The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861

by Carter G. Woodson

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Genres: History, Education, Nonfiction, African American, Race, American History, Civil War

289 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1915

About the author

Convinced that the role of his own people in American history and in the history of other cultures was being ignored or misrepresented among scholars, Woodson realized the need for research into the neglected past of African Americans. Along with William D. Hartgrove, George Cleveland Hall, Alexander L. Jackson, and James E. Stamps, he founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History on September 9, 1915, in Chicago. That was the year Woodson published The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861. His other books followed: A Century of Negro Migration (1918) and The History of the Negro Church (1927). His work The Negro in Our History has been reprinted in numerous editions and was revised by Charles H. Wesley after Woodson's death in 1950.

In January 1916, Woodson began publication of the scholarly Journal of Negro History. It has never missed an issue, despite the Great Depression, loss of support from foundations, and two World Wars. In 2002, it was renamed the Journal of African American History and continues to be published by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH).

Woodson stayed at the Wabash Avenue YMCA during visits to Chicago. His experiences at the Y and in the surrounding Bronzeville neighborhood inspired him to create the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915. The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History), which ran conferences, published The Journal of Negro History, and "particularly targeted those responsible for the education of black children". Another inspiration was John Wesley Cromwell's 1914 book, The Negro in American History: Men and Women Eminent in the Evolution of the American of African Descent.

Carter Godwin Woodson was an American historian, author, journalist and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. He was one of the first scholars to study African-American history. A founder of The Journal of Negro History in 1916, Woodson has been cited as the "father of black history". In February 1926 he launched the celebration of "Negro History Week", the precursor of Black History Month.

Woodson believed that education and increasing social and professional contacts among blacks and whites could reduce racism and he promoted the organized study of African-American history partly for that purpose. He would later promote the first Negro History Week in Washington, D.C., in 1926, forerunner of Black History Month. The Bronzeville neighborhood declined during the late 1960s and 1970s like many other inner-city neighborhoods across the country, and the Wabash Avenue YMCA was forced to close during the 1970s, until being restored in 1992 by The Renaissance Collaborative.

He served as Academic Dean of the West Virginia Collegiate Institute, now West Virginia State University, from 1920 to 1922.

He studied many aspects of African-American history. For instance, in 1924, he published the first survey of free black slaveowners in the United States in 1830.

The time that schools have set aside each year to focus on African-American history is Woodson's most visible legacy. His determination to further the recognition of the Negro in American and world history, however, inspired countless other scholars. Woodson remained focused on his work throughout his life. Many see him as a man of vision and understanding. Although Woodson was among the ranks of the educated few, he did not feel particularly sentimental about elite educational institutions.[citation needed] The Association and journal that he started are still operating, and both have earned intellectual respect.

Woodson's other far-reaching activities included the founding in 1920 of the Associated Publishers, the oldest African-American publishing company in the United States. This enabled publication of books concerning blacks that

Reviews

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A real find. Carter G. Woodson is called the father of African American Studies and wrote this book in the early 20th century. He documents how African Americans received education before 1861. When slaves were brought over there was a need for them to do work such as book keeping and records by their masters. It was considered important to have them educated enough to do this work. Others thought it important for slaves to become educated enough to read the bible and become Christians. Catholics and Quakers were especially consistent in educating slaves. Around the time of the American Revolution, educating slaves was thought of because slavery was thought to be an institution on its way out. People desired to have slaves prepared for freedom. The cotton gin and cotton changed a lot. Slaves became more valuable commodities and masters feared that educated slaves would not be content as fielder hands and drudgery type work. An effort that grew stronger by 1830, saw the South create draconian laws against educating slaves. The laws were specifically created to prevent outsiders from the North from coming down and educating Blacks. Masters had always had the right of way and education to slaves by masters, their children, etc. we're left alone. As time continued, the colony movement grew as did the abolitionist movement. Colonists believed in educating blacks to live in Liberia and pressed that as a goal. Free blacks refused that idea. Abolitionists attempted to educate but few ways to do it. The Fugitive Slave act put more onerous regulations on and caused a few to defy it despite penalties. For higher education the debate whether to teach a trade or a liberal education lingered. Many felt higher Ed should only be for those willing to move to Liberia. Trade groups for whites protested new competition and the lower wages the colored would receive. For younger students, public education was seen as being on welfare and many Blacks. Refused it. The debate for education continues todt.

[Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

mind blowing and thought stimulating.

[Janel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eye opening and very informative. Many of the information that Woodson presented were surprising.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Touchstone text.

[Kenneth Bernoska · Rating 5 out of 5]

I rate this book highly.


This book comes out of an America where moral instruction (with Christian specificity) and formal systems of learning are very much inextricable from each other. Mr. Woodson navigates moral and formal learning in early America in a vital way — and gives us an understanding of what education (and Education) meant in early America.


Education, moral or otherwise, for black folks in America gets obstructed, walked back and rescinded explicitly to conserve a racist society (shocking...I know) — importantly, actors on these backslides can, at the same time, be critically aware doing so undermines a universally shared (or specifically Christian) system of values. 


Under such conditions, Moral Character becomes anemic and devalued; and in its absence, racialized hierarchy becomes long lived. Yikes. Fucking ruinous. We’ll leave it at that. 


So too, Mr. Woodson points us to noble and stalwart educators; to surveys, petitions, and letters; to ordinances, codes, and legislature; to single-rooms, campuses, and districts; and to the bright flashes of many of the best efforts to create a place of learning, instruction and experience for folks of color in our country.


This is what is important about studying work like Mr. Woodson’s. It is possible to see (lower-case ‘l’) liberal education as a fundamentally [though not exclusively] moral thing. And it is possible to spend a life working to that end. And to see, again and again, a nickel’s worth of good when you’ve brought a dollars’ worth of value to society. The book reviewed here, in some important ways, follows that dollar.


Mr. Woodson’s work bares needful witness.

[Daniel Kleven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carter G. Woodson's first book, originally published in 1915, this was published because his PhD dissertation was considered to be too similar to another dissertation that had recently been published. Clocking in at nearly 500 pages, this is truly a comprehensive study of Black education in America before the Civil War. The year it came out, W. E. B. Du Bois called it “the most significant book concerning the Negro race” published that year. For those interested in Black education, in Carter G. Woodson, or in Black history and the freedom struggle, this is a monumental and foundational book.

[Sterling · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this before my first year of college to get an idea of what education was like for those in the past.

It really is an in-depth reading that I am going to read again and again due to the fact that I have grown and recognized some of these issues sadly, at my own university.

[torque · Rating 3 out of 5]

An important piece of history, no doubt. As I don't know very much about this subject, I found the book a bit removed from my reality and therefore a bit of a heavy read.