Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

ture" to graduate, all the way from
Phyllis Wheatley to Margaret
Walker.
Moreover, when in college we
wired Fred Waring and asked him
to include our Alma Mater on his
Saturday medley of college songs .
He did . Judge Earl bearing of
Louisville and I signed the telegram
in the fall of 1941 . Indeed,
some of us have been proud,
aware, conscious, and black for a
long, long time . We find it appalling
that black students lump all
"middle class" blacks (Negroes?)
in one ball and condemn them all
as spineless accommodationists .
This is false . And arrogant .
Notwithstanding, the charge applies
to enough to make it valid .
And, because there is a sufficient
void in the knowledge and appreciation
of the history of American
blacks, it is understandable that
there is a call for a Black University.
Since there have been "white"
universities for so long, and all
other kinds of de facto separate
universities serving ethnic and
demographic units, it is time for
blacks to cry out. Rather recently
the Jews established Brandeis
(1948 ) anc~ expanded Yeshiva by
adding a coed undergraduate program
. Catholics never entrusted
higher or lower education to the
majority . If Jews and Catholics
regard their traditions as sufficiently
precious to preserve them
in their own schools, a black uni-
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DEAN PROCTOR
versity makes sense . The Lutherans
too! What is St . Olaf's?
Moreover, public colleges located
in pockets of cultural homogeneity
have in fact been conduits
of a continuity of mores and attitudes-e.g
. "Ole Miss," L.S.U .,
Georgia Tech, V.M .I . and The
Citadel . Blacks still feel like aliens
on these campuses .
Yet, a black university faces
some very practical problems that
may indicate another answer. Who
would finance such an enterprise?
The idea of "racial separation" has
already fallen on evil days because
it has been associated with violence,
somehow . It has not enjoyed
a positive, affirmative connotation
. It has been associated
with the riots and four letter words .
This is an awful casualty. It is an
idea that should be debated on its
own merits .
March 1969 NEGRO DIGEST