THEBLACKSCHOLAR

THE CULTURE OF REVOLUTION ADOTEVI CARMICHAEL CHRISMAN CLEAVER HARE JONES KILLENS TOUR[t has been born out of the struggle of black scholars, black intellectuals, black leaders - all black people - for an education that will provide meaningful defini- tions of black existence. So born, THE BLACK SCHOLAR is the first journal of black studies and research in this country. We recognize that we must re-define our lives. We must shape a culture, a politics, an economics, a sense of our past and future history. We must recognize what we have been and what we shall be, retaining that which has been good and discarding that which has been worthless . THE BLACK SCHOLAR shall be the journal for that definition . In its pages, black ideologies will be examined, debated, dis- puted and evaluated by the black intellectual community. Arti- cles which research, document and analyze the black experience will be published, so that theory is balanced with fact, and ideology with substantial information . We cannot afford division any longer if our struggle is to bear fruit, whether those divisions be between class, caste or func- tion . Nothing black is alien to us . A black scholar recognizes this fact . He is a man of both thought and action, a whole man who thinks for his people and acts with them, a man who honors the whole community of black experience, a man who sees the Ph .D., the janitor, the businessman, the maid, the clerk, the militant, as all sharing the same experience of blackness, with all its complexities and its rewards. THE BLACK SCHOLAR is the journal for such a man . It is your journal. Support it.

THEBLACKSCHOLAR

Staff Journal of Black Studies and Research Publisher Editor Coordinator Allan Ross Production B. W. Friendly Promotion Julia Reed Volume I Number 1 November 1969 Circulation T. B. Smith Advertising Victoria Barnes

Contributing and Advisory Editors Contents Andrew Billingsley, Ph.D. Assistant Chancellor for Academic Affairs, 2 TITATHAN HARE University of California, Berkeley J. Herman Blake, Ph .D . A Report on the Pan African Cultural Festival Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz SEKOU TOURS Dolores Cayou II Secretary, Black Faculty Union, A Dialectical Approach to Culture State College Price Cobbs, M.D . Department of Psychiatry, 27 STANISLAS ADOTEVI University of California Medical Center Emory Douglass The Strategy of Culture Minister of Culture, Herman Ferguson 36 Minister of Education, Republic of New Africa Carlton Goodlett, M.D ., Ph.D . Pan-Africanism - Land and Power Publisher, The Sun-Reporter Charles V. Hamilton, Ph .D. Professor of Political Science, Columbia University 44 Vincent Harding, Ph .D. Institute of the Black World Education and Revolution Milton Henry, LL .B . Detroit, Michigan 54 IMAMU AMEER BARAKA (LEROI JONES) Maulana Ron Karenga Founder-Chairman, US A Black Value System John O. Killens Creative Writing, Columbia University 61 JOHN 0. KILLENS Joyce A. Ladner, Ph .D . Institute of the Black World, Atlanta, Georgia The Artist in the Black University Don L. Lee Black Writer in Residence, Northeastern Illinois State College 66 ROOSEVELT JOHNSON Acklyn Lynch Black Administrators and Higher Education Department of Social Science Federal City College, Washington, D.C . Floyd McKissick, LL .B. ROBERT CHRISMAN President, McKissick Enterprises, New York 77 Gerald McWorter, Ph .D . of Harold Cruse Social Theoretician, Chicago Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D . Department of Psychiatry, Harvard University Black Studies Program, University of Pittsburgh The Black Scholar is published monthly, except July Chuck Stone and August, by The Black World Foundation, a John T. Dorrance Professor, Trinity College Jesse Taylor non-profit educational organization . All editorial cor- Department of Black Studies, respondence should be addressed to Box 31245, San San Francisco State College James Turner, Ph.D . Francisco, Calif. 94131. All subscription correspond- Director, Afroamerican Studies, Cornell University ence should be addressed to Box 908, Sausalito, Ca. Sid Walton Principal, Martin Luther King School, 94965. Phone (415) 332-3152 . Subscription rates: Sausalito, California $10 per year, $25 for 3 years; single copies $1 .25 . Preston Wilcox Chairman, National Association of Foreign rates on request. Second class privileges ap- Afroamerican Educators plied for in Sausalito, Calif. 94965. Copyright 1969 . A. Cecil Williams Minister of Involvement and Celebration, All rights, including translation into other languages, Glide Urban Center reserved by The Black Scholar .

ALGIERS 1969

A REPORT ON THE PAN-AFRICAN CULTURAL FESTIVAL

by NATHAN HARE

NATHAN HARE was the first coordinator of a black studies program in the country. He is on the Ad- visory Council of the National Conference on , where most recently he was Chairman of the Education Committee. Hare has written some sixty articles and The Black Anglo Saxons (to enter its second printing in December) . He received the Ph.D. in sociology from the and is an active member of the New York Academy of Sciences. He is publisher of THE BLACK SCHOLAR.

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

HERE WAS A BATTLE IN ALGIERS in late were : the serious and quietly charismatic July, with lighter skirmishes both old young poet, Don L. Lee; Carmichael lieu- Tand new, and emerging signs of struggle tenants, Courtland Cox and Charlie Cobb; which now lurk ready to boomerang Panther Chief of Staff, David Hilliard, around the world in the years (and months) who had to return to the United States be- to come. The troops came together, African fore the festival was over to take care of a generals and footsoldiers in the war of crisis with Chicago police; and the com- words and politics that splashed against passionate black Parisian poet, Ted Joans. the calm waters of the Mediterranean Sea There were many young black Americans - in the First Pan African Cultural Festival who had not been invited, but who had -from everywhere in greater numbers than cared enough to piece together their own ever before; from San Francisco to Senegal, fare; including Oakland's Harriet Smith, from Dakar to the District of Columbia. who, as of this writing, is still in Africa The conflict was over which course a traveling and lecturing. potentially unified Africa could take to- Hoyt Fuller of was there. ward national and continental liberation, He had been also in attendance at the particularly the role of culture in the strug- Dakar Festival of 1966 and seemed par- gle for liberation and in social and eco- ticularly struck by the contrast in the type nomic development. Which, in the context of black Americans at the two festivals. of things, revolves in some presently in- Dakar had collected the most well-known transigent way around the relationship of artists and entertainers, the Duke Elling- black and white revolutionaries. Though tons and the like ; Algiers had attracted the antagonists centered their fire on the ques- new breed young militant whether those of tion of culture, the battle was recognized fame, those on the rise, or those yet to all around as "98 per cent political," and begin the making of their names. Students, clearly hinged at last in long and passion- of course, also came, notably from San ate debate, private and public, over the Francisco State College, and others around future direction of the struggle for libera- the world (including Stokely's chief aide tion on the continent and, indeed, the en- now studying sociology in Europe whose tire world. name oddly slips me at the moment though I got to know and like him well enough HUNDREDS OF DELEGATES came from thirty- before I left to give him my favorite da- one independent African countries and shiki) and ex-patriated young Americans representatives from six movements for from Paris, some of whose names I never African liberation, from Palestine to An- knew. Like their African counterparts, they gola-Mozambique and the Congo-Brazza- had journeyed in search of new hopes for ville. And there were Black Panthers and freedom to a most appropriate place, Al- "black cubs" and old lions from the Ameri- giers, Algeria-most famous in recent times can contingent. Secretly exiled Eldridge for the revolutionary overthrow of a major Cleaver chose this occasion to reveal his oppressive power. whereabouts, and expatriated Stokely Car- michael came with his South African-exiled A LGIERs, the adopted home of the late wife, Miriam Makeba. Kathleen had her black Martinique psychiatrist, Frantz Fan- baby during the Festival, and there was on, stands mysteriously like a quaint and Panther Minister of Culture, Emory Doug- complex ant hill - almost inhuman in its lass, international jazz artists, such as Nina architectural and natural beauty - over- Simone and Archie Shepp, and Julia Her- looking the Mediterranean at the apex of vre (the late 's daughter the continent of Africa, the "cradle of civil- now living in Paris) . ization." On the first night of the Festival, Leroi Jones (whose passport had been its streets were filled with multi-colored held up) could not get over, but there balloons floating against the background of

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fascinated, a gaily illuminated sky, as twenty African intellectuals who are likewise so solution for countries came through in a parade. Guinea who fail to visualize a certain "reaction- was the most applauded, but there was fel- the present, and hold on to the excessive lowship and entertainment for all, from ary theory of negritude and the past. If Africans Guinean ballet to restrained dancing in the cult of a revolutionary not to regret streets. must lean on their past, this is in order to The next day saw a somewhat different a lost paradise but to recover it Algiers, and what has been achieved since assert it fully today."2 shared by the revolution, not all of it yet so good. This was conspicuously a view Afri- The air of celebration continued, but day- Libyans and other Arabic and "white the most universal- light revealed, in at least one major sec- can" nations.3 Even and intellectuals tion, project housing tenements as dilapi- minded black leaders any dire effects dated as any in the United States. Esso seemed much less afraid of though a de- service stations appeared, and Shell, and of black African nationalism, symposium and Hertz, and Pepsi Cola (and company) ; bate raged throughout the revolution- and the French colonialists slipping back the Festival between the more proponents of in predatory droves. ary black Africans and the later. Some say that the weakening of cultural "Negritude"- more about that - resistance has increased Algerian suscepti- The revolutionary leader from was unequivo- bility to the re-entry of the French and Mozambique, for example, American imperialists . And so, there are cal. He spoke in a calm but emotional any notes, saying signs of Algerian resistance again on the voice, without benefit of always comes ready: revolutionary graffiti in large peo- that the liberal colonizer when oppressed ple's scrawl on buildings, walls and fences, over, at just the moment a takeoff in and, particularly, the old pre-revolutionary black nations are achieving to introduce symbol of resistance, the haik (or veil) revolutionary consciousness, collaboration, 4 worn by so many of the women. Most of the duality of white-black dividing the men, by contrast, dress in European at- thus prolonging the debate and oppressed.5 tire, but they also are infused with revolu- the forces of the from Mozambique tionary fervor. Besides, The representative went on to concede that these endeavors the In the colonialist program it was on the part of the liberal colonizer are all woman who was given the historic mission that of shaking up the Algerian man. Converting all right on the surface, in theory, but the woman, winning her over to the foreign a revolutionary needs a singularity of pur- values, wrenching her free from her status, pose and has not enough time to wrestle was at the same time achieving a real power his strug- over the man and attaining a practical, effec- with the problems of assimilating tive means of destructuring Algerian culture.l gle. However, he also emphasized that cul- ture must be built around struggle. He was With the onslaught of resistance, the traditional values, re- woman returns to her 1. Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, tr . by Haakon treating into the irrevocable sanctuary of Chevalier, New York : Grove Press, 1967, p. 39 . her role 2. "Quand tous les africains se donnent la main," Algerie her old society's values, reversing Actualite, semaine du 20 au 26 juillet 1969, p. 22. program. in the colonialist 3. Fanon has written of the latent revival of racial feelings between black and white Africa. "Africa is divided into Black and White, and the names that are substituted - Africa South of the Sahara, Africa North of the Sahara AND YET, leaders today seem -do not manage to hide this latent racism." See The Algerian Wretched of the Earth, New York : Grove Press, Ever- rather more concerned with the pitfalls of green Edition (tr. by Constnce Farrington), p. 161. attachment on the part of op- 4. In this regard, he corroborates the observation of a cultural Marxist Tunisian, Albert Memmi, "The Colonizer who pressed peoples. They lambasted the ultra- Refused," The Colonizer and the Colonized, New York : Orion Press, 1965 . devotion of many black intellectuals to jazz 5. Stokely Carmichael also has written recently on the way music and black art and other forms of liberal oppressors tend to "represent the liaison between . the oppressed and the oppressor." See the pamphlet "folkloric prestige," and denounced African on The Pitfalls of Liberalism, undated but current.

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one of the most applauded speakers in the entrapped by cultural nationalism, also rec- conference, though he was not alone. From ognized progressive uses of culture as an the Vice President of the Revolutionary instrument for liberation instead of a Council of Congo-Brazzaville also came the crutch - and more about that later. For view that the moment, Libya, which spends 27% of its budget on education (the highest in the African culture is a culture of combat, a culture which is forged in affronting the same world) has, since independence, set up problems, in having the same cares. It is many cultural centers, about sixty centers necessary for us to to surpass that which is now (libraries, theaters, several theatrical congealed. We believe in and want to march forward toward modernism. troupes and institutes for music, including folk troupes and folk studies toward devel- But the most persistent assertion that oping national folk art). The purpose of revolution is technical and economic, and such cultural centers, in the words of the must encompass and connect, itself very Libyan delegate, is "to raise national con- closely with scientific rationality and eco- sciousness." nomic and scientific discoveries, came from the Algerian delegation, echoed once or C ONFLicrs OVER cuLTVRE similarly gripped twice by a Russian delegation which was, black Americans and was ostensibly at the of course, not an official participant in the heart of the Stokely-Eldridge split, which symposium. The Algerian leaders went so troubled them so much more. Some had technique opposes culture far as to say that come to the Festival in part to help resolve civilizations have been ster- and that whole or at least to understand that cleavage first appreciate that ilized by their failure to hand. Only two or three of them, out of the for libera- one simple fact. While struggling dozens there, regularly attended the sym- self but tion, a people must "not give up posium at the Palace of Nations - for one it must listen to the world." thing the taxi fare was eight dollars round Yet black delegates such as the one from trip - unless you had unlikely access to a Dahomey spiritedly offered a similar ap- car. However, the Panthers, who had a car, preciation of the ideal of progress, fearing did not attend the symposia, concentrating there otherwise might result a "freez- that instead on a back-to-the-people campaign The most ap- ing of action and ideology."6 with the Algerian populace through "Afro- entire symposium, plauded speaker of the American Cultural Center" programs and can be he held on the one hand that "there the press while Stokely courted the African the no people without a culture," but in revolutionaries and Festival delegates. selfsame breath also insisted that "there is I got the impression that both succeeded no society which does not change." rather well in what they were trying to do, that they were trying to attain funda- ON THE PROPELLOR OF PROGRESS, Africa is mentally the same objectives - the libera- priming itself for change, some cultural, tion for our people - but along routes some scientific and otherwise. One hun- that were worlds apart. They appeared, dred and twenty delegates representing therefore, to have divided up and made a more than twenty-five countries met one pact at least on their turf. I never saw day and held a symposium to study peace- Stokely at the Afro-American Center and I ful uses of atomic energy for the economic never saw Eldridge at the Palace of Na- development of their countries, particularly tions. Even at the registration center, I in the area of agriculture. They further 6 . See A Dictionary of the Social Sciences, Free Press of planned a ceremony for laying the first Glencoe, 1964, p . 544-45, for a discussion of the rela- tionship between the growth of belief in the idea of stone of a "regional nuclear center."7 progress and revolutionary advances in scientific inquiry. See also Frantz Fanon, The Algerian War and Man's Swinging the pendulum, white (or Arab) Liberation, in Toward the African Revolution, tr. by Haakon Chevalier, New York: Grove Press, 1967, pp . Africans, while expressing apprehensions 144-49 . that revolutionary black Africans might get 7 . El moudiahid, 29 juillet, 1969, p . 1 .

