- Robert McCrum, - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ―Booker T. Washington. contains three of the most significant works of African American literature by three authors who led vastly different lives. In Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), a runaway slave, describes the horrors and humiliations of slavery, his escape, and his journey to becoming one of America's great statesmen and orators. Booker T. Washington (1856-1915), born into slavery, was freed at the age of nine at the end of the Civil War. Until his first day at school he was known only by the name "Booker," but to be like all the other children, he quickly added "Washington," beginning his non-confrontational approach to self-advancement. describes his childhood as a slave, his dogged pursuit of education, his founding of the Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, his work promoting educational and business opportunities for former slaves, and as an advisor to several US presidents. The Massachusetts-born, Harvard-educated W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963) begins with the prescient phrase: "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the colour line." Lyrically and poetically written, is a seminal work in the history of sociology and a cornerstone of African-American literature. It is a profound examination of race in America, drawing on both Du Bois's academic training and his personal experience as an African American in the United States. has been called "the political Bible of the Negro race." This edition is set in an easy to read 11-point font.