The Mis-Education Of The Negro------A Must Read

First Published in 1933 Introduction Considerable time has passed since the first printing of this volume, but it is significant that it has meaning and direct implications for today's consideration. While it does not relate exclusively to Black History it does emphasize its instruction, research and writing. In substance Carter Woodson has produced a definitive and constructive critique of the educational system, with special reference to its blighting effects on the Negro; and the term he used, Mis-education, was the most apt and descriptive word available. It is still, in 1969, equally as relevant and expressive. Now, however, it is loudly articulated by many voices of Whites as well as Blacks, who likewise challenge the system. The most imperative and crucial element in Woodson's concept of mis-education hinged on the education system's failure to present authentic Negro History in schools and the bitter knowledge that there was a scarcity of literature available for such a purpose, because most history books gave little or no space to the black man's presence in America. Some of them contained casual references to Negroes but these generally depicted them in menial, subordinate roles, more or less sub-human. Such books stressed their good fortune at having been exposed, through slavery, to the higher (white man's) civilization. There were included derogatory statements relating to the primitive, heathenish quality of the African background, but nothing denoting skills, abilities, contributions or potential in the image of the Blacks, in Africa or America. Woodson considered this state of affairs deplorable, an American tragedy, dooming the Negro to a brain-washed acceptance of the inferior role assigned to him by the dominant race, and absorbed by him through his schooling. Moreover, the neglect of Afro-American History and distortion of the facts concerning Negroes in most history books, deprived the black child and his whole race of a heritage, and relegated him to nothingness and nobodyness. This was Woodson's conviction as he stated it in this book and as he lived by it. In his Annual Report of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History for the year ending June 30, 1933, the publication period of Mis-Education, he stated: Regarding the Negro race as a factor in world culture rather than as an element in a sequestered sphere, the Director (Woodson) has recently made two trips to Europe to extend the study of the notice taken of Negroes by European authors and artists, and to engage a larger number of Europeans and Africans in the study of the past of the Negro. 1 Thus it is evident that the stress which Dr. Woodson places on historical research, writing, and teaching in this volume was not theoretical jargon. It represented rather, a firm belief; also a judgement of the available type of education that was so strongly oriented as to warrant his complete and selfless dedication to its betterment. This devotion became a crusade which, in the above instance, carried him to Europe in an effort to open new avenues for recreating and writing of the black man's past. This was in line with his basic charges against the omission by most historians of such an important part of history. Mis-Education criticizes the system, and explains the vicious circle that results from mis-educated individuals graduating, then proceeding to teach and mis-educate others. But the book is by no means a study in negation. The author goes to great lengths in tracing the historical foundations of the problem, its development, and its influence on interpersonal relations and historical scholarship. Numerous other scholars now follow its example. The youths of the race were Woodson's particular concern because he recognized that it was with, the boys and girls that Mis-education began, later crystallizing into deep-seated insecurities, intra-racial cleavages, and interracial antagonisms. All of these factors have been discussed over and over in the immediate past, by historians, sociologists, psychiatrists, and laymen, but Dr. Woodson, and a pitifully small number of others, had pointed the way a full generation earlier. More so than most of his contemporaries did Woodson contribute because he gave up a prestigious educational career, including a school principalship in Washington, D.C., the position of Dean at both Howard University and West Virginia State College. He decided instead to devote his finances and energies to an association which would help to overcome the inadequacies of the system which promoted mis-education. This was not by any means his first book but the views expressed herein form a sort of core or center, to and from which his texts and other writings protrude and revert. All of this scholar's researches and writings were designed to provide educational sustenance, to fill the void which existed by reason of neglect of Black Studies. As has been already observed, however, he was no mere theorist, he was an activist and a pragmatist. He knew that writing alone would be inadequate for the enormity of the need. Consequently he, with four others, founded The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, established the Journal of Negro History, and concentrated mightily on the educational aspect of his program, trying to counteract the poison of mis-education. In regard to these efforts he reported: The calls on the Research Department for assistance to teachers and students have multiplied so as to make this phase of the work a heavy burden on a small staff. Instructors now taking up the study of the Negro require help in working out courses in this new field; and their students are urged to make frequent use of the Department by correspondence or a visit to the home of the Association. 