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noted that the Panthers and most of their siderably less optimistic. But I, too, had aides were housed in the Hotel Alletti some missing links to connect and was while what Panthers call the "cultural na- pleased to have, in any case, an essential tionalists" ( a term now too loaded to have firsthand communication. Though revolu- clear meaning) were in the Hotel St. tionaries not accustomed to the search for George. a middle ground, most black Americans Within hours after my arrival, I was seemed totally caught off guard and, when seated at an outdoor dining table when their repeated efforts merely to get the Eldridge appeared and greeted me. Though two together for a subsequent talk con- I knew Kathleen, I had never actually met tinued to fall through, became quite natur- Eldridge before. He told of the Afro-Ameri- ally dismayed. They expressed strong fears can Cultural Center and invited me to drop of a coming "blood bath" within the move- by. I would of course be pleased to do so. ment. Some soon discovered and comp- Eldridge then left my table; and, when I lained that there is "no middle ground finally got up to go, I saw him and Stokely anymore." sitting in a very private and serious huddle. They appeared as old friends - or better THE SEARCH FOR GROUND (or "land") is yet, as estranged spouses - in a deliber- just what separates Eldridge, a "Marxist- ately subdued quarrel. I said hello to Leninist" who stresses class above color, Stokely as I passed by, having known him from Stokely, who believes the matter one as a student at in the of "both class and color" and hopes to ob- days of the passive resistance movement, tain a land base for black Americans by and soon fell into conversation with some helping to get Nkrumah back to Ghana. other black Americans. Some while later This land-base would then have the same Stokely came up and invited me to the relationship to black Americans as Israel table where Makeba and a portion of their now has to American Jews. In contrast to entourage were seated. I asked him what Eldridge, Stokely chooses the Palestine he was up to these days and he responded liberation movement over Israel, Africa in a way that most black Americans over over the Third World, and Peking over there found convincing, especially as they Moscow. It is not easy to subsume such grew alienated from the Panthers, largely far-reaching matters under the umbrella of because of the prominence and arrogance culture alone. of the whites in the Panther operations . And so, it was inevitable that all fac- This included the Afro-American Cultural tions of the black American contingent, like Center, which some black Americans even- the African delegation, would relate to cul- tually came to call "the Panther Lair." The ture in an ambivalent way. One instance other black Americans complained of Pan- took place at a panel discussion put on by ther hostility and distance, and the Pan- the Panthers at the Afro-American Cultural thers complained that the black Americans Center. I was to have been a participant did not frequent the Center, usually over- but was away from the hotel all day at- flowing with Algerian enthusiasts from the tending the Festival symposium and missed street. The relationship of black Americans the message left there for me. Later I did and the Panthers was changing for the obtain a complete tape of the panel dis- better in the last days of the Festival, but cussion, which was kicked off by Emory it had started too late to do much good. Douglass, Minister of Culture for the Black Like most black Americans, I, too, had Panther Party. Emory early asserted that come with some hope of unifying those the only culture worth keeping is a revolu- two forces within our struggle, though be- tionary culture and denounced "cultural ing more familiar than most with the deep nationalism" as a bourgeois concept. The and far-reaching sources of the split, some Panthers were popular with the young Al- of which will be explored later, I was con- gerians who seemed considerably to ad-

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mire black Americans in general. We soon published but should in actual fact be pub- lished - he replied, `I've been on this con- learned to say "pouvoir noir" (black power) tinent now for three or four months and it to taxi-drivers, who could tell, from our is the first time that I have no longer used a skin color and French, that we were black very narrow terminology of black nationalism.' could avoid otherwise And that is why we today of the Black Panther Americans. Thus we Party who wish to be spiritual heirs to Mal- frequent overcharging, or even obtain a colm X, no longer use the narrow term `black long free ride. nationalism.' Anyway, Eldridge Cleaver spoke, and The Algerian spokesman then ended the the dialogue began. He began by telling of exchange by saying that his group supports a call that morning from Black Panther the struggle of the black people in the Chairman about harassment United States, of all people there "strug- and persecution of fellow Panthers back gling against the capitalist system," com- home, invited dialogue and sat down. mended the courage of the Black Panthers Then a young Algerian stood and en- against police oppression, and explained gaged Eldridge in a long debate. He was again that the questions had only been careful to point out that he had not come raised to "clarify what the real situation to denigrate the Black Panthers but in that country is and the programs of the wanted to raise, for clarification, "some black organizations represented" on the questions of principles." It was his view round-table panel. that the Panthers should shun participa- The questions he raised and the panel- tion in "the world of publicity" and the ists' commentary reflected the current "cult of personality." He further was dis- groping among revolutionaries and other turbed by Panther program item #6 - oppressed persons in America and around which reads : "We want all black men to be the world for a solution to their plight. And exempt from military service" -on grounds it was also apparent that there exists no that it excluded other persons in the United ideological clarity on anybody's part. States who may oppose the war. Cleaver defended on grounds that, though they HAD IT NOT BEEN for the strictly formal- knew that persons and categories other ized structure and policies of the symposia than blacks are oppressed in the United held by the Organization of African Unity, States, the Panther program was being ad- which was sponsoring the Festival, the ex- dressed specifically to blacks, that "we not changes in the Palace of Nations most only have to attack and fight against capi- surely would have been more spirited and, talism but also against the specific policy frequently I am afraid, considerably less of racism they used against us." The young friendly. There the roots of conflict stretch Algerian then cautioned against falling into farther back through the years and, to some "the trap that's been set for us" by the op- extent, had generational overtones, or at pressors . Then the interpreter, Julia Hervre, least reflected the anachronisms of at least daughter of the late Richard Wright, spoke two eras, fired by further division between "just for once" on her own. conformist and revolutionist. The crucial debate in the Palace of Na- I want to talk to you about , about a trip he made to Ghana and about an tions was that of the future, if any, of interview he gave to the Algerian ambassador Negritude.8 In Algeria the debate was to Ghana, who asked him to explain the situa- kicked off by leading Negritude theoreti- tion in the United States, which he did. The Ambassador then asked him this question: cian, Leopold Senghor, who, rising above `You see, Malcolm, I suffered ; you see, Mal- the confines of Negritude itself, as well as colm, I struggled; and I was hurt. But after its fellow traveler, Arabity, contended that having struggled and waged the battle, you still looked at me as a white man. Where, 8. For a discussion of the conflict over Negritude in the Malcolm, do I stand in your theory of black early years of the Organization of African Unity, see revolution?' [applause] `You see, Ambassador,' B. Bourtros-Ghali, "La personalite africaine," L'Organl- zation de I'Unit6 Africaine, Paris: Librairie Armand Malcolm replied - and this has never been Colin, 1969, pp. 28-64.

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"Africanity" is the thing which "cuts across early work that a "true culture" of op- the Festival . . . the perennial dialogue be- pressed peoples "could not come to life" tween Arabo-Berber and Negro-Africans, under oppressed conditions, that the fetters it is the symbiosis of two complementary would have to be withdrawn before the ethnicities." He supported his view with true attainments of a culture could be laudatory accounts of how ancient Africa known.12 gave birth to the first human beings, its Those critical of Negritude looked to high civilizations, and harked back to the culture as an ideological weapon, pointing classical monuments of ancient Egypt. to the failure of Negritude up to now in He was not long in coming under attack. the seizure of African consciousness. The Sekou Toure, who believes that the class concept, in their view, amounted to a col- war has been weakened by some efforts laboration with colonialism, leaving the to set forth the idea of cultural pluralism, matter of oppression and liberation in the warned fellow African leaders of whatever realm of mystification, hostile therefore to rank, who would lead their people to a even the cultural development of Africa. just combat, never to permit the "false From Tanzania came the view that it is concepts of Negritude" to guide them.9 The "impossible to develop an African culture pitfalls of Negritude were once analyzed without freedom."13 at length by the late Frantz Fanon, and he A Haitian poet now living in also was much alive in the debate in Algiers, took up the cry against Negritude, praising where he is highly revered indeed, with a the delegates from the Congo-Brazzaville, college, a street and other entities now Guinea, Algeria and the various revolution- bearing his name. Cab drivers and waiters ary movements for taking similar stands. can quote and cling to his words. There He summarized the search for identity in was a long feature story on him and a the formula: "We make the revolution, photo in the daily paper during the festival. therefore we exist." And he pointed to his Fanon . recognizing stages in the devel- fatherland, Haiti, as well as a number of opment of the revolutionary intellectual, African countries, for examples of Negri- placed Negritude in the second stage, as a tude-oriented dictators who themselves reaction against the first stage of revolu- were enemies of liberation. "Negritude also tion, and which typically hampered the will be revolutionary," he concluded, "or revolutionary's leap into the third, the stage it will not be."14 of actual combat. Negritude, on the con- There was conflict, however, in the minds trary, permitted an escape into excessive of some revolutionary African leaders who glorification of the past and the traditional, wished not to discard the glories of their both in terms of values and in costumes people's troubled past yet longed to move worn and general way of life; so that one ahead into a new generation of black men found difficulty in incorporating the tech- on the rise. The solution for them, as in the niques of the present and the future or in case of the vice-president of the Revolu- turning them effectively against the op- tionary Council of the Congo-Brazzaville, pressor. At that point in the confrontation, was "to take the best" from both their own Negritude contrarily becomes a literature of mysticism . Fanon's point of view was 9. El moudjahid, 23 juillet 1969, p . 2 . echoed by many black African delegates to 10 . See "On National Culture," The Wretched of the Earth, tr . b y Constance Farrington, New York : Grove the Algerian Festival.l0 Press, Evergreen Edition, 1968, pp . 206-248 . Stanislas Adotevi, the delegate from 11 . El moudjahid, 27-28 Juillet 1969, p . 7 .

Dahomey, established a "theory of melan- 12 . Black Skin, White Mask, tr. by Charles Lam Mark- ism" on grounds that there is no culture mann, New York : Grove Press, 1967, p . 187 . separated from life, that the battle for cll- 13 . Cf Fanon, Ibid . 14 . El moudjahid, 29 juillet 1969, p . 3 . See Mohamed ture is the battle for political life." Fanon Aziz Lahbabi, LibertJ ou liberation?, Paris : Aubier, 1956, for an analysis of the frequent conflicts between too, for his part, had pointed out in his liberty and liberation .

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past and the modern world and "leave the in the same state, under the emblem of law rest behind." and peace. But they want, as the white minor- ity in Africa, to establish a purely racist After all was said and done by the regime to our detriment. younger critics of Negritude, the Minister of Education and Culture of Senegal an- This kindled the revolutionary senti- grily rebutted the attacks. He freely ad- ments among the African delegates as they mitted his fears that the "cultural" sym- returned to cultural considerations. A num- posium might run the risk of becoming a ber of them had already endorsed the "political forum." He admitted as well that necessity for armed struggle; and the dele- "we Africans must move beyond the stage gate from Tanzania was only one of those where we go on stating that our culture to win applause when he remarked that does exist" and observed that "some as- "freedom will only be won by the gun and pects of the culture under question will the bullet." change as objective conditions change." But he was adamant no less in his tenacious THE FLAMES OF REVOLUTION were hotter allegation that there is indeed a "geography still in the hearts of the Pan African Move- of Negritude" in that ". . . Negroes are dis- ment for Youth. Early in the Festival, the tinguished by certain particularities and youth had been rather suspicious of their values by which they live wherever they revolutionary elders and took pains at once are found." He was applauded when he to see "that solutions [coming out of the offered support for Palestine and said that Festival] conform to the aspirations of the Negritude does not prevent Libyans, Al- youth." They watched impatiently the too- gerians, and others from participating in ready acceptance of neo-colonialist domi- African Unity. nation and imperialist aggression on Africa's immense land and riches. And they spoke of a new resistance on the rise to AN EXCEPTION was made for a representa- "parry and thrust" against colonial con- tive of the Palestinian Movement (Al Fat'h) spiracies "on the military, who, though not a member of the Organi- political and economic plane rather zation of African Unity, was allowed to more than on the cultural." speak. He was greeted by heavy applause In the end when he came to the stand. He held that their Executive Committee held a there are only two worlds -- colonialism press conference and "condemned the attempt at secession in Africa and con- and tyranny as against the forces of free- gratulated those governments working for dom. To him Africa is more than a conti- national unity and socio-economic nent; in fact, it is on the same political map promo- tion of their people."16 They with Palestine. He charged that Britain and also saluted armed struggle for Zionist forces have united against his peo- national liberation wherever it is occurring, ple exactly as the imperialists have done denounced aid given by in Rhodesia and South Africa. On another NATO and other imperialist powers to preserve the status quo, and occasion he had suggested that Russia too, urged moral pressure from African states because of the white alliance, is in concert and progressive peoples around the with and happy over the state of Israel. world against imperialists powers Britain, in his analysis, is protecting Ian to force them to halt imperialistic Smith just as the United States is protect- aid to oppressive gov- ernments . ing Israel, because economic relationships Support with South Africa and Israel led to close was reiterated for the peoples of Angola, relationships in all aspects." Guinee-Bissao and Isles of Cape

African brothers, our story, Palestine, is 15. The issue of Zionist aggression was raised in O.A.U . affairs (by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Conference of your story in Africa. They came to our coun- Casablanca) as early as 1961 . Bourtros-Ghali, op . cit ., try as the white racists came to yours; and we pp. 83, 84 . tried, as you have tried, to live with them 16. El Moudfahid, 31 juillet 1969, p. 1 .

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 9 Verde, Mozambique, Naibie, South Africa, Zimbabwe and the United Arab Republic. A S OF THIS WRITING, however, the unfor- They saluted the revolutionary and liberal tunate fact remains that all of that has not movements in the Sudan and bestowed been quite enough. condemnation on attempts to overthrow The first Pan-African Cultural Festival progressive regimes in Africa, notably in showed Africa on the verge of finding at the Sudan and in Guinea. The youth also last whatever else is needed. The people supported the Latin American struggles there began, in the ten days of the Festival, and showed solidarity with the popular to tackle the problems they face, but they resistance to interference in the internal af- failed to find a common solution as the fairs of their states by imperialist powers. symposium committees broke down in In the Middle East: they reiterated soli- heated discussions far into the night. Revo- darity and support to the Palestine For one thing, the African people, on the withdrawal lution, Al-Fat'h, and urged the continent and in America, are still suffer- ap- of "Zionist occupying troops." And they ing from the influence and intervention of plauded, of course, the revolutionary pro- western liberals and thus have only visional government of South Vietnam, feebly begun the clarification of the uses new phase in which they recognized as a and misuses of culture in the struggle for U.S. the struggle against "neo-colonialist liberation. Before there is clarity, before Com- aggression ." Finally, the Executive there is a true and effective ideology, there intensify- mittee affirmed the necessity for has to be extensive and serious debate. ing its action, in the immediate formation But there also cannot be any fundamental a of young African cadres and formed discussion of culture - it was clear from commission to develop and build a con- the Festy al - unless economic, social, crete program toward that vital end. political and other topics also have become President It was left only to Algerian clear. When once this is done, Africa may Boumedienne to say that: no longer stand darkly honored as simply The world has discovered that despite the the "cradle of civilization," but the cradle tragedies of slavery, exile, transportation or perhaps - and brotherhood depersonalization, Africa succeeded in pre- of freedom, serving its dignity, its spirit, its sensitivity . . . and peace - as well.

