Up from Slavery: an Autobiography

Up from Slavery is the 1901 autobiography of Booker T.
Washington detailing his slow and steady rise from a slave child during the
Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at
the new Hampton University, to his work establishing vocational schools—most
notably the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama—to help black people and other
disadvantaged minorities learn useful, marketable skills and work to pull
themselves, as a race, up by the bootstraps.

— Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.