ONLINE BOOK SUMMARY/SYNOPSIS-UP FROM SLAVERY

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - Europe

Summary

In 1893, he married his third wife, Miss Margaret James Murray, a graduate of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. At the time, she filled the position of Lady Principal and willingly assumed the responsibility of many women’s groups. His daughter Portia was a dressmaker, showed a talent for instrumental music, and became a teacher at Tuskegee. Booker T., Jr. had nearly mastered the brick mason’s trade and wanted to be an architect. His youngest child, Ernest, insisted he was going to be a doctor and was already getting training in a doctor’s office. His greatest regret was that he couldn’t spend more time with his family.

One of the greatest surprises of his life occurred when one the ladies at a public meeting in the interests of Tuskegee in Boston as ked him if he had ever been to Europe. It was an idea that had always been beyond his thinking. However, they told him that they had raised a sufficient sum of money for him and his wife to travel to Europe for three or four months. Not only that but these good people had raised enough money to substitute for the fund raising he would have done had he been home. The route was all mapped out and everything was already organized. Booker was dumbfounded. He worried that people would think he was “stuck up or showing off” and he just didn’t know how to take a vacation. However, his wife told him he needed a rest and letters of introduction had already been written to help him integrate into European society. To add to the encouragement, two generous ladies at the meeting decided to give Tuskegee enough money to build a building to house all the industries for girls.

So Booker and his wife set sail on the Friesland of the Red Star Line. There was no sending him to the lower decks like Negroes before him. Instead, he lived in the finest stateroom, and he began to sleep on the voyage. He slept fifteen hours a day for the ten days of the voyage, which made him finally understand how, tired he was. They landed at Antwerp, Belgium and then began a tour of Holland on the old-fashioned canal boats. He loved seeing and studying the real life of the people in the country. The next step of the trip was to Paris. He did speak at the University Club of Paris, but turned down all the other invitations or else he would have defeated the purpose of the trip. While in Paris, he saw a good deal of the famous Negro painter Mr. Henry Tanner. Tanner was a symbol of Booker’s personal philosophy: any man no matter his color can succeed and be rewarded in proportion to how well he learns his craft. He felt very strongly that this was a great human law that could never be permanently nullified. Booker was impressed with the pleasure and excitement with which the French people lived their lives and when he left France, he had more faith in the future of the black man in America than he had every possessed.

From Paris, they traveled to London where he received all manner of social invitations. He very much enjoyed his time there, meeting at the Ambassador’s reception Mark Twain for the first time. He also met many English abolitionists and members of English royalty, including Queen Victoria herself. While he had tea with the Queen, he also met Susan B. Anthony. He continued to study the common people as well and was interested with the class system where white people had mistresses and masters as servants in the homes of the wealthy and important. Another aspect of the English character included their serious nature. Comments made in their presence, which would have made Americans roar with laughter, received a simple straight face without cracking a smile from the English. However, he concluded that Englishmen were the greatest and most loyal of friends.

The voyage home occurred on the steamship St. Louis where Booker found a fine library and a copy of the life of Frederick Douglass. In his book, the great man explained how on his trip to Europe, he had been forced to sleep on the deck because of his color. Some of the passengers organized s subscription program with the proceeds dedicated to Tuskegee Institute. So Booker somehow found a way to raise funds even while he was on vacation.

While he had been in Paris, Booker had received an invitation from the people of Charleston, West Virginia to speak and received the pride his former city felt for him. He accepted the invitation and was gratified to see in the audience many of the white men for whom he had worked as a boy.

Notes

The trip to Europe was not only a time of rest for Booker, but it was also a learning experience. He brought back many new ideas from the countries he visited, but what’s more, he discovered the philosophies he lived by as to the mixing of the races were already in place in Europe.. This makes him believe that there is still hope for the American Negro.

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