The Mis-Education of the Negro

"The Mis-Education of the Negro," originally published in 1933 by Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson, is arguably his greatest book. The thesis of "The Mis-Education of the Negro" is that African Americans of his time 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. He challenges his readers to become autodidacts and to "do for themselves," regardless of what they were taught.