and Woiii:

Booker T. Washington's Other Autobiography," Black Scholar 2\ {1993): 35-40; Donald

B. Gibson, "Strategies and Revisions of Self-Representation in Booker T. Washington's
Autobiographies," American Quarterly 45 (September 1993): 370-93. Recently, Houston
Baker reconsidered Washington's relationship with his audience. In his Turning South
Again: Re-lhinking Modernism/Re-readinfr Booker T. {Durham, N.C., 2001), Baker suggests that

UpfromSlaneiy docimienis instances of anxiety in which the Wizard struggles to negotiate

the tight space of being black in a .society where slavery and southern racial ideas defined
the African American experience. In that context, Washington's Up from Slavery masquerades in hiack to realize its goal of enlisting white financial support and. lor Baker, black
modernity. Central to that masquerade is the Wizard's use of African American stereotypes
that he eflectively employs as a form of currency to persuade whites as to the merits of his
pian. Nevertheless. Baker's analysisthough insightful in its psyehoanalytie discussion of
Booker T. Washingtonfails to consider the ways in which southern life, in particular its
underlying culture of black and white, informed how Washington adopted similar strategies when addressing Airican Americans. There can be little doubi that Baker is correct
in his assessment that Up from Slavery incorporates minstrel elements and masquerades
in black to achieve success. But how does Washington achieve success in hisfirstautobi-

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he spoke, Washington tailored Story for southern African American

readers. "A book to be effective," he makes plain in a letter to the
publisher Q, L. Nichols Sc Co.) of his first life story, "is very much like
an address; if it is prepared for one audience and then delivered to
another it becomes non-effective and non-interesting." Determined
to reach his audience, Washington restricted the circtilation of Story
to a subscription market that, as a matter of practice, covered rural
parts of the countiy. According to historian and Washington biographer Louis R. Harlan, J. L. Nichols had a substantial market in the
black community. Their inventory included numerous books that appealed to racial pride. The subscription book house also employed
numerous black salesmen, as well as a variety of schemes designed to
put books in the hands of African American readers {see the illustration on page 194 for an example of how J. L. Nichols advertised the
work) .^ What's more, as a way to shape his reader's expectations, the

ography? Baker does not say. His analysis falls short in that it does not consider how the
American Stiuth informed how Washington addressed Airican Americans. Tliis essay, in
contrast, adds to current scholarship by demonstrating how Washington also masquerades
in black in Story. There, the meaning of "blackness" is different from what Washington assumes "blackness" to be in Up from Slaxiery.
^Washington toj. L. Nichols & Co., April 26, 1901, in Harlan, Booker T. Washington Papers,
6:96; Harlan, Making of a Hl/irk leader, 243. On several separate occasions the Nichols firm
tried to capitalize on Washington's celebrity and venture into the trade market. Each lime,
Washington refused them, using tlie noi-stKsmall matter of unpaid royalties is a way to
convince the book company to discontinue such schemes. Bly, "We Can Be as Strparate,"
177-79; Harlan, Making of a Black Lender. 243-53; Harlan. Booker T. Washington Papers, 6:95-

96, 317-18. For much of the nineteenth century, as well as the first decade of the twentieth,
most Airican Americans resided in the rural Soutli. According to the twelfth eetisus of
the United States, "nearly nine-tenths (89.7 percent) of tlie negroes living in continental
United States are found in the Southern (South Atlantic and South Ontral) states, and
three-tenths {31.4 percent) in Georgia. Mississippi, and Alabama." Not until 1910-20 did
blacks begin to migrate to southern and northern cities in large numbers. Wiih respect to
their reading habits, the subscription market best met iheir growing needs, as subscription booksellers tended to sell from door to door, offering pay as-you-go plans. In its day,
Washington's Slory sold for SI.50, which represented no small sum considering thai well
over half of African Americans living in the Soutli laboi cd largely in low-paying agricultural
jobs. U.S. Census Office, Bulletin 8: Negroes in the United States, "The Negro Poptilation"
(Washington, D.C, 1904), 11; Walter F. Wilcox, et al., "The Economic Position of the
American Negro," Publications of the American Fxonomic Association: Papers and Ptnreedings of
the Seventeenth Annual Meeting6 (February 1905): 218-19.

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FREE SAMPLE
Of "THK STOBY OF MY M F E
WOKK," B y Bookor T.

AXI>

Bend us your name and

culdreea. TV*e T^ant yoQ
to havo a copy o thla
eutobiography of tho
n e a t e s t living Negro
for the purpose of Introducln' It lu your
community. It iB a
Temar)cable eellcr, biff
profit; agenta are makIngr froTn S4 to $ 10 per
day, "Wm you Introduce It by eelUDr or
gQiilns us on asent7
If so, send at onco for
a sample.
J . I.. NICHOLS & CO.,
Atlanta, Ga
ice Sl.OO.
The Story of My Life and Work advertisement,
published in Southern Planter, August 1903.

