What Is The Miseducation Of Black American Education

“The Black Studies Program: Strategy and Structure” was published Fall of 1972 in The Jounal of Negro Education. It’s contents are a relection on the years before when colleges and universitys were allowing African Americans to attend , but did not provide curriculum about or for African Americans.

For almost two hundred years, Historically Black Colleges and Universities or HBCUs have played a pivotal role in the education of African-American people, and negro people internationally. These schools have provided the majority of black college graduates at the Graduate and Post-Graduate level; schools such as Hampton University, Morehouse University, Spellman University and Howard University are four universities at the forefront of the advanced education of blacks. For sometime there has been a discussion on whether or not these institutes should remain in existence or if they are just another form of racism. There were also concerning the quality of education provided at these institutions. In my opinion, from the evidence provided

For almost two hundred years, Historically Black Colleges and Universities or HBCUs have played a pivotal role in the education of African-American people, and negro people internationally. These schools have provided the majority of black college graduates at the Graduate and Post-Graduate level; schools such as Hampton University, Morehouse University, Spellman University and Howard University are four universities at the forefront of the advanced education of blacks. For sometime there has been a discussion on whether or not these institutes should remain in existence or if they are just another form of racism. There were also concerning the quality of education provided at these institutions. In my opinion, from the evidence provided

The original plan for the American Public school system was for it to provide vocational training, but William Edward Burghardt, W.E.B, Du Bois had a different idea. In his book, The Souls of Black Folk he writes, “ He began to have a dim feeling that, to attain his place in the world, he must be himself, and not another.” In the quote he speaks apropos the African American fight for proselytism, and their realization that, to get the best inculcation they must be themselves. Although, todays school system crushes individuality with the same ideologies as Du Bois in that they to believe that a degree signifies worth without considering others.

Everyone has a contribution in this world to make, even African Americans. DuBois continually stressed this to his fellow black community in his book The Souls of Black Folk. What they learn in schools will help the students determine what they will do further in life. If they choose to be the “talented ten” and choose academics, the black world will need them. African Americans need other African Americans to fill all occupations that a white man would. “Who

In the early colonies of /Eastern America, education was vital to the civilization of their new world. As immigrants from Europe, they heavily relied on their own intellect, or the common knowledge of their own country. All the ideas and intellectual knowledge of their home country was typically the only education they can fully trust as they begin their journey to a new civilized country.

There have been various tactics that southern whites used to slow down this educational progress. First, White communities would not hire African-American teachers, despite meeting the required credentials. Du Bois faced this firsthand when he was searching for a job in Tennessee. He would walk, because horses were too expensive, many miles asking schools ‘Got a teacher? Yes.’ The difficulty of being accepted into schools is another reason behind the uneducated African-American. Some schools would deny students based on the color of their skin. For example, Alexander Crummell was an African-American who sought an education from the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church. He would be rejected admission; but, the rejection did not deter him from his goal of obtaining an education. He would eventually own “his own chapel in Providence, a priest of the Church.” The experience of him being rejected created a man that would not complain of America’s standards. Instead, he would use the rejection to inspire the young, unwilling, and uneducated

African-American studies has been set in place to broaden an individual 's knowledge based on the history, literature, politics, and the lifestyle of Black Americans. Course 271 has helped me realize what African-American Studies is as an interdisciplinary field. It is not just a discipline, it is so much more. African-American studies is a way to learn about individuals outside Black History Month. African-American studies provides a way to deepen an individual’s understanding from the diaspora. It also teaches the history of my people in a way that I never learned in secondary school. It reinforces the importance to immerse myself into my history and culture. In my opinion, African-American Studies leads to mental liberation and a

The Black Space movement is the beginning of change in an academic culture that lacks diversity and inclusion in key policy that perpetuates a continuum among principal institution to be less than rather than embrace truth and justice and open to new intellectual insights that can support the intuition’s rise to a position of greater relevancy to a changing world. Black students should have high expectations, and the institution prepared to meet them.

