Booker Taliaferro Washington was born in a southern plantation. He was a son of a black slave woman and unknown white man. His mother worked as a cook in a house of plantation owners. In childhood he idn't have a surname as other slaves, but after the American Civil War that set the black slaves free Booker chose the surname of the first American President George Washington.

Up from Slavery, written in 1901, became some sort of manifesto, the call to fight for the rights and achieve everything by own forces. In this book Booker Washington tells about his life, he describes the fight for the rights and freedoms and abilities of a man that wants to achieve a lot. The name of the book became a slogan for many movements for the rights of black people in the USA.