Worrill’s World: Teaching the Truth and the New School Year

For example, Woodson says, “The philosophy and ethics resulting from our educational system have justified slavery, peonage, segregation and lynching. The oppressor has the right to exploit, to handicap, and to kill the oppressed.” Continuing on, Woodson explains that, “No systematic effort toward change had been possible for, taught the same economics, history, philosophy, literature and religion which have established the present code of morals, the Negro’s mind has been brought under control of his oppressor.” Concluding on this point, Woodson states, “The problem of holding the Negro down, therefore, is easily solved. When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.”

Through the Portland Model Baseline Essays, the work of the Kemetic Institute, the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC), and other writings and curriculum materials, Africans are becoming much more aware of the following points that must be incorporated into the curriculum.