The African in every territory of this vast continent has been awakened and the struggle for freedom will go on. It is our duty as the vanguard force to offer what assistance we can to those now engaged in the battle that we ourselves have fought and won. Our task is not done and our own safety is not assured until the last vestiges of colonialism have been swept from Africa. , from "Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah"

1969 PAGE 1 0 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER

A DIALECTICAL APPROACH TO CULTURE

by S EKOU TOURS

HE PATH OF TRIBULATIONS undergone actionary ideas of colonialism, cited Africa by the concept of culture is, today, as the home of backward peoples who Tlong indeed! The opinions of "committees should be forced to accept colonialist hu- of intellectuals" cancel each other out in a manitarian civilization. sterile dialectic; various "symposia" bring History has shown that revolutionary incomprehension and a hollow humanism maturity cannot be the object of an edict into a timid encounter with historical truth which imperialism would, in any case, and the progressive determination of man never sign! The Anglo-Saxon school of up against the greatest calamity known to thought allowed for a pseudo-realism history: imperialism. worthy of Hume's successors - a pseudo- In countries where a capitalist regime realism the reactionary ideological content isolates the general populace from scien- of which was soon to be exposed. Vier- tific and technical attainments, the intellec- kandt's disciples, "culturalists" such as tual fights to retain his false "freedom" Grabner and Ankermann, and functional- and questions himself in vain about the ists like Malinowski, believed they had future of a decadent economic and social discovered the basis of our culture. Their structure. He is helpless . He somehow con- empiricism and its hatred of historical ma- structs a cultural policy in an attempt to terialism produced a flood of disjointed strengthen a society whose upheavals are monographs in which the class war and the the undeniable symptoms of degeneration, imperialist's exploitation of our peoples and instead of using the faded light of his were denied and reduced to an anti-scien- poor autocratic reason to seek a new cul- tific cultural pluralism. tural conscience, he sinks into scepticism or, rather, into the terror of a future over- shadowed by capitalism. A RCHAEOLOGISTs' pickaxes had evidently European trends have dominated the not reached the African culture which lay study of cultural problems in Africa. For too deeply buried under the irremovable a long time latter-day Anglo-Saxon anthro- heap of dirt, left behind by the colonialists, pology, concerned with justifying the re- which our peoples have now succeeded in uncovering. The anxiety to extricate an SEKou ToupE is the President of the Republic of authenticity which is, for obvious reasons, Guinea and one of Africa's most eminent revolu- indiscoverable, gave rise to a fairly accur- tionary thinkers . When Kwame Nkrumah was de- ate representation of prelogism of Levy- posed in Ghana, Toure gave him political asylum. Bruhl, who was already blindl In any case there is no difference of concept between

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the black man unaware of the logical cate- of Africans and the denial of their culture gories of the classical world on the one and civilization gave birth to their estrange- hand, and the idea of the essentially sensi- ment from the human race. tive black man as a sort of passive, wax But time did not stop, and progress con- creature, only fit to remain at a primary tinued to strengthen in the face of opposi- intuitive level in his perception of the out- tion and exploitation. More attention was side world, on the other. paid to the legends, the epic poems and Thus it is no accident that African states the tales passed by word of mouth from still have to dedicate a symposium to a generation to generation of the Griots. topic such as that which unites us today: Archaeology finally penetrated the various "African culture and its realities." We recall continents, thrusting deep into the depths that twenty years ago many pages were de- of history and the soil so as to revive and voted to another topic which at that time bring to the surface the remains of en- seemed provocative and that was, "A black tombed cultures . become man is a human being." It has In fact even without archaeological re- today our historical duty to re-establish search and the tales of the Griots, ordinary culture, because ourselves in a field such as common sense was adequate to realize the long period of we are emerging from a absurdity or rather the class-consciousness elementary eclipse during which the most of those who managed to imagine a cul- his crea- attributes of man, notably that of tureless people. tivity, were contested and denied to us. By culture, we understand all the mate- According to a well-nurtured prejudice, rial and immaterial works of art and sci- Africans took no part in the general task ence, plus knowledge, manners, education, shaping civilization . Africa is accused of a mode of thought, behavior and attitudes being without history and without cul- of accumulated by the people both through ture because it was necessary that this be and by virtue of their struggle for freedom so. Europeans slaughtered American In- from the hold and dominion of nature; we dians while at the same time admiring their also include the result of their efforts to temples and palaces. They admitted that destroy the deviationist politics - social they massacred the men to take over their systems of domination and exploitation land. With their conquests and domination, through the productive process of social Europeans destroyed millennial civiliza- life. tions in Asia, but they never denied the an existence of these civilizations as such, and Thus culture stands revealed as both a never contested the quality of their crafts- exclusive creation of the people and manship and their human attributes. source of creation, as an instrument of socio-economic liberation and as one of Concerning Africa, Europe's first notion domination . was not to exterminate the men with the - it is our sole idea of seizing their treasures, but to Culture implies our struggle treat them as beasts to be sold into slavery struggle. and as they pleased, sold on the spot or ex- Culture - as both the expression and the ported to America, or even killed when result of the relationships between man their capabilities and selling price no and society, and between man and society longer assured an adequate profit. on the the one hand and nature on the and is in- To guarantee the success of such a ven- other-is found among all peoples culture ture a preliminary step was necessary - herent in the very process of life. A life that of easing one's conscience and reas- is to be found wherever conscious suring oneself by thinking that it was a exists. question of dealing with beasts and not Culture is the sum total of the material human beings. Hence the alleged barbarity and spiritual values created by humanity

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throughout its history. This creation is both needs and then less immediate ones relat- continuous and necessary. It is the corol- ing to the assertion and enrichment of the lary, the yardstick and the result of man's personality, the intellectual and moral action to adapt to his environment so that needs. This action of both men and society he can both survive and flourish. It is in- is directed against the environment, spired by the instinct for survival at the against man himself and against nature. first stage and by an awareness of the laws It is designed to meet the needs of all and of existence at a higher stage. Therefore it this raises the problem of its efficiency and first obeys a simple biological law regulat- profitability. To meet the needs of all, ing the survival of the individual and the material action must have a tactics, a strat- species before obeying a more complex egy, an intellectual effort to action, a cer- psychological and socio-economic law. tain degree of planning, both criticism and Now the instinct for self-preservation and self-criticism in the light of the results, and the need for self-fulfillment are common to a methodology bringing into play a whole all societies and peoples. Every people series of intellectual operations . Culture is must struggle to exist by creating the a material and spiritual acquisition, both material means of its existence. the product and the price of action. Creative action springing from a univer- sal imperative and culture, which is its re- AFRICAN peoples, like all peoples, have flection, subject and effect, both constitute come along the long road of history through universal realities . Wherever there is the recurrent conflicts whose overall result has necessity of creation, we find culture. As been increasing success. The creation of the expression of the relationships between material values, the, creation of spiritual man and society, between man, society and values, the creation and development of nature, culture poses in the most pressing this global culture progresses continuously terms the problem of the dialectic of the in spite of momentary slowing-down, stag- general and the particular. Culture is an nation and setbacks. Material cultural pro- expression, in particular, specific forms, of duction and spiritual cultural production a general problem - that of the relation- are dialectically linked and exercise a re- ships linking man to his environment. ciprocal influence on each other. But the But these relations in turn take on a spe- absolute priority must rest with material cific character determined by geographical production, which itself participates di- conditions, the level of development of pro- rectly in man's concrete action. ductive forces and the nature of the means For human history has more than once of production as determined by the his- recorded a slackening of spiritual tension, torical and social context. The cultural a stagnation of intellectual and political level of a people (including the peoples life or even a total annihilation of all intel- of Africa), its means of conquering knowl- lectual and political activity, but it has edge, its manner of explaining phenomena, never recorded a long-term total interrup- will depend on the power that it has gained tion of the development of material civil- over natural forces, and the degree of ob- ization. This evolution can, of course, slow jectivity and abstraction attained in the down but it can never stop, as its stopping heat of action to gain mastery over ever would signify the end of man's creative more perfected techniques. activity, the disappearance of his powers of The specific, particular nature of a cul- adaptation, and mean his extinction. ture is a reality; it is one of the attributes This material production is a matter of of national reality in general and of class vital necessity - a condition and sign of reality in particular. It expresses conditions life. Man's material action is the "prime of life shared in common, a similarity of mover," the source of all else. It aims at attitudes and of reactions to natural and the satisfaction of needs, first vital, physical social phenomena.

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But there is a general aspect even to This whole evolution, this progressive this specific particularity. Even if these at- qualification is subordinated to reason, to titudes and reactions are marked by the the law of gnoseology, to the transition irrational at certain stages of historical de- from ignorance to an increasingly deeper velopment, even if they derive from simple and more exact degree of knowledge. Any emotion at certain points in the action or anthology of African culture tending to even if they occur at the level of reflexes, situate it outside the realm of reason, of they are fundamentally set in motion and rational thought, of the law and of gnose- guided by reason with a view to reaching ology tends to down-grade it and deviate well-defined objectives and finding solu- it from its true end, which is to qualify tions to well-defined problems. Specific mankind, and sacrifices it to the myth of particularity is not specific to African cul- singularity and specificity. ture, but to every culture. African culture neither has nor needs This specificity is a general reality. But, any foundation other than the concrete apart from this general aspect of specific- life of the African. With its roots deep in ity, culture, by virtue . of its content - the the innermost life of the people it expresses expression of man's eternal aspiration to the life, work, ideals and aspirations of the happiness and to the final unfolding of his African people. It has contributed along nature, with ever-increasing power over with other peoples to the development of the environment - culture is in perpetual science and technology. Prior to the con- movement towards the universal. The tact with other continents, Africa had be- speed at which culture tends towards the gun to smelt metal and to forge tools and universal is in function of the dialectic of weapons. She had learned to weave fab- cultural forms and content at a given stage rics. The notion of chemistry had devel- of history. oped through various recipes needed to The universalization of the content of make soap, indigo, ink, to tan hides, etc. culture in interpreting the aspiration of all But, to a far greater extent than science, peoples will go hand in hand with a greater which was handicapped by the persistence perfection of its forms of expression, due throughout the ages of a low level of tech- to the general development of forms and nology, African art, African literature, Afri- the revolutionization of industrial relations. can sculpture, music and dancing, will oc- African culture, like any culture, originated cupy or already occupy an important place with the African himself and embodies his in humanity's cultural heritage. The reality first preoccupations, his first struggles, his of African culture needs no further demon- first successes and setbacks. stration, but its infinite realities are still to be discovered, recorded and described. THE course of history and the succession On the other hand, in Africa as else- of African culture's development have where, culture reacts upon those producing closely reflected the course of the develop- it (man and society) at the same time as ment of productive forces. Its initial sim- it is produced and developed. plicity, low intellectual level and slow rate Culture is an accumulated experience of progression all reflected the weakness of which modifies man in a linear, progressive man's position and the precariousness of and quantitative manner but with addi- his existence. Then over the centuries and tional qualitative phases of mutation. The down the ages, following the development result is a new man, a new society, more of productive techniques, culture devel- skillful and more apt, integrating to an oped, became diversified, took on shades ever-increasing extent the means and the of meaning and incorporated science, tech- end of action, and perfecting to an ever nology, literature, music, dancing and greater extent technology and means of sculpture. action.

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Experience, acquired by and for action, "marginal" peoples, of the peoples which becomes an inexhaustible source of energy; have remained at the stage of "raw mate- both the instrument and the guide of pres- rial-peoples," of peoples waiting to be ent and future action. Culture appears manufactured in the Big Factory of civil- then, at one and the same time, as a crea- ized men. And presently, so as to ensure tion and a means of creation of man and that colonization was everlasting, the col- society, as an expression of the dialectical onizers introduced the systematic indoctri- relationships between the creator and his nation of native workers, which contributed creation. It is clearly apparent in its real to the smooth functioning of the Big Fac- light, that of a factor determining and con- tory. ditioning all else. The conquest of culture The corps of "colonial elites," "men of has obliged man to mobilize all his physical culture," natives of any level, of any experi- and intellectual resources. Once it was con- ence and political hue, was created. quered, culture became a flame animating and intoxicating the conqueror, man. So it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that man iv the eve of the disintegration of the 0colonial empires an equals the culture that formed him and "intellectual elite" emerged. which inspires his behavior and action. It was opposed to the old "colon- ial elite," but subjectivist in the nature The fact of a culture of conditions both the its opposition . existence of the people and their exercise of This new elite tried to make use of all sovereignty and power. For us, to speak available means. It had suffered from the of culture is to fight, and, although history racist blows that imperialism has dealt to has very edifying examples to offer, such Africa, but it had not understood that al- as those which dominate the formation of though ideology and racist practices may feudalism, we have chosen to carry the be an effective weapon when wielded by data of this combat forward into the pres- ent era. imperialism which is an active racism and a non-culture in history, that racist ideol- Everyone knows what a foul use was ogy used by those who are in revolt cannot made of culture by the predatory powers be but a double-edged weapon which, in in the course of modern history, in their the last resort, is profitable only to the appropriation, among other things, of the imperialist enemy. Therefore, Holy Negri- African peoples. tude, be it Arab-Berber or Ethiopian-Bantu, After having laid their hands on the es- this Negritude is objectively an ideology sential elements of the culture of their own auxiliary to the general imperialist ideol- people, the upper classes of the colonialist ogy. powers used this weapon in their en- The Master transforms his slave into a deavor to dominate and exploit our con- Negro whom he defines as a being without tinent. reason, subhuman and the embittered slave It was first of all necessary to legitimize then protests: as you are Reason, I am the various kinds of pillage and colonial Emotion and I take this upon myself. This domination in the eyes of established mor- is how we loop the loops. The Master as- ality. To this end the natural difference sumes his pre-eminence, and the Slave his between our culture and that of the peo- servitude, but the latter claims his right ples of these powers was used to justify to weep, a right which the Master grants and accredit the ignominious assertion that him. we did not have any culture and that a A reconciliation has come about and one culture should be bestowed and imposed understands easily why the imperialist upon us. propaganda system, press, radio, cinema, Here started the crusade for humaniza- etc., goes to such trouble to spread the tion through the culturalization of the comforting concept of Negritude. Negri-

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tude is actually a good mystifying anaes- that culture, a superstructure born from an thetic for Negroes who have been whipped infrastructure, which it modifies and quali- too long and too severely, whipped to a tatively transforms in its turn, is the reality point where they have lost all reason and of a class of ideological classes. become purely emotional. As serious analysis shows the colon- 0 NE should not mistake this expression for ial situation is by no means contested by a form of neo-idealism: by ideological this elite, and that, objectively speaking, classes, we are referring to classes which far from mobilizing and arming the subju- are by no means born from a simple eco- gated peoples, it gives the colonizers an nomic and social stratification; we are easy conscience by accrediting the exist- faced here with a fundamental choice be- ence of certain liberty of thought and tween two and no more possibilities which action within the colonial system. are mutually exclusive, viz. between : 1 - The ideology of domination, and FROM this point of view, the intellectual prostration under domination . elite, while being subjectively in opposition, 2 - The ideology of struggle against any objectively completes the arsenal of colon- kind of domination and of the complete ial domination. While the latter appropri- sovereignty of the people, power being ates popular culture for its own profit, it exercised by and for the people. deprives the colonized people of its best All the activities of the Guinean Demo- defensive and offensive weapons, an au- cratic Party are based on this second ideol- tonomously created culture nurtured by ogy which is manifest in all the aspects of themselves. life without a single exception. The combination of two circumstances: a Thus it is understood that culture is a people deprived of its own culture on the field of action where man, society, nature, one hand, and the tremendous develop- men and peoples confront one another. In ment of science and technology (elements this merciless combat, the reconnoitering of culture) by the imperialist, made a cer- and conquering of ground are essential for tain kind of culture into a deadly weapon victory. The superiority of arms is a superi- in the hands of the neo=colonialist, at the ority of culture, at least in its material and time the former colonies were attaining technical aspects. And it is this superiority national independence. in the production of culture which enables It must be admitted that the frightened a people to dominate other peoples and attitude of many African governments to- impose its spiritual culture on them. wards cynical imperialist arrogance, the helplessness of the peoples who were vic- C uLTVRE is a more effective weapon than tims of neo-colonialist coup d'etats, were guns for the purpose of domination. For a result of the fact that these peoples had it was scientific, technical and technplogi- been deprived of their culture. The most cal culture which produced the guns. The powerful weapon for the rape and renewed prerequisite for any domination, exploita- subjugation of our peoples now available to tion and oppression is the denial to the imperialism and neo-colonialism is a cer- oppressed man or people of his or their tain kind of culture. human attributes and therefore, in the first The invincible weapon, defensive against instance, cultural activities. imperialism and colonialism and offensive Before conquering, dominating and sub- for the complete emancipation of our peo- jugating a people, the ruler asserts the ples, is culture which has once again be- superiority of his culture and civilization come the creation of an entire society and and proclaims its civilizing mission to the source of all progressive creation. those he has declared arbitrarily and uni- This analysis leads to the conclusion laterally to be barbarian, savage, uncul-

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tured, and without civilization . The rulers countries where socialism is being intro- take it for granted that the understanding duced. Revolution is the only way to in- of nature with a view to exploiting it in sure that science and culture will thrive order to promote technical advancement is and not decline. their exclusive privilege, their property. Culture, through art, literature, tech- But opinions more authoritative and more niques, etc., is the image of men's activity. justified than those of imperialism, colon- Thus, hunt dances imitate the movement ialism and neo-colonialism stated that na- and pace of the game hunted. The stylized ture was understandable to any individual choreography of the African savannah and that man, provided he was aware of hunter imitating the lion or the elephant the historical significance of his existence, even so far as to include its appearance, was capable of penetrating further every is aesthetically poor only in the minds of day into the secrets of nature, and increas- the exploiters who hate all that is con- ing his power over it in order to increase nected with the people. War is a hunt his control of it. where man is the game, and culture is an What is important, at a given historical imitation of war episodes. The dances of moment in the process of the knowledge the Sofas of Samori or the "tudos" of the and control of natural forces, is not so Damel Tagne lat Dior, the Boko (challenge much the quality of knowledge and its con- dances) of a N'Beur-Kat (Senegalese formity to the absolute truth as the way wrestler) like the famous wrestler Modum men and people are aware of their abili- Khule (who actually existed) are real mas- ties and possibilities for understanding, and terpieces, especially when accompanied by of their unfailing will to progress. In this songs and gestures of attack like those of process, the characteristic factor is an at- the phalanges mentioned by Stanley. Cul- titude, a turn of mind leading to self-relia- ture is the image, the record of both ex- ance and confidence in the people. Ac- perience and the techniques of production. quired knowledge and the degree of truth Sayings, proverbs, tales and folk songs which characterized it, belong to a quanti- express the wish for a bountiful production tive factor linked with facilities used in re- and the experience of mastery over nature ; search, experiment, and application. hence the naive materialism of peasant cul- This is a historical stage in development tures co-existing with the idealism arising which each people will achieve more or from their ignorance. less quickly according to their means, the pre-requisite being once again the belief that what is unknown can be known. No AuTxoRs as perspicacious as Frazer, in people are more gifted, more intelligent their rejection of historical materialism, than others, but there are differences in his- were not able to account scientifically for torical contexts. Imperialists and exploiters magic. The experience of the fight against blinded by the will to exploit are incapable nature enables man to acquire knowledge. of understanding this primary truth. Their But given his limited means and sometimes culture is made up of guns, whips, hard even the implacable hostility of physico- labor and training which deny, humiliate chemical determinism, the major secrets and depersonalize those under the colonial of nature are all the more difficult to pene- yoke. trate in that their world is unknown. Magic For the bourgeoisie and its colonialist then becomes a conjuration, and rites re- allies, masses must be kept in ignorance, for produce gestures acquired from experience, ignorant individuals can distort culture if which are regarded as valuable if occult they attain it. Peasants and workers are creatures are favorable. Hence man in- incapable of preserving cultural values, let vokes the experiences aiming at limiting alone creating new ones. This propaganda damages, natural disasters, and at killing has been proved to be absurd in those beasts which destroy the crops, etc.

