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.
complete without dealing in a large<br />
way with students .<br />
If a summary of the arguments<br />
can be attempted, the authors seem<br />
to be saying that somewhere near<br />
the heart of the problems confronting<br />
the black community is what<br />
Carter G. Woodson called "the<br />
mis-education of the <strong>Negro</strong>." This<br />
"mis-education" consists principally<br />
in the education of black scholars<br />
to feel contempt for themselves and<br />
for the black community . By failing<br />
to confront them with adequate<br />
knowledge about themselves, both<br />
to counter white stereotypes and to<br />
bolster their self-confidence, the<br />
<strong>Negro</strong> colleges have also failed to<br />
develop meaningful helping relationships<br />
between black scholars<br />
and the balck community . Accustomed<br />
to facile imitations of white<br />
middle class life styles, <strong>Negro</strong> colleges<br />
have failed to plumb the<br />
depths of the black experience :<br />
Thus, Stephen Henderson underlines<br />
the contention that in the<br />
search for identity, "the black experience<br />
is not only relevant . . .<br />
it is fundamental and crucial" .a<br />
A strengthened sense of identity<br />
will produce not only a black university<br />
which serves the Black<br />
American community ; it will create<br />
the indispensable pre-condition for<br />
new linkages with the entire Third<br />
World . A unique internationalism<br />
will be created in which, according<br />
to Vincent Handing, "the uniqueness<br />
of our approach to the world<br />
would be found in our vision<br />
through an unashamedly black-<br />
76<br />
oriented prism . In the academic<br />
program and in a hundred other<br />
less structured ways, the black university<br />
would seek to explore, celebrate<br />
and record the experience of<br />
the non-western world." 4 Similarly,<br />
Gerald McWarter views as a key<br />
component of the very meaning of<br />
Blackness the "affirmation of an<br />
identity independent of the historical<br />
human evils of modern nation<br />
states ." 5<br />
The significant problem encountered<br />
here is not adequately stated<br />
in terms of the simply dichotemy of<br />
integration versus separatism . The<br />
real question is whether this statement<br />
of mission and strategy does<br />
justice to the facts and the logic of<br />
the very black experience it claims<br />
to celebrate . This writer has no<br />
quarrel with the objectives of a<br />
Black University which seeks to<br />
serve the needs of the black community,<br />
nor with the concern for<br />
more adequate study and dramatization<br />
of events in the black experience,<br />
nor with the desire to<br />
create unquestionably intelligent<br />
and competent centers of learning<br />
for black people .<br />
Nonetheless, as is well known,<br />
agreement on specific objectives<br />
and even on particular tactical<br />
points does not necessarily mean<br />
agreement on underlying issues embedded<br />
in the strategy itself. This<br />
writer wishes to focus on but one<br />
of such issues with the hope of<br />
clarifying some of the strategic<br />
questions raised .<br />
The issue can be introduced by<br />
March 1969 NEGRO DIGEST