Political Education Neglected

Not long ago a measure was introduced in a certain State Legislature to have the Constitution of the United States thus printed in school histories, but when the bill was about to pass it was killed by some one who made the point that it would never do to have Negroes study the Constitution of the United States.  If the Negroes were granted the opportunity to peruse this document, they might learn to contend for the rights therein guaranteed; and no Negro teacher who gives attention to such matters of the government is tolerated in those backward districts.  The teaching of government or the lack of such instruction then must be made to conform to the policy of "keeping the Negro in his place."

In like manner, the teaching of history in the Negro area has had its political significance.  Starting out after the Civil War, the opponents of freedom and social justice decided to work out a program which would enslave the Negroes' mind inasmuch as the freedom of body had to be conceded.  It was well understood that if by teaching of history the white man could be further assured of his superiority and the Negro could be made to feel that he had always been a failure and that the subjection of his will to some other race is necessary, the freedman, then, would still be a slave.  If you can control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his action.  When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do.  If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself.  If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door.  He will go without being told: and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one.

This program, so popular immediately after the Civil War, was not new but after this upheaval, its execution received a new stimulus.

Carter G. Woodson, 1933