A Biography Of Booker T Washington History Essay

A Biography Of Booker T Washington History Essay Birth, Parents and Family Life The well known clichà ©, bad beginnings have good endings, resonates in one’s mind when this name is mentioned. Booker T. Washington’s life, undoubtedly encapsulate this well-known phrase as throughout his life evidence proves how he grew and became very successful. Booker Taliaferro Washington’s life began on April 5th, 1856 where he was born into slavery on the Burroughs Plantation in the rural, Hale’s Ford, Virginia. He had three siblings, one of whom was adopted. His mother Jane was an enslaved African American woman who worked as a cook on the plantation. His father was a white man, whom he knew very little about. His mother later married another slave, Washington Ferguson, who left to for West Virginia. Early Life Washington’s early life was that of a slave where he lived in a small cabin and slept on a dirt floor with only a â€Å"pallet† that was put on the ground for his comfort. Survival was a strugg le as his mother Jane from time to time would take a chicken or an egg from her masters and cook them during the night just to feed her children. From an early age, Booker knew what labour entailed and began working quite young. One of his duties was to carry sacks of corn to the mill on the back of a horse. Sometimes when a sack fell on the ground he had to wait for hours for someone to come and replace it on the horse’s back. Washington’s discomfort of his living arrangement and hard labour as a child was mingled with the discomfort of his clothes and shoes. Until his shirt was worn for six weeks, Washington had to bear the pain from his flax material shirt which pricked his skin. The discomfort was so great that once his brother offered to wear his shirt until it got a bit softer. His shoes also were uncomfortable as his first pair of shoes had wood as its sole and coarse leather tops. Education Although he went to school while he was a slave, Booker T. Washingtonâ €™s education only began when his family was freed of slavery. In Washington’s time, it was illegal for slaves to go to school and be educated. However, Washington went to school with James Burrough’s daughter in Franklin County, not as a student but to carry her books. It was only when the Emancipation Proclamation in April, 1865, Washington now nine, was read to the jubilant slaves that Booker was able to spread his wings a bit. Washington, his siblings and mother soon left the plantation with a wagon that his stepfather sent for them to join with him in Malden, West Virginia. Because of the state of poverty that the family was faced with, Washington could not have had a normal schooling experience. Instead, at the tender age of nine, Washington was thrust into the world of work. His stepfather, who worked in the salt mines, found work for him and his brother at a salt mine that began at four in the morning and ended at nine. Sometimes they even worked at coal mi nes. One Mr. William Davis opened a school for coloured children. Booker’s parents allowed him to go but on the condition that he maintain his job. As Booker worked in the morning period, he was now able to attend school later in the day but returned to the mine after school.