Up From Slavery Summary

AML 2020
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington
Chapter 1
He was born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia. He was not quite sure of exactly where or the exact day he was born. As far as he knew he was born near a cross-roads post-office, which was called Hale's Ford, and he was born in the year was 1858 or 1859. He never knew the month or the day. “I WAS born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia. I am not quite sure of the exact place or exact date of my birth, but at any rate I suspect I must have been born somewhere and at some time.” (1)
He was born in what was considered a typical log cabin. He lived in that cabin with his mother, a brother, and his sister until after the Civil War, when they were all

Though he never understood how slaves, who did not have the best of education, if any, where able to keep up with the events going on around them, though he did remember overhearing his mother and other people speaking about the matter once “I now recall the many late-at-night whispered discussions that I heard my mother and the other slaves on the plantation indulge in. These discussions showed that they understood the situation, and that they kept themselves informed of events by what was termed the "grape-vine" telegraph.” (8)
He couldn’t remember a time during his childhood when his entire family sat down to the table together, and the family was able to eat together in a civilized manner. Most often, their meals were “a piece of bread here and a scrap of meat there. It was a cup of milk at one time and some potatoes at another. Sometimes a portion of our family would eat out of the skillet or pot, while someone else would eat from a tin plate held on the knees, and often using nothing but the hands with which to hold the food”