Racism and Public Art
Unfortunately, Negroes who think as the author does and dare express themselves
are branded as opponents of interracial cooperation. As a matter of fact,
however, such Negroes are the real workers in carrying out a program of
interracial effort. Cooperation implies equality of the participants in
the particular task at hand. On the contrary, however, the usual way now
is for the whites to work out their plans behind closed doors, have them
approved by a few Negroes serving nominally on a board, and then employ
a white of mixed staff to carry out their program. This is not interracial
cooperation. It is merely the ancient idea of calling upon the "inferior"
to carry out the orders of the "superior." To express it in post-classic
language, as did Jessie O. Thomas, "The Negroes do the co-ing and the whites
the operating."
From the Mis-Education of the Negro
Carter G. Woodson
Page 29 - Published 1933
Dr. Carter Goodwin Woodson, a African American hero, was born 1875 in New
Canton Virginia. In 1900, prior to earning his first college degree, Woodson
was a teacher at his alma mater, Douglas High School. In Huntington, West
Virginia, quickly becoming the school principal. He completed college studies
in 1903 at Berea College in Kentucky and went on to earn a B.S. in 1907
and a Masters in 1908 both from the University of Chicago. Dr Woodson earned
his PH.D in 1912 from Harvard University. In1919, Dr. Woodson served as
Dean of Liberal Arts at Howard University. He was the founder of the Association
for the Study of Negro Life and History, the founder and editor of the Journal
of Negro History and the Negro History Bulletin and, in 1926, founder of
Black History Week which was later expanded to Black History Month. Carter
G. Woodson died in 1950 at his residence on 9th Street in northwest Washington,
D.C.