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African American Studies

Student

Instructor

Institution

Course

Date
 2

African American Studies

Chapter 2: The Awakening of the Negro

The chapter is quite captivating and offers a chronological historical at that time, in which

Booker T. Washington pioneered the Tuskegee Institute which taught students skills that would

enable them to become self-sufficient and independent of racist economic systems that used their

labor to pay rent and considered them as labor units rather than individuals with the ability to

invent and create. It is also very enlightening to see how Washington thought of education being

the only way that Blacks could attain real freedom from the oppression by establishing a

generation of entrepreneurs and professionals whose work would lead to the betterment of

humanity.

Direct Quote: “One of the objections sometimes urged against industrial education for the negro

is that it aims merely to teach him to work on the same plan that he was made to follow when in

slavery.”

Chapter 3: The Education of Black Folk

This chapter is really intriguing as it points out to the biases that early education and religion

posed to the black community. The syllabus and religious education was tailored to show them

that their position was to remain in slavery and serve the whites. He believed that education

offered at that time was not equal and was designed for the black man’s peril rather than his

success.

Direct quote: “Religion must still be taught, to be sure, for properly taught it makes better slaves;

but no reading and writing, no real training of intelligence.”