Carter G. Woodson’s seminal book, The Miseducation of the Negro, published in 1926, is a book Black folk should periodically revisit, perhaps every three years, ideally every year.  If you are Black and you have not read the book, then I strongly suggest that you read it this Black History Month.  I would not go as far as saying that if you are Black and have not read the book then you are miseducated, but I would think of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Tom, U.S. Senator Uncle Tom Scott from South Carolina, and Aunt Jemima Candace Owens, and I would bet my last dollar that these miseducated Negros have not read the book.

It is not surprising that Senator Uncle Tom Scott hails from the state that in 1739 passed the first law which prohibited teaching an enslaved person to read and write, punishable by a fine of 100 pounds and six months in prison.  Note that today that 100 pounds would be equivalent to 25,306 pounds.  For context, New York State currently annually spends about $25,139 per student on public education (pre-k through 12^th grade).

I am a product of New York City’s public education system, and in it I learned readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic.  From pre-k through 12^th grade, I would not have thought of myself as miseducated.  At 17, my first year at Russell Sage College, in a Rhetoric course, I learned about Trivium – the elementary three: General Grammar, Aristotelian Logic, and Classical Rhetoric.  It was in this class that I also learned the first lesson of the Humanities: “know thyself.”  Education must first revolve around self-knowledge.  For a Black person, that would entail having books like The Miseducation of the Negro as part of the curriculum.  Even with this discovery, I didn’t think of myself as miseducated, but I was definitely deceived.  You know that a class has made a life-changing impression on you when 46 years later you remember one of the primary texts, The Art of Deception: An Introduction to Critical Thinking, by Nicholas Capaldi. (A year ago, when our daughter was a sophomore in college, I sent her this book.)

When the laws prohibiting teaching enslaved people to read or write were no more, Black children could not theoretically be denied education because of the Compulsory Education Act (1852), which required all children between the ages of 8 and 14 to attend school for at least three months out of the year.  In 1964, the age of eligibility was raised from 15 to 16.

When I think of myself as a 16-year-old, I did not know that in a year a course would change my educational trajectory.  I am thankful for that educator who taught me the importance of critical thinking, to call everything into question, that dissecting a theory was more important than remembering its core principles.  I learned to ask questions, even if only to myself.  First, did the theory in question hold up under scrutiny?  The whitewashed version of American history does not hold up under scrutiny.

Without getting into the politics of education, we know that the so-called “separate but equal” clause articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) would give ol’ Jim Crow (segregation) legal standing, and not until Brown v. Board of Education (1954) would the Supremes revisit this “thinking” and cut ol’ Jim Crow’s legs from under him, but the battle against a segregated and inferior educational system continues to this day.

What I learned during my educational odyssey was that I had to take responsibility and supplement my formal education by learning about myself and my people, the first lesson of the Humanities.  Then I would go on to the second lesson: learning about other people and how we and my ancestors have interacted in America since 1619.  When I was learning about myself and the history of my people, there was no 1619 Project.  Ironically, when Black folk seek to correct the inaccurate historical record written by white conquerors, it is called “reversionistic” instead of “corrective.”  The criticism of the 1619 Project, and of Critical Race Theory, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, are part of a legacy of keeping not only Black folk miseducated, but also white folk.

My Black History Month Challenge to both Black folk and white folk, is to begin the journey of our collective miseducation by starting with reading Carter G. Woodson’s book, The Miseducation of the Negro.  I would caution folk that Black folk in America are not the only miseducated people; we simply bear a heavier burden by being miseducated.