The Education of the Negro written by Carter G. Woodson aims at describing the challenges with which people of color obtained education during the era of slavery in America. According to the preface, the author of the work though initially interested in the topic did not expect that it was so broad and covered the times before the Civil War. Despite Woodson’s interest, this theme is not popular among other researchers. The first chapter, Introduction, shortly describes the content of the book, the attitude of different classes of people to African slaves’ education, and how this influenced the use of slave labor and their general position. The table of contents indicates each stage of these changes. The last parts of the book present documents, which formed the basis of the study for everyone who wants to know more. Studying the American history of slavery is important for understanding the difficult path that generations of citizens had to traverse for freedom.
Carter Woodson is known as a foundational writer of black history and research on such topics. He worked tirelessly in the early twentieth century to lay the foundations for African American history. In The Education of the Negro, the author discusses various stages of how the situation, laws, and reactions regarding educated black people were changing. They wavered from support, described in chapters II to VI, to misunderstanding and underground learning in chapters VII to IX (Woodson). Then, Chapter XIII is devoted to the times of the admission of some black students to public schools. The author divides all these stages into two main periods. During the first, Americans saw an economic gain in the education of slaves and were sympathetic, and during the second period, on the contrary, they saw danger in them. The church and the abolitionist movement crucially influenced the circumstances. Thus, both the situation and the educational level of slaves had changed significantly by the beginning of the Civil War.
According to Chapter I, after arriving in America, Africans significantly differed from locals and did not understand their culture. To improve communication with them, as well as increase productivity in work, it was necessary to give black people primary education. In the first chapter, the author notes that sympathetic people and representatives of the church also sought schooling for slaves. Later, many black people have made remarkable progress in their studies and could help manage plantations or perform other complex tasks. Woodson further discusses the emergence of human rights defenders, which have begun to spread ideas of freedom. As a result, slaveholders decided that it was impossible to educate their subordinates without awakening the desire for liberty and self-approval. The author writes that some of the Africans were able to move to the North, and the majority of possible teachers relocated with them, shifting educational opportunities there. In the North, black people made a significant contribution to the development of higher education for representatives of the oppressed race.
The Education of the Negro Prior To 1861 covers the period from the arrival of the first slaves to America to the Civil War and describes how they could learn literacy at that time. The advantage of this book is that the author collected a significant body of sources during the research – official records, letters, and other historical documents. The cause-and-effect relationships discovered during the study demonstrate the importance of education for a person’s spiritual development and his or her desire for great achievements. Moreover, it shows the foundations of the anti-slavery movement, ideas which spread among educated colored people. However, in my opinion, the book’s disadvantage is the vagueness of the text as it neither covers a specific aspect nor concentrates on a particular stage of the process. Based on the above facts, it can be concluded that the book is for general education and can supplement the history of the liberation of slaves.
Work Cited
Woodson, Carter G. The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War. Gutenberg. 2004.