“He was simply another unfortunate victim of the institution which the Nation unhappily had engrafted upon it at that time.”

Here, Booker T. Washington describes his birth father, whom he did not know and who may have been a white man. He believes that all Southerners were victimized by slavery. 

“The hurtful influences of the institution were not by any means confined to the Negro.”

Washington argues that slavery was detrimental to both Black and white people in the South. He believed that white people were affected as well, since slavery prevented them from learning to work hard.

“From the time that I can remember having any thoughts about anything, I recall that I had an intense longing to learn to read.”

Washington is determined to get an education from the beginning of his life. He believes that reading will help open up the world to him. He begins his quest by learning to read numbers on equipment in the salt plant, and he is proud of his ability to recognize matching numbers even though he does not know what they mean.