Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

standards and values that
commit our people to the
struggle for African independence
.
In fact, the educational process
undergone in this school will intensify
the never-ending conflict
of interest between European peoples
and African peoples . It is not
our intention to prove with this
school, and others that will be established,
that we are able to provide
the credentials necessary to
function comfortably within the
framework of white America . It is
not our intention to occupy students'
minds with pass/fail or
Ph.D.is-the-road-to-success delusions
. We are not charting a route
to mainstream America . As J . J .
Jones has said, "Harvard and other
freak factories has ruint more good
niggers than bad whiskey ."
This is the task before us : To
teach the truth of our situation and
what we must do .
A) We are an African people .
Our history has been that of
an African people, and our
future will be that of an African
people .
B ) African people are at war
with European people and
have been for the last 500
years .
C) The struggle of African people
is for an African nation .
While it is important that a
number of battles for selfreliance
be waged in the
Americas by African pea
ple, we should always politi-
46
cally see those battles in relation
to the struggle for an
independent African continent.
D) We must use our human resources
for the development
of the physical resources of
Africa . We must use our
political resources to advance
the independence of
Africa.
E) In any society, education
has two functions : 1) to
carry on the culture and
traditions of that society ;
and 2 ) to provide the skills
and training necessary for
the development of that society
. Our education must
function in this way, as an
integral part of society, in
the interest of the total society
as opposed to the interest
of the individual .
As a people, we are fragmented
geographically (e .g., we live in the
U. S ., Brazil, Caribbean, Senegal,
Gambia, etc.), and we are fragmented
in terms of our consciousness
(e .g ., Afro-"American", Afro=`French",
Afro-"Jewish", Afro-
"Greek", etc . That is to say, we
define ourselves and our interests
within European frameworks) .
Given this fragmentation, we find
ourselves in an indefensible position
as a people at this point in our
history . We must forge our fragmented
people into a strong nation .
As Edward Blyden said, "We need
some African Power, some great
center of the race where our physical,
pecuniary, and intellectual
March 1970 NEGRO DIGEST