221; of the African-American people that often leads to widespread misunderstandings about them. These misunderstandings can then lead to various forms of stereotypes aimed against African-Americans by whites or other non African Americans picked up along the way due to incomplete knowledge about their history which inherently also hurt those making these false assumptions. Times are changing, however, and with these evolutionary years comes a greater sense of struggle to understand. This struggle comes both from within the African-American community to find out more about themselves sans Caucasian undertones, and also from groups such as whites to attempt to designate stereotypes from truths. The vast majority of aids in this process, however, come from African American scholars, writers, poets, film-makers, etc., who have set out to expose the “miseducation of the Negro” into believing and acting upon forced actions or opinions and to learn the truths behind their actual heritage. Four works that susinctly bring the “miseducation” about African American history into the spotlight of the national public are Claude McKay’s “The Lynching”, Harriet Jacob’s “Incidents in the Life of A Slavegirl”, Gordon Park’s “Washington D.C. Charwoman”, and Spike Lee’s “School Daze.” All four works illustrate a common thread of the misconception of African-American life by blacks themselves, as well as Caucasians around them, that has been carried intact through many a generations in the history of the United States.The earliest example that I would like to call attention to is Claude McKay’s poem entitled “The Lynching.” In my opinion, this poem addresses the commonly held misconceptions of both blacks and whites against African Americans during the period of slavery in the U.S. In terms of the miseducation of African Americans, the ...
