Comparison Soul of Black Folks and up from Slavery

Comparison of The Soul of Black Folks and Up from Slavery

During the late 19th century, slavery tore a young nation apart until its abolishment in 1865. From there a new era of problems arose with the placement of the newly freed slaves. They were to learn how to associate themselves into a white democracy socially, religiously, and culturally. In the early 1900's, during the midst of racial oppression, two books were published by two prominent African-American leaders of this time Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington and The Soul of Black Folks by W.E.B. Du Bois. Though each have very different, but somewhat opposing, ideas on the role of the black race which is evident through their respectable writing styles, life experiences, and systems of belief they have one similar and noble goal: the advancement of the black race.

Up From Slavery is written by Booker T. Washington as himself. It is a first person autobiography and is chronologically in order from his birth as a slave in Virginia to his returning to Virginia in his later years as a free man as a speaker and all his trials and tribulations in between. Booker was born in 1858 or 1859; this was unclear to him because records of this matter were not available to slaves. He did not recall the precise location of his residence besides that it was near a crossroads post-office called Hale's Ford. He recalled his slave quarters as being less than desirable with the floor being nothing more than the "earth", a hole as a window, and rusty hinges. Booker's mother was the plantation cook, while he tended to the sweet potatoes, as he was a young boy. While the conditions being poor he remembered his masters as being "not especially cruel". Through his time as a young slave, wearing nothing but a flax shirt, and wooden shoes, he remembered the talks between the slaves on the progress of the war and hearing his mother pray every night that Lincoln would win the war. During the whole book Booker's tone was very uplifting even during his period of enslavement. He was grateful for his life as a slave as it taught him the value of a hard days work as it taught all of the slaves. At one point he even spoke as if the white children of the plantation were "enslaved" because they never learned a trade or had to perform the most basic of household chores. After the slaves were emancipated at the end of the civil war Washington spoke of the eminence joy throughout the plantation of the enslaved. He also stated that after the initial shock of their freedom wore down that they realized that they nowhere and nothing to go to. Everything that they had ever known was on the very plantation that they were free from. Some of the slaves worked out deals with their former master in which they were able to remain as workers on the plantation. Booker,

...