Harriet Tubman led a Civil War raid

Reclaiming the Classroom: How Carter G. Woodson Fought the Violence of Miseducation

Mon, Aug 17 2026 /Mpelembe Media/ —  The foundational struggle for racial equality in America is deeply rooted in the preservation and legitimization of Black history as an active tool of resistance. Carter G. Woodson, recognized as the “Father of Black History,” dedicated his life to establishing separate institutional structures like the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915 and Negro History Week in 1926 to counter the “miseducation” of African Americans. Woodson argued in his landmark 1933 book, The Mis-Education of the Negro, that the American educational system culturally indoctrinated Black students to accept an inferior status by white-washing their contributions to world culture and history. He observed that controlling a population’s thinking eliminates the need to police their physical actions, as individuals conditioned to believe they are outcasts will naturally find their way to the “back door”. This early twentieth-century battle to reclaim the narrative highlights that systemic control begins in the classroom, a reality that echoes in modern debates over how race and history are taught in public schools.

Reclaiming this history also means highlighting active, armed Black resistance, as exemplified by the Civil War exploits of Harriet Tubman. Famous for her successes along the Underground Railroad, Tubman also served as a critical military pioneer who helped orchestrate and lead the Combahee River Raid during the Civil War, liberating over 750 enslaved people in South Carolina. Operating alongside Union forces, her spies, scouts, and the Second South Carolina Volunteers, Tubman disrupted Confederate supply lines by targeting the rice fields that fed civilian and military forces. Her legacy represents a long tradition of Black Americans leveraging military service and direct action to secure their own liberation and assert their right to full citizenship.

However, the journey from enslavement to true citizenship was neither singular nor linear, as demonstrated by the complex realities of Emancipation Days. Juneteenth, which celebrates the moment Black dockworkers in Galveston, Texas, learned of their freedom on June 19, 1865, represents only one of twenty separate emancipation events that occurred across the United States between 1780 and 1865. Historian Kris Manjapra emphasizes that legal emancipations did not instantly remove the structural shackles of oppression. Instead, emancipated people were kept unfree through newly enacted state laws that restricted voting and housing, showing that early emancipations often prioritized white wealth preservation over systemic justice.

This persistent gap between the ideals of American democracy and its daily practice was starkly felt by the more than one million Black soldiers who served in World War II. Fighting under a segregated military where even blood supplies were separated by race, these servicemen and women rallied behind the “Double V” campaign, demanding victory over fascism abroad and victory over racism at home. From elite combat units like the Tuskegee Airmen to the mostly Black drivers of the Red Ball Express who delivered over 400,000 tons of vital supplies in the heat of combat, their exceptional performance was crucial to the Allied victory. Yet, upon returning home, many veterans faced violent backlash and systemic erasure from mainstream wartime narratives, forcing them to continue their fight for basic civil rights.

The struggle for dignity and human rights transitioned from the battlefield to the athletic arena in the mid-twentieth century through pioneers like Bill Russell. As the NBA’s first Black superstar, its first Black champion, and its first Black head coach, Russell transformed professional basketball while using his platform to wage a cerebral and relentless campaign for civil rights. Refusing to accept segregated accommodations and recalling instances of police brutality during his youth in Oakland, California, Russell rejected the nonviolent philosophies of the era in favor of a more assertive demands for self-worth, famously writing, “I MUST HAVE MY MANHOOD”. His intellectual militancy bridged the gap between athletic achievement and the broader pursuit of human dignity, demonstrating that true liberation requires dismantling systemic structures rather than merely changing legal definitions.

Beyond the North Star: 5 Surprising Truths That Rewrite the Narrative of Black History

The history disseminated in standard curricula often resembles a gallery of static, sanitized portraits: a weary woman on a bus, a dreamer on a podium, and a lone traveler guided by the North Star. This collective national memory has been curated into a teleological progression—a “light switch” myth of progress that obscures the gritty, tactical, and profoundly military reality of the Black struggle for liberation.By deconstructing these hegemonic narratives, we find that figures like Harriet Tubman were not merely escaping a system, but actively dismantling it through sophisticated intelligence operations. To move beyond the simplified icons is to recognize that Black history is not a series of accidental heroisms, but a record of systemic, calculated resistance.