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Should development stop at that stage, velopment of culture by an elite. The idea it would lead to ignorance. Imperialism is that mankind is indebted to a handful of soon found out that its power lay in this. such genial individuals as Darwin, Ein- It had to transform us into sacred, helpless steiri, Shakespeare, and Beethoven for its beings facing natural and historical neces- achievements in art, science, technology, sities. Kept in such an ignorant state, op- and literature. Of course, tribute should be pressed peoples are prey to prejudice and paid to these men. But if it is true that their terror before invisible powers which are all active existence is a proof that culture is the more alienating in that they are closely created by an elite, how can one explain linked with their culture. Misery and physi- that individuals endowed with equal genius cal decline are given an explanation except did not exist in the days of the Leakey man when this latter unveils the monstrous re- or Sinanthropus? sponsibilities of the imperialist exploiters. Science has never been a one-man con- Culture is the synthesis of people's activi- cern. It is usually retorted that, in the past, ties. To fight together against diseases and a scholar used to work by himself. In fact hunger, to control nature and to widen the a scientist can make discoveries or inven- scope of knowledge are the tasks of the tions and enrich the heritage of mankind whole of,mankind. Scientific and technical only in a favorable social and cultural culture is the highest manifestation of col- context. Nowadays, the method of scien- lective creativeness . It has led to the eradi- tific research has altered. The scientist cation of several natural scourges. forms part of a team. The "demonstration" From the historical point of view, no of this method has not yet led to the reali- culture can be free of a class content. Un- zation that collective work was a necessity less it is a fake to camouflage some stupid- due to the complexity of problems and the ity of the ideologists of exploting regimes, scope of modern science. It is also due to every culture follows a well-defined politi- the fact that capitalism aims at monopoliz- cal line. African feudalism for example did ing and exploiting brigades of brains. But not experience private land control while, as far as we are concerned we are fully on the contrary, it was the case in Euope, aware that this method, of which capital- where the lords came to consider them- ism considers only the effects, is the very selves as the owners of the land they were basis of scientific inventiveness. Besides, entrusted with simply defending against scientific workers are the perpetuators of possible invaders . That is the origin of the the efforts of past generations . collective nature of peasant dances, where It is here that I and the poet Victor Hugo the gestures cover the whole range of free are in agreement. I wrote : ". . . one dis- agricultural activity. covery may fundamentally or partially Culture, like all social phenomena, is question a scientific principle previously characterized by class struggle. Cultural considered sacrosanct and which had there- power, the container and contents of eco- fore prevailed till then . . . undoubtedly it nomic and political power, is thus a power- is the law of continuous advance which ful oppressive weapon in the hands of the prevails." Hugo wrote: "Science is contin- exploiters. Culture for the people has uous scratching with fruitful results; sci- rightly been considered as the bete noire ence is a ladder. . . ." The foundations of of the ideologists of capitalism. culture have been created and the condi- tions for its progress are created by the IT is logical for capitalistic exploitation to working masses which are the makers of deny workers access to the culture they history. have created. Thus it is that sociologists, reactionary historians, with a view to justi- LITERATURE and art have thrived for a long fying such a monopolization and to prais- time in the form of folklore : epic poems, ing it, put forward the theory of the de- legends, tales, proverbs, songs served as a

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basis for writers. Painters and artists drew notorious myth of primitive and prelogic inspiration from the applied arts created mind as opposed to the intellectual and by the people; popular art is an inexhaust- moral superiority complex of the colonizer. from ible treasury of patterns and methods, a The colonized man must free himself source of exaltation for writers and artists. his inferiority complexes and embody man It generates and feeds the national form in what he represents of absolute values, of the art and literature of every country; aspirations to the universal. science stems from the people's genius. This first stage of liberation, of struggle various complexes Consequently, culture is not the privilege for the liquidation of the colonized man is not to be dissoci- of those exploiters who have, by depriving of the the following stage - that of the the masses of the benefits of science and ated from of lost values, of possessions culture and by keeping them in ignorance, reconquest lost, attributes of a sensible found a justification for their class suprem- denied and and acts in a dignified way acy. For intelligence and talent are not the man who thinks potentialities . Nature privilege of a class ; the force of the spirit, and is aware of his the cultural talent and will of thousands of workers is abhors a vacuum, even on from the mind reflected in all cultural creations. level. One cannot extirpate of colonized man the culture which has a weapon of domination, will be Culture, been imposed upon him and which has . In this instance, one must one of liberation poisoned him, except by offering him a the enemy's choosing fight on ground of substitute culture, namely his own culture, issue of the fight will but one where the which implies an action to restore to life, adequate weapon: be governed by an and popularize that culture. imperialists use cul- re-valorize popular culture. The However, this action is possible only in scientific, technical, economic, liter- tural, the larger framework of the struggle for moral values in order to justify ary and national liberation and social promotion. their regime of exploitation and perpetuate Culture cannot flower properly without oppressed peoples also and oppression. The putting an end to the causes which have a nature con- use cultural values, but of been stifling it; but conversely the cult of trary the former, in order to fight more to cultural authenticity, the struggle for the against imperialism and in successfully reconquest of this authenticity by activat- themselves from the colonial order to free ing the awareness of popular masses and regime. their mobilization, activate the process of offensive, will Resistance and then the political and social liberation, as well as cultural be organized, first of all, in the forging the nation through the creation of a field. Colonized man must first recollect melting pot in which the simple citizen is critically analyze the results of himself, formed without any consideration of tribe which he was subjected the influences to or race. which are reflected in his by the invader, This free man within a free people who thinking and acting, his behavior, way of has rediscovered his physical and mental in conception of the world and society and balance can thence forward assume the en- his way of assessing the values created by tire responsibility for his own destiny. He own . his people can and must widen boundlessly the bases of his cultural heritage, diversify them, di- IN THE FIRST PLACE, he must undertake to rect them in order to clarify any action re-conquer his own personality by denying likely to be undertaken with a view to im- the cultural values which have depersonal- proving the conditions of existence and ized him, by de-colonizing his own mind, prosperity. The imperialists have domin- his customs, and his attitudes, by dis- ated and oppressed peoples because of a mantling the philosophical systems justify- technical superiority they had previously ing dominations, particularly Levy-Bruhl's acquired. The peoples in turn, animated

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by the conviction that the faculty of re- ple's activities, is a power whose demo- search, discovery and invention is the thing cratic mastery provides the masses with un- most fairly shared among men, will throw expected capacities of ideological and themselves into the battle for sciences and material creation and improvement. technics. Scientific culture, the ideal means It was through cultural power that the of domination and production of goods, is Master managed to justify and maintain his a factor for progress in the creation of political power and economic domination material culture and spiritual culture. over the Slave. It is through usurpation of Yes, culture is an instrument of freedom, cultural power - in the form of science, an anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, anti- technology, methodology, art and a cer- neo-colonialist weapon, a means of domin- tain conception of the world - that neo- ating nature, always providing it is a pro- colonialist imperialism is still controlling gressive, revolutionary culture created and many governments and exploiting the peo- consumed by the people on the basis of ples it is supposed to help. popularization . Only such a culture frees The other aspect of the elite's monopoly man of himself, of his egoistical tendency, is that it cripples culture; capitalism, which of the vanity and pride and the fear which is only concerned with the creation of a inhibit him - only such a culture frees and wealthy upper class, cannot stimulate cul- promotes a people by reconciling them ture. There is neither a unilateral economic with their authentic nature and opening for determinism nor idealism to assert that them the way to the future and the univer- the weakness or the death of several civili- sal. zations is due not to irascibility or to a so- called original moral insufficiency of man, TODAY, national liberation and the edifica- according to ill-omened bourgeois philoso- tion of socialism are scheduled in the pro- phers, but to the fact that culture was the gram of revolutionary Africa. All kinds of monopoly of a small minority; the scientific imperialists, colonialists, neo-colonialists, and technical power of this minority was armies of ideological puppets, traders of the perfect expression of the frailty of such peoples have taken fright when confronted economic and cultural systems . Only a cre- with the determination of our masses, and ative people can make culture advance, vilify socialism and present it as an ideol- provided that the social system enables the ogy of terror. The only reason for such a democratic assimilation of the techniques display of anti-revolutionary force is our and that the enrichment of a universal determination to free Africa from the lust cultural patrimony becomes the peoples' of imperialism, our determination to build monopoly. Democratization of science and an Africa having nothing to do with the culture is thus the fertilization of progres- exploitation of man by man. sive civilizations. However, we would be supporting a Only the revolutionary movement can determinism similar to a wait-and-see pol- restore to culture its humanistic essence. icy and to fatalism, if we limited our vic- Culture is then understood in its two tory to the eradication of imperialism and basic aspects : its self-destruction. For, while such a sys- * It means domination of physicochemi- tem bears in itself the germs of its own cal determinism for progressive purposes . destruction, history teaches us that the " It means revolutionary orientation of duration of the regimes of exploitation of society. man by man depends on the intensity of The Cultural Revolution implies the total intervention and the cultural level of the emancipation of the people; consequently oppressed peoples. It is therefore important the Cultural Revolution is the radicalized to create revolutionary conditions in order revolution. to enable citizens to give the best of them- One cannot talk of revolutionary sociali- selves . Culture, being a synthesis of peo- zation of the means of production when the

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people, who are the rightful owners, are defeat its enemy," wrote a contemporary uneducated and incapable of improving philosopher. Africa must join the Cultural upon that of which they have been de- Revolution. But what are the principal prived. The revolutionarization of culture tasks of the Cultural Revolution? Cultural supposes two basic aspects : Revolution does not mean the denial of all " Culture is available to masses, and is culture of the past; rather it is the con- a democratic process which is the means of tinuation of everything that was beautiful qualifying the masses. because it was of the people in spite of the " By widening the intellectual qualifica- will of the exploiters. It is therefore a ques- tion, revolution creates new conditions for tion of: the fecundation of culture and science. " Choosing permanent and sound values Once the people are aware of what they from the cultural heritage and rejecting create, and know they are responsible for everything that is useless and reactionary, the improvement of social relationship, the outmoded mores, the bad traditions, the they are ideologically capable of undertak- superstitions, and alienating and inhibiting ing the construction of a society free of the attitudes such as Negritude. exploitation of man by man. " Transforming culture from the privi- lege of an elite into a culture that belongs REVOLUTION democratizes culture to its to the people. very core, making it serve all of society and *Elevating the cultural and scientific not just the elite. The democratization of level of the working class to insure the culture enables many people to reveal their continued progress of the production talents in all fields of scientific and artistic forces. endeavor, and it creates the conditions that enable these talents to flourish. " Re-educating and completing the Artistic creation cannot remain outside training of the older intellectuals who can the struggle, aloof from politics, because still be salvaged, because once man has each writer, each artist, whether he likes freed himself from the narrowness of the it or not, expresses the interests of his class petit bourgeois, he can always be per- in his work. The socialist revolution throws fected. off the monetary yoke from culture and " Creating a new type of intellectual . permits the creation of works for the vast " Commiting the whole people irrevoc- popular masses and not just for the flatter- ably to the building of socialism. ing of the personal tastes of a handful of The revolution restores to the people stupid gluttons. what they created during the secular class The cultural and technical aspects of a struggle, returns to the masses the scientific society are a part of the whole of the revo- and technological acquisitions achieved by lutionary cause. Lenin wrote that they are their labor, and defines constantly the "a little review and a little screw" in the means of struggle against imperialism, col- general mechanism of the revolution. onialism and neo-colonialism. Revolutionary culture is a powerful fight- Given adequate material and dimensions, ing weapon and a material force for the our people become invincible, raise higher people. Before the revolution, it constitutes the flag of freedom and better exercise an indispensable part of the battle-front their historical role of eradicating imperial- of total revolution. Science and culture ism permanently. fit perfectly into the general mechanism of the struggle, as weapons of unity and HERE, presented as briefly as possible, is education for the destruction of the enemy, an African sample of Cultural Revolution. with one heart and one will. During the 22 years of the heroic strug- "An army without a culture is an ignor- gle of the Democratic Party of Guinea ant army and an ignorant army can never against colonialism, feudalism and imper-

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 2 1

ialism,, pride of place is due to the fight erected cities, created armies, founded em- for the restoration and assertion of the cul- pires and states. tural assets of the works of civilization cre- Thus our people know that they were ated by the millenary genius of our peo- the worthy repositories of human culture, ples, shamelessly scouted by the most crim- assets in the defense and perpetuity of inal aggression of imperialism, cultural ag- which so large a number of our ancestors gression. - forever immortal - gave their lives; our Indeed, more than the military invasion people did not kneel to the cultural mysti- and armed occupation of the mother coun- fication of the authorities in occupation. try, more than the looting of our riches and the destruction of our country's social Fox A PEoPLE animated by such an aware- institutions, the lowering and denaturing ness of history, there could not be any of our civilizations seemed to our people compromise : it was a question of totally re- to be the most unbearable expression of jecting the colonial system of imperialism the colonialist imperial regime. and its criminal ideology as well as all the During the most intense period of sep- values it defends. arate citizenship and hard labor, in the We must, in and by a struggle, recreate prisons and the death camps, the proud a new society based on the values which people of Guinea, chained and gagged, glorify the memory of its heroes . have been continuously rejecting the cul- We must restore to the concept of cul- tural assets of the colonizers. In their moral ture all its meaning and all the importance and physical poverty, they remained that it should have never lost : that of being haughty and aloof to assimilation, pro- at the same time the specific creation and claiming forcefully and with determination collective property of each people con- the undying authenticity of their culture cerned, the factor of identification, cohe- and rejecting at the same time the carica- sion and improvement of societies, the ture of civilization in the name of which means for the mastery of nature, the source the authorities in occupation enjoined them and the surest defender of people's power, to renounce their personality. and the pre-eminent weapon against any Our people have never accepted the in- foreign intrusion. - evitability of colonization . They were This is how, throughout the centuries, aware of the fact that our continent had were maintained the concept and reality been in ignorance of Europe, Asia and of African Culture, for the perpetuation of America for millions of years and that, dur- which millions of Africans gave their lives, ing the long centuries of furious struggle among whom history mentions the pres- against nature, our ancestors, facing the tigious names of Samory, Alpaa Yaya Lat- multitudinous difficulties connected with Dior, Soundiata, Biton Koulibaly, Behanzin survival and improvement, produced cul- Abdelicader. tures and civilizations which stand today, On August 2nd, 1968, I started, in the in many fields, as the finest achievements name of our people, the socialist Cultural of human creation. Revolution, an event with far-reaching They were aware that, during these re- consequences. mote ages, our ancestors discovered the Although, in the course of the construc- secret of the techniques and laws of agri- tion of an essentially democratic society, culture and pastoral life; that they discov- the exercise of political power by the peo- ered and mastered numerous secrets of ple must be accompanied by a mastery of nature; that they devised methods of edu- the economic power, this alone is not cation and information in relation with the enough. Experience taught us that when requirements of their development; that the people do not control what they create, they codified the rules of social organiza- if they are not aware of the finality of their tion and ethics; that they organized trade, daily activities, the acquisitions of the revo-

