47 Quotes by Carter G. Woodson
Carter G. Woodson, a pioneering historian, is often referred to as the "Father of Black History." His profound dedication to the study and celebration of African American history and culture played a pivotal role in reshaping historical perspectives and challenging prevailing racial prejudices. Woodson was the driving force behind the establishment of Negro History Week in 1926, which later evolved into Black History Month.
His seminal work, "The Mis-Education of the Negro," critiqued the education system's failure to provide a comprehensive and accurate account of African American contributions to society. Through his research, publications, and leadership, Woodson sought to rectify this historical omission and elevate the awareness of African American achievements and struggles. His commitment to education and the promotion of knowledge remains an enduring legacy, inspiring generations of scholars and activists to continue the fight for racial equality and recognition of African American history's integral role in shaping the nation's identity.
Carter G. Woodson Quotes
History shows that it does not matter who is in power or what revolutionary forces take over the government, those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they had in the beginning.
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.
We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world, void of national bias, race, hate, and religious prejudice. There should be no indulgence in undue eulogy of the Negro. The case of the Negro is well taken care of when it is shown how he has far influenced the development of civilization.
Philosophers have long conceded, however, that every man has two educators: 'that which is given to him, and the other that which he gives himself. Of the two kinds the latter is by far the more desirable. Indeed all that is most worthy in man he must work out and conquer for himself. It is that which constitutes our real and best nourishment. What we are merely taught seldom nourishes the mind like that which we teach ourselves.
The mere imparting of information is not education. Above all things, the effort must result in making a man think and do for himself.
Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.
If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.
We have a wonderful history behind us. ... If you are unable to demonstrate to the world that you have this record, the world will say to you, 'You are not worthy to enjoy the blessings of democracy or anything else'.
No man knows what he can do until he tries.
As another has well said, to handicap a student by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless is the worst sort of lynching.
The real servant of the people must live among them, think with them, feel for them, and die for them.
When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place' and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.
In our so-called democracy we are accustomed to give the majority what they want rather than educate them to understand what is best for them.
If you teach the Negro that he has accomplished as much good as any other race he will aspire to equality and justice without regard to race. Such an effort would upset the program of the oppressor in Africa and America. Play up before the Negro, then, his crimes and shortcomings. Let him learn to admire the Hebrew, the Greek, the Latin and the Teuton. Lead the Negro to detest the man of African blood--to hate himself.
For me, education means to inspire people to live more abundantly, to learn to begin with life as they find it and make it better.
The mere imparting of information is not education.
The same educational process which inspires and stimulates the oppressor with the thought that he is everything and has accomplished everything worth while, depresses and crushes at the same time the spark of genius in the Negro by making him feel that his race does not amount to much and never will measure up to the standards of other peoples.
You must give your own story to the world.
The oppressor has always indoctrinated the weak with his interpretation of the crimes of the strong.
In the long run, there is not much discrimination against superior talent.
The thought of' the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies.
In fact, the confidence of the people is worth more than money.
The large majority of the Negroes who have put on the finishing touches of our best colleges are all but worthless in the development of their people.
The race needs workers, not leaders.
What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice.
The so-called modern education, with all its defects, however, does others so much more good than it does the Negro, because it has been worked out in conformity to the needs of those who have enslaved and oppressed weaker peoples.
Truth must be dug up from the past and presented to the circle of scholastics in scientific form and then through stories and dramatizations that will permeate our educational system.
At this moment, then, the Negroes must begin to do the very thing which they have been taught that they cannot do.
When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.
And thus goes segregation which is the most far-reaching development in the history of the Negro since the enslavement of the race.
Our aim is to appeal to reason. … Prayer is not one of our remedies; it depends on what one is praying for. We consider prayer nothing more than a fervent wish; consequently the merit and worth of a prayer depend upon what the fervent wish is.
The different ness of races, moreover, is no evidence of superiority or of inferiority. This merely indicates that each race has certain gifts which the others do not possess.
It may be well to repeat here the saying that old men talk of what they have done, young men of what they are doing, and fools of what they expect to do. The Negro race has a rather large share of the last mentioned class.
Why not exploit, enslave, or exterminate a class that everybody is taught to regard as inferior?
The bondage of the Negro brought captive from Africa is one of the greatest dramas in history, and the writer who merely sees in that ordeal something to approve or condemn fails to understand the evolution of the human race.
In schools of theology Negroes are taught the interpretation of the Bible worked out by those who have justified segregation and winked at the economic debasement of the Negro at times almost to the point of starvation.
The present system under the control of the whites trains the Negro to be white and at the same time convinces him of the impropriety or the impossibility of his becoming white... the Negros will have no outlet but to go down a blind alley, if the sort of education which they are now receiving is to enable them to find the way out of their present difficulties.
This crusade is much more important than the anti- lynching movement, because there would be no lynching if it did not start in the schoolroom.
If the white man wants to hold on to it, let him do so; but the Negro, so far as he is able, should develop and carry out a program of his own.
Truth comes to us from the past, then, like gold washed down from the mountains.
They still have some money, and they have needs to supply. They must begin immediately to pool their earnings and organize industries to participate in supplying social and economic demands.
Negroes who have been so long inconvenienced and denied opportunities for development are naturally afraid of anything that sounds like discrimination.
The author takes the position that the consumer pays the tax, and as such every individual of the social order should be given unlimited opportunity to make the most of himself.
Even schools for Negroes, then, are places where they must be convinced of their inferiority.
This assumption of Negro leadership in the ghetto, then, must not be confined to matters of religion, education, and social uplift; it must deal with such fundamental forces in life as make these things possible.
If the Negroes are to remain forever removed from the producing atmosphere, and the present discrimination continues, there will be nothing left for them to do.
The strongest bank in the United States will last only so long as the people will have sufficient confidence in it to keep their money there.
― Carter G. Woodson Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
