Overall, the mood of Up from Slavery is an optimistic one, as the title suggests. Unlike other Black memoir and autobiography writers of his era who focused on capturing the everyday realities of slavery or post-Reconstruction racism, Washington sought to paint a picture of the racial harmony he felt was possible in the United States by telling his own story, in which he supported—and was supported by—many kind white Americans.
For example, when Washington finds himself penniless in the middle of his journey to the Hampton Institute, he focuses on the positives of the experience, such as meeting a kind white ship captain who agrees to hire him as a day laborer:
I went at once to the vessel and asked the captain to permit me to help unload the vessel in order to get money for food. The captain, a white man, who seemed to be kind-hearted, consented. I worked long enough to earn money for my breakfast, and it seems to me, as I remember it now, to have been about the best breakfast that I have ever eaten […] My work pleased the captain so well that he told me if I desired I could continue working for a small amount per day. This I was very glad to do.
The optimistic mood comes across in Washington’s description of his employer as “kind-hearted” and the breakfast as “the best I have ever eaten.” That he was “very glad” to work for “a small amount per day” also captures something important about Washington’s perspective—he is only making “a small amount” yet is happy to receive it. This appreciative perspective mirrors Washington’s political point of view—he makes it clear throughout the book that Black Americans as a whole should accept their current social standing and, through character development and dignified labor, slowly and gradually achieve racial progress by proving to white people their true worth.