Wizard incorporated "authenticating documents"to borrow a term

from Robert B. Stepto's critical discourse concerning ways in which
African American authors achieved voice in the pastinto Story.
These documents depict a Booker T. Washington who talks back
to, questions, and criticizes white authoritya very different person
from the obsequious Washington of Up from Slavery or of his Atlanta

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Exposition Address.^ Accordingly, it is the Washington of Story and its

documents that are the focus of the essay that follows.
Frederick Douglass's letter to Harriet Beecher Stowe is one such
authenticating document that Washington includes in Slory to reach
his Ajfncan American readers. Dated March 8. 1853, Dotiglass's letter
to Stowe continues a conversation the two began "a fortnight ago"
when Douglass had visited her home. Judging from the letter, the
abolitionists discussed "the improvement and elevation of the free
colored people in the United States" and a possible avenue by which
Stowe could "permanently contribute" to their progress. In his letter,
Douglass concludes their earlier conversation, offering the celebrated author a cause in which to invest.
He begins of course with accolades. That is, after reminding the author of their earlier meeting, Douglass acknowledges his "deep sense
of the value of the sei'vices which" Stowe "rendered [to his] afflicted
and persecuted people, by the publication of [her] inimitable book
on the subject of slavery. . . . That contribution," he writes, "to our
bleeding cause, alone, involves us in a debt of gratitude which cannot be measured."' Undoubtedly, Douglass's reference is to Harriet
Beecher Stowe's bestselling abolitionist novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
After dispensing with the pleasantries, he then considers both the
"social disease of the Free Colored people in the United States" and
a plausible remedy. In his view, free blacks were afRicted by the "triple malady" of poverty, ignorance and degradation."'* Confronted with
the social reality of slavery in the South and racial prejudice in the
North, Douglass expresses skepticism about the idea of free black
^ln his From Behind the Veil: A Study of Afro-American Narrative {Vrhmrji, III., 1979), Robert B.

Stepto identities "authentication"a process in which ancillary documents (for example,

private or public letters) are introduced in a larger nanative or text for the sole purpose
of adding substance to a writer's claim of authorshipas a central motif in black writing.
In that model, Washington's Story of My Life and WorA easily qualifies as a self-authenticating
narrative. That is, Washington manipulates llie aitlhenticaiing documenLs in his autobiography to achieve a ceruin literary design. The authentication process identified by Stepto
differs from "authenticating narnttives." which include .secondary materials to affirm or
establish the validity of dilierent parts in ihe larger narrative.
'Frederick Douglass to Harriet Beecher Stowe, March 8, 1853, in Ihe Life and Writings of
Frederick Douglass, ed. Philip Foner (NewYork, 1950), 2:229.
Ibid.

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"high schools and colleges," which he perceives as a "fancied or artificial elevation." Such institutions, he conservatively observes, are "beyond our immediate occasions, and are not adapted to our present
most pressing wants. High schools and colleges are excellent institutions, and will, in due season, be greaUy subservient to our progress;
but they are the result, as well as they are the demand of a point of
progress, which we, as a people, have not yet attained." For Douglass,
the more immediate and sensible answer for African Americans lay
in industrial education. "Accustomed . . . to the rougher and harder
modes of living," he writes that working "patiently and laboriously"
with the hands in "gradations of agriculture and the mechanic arts"
would serve as an intermediate step toward achieving the high condition of''Ministers, Lawyers, Doctors, Editors, Merchants, 8cc"^ To improve

their condition, he recommends to Stowe and her "trans-Atlantic

friends" the establishment of an "INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE in which
shall be taught several important branches of the mechanical arts."'"
While not discounting the significance of a professional class of free
blacks, Douglass felt that such a class did not promote their more
pressing needsemployment and improved living conditions. To
further illustrate that point, he employs an anecdote:
We have now two or three colored lawyers in this country;
and I rejoice in the fact. . . . [But] white people will not
employ them . . . and the blacks, taking their ruf from the
whites, have not sufficient confidence in their abilities. . . .
I can more easily get my son into a lawyer's office to learn
law than I can into a blacksmith's shop to blow the bellows
and to wield the sledge-hammer."
Ever the pragmatist, Douglass writes that the best way to deliver a
blow against slavery and to repudiate the idea that blacks were an
inferior race is to invest in enterprises promoting industrial educa"Ibid., 230.
'"Ibid., 235. 233.
"Ibid., 231,234.

