Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

The Black University: A Commentary
PROBLEMS OF PLACE'
PERSONNEL
AND
PRACTICALITY
BY EDGAR F . BECKHAM
"As Black people move toward better communications and better
coordination of policy planning, it will become a commonplace
that Black students and Black educational personnel everywhere
are part of the Black University"
~S~~e %HAT may be most curious
about the Black
Uni . ~rsity as a concept
and as an image
is that so many diverse
impulses aut of the Black movement
merge in it . That is unusual
for this time of crisis in Black life.
If you read our poetry, you often
hear our simple lyric affirmations
exploding abruptly into rapid-fire
wrath . Our essays tend to be burdened
with self-critical assessments
of our own painful shortcomings
and with angry railing at what's
22
wrong with Negroes . Our social
and political actions sometimes express
a confusing combination of
visionary, futuristic fervor and revulsion
at the drab aspect of history
. Action vies with reaction, abstraction
with the concretely real,
and at first glance the blinding series
of equal and opposite pulls and
tugs seems to be getting us nowhere,
except maybe into the mudhole
that lies in the middle .
What is so exciting about the
Black University is that it affirms
the diverse activities of Black
March 1969 NEGRO DIGEST