Up From Slavery: Situational Irony 1 key example

Near the end of Up from Slavery, Washington receives a letter from Harvard University requesting his presence at that year’s commencement so that the school can grant him an honorary degree. Washington’s reflections on this moment capture the situational irony of a formerly enslaved Black man like himself (who has faced hardship after hardship) receiving a degree from Harvard:

As I sat upon my veranda, with this letter in my hand, tears came into my eyes. My whole former life—my life as a slave on the plantation, my work in the coal-mine, the times when I was without food and clothing, when I made my bed under a sidewalk, my struggles for an education, the trying days I had had at Tuskegee, days when I did not know where to turn for a dollar to continue the work there, the ostracism and sometimes oppression of my race,—all this passed before me and nearly overcame me. I had never sought or cared for what the world calls fame.

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