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lution and all the prospects for the im- wrong - we have clearly adopted the provement of society are still watched by analysis of Marx and Engels: the super- the internal and external counter-revolu- structures result from the material basis tion. Science, technology and culture in the and influence it dialectically. This analysis, widest sense are now the property of the chiefly put forward by Engels, was an im- people and enable the masses to assume mediate answer to the class spies of his- irreversibility of the permanent and ever- torical materialism. improving revolution . So it is that some intellectuals withgut I T IS THSoucx a serious study by the light any revolutionary political philosophy and of the new data on the African revolution- some theorists, _who are prisoners of a uni- ary movement that we discovered a char- lateral dogmatic materialism, think that the acteristic of the superstructures which idea of the revolution conscience-in-move- seemed to have passed unnoticed so far: ment, used by our Secretary-General in his culture is at a given time a social process, analysis, is a form of neo-Hegelianism, be- an infra-structure. Therefore it can be eas- cause for Hegel the conscience was just an ily understood that once cleared out of its absolute idea wandering in quest of undis- idealistic contents and impalpable syn- coverable contents. For us this conscience thetic data, culture, now including science is not an evanescent form; for our party, and technology, is the stake for a ruthless idealism is rather in the conception of a class struggle. socialist society which gave birth mechan- This is why, forged by twenty years of ically to popular science and culture with- fight, the people of Guinea, as early as the out which, however, the edification of so- 8th Congress of its national party, the DPG, cialism is a compromise. after several sessions of the National Revo- We reject this theory for two funda- lutionary Council, and the decisive one of mental reasons. First, at a time when im- the Central Committee on August 2nd, perialism brandishes science and technol- 1968, started the socialist revolution with ogy like a scarecrow, at a time when its cultural phase. imperialism in Vietnam, in Africa, in the Our Cultural Revolution operates in all Middle East shamelessly scorns universal fields of national activities. - reprobation by its aggression and mainten- At the level of the masses, all the inhabi- ance of neo-colonialism, the people must tants of our country must become literate be more than ever the masters of nature before October 2nd, 1971, the end of the and society. Second, culture and technol- literary campaign. In a second stage, liter- ogy, together forming cultural power in ate persons will receive supplementary the hands of a "comprador bourgeoisie," courses of two kinds : the knowledge and are the most deadly weapons of the coun- the know-how acquired at the end of this terrevolution. vocational and intellectual qualification Therefore, although adequate political corresponds to the 9th school year in our and economic conditions produce the pos- system (lower certificate in the Colonial sibilities of changing society, the economic system) . and political power remains fragile as long At the level of public services, institutes, as the methodical, scientific development specially organized schools, and production of the future by the people has not been unit committees are the promoters of the achieved. The growth of revolutionary courses; a ministry created for this purpose movement depends on the scientific and is entrusted with the standardization and ideological level of the people. distribution of courses. One might be tempted to put this con- Each rural political and economic unit ception of the cultural reality prior to the has its own PRL (Pouvoir Revolutionnaire material edification of socialism to the ac- Local - Local Revolutionary Administra- count of objective neo-idealism . This is tion) .

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 23

We-have established that state central- teaching material available for training and ization is the worst manifestation of bur- education. As far as we are concerned, the eaucracy; in the long run it impedes local- play Et la nuit s'illumine, the theatrical ization of the functions of the state; the expression of the recent epic of our people, revolution becomes a collection of prin- which is our country's entry at the present ciples in a vacuum. Directives, mobiliza- competitions in Algiers, together with an- tions and manifestations are characterized other tragedy The Siege of Sikasso, are by a discontinuous periodicity in contrast quite the equal of Le Cid, Iphigenia or with the need for continuity in the develop- Othello. ment of the Revolution. As regards its functioning, the PRL has The PRL (Local Revolutionary Adminis- been adapted to the structure of the Party tration) represents the revolutionary state and the State, as regards both its organiza- in the hands of the people who thus have tion and its various offices. a real control of bodies which are notably As we have said, the PRL represents the concerned with practical achievement. Not Revolutionary State in country districts . only does the state no longer maintain a This has proved beneficial in abolishing plethora of civil servants who might well urban bureaucracy and planting the roots take over the revolution at their level, but of the revolution in the countryside. the activities of those who are in service On the economic front, no hierarchy in necessarily come partly within the sphere government service is exempt from par- of the PRL. ticipating in the annual agricultural cam- The PRL's are responsible for: paign, the final aim of which is to abolish . the economy economic blackmail by turning the slogan, " Public Works "Produce to be self-sufficient," into a real- " education and culture ity. It is also the best method of re-educat- " health ing the old-style intellectuals towards a " civil status and justice real instead of a lip-service identification " communications with the ideals of the Popular Revolution. " defense of the revolution As regards education, the schools are The objectives laid down in each sector closely coordinated in the process of trans- are attained by the masses by means of forming individuals and society and are specialized brigades. known as CER (Centre d'Enseignement Revolutionnaire - Centre for Revolution- WE MAY WELL expand a little on educa- ary Education), covering all four stages of tion and culture. Each political and eco- schooling, from the primary school to uni- nomic cell, and we have over eight thou- versity level. sand such basic cells, has its various cul- Education, now in revolutionary mould, tural unit; each has an artistic group and follows a dialectical line : sporting groups. Artistic competitions be- It starts with social, geographic and po- tween local committees or between sections litical realities; on the basis of these initial of the Party provide opportunities for cul- data, it draws up plans for transformation; tural activities rich in stimuli for mass these plans are carried out on the land mobilization and particularly for the re- made available to the CER. habilitation of African Art. After making a selection at basic committee level, the Sec- I N THE REPUBLIC of Guinea today each tions of the Party become shock troops scholastic establishment, right up to univer- meeting each other in friendly strife each sity level, is a production unit working one year during the National Artistic fortnight. or more forms and at the same time an Prizewinning plays and other forms of ar- administrative unit, self-governing through tistic creation, after being checked for its Council, all the members of which, save ideological soundness, become part of the one, are pupils. Today we already have a

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number of self-sufficient units and State All this is not easy; we have our diffi- financial support for the others is ever culties, but they are far from insurmount- more strictly reduced. Thus the CER is a able. The class struggle following the path fertile cell in the forefront of socialism. of anti-imperialism cannot be a simple af- It is not a simple school, but a centre of fair. But our difficulties are the less formid- economic and ideological radiation, the able because in education, as in all other crucible in which the New Man is formed. fields, no decision is taken until it has been Not only does it represent in the country- discussed in a thoroughly democratic man- side, for example, the most successful crea- ner in the Party framework. From the 1st tion of the revolution, but every one of to the 4th scholastic cycle, the people have the 8,000 Basic Committees of the Party a voice in all matters; the people cannot has a CER attached to it, which thus be- be wrong and may oppose a perfectly justi- comes a centre of research and of scientific fied decision if they have not been con- and technical extension. sulted or if they are not convinced that the Pedagogically speaking, the curricula decision is right. This principle is dear have been shorn of all that was useless and to us . ideologically false. This makes it possible to devote far more time to productive ac- tivities which, in some cases, account for AT ALL LEVELS, the CER is directly ad- 75% of the programme. ministered by the pupils and students In each district and in the Federation themselves, through a Governing Council there exists a Council for Revolutionary which is not only an administrative body Socialist Culture, directly concerned with but also a technical component of the the close integration of the schools with the Party, functioning with well-defined attri- life of the people. butes. In all cycles of education the head- As part of the revolutionizing of our edu- master is not the potentate of yesterday but cational system, we considered that the an adviser, a member of the Council who moment had come to end our linguistic in- takes part, on the same footing as the feriority complex - a tenacious heritage of pupils, in the collective management of the colonialism. The re-establishment of our funds voted by the State or earned directly native tongues is held to be a potent factor by the production of the CER. The Council in shaking off alien influence, and in bring- maintains discipline and has the whole re- ing ideological freedom and therewith the sponsibility for the correctness of financial self-confidence of which colonialism had dealings. The teacher is no longer a figure robbed us. declaiming dogmatically from behind his Accordingly, from the earliest classes desk, but a militant spirit carrying out his onwards, these national languages are not tasks in revolutionary education. "lessons" or "subjects" but tools - the It is no internal contradiction but the vehicles for transmitting scientific and logic of our socialist leanings which has technical knowledge. In the higher classes, prompted us to democratize the adminis- including the 4th stage - High Education tration of our educational establishments - the national languages are compulsory and the relations between masters and subjects not merely for the Faculty of pupils, professors and students. In an hour Social Sciences, but for the Technical Fac- when youth is causing age-old and ulties also. The national languages are, at "proven" systems to totter, our young peo- this level, provisionally compulsory sub- ple, satisfied and with no further claims, jects because they are intended, in our no longer ask the dramatic question, "What plans for a Cultural Revolution, to be the shall I be tomorrow?" tools of education in uprooting mental Our youth are not merely implicated in structures foreign to the genius of our the exercise of power, which is denied, in- people. cidentally, to their comrades in bourgeois

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 2 5 countries, but they exercise power effec- tionary movement without a coherent and tively and exclusively. Today the struggle scientific ideology is a dangerous com- - often bloody - of youth in support of its promise doomed to fail. Therefore the claims, which is, by the way, a heightened Party ideology is at the heart of all our aspect of the class struggle in many eco- activities, whether productive, scientific, nomic systems, does not exist in Guinea. technical, literary or other. For us ideol- Our youth, entirely devoted to the struggle ogical training is absolutely imperative. against imperialism and against the clique It is above all for us the essential imple- of counter-revolutionaries, demands, in- ment enabling us to create, in Guinea, the stead, supremacy over nature. Armed with African Society, the New African Man, an the Party ideology, these young people artisan conscious of possessing a culture, strive rather to rid historical necessity of the crucible of United Africa and an origi- its fatal character by becoming the effec- nal contribution to universal culture. tive masters of the future. That, Comrades, is what we are doing We have been well aware that a revolu- in Guinea, in the name of Africa.

Our history and our culture were completely destroyed when we were forcibly brought to America in chains. And now it is important for us to know that our history did not begin with slavery's scars. We come from Africa, a great con- tinent and a proud and varied people, a land which is the new world and was the cradle of civilization. Our culture and our history are as old as man himself and yet we know almost nothing of it. We must recapture our heritage and our identity if we are ever to liberate ourselves from the bonds of white supremacy. We must launch a cultural revolution to unbrainwash an entire people . . . Armed with the knowledge of the past, we can with confidence charter a course for our future. Culture is an indispensable weapon in the freedom struggle. We must take hold of it and forge the future with the past. MALCOLM X

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THE STRATEGY OF CULTURE

by STAN I SLAS ADOTEV I

THE IMMEDIATE EMBODIMENT of a way ciety; the concept of culture owes its being of life, culture is the transfiguration to politics. Accordingly, a country has the ofithuman preoccupations, the elaboration culture it deserves. of certain specific and dated demands. Cul- For this reason, I find it right and normal ture, at once part of reality and transcend- that Algiers should strike the keynote in ing it, engenders its own realities, polarizes opening this Festival. Algiers, tragically society and transforms it. As President beautiful, or rather beautified by the long Houari Boumedienne so rightly pointed out and deep anguish which gave birth to us in his speech, it is what, in the fullest and all, Algiers knew better than anyone that widest sense, "enables men to regulate their culture cannot be a mere luxury. Culture is lives." a serious matter. It is for her sake that these Moreover, culture always expresses thousands and thousands of Algerians laid something. Taken at the source, it indi- down their lives, for her that men are dying cates difficulties; in social matters it clam- today in Angola, in Guinea-Bissao, in Mo- ors for solutions; among the people, it zambique, in Namibia, in South Africa, as opens up new paths. There is no people well as in the suffocation of Asia or the without culture nor society without change. ferment of Latin America. All true culture, then, has its roots in the By instinct and by reasoning Algiers heart of society. It is in society that it be- understood this. That is why this Festival comes aware of its own law and the law of includes a symposium. It was not enough variations or modifications. In other words, to provide things to see (our masks, our despite refinement of style, and numerous dances, etc.) ; there was need to analyze, different trends, despite the apparent au- to develop, to bring forward and to find tonomy of forms and the marvelous diver- a way. Because, the re-establishment of our sity of cultural output, there can be no cultural heritage is bound up with the long cultural life which is divorced from politi- and bitter struggle which all of us have cal policy. Carrying our demonstration waged in varying degrees for our right to further, I would say that politics is pri- existence. We undertook this symposium marily a manner of looking at culture and as a necessity, leaving the ethnologists to culture reflects man's first gaze upon so- say of us what they are accustomed to say, and ourselves embracing the duty to see STANISLAs ADOTEVI, Commissioner General for clearly, the desire to leave here with an Culture and Youth of Dahomey, Adotevi is a pro- idea and a programme. fessor of philosophy by trade. His article, "The In concrete terms, we should be content Strategy of Culture," was the most popular pres- entation at the First Pan-African Cultural Festival's to have. symposium in Algiers. 1- a plan of action;

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2 -a permanent secretariat with regional entifically what it is that makes such and sections; such a manifestation distinctly African 3 - the resolve to intensify exchanges be- Negro, another Magrabin and a third, by its tween our various countries; but above all, origins and inspiration, strictly Arab. This because to achieve these three aims which is the truth, eroded sometimes by the pas- are, after all, only suggestions, we must sage of time but confirmed by circum- review all our problems and work out as stance. All of us share the desire to bridge best we can a philosophy which will under- centuries and differences and to create a lie all our activities, whether cultural or united present. simply political. It is to a review of conscience that I invite you - to a casting up of accounts, WE NEED A PHILOSOPHY, because in order and finally to a resolution. to liberate the boundless activity which is Since accounting there must be, I will culture and to live fully what Marx called myself speak of Negritude, but I trust that the generic essence of man, every African all the other strains which go to make up must free himself from spells and ghosts, our continent will be studied. For that is or in other words from under-development, Africa. which is the immediate expression or con- Since we must arrive at a resolution, sequence of neo-colonization . each one of us has a duty to regard differ- Under-development, as we now know, ences in the perspective of unity. is the presence of absence in the present, Magrabism and Pan-Arabism are no the mythical character in a debased drama doubt political concepts, but it would be named neo-colonization . It is neo-coloniza- hard to deny that their infra-structure is tion which fills the stage of today's events cultural. with both actors and scenery, which robs Negritude thinks of itself no doubt as a the wakeful state of its certainty. It is a purely literary concept; in truth it is today mysterious force whence issue the emana- a political mysticism. tions of eternal exploitation, the matrix These are the problems we have earn- from which fetishes are endlessly turned estly to tackle. out. It is this which makes and unmakes For my part, I should like in turn, but governments. Every African brought into in other terms, to take up the theme of its service, like Caliban by Prospero's Negritude. Negritude has failed. It has wand, is working only to accomplish its failed, not in the main because a few desires. pseudo-philosophical scribblings have at- Therefore, since in Africa there is no tributed to it the wish to denounce a cer- reality except through this savage fiction, tain form of African development, but be- the extraordinary resilience of which cause it has become hostile to the develop- Cesaire spoke and which all of us wish for ment of Africa, denying its origins to de- can only come about through the projection liver us, bound hand and foot, to ethnolo- over the whole of Africa of new realities gists and anthropologists. The Negritude which, spreading to infinity, will liberate we are offered is the relegation of the new energy. These new categories, this Negro to the slow rhythm of the fields, at system of unaccustomed entities, must as- the treacherous hour of neo-colonization . sume the task of retranslating in detail all As Madame Kestloot has realized a little the excrescences with which Africa is af- belatedly, it is not surprising that the flicted. young no longer flock to hear her. In concrete terms, it will no longer do to The approach to eternity of the negritic talk of African unity; we must pursue the Negro is not a metaphysical one, but po- means . We can no longer content ourselves litical. Negritude today fixes and coagu- with abstract affirmations about African lates for unavoidable ends the most well- culture in general; we must elucidate sci- worn theories about African traditions, of

