The Mis-Education of the Negro
by Carter Godwin Woodson
Edited with an Introduction by Charles H. Wesley
and Thelma D. Perry
First Published in 1933

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

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.

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

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-