Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

people in their struggle toward a
coherent ideology and a unified
community . It sets clear goals, but
makes few restrictions on strategies
. It raises the critical questions
of Black identity and Black survival,
but it avoids pre-empting the
role which Black people must play
in providing answers . The Black
University is quite arrogantly creative
in the content of its activities,
but cautiously modest in its intention,
its organization and in its articulation
with other spheres of
interest and influence within the
Black community .
"Modesty" may seem like an unusual
characteristic for a concept,
especially for one which has been
advocated so vigorously and eloquently
in recent months . Throughout
the Black community the
awareness of the Black University
and its profound implications for
community development is growing
at a rapid rate ; and what is more
significant, even where the term
"Black University" has not been
integrated into the rhetorical apparatus
of Black ideology, its basic
elements are becoming increasingly
prominent in the conceptual
framework of Black consciousness .
It is precisely in conceptual
terms that the Black University
displays its modesty, which is simultaneously
the source of its vitality.
The Black University "knows
its place ." It is content to be derivative
and dependent-derivative
of a basic affirmation of Black community
and dependent for its very
life upon the self-conscious exist-
NEGRO DIGEST March 1969
ence of that community . Like a
canny virgin, it attends with studied
reserve to the needs of its somewhat
skeptical suitors .
Or, at least, that's the way it
ought to be . Advocacy of national
policy in Black educational affairs,
which is what the Black University
is really all about, is a problematical
pursuit, especially for Black
educators, most of whom have been
trained in a context alien and antagonistic
to the very community
they hope to serve . It is appropriate
for them to be cautious in their
use of borrowed tools of intellectual
discourse, and to demonstrate
trust in the home-grown expressive
sensibility of Black people . And
that caution and trust seem to be
on the rise these days . Black educators
are listening better and hearing
more, even if they are not talking
any less . The current impulse
is to test out ideas by bouncing
them off as many natural heads as
you can find before promulgating
them as the latest and finest Black
"truth ." It may well be that the
crisis of intellectual identity into
which traditional Black educators
have been forced by the compelling
pressure of the Black revolution
has exploded one of the most subversive
myths of Negro history,
namely that formal education in the
Western tradition liberates leadership
potential automatically .
The new trend in Black intellectual
style was apparent at the
June 1968 conference of the Association
of Afro-American Educators
in Chicago . In the Task
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