Dr. Carter G. Woodson once said, “When you decide what a man will think, you need not worry about what he will do. If you make a man feel inferior, you must not force him to accept an inferior status, because he will seek it himself. If you make a man believe he is rightfully an outcast, you must not send him out the back door. He will leave without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will require one” (Woodson, 71). Taken from his seminal work, The Miseducation of the Negro, this quote encapsulates a recurring theme of institutionally socialized inadequacy. Woodson goes on to include potential solutions to the problem of miseducation that could be implemented not only in schools, but also throughout the community. Years later, Dr. Molefi Kete Asante incorporated Dr. Woodson's ideas into his articulation of a functional theory that calls for an intentional shift in the mental paradigm through which African Americans learned and taught. Afrocentricity, as defined by Asante, is a “consciousness, quality of thought, mode of analysis, and actionable perspective in which Africans seek, through action, to assert the subject's place in the context of African history” (Asante 16 ) In essence, all roads converge and diverge towards the African continent, with its rich history of pioneering triumphs and profound tribulations; Africa and all its descendants are the end all, be focused on all for Afrocentricity: “(1) An interest in the psychological position; (2) a commitment to finding the place of the African subject; (3) the defense of African cultural elements; 5) a commitment to correct the dislocations in... middle of paper... philosophers studied in Egypt, that Egypt is on all geographical and historical scales an African nation, and that the African Moors, were responsible for the provisions educational programs that brought Europe out of its dark ages! African American youth need to know these things because all change begins with knowledge, which leads to assessments of attitudes and often changes in behavior (Bettinghaus 456). And, while self-discovery is an individual duty, it is also the responsibility of centered and oriented African Americans to share the knowledge they already possess not only about who we are, but about the plethora of powerful forces that seek to exterminate the very essence of that identity. African people must no longer allow or rely on the Western world to educate their youth! In this regard, the logic, role and responsibility of HBCUs are simple.