Читать книгу Constructing the Self. Essays on Southern Life-Writing онлайн

109 страница из 129

The Body of

B. Franklin, Printer;

Like the Cover of an Old Book,

Its Contents torn out,

And stript of its Lettering and Gilding,

Lies here, Food for Worms.

But the work shall not be wholly lost:

For it will, as he believ’d, appear once more,

In a new & more perfect Edition

Corrected and amended

By the Author.

Booker T. Washington, as far as I know, never described himself as a correctible book. But in a sense that is what he strived to present himself in his autobiographies, rewriting his life over and over again, honing and sharpening his narrative, making it into what he hoped would be the most effective tool for opening the way for social change and social justice in the South.

Works Cited

Bieze, Michael. Booker T. Washington and the Art of Self-Representation. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Print.

---. “Ruskin in the Black Belt: Booker T. Washington, Arts and Crafts, and the New Negro.” Source: Notes in the History of Art 24.4 (2005): 24-34. Print.

Dixon, Thomas, Jr. The Leopard’s Spots. New York: Doubleday, Page, 1902. Print.