Black History Month Blog

Booker T. Washington (larger image)

As part of the Black History Month Blog, VCU Libraries' Special Collections and Archives will post weekly images from its collections of photographs, manuscripts, and other materials that help document African American life and history in Virginia.

This combination of two images is taken from Special Collections and Archives' copy of Up From Slavery: An Autobiography by Booker T. Washington published in 1901. This copy is inscribed by Washington and reads "...with kind wishes of Booker T. Washington, April 14, 1901." To whom it was inscribed has been erased presumably by an earlier owner of the book.

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was considered one of the most influential African American leaders at the turn of the last century. Born a slave in Franklin County, Virginia, Washington helped found the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and preached a philosophy of self-help, racial solidarity and accommodation. He closed his 319 page autobiography with these words:

As I write the closing words of this autobiography I find myself - not by design - in the city of Richmond, Virginia: the city which only a few decades ago was the capital of the Southern Confederacy, and where, about twenty-five years ago, because of my poverty I slept night after night under a sidewalk. This time I am in Richmond as the guest of the coloured people of the city; and came at their request to deliver an address last night to both races in the Academy of Music, the largest and finest audience room in the city. This was the first time that the coloured people had ever been permitted to use this hall. The day before I came, the City Council passed a vote to attend the meeting in a body to hear me speak. The state Legislature, including the House of Delegates and the Senate, also passed a unanimous vote to attend in a body. In the presence of hundreds of coloured people, many distinguished white citizens, the City Council, the state Legislature, and state officials, I delivered my message, which was one of hope and cheer; and from the bottom of my heart I thanked both races for this welcome back to the state that gave me birth.

-- Ray Bonis, Archival Assistant - Special Collections and Archives