1. Harriet Tubman Was a Tactical Military Commander

While popular culture recognizes Harriet Tubman as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, her Civil War service for the U.S. Army Department of the South reveals her as a high-level military operative. Serving as a nurse, cook, spy, and scout, she was described as a “captain of a gang of men,” essentially acting as a specialized intelligence officer.Tubman’s logistical sophistication was most evident during the 1863 Combahee River Raid. This was not a solo flight of fancy; it was a coordinated strike where Tubman acted as a critical intelligence asset. She “debriefed” refugees—formerly enslaved people known as “contrabands”—to gather data on Confederate positions. This required profound intellectual agility; Tubman had to bridge a significant linguistic and cultural gap to gather intelligence from Gullah Geechee people whose language she initially could not understand.The raid resulted in the liberation of 756 people and inflicted millions of dollars in damage on nine Confederate plantations. Yet, the reality of the front lines was visceral: Tubman famously requested that her “Boston friends” send her a  bloomer dress  of coarse, strong material because her long garments had been torn off as she navigated the mud and tall grasses of the riverbanks during the expedition. Her mindset was that of a combatant:”I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive.”

2. Emancipation Was a Fractured, Global Process

Our historical memory often treats the end of slavery as a singular, triumphant moment. However, as scholar Kris Manjapra illustrates, emancipation was a fragmented, multi-century legal battle rather than a sudden burst of enlightenment. There was no “light switch” for liberty; instead, there was a patchwork of local laws and international shifts.The timeline of liberation reveals the agonizingly slow death of the institution:

1780:  Pennsylvania passes the first abolition act in the U.S.

1780–1865:  There were  20 separate emancipations  within the United States alone.

1936:  Slavery is finally abolished in Sierra Leone, highlighting the global long-tail of the process.Emancipation as a legal status did not equate to full citizenship. While the “shackles” of physical bondage were removed, they were replaced by legal and systemic barriers—voting restrictions and housing prohibitions—that ensured formerly enslaved people remained unfree in practice.

3. Logistical Mastery and the “Double V” Campaign

In the theater of World War II, the success of the Allied push across France, Belgium, and Germany depended upon the  Red Ball Express . This mostly Black transportation unit was responsible for moving 400,000 tons of ammunition, gasoline, and medical supplies to the front lines between August and November 1944.These soldiers were engaged in the “Double V” campaign: seeking victory over fascism abroad and victory over racism at home. For these men, logistics was not merely labor; it was a cerebral and technical arena where they could demonstrate the “capabilities of their race” through exceptional performance. By mastering the complex machinery of modern warfare, the Red Ball Express offered a powerful intellectual challenge to the racist stereotypes of the era that relegated Black service members to “unskilled” manual labor.

4. Bill Russell’s “Kingly Arrogance” as Intellectual Resistance

Bill Russell’s legacy is often quantified by 11 NBA championships, yet his most radical contribution was his cerebral fight for equal rights. Russell represented a sharp departure from the “respectability politics” of the era. He openly questioned the nonviolence philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr. and defended the militant ideas of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam.Russell cultivated a persona described by teammates as “a kingly arrogance.” This was not vanity, but a deliberate psychological shield—an intellectual rejection of the humility demanded of Black men in a segregated society. He refused to accept segregated accommodations and used his platform to challenge the racial tumult of the time, famously declaring:”I MUST HAVE MY MANHOOD.”For Russell, the basketball court was merely a tool; his objective was the preservation of his dignity. His “arrogance” was a necessary, radical assertion of humanity against a system designed to diminish it.

5. The Battle for Memory: Systemic Norms vs. Accidental Deviations

A profound tension exists in how Black history is recorded and legislated today. In modern legislative debates, such as those in Texas, there is a concerted effort to frame slavery and racism as “aberrations” or “deviations” from American principles. However, the historical record—what Carter G. Woodson sought to legitimize as far back as 1915—tells a different story.Historian Jeffrey L. Littlejohn points to a chilling piece of evidence: a family photo album containing typical domestic memories—weddings and vacations—alongside a photograph of a lynching. This artifact serves as proof that racial violence was not a “deviation,” but a domestic norm integrated into the fabric of daily life. To study this history is to confront the reality that these events were systemic forces, not accidental outliers.

Conclusion: Measuring the Soul of a Nation

These stories are not mere historical relics; they are blueprints for liberation. The legacy of the Combahee River Raid directly inspired the 1974 formation of the  Combahee River Collective , a group of Black feminists who recognized that the struggle against capitalism, racism, and patriarchy requires the same tactical coalition-building Tubman used in 1863.If we are to truly understand the status of our union, we must look to the plight of the most oppressed rather than the status of the most powerful. What would our nation look like if greatness were measured by the liberation of those at the margins? Uncovering these “hidden” histories is a radical act of truth-telling that forces us to move beyond the sanitized icon and confront the strategic, systemic, and military realities of the past. As we look forward, we must ask: which truths are still waiting to be unearthed from the silence?