Racial discrimination, political, social and economic inequality during the late 19th century and early 20th century led various leaders within the black community to rise up and address the appalling circumstances that African Americans were forced to endure. Among these leaders were Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois whom possessed analogous desires as it pertained to the advancement and upliftment of the black race. While both individuals were fighting for the same cause and purpose they embraced contrary ideologies and approaches to African American struggle. In Booker T. Washington’s book “Up from Slavery” African Americans were encouraged to be passive and focus on vocational education whereas in W.E.B. DuBois book “The Souls of Black Folk”, African Americans were encouraged to fight for their merited rights and focus on academic education. However, although Washington was convinced that his ideologies would sincerely uplift the black race, they actually proved to be detrimental, leaving DuBois ideology to be the most reasonable and appropriate solution for the advancement of the black race.

“The problem of holding the Negro down, therefore, is easily solved. When you control a man’s thinking you not have to worry about his actions. You do have stand here or go yonder. He will find his “proper place” and will stay in it” (Woodson p. 5). In the Miseducation of the Negro he focused in on the problems of the education system for African Americans leading to the dire effects of plight of the Negro. This timeless work is relevant and parallel today; he speaks on the lack of racial consciousness and the self-hatred through education that teaches him to despise himself/herself. For African Americans and other peoples of color, hegemony has placed us as at subordinate class in a white supremacist patriarchal society. Combining theories of political theorist, Antonio Gramsci, historian Carter G. Woodson, sociologist W.E.B Du Bois, and social theorist Michael Foucault a theoretical and practical coherence can show the relationship of knowledge and power. Critical Pedagogy links the relationship of knowledge and power, in which knowledge is socially constructed and rooted in a nexus of power relations (Darder, Baltodano, & Torres p.63). Critical consciousness within critical pedagogy has us consider as students and future educators the role of education and knowledge when it comes oppression and decolonization.

When I sat down at my laptop with the intent to tackle the concept of the Black educational crisis, I found myself constantly uninspired. Not because I don’t believe in the validity of the struggle for equal education among those in the black community. In addition, it wasn’t because I didn’t feel passion for the topic. No, my lack inspiration stemmed from the question of what did I have to add to the chorus of the song of our struggle. What could I say that has not only ready been debated and dissected. What number or statistics could I give you to act as a paint on a canvas to a picture that we’ve already seen. What could study could I cite to act as notes to a medley we already know. We’ve been humming this sad Negro spiritual since the

must have higher schools to teach teachers for the common schools” (Of the Training of Black Men). Du Bois believed that these initiatives were crucial in order to catch up to whites and establish a platform for blacks.

My hometown of Chappaqua, NY is a small suburban village that is the home to mostly well-off, white people. My high school’s population consists of almost exclusively white people and was only about 4% African-American. When I came to Tulane, I expected this to change because the university preached about the importance of diversity. Unfortunately, I realized when I arrived on campus that Tulane was only referring to geographical diversity, a rather different version of diversity from what I envisioned. Over the time I’ve attended Tulane, I have noticed the African-American subculture that exists on campus. Most of the white students that I have encountered come from the same predominately-white background that I did. The lack of exposure to diversity has contributed to a more segregated campus. Most of these white students rely on the image of African-Americans portrayed by the media to form their ideas of what a black person is. Black students are sometimes completely isolated from the mainstream culture at Tulane due to factors such as cultural background, appearance, and upbringing that some white students feel they can’t identify with.

Alexander Crummell was one of the first Black intellectuals that advocated for a liberal arts education among Blacks. Crummell believed that Blacks were underdeveloped because slavery destroyed their traditions, culture, and made them illiterate, but through a liberal arts education it would train Black minds “tenacity, literacy, endurance, culture, and persistence, qualities that Blacks needed to make progress in everyday life.” Crummell argued that Jim Crow laws like the Plessey vs. Ferguson case that established separate, but equal segregated communities for Blacks and Whites created “The downfall for the Negro population as it created the disenfranchisement of the Negro and the unequal access to institutions that the Whites received.” Crumell’s work demonstrates that restrictions of Blacks rights to vote and access to well funded and equal institutions due to Jim Crow laws was one of the biggest fundamental concerns in Black communities and in order to change these laws it was believed by Black scholars that Blacks needed to be educated in a liberal arts education as it civilized them and taught them how to fight against Jim Crow laws. Black scholars believed that the various issues that Blacks faced due to Jim Crow laws would be solved with education, but do to the various different problems that Blacks faced like political disenfranchisement and segregation it caused some Black scholars to believe that only a liberal arts education would only suffice the needs to