Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Mis-Education of the Negro, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Education
Mis-Education as Social Control
Failures of Black Leadership
Business and Economic Development
Summary
Analysis
Based on his decades of experience as a scholar and educator, Woodson argues that very few Black people really care about learning Black history, because most consider it unimportant. They associate “history” with war, conquest, and other “crimes of the strong,” but Woodson argues that real history involves the timeless struggle for progress and equality.
Woodson contrasts two visions of what historians should do, study, and teach. On the one hand, conventional historians focus on who has held power and what they have done with it. This history explains the forces that have shaped the world, but it doesn’t provide ordinary people with any meaningful models for how to act during their lives. In contrast, Woodson is interested in the history of ordinary people and social groups, which can provide his readers and community with this kind of guidance. In fact, he’s following the advice he’s given throughout the book: effective educators must speak to their students’ fundamental needs, desires, and abilities.
Themes
Woodson’s Association for the Study of Negro Life and History is committed to promoting the study of Black history, which the Association believes to be just as significant and accomplished as any other group’s history. In contrast, the white establishment argues that Black history is insignificant, because this encourages Black people to see themselves as worthless and inferior. Because Black history counters this perception, Woodson considers teaching it an important step toward justice and equality.
Woodson’s association represents his own service to his race and nation: he wants to build the kind of institutions that he believes Black Americans need in order to collectively understand, appreciate, and value their own experiences. As he emphasizes throughout the book, scholarship trickles down to influence curriculum, which then influences students and eventually produces better leaders and citizens.
Themes
The white establishment has successfully subjugated Black people by teaching them a distorted version of their history, which is full of lies and negative stereotypes. But Woodson affirms that, by looking at themselves and their history scientifically, Black people can truly understand their predicament and make better plans for liberating themselves from it. Woodson hopes that this will help Black people, communities, and nations act with “foresight rather than ‘hindsight.’”
White supremacist history’s lies and stereotypes are designed to give Black people a distorted view of their own past, identity, and potential. In contrast, Woodson proposes teaching Black people verifiable facts about their history—or even teaching this history from a Black perspective, just like white history is taught from a white perspective. This would give Black people ownership over their own story and show them that they have the power to rewrite this story in the future.
Themes
According to Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, the solution to “the race problem” is critical thinking, which can help each person take the actions appropriate to their own particular circumstances. In closing, Woodson notes that the Association has published a textbook called The African Background Outlined, which presents a broad set of summaries and readings about Black history, art, and social and economic life around the world.
Woodson reiterates his conviction that education’s power lies specifically in its ability to teach critical thinking, which in turn is the key skill necessary to improve and transform the world. Since critical thinking really just means assessing evidence in order to make judgments and take action, he thinks that Black people have to assess the facts of their own history in order to decide how to improve their situation. Woodson refers his readers to his textbook so that, if they so desire, they can start truly educating themselves about Black life and history.
Themes
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In a brief Appendix, Woodson examines debates about racial terminology, like “Black,” “Negro,” “Colored,” and so on. He argues that it is misguided for a group to try to improve its reputation by changing its name. Rather, he thinks that Black people should focus on improving themselves, so that whatever name they’re called gets associated with greatness. Woodson also criticizes Black people for dressing poorly, rather than embracing their beauty by coordinating their clothing with their skin color.
Woodson uses this Appendix to address some prominent debates in and about the Black community in the 1930s. He sticks to his primary message: even though Blac people aren’t responsible for their own oppression, the power to overcome that oppression lies primarily in their hands. Woodson thinks that Black people will never get anywhere by trying to manage the feelings, expectations, and behavior of white people who already look down on them.
Themes
