During his unchallenged reign as Black America’s spokesman, former slave Booker T. Washington treaded a dangerous middle ground in a time of racial backlash and disenfranchisement. He publicly acquiesced to Whites on the issues of social equality, and he fiercely exhorted Blacks, through his national political machine, to unite and improve their lot. Washington worked ceaselessly through many channels, to gain moral and financial support for his people and for his beloved Tuskegee Institute. This autobiography helped him at these endeavours more than all other efforts combined. It recounts Washington’s life - his childhood as a slave, his struggle for education, his founding and presidency of the Tuskegee Institute, and his meetings with the country’s leaders, revealing the conviction he held that the Black man’s salvation lay in education, industriousness, and self-reliance.