Summary of Teddy and Booker T. by Brian Kilmeade: How Two American Icons Blazed a Path for Racial Equality

By Willie M. Joseph

DISCLAIMER

 

This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book.

Summary of Teddy and Booker T. by Brian Kilmeade: How Two American Icons Blazed a Path for Racial Equality

IN THIS SUMMARIZED BOOK, YOU WILL GET:

• Chapter astute outline of the main contents.
• Fast & simple understanding of the content analysis.
• Exceptionally summarized content that you may skip in the original book

 

In Teddy and Booker T., Brian Kilmeade explores the story of Theodore Roosevelt and Booker T. Washington, two heroes of the nation who faced racism and racial injustice when they joined Roosevelt's circle of counselors in 1901. Both men, born into wealth and privilege, embodied the rugged spirit of America, leading to victories like the Rough Riders and founding the first university for African Americans. Kilmeade reveals that both men believed in improving the nation through collaboration and that individual liberty and hard work could propel the neediest towards success. The book will keep readers turning the pages to find out how these two heroes changed each other and laid the groundwork for true equality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Willie M. Joseph
• Release date: Nov 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223332329

Willie M. Joseph

Willie M. Joseph summaries get straight to the point and provide essential tools to help you be an informed reader in a busy world, whether you’re browsing for new discoveries, managing your to-read list for work or school, or simply deepening your knowledge. Available for nonfiction titles, these are the book summaries that are worth your time.  

Book preview

PREAMBLE

In 1865, the Union won the Civil War, leading to the Reconstruction era. The Republican Party aimed to integrate four million newly freed Americans into society, ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery and granted citizenship to formerly enslaved people. By 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment granted all male citizens the right to vote. However, a growing backlash led by the Ku Klux Klan and Southern Democrats reversed the tide of equality for Black Americans. The presidential election of November 1876 saw no clear winner, and Rutherford B. Hayes emerged as the winner after making a deal with the devil.

The Compromise of 1877 allowed Hayes to gain electoral votes from South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida, but the Reconstruction Era ended abruptly as white supremacists filled the political vacuum. The Jim Crow era, characterized by intimidation and violence, left Black people in the South powerless to resist region-wide segregation and institutional racism. American heroes like Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass emerged to confront slavery, and Theodore Roosevelt and Booker T. Washington became the heirs of the Lincoln-Douglass partnership. Their work is a story of triumph and tragedy, cooperation and disagreement, and courage that makes America great.

BORN BOOKER

Booker T. Washington was born in a slave quarter in Virginia in 1858 or 1859. His family had a cramped and crude cabin, where he slept on the floor with his mother, brother, sister, and stepfather. The cabin was witheringly hot in summer, cold and drafty in winter, and always cramped and smoky. Booker's family's status was stark, with ten enslaved people listed in the 1860 census. The United States government valued these people as legal property, along with Burroughs's 207 acres, five-room farmhouse, two cabins for the enslaved, and a miscellany of horses, cattle, pigs, and sheep.

Booker's childhood was without comforts, with meals being as poor as animals, and he never ate at a table together. He wore no shoes until he was eight and witnessed brutalizing punishment. One deprivation that frustrated Booker was the schoolhouse door being closed in his face, which his mother explained was forbidden to a Negro child. Booker's curiosity about learning and teaching grew from this experience, leading him to become the man who became Booker T. Washington.

The Black inhabitants of the Burroughs farm, despite their ignorance of reading, writing, and arithmetic, knew more about the world beyond their boundaries than their overseers realized. The grape-vine telegraph had brought the enslaved in the South stories about abolitionists in the North who were agitating to free those in bondage. By the time Booker heard whispered nighttime conversations about Abraham Lincoln and the secession of many states from the Union, freedom had begun to seem possible.

With the fall of Fort Sumter in the spring of 1861, the war became a family matter for the Burroughs. One after another, the sons volunteered to fight for the Confederacy, joining the ranks of the Virginia Cavalry to serve under J. E. B. Stuart. Two of his brothers returned wounded, one shot at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pickett's Charge, and another Burroughs son died in a Union prison.

By April 1865, Union soldiers were rumored to be in the neighborhood, and the voices raised in song in the quarter, where those enslaved lived, grew louder and bolder, unafraid to sing out the word freedom. With the Civil War at an end, freedom had finally come for Booker and every other enslaved person in the newly reunited nation.

Booker's family, including his mother Jane, escaped slavery and moved west to Kanawha Salines, West Virginia. They found work in an industrial town where they worked at the Snow Hill Furnace, where Booker learned to read and write. He was inspired by the poor, ignorant, and degraded white people in the area and decided to get enough education to enable him to read common books and newspapers.

Booker worked two half shifts before and after school, eventually becoming a self-made man. He was given the name Booker Washington, which he used throughout his life. At the time of his twelfth birthday, Booker left the salt mines for a job working in the household of a former teacher, Viola Knapp Ruffner. Miss Knapp had arrived in Kanawha Salines as a governess for Lewis Ruffner, a mill owner and one of the town's richest men.

Before emancipation, slaveholders discouraged autonomy among the enslaved, but Booker found an open door when Mrs. Ruffner insisted on Booker doing things her way. She wanted him to share her standards and independence, and Booker found a new self-discipline. This led to a fresh sense of himself and what he could do, which she reinforced. She trusted him with added responsibilities, but he knew he had earned them.

As a Black child, Booker felt his view of himself change, choosing to walk through the door and remaking himself into a newly independent person. He would define himself and not be defined by others.

Booker Washington, a young man, moved into the Ruffner house with his mother and began collecting books. Mrs. Ruffner encouraged Booker to pursue his studies and tutor him at home. Booker's desire to succeed was evident as he adapted to her thrift and Yankee principles. He learned about a new educational institution called Hampton, which offered Black students a better life and formal education.

In 1869, Booker witnessed a fight between two miners in Kanawha Salines, where a Black man emerged victorious. The incident led to an arrest warrant for the Black man, but a group of White men, known as Gideon's Band, prevented the Black man from attending the trial. When the trial began, Booker and General Lewis Ruffner were attacked and nearly killed by a white supremacist mob. The traumatic scene left Booker with a lasting memory and vision, making him unable to walk without crutches.

Booker found a lesson in witnessing racial hatred firsthand and would face it himself in the years to come. He would fight back whenever and however he could, but recognized the need for less-confrontational strategies. He saw that General Ruffner had failed in