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which it claims to be the literary expres- "Existence is the repetition year by year sion. of the sanctified coitus . . . the human rises By rehashing the past and tickling a mor- out of nothing like a penis in erection; bid sensitivity, it hopes to make us forget creation is an immense and perpetual par- the present. The Negritude of speeches, turition; the world is flesh and the off- the Negritude of today provides, when the spring of flesh . . . Thus the deepest roots great distributions are made, the "good of Negritude are androgynous." This is Negroes." Alas for the great poetic vision! sheer phantasmagoria . It is not surprising "Do you suppose," we read, "that we can if after this the Negroes are incapable of beat the Europeans at mathematics, except making a revolution. Revolution is primar- for a few outstanding men who would con- ily technical and that is why Marx was firm that we are not a race of abstractions?" the one to write the finest songs about the This sentence was contributed by a theore- bourgoisie . tician of Negritude to the UNESCO Cour- But Sartre, in self-defense, came practic- tier of April 1965. Reread it; you will look ally to another conclusion. It will suffice in vain for poetry. What you will find is to read the final pages of that very fine the confirmation that the zealots of Negri- text Orphee Noir to become aware of tude are not content merely to point out this. By keeping the sexual pedal pressed a difference which is, after all, understand- right down, Sartre drifted into delirium, able, but as part of this mania for uphold- which is normal. Negritude, by seeking fe- ing the concept of theoretical imperfection cundity elsewhere than in Africa, lapsed they endeavor consciously to oppose the into socialism, which serves it right. black continent to a Europe which is ra- For we thought that African socialism tional and, above all, industrial. derived from Negritude would bring about the downfall of the oppressor's warehouses . I T IS EASY to discern the intention behind all this intellectual confusion. From the un- This idea is the winding street of revolu- tions and the end of all our hopes . Negri- finished concept of Negritude one passes tude, by pretending that socialism to another, very vague and very subtle, of already existed in traditional communities the Negro soul; and thereafter to the un- and that it would certainty of a philosophy without impera- be sufficient to follow African traditions tives and without foundation whose sole to arrive at an authentic social- title is the French which, it appears, is to ism, deliberately camouflaged the truth regenerate the world - the African world and thus became ripe for destruction. and, of course, the rest. At the end of the The first outcome of all this nonesense road we are offered African socialism is the ghosts which disturb our dreams at which, excuse the incongruity, is merely night : the conclusion of a syllogism of which the " the purring of states which are run- premise is the lubricous Negro. This comes ning in neutral gear from no theorist of Negritude, but we know " ante-diluvian demagogy our Sartre. However great our liking for him, we find passages which are mere enor- " government waltzes mities. "Negritude," he wrote, "is not a " a cacophony of administrative inter- state but an atttiude . . . an act; but an ference in stagnant economic operations act which ignores the world, which does " daily increasing cleavage between not tend towards transforming the wealth town and country of the world . . . it is a matter of existing in the midst of this world . . . of an appropria- " unemployment and impotence of the tion which is not technical." From this it educated follows that for our Negro poets (and I " lack of structural changes quote) : " incompetent civil servants, etc.

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ONLY FRENzy and bitterness are in sight. prises for the best intentions. The conclu- This must change and to do this it is not sion can be quickly drawn and it is drawn. sufficient to talk of Negritude, for African It grieves and humiliates us and we are Negroes know they are Negroes and that tempted to throw in the sponge. It could they are in the midst of the present African be the same for Negritude. catastrophe. In other words we must deal with today's tasks. This duty may be understood in accord- ance with the seriousness with which the I T IS NECESSARY to restore the natural following questions are tackled: aridity to things, to understand how I de- . How shall we modernize Africa? viate from my friends, not because of the . How shall we get rid of old structures? objectives or the projected end, but be- . How shall we encourage technical cul- cause of the means. To understand Negri- ture? tude, we must put it back in its former . What importance should we attach to neurotic context and by comparing it with each stratum of our society? the current situation, ask ourselves what . What place will be occupied by the chances are of exorcising it. women and young people? At this abstract level, it is easy to see that . How shall we resolve our ethnic prob- nothing has changed. Exploitation has be- lems? come more disgusting, and this continent . How shall we approach traditional re- which, except for man's looting, was not ligions etc.? destined for misfortune, lives without an We the intellectual, the worker, the objective and with a stagnant future. For dis- shopkeeper, the peasant and for those who know what they say: mess, waste and what the great friends of do not want to travel outside the country, order. This is saying among themselves. these are the daily problems which must these States are know the necessity of be solved immediately. To know this is to recovering in the same movement at least hollow, vague and inefficient, Negritude, the Negritude programme, if not its final is an ideology. There is no further place goal. in Africa for literature other than that of Without a doubt the irrationality of the revolutionary combat. Negritude is under-development and especially that of dead. Negroes is enormous. But without going as A worrying thought arises at this point. far as taking examples from their history, I should like to combine this worry with it might be useful for Europeans to make my own worries . It lies in the same direc- the dialectical reversal advocated by Marx, tion. which has now become a working argu- Doubtless, if we examine the events over ment. This reversal will allow us to refute the past ten years in Africa., and if we dis- certain allegations. And we have known gustedly consider this cavalcade of servility since Montesquieu that, in political life, and begging and if we measure the extent "All political vices are not moral vices and of this hyprocrisy, we cannot prevent our- all moral vices are not political ones." In selves from calling for a revolt. the same way, we will be led to think that, Africa has not gone and she does not however vicious Negroes may be, they are seem to be ready for departure. not completely commanded by their imagi- The false alarms, the courtelinesque bal- nation: and that beyond the Negro's un- lets and the tragi-comic setting of the gi- reason, there lies a reason that is not rea- gantic Luna-Park make people quick to sonable, but extraordinarily rational. All conclude that these Negroes are worth The artificial quest for traditions is, as nothing and are still under the influence of this unreason has its structure : colonial their fantasies and keeping the worst sur- necessity, whose dominion is so sure that

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it can not only digest the strangest eccen- black world from that of the white men. In tricities but even the stroke of fortune the realm of artistic creation, this attitude bringing success or failure to a coup d'etat, calls for a casting off of European models and which depends on an ambassador's and a profession of faith in the destiny of smile or his silence. This understanding of Africa. Formulated thus, Negritude should the structure of the exploitation of Negri- be considered as the first moment of pres- tude should have assured him. ent day requirements ; I think that it was, Its failure came about because it neither yesterday, one of the possible forms for would nor could do this work for itself or the struggle for emanicipation. for us. In any case, there can be no doubt It is a curious struggle, I will be told, that Negritude will never do it now, but that contents itself with words when de- Negritude, at the outset and merely be- personalization is rampant in Senegal and cause it did not yet have the possibility, men are dying like flies in the banana- already raised its voice in certain contexts fields of the West Indies. Doubtless this in a way that could be heard and which is so, but one should forget for an instant some of us did hear. the Negritude of the dictionary and neo- In consequence, whatever may be our colonial imposture and should try to quite justifiable references with regard to understand what courage was needed to it and although certain aspects may seem dare to protest against humiliation in the old-fashioned and with frankly reactionary "thirties." And as regards words I should objectives, we should consider Negritude recommend a little more thorough reading as a primitive period necessary to the Afri- of Marx. One can read, in his "Contribu- can renaissance. I would say, and I choose tion to the Criticism of Engel's `Philosophy my words carefully, that at a time when the of Law'," this phrase which may appear whole world was given over to racialism astonishing to some of you. I quote : and people like Andrass and Morand were "It is evident," says Marx, "that the aim taken for vagabonds, at a time when the of criticism can in no wise replace criticism whole of humanity raised voice in com- by armed force. Material force can only petitive cacophony, there was a single pis- be countermanded by material force, but tol-shot in the middle of this concert - theory is also changed to a material force Negritude. It shook a few consciences and as soon as it penetrates the masses." I do brought a few Negroes together, and this not think, therefore, that the error arises was a good thing. I do not intend to de- at this level. The capital error of this older fend Negritude against its internal weak- Negritude, the great sin of Negritude in nesses and the disintegration with which general was to hate been, at the outset, it is threatened. inverted love. It was to have believed, even before its birth, We should nonetheless recognize that in universality - when the universe Negritude's exaltation of our heroes can be was forbidden to it. The carnal ardor of none other than abstract and underlines black hatred should have been opposed contemporary demands. It produced poetry to the cosmic insults to which none other than the black of the unusual and of solitude, doubtless, race have been subjected. But our but at the same time that poetry was poets, overtaken by un- reason, preferred the political in its refusal to betray its origins. crazy advances of love. Damas says It was political before being lyrical. this when he looks in vain for "a shoulder in which to hide his face and share of reality." On behalf of I AM NOT speaking of deviated or per- us all, pigment confirms the truth that this verted Negritude. I am speaking of our entire Negritude is morbid sterility because debt, and above all, our pride, in belonging it never knew what harvest it would reap. to the tradition of African civilization, and And indeed, that which brings about the in possessing values which distinguish the restructuring of the world concerns revo-

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lution, not cosmic ferment. Negritude was tions, discern difficulties, repulse determin- born dead; it was going to die and it died. ism and make real the new situation en- A message, however, remains. Apart abling us to reach our goal. from the ineffectiveness of its negation, I would put forward the doctrine of apart from the labyrinth of mystification, Melanism. Negritude was a rejection of humiliation. One could find another name for it, but the essential thing is the cementing force TODAY THIS HUMILIATION Is still apparent and thought which, operating in the per- and the problem posed by Negritude re- spective of unity, reacts on particular sensi- mains. There are the unwanted gifts inter- bilities as do Magrabism and Arabism. mittently showered upon us so as to in- The Melanism which I would propose to sure our continued subjection. There is the you is open to all Nubia, i.e. Africa. It is deterioration of rates of exchange, there not a new racialism but an identification. are the prices fixed in Paris, London and It is an affirmation of the plain fact that elsewhere. And for one unemployed - let to be a Negro today is still to live through no more be said - there is the appetizing the violent depredations of the slave trade. food to be had in foreign embassies. There Melanism is the acceptance of a state is the isolation of China. There are the of war, but with arms other than prayers millions that foreign aid brings in to the and Negro spirituals . Said Machiavelli, "It countries that are supposed to be aiding is an act of humanity to take up arms in us, and the moving text by : the defense of a people for whom arms "How can we speak of the `mutual bene- are the only resource." fits' if we have the sale, at world market Melanism will be the unique resource of prices, of raw products costing unlimited a people who can no longer decorate their efforts and sufferings to the under-devel- torture with trophies conquered from oped countries and the purchase, at world shame. It will be, as Cesaire says, the ex- market prices, of machines produced in pression denying the whip. We must give today's great automated factories? the lie to negation by assigning positive "If we establish this sort of relationship tasks to each Negro. between the two groups of nations, we will We are not trying to racialize problems have to agree that the Socialist countries but to understand that white people have are to a certain extent implicated in im- the habit of putting all Negroes into the perialist exploitation. same category and of inspiring themselves "It will be argued that the volume of with this same common historical attack exchanges with the under-developed coun- and subsequent traumatism, so as to define tries constitutes an insignificant percentage a strategy for the present. To put it clearly, countries' foreign trade. This is of Socialist should relegate their tears to an- true, but makes difference as Negroes absolutely no tiquity. The battle has taken on a physical to the immoral character of this exchange." form, and should henceforth only have a In short, there is the spirit of Camp physical expression . David. And finally, there we are - divided, crushed and pulverized. A reduced and shaken Africa, with no grasp of its future. FOR CERTAIN American Negroes, it would This is the reality set before us. be illusory to think that the battle will end Africa, still anti-Aristotelian, is still in with the illusory conquest of civil rights. the expectation of form. But the great up- Even if they one day take over economic heavals of the next decades will proceed and social power, or if, in the meanwhile, from this unreasoning, formless Africa. All they have crumbs thrown to them in the that is needed is unceasingly renewed ac- middle hierarchies, they should know that tion, an imposed discipline and, above all, they are nothing, so long as the Negroes of a way of thinking which can embrace situa- Africa have not yet completed the ascend-

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ancy, the tragedy of which was related THERE REMAINS CAPITALISM . I will not by King Cristopher. speak of the extent of this phenomenon, This all goes to say that the essential but will content myself with listing its fail- task must fall on the Negroes of Africa. ures by means of a quotation from Meister : And they can only carry it out by coming "Finally one fails to wonder about the to agreement on the following questions: inability of liberalism to apply to new coun- tries the principles which made possible I - It is true that no race has been more the spectacular development of our West- insulted than ours? ern countries. By its very development, 2 - Is not the present-day situation the capitalism impedes the development of perennialization of this humiliation? new countries: the principle of the free 3-Is it not true that the Africans them- circulation of capital empties these coun- selves (our ancestors who acquiesced in tries of their surpluses, while that of free the selling of slaves and who are the pres- enterprise kills the embryo of industrial ent-day apologists of modern sodomy) bear development. To stick to these principles the overwhelming responsibility for this and leave their frontiers open means con- fearsome cavalcade? demning these countries to the same stag- 4 - And, as things are thus, is it worth- nation as that reigning in Latin America, while making the effort to get out of this that typical product of neo-colonialism in slough of spittle, tears and blood? that last century. It is obvious that the 5 - Finally, is there a certain and effec- liberal way is a total failure in Africa." tive means of doing this? And if so, what Although during several decades Europe is it? has been the theater of the greatest capital- These are five questions that Melanism ist upheavals, and although captialism to- would place before the conscience of each day still appears as an extraordinarily fer- African. tile model which constantly generates free energy, here, for the African, it is, to use For my part, I do not think much of a metaphor, an extinguished and slag-cov- African socialism. It is the ideological ex- ered volcano. pression of a social category which installs, We therefore are forced to look for some- in a backward country, capitalism with its thing else. Melanism which, I admit, is backward economy. It has nothing to offer somewhat irrational, aims at keeping the us. sore open and, by shelving the solutions I therefore think that the only practical so far proposed, gets rid of the inextricable socialism is that propounded by Marx, estrangement and founds the state in which completed by Lenin and applied, with the future history of Africa will take on a a greater or lesser degree of success, meaning. by the socialist countries. This socialism is I have already defined Melanism . It is the only practical possibility - with, of not just a phobia. As it cannot be compared course, the variations imposed by geogra- to the "anti-racist racism" Sartre speaks of phy. But we know Lenin's dictum, "Com- in "Orphee Noire," it is our purpose here to munism is the power of the Soviets plus de-mystify the concept of race and to electrification." This is not yet the case in wrench it out of the hands of reactionary Africa. There is also the ,.dvice given by politicians who are using it to obscure the Lenin to the 2nd Internationale. To make issue. the great social leap forward one must, Although Sartre's objective was the same he said, have an active, organized prole- as ours - to denounce the evil that has tariat and help from socialist governments. led to the racism of the black poets - ours Now what we know of our proletariats and differs from his in that it does not limit the present international situation con- itself to exorcising race by making it active, demns us to defer this hope. but aims at strengthening a people by a

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 33

racial awareness, a people which perhaps bric-a-brac of time. A myth such as the is still abtract although not paradoxical, one Gramsci, who prounced the only right and which is probably mistaken as a result and profound judgment on Machiavelli, Prince, consid- of inhibition. discovered in The which he ered as an "illustration of political ideology THERE REMAINS however, in spite of the which does not present itself as a frigid precautions taken, something which should Utopia or a doctrinaire argument, but as not be left obscure. We should repeat here the creation of a concrete reasoning process what we have already said : which operates on a dispersed and scat- 1 - We are products of white unreason: tered people to provoke and organize their we are Negroes only for the whites. In collective renaissance." Africa, to be a Negro, is to be as natural as the infinite stars in the night. I N THE SAME WAY, Africa must be con- 2 - Whatever our opinions, whether we vinced by meditation on race. It should are Christians, Muslims, Communists or come to terms with its present so as to reactionaries, and often at the height of regenerate the future. In this connection, battle, white necessity has been burnt to there are two objectives: a cinder in our flesh. . The establishment of a collective mel- 3 - As it is our purpose to save ourselves anian will. from racism by constructing a modern state . New mental structures. in Africa, this our purpose can only be There are five prerequisites for attaining made real by an exacerbated nationalism, these objectives: the force of which, although partly deriv- I - On the political level: the establish- ing from objective facts, also derives, ac- ment of a modern state ele- cording to Renouvin, from irrational 2 - On the economical level : a demo- the ments. Consequently, we cannot reject cratic national economy irrational part of such an enterprise. On 3 - In the field of the philosophy of his- contrary, if we take the end into ac- the tory, rejection of all systems which persist the objective pursued will give the count, in discovering cyclic returns and deny in- a positive value, as has always enterprise definite progress. been the case throughout history. Undoubt- and moral level: edly, to be able to speak of national feeling, 4 - On the intellectual field, an educa- we should, according to the well-known (a) in the moral its force from pattern, first have a nation. But who could tional system drawing past and deny that Islam has favored nationalism? a constant reference to the race and And is it possible, as Renouvin asks, to present humiliations of reprehensible understand anything about Japanese na- which also considers even tionalism without referring to Shintoism? any insane cult of the past, as well as all stupid Our project therefore, far from flounder- when national, abroad. ing through imaginative excesses, may borrowings from field, oppo- break silence in pointing to the beyond (b) in the intellectual appeal and in rejecting limits . It states the neces- sition to stifled traditions, an vari- sity for a modern state while indicating for rational innovations of the world revolutions. the means to attain it. ous Therefore it takes its inspiration from 5 - Lastly, on the level of personal the great nationalist upsurges of the past training, we should only strive for a per- centuries, but with the difference that, al- petual creation of ourselves by ourselves though it may serve to create a myth, this and for a constant creative activity based myth should draw its truth only from its upon a sense of initiative and responsibility own strength: we need a myth which is and only retaining elements useful for the not mythical but a reality shattered in the nation.

NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 34 THE BLACK SCHOLAR

To sum up, pending the union of the see the promised land, but which should whole of Africa, this transitional ideology know that the shore exists. Melanism is, aims at the establishment of a strong and after all, the preliminary to socialism. In- prosperous national state which: stead of disdain and condescension, each . inside the country brings about the African, as is more or less the case with recovery of the race by vivisection! the Chinese today, will read in the eyes " outside the country asserts African ir- of the European the first signs of terror. redentism using subversion if necessary; Therefore, everybody should, in the sin- .finally, on the economic level, takes ister hour of discouragement, repeat after advantage of the contradictions between Fichte these sentences of restored hope : and inside the power coalitions in order "Already one sees the new daybreak shine, to found a modern industry and economy. it casts a glow upon the mountain tops, an- A hallucination? Perhaps. In any case, nouncing the coming day. I want, as much the present methods will have to be trans- as is in my power, to seize the rays of this formed. Practical and theoretical necessi- daybreak and condense them to make a ties often entail the introduction of new mirror which reflects its image on our concepts into the problem. desperate era, so that it may find there its Before socialist recovery, must come re- true core, and perceives, through its suc- covery of ourselves. This is not a matter cessive transformations and developments, of repudiation. Tactics had to be changed. the anticipated form of its definitive face." We are changing them. No doubt this contemplation will dissolve In any case, these ideas are directed to the image of our former life and that which the young Africans of my generation, to the is dead will not definitely enter the tomb generation which, like me, will pehaps not before emitting excessive moans.

The whole world surprised, wakes up in panic To the violent rhythm of blood, to the violent rhythm of jazz, The white man turning pallid over this new song That carries torch of purple through the dark of night.

The dawn is here, my brother! Dawn! Look in our faces, A new morning breaks in our old Africa. PATRICE LUMUMBA, from "Dawn in The Heart of Africa"

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 35

PAN-AFRICANISM =LAND AND POWER

WHETHER WE WANT IT OR NOT, there are The same is not true for Africans. divisions among black Africans living in Let's ask ourselves why. the United States, the Carribbean and on If you see an African in Europe, you the African continent, divisions which have do not say that he is an African. If you see been imposed on us by Europeans. There him in America you do not call him an are geographical divisions, countries such African. He may be Negro; he may be as Senegal and Moritania, Mozambique West Indian; he may be everything else and Guinea, created by Europeans as they but African. That is because Europe took struggled for the wealth of Africa. Then its time to divide us carefully, quite care- there are political divisions and economic fully. And they gave us different names so divisions, again imposed on us by Euro- that we would never, always never, refer peans. to ourselves by the same name; which Now they are planning to impose on us helped to insure that there would always grave cultural divisions and, most of all, to be differences. If you say you are West divide us by naming us different things. Indian, it is fairly obvious that you are If you are in San Francisco, for example, something different to be set apart from and you see a Japanese or a Chinese walk- an African. An American Negro and an ing down the street, you do not say that African also obviously are not the same there goes an American Japanese or a thing. Japanese-American. You say simply that One of the most important things we there goes a Japanese - period. Yet, prob- must now begin to do, is to call ourselves ably, that Japanese cannot speak Japanese "African." No matter where we may be at all; he may be third or fourth genera- from, we are first of all and finally Afri- tion in America. But no one calls him a cans. Africans. Africans. Africans. The Japanese American. The first thing you same also happens to be true of North call him is a Japanese; because a person Africa. When they say "Algerians" or is defined, really, at first by his physical "Egyptians," they are talking about Afri- presence, or in terms of his ancestral stock. cans because Africa happens to be one Whether they are Chinese, Japanese or solid continent. Among Africans there will African. The same is true of the Indians. and must be no divisions. They are just Even in America, when you see a red Africans - period. Indian, you do not say he is an American; you say he is an Indian. The same is true You must also understand that there are for East Indians; the same for Phillipines . two types of oppression, basically. One is Wherever you see them, in any part of the exploitation. Another is colonization. With world, you call them Chinese or what not. exploitation one is economically raped;

PAGE 36 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

STOKELY CARMICHAEL sparked the "black power" movement during the Meredith March through Mississippi in the summer of 1966. As a student at Howard University, where he took a double major in philosophy and sociology, Carmichael showed rare promise. After receiving the bachelor's degree, he left academia for Lowndes County, Ala- bama and soon emerged as National Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He and Charles Hamilton are co-authors of the book, Black Power.

by STOKELY CARMICHAEL

for example, in the 1930's the labor move- But they are fighting nonetheless and ment was a response to economic exploita- fighting for a humanity of their own, albeit tion. Rich white people, in that instance, the same thing in a sense that we are fight- were exploiting poor white people. But ing for, to affirm our humanity. We are there is another type of oppression - colo- fighting to affirm our humanity. With nization. Colonization is not just the eco- those nonwhite people we can begin to nomic raping of someone, not merely move so long as they understand precisely taking a lot of money away. Colonization what the fight is all about and that we may deals with destroying the person's culture, differ in some respects. his language, his history, his identification, his total humanity. When one is colonized I N AMERICA, folk seem to think that the one is totally dehumanized. So that when revolution there-if there is such a thing, the victims of colonization fight they are or even if there will be such a thing-will fighting for a process of humanization . all be over in five years, when actually we This is entirely different from the fight are talking about a generation of struggle. of people who are only exploited. The That is why they always have deep ques- people who are exploited fight just for tions in their minds to trouble them. They economic security. The colonized fights be- fail to understand that the struggle we are yond economic security, far beyond. And talking about inside America is only symp- so, it seems to me that as we begin the tomatic of a world-wide struggle against search for allies and coalitions we can only Europe and its satelites. America, in fact, form allies and coalitions based on whether is nothing but Europe. The white people those people are fighting for the same in America are not Americans but in fact thing, fighting the same fight that we who Europeans. When we call them Americans have been colonized are fighting. In other we allow them to escape; we define them words, people who are fighting for their incorrectly. We should call them Euro- humanity. This means, for example, that peans and understand that they never be- all non-white peoples who have been colo- longed in America, that they took that nized can join hands, understanding of continent from somebody else. When you course that our fights remain entirely dif- call them Americans you forget that they ferent. were Europeans because you give them The people who have been colonized by in fact the theory of native origin, that they white folk, let us say, in Asia, are fighting came out of America. Where did Americans the same fight but a different fight because come from? They come from America - of culture, humanity. Their way of life is that is, somebody you call American. But if and will be entirely different from ours. you say that they are Europeans (which

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 37

is what they are), then the question arises king has come up out of the earth, that the as to where they came from-Europe. What people grew out of the earth. They were are Europeans doing in what is now called asking "Where are we from?" Plato says America? that you must always answer that question: his book he says We must understand that because it "Where are we from?" In earth, have shows how deep our struggle really, really, that the people come out of the fight really is. These are things we do not even grown up there, so that they always for the ideas that come think about, because, if you see what I for that earth; and they always will. have been saying up to now, you also will out of that earth. And come out of that see that, in the final analysis, the struggle So black people (us) ; and so black is going to be waged with Europeans earth, and we always will running around in against non-Europeans. And that means people (us) must stop our theory of that America is European. That means that circles . We have to have from. If black our struggle is not five or ten years but is, Antaeus - where we are the States say "where are we in fact, a generation. Once we understand people in must wind up at Africa. One that our struggle is at least a generation, from?" they beginning, who one is, be- then we do not even have to worry about must know one's where one is going. so many little things. We will know, then, fore one knows Pan-Africanism nega- that we are not going to see any really People who regard a racist theory, concrete or substantive victories in our tively, who think that it is Padmore's book, fight for at least five or ten years. I mean ought to read George or Pan Africanism . Padmore is to say anything really concrete enough for Communism Writing around the 1930's, us to look at and say that that is what we clear on this . the advisers to Dr. Nkrumah, have been able to do. and one of Padmore was crystal clear on the point that point, it becomes important that At this we must talk about Pan-Africanism. I be- people of African descent - scat- you have lieve that people who talk about "Marxist- Western hemisphere by tered over the Leninism" so hard, in such a hard line, Europeans, scattered across the West In- are people who are groping for an answer. used so long as slaves -bound dies and They seize on "Marxist-Leninism" as if it unified struggle for their lib- together in a were some sort of a religion. Marx be- not impossible inasmuch eration. This is comes, in essence, Jesus Christ. Now any- all over the world as we have people today thing you cannot answer you take over and moving forward in the quest for liberation bow to Marx. That, in my view, is abso- their oppressors . against lutely absurd. At least for me. I cannot claim to understand all of Marx- ist-Leninism . I have read very little of them BECAUSE understand so clearly the fore- I and understand little of what I have read. ancestral roots of the going factors, the So, for me to jump up and say that I am that the solu- problem, I have concluded a Marxist-Leninist is for me to be intellec- Everybody tion has to be Pan-Africanism. tually dishonest and, in fact as well, a damn always - DuBois, Padmore or whoever - liar. And yet, though I do not fully under- comes back at last to Pan-Africanism . Pan- stand all that you folk are talking about, I not just some nonsensical Africanism is do have certain universal concepts which white philosophers black nationalism. Even happen to agree with the things that Marx example, Plato understand this fact. For was talking about. But, just because I have The Republic the theory in talks about these concepts does not mean that Marx Antaeus, of Antaeus.° The parable of was the man who taught them to me. I says Plato, shows that the philosopher knew them before I read Marx. So, even if I agree with them, why now should I call "Antaeus was a giant wrestler who was invincible as long Tunisian Ibn-Khaldun as he was touching his mother, the earth . myself a Marxist?

PAGE 38 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

spoke of Marx's concept of surplus value, says that capitalism and racism are two dif- for example, as early as the fifteenth cen- ferent entities unto themselves. I would tury. Why should I give Marx the credit for have you struggle against both. To get rid plagiarizing Khaldun? Marx only wrote of capitalism - I repeat - is not necessar- down universal truths about oppression. ily to get rid of racism. As a matter of fact, He did not invent all of them. I think that black people ought to know Everybody can arrive at these truths this better than anyone else. I think that, themselves. I don't need necessarily to in terms of reality and history and my own read Marx, though Marx wrote it down ideology, all of the movement that we have more fully. I give Marx the credit for writ- been building up in terms of black nation- ing it down, of course, for being a good alism, from the sit-ins for coffee to "black writer. But Marx wrote down the universal power," runs straight to Pan-Africanism. truths of those who came way back before We always come back to that. Marx. Right here in Algeria there was Ibn Khaldun. For me, to always look to Marx IT is clear now that the only position for is once again to give the credit for every- black men is Pan-Africanism. We need a thing good to Europe. Once again I con- land base. We need a base. A land base. In tinue to stress my own inferiority as an the final analysis, all revolutions are based African. Ready to unify my country, I con- on land. The best place, it seems to me, tinue to look to a European, Marx, to unify and the quickest place that we can obtain me. I say "Marx, Marx, Marx," and once land is Africa. I am not denying that we again I am looking to Europe. People with might seek land in the United States. That this approach do not believe that they is a possibility, but I do not see it clearly themselves can originate something worthy, in my mind at this time. We need land which becomes very damaging. and we need land immediately, and we People in that frame of mind are going in must go to the quickest place for it. circles and they of course are going to be We need a base that can be used for aided by our oppressors . They are going to black liberation, a land that we can say be aided whenever they travel in circles. belongs to us. We do not need to talk too When a man is lost and you know that he much about it. That will harm the struggle. is going in circles trying to get to you, you When one needs a base one needs also to do not tell him "Look, Man, you are going prepare for armed struggle. To seize any in circles." Even if you did you would be of the countries in Africa today that are unable to show him the proper path. If dominated by white people who have phy- you said "Look, man, you are going in sically oppressed us is to confront an armed circles," he would get mad at you and struggle, a prolonged struggle. keep on moving. He would lay back and But once we have seized a base we will then he would say, "O.K. man, let's go." be on our way. We will then have to dem- Dorit get in a man's way when he's going onstrate our willingness to fight for our in circles . people wherever they are oppressed. I be- And yet, I view the struggle in the States lieve that people basically defend their as part and parcel of the entire world own kind, as America did during the Span- struggle, particularly the black world strug- ish Civil War. In the Middle East they did gle. That is to say, I cannot see the struggle it even in 1967 with Israel. People who in the States as any different from the didn't have any rights in that country were struggle anywhere else where men are flying in from all over the world to fight. fighting against a common oppressor. Our There's nothing wrong with our doing the fight is clearly a fight aaginst both capital- selfsame thing. It can be done and, most ism and racism. One does not get rid of important, we are trying to secure a politi- capitalism without fighting against racism. cal ideology as we seek a state. We are be- I cannot agree with the ideology that ginning to understand our movements and

