Carter G Woodson Educated Negro Summary

The author of this book is Carter G. Woodson. The book is entitled, The Mis-Education of The Negro. The main issue in this book is basically stating that the African Americans have been miseducated Woodson intended to make a valid address on “educated negroes” and who are they being taught by. If blacks are being taught by people outside of the race, then we must question the “educated negro”. Woodson is explaining to us why the Black community is so divided now..
This book definitely made me do plenty of questioning and reflecting on what I’ve been “taught” the last Twelve years. It helped me realize that even though this book was written many years ago this definitely still occurs today. Such as, limited opportunities like jobs and education. …show more content…
That is overall what Woodson was trying to get us to comprehend how African Americans keep forgetting or at least, why they attempt to forget. Within the mixed schools, Negroes are learning to think highly of Hebrew, the Greek, the Latin, even more they are taught to look down or treat their own race as a nonentity. Woodson said, If the inferiority is drilled into a student within every class and every book, there is a higher chance that he/she will escape some of this bias and may be able to service his/her people. The author said “ by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change condition is hopeless is the worst sort of lynching”. When a Negro has finished his education in our schools he will be prepared to begin the life of a Europeanized white man. He went even further to say he must be social and bi-social and over all things must remember that he must be a “good negro” and always stay in his “place”. Woodson touched on how African Americans need to be educated differently including classical, liberal and practical skills. Of course there were many who did not receive the opportunity to get either educational experience, and from the one’s that did, only a small amount developed enough ability to do what they were “trained” to …show more content…
Carter G. Woodson had a much wider vocabulary than I do so I found myself rereading certain passages to comprehend what he was trying to say. I needed almost complete silence to read this book so that I could obtain and retain from it. I felt like he did repeat himself from time to time but I also feel like that was for the reader to connect to how he feels about this situation. His main points in the book included education, business, and churches.The majority of the masses within the community would not support the Negro business man. The "educated Negro" was more concerned about himself and getting as far away from being classified as an "uneducated Negro", or a Negro at all. The “educated negro” would also leave the church of his people to the church filled with the oppressors and accept jimcrowism. Basically in each of these circumstances the Negro found a way to fail because he is so used to doing what he is told, he doesn’t even question if it is rational or not. In other words, he does not think for