Booker T. Washington

A compilation of more than 30 addresses from Booker T. Washington explaining the importance of personal responsibility, self-reflection and economic independence in the Black community. Character Building is an inspiring series of anecdotes that speak to the issues of his contemporary audience.

Booker T. Washington was a strong supporter of education and entrepreneurship among African Americans. He believed a degree or certification could provide access and elevate one’s social and economic status. In Character Building, he provides his basic tenets of success that are rooted in individual behavior. He encourages productivity and the need for a positive home life. To succeed, each person’s environment must be conducive to their goals.

Washington’s life-long mission was to inspire and uplift the most vulnerable in his community. In Character Building he discusses the many tools that can be used to change a person’s station. It’s an open declaration of the core beliefs that helped shaped his life.

With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Character Building is both modern and readable.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

A compilation of more than 30 addresses from Booker T. Washington explaining the importance of personal responsibility, self-reflection and economic independence in the Black community. Character Building is an inspiring series of anecdotes that speak to the issues of his contemporary audience.

Booker T. Washington was a strong supporter of education and entrepreneurship among African Americans. He believed a degree or certification could provide access and elevate one’s social and economic status. In Character Building, he provides his basic tenets of success that are rooted in individual behavior. He encourages productivity and the need for a positive home life. To succeed, each person’s environment must be conducive to their goals.

Washington’s life-long mission was to inspire and uplift the most vulnerable in his community. In Character Building he discusses the many tools that can be used to change a person’s station. It’s an open declaration of the core beliefs that helped shaped his life.

With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Character Building is both modern and readable.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

A compilation of more than 30 addresses from Booker T. Washington explaining the importance of personal responsibility, self-reflection and economic independence in the Black community. Character Building is an inspiring series of anecdotes that speak to the issues of his contemporary audience.

Booker T. Washington was a strong supporter of education and entrepreneurship among African Americans. He believed a degree or certification could provide access and elevate one’s social and economic status. In Character Building, he provides his basic tenets of success that are rooted in individual behavior. He encourages productivity and the need for a positive home life. To succeed, each person’s environment must be conducive to their goals.

Washington’s life-long mission was to inspire and uplift the most vulnerable in his community. In Character Building he discusses the many tools that can be used to change a person’s station. It’s an open declaration of the core beliefs that helped shaped his life.

With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Character Building is both modern and readable.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

The Story of the Negro is a history of Americans of African descent before and after slavery. Originally produced in two volumes, and published here for the first time in one paperback volume, the first part covers Africa and the history of slavery in the United States while the second part carries the history from the Civil War to the first part of the twentieth century. Booker T. Washington was born into slavery, worked menial jobs in order to acquire an education, and became the most important voice of African American interests beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

The Story of the Negro is valuable in part because it is full of significant information taken from hundreds of obscure sources that would be nearly impossible to assemble today. For instance, Washington discusses the rise of African American comedy with names, places, and dates; elsewhere he traces the growth and spread of African American home ownership and independent businesses in the United States; and his discussion of slavery is informed by his own life. Washington wanted African Americans to understand and embrace their heritage, not be ashamed of it. He explains, as an example, the role of music in the lives of the slaves and then notes how, nearly a generation later, many African Americans were "embarrassed" by this music and did not want to learn traditional songs. Washington is able to reflect on the first fifty years of his life embracing a range of experiences from share-cropping to dinner at the White House. It is just this autobiographical element that makes the volume compelling.

Washington, with his indefatigable optimism, worked his entire life to achieve equality for African Americans through practical means. Founder of the first business association (the National Negro Business League), leader of the Tuskeegee Institute, where George Washington Carver conducted research, and supporter of numerous social programs designed to improve the welfare of African Americans, Washington was considered during his lifetime the spokesperson for African Americans by white society, particularly those in positions of power. This led to criticism from within the African American community, most notably from W. E. B. Du Bois, who considered Washington too accommodating of the white majority, but it took Washington's farsightedness to recognize that the immediate concerns of education, employment, and self-reflection were necessary to achieve the ultimate goal of racial equality.

The Story of the Negro is a history of Americans of African descent before and after slavery. Originally produced in two volumes, and published here for the first time in one paperback volume, the first part covers Africa and the history of slavery in the United States while the second part carries the history from the Civil War to the first part of the twentieth century. Booker T. Washington was born into slavery, worked menial jobs in order to acquire an education, and became the most important voice of African American interests beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

The Story of the Negro is valuable in part because it is full of significant information taken from hundreds of obscure sources that would be nearly impossible to assemble today. For instance, Washington discusses the rise of African American comedy with names, places, and dates; elsewhere he traces the growth and spread of African American home ownership and independent businesses in the United States; and his discussion of slavery is informed by his own life. Washington wanted African Americans to understand and embrace their heritage, not be ashamed of it. He explains, as an example, the role of music in the lives of the slaves and then notes how, nearly a generation later, many African Americans were "embarrassed" by this music and did not want to learn traditional songs. Washington is able to reflect on the first fifty years of his life embracing a range of experiences from share-cropping to dinner at the White House. It is just this autobiographical element that makes the volume compelling.

