Carter G. Woodson Quotes

45 Sourced Quotes

And thus goes segregation which is the most far-reaching development in the history of the Negro since the enslavement of the race.

Carter G. Woodson
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.

Carter G. Woodson
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.

Carter G. Woodson
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
One can cite cases of Negroes who opposed emancipation and denounced the abolitionists.

Carter G. Woodson
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.

Carter G. Woodson
Even schools for Negroes, then, are places where they must be convinced of their inferiority.

Carter G. Woodson
If Liberia has failed, then, it is no evidence of the failure of the Negro in government. It is merely evidence of the failure of slavery.

Carter G. Woodson
We do not show the Negro how to overcome segregation, but we teach him how to accept it as final and just.

Carter G. Woodson
The real servant of the people must live among them, think with them, feel for them, and die for them.

Carter G. Woodson
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.

Carter G. Woodson
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.

Carter G. Woodson
The citizenship of the Negro in this country is a fiction.

Carter G. Woodson
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.

Carter G. Woodson
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.

Carter G. Woodson
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.

Carter G. Woodson
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.

Carter G. Woodson
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.

Carter G. Woodson
The mere imparting of information is not education. Above all things, the effort must result in making a man think and do for himself.

Carter G. Woodson
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.

Carter G. Woodson
If the Negro in the ghetto must eternally be fed by the hand that pushes him into the ghetto, he will never become strong enough to get out of the ghetto.

Carter G. Woodson
In fact, the confidence of the people is worth more than money.

Carter G. Woodson
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.

Carter G. Woodson
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.

Carter G. Woodson
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.

Carter G. Woodson