For a long time I've found Booker T. Washington fascinating. (See my columns in WORLD on Feb. 1, 8, 15, and 22, 1997.) Gene Edward Veith and I listed his book Up from Slavery (1901) as one of Top 100 books of the 20th century (Dec. 4, 1999). A new biography, Robert J. Norrell's Up from History: The Life of Booker T. Washington (Harvard University Press) shows how historians have either angelized or demonized him, often unaware of how twisting a racetrack he had to run on to keep from being run over.
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