The Mis-Education of the Negro

by Carter Godwin Woodson

Overview

“When you control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told.” – Carter G. Woodson.

Carter Godwin Woodson (December 19, 1875 – April 3, 1950) was an African American historian, author, journalist. He was the son of former slaves. Being eager to gain an education, he attended high school part time while mostly working in the coal mines of Kentucky. After a period of teaching, he went onto Berea College, which remarkably was co-educational, interracial, and charged no fees. Later he would attend the University of Chicago and then Harvard University, where, in 1912, he was the first child of former slaves to earn a doctorate. He had several teaching and governing roles in academia, including one in teaching in the Philippines and one as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Howard University, Washington D.C.

Woodson passionately believed in the importance of the study of African American history and culture. His conviction that the way these topics were approached by both whites and non-whites was detrimental to the African American cause led him to found The Journal of Negro History (now The Journal of African American History). In February 1926 he launched the celebration of "Negro History Week", the precursor of Black History Month. He wrote thirty varied works on the African diaspora. He never married, quipping that he was married to his work.

In The Mis-Education of the Negro, first published in 1933, Woodson argues that the Negro education of his time was aimed at maintaining the position of the Negro as a second class citizen in an apparently more benevolent way than the Jim Crow laws. It is an accessible, informative, and passionate book; essential reading for the understanding of race relations. This edition is set in a clear easy to read 11 point font.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789431186
Publisher:	Benediction Classics
Publication date:	07/02/2020
Pages:	110
Sales rank:	705,345
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.38(d)

About the Author

Carter G. Woodson was the founder of Black History Week. He wrote The Negro in Our History, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, A Century of Negro Migration, and The African Background Outlined. He died in 1950. Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu is the author of Lessons from History and Restoring the Village. He lives in Chicago.

Table of Contents

1. The Seat of the Trouble
2. How We Missed the Mark
3. How We Drifted Away from the Truth
4. Education Under Outside Control
5. The Failure to Learn to Make a Living
6. The Educated Negro Leaves the Masses
7. Dissension and Weakness
8. Professional Education Discouraged
9. Political Education Neglected
10. The Loss of Vision
11. The Need for Service Rather than Leadership
12. Hirelings in the Places of Public Servants
13. Understand the Negro
14. The New Program
15. Vocational Guidance
16. The New Type of Professional Man Required
17. Higher Strivings in the Service of the Country
18. The Study of the Negro

APPENDICES

Much Ado About a Name

The Value of Color

Editorial Reviews

Carter G. Woodson has been called the Father of Modern Black History. He was a central, commanding figure in the study, writing, and teaching of African American history and the first historian to successfully use sound scholarship to refute the prevailing myths and racist views about black Americans and their history. Among his contributions to American life is Black History Month (originally dubbed Negro History Week), which Woodson established to promote the study of African American history.

Woodson's 205-page monograph, The Mis-education of tbe Negro, reflects his profound concern for setting the record straight. His thesis, as outlined in his Preface, could well apply today: "The so-called modern education, with all its defects, however, does others so much more good than it does the Negro, because it has been worked out in conformity to the needs of those who have enslaved and oppressed weaker people." He was concerned with the way African American identity had been warped by racist approaches to history and education; he foresaw the ways that such a warped history would be internalized by black students who would never know of the achievements of their forebears, only of their humiliations and sufferings.

In the book's eighteen chapters, Woodson presents a systematic critique of the education system and offers a plan for change that would create a system that informs black students about their own history and addresses their unique challenges. The

current proliferation of African American studies programs, Afrocentric schools, and multicultural curricula all bear Woodson's stamp. Still, Mis-education remains a biting indictment of a public school system whose promise of education of the masses has still been left sadly unfulfilled.

Sacred Fire