Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

ent in its proper perspective . Our
education must answer Frantz
Fanon's charge : "What we want to
do is to go forward all the time,
night and day, in the company of
Man, in the company of all men.
. We must work out new concepts
and try to set afoot a new
man."
Black people in America have
no power to change the public
schools . So-called decentralization
has yet to prove its viability . Without
real control of its schools, the
black community, that society
which the educational system must
serve and hence those who must
have the power to define "education"
from their own perspective
and sufficient for relevance to them,
has only a tokenistic or advisory
function . And what is to prevent
the dismissal of such advisory entities
when political sentiments
change in the governing colonial
power structure? As Brother Stokely
Carmichael has pointed out, this
is precisely the lesson which black
people must learn . from Reconstruction
in this country .
And so, the concern of the educator
must not be to integrate (by
38
any means necessary) the African-
American student into a basically
dysfunctional educational system,
but rather, if he chooses to work
within that system, to work towards
its destruction as a source of black
oppression .
For those who do not wish to
accept the cold reality of this, there
is a sort of alternate approach . And
that is to merely strive to offer a
valid educational experience to the
African-American student : one
which evolves from a black frame
of reference, operates with materials
drawn from the black
experience, and prepares the individual
for relevant and effective
functioning within and in accord
with the general welfare of that society
. If this can be done within
the existing structures, then do it .
But if it cannot be done there . it is
the clear duty of the African-
American educator to denounce
that system and to seek any means
necessary to serve the black community,
in which his position and
reality ultimately rest : "No man is
any more than the context to which
he owes his existence ." (Maulana
Karenga)
Milton R . Coleman, author of "A Cultural Approach to Education,"
is a "fellow without stipend" doing independent graduate study at the
Milwaukee branch of the University of Wisconsin . He formerly served
as chairman of the Alliance for Black Students and as campus coordinator
of the Black Students' Union at the university branch .
March 1969 NEGRO DIGEST