2 That statement is just as relevant in today's situation as it was when Woodson made it! As a matter of fact it might be copied and used by the present Director of the Association and it would be true except that the demand for services has increased a thousand-fold. The study of the Black man is still new in this generation, but such advances as have been made are in large part due to the vision, insight, writings, and publishing of pioneers like Carter Woodson. Indeed his analyses and conclusions regarding the entire educational system and its unrelatedness to future needs of the students stand firm, on solid ground. They were extendable to the 1960's, and student attitudes and actions make it quite clear that the reasoning and recommendations of Mis-Education constitute a convenient point of departure for the current reformation of educational institutions. If Woodson had been content with merely writing his own articles and books his contribution would have been monumental, because his production was tremendous and his methodology was scientific. He, however, conceived of this historical vacuum in terms of such magnitude that no one historian could possibly do enough research and writing to seek the facts, organize and present them, and correct the false and distorted information which had been passed off for true history for many generations. Consequently he sought, encouraged, and published the works of other scholars who shared his convictions and his sense of urgency in the premises. As one noteworthy example, Lawrence D. Reddick has an analytical article of forty pages in the Journal of Negro History entitled "Racial Attitudes in American History Textbooks of the South." 3 In line with Woodson's complaints this author pointed out that the average pupil received a picture of slavery which generally managed to justify it, to explain the climate and economic conditions which fastened it to the South, and to minimize the hardships for blacks by emphasizing their good nature and song-singing. The textbook authors stressed the fact that there had been no practical way to free southern slaves, and blamed the northern abolitionists for the hardening of southern attitudes. There was virtually nothing in the textbooks he explored that referred to the role and development of the Negro in national life after Reconstruction. His activities in the wars and national defense were completely ignored, and illustrations for all periods were almost non-existent. Thus this article, accepted, edited, and published by Woodson, in all respects bore out his grievance against Mis-education, and it went to the very heart of his thesis. In the same issue of the Journal of Negro History another article reinforced his views from a different investigative angle. Thomas L. Dabney made a survey of Negro and white colleges to determine the ones which offered courses in Negro History and/or Literature, or Race Relations; the Negro public schools which offered Negro History and/or Negro Literature; and the enrollment figures for both colleges and pre-college students. He also explained the purposes and progress of Negro History Week, as well as the home study courses offered by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, and its clubs in their states. 4 Another respected educator, Dr. Horace Mann Bond, was strongly aware of the substantive character of Dr. Woodson's charges of Mis-Education, particularly with regard to the curriculum under which the southern Negro child studied. In that connection he wrote, "The activities of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History may ... be said to represent a Negro nationalism which is a reaction against the 'white' nationalism of the American people." 5 Then, referring to the curriculum builders who took "for granted that white supremacy had to be maintained," Bond declared: The load of what appears to the present writer, and Dr. Woodson, as propaganda, was not so considered by the former writers of southern textbooks, nor is it today. 6 Thus it is apparent that Dr. Bond was either influenced by or was in agreement with the mis-education ideas which constituted so vital a part of Dr. Woodson's entire theory of the unfavorable effect of the American educational system on black children. Many of the investigations were concentrated on the Southland and that is understandable. The hulk of the Negro population then lived below the Mason-Dixon line where no blacks were admitted to the white schools or colleges, and the dual system of education was obviously and definitely designed to perpetuate the Negro-inferiority image of the slavery period. Dr. Woodson also condemned the North for discrimination. As one who had studied at northern universities, The University of Chicago, and Harvard University, where he received the Ph.D degree, his experiences and observations enabled him to make valid judgments about that section. One of his intellectual contemporaries, another Harvard-trained scholar, W. E. B. DuBois, was especially outspoken on northern education for Negroes, believing with Woodson, that it propagandized and indoctrinated youth, draining them of self-confidence, self-respect, and self-knowledge. In 1935 DuBois wrote: ... race prejudice in the United States today is such that most Negroes cannot receive proper education in white institutions ... many public school systems in the North where Negroes are admitted and tolerated but they are not educated; they are crucified ... certain Northern universities where Negro students ... cannot get fair recognition, either in classroom or on the campus, in dining hall or student activities, or in human common courtesy ... at Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, Negroes are admitted but not welcomed; while in other institutions like Princeton they cannot even enroll. 7 In further development of his thesis that Blacks needed special education, Dr. DuBois made a point-blank statement with respect to a constructive means of overcoming the mis-education to which they were subjected: Negroes must know the history of the Negro race in America, and this they will seldom get in white institutions. Their children ought to study textbooks like Brawley's "Short History," the first edition of Woodson's "Negro in Our History," and Cromwell, Turner, and Dykes' "Readings from Negro Authors." Negroes who celebrate the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln, and relatively unimportant "founders" of various Negro colleges, ought not to forget the 5th of March,—that first national holiday of this country, which commemorates the martyrdom of Crispus Attucks. They ought to celebrate Negro Health Week and Negro History Week. They ought to study intelligently and from their own point of view, the slave trade, slavery, emancipation, Reconstruction and present economic development. 8 Dr. DuBois proceeded then to explain in careful detail that he was making no special plea for segregated schools, or mixed schools, but for education. To use his language: ... a separate Negro school where children are treated like human beings, trained by teachers of their own race, who know what it means to be black in the year of salvation 1935, is infinitely better than making our boys and girls doormats to be spit and trampled upon and lied to by ignorant social climbers, whose sole claim to superiority is ability to kick "niggers" when they are down. 9