Washington, with his indefatigable optimism, worked his entire life to achieve equality for African Americans through practical means. Founder of the first business association (the National Negro Business League), leader of the Tuskeegee Institute, where George Washington Carver conducted research, and supporter of numerous social programs designed to improve the welfare of African Americans, Washington was considered during his lifetime the spokesperson for African Americans by white society, particularly those in positions of power. This led to criticism from within the African American community, most notably from W. E. B. Du Bois, who considered Washington too accommodating of the white majority, but it took Washington's farsightedness to recognize that the immediate concerns of education, employment, and self-reflection were necessary to achieve the ultimate goal of racial equality.

From a child slave put to hard labor to a college president and advisor to presidents, Booker T. Washington’s autobiography powerfully describes his journey and what it taught him about the possible future of Blacks in the United States.

This autobiography is a cornerstone work of African-American literature. Washington tells of his experience in bondage as a child-slave, the hard labor he performed in salt mines post-slavery, and the role of his mother in demonstrating the strength and values that enabled him to continue to strive and rise above these often brutal circumstances. His hard-won education led him to become a teacher and build Tuskegee University with bare minimum resources, much of it literally one brick at a time. Despite these challenges, and encountering white opposition to the very concept of educating blacks, Washington believed that failing to make the university a reality would be a disservice to blacks nationwide. Inspiring throughout, the author advocates self-reliance through productive work, community service, and perseverance, and without bravado presents himself as a worthy example of how successful this path can be. His book still generates controversy as his conception of the rise of blacks through personal industry, leading gradually to their advancement in society, was deemed by some to be a slow and costly compromise. Others saw it as an example of pragmatic realism borne of necessity in the Reconstruction era South. Regardless of latter-day interpretations, Up From Slavery is a powerful document of how one man rose to prominence against terrible odds, then used his success and fame in a sustained attempt to better the lives of his fellows. This is an indispensable document of Black lives in an era scarcely more than 100 years in the past and its account of courage and dedication will not be forgotten.

With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Up From Slavery is both modern and readable.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

From a child slave put to hard labor to a college president and advisor to presidents, Booker T. Washington’s autobiography powerfully describes his journey and what it taught him about the possible future of Blacks in the United States.

This autobiography is a cornerstone work of African-American literature. Washington tells of his experience in bondage as a child-slave, the hard labor he performed in salt mines post-slavery, and the role of his mother in demonstrating the strength and values that enabled him to continue to strive and rise above these often brutal circumstances. His hard-won education led him to become a teacher and build Tuskegee University with bare minimum resources, much of it literally one brick at a time. Despite these challenges, and encountering white opposition to the very concept of educating blacks, Washington believed that failing to make the university a reality would be a disservice to blacks nationwide. Inspiring throughout, the author advocates self-reliance through productive work, community service, and perseverance, and without bravado presents himself as a worthy example of how successful this path can be. His book still generates controversy as his conception of the rise of blacks through personal industry, leading gradually to their advancement in society, was deemed by some to be a slow and costly compromise. Others saw it as an example of pragmatic realism borne of necessity in the Reconstruction era South. Regardless of latter-day interpretations, Up From Slavery is a powerful document of how one man rose to prominence against terrible odds, then used his success and fame in a sustained attempt to better the lives of his fellows. This is an indispensable document of Black lives in an era scarcely more than 100 years in the past and its account of courage and dedication will not be forgotten.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Up from Slavery is the 1901 autobiography of American educator Booker T. Washington (1856-1915). Born in a Virginia slave hut, Washington rose from a slave child during the Civil War to worldwide recognition for his many accomplishments, becoming the most influential spokesman for African Americans of his day.

In this eloquently written book, Washington describes his impoverished childhood and youth as a child in bondage, and the difficulties he faced in his unrelenting struggle for an education. These challenges helped propel him into a dedicated obsession with the Hampton Institute until he achieved being enrolled there as a student. He covers his early teaching assignments and his work establishing vocational schools, including his selection in 1881 as the head of the famed Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, designed to help black people and other disadvantaged minorities learn useful and marketable skills to help them find jobs and pull themselves up as a race.

Reflecting on the generosity of teachers and philanthropists who helped educate blacks and Native Americans, Washington describes his efforts to instill manners, health and a feeling of dignity to students. His educational philosophy of education as the best route to advancement stressed combining academic subjects with learning a trade, believing that the integration of practical subjects helped reassure the white community as to the usefulness of educating black people.

Washington disapproved of civil-rights agitation thereby facing the opposition of many black intellectuals. Yet today he’s regarded as a major figure in the struggle for equal rights, who furthered the cause and worked tirelessly to educate and unite African Americans.