What Would Malcolm X Say About Education in America Today?

The American educational system was designed to train our people for servitude, not for liberation. This remains true today, though the methods have become more sophisticated. Your children sit in classrooms learning to accept their inferiority, to see themselves through the eyes of those who have oppressed their ancestors for centuries.

I did not learn my true history in American schools. I learned that I was the descendant of slaves, that my people had contributed nothing of value to civilization, that my best hope was to accept a subordinate position in a white-dominated society. These were lies. Calculated, deliberate lies designed to keep us mentally enslaved.

What must happen is this: we must take control of our own education. We must establish our own schools, teach our own children, tell our own history. Our children must learn about the great civilizations of Africa before colonization. They must understand the scientific, mathematical, and architectural achievements of our ancestors. They must know that their minds are equal to any mind on earth, and that their value does not depend on white approval.

The modern educational system still fails to teach critical thinking. Students are taught what to think, not how to think. They are not taught to question the narratives presented to them, to research independently, to connect historical patterns to present conditions. This is intentional. An educated, thinking people cannot be controlled.

I would establish schools that develop the whole person—spiritually, intellectually, and physically. Schools that teach our children to respect themselves and their community. Schools that prepare them not to beg for jobs in someone else's system, but to build their own economic institutions.

Education is the most powerful tool for liberation. But it must be education that serves our liberation, not our continued oppression. Until we control the education of our children, we control nothing. We remain dependent on the goodwill of those who have never been our friends. That must change.