excerpts from the book...
The Mis-Education of the Negro
by Carter G. Woodson
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The mere imparting of information is not education. Above all things, the effort must result in
making a man think and do for himself...
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 for his special benefit.
...the teaching of arithmetic in the fifth grade in a backward county in Mississippi should be one
thing in the Negro school, and a decidedly different thing in the white school. The Negro
children, as a rule, come from the homes of tenants and peons who have to migrate annually
from plantation to plantation, looking for light which they have never seen. The children from
the homes of white planters and merchants live permanently in the midst of calculations, family
budgets, and the like, which enable them sometimes to learn more by contact than the Negro
can acquire in school. Instead of teaching such Negro children less arithmetic, they should be
taught much more...
...To point out merely the defects as they appear today will be of little benefit to the present and
future generations. These things must be viewed in their historic setting. The conditions of
today have been determined by what has taken place in the past, and in a careful study of this
history we may see more clearly the great theatre of events in with the Negro has played a part.
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How We Drifted Away from the Truth
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Education Under Outside Control
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The Failure to Learn to Make a Living
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The Educated Negro Leaves the Masses
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Professional Educated Discouraged
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Political Education Neglected
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The Need for Service Rather Than
Leadership
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Hirelings in the Places of Public Servants
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Instead of accepting and trying to
carry out the theories which the
exploiters of humanity have brought
them for a religious program, the
Negroes should forget their
differences and in the strength of a
united church bring out a new
interpretation of Christ to this
unwilling world.
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The New Type of Professional Man
Required
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Higher Strivings in the Service of the
Country
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