Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

of white institutions that there simply is not the be¢inning of an
adequate supply of persons trained in Afro-American studies . It
is imperative for us-and for you-that we move urgently to fill
that gap in ways other than the stripping of the southern black
campuses.
The various Institutes and Ph.D programs in this field which have
appeared over the past year are obviously meant to meet the need
(as well as to satisfy you and to keep you off certain backs) but I
would argue that most of them cannot and will not do the job .
(Indeed some of them may die as soon as you stop blowing .) On
the other hand, it is only logical that black institutions in the black
community, if properly funded, organized and led, could probably
do the best job of creating new scholars in the field of Afro-American
studies . This seems especially likely in those places where
traditions, libraries and faculties seem at least adequate even now,
and where students are pressing sometimes reluctant "others"
towards blackness .
In Atlanta, that has been our basic assumption, and a. group of us
have moved towards the creation of such an Institute for Afro-
American Studies . We think that ~ black students throughout the
nation should know this, and should ponder its possible meaning
for your own presents and futures .
As some of you know, there are in the Atlanta University Center
six "Negro" institutions in various stages of their search for blackness
. On the faculties are more than 30 persons whose tra"ning,
experience and teaching in the field of Afro-American life and
culture are at least significant . The Slaughter Collection of Negro
Literature, the Georgia State Archives and the newly begun Martin
Luther King Memorial Library ( a documentation center for the
Movement) combine to present unusual library and archival resources
on the black experience . Apart from such tangibles, we
are also beneficiaries of the spirit of the great pioneering work in
black studies done in Atlanta by such persons as W . E . B . Du Bois,
E. Franklin Frazier, Rayford Logan, E . S. Braithwaithe, Ira DeA .
Reid and many others .
It is against this background of past and present resources that we
are now in the process of creating an Institute for Afro-American
Studies under the umbrella of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
Center . Research, teaching, celeb : at~on and action are to be the
central driving forces-all focused on the life and times of the
peoples of African descent . I mention the Institute here because
it will need many things which you can help provide . It will need
millions of dollars, the best staff from every part of the African
NEGRO DIGEST Mareh 1969 13