Dr. Carter G. Woodson once said, “When you determine what a man should think, you don't have to worry about what he will do. If you make a man feel inferior, you don't have to force him to accept a lower status, because he will seek it himself. If you make a man believe that he is rightfully an outcast, you don't have to order him out the back door. He will leave without being told; and if there be no back door, its very nature will demand it” (Woodson, 71). Taken from his seminal work, The Miseducation of the Negro, this quote encompasses a recurring theme of institutionalized socialized inadequacy. Woodson goes on to include potential solutions to the problem of poor education that could be implemented not only in schools, but also throughout the community. Years later, Dr. Molefi Kete Asante would incorporate Dr. Woodson's ideas into his articulation of a functional theory that called 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 where Africans seek, through action, to assert their place as subjects in the context of African history” ( Asante 16). Essentially, all paths converge and diverge with the African continent, with its rich history of pioneering triumphs and profound tribulations; Africa and all its descendants are the end of everything, are at the center of our concerns. There are five criteria for Afrocentricity: “(1) An interest in psychological location; (2) a commitment to finding the place of the African subject; (3) the defense of African cultural elements; (4) a commitment to lexical refinement; (5) a commitment to correcting the dislocations in the middle of the article......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 educational services that brought Europe out of its dark ages! Young African Americans need to know these things because all change begins with knowledge, which leads to attitude assessments and frequently behavior modifications (Bettinghaus 456). And, while on the one hand 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 also about the plethora powerful forces that seek to reach us. exterminate the very essence of this identity. African people must no longer allow or rely on the Western world to educate the youth! In this regard, the rationale, role and responsibility of HBCUs is simple.