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Secondary sourceBook1913

The Story of Slavery

Booker T. Washington · 1913

Booker T. Washington's sketch of slavery in America, published in 1913 with a biographical sketch by Emmett J. Scott, shown here as a LibriVox volunteer audio reading.

Washington wrote this sketch of slavery for a school series, and it is introduced by a biography that connects it to his own childhood under slavery.

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Booker T. Washington, The Story of Slavery, 1913. LibriVox volunteer audio reading (Darryl McElwee).

About this source

What it is

This is an audio recording of The Story of Slavery, a sketch of slavery in America written by Booker T. Washington and published in 1913 in the Instructor Literature Series. The recording is a LibriVox volunteer reading made recently, so it is not Washington's own voice. The edition opens with a biographical sketch of Washington by Emmett J. Scott, which notes that Washington was himself born into slavery.

Why it matters

Washington wrote this school text about a system he had lived under as a child. The biographical sketch connects the author's own life to the story he tells, beginning where the history of slavery ends. Students can see how a formerly enslaved educator presented that past to young readers in the early twentieth century.

Look closer

  • What does Washington choose to explain about slavery for young readers, and what does he leave for them to ask?
  • How does Emmett J. Scott's introduction shape the way you read the sketch?
  • What is the difference between a school text and a memoir, and which features of this text belong to each?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Booker T. Washington on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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