The first volume of Louis R. Harlan's biography of Booker T. Washington was published to wide acclaim and won the 1973 Bancroft Prize. This, the second volume, completes one of the most significant biographies of this generation.
Booker T. Washington was the most powerful black American of his time, and here he is captured at his zenith. Harlan reveals Washington's complex personality--in sharp contrast to his public demeanor, he was a ruthless power borker whose nod or frown could determine the careers of blacks in politics, education, and business.
Harlan chronicles the challenge Washington faced from W.E.B. Du Bois and other blacks, and shows how growing opposition forced him to change his methods of leadership just before his death in 1915.
Also available: Volume 1, $10.95k, 501915-6, 394 pp., plates

"If the second volume measures up to the first, Harlan's biography of Booker T. Washington will be the best study we have of a black American. It already sets a standard unmatched for the penetration of obscure origins and elaborate myths."--C. Vann Woodward, The New Republic

During his unchallenged reign as black America's foremost spokesman, former slave Booker T. Washington treaded a dangerous middle ground in a time of racial backlash and disfranchisement: as he publicly acquiesced to whites on issues of social equality, he fiercely exhorted blacks, through his national political machine, to unite and improve their lot. Though Washington worked ceaselessly, through many channels, to gain moral and financial support for his people and for his beloved Tuskegee Institute, Up from Slavery, his autobiography, helped him at these endeavours more than all other efforts combined. Vividly recounting Washington's life - his childhood as a slave, his struggle for education, his founding and presidency of the Tuskegee Institute, his meetings with the country's leaders, Up from Slavery reveals the conviction he held that the black man's salvation lay in education, industriousness and self-reliance. Louis R. Harlan's introduction fully assesses the impact of this simply written, anecdotal life story that bears the mark of a man of real courage, talent and dedication.

This is a revealing study of the crucial period in the educational development of the South as it involved the separate but equal" doctrine. It is based on extensive research in newspapers, public documents, official reports, and manuscripts, and it provides detailed evidence that the states studied ignored their obligations to black schools under this doctrine."
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