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tion among free blacks. "We must become mechanics," he explains,

"we must build as well as live in houses; we must make as well as use
furniture; we must constnict bridges as well as pass over them, before
we can properly live or be respected by our fellow men."''~
Washington concurs, and includes Douglass's letter in Story not
only as evidence of the rightness of his own plan, but also as a literary
strategy to appeal to his African American readers, many of whom
held Frederick Douglass in high regard. Although Douglass was deceased by the time of Storfs publication, most Africa Americans
still saw the self-made statesman as perhaps the only significant black
leader of the era. By incorporating the letter into his own life story,
Washington seeks to liken himself to Douglass. He admits as much
in the preface that appears in his narrative before the introduction
of the letter. "Mr. Douglass had the same idea concerning the importance and value of industrial education that I have tried to emphasize. He also held the same views as I do in regard to emigration of the
Negro to Africa."'^ By invoking Douglass in this manner, Washington
attempts to position himself in the eyes of his black readers as the
heir to Douglass's vacant place as the leader of African Americans.
To ensure that connection, the Wizard freely edited Douglass's
letter. For example, Douglass's complimentary acknowledgment of
Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was omitted. Considering
that Slory was sold largely throughout the South, the omission
seemed to be a sensible one, as southern whites still did not think
too much of Stowe's inflammatory book. Rather than run the risk
of stirring up those old passions (though the book was written for
African Americans, it did nonetheless find its way into southern,
white handssometimes by way of Washington himself), the Wizard
., 234.
T. Wa.shington, The Story of My Life and WOT*, in Harlan, Booker T. Washington

Papers, h.'jR. Subsquent quotations from UpfwmSlaveiy (1901) and The Story of My Life and
Work (1900) are uikcn from this vohime of Washington's published papers. Incidentally,
in his letter to Stowe, Douglass discusses how American prejudice and racism forced "the
Russwiinnsthe Garnettsthe Wardsthe Crummells and othersall men of superior
ability and attainment, and capable of remo\ing mountains of prejudice against their race,
by their simple presence in tlie countrj'" to immigrate to Africa. He respectfully disagrees
with their choice to leave the United States; Foner, Life and Writings, 2:231.

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assumed a modest position on the matter and took the line out.
Furthermore, many of Douglass's references to slavery, his condemnation of American prejudice and racism, and his celebration of an
educated, black ministry and professional classgroups Washington
openly criticized^were taken out. The most important section removed from Douglass's letter was his ambivalent comments concerning New York congressman Gerrit Smith's proposal that "free blacks"
pursue agriculture in the western territories. "To go into the western
wildness," Douglass writes, "and there to lay the foundation of future
society, requires more of that important quaiity than a life of slavery
has left us. . . . Therefore, I look to other means than agriculture
pursuits for the elevation and improvement of colored people."^'*
Leaving nothing to chance, Washington omits these lines in which
Douglass expresses some misgivings about the plan proposed by
Smith and other free soilers to purchase land to provide free blacks
an opportunity to realize self-sufficiency, free from prejudice.'^ To
judge from these omitted portions, Washington probably figured
that Douglass's comments would have been misread as a criticism of
his own industrial program, so he excludes them to prevent such a
reading. Compared to the original, the letter that appeared in Story is
rendered less defiant and even less critical. Washington deliberately
re<ontextualizes it to add substance to his own standing as the new
African American leader.
Interestingly, Douglass's death in February 1895seven months
before Washington delivered his historic Atlanta Address in which
he insisted on a policy of black accommodation in the face of white
racismcoincided with Washington's rise to national recognition.
Moreover, in Up from Slavery Washington does not attempt to make
any sort of connection to Frederick Douglass. Instead, he simply uses
an anecdote that portrays the late African American leader and abolitionist as a man with an indomitable spirit. That is not the case in his
''Frederick Douglass lo Harriet Beecher Stowe, March 8, 1853, in Foner. fe and Writing,
2:232.
'^For an interesting discussion of Frederick Douglass's relationship with Gcrril Smith.
see John R. McKivigan, "The Frederick Douglass-Gcrrii Siniih Friendship and Polical
Abolitionism in the iS.'JOs." in FredMck DougUiss: Nnv Literary and HistoricatEssays, ed. EricJ.

Suiidquisi (New York, 1990), 205-32.

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first autobiography. In addition to including Douglass's letter in Story,

