Long before the Civil War, the miseducation of Negroes began. Missionaries were sent south to teach freed slaves, and schools began to form.
Rather than help the Negroes develop, they instead set out to transform them into what they wanted them to be, allowing them to learn what they wanted them to learn. Freed men who considered themselves well-educated taught other freed men but had no curriculum other than that made by whites for whites, educating Negroes away from their history. Negroes were left out of all educational curriculum except to condemn them or portray them as savages. Whites were taught to hate Negroes, and Negroes were taught to feel inferior to whites.
Negroes were not allowed their rightful place in science. They were not told that ancient Africans knew sufficient science, such as how to make poisons for their arrowheads and mix colors to create paint. The education system left out Negro inventors altogether, often claiming their inventions as their own. Negroes were never taught about what they brought over from Africa, their ideas, or their influences. Nothing was taught about African languages, and in literature, Africans were never mentioned.
Negro doctors were taught that they were carriers of germs such as syphilis and tuberculosis, which began as white man diseases. However, because they had not yet developed immunity to these diseases, they became widespread among the Negro community. Negro lawyers were taught that they belonged to the most criminal element in the country. The Supreme Court permitted the judicial nullification of the 14th and 15th amendments. In history, the Negro was portrayed as having no thought and nothing to contribute.
Nothing was ever taught about how they were the first to domesticate sheep, cows, and goats, or how they were the first to introduce trial by jury. Negroes have been taught these things for so long that they have become lost in the biased views of white society. They are still teaching and learning what the white man wants us to know.
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