America- MisEducating Negroes For Over 400 Years

The Miseducation of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson is a perennial achievement in educational and racial discourse. This text was written in 1933, 96 years after the first Historically Black College or University (Cheyney University) was founded. Woodson is upset and he wants the reader to understand why. He uses the word "traducer" frequently in the text and I admit I had to use the dictionary on my Mac to define the word. Traducer means "one who speaks badly of [someone] as a means of ruining their reputation" and in the context of the text, he uses "traducer" to refer to our 2520  Caucasian counterparts. He wants the reader to understand that everyone who attempts to save you does not have salvation in mind. The educational system in America is solely incapable of creating an educational foundation, nothing more. Higher education is one's ability to find knowledge outside of the textbook.

The text is 18 chapters and 197 pages long, excluding the appendix, bibliography, and introductions. Each chapter spans a little over/under ten pages and deals with a different issue of the educational system including "The Educated Negro Leaves the Masses" and "The Study of the Negro." As I stated, Woodson is upset, or rather he is perturbed. He is an ABM (Angry Black Man) with several "bones to pick" (Mama-ism). He points out the problems in higher education, leadership, and racial division. What Woodson wants the reader to know is education does not equal alienation. He implores the educated to return to their communities and uplift the people. W.E.B. DuBois' talented tenth is Woodson's target audience. He wants readers to understand the importance of community in the salvation of the black race.

Woodson is by no means limited in the scope of the text as he drops knowledge like "Africans first domesticated the sheep, goat, and cow, developed the idea of trial by jury, produced the first stringed instruments, and gave the world its greatest boon in the discovery of iron" (21).

I did not learn these facts until I read this book and that is a damn  shame. But who counts on history books to learn history?

Not only does Woodson drop knowledge, he also drops admonishments. In the chapter Service Rather Than Leadership Woodson says,

"The race needs workers, not leaders" (italics mine).

In the next chapter, "Hirelings in Public Servants' Places" he goes into more detail saying,

The servant of the people, unlike the leader, is not on a high horse elevated above the people and trying to carry them to some designated point to which he would like to go for his own advantage. The servant of the people is down among them, living as they are, doing what they do, and enjoying what they enjoy. He may be better informed than some of the members of the group; it may be that he has had some experience they have not had, but in spite of this advantage he should have more humility than those whom he serves, for we are told that 'Whosoever is the greatest among you, let him be your servant' (131).

Woodson speaks as if the reader is sitting at his feet with an open cup for him to pour his wisdom into. By the close of the text said cup would be running over. I mean, this is the same man who coined the oft-quoted quote:

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; In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one out for his own special benefit. His education makes it necessary. 


When Woodson says, "The Negro needs to become RADICAL," I take it as a call to arms, a call to action. Education is the only means of freeing the slave. Without independent education, man will continue to be reliant on those who hold the educational reins.

Carter Godwin Woodson is a giant man who has broadened his shoulders for generations of African American children to stand on. And I am thankful for him and his contributions to African American scholarship.