Washington inserts a photograph of the "Hon. Frederick Douglass"
after the frontispiece of the autobiography, separated from a photograph of "Mr. Booker T. Washington and his Family" by only two
pages. Visually, the arrangement of these photographs (see pages
200 and 201) suggests a symbolic genealogy or family tree that depicts Washington as the heir to Donglass. In contrast, no such photographs or arrangements appear in his second life story. Although it is
impossible, considering existing records, to know for certain whether
or not Washington was responsible for the inclusion of the photograph, letters from his ghostwriter clearly imply that he did in fact
make suggestions as to which photographs and illustrations should
be included in Story.^^
Washington's open letter to the Louisiana State Constitutional
Convention (printed in the Neiv Orleans Picayune on February 21,
1898, and in the New Orleans Times-Demoaat on Februaiy 21, 1898),
which condemns southerners who worked to disfranchise African
Americans, offers us another example of the Wizard's effort to remake himself for the readers of Story. Previously, the principa! of
Tuskegee had proposed modest solutions to problems of racial animus. As they aspired toward working with their hands, he reasoned,
African Americans would gradually move from a position of poverty
to a position of propert)' and respect within the larger white community, gaining ultimately the laurels of///citizenship. "No race,"
Washington declared in his celebrated Atlanta Address, "can prosper
till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing
a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top."
At the center of that progressive message lay work which engendered
merit, virtue, and worthiness. Together, he believed, those elements
fostered a form of propriety and deference that would in time remove the stains of racism and discrimination.'^
'"Washington. Up from Slavery. 267; Webber to Washington, January 16, t899, in Haran,
Booker T. Washington Papers, 5:11. Also see Webber lo Margaret James Murray Washington,
November 26, 1901, in Harian, Booket T. Washington Papers, 6:329-30. In boLh of ihose letters, Webber suggests that Washington played a role in determining which photographs
and illustrations were included in SCcny.
''Washington, Upfrovi Slavery, 331.

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UR. BOOEBR T. WASHINGTON AND HIS FAMILY.

Frontispiece of Washington and his family placed

next to the title page of The Story of My Life and Work,

By contrast, a much bolder Washington emerges in his open letter

to the convention, one who is undeniably less temperate in his views
concerning the white rancor directed toward blacks. In an attempt
to dissuade the convention representatives from "pass[ing] a law that
would result in the disfranchising of . . . Negro voters," Washington
frames the purpose of the convention as a moral challenge to the
lawmakers of the state of Louisiana. In typical Washingtonian fashion, he opens the letter deferentially: "I know that I am running the
risk of appearing to meddle with something that does not concern
m e . . . . I am no politician." And yet, he felt compelled to address the

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HON. FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

Portrait of Douglass placed after the frontispiece

"Mr. Booker T. Washington and his Family."

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"unjust[ness]" of black disfranchisement, thus inviting the criticism

of the convention.'"
Describing himself as an advocate of progressive politics, Washington
assures "the gentlemen of the Convention" of the conservative position he held with regards to blacks and the vote. "I have always advised
my race," Washington reminds that esteemed body, "to give attention
to acquiring property, intelligence and character, as the necessary
bases of good citizenship, rather than to mere political agitation.""'In
his judgment, the acquisition of property and education would eventually engender full citizenship. If applied evenly and fairly to both
whites and blacks, education could be employed as a useful divide, a
type of litmus test that would ultimately decide who should and, for
that matter, who should not have access to the ballot. Ignorance, as
opposed to southern racism, denied blacks the vote.
Still, as a concerned citizen, he declares that African Americans do
nonetheless have a constitutional right to vote. Criticizing those who
would deny them that right, Washington warns that the convention's
efforts to disenfranchise voters will create a moral obstacle that could
permanently afflict not only the disfranchised but the enfranchised
as well. Disarmingly, he states "I am not pleading for the Negro alone,
but for the morals, the higher life of the white man. . . . No State in
the South can lnake a law that will provide an opportunity . . . for an
ignorant white man to vote, and withhold the same opportunity from
an ignorant colored man, without injuring both men." By connecting
the races in this manner, Washington at once manages to criticize the
South while appearing to be uncritical. "Any law controlling the ballot," he explains, "that is not absolutely just and fair to both races, will
work more permanent injury to the whites than to blacks."^"
Ever the diplomat, Washington offers the members of the convention a compromise. Rather than emphasize black voting rights, he
stresses the need for industrial training. To Washington, education
would win for African Americans access to the ballot. Anticipating
the iinminent disfranchisement of black voters in Louisiana, he
sought what he considered a more obtainable goalenlisting the
'"Washington, Story of My Life, 113.
'^Ibid.
"'Ibid., 1 1 4 .

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convention's aid in improving the condition of African Americans

through education. "I beg of you, further," he proposes graciously,
"that in the degree that you close the ballot box against the ignorant,
that you open the school house. . . . No State can long prosper when
a large percentage of its citizenship is in ignorance and poverty, and
has no interest in government." Clearly, in the Wizard's mind, half a
loaf was better than no loaf at all. "The highest test of civilization of
any race," he declares, "is in its willingness to extend a helping hand
to the less fortunate. A race, like an individual, lifts itself up by lifting
others up."^'
Another example of an aiuhencating document, Washington's
open letter to the constitutional convention not only establishes him
as a supporter of black voting rights, but also recommends industrial
education as a means of realizing those rights. In educating southern
African Americans, Tuskegee and other industrial institutions sought
to insure that blacks would win their right to vote in due season. By
including this letter in Story, Washington connects himself and his
work with his intended audience^African American readerswho,
during the post-Reconstruction Era, were being denied access to the
ballot.
No such Washington appears in the pages of his second life story.
Far from it. In Up from Slavery, Washington mentions indirectly his
open letter to the Louisiana Convention. Only briefly does he discuss
his position on black enfranchisemenL^^ Notably, elsewhere in his
second autobiography, Washington scoffs at blacks in Alabama and
their wrongheaded voting practices:
At the time I went to Alabama the coloured people were
taking considerable interest in politics, and they were very
anxious that I should become one of them politically,
in every respect. They seemed to have a little distrust of
strangers in this regard. I recall that one man, who seemed
to have been designated by the others to look after my
political destiny, came to me on several occasions and said.

