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Booker T. Washingtons formative years were from 1865to 1881 in Old Malden, West Virginia. From age 9 to 25years, he developed values, vision, and a plan to build a blackmiddle class in the South. He observed his parents integrateMalden by buying a home in town four years after they wereslaves. Six weeks after their purchase, he saw a race riot afew blocks away, but, like Rosa Parks on a Montgomery bus,with great courage, they stayed put, ever determined to begood neighbors to all.This work is in two books divided by the Civil War. BookI tells the story of the Ruffner family, their booming saltindustry, and the Virginia slavery they used for that industry.The second book, Booker T. Washingtons Boyhood AmericanDream: The Climb of the Black Middle Class Up from Slavery,tells the post-Civil War story of Booker and his mother, brotherand sister walking to Malden to join his mothers husband whowas working for the Ruffners in their familys salt factory.His boyhood heroes established their own church as slaves in1852 and had the states second school for freed slaves. Fromhis heroes, he developed a gospel for the American Dream hewanted to be shared by all.