To me Carter G. Woodson was an avatar (second definition) or a figure to be used. He was the reason for the National Park Service to purchase some decaying Shiloh owned properties.
What did I know about the man? Just the very short elevator pitch: He started Black history week, which turned into Black History Month. He was an early 20th Century African American intellectual figure. He started a journal to study Black people. And most importantly, he lived, and did a lot of his work on 9th St in Shaw.
Because of some changes made by Audible regarding membership, I had a mess of credits I had to use up. I decided to use one of those on Carter G. Woodson’s Mis-Education of the Negro.
My honest first impression after listening to the audiobook is, that someone is a grumpy old man. He has criticism for everyone. For example, a young Black educated woman came to him looking for work. He offered her a job, but her pay would be either $15 a week or month (I forget which) and the young lady scoffs about how that isn’t enough for her to live. And there are more unhappy musings about Black college graduates, which come across to me as being a grumpus.
He was justified in his grumpiness. He does have points. Points I will cover from now through Black History Month in February.
Because I have a butt-load of Audible credits, I’ll give away the audiobook of Carter’s Mis-Education of the Negro, to the first two readers who managed to make it this far into my post. Just email me mari at inshaw.com with the topic line of “Mis-education of the Negro”.