Washington, UpJmm Slavery, S58-S9.

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with a good deal of earnestness: "We wants you to be sure
to vote jes' like we votes. We can't read de newspapers very
much, but we knows how to vote, an' we wants you to vote
jes' like we votes." He added: "We watches de white man,
and we keeps watching de white man till we finds out which
way de white man's gwine to vote, den we votes 'xactly de
other way. Den we knows we's

Clearly, his memory here is intentionally underscored by a degree

of mockery. But in Story he includes no such recollection of blacks
trying to make nse of the ballot in this manner as such a reference
would have undoubtedly earned him the scorn of black readers.
Despite Washington's efforts to the contrary, his cautious appeal
to the Louisiana Convention fell on deaf ears, and the convention
members included in the new state constitution restrictions on black
Americans that prevented them from voting. In response, Washington
worked secretly with the National Afro-American Council. Under the
auspices of the council and the pseudonym "X. Y. Z.," the Wizard
used his influence and resources to finance a test case that challenged Louisiana's disfranchising grandfather clause, which read
"no male person who was on January 1st, 1867, or at any date prior
thereto entided to vote under the . . . statutes of any State . . . wherein
he then resided, and no son or grandson of any such person not
less than twenty-one years of age at the date of the adoption of this
Constitution, and no male person of foreign birth, who was naturalized prior to the first day ofjanuary, 1898, shall be denied the right to
register and vote in this State." Not surprisingly, the outcome of that
case was to naught.^'
"Ibid., 27.V74.
** August Meier, "Toward a Reinterpretation of BookerT. WAshingUm." Journal of Southern
Htory2S (May 1957): 21; Louis R. Harlan, "The Secret Life of Booker X Washington,"
Jotimal of Southern HhKiry 37 (August 1971): 396-97; "ConstUiition of the State of Louisiana,
Adopted May 12, 1898." in Walter L. Fleming, ed., Documentary History of Reconstruction:
Polical, Military, Social, Religioiis, Educational isf Industrial, 865 tothePrexent Time (Cleveland,
1906), 1:451. Started in 1898, ihe National Afro-American Council was the first nationwide
civil rights organization; it lobbied untiringly against lynching and the increasing disfranchisement of African Americans voters in the South.

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The inclusion of Washington's Chicago Peace Jubilee Address

(1898) in Story also functions as a device to connect with African
American readers. Given before "President William McKinley, the
members of his cabinet, foreign ministers and a large number of
army and navy officers, many of whom had distinguished themselves
during the Spanish-American war," the Wizard's Chicago Address revealed a different side of Washington. Unlike his Atlanta Address,
which incorporated minstrel elements as a way of soliciting white support, Washington's Chicago speech used the commemoration of the
end of the war to acknowledge the contribution of African American
patriots and soldiers.^' When confronted with adversity, he unflinchingly declared, African Americans had always passed the supreme
test of character and had "chosen the better part." In the American
Revolution, for example, when African Americans were "asked to
decide between British oppression and American independence,"
Washington said, "we find him choosing the better part. .. that white
American[s] might enjoy liberty... though his race remained in slavery." When confronted with the Civil War, "when he knew that victory
on one hand meant freedom, and defeat on the other . .. continued
enslavement," African Americans again chose the better part. Rather
than give in to temptation and "burn the home and massacre vfe
and children during the absence of the master in battle," enslaved
black Americans decided to protect those "helpless, defenseless ones
entrusted to his care." When the Republic was threatened again and
the Spanish-American War beckoned, "we find the Negro forgetting
his own wrongs, forgetting the laws and customs that discriminated
against him in his own country," choosing once again the better part.^
In passing this test of character, Washington believed that the sacrifice
of African Americans warranted recognition. Any race "willing to die
for its country," he boldly noted, deserved "the highest opportunity
to live [unhindered by racism and prejudice] for its country."^'

^Washington, Story of My Ufe, 119. For a useful account of minstrelsy and Booker T
Wiishington, see Houston A. Baker, Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance (Chicago, 1987),
25-36.
'^'Washington, Story of My Life, 120.
"Ibid.. 121.

