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
In Woodson’s time, Black people have barely entered professional life, except as teachers and preachers. The few Black “physicians, dentists, pharmacists, lawyers, and actors” lack adequate support from their communities. They are also forced to study at white institutions, which often mistreat them and make it difficult for them to practice. But Black schools have been mismanaged, leaving them with no alternative. For instance, most Black law schools closed during after the backlash to Reconstruction, precisely when Black lawyers were most needed.
Now, Woodson turns to education for Black professionals, who play an essential role in providing the community with the services it needs to flourish. However, they face similar challenges as Black preachers and businesspeople. Schools don’t adequately train them because they’re not sensitive to specific issues that the Black community faces. Clearly, Woodson sees the mismanagement of Black institutions as a broader social problem and views rebuilding such institutions as an important priority.
Themes
Black professionals also face monumental hurdles. For instance, Woodson once dealt with a lawyer who couldn’t get a minor error fixed on a contract because white lawyers refused to work with him. Similarly, because white professionals portray Black doctors as unreliable, “highly educated” Black people don’t trust them. Black people avoid becoming scientists, architects, and engineers because white firms won’t hire them.
These professional hurdles show how racism and segregation make Black professionals’ jobs fundamentally different from their white counterparts. Woodson suggests that schools must specifically train Black professionals to overcome such obstacles. Moreover, he argues that forming Black-owned firms is important because it will allow this Black professional class to grow and practice more effectively.
Themes
The education system also poses problems for Black artists. Black musicians reach wide audiences but can seldom develop creatively because they are seen as “popular” musicians, rather than true artists. Similarly, Black people are seen as “natural actor[s],” which is schools’ excuse for refusing to train them. This makes it difficult for them to succeed outside of minstrelsy and cabarets. Finally, Black writers don’t get recognized if they write about Black people, because white people don’t take them seriously.
The pervasive racism that Black professionals face is all the more apparent in the arts, where powerful white managers’ subjective judgments about value determine who succeeds and who fails. Just like in business and the other professions, this creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because industry gatekeepers don’t take Black artists and writers seriously as artists, these artists and writers choose to create what Woodson considers unrefined amateur art. This, in turn, reinforces the racist perception that Black artists are naturally inferior.
Themes
