Classic 6: The Mis-Education of The Negro

WRITTEN BY THE FOUNDER OF BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Author: Dr. Carter G. Woodson
Published: 1933
Pages:

Details:  An authoritative analysis of the effect and impact of European centered education upon people of African descent.

Book Available Digitally | YES (Full text)
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Imani’s Introduction & Note: 

Imani’s Notes: This is a very important and significant book to be noted and digested in the study of African Black history and a strategy to change for the better the circumstances of black people generally. Again in regards to the subject of Education and Black people specifically, its process, effect and influence, their is no greater authority then Dr Carter G. Woodson and no better book that details this phenomena than his Mis-Education of the Negro. This is another benchmark in the field of Black studies, setting a stage and platform.

This book came out of personal research, study and observations made by Woodson over a period of 30 years, concerning the education content and process of black people, from elementary through to university levels in institutions across America, Europe, the Caribbean and other parts of the world where he visited and often taught. Woodson attempts to analyse through this book, the process and affects upon Black people of a western themed and controlled education, taught them since their Emancipation in the Caribbean in 1837 & in America in 1865 up until his current time 1930’s i.e less than a century.

He succeeded in his endeavours, as here he is able to objectively show how damaging education can be, if not designed with the benefit of the student in mind, as well as how the same education can be counteracted and even refocused to have a positive impact and influence upon the recipient countrary to the intent of its authors. This counteraction and resistance is assured as insinuated by Woodson, only through the studying and raised awareness of true African History, as told by African people themselves. Dr Woodson was also a prolific researcher in black history and founded the Journal of African History, the first such of its kind in 1925-26, a year later he founded Negro History Week, our present Black History Month.

Important aspects of the book are; Woodson references to the barriers that a western education places in the minds of Black people; his acknowledgement of his own possible personal defects, as a result of his own very extensive western education; his views on what type of education is needed; and what type of educational route an individual would need to take, to have a realistic chance of seeing through the western dogma and even using it positively for the uplift of the race; and how he places the responsibility of our education not upon the system, but upon ourselves both collectively and individually.
This is one book that ‘Can be read by its cover’, as it truly is a book about the miseducation of the Negro.

Also I would like to add that Woodson was also spot on, in his observations, particularly on the type of Education route to be taken, to realistically devise a method to both absorb the westernised education, which is damaging but essential, yet channel it, positively and effectively for the uplift of one’s self and other Ethnic African people, locally & internationally. A route that I myself took, following the very footsteps and the actual same advice given by The Rt Hon. Marcus M. Garvey that has resulted in me having, Uplifted myself and in the process visioned a clear, practical and workable plan that even in 2012, will achieve that very objective of Uplifting Ethnic African People Globally, whether or not I myself accomplish it.