INSTRUCTOR LITERATURE SERIES The Story of Slavery _By Booker T. Washington_ President of Tuskegee Institute; author of "Up From Slavery," Etc. _With Biographical Sketch_ PUBLISHED JOINTLY BY F. A. OWEN PUB. CO., DANSVILLE, N. Y. HALL & McCREARY, CHICAGO, ILL. COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY F. A. OWEN PUBLISHING CO. _The Story of Slavery_ BOOKER T. WASHINGTON BY EMMETT J. SCOTT Booker T. Washington, the author of the following sketch of slavery in America, was himself born a slave, and the story of his life begins where "The Story of Slavery" leaves off. He was born about 1858 or 1859 on a plantation near Hales Ford, Va., about twenty-five miles east of the city of Roanoke, in a region which, now almost deserted, was in slavery days a flourishing tobacco country. A few years ago he was invited to speak at the annual fair at Roanoke, and took advantage of the opportunity to drive out to the old plantation to visit again the scene of his childhood. He met there several members of the Burroughs family to which he had formerly belonged, and with them he went through the old Burroughs house, which is standing, and talked over the old days. It was while he was living there that he was awakened one morning to find his mother kneeling on the earth floor of the little cabin in which they lived, praying that "Lincoln and his armies might be successful and that one day she and her children might be free." It was here a little later on, as he tells us in the book, "Up From Slavery," in which he has related the story of his life, that he heard the announcement that he and all the other slaves were free. "I recall," he says, "that some man who seemed to be a stranger and who was undoubtedly a United States official, made a little speech and then read a rather long paper--the Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After the reading we were told that we were all free and could go where we pleased. "My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant; that this was the day for which she had so long been praying, but fearing she would never live to see.