Up From Slavery (1901) is an autobiography by Booker T. Washington that served as a powerful and potent voice in the battle for African-American equality and for the abolition of slavery in turn-of-the-century America. The autobiography depicts the life of the author as a slave child during the Civil War, his early struggles and education, and his success establishing of vocational schools like the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama for black people and other deprived minorities.