Booker T. Washington's From Up from Slavery p665

Washington had the drive, motivation, and spririt to be educated without being bogged down by the challenges of being a black man and by the obstacles he had in having access to a school while working at the salt mines.

When someone rises above the rest of his people, it's not that they aren't as good as him, he is just his own kind of person. Also, we all have our own purpose in life, Washington's happened to be a supporter and teacher in shaping what we call freedom. But does this just happen? I'm always wondering what successful people have. Are they born with it? Do they learn how to be successful?

From reading this, I see that Washington wanted to be educated. By putting aside his suffering as a slave, the consequences of being one, and by doing whatever he could to get to his day and night school, he got to where he wanted to be. Washington wanted plenty more, but his journey from being a slave to a well educated man among white men, I think was acheived.

First of all he had a speacial fascination with books and the thought of going to a place where people were taught- a school. While helping his mistress go to school he says, "The picture of several dozens boys and girls in a schoolroom engaged in study made a deep impression upon me, and I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise" (667). Washington found something he knew he liked and wanted to do. It stuck with him.

Washington expresses his amazment on how other slaves knew about the "grape-vine telegraph." The tone is strong on how he describes it, and he pinpoints the learning aspect of their knowledge. Washington mentions - "In this connection I have never been able to understand how the slaves throughout the South, completely ignorant as were the masses so far as books or newspapers were concerned, were able to keep themselves so accurately and completely informed about the great National questions that were agitating the country"
(667-8).

He's astonished at how these slaves learned. "I have never been able to understand," he says. He has thought more than once how the slaves knew things. This is about learning, he notices how learning is prevalent in everyone's lives, not just masters and owners. "These discussions showed that they understood the situation, and that they kept themselves informed of events..."(668). Washington doesn't mention anyone else noticing how they were learning of the news. This was inspiring to him.

So how was Washington to be educated? He described how his life "had its beginning in the midst to the most miserable, desolate, and discouraging surroundings"(665). He spends time explaining his "difficulties." The time period seems so long as to how he assured himself an education. Boy nothing stops Washinton as he says, "There was never a time in my youth, no matter how dark and discouraging the days might be, when one resolve did not continually remain with me, and that was a determination to secure an education at any cost"(678).

Problem one describes him having no teacher. "At that time there was not a single member of my race anywhere near us who could read, and I was too timid to approach any of the white people. In some way, within a few weeks, I mastered the greater portion of the alphabet"(675). Straightforward he snatches a "blue back spelling book" once he finds there was no one to teach him.

Washington met one of his "keen disapointments" of work disabling him to go to school. What does he say? "Despite this disappointment, however, I determined that I would learn something, anyway"(676). That's when he solved the problem and went to night school instead.

Washington didn't let anything get in the way of his goals. The difficulties go on with changing a clock at work in order to be at school on time, being "uncomfortable" having no hat amongst all the boys who did to making himself one from jeans, having no name to making himself one, and to keep finding good teachers.

Knowing that being free from years of expected, promised labor, it was hard to know what to do with oneself. I thought he would get tired of all these obstacles and just decide to be at peace with the salt mines. But no, he sticked to getting an education.

Describing the difficulties, there is no mentioning of whinning, discouragment, rethinking about his goals, or throwing in the towel and putting it in the trash. Washington describes the situation, then right after it is read, he writes what he did to solve it.

This quote really defines the subject- "I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed"(679).