Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

esearch crying for the kind of
clarification which is essential to
our selfhood . Some aspects of this
research could be carried out even
by serious "C" students . Certainly
any "B" student worth his salt
could find enough, say in urban
contemporary folklore, to make a
national reputation for himself .
Fundamental documentation of
black life-in-process needs serious
attention from our creative filmmakers
and artists, for somehow
statistical studies fail to capture the
vitality and wholeness embodied in
the concept of Soul . In the modern
world, our researchers need
mastery of modern technology and
methedology .
Our textbooks need serious revision
. Many need simply to be
written . In my own field, I haven't
seen a single relevant text in the
teaching of writing in the past five
or six years . Our humanities
courses are often archaic, and students
are understandably bored .
And all this while we are in the
midst of an identity revolution .
Our professional organizations
can still be relevant if they would
welcome increased participation by
graduates and undergraduates
alike . We need these structures .
Their evolution was too slow and
painful for us to discard them now .
Let them enter into the contemporary
dialogue . Let them share
their wisdom, their historical perspective,
with the young. Perhaps
in the process they will regain
something of their original vision .
NEGRO DIGEST Morch 1968
Let us turn, finally, to a difficult,
practical and theoretical problem :
the role of the natural sciences in
the curriculum of the Black University
. In the foregoing discussion
I have deliberately begged this
question . The reason for this should
be obvious . How, as one of my colleagues
recently asked, are you
going to teach black chemistry?
How are you going to teach black
astronomy? Although they represent
an over-simplification of the
whole concept of the Black University,
these questions do have
some relevance, which I shall briefly
try to point out .
At the outset, I suggested that
the faculty of the University be
staffed with Black Humanists and
Specialists in Blackness . I also indicated
that such a university
would almost by definition involve
chiefly those disciplines which are
human-centered, i .e ., the social
sciences, the behavioral sciences,
literature, art and the like . This,
however, as the questions imply,
does not answer the fundamental
question of the relationship between
the humanistic studies and
the natural sciences and mathematics
. What is to be such a relationship
in a Black University? Frankly,
I am not clairvoyant enough,
nor rash enough, to say ; but I must
say that this problem is not the exclusive
concern of those of us who
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