Up from Slavery is an autobiography, meaning it is a work of non-fiction written by a well-known public figure, detailing the events of their life from birth to the time of writing. It also belongs in the African American literature genre, as it is a literary work written by an African American that uses the lens of race to analyze and make sense of the world. Washington’s entire story is centered on his experience as a Black man speaking about—and working on behalf of—the Black community in the United States.
Some scholars place Up from Slavery in the genre of “slave narratives” because Washington details his early experiences as an enslaved person at the start of the book, describing the horrors of his experience in order to engage readers emotionally. While most of the well-known slave narratives were written when the country was divided over the topic of slavery in order to persuade readers to support the full emancipation of all enslaved people (such as Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Twelve Years a Slave), Washington’s autobiography was published over 30 years after the end of the Civil War. Still, like the slave narratives that came before it, Up from Slavery is certainly a persuasive piece of writing. Rather than persuading readers to support anti-slavery efforts, he is persuading them to support his conservative vision for gradual racial progress for Black Americans via vocational education and hard work.
