Booker T. Washington's Legacy Essay

How to justify the legacy of one of the most looked up to individuals in just a short paragraph is rather difficult. Booker T. Washington was in fact one of the most highly regarded African American speaker and educator. Mr. Washington, achieved what most today would consider daunting or not possible. During his lifetime, Mr. Washington achieved a position of power and became known far and wide for his influences. Of course, having risen up beginning as a child through slavery, into the emancipation and onward as a freeman enabled him to have a greater passion and drive. Not only for those of his race but for those who may be less fortunate. He was a man of many beliefs and spoke of these in his many speeches. He encouraged his fellow African Americans to figure situations out for themselves, to work hard and to be educated. Having been a slave at the utmost impressionable time of his life, it is clear that these impressions heavily influenced him not only in his everyday

life, but his career until his death.
Mr. Washington was born to his slave mother on April 5, 1856 on a tobacco plantation. Mr. Washington was born into slavery and spent 9 years of his life on the plantation. His mother was a cook. Here they lived in a one room log cabin which had no windows and a dirt floor. This is where he and his siblings slept. Growing up, Mr. Washington recollects that every person on the plantation was expected to work. To ensure the efficiency of the plantation, his master, sons and slaves worked side by side. Every slave had a job and even though Mr. Washington was very young he was still required to do his part and contribute. Washington talks about having to perform menial chores like, carrying water to the fields for the men. He cleaned the yards and carried corn to the mill to be ground. When he became old and strong enough he would fan the flies from the table at the “big house” during their meals.
It was also during this time that Mr.

Washington was exposed to school but due to his slave status was not able to legally attend. He remembers he used to walk on of the mistresses to the school house, not being allowed to enter only deepened his desire to educate himself. In the book, he remembers a poignant memory of his mother not bending to the will of society when he came to her to ask about having a cap like the other kids. This taught him that there was not need to live outside your means to impress others. Basically, be happy with what you have. Having to deal with what he had to deal with gave him a better understanding of his desire for education and understanding of labor and the current race relations. This deepened his ambitions to be more than what he was. I find it interesting how some had the “driving force” to be more than what they were or even the knowhow of how to pursue it. Mr. Washington was destined in body, mind and spirit to be who he was and what he was in support

of.
If one thing can be said for those that grew up in slavery and having not know anything but, it was that they had a devotion to their masters and mistresses. Mr. Washington stated that it was not very characteristic of his race either whilst enslaved or free to betray any form of trust. In fact, many freeman/freewomen would do what they could to help out a former master or mistress. Mr. Washington talks specifically about one instance where the master was so down trodden that he actually relied upon his freed slaves in order to survive. They treated him with such tenderness regardless of their bitter feelings for that white master before and during the war. In a lot of ways, this was a