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Using this detailed sketch of biack patriotism as a backdrop,

Washington announced that America had yet another battle to face:
racial prejudice. "There remains one other victory for Americans to
win," he said before a crowd of sixteen thousand, "a victory as farreaching and important as any that has occupied our army and navy.
We have succeeded in every conflict, except the effort to conquer
ourselves in the blotting out of racial prejudices." Speaking with unaccustomed candor, he likened racial prejtidice to "a cancer gnawing
at the heart of the republic" and cautioned President McKinley and
his fellow Americans that it "shall one day prove as dangerous as an
attack [from] an army without or within."-" When confronted with
southern racial prejudice and the restriction of black civil liberties,
Washington, closing his address, asked white Americans: would they
choose the better part?
By incorporating this speech in Slory, Washington makes another
appeal, in several ways, to African American readers. First, he celebrates the unyielding spirit of black people. Contrary to the poor,
uneducated, and ignorant "coloured" masses that appear throughout
Up from Slavery, Washington offers a different African American to the
readers o Story. To judge from tliis document, African Americans are
presented as gallant, brave, and persevering. During the Revolution,
the Wizard reminds his readers, Crispus Attucks, "a Negro, was the
first to shed his blood" for the American cause of freedom. In the
historic Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812, Washington
recalls, it had been African Americans who again answered the call
of "General Andrew Jackson."^ Washington's Chicago Address was
also a testimony of black achievement and contribution. As an authenticating document included in Story, it probably fostered in its
intended readers not only a sense of racial pride, but also a sense of
identity. Washington had his publishers include an illustration of the
speech in Story, which gave added emphasis to his Chicago Address
(see illustration).

"Ibid., 120.

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In comparison, the text of Washington's Chicago Address is not included in UpfromSlavery. In his second life story, the Wizard's Atlanta
Address is the only speech he thought proper to incorporate. Instead
of celebrating black patriotism and gallantry, in Up from Slavery
Washington speaks primarily of the debilitating effects that slavery
had \isited on African Americans and endorses industrial education
as the only viable solution.^" To no one's surprise, an illustration of
his Chicago Address does not appear in Up from Slavery.
Washington's letter to the southern press (1899) is another authenticating document he includes in Slory to connect with southern African
Americans. Written from Europe and largely in response to the lynching of Sam Hose, Washington's letter to leading newspapers in the
South seeks to encourage white southerners to stop lynching, an act
which in hisviewviolated the rights of all involved. In its disregard for
the law, he explains, lynching made southerners appear uncivilized
and amoral. In typical Washingtonian fashion, he denounces lynching while appearing on the surface to be deferential. "I fear that but
few people in ihe South realize," he writes cautiously, "to what extent
the habit of lynching, or the taking of life without due process of law,
has taken hold of us, and to what extent it is hurting us, not only in
the eyes of the world, but in our own moral and material growth."'"
Washington disputes with "cold facts" southern claims that lynching represented a just form of punishment for those who sexually
violated white women. In that regard, he challenges his southern
contemporaries with the fact that in the previous year "127 persons
were lynched. . . . Of the total number . . . 102 were Negroes, 23 were
whites and 2, Indians. . . . Only 24 of the entire number were charged
. . . with the crime of rape; that is, 24 out of 127 cases of lynching."
Armed with these facts and others, Washington decries lynching as
a social and moral wrong that destroyed the lives of both the victims
and their white assailants. With respect to the former, he observes,
In up fmm Slavery, 349-51, Washington briefly menlions ihe Chicago Peace Jubilee
Address.
''Wasbington, Slory of My Life, 150. For an accouni of the Sain Hose lynching, see Harlan,
Making of a Black Uader, 262-63.

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lynching robbed the South of a redeemable person. But as for the latter, it stripped them of their humanity, or as he put the matter more
plainly, lynching "injures, hardens and blunts the moral sensibilities
of the young and tender manhood of the South." To further illustrate
that loss of innocence, the Wizard invokes a useful anecdote. "Never
shall I forget," he recalls, "the remark by a little nine-year-old white
boy, with blue eyes and flaxen hair. The little fellow said to his mother
after he had returned from a lynching: 'I have seen a man hanged;
now I wish I could see one burned.'"^^
While he sternly censures those who would take pleasure in lynching, he also denounces those who raped and violated women, saying unwaveringly, "I condemn with all the indignation of my soul
the beast in human form guilty of assaulting a woman." But even
those beasts, he quickly reminds his southern brethren, should receive the justice which should be afforded to them under the law,
for chaos and injustice result from lawlessness. "The history of the
world proves," he exclaims, "that where law is most strictly enforced
is the least crime; where people take the administration of law into
their own hands is the most crime." Washington also criticizes paid
law enforcement officers and public officials, the stewards of law and
order, who betrayed the rights of the lynched by doing nothing. "In
the South," he writes, "there is less excuse for not permitting the law
to take its course, where a Negro is to be tried, than anywhere else in
the world."^^
As an authenticating document, this letter establishes Washington
as an opponent of lynching. By including it in Story, he effectively
identifies himself as both a southerner and an African American to
the readers of his first autobiography. To them, Washington was a
champion, one who sought to protect and ensure perhaps the most
fundamental of their rights; life. Notably, in Up from Slavery, the
34
Wizard only alludes to the "evil habit of lynching.""

