Booker T. Washington was a slave throughout his childhood and learned early on how to fend for himself and to survive with very few resources. How did this experience shape his point of view about slavery? He later realized that his family lived a very uncivilized life, and he spoke against the effects of slavery on African American manners.

He absorbed a great deal of information about freedom and the war, which allowed him to lead his community in an armed uprising.

He later wrote that slavery actually helped African Americans by teaching them to more be self-reliant than the whites they served.

He so resented his work as a slave that he spoke out often and angrily against the people who fought to keep slavery in place.