Of The Training Of Black Men

"And above all, we daily hear that an education that encourages aspiration, that sets the loftiest of ideals and seeks as an end culture and character rather than bread-winning, is the privilege of white men and the danger and delusion of black."

Du Bois main concern was the need for quality teaching in the respect of providing the highest standards of education, therefore, the Black college must be examine and worked on to accomplish this task. Du Bois states:

"The foundations of knowledge in this race, as in others, must be sunk deep in the college and university if we would build a solid, permanent structure."

I asked a black male colleague of mine to provide his viewpoint on this issue raised:

"A century ago, W.E.B. Du Bois painstakingly pointed out to us that the higher education of the Negro would be essential to his social and economic development. Du Bois clearly saw that it would take more than just learning to read and write to move the Negro from the shackles of slavery. While the Negro was no longer bond by the crackling rawhide whip of the Overseer, he was now caged by the industrial revolution. Du Bois noted that without education, America would ride the backs of its Negro citizens. While our historically Black institutions of higher learning have played a prominent role in moving many of our African American citizens to lofty economic significance, they have failed to provide the social development necessary to remove the chains of slavery. Du Bois failed to recognize that which White America had known all along...that to educate the black man would not result in a race-less society but only serve to assimilate the most intellectual into a society where they were not accepted.

While Black institutions served to educate many who would not received an education elsewhere, their impact on the social fabric of America must still be questioned. While Du Bois chimed the benefits of higher education he failed to recognize that the true desire for education must be sparked from quality institutions at the grade school and high school level...for you cannot educate them if they have no desire to be educated. While those who were educated by our Black institutions have broken their chains, they have chosen to turn a blind eye to the social discord of the Black community. One hundred years later, we still find the majority of our Black