''"Ibid., 150-52.
"Ibid.. 152-53.
^^Washington, Up from Slavery, 384.

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From its conception, Washington intended Story for African

American readers. There, he presents himself as an ex-slave who had
triumphed over slavery and southern prejudice by applying the principles of work, thrift, and industrial education to his own life. In the
pages of that autobiography, Washington's aspiration for an education and, later, his philosophy as a national figure, are fostered not
only by a number of successive white mentors (as noted in the second autobiography), but also by successive black mentors. In fact, he
makes it a point to acknowledge several directly and in most cases by
namenot vaguely, as he does in Up from Slavery. Unlike the Booker
T. Washington of Up from Slavery, the Washington of Story is the son
of an enduring black community whose shared struggle made his life
and work possible. For example, he recounts that watching William
Davis, a black school teacher in West Virginia, reading the newspaper
"among a large number of [illiterate] colored people . . . fired" his
ambition as a child "to learn to read as nothing had done before."^^
He even includes an illustration of the incident in Story. An unnamed
African American man instilled in him perhaps one of his earliest lessons of virtue.^ Of that elderly figure, Washington recalls
I remember . . . playing marbles one Sunday morning
. . . with a number of other boys, and an old colored man
passed by on his way to Sunday school. He spoke a little
harshly to us about playing marbles on Simday [and] explained in a few broken though plain words what a Sunday
school meant. . . . His words impressed me so that 1 put
away my marbles and followed him to Sunday school, and
thereafter was in regular attendance."
His devoted mother, Jane, and his older brother, Johnboth whom
are named in ^SOT) along with Lewis Adamshelped him at every turn
''Washington, Story of My Life, 15. Conversely, in Up from Slavery. 218, "the picture of several
dozen [white] boys and girls in a schoolroom engaged in study made a deep impression
upon" a young Washington to learn to read.
^'Washington often omits the names of individuals in his autobiography. For a discussion
of the rca-sons behind this act, see endnote 40 below.
"Washington, Story of My Life, 16.

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THIS I-REU MV AMBITION TO LEARN TO Ri:.\D, AS NOTHING

H.AD DONE HKKORK

Illustration of William Davis reading

a newspaper, published in
Thfi Story of My Life and Work.

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achieve his education, first in West Virginia and later at Hampton.

(Washington includes a drawing of his mother in Story as well). Adams,
the leading black citizen in Tuskegee, made Washington's work there
possible by securing the school for the town and "an annual appropriation of $2,000" for its operation.^'^ In Story, Washington indeed
emerges as the hero of his own success story. But that hero, unlike the
one that would atcr appear in Up from Slavery, is representative of a
larger community struggling to move up from slavery to freedom.
As an orator, Booker T. Washington directly addressed those to
whom he spoke; he similarly mastered the discourse of autobiography. A comparison of his two published life stories reveals that
Washington's first account is arguably as complex as the second
one, despite the current emphasis of modern scholarship on Up from
Slavery. To borrow from William L. Andrews's analysis, Washington's
Up from Slavery typifies the post-bellum narrative. Like most works of
that particular genre of African American letters, it celebrates work,
self-improvement, and the appropriation of white mores and values.
In that account of his life, Washington's memory of the institution
of slavery and the horrors of slave life are intentionally reconfigured
and rendered inconsequential. In an era driven by special interests
and big business, such displays proved to be both advantageous and
profitable. In contrast, Washington's 5/or)i incorporates aspects of the
antebellum slave narrative in that it recounts various details of his
life as a slave.^^ Included in the pages of Washington's first life story
are memories of his mother and her efforts to care for her children,
the work slave children were forced to perform, and, perhaps most
significant, the ghastly memory of watching his uncle being tied to a
tree and beaten.

'^Ibid., 30.
'"For a fuller discussion of antebeltum and post-bellum narratives, see William L. Andrews,
"Forgotten Voices of Afro-American Autobiography, 1865-1930," a/b: Auto/Biography
Studm 2 (Fall 1986): 21-27; Andrews, "The Represeniaiion of Slavery and the Rise of
Afro-American Literary Realism, 1865-1920." in African American Autobiography: A Collection
of Critirat Essays, cd. William L. Andrews (Englewood i;iifrs, N.J., 1993). 77-89; Robert
B. Steplo, "Narration. Aulhentication, and Authorial Control in Frederick Douglass's
Narrative of 184.'i," in African American Autolnography, 26-35.

213

LITTLE BOOKER AND HIS MOTHER PRAYING TO BE

DELIVERKD FROM SLAVERY.

Illustration of young Booker T. Washington

and his mother, printed in
The Story of My Life and Work.

