Washington wanted to convince his readers that they have to be genuinely interested in acquiring knowledge and that they must never pass any opportunity to learn more. He credits it with everything and rightly suggests that Black people need to raise their educational level first, for them to become competitive with Whites. There is only one thing that allowed Washington to rise from slave to a teacher – a possession of education, on his part. Back of the ballot, he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character” (Washington, 1901, Ch. As the author had rightly suggested: “Political activity alone cannot make a man free. We cannot agree with such a point of view, because Washington’s apoliticism stems out of the author’s acute understanding of the very essence of socio-political processes as being objective – it is not politics that define socio-political reality but vice versa. In its turn, this explains why many racially conscious Black-Americans tend to criticize Washington’s book for its apparent lack of political sounding – they refer to the author as not being politically active enough, which in their eyes, deems him as defeatist.

The validity of such an idea remains unchallenged even today, even though neo-Liberal politicians have succeeded in convincing many citizens to be fully preoccupied with “exploring their racial uniqueness”, as some form of existential fetish, on their part. In its turn, this allows us to refer to the following quotation from “Up from Slavery” as such that represents the philosophical quintessence of Washington’s book: “The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race” (Washington, 1901, Ch. Again and again, throughout his book, Washington emphasizes the fact that it is people’s existential integrity, which truly counts, regardless of these people’s racial affiliation.

Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington