The Mis-Education of the Negro

The Mis-Education of the Negro by Dr. Carter G. Woodson follows the thesis that African-Americans of Woodson’s day were being culturally indoctrinated rather than taught in American schools. This conditioning, he claims, causes African-Americans to become dependent and to seek out inferior places in the greater society of which they are a part. Woodson challenges his readers to become autodidacts and to “do for themselves,” regardless of what they were taught. “History shows that it does not matter who is in power … those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they did in the beginning.”-Page 4 of cover.