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Incidentally, the Wizard may have made up the episode involving

his uncle as yet another way to tailor his account for African American
readers. Regarding his unclewhose name (Monroe Burroughs) he
neglects to mentionWashington recalls: "The thing in connection
with slavery that has left the deepest impression on me was the instance of seeing a grown man, my uncle, tied to a tree . . . stripped naked" and whipped with a cowhide.*' "As each blow touched his back
the cry, 'Pray, master! Pray, master!' came from his lips, and made
an impression upon my boyish heart that I shall carry with me to
my grave."'*' An admirer ofFrederick Douglass, Washington probably
made use of Douglass's account of his Aunt Hester's beating as a model. Whatever his reasons for including the memory, Laura Burroughs
Holland, an old acquaintance and daughter of Washington's former
owner, disagreed with his recollection ofthat event, which may in fact
conceal something of a personal moment for Washington in which
the former slave talks back to the matriarch of the family who once
owned him. "I have rec'd your book," she writes Washington in a private correspondence in 1904, and "there are some mistakes in i t . . .
as to your uncle being corrected with a cowhide. My father corrected
his children with a switch &: the colored ones also. I am much older
than you 8c I never knew him to use a cowhide even on his stock."''^
^''Throughout Story of My Life, Washington uses names and the act of naming as a means
of connecting with his intended readers. In this case, he omitted the name of his uncle,
even though ihe corporal punishnit-nt his uncle endured had made a strong impression on
him. Considering the complex history of Slory of My Life and its author, this omission can
be read in several ways. First, perhaps Washington simply forfjot his uncle's name. Second,
perhaps he chose not to include the name. Or, third, Washington may have omitted the
name so as to create an interesting silence within his narrative, one whose ambiguous
nature would invite hiack readers to identiiy more with his "Life and Work." Through the
act of not naming, Washington's uncle becomes no one's and everyone's uncle at the same
time. A similar case can be made for the unnamed old black man whose chiding inspired
Washington to attend church. For a fuller account of the significance of naming and not
naming, see Kimberly W. Ben.ston, "I Yam what I Am: The Topos of (Un)Naming in AfroAmerican Literature," in Black Literature and Literary Theory, ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. {New
York, 1984), 151-71.
^'Washington. Slory of My Life, t2,
*^ L^ura Aiigeline Burroughs Holland to Washington, 1904, Booker T, Washington Papers,
Manuscript Division, Lihrary of Congress, Box .57, Reel 52. While we may never know for
certain the answer to the question of whether or not Washington invented the incident involving his uncle, that incident and the one that appeared in Frederick Douglass's Narrative
bear a striking .similarity. Tlierc, Doiiglass write.s: "Aunt Hester had not only disobeyed

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Whether concocted or not, Washington's recollection of his uncle offers us not only another example of how he personalized Story for his
readers, it also offers another illusiration of the complexity of a book
still mostly overlooked by modern scholars.
Although most current students of the Wizard favor his second life
story over the first, that is not case with his contemporaries. Quite the
contrary; if book sales count for anything, black readers embraced
Booker T. Washington's Story of My Life and Work. Although restricted
largely to a subscription market in the rural South, it sold surprisingly
well. For several years, as a matter of fact, it outsold UpfromSlavery
in spite of lukewarm reviews. By 1901 the Nichols firm had sold fifteen thousand copies of Story. Three years later, the company claimed
to have sold seventy-five thousand copies. In contrast, by 1903 the
Doubleday, Page, 8c Co. claimed to have sold only thirty thousand
copies of Up frvm Slavery.^^ To judge from these figures. Story was a
bestseller in its day. Washington certainly believed so. He followed
the btilky book's rise with some surprise. "It is very gratifying," he
told the Nichols firm in 1905. "Everywhere I go I am constantly surprised to meet the large number of colored men and women who
tell me that they have been helped in many directions by reading this

his orders in going out, but had been found in company with Lloyd's Ned; which circumstance, I found, from what he said while whipping her, was the chief offence.. , . Before he
commenced whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her from
neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back, entirely naked. He then told her to
cross her hands.. . . After crossing her hands, he tied ihem with a strong rope, and led her
to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in for the purpose. He made her get upon
the stool, and tied her hands to [lie hook. She now stood fail for his infernal pmpose. Her
arms were stretched up at their full length, so that she stood upon the ends of her toes.. , .
He commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm, red blood (amid heartrending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him) came dripping to the floor. I was
so terrified and horror-stricken at the sight, that I hid myself in a closet, and dared not
venture out till long after the bloody transaction was over. . . . I had never seen any thing
like ithefore." Frederick Douglass. Nanalive of the Life ofFredmck Douglass. An American Slave

(1845; repr. New York, 1986), 52.

'^Hailau, Booker T. Washington Papers, 1 :xxi; Harlan, Making of a Black Leader, 2.51.

^''Washington to J. L. Nichols & Co., November 24, 1905, Archives of the Booker T.
Washington Papers Editorial Project. 1967-1984, Box 20, Special Collections, Hornbake
Library, University of Maiyland,