With the organization created by Carter G. Woodson holding its national convention here this week, it's a perfect time to revisit the historian's acidic critique of the black predicament. 

Woodson founded what's now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, which is holding its 90th annual convention here to commemorate the centennial of the Niagara Movement. 

But he's probably best known for his 1933 classic "The Miseducation of the Negro," a sometimes-caustic analysis of would-be black leaders and the people who follow them. 

Substitute "black" for "Negro," and it's downright scary how much of the book could have been written today. 

Talking about interracial cooperation, for instance, Woodson made clear he was all for it - provided it was genuine. 

"Cooperation implies equality of the participants in the particular task at hand," he wrote. "On the contrary, however, the usual way now is for the whites to work out their plans behind closed doors, have them approved by a few Negroes serving nominally on a board, and then employ a white or mixed staff to carry out their program." 

Considering the composition of most power-wielding organizations in Buffalo, you have to wonder how much real cooperation he would find here today. 

Cooperation among blacks can be just as challenging - as political clubs here have long shown and may show again this year, even with one of their own running for mayor. 

"The one has a job that the other wants; or the one is a leader of a successful faction, and the other is struggling to supplant him," Woodson observed. "Everything in the community, then, must yield ground to this puerile contest." 

And you can't watch a campaign today - whether for executive, legislator or judge - without wincing at his analysis of how white candidates use blacks who get paid off in some way while the community gets forgotten after the election. 

"These Negro workers are supposed to tell their people how one politician seeking office appointed more Negro messengers . . . than the other," Woodson wrote. "Another important task of these Negroes thus employed is also to abuse the opposing party, showing how hostile it has been to the Negro while the highly favorable party was doing so much for the race." 

Sound like 1933, or 2005? 

The book should be must reading - or rereading - for anyone who thinks the black power and civil rights movements eradicated all the lingering effects of the miseducation Woodson decried. Though textbooks teaching black inferiority have changed since Woodson's time, there's still the pressure to seek validation through praise, titles or jobs from whites - rewards that too often come from ignoring genuine black interests. 

But Woodson didn't write the book to condemn whites for that. Instead, "In a manner they deserve to be congratulated for taking care of their own interests so well." Rather than get angry at whites, the African-American "must learn from others how to take care of himself in this trying ordeal." 

As Buffalo's and Erie County's fiscal crises and budget cuts hit black agencies especially hard, Woodson's words take on contemporary meaning. The self-help efforts organized around black cultural and arts institutions are a sign some here have taken his message to heart, even while demanding a fair share of public resources. 

The question is how much support such efforts will get from those who have not yet learned the lesson Woodson taught: 

"History shows that it does not matter who is in power . . . those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they did in the beginning."