Negro Digest - Freedom Archives
Negro Digest - Freedom Archives
Negro Digest - Freedom Archives
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
at a time when the ratio of <strong>Negro</strong><br />
dentists to the <strong>Negro</strong> population<br />
is at a crisis low level, around 80<br />
percent of the entering freshmen<br />
(1966-1967) at the dental college<br />
of Meharry Medical College, one<br />
of the twc <strong>Negro</strong> medical colleges,<br />
were white students .<br />
Are educational institutions,<br />
faced with the task of educating<br />
black people, committed to the<br />
task which should be within their<br />
special province? While northern<br />
schools are crying out for teachers<br />
with a specialty in motivating and<br />
educating the culturally divergent<br />
child, is the <strong>Negro</strong> university training<br />
its student teachers to meet<br />
this demand? The northern and<br />
western college, having admitted to<br />
the historical distortions which<br />
have created the American image<br />
ir. all its unreality, is now seeking<br />
teachers who are aware of the inclusivity<br />
of America's heritage . Are<br />
the <strong>Negro</strong> universities teaching<br />
Contemporary American Literature,<br />
which includes the contributions<br />
which have been, categorically,<br />
excluded from "main-stream"<br />
anthologies because it represented<br />
Black Art?<br />
Do they offer courses in Revisionist<br />
History, Revolutionary<br />
Black Sociology, Afro-American<br />
Culture anc Humanities, Black Art<br />
and Life, Political Science in the<br />
Flack Community? Black students<br />
at many of the Ca~ifornia colleges<br />
and universities are demanding a<br />
black curriculum as a specialty in<br />
the Black Studies Department<br />
NEGRO DIGEST March 1969<br />
which will ultimately offer a degree<br />
and a new career field. This, of<br />
course, enables the student so<br />
trained to be a more effective worker<br />
in community action programs<br />
involving minorities . Does the<br />
<strong>Negro</strong> campus provide an atmosphere<br />
for innovative programs and<br />
a laboratory for testing new methodology?<br />
The Black intellectual must be<br />
willing to choose fi position which<br />
offers more in humanistic rewards<br />
than materialistic gains . His role<br />
as a missionary, if he must assume<br />
that role at this time, must be<br />
played out with black principals as<br />
supporting members of his cast and<br />
on location in the black ghettoes<br />
across the land . Being white-world<br />
missionaries spreads us too thin<br />
and dissipates our energies without<br />
the benefits of making racial gains.<br />
Ambition must be tempered with<br />
compassion and concern for the<br />
black brother . On the other hand,<br />
the black communities, wherever<br />
they exist, must prepare for this<br />
second coming . They must prepare<br />
the way for him ; this time<br />
around he should be the welcomed<br />
guest and not the intruder . They<br />
must lay the groundwork which<br />
will result in an acceptance of him<br />
in the same good faith as he accepts<br />
the challenge. The educational<br />
institutions must have no<br />
doubts about his belonging, about<br />
the role he is destined to play in<br />
reconstructing a healthy American<br />
society . Above all, it must be made<br />
clear that the Black Intellectual is<br />
57