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 39

to see how we can move politically, so that needs now to be a clear sharpening of our we begin to talk clearly and critically now ideologies. Our ideology must be Pan-Afri- about Pan-Africanism. It is a discussion canism, nothing else. I am almost con- that must begin. vinced of that. Once we get a land base There are many people who live in we can begin to experiment with it and Europe and America who support lands develop it and go about the concrete tasks which do not belong to them. Concretely. of nation building. They wage so large a propaganda cam- One of the problems of black people is paign that one cannot say anything about that we are afraid, always, to put up lead- their country without being automatically ers . I don't know why. We have some fear labeled "anti . . ." to the point where one of putting up leaders and following a is even afraid to move for fear of falling leader. What we always look for instead into that label. If we obtain a bigger base is merely someone who has an idea. We than they have we can do a better job all will agree with the idea but fail none- than they do because we have more rights theless to give concrete support to that to be in Africa than they have to be where man. We keep saying that the man is not they are. important, that the idea alone is important, but that is not necessarily true. You have to MALCOLM X said that one fights for revo- have someone who is capable of imple- lution but that in the final analysis revolu- menting the idea. Our enemies have rec- tion is based on land. He was absolutely ognized that and, whenever they find correct. You have to have land in order to someone able to implement a viable idea, produce, in order to feed, shelter and they move to destroy him. All the time. clothe your people. People fight the revolu- They kill him physically; or isolate him tion not solely for ideas; they fight also politically or ruin his name among us. for a better way of life, and they incor- We allow that to happen and only after porate new ideas introduced to them that he has been destroyed does he become a promise a better way of life. People do hero for us. By that time it is too late. Now not just fight for ideas, unless they are everybody is wearing Malcolm X T-shirts sure that they can see a better way of life and Malcolm X, blah, blah, blah. But Mal- coming out of those ideas. colm today would be more important to Thus, unless one can feed and clothe us alive than dead, although in death he and shelter people who want to fight for has become more famous. We need him these better ideas, there is nothing for them now and we need to know what he would to fight for. In order to have a revolution do in the present case, because at least one must have a clear and viable alterna- he had some ideas about where he was tive for the masses, one they can under- going, before the rest of us did. He was stand and follow, one that can move them ahead of us. We have caught up with him to struggle. I do not think that in the States today in a sense but he would still be there can be a clear and viable alternative ahead of us, hopefully growing at the same for black people. I am almost convinced rate that we are growing. But we never that there cannot be. That is not to say protect our leadership while our leaders that the struggle cannot and will not con- are alive. We are afraid to do that. tinue. But we cannot begin to understand clear WE never understand history because and viable alternatives until we first obtain history is always moved forward by a a land base. We have to have a land base. single person. China would not be China I think that the best place for that is Africa were it not for Mao Tse-tung. That is not and in Africa the best place is Ghana. to say that somebody else would not have Black people in the United States mean- led China, but it would not be what China while must begin to understand that there is today without Mao. Vietnam would not PAGE 4 0 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

be Vietnam without Ho Chi-minh. France ing to be removed by talk. It is not going would not be France without De Gaulle. to be removed by talk. It is not going to England would not be England without be removed by Britain, by the UN, or by Winston Churchill. We have to understand anybody. Nor is it going to be removed by that. Now I have traveled all around the a handful of guerillas. It is only going to world. I have looked and I have seen. I be removed by the entire black world have been waiting for and seeking for a standing up against it, because when in black man outside of our generation who fact the final confrontation over South knows what is going on. I have found one Africa for example, takes place, the black - Dr. Nkrumah. He knows precisely what man will see that he is not just fighting the struggle is. We should bring Dr. whites in South Africa. He is fighting all of Kwame Nkrumah back to Ghana. I would Europe, because all of Europe is going to not deny that he made some mistakes. But actively defend South Africa. he was the first person to talk about Pan- Africanism as a concrete term. And he demonstrated his willingness to fight. He WE must begin to move. The whole sent his troops to the Congo and mobilized black world must begin to move, though his troops to move to Zambia when prob- we will not even be able to see anything lems developed there. He trained many concrete for at least five to ten years. Then guerillas. He was the first to give La- you begin to understand precisely our di- mumba assistance. He gave his country rection. We are coming closer; we are more as an open base for every African freedom sharply defined now. We have always been fighter or liberation movement. He trained moving. Let's go back to the 1960's: we his youth in the concept of Pan-Africanism . start a move for integration - a cup of It was he who started the whole drive for coffee. Even before we got the cup of African nationalism. Dr. Nkrumah was one coffee, we recognized where else we were of the first people to wake me up. It was going. We were moving for the vote. By he who began to wake up everyone. He is the time they were getting ready to give the person who can bring our fight to- us the vote, we recognized that that was gether and give us some direction to fight. not it either. So now we recognize that it We need such a person and Dr. Nkrumah is Pan-Africanism. happens to be that person as far as I am It becomes more and more sharply de- concerned. fined now. It has taken since the 1960's, But the fact that we start in Ghana does almost ten years, to understand precisely not mean that we stop in Ghana. We must where we are going. Ten years to take us fight for the unification of Africa. That's to Pan-Africanism, and it will probably what Pan-Africanism is all about. The uni- take us another ten to sharply define what fication of the mother continent at this time that is all about. We mistakenly believe must take priority. The unification of the that we can solve the problems of the African continent is entirely different from United States in five years. Then, when the African unity. They are two different five years have come and gone and the things. They are two different terms and problem remains unsolved, our people they are two different things . African unity grow tired and say: "Well, you've been means you have different states who come jiving me. You said five years." We should together and talk, talk, talk, talk. Unifica- prepare ourselves for twenty-five years. tion of Africa means you have one state - We should always say twenty-five, at least Africa. Everybody speaks the same lan- twenty-five. One generation will have to guage, one government, one army. fight, because there are people who are So that you start in Ghana for the unifi- always attuned to fighting if you have cation of Africa and you recognize, if you indoctrinated one generation thoroughly, are intelligent, that South Africa is not go- prepared them to fight. Then all subse-

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 4 1

quent generations are prepared to fight. tion, one is talking about more than just Vietnam is clearly a case of that readiness. changing governments and power, and that I believe that as you study you struggle is changing the value system. What carries and struggle. It's like a math problem. If that value system is one's culture. What you are given a math problem, you may we have here is the beginning of people sit up all night working with it before, fin- who are trying to grope for a real fight ally, things click and the problem is solved with the culture. within five minutes. But that does not mean that you could come here and solve C uLTuRE is a cohesive force. It is what it in five minutes whenever you please. Be- keeps people together. Culture is very im- fore you solve it in five minutes, you have portant in the fight because a lot of people to sit down and go through that whole have fought against their oppressors yet process of trying everything you know. If maintained the culture of their oppressors you have tried and you have eliminated and culturally they are the same as their all the possibilities, you now come to the oppressors . They haven't fought for any- one correct one. The same is true for us ; thing actually. All they have done is change that's what we have been doing in our powers, but that is not a revolution. You struggle. have to understand that changing powers is not a revolution. PAN-AFRICANISM wants to save as many Black people in America, Africans who black people as possible. We will lose live in America, especially must under- some. Some will even die in the struggle. stand that and begin to alienate our people We know that, but there's no need for us completely from the culture and values of to emphasize those deaths. We want to Western society. That is going to be par- emphasize what is alive. Revolution is not ticularly difficult because all of us live about dying; it is about living. People do within those values and it is going to be not understand that. You kill to live; you hard for us to root them out. I mean that die to live. It is not just about dying. We it is like people who say that they want to no longer have to prove that we are bad be black. But being black is an awfully by dying. We want to live. Fraticide, for hard job in the United States. instance, is something that we must not It is very, very difficult, and we have to in any way encourage. It is okay to back constantly try to understand the rejection down from a fight with one's people. The of Western values and the picking up of impression of Pan-Africanism especially is new values. It is very, very difficult. But that one must be aggressive and intolerant our first task is all the more to alienate against the - enemy; but, with one's people our people at every chance we get from one must always be humble. If one says the Western culture and values, because one is really serving the people, one must once they are alienated there will be no be humble. You are always humble to him influence over them. That is what we are whom you serve. seeking. We are seeking to stop all influ- We must always be political. I think ence of Western culture on our people - that culture, for example, is always very completely. We must stop it; so we move political. It always has been and always to alienate. That is number one. Then num- will be. We must understand that this con- ber two: we move to give a concrete ideol- ference is really a political conference, ogy that the people in the United States especially for our people. It means that at will adopt. They have a lot of technical this point Africa is ready to launch its real skills and a lot of information which they liberation. In order to launch its liberation, could begin to put to the aid of the unifica- it must have a culture because a culture tion of Africa - spiritually, morally and represents the values, the values for which politically. one fights. If one is fighting for a revolu- At the same time, there will be struggles

PAGE 42 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 inside the United States, always moving anti-American, not just possibly anti-Ameri- on different levels as black people keep can, but anti-American to the point where trying to get a better way of life. These it urges people to destroy, dismantle, dis- struggles will continue. I cannot say that rupt, tear down, level completely in I know exactly which way to go, but I America. So you cannot have that, but that think that some trends are very important. is precisely the job of the black educator, For example, the trends in black studies to train his people how to dismantle Amer- are very, very important and they must ica, how to destroy it. continue because what is at stake is not the subjects but the attitude, the attitude WHAT those black study groups should of black people having the right to have now do is not just talk about Africans liv- the education that will benefit black ing in Africa, but Africans living all over people. the world, so that the subjects will become Those are the skirmishes . They are the concrete subjects related to Africans, in beginnings because the rulers are not going Africa, Africans in the Caribbean, Africans to let us have a truly black studies or a in the United States, Africans in Canada. truly black university. In the final analysis We have to understand also that Egypt is one can not have a black university in any in Africa; Algeria is in Africa. They are other society than a black society because African and even the Arabs are going to the job of the university is to propagate the find that the African world must come first values and institutions of that society. In because that is where they are continent- the United States, a black university, a ally. They are African. That's the roots, truly black university, is going to be totally and that's where we all have to come from.

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THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 43

EDUCATION AND REVOLUTION

NE WAY OF UNDERSTANDING what's we also label these with the same designa- going on, on the college and the tion of enemy. The distinction between highO school campuses in the United the struggle for survival against the physi- States today, is to examine the essence cal environment, and the struggle against of education. Basically an education passes the antagonistic forces and situations in the heritage, learning, the wisdom and the the social realm is a very important distinc- technology of human history to the coming tion to make, because often the struggle generations. We want this information to in the social realm is really the only be passed on to enable and to help man- struggle that many people are caught up kind continue to survive and cope with the in. They are not directly involved in strug- environment. In terms of surviving and gling against the physical environment, but coping with our environment, basically, their survival does depend upon struggling we have two worlds to deal with. We have within the social realm, in terms of how the natural world - the task of surviving the economy is organized, how the political against the given world, the task of eking system is organized, and how the social a living from the earth itself, for which system itself is organized, so that many technology has been designed. On the lives are played out against this back- other hand we have the social world, the ground of struggling against the way civil- social situation. We have an antagonistic ization is presently organized. orientation to both of these worlds. We The struggle against the physical en- speak about the natural enemies of man, vironment, of course, is primary. We have including everything from animals to the organized our social situation in order to weather, and these elements have been cope with the physical environment. The given the label of enemy because they can way that we organize agriculture, the way kill people. We have to be able to harness that we organize industry, the way that we these forces, we have to be able to adapt organize the economy as a whole, the way to the natural situation so that our survival that we organize the political situation, all will be enhanced, and for this purpose, sci- historically have been towards facilitating ence and technology, agriculture and in- and better enabling us to cope with the dustry, all of these tools have been devel- physical environment. oped by mankind through practice in cop- ing with this physical environment. AT THIS POINT I think it would be useful We are in the habit of speaking about to establish some terminology. The best certain things that happen in the social terminology I know of, for discussing this situation that are hostile and inimical to distinction between the struggle within the prospect of survival for mankind, and the physical environment and the struggle

PAGE 44 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

ELDRmGE CLEAVER is Minister of Information for the Black Panther Party and author of the best- selling book, Soul On Ice. He is a product of the San Quentin Prison, where he served nine years. While still on parole, Cleaver was implicated in a shootout between fellow Panthers and Oakland policemen. When his parole was revoked, he fled the country for Africa and is now exiled in Algiers. He is currently International Editor for Ramparts magazine.

by ELDRIDGE CLEAVER

within the social environment, is the termi- But as the economic condition becomes nology developed by . He desig- more complex, and as the level of informa- nates the struggle against or within the tion and knowledge and understanding of physical environment as taking place with- the environment increases, to the extent in the economic base of society. And, upon that society requires people to specialize the economic base of society is erected in passing on this information, then the the superstructure of society. Thus the problem of education really sets in. When struggle within the social realm takes place it was necessary for people to be desig- within the superstructure and the struggle nated as teachers and to specialize in, or in the physical realm takes places within devote all their time to, passing on this the economic base. In the economic base information, the learning situation itself we find the natural resources, the technol- had to be centralized as an institution. ogy, the industry, all the machines and Schools, universities, etc., were developed the tools and the means that mankind has so that the maximum productive use of a developed for coping with the physical man's time and energy could be made. environment. They are designated as the Now you can readily understand how in a means of production, the means of produc- very complex social situation it would be ing material wealth, goods and commodi- understood by the community, by every- ties from the natural resources themselves. body involved in the social unit, that these But all of the institutions of society, every- places or institutions of learning were there thing from the educational facilities to the to serve and to benefit the community as hospitals and the postal service, everything a whole. It would be absurd for a teacher belonging to the organized aspect of soci- or one who is charged with administering ety, exist within the social superstructure, the learning process as a whole, it would which has been built and sustained by our be absurd for him to alienate himself from means of producing material wealth. the community as a whole or to claim that Let's get to the essence of an education. he owns the body of information . that is a In a very simple-structured social organiza- heritage to mankind; this would be absurd, tion, where technology and learning have it would not be tolerated by the commu- not become complex, it would be possible nity. for one's father or one's uncle to pass on Of course I have been writing as though the technology. Your father could teach society was an organism in which people you how to fish or your father could teach were in harmony with each other, in which you how to farm at a rudimentary agricul- they cooperated with each other and in tural level. He could teach you how to hunt which they were not waging wars of ag- with a spear or a rock, or bow and arrow. gression against each other and were not

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 45

in conflict with each other. But in actual class college students, all find ourselves fact and in terms of human history such in the position wherein our lives are harmony has not been the case. manipulated and controlled by those who In human history, we see that society has have this advantaged social position. been broken up into classes, into antagonis- We have to struggle in order to survive. tic ethnic and economic groups that strug- But we're not struggling against the natural gle against each other for survival as each environment, our struggle is not in reality sees it. They enslave each other and make taking place against nature itself, but we their living at the expense of other groups, are struggling against the way society has special interest groups are formed, etc. So been organized. We are struggling against that in reality we have to look at our own those who have organized society to their situation, have to look at the situation that advantage, in order to continue their con- exists in the economic base in terms of the trol and rule of the entire social unit. It is class struggle, also in terms of the ethnic very important for us to understand that struggles that have gone on. When we look we are called upon to wage this struggle at our own situation today in the United with the same desperation and the same States, we find that those who are very "do or die" necessity that a caveman in powerful in our society are powerful be- some forgotten time in human history had cause of their relationship to the means of to struggle against the natural elements . In production, because they are rich, because reality, our adversaries are other men, they own the factories and because they other women and other social classes. In own the natural resources. With this eco- terms of the racial strife within the United nomic power they are able to gain control States our class struggle is often hidden by of all the institutions in society, they are our ethnic struggle. We are manipulated able to appoint people who themselves along the color line as well as along the may not be rich, or may not own stock, or class line. We are exploited economically, have any control over the means of produc- and we are discriminated against racially, tion of the natural resources, but because also. of their extensive education are able to be appointed to positions of managing TODAY, AS ALWAYS, the struggle of the society. exploited people within the United States But at the top of the social organization is taking place on all fronts, but the most in the United States, we have the ruling sensational and explosive clashes are being class mentioned; and because of the wealth centered and focussed more and more on of this ruling class, it is able to dominate the college campuses and on the high American society and control American school campuses. We understand that those society, able to determine what judges are who control the mind can control the body, appointed to the judicial system, able to so that those who are interested in keeping determine who is appointed to the Board people in oppressed positions and then of Regents to administer the colleges, and dominating their perspective and their out- able even to determine who is elected to look on life, know that it is necessary for office, because it controls the wealth, and them to control the learning process in has vast amounts of money at its disposal order to brainwash people, in order to to wage a political campaign. camouflage the true nature of the society. Those who control the economy of the In order to sanctify their system, they United States are able to control the rest teach the exploited people and the op- of society. Those of us who are not in this pressed people to virtually love the system advantaged position, black people, Mexi- that is exploiting and oppressing them. can-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Indians, This oligarchy has an interest in seeing to Eskimos, virtually every ethnic group in- it that the content of the curriculum is to cluding poor white people and also middle its liking, and that it does not expose the

PAGE 4 6 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

true nature of the decadent and racist soci- THE PROCESS of breaking out of slavery, ety that we live in. the process of breaking out of a set of On the other hand, the exploited and social arrangements, out of a social organ- oppressed people have the opposite inter- ization that is killing us, this process is est in exposing the true nature of the named revolution; we are revolting and society and in educating ourselves and our rebelling and moving against a system that children on the nature of the struggle and is our enemy. For us the word "revolution" in transferring to them the means for wag- should be a beautiful word because it's a ing the struggle so they can be aware of word that promises us hope, that promises the level of the struggle, of the progress us a better life and we should not be and the history of the struggle and the ashamed to call ourselves revolutionaries. nature of the enemy and the true vulner- We are a revolutionary people, our very ability of the enemy. In other words, we social situation forces us to be a revolu- want to be able to teach ourselves and our tionary people. If we are not going to be children the necessity for struggling revolutionary people, we have to accept against this ruling class. the designation of satisfied slaves; if we What we have to realize above all else aren't satisfied, then that means we have is that our enemy and that which we in a revolutionary consciousness. It is impor- fact are struggling against is not an in- tant for us to be consciously revolutionary, dividual college president or high school to understand that we are revolutionaries, principal or a board of regents or a board and to understand that it is right for us of education, but the entire social structure. to be revolutionaries and that in fact the We are struggling against the capitalist sys- enemies are the ones who are wrong. tem which organized itself in a way that The enemy uses words against us, talks purchases our lives, that exploits us and about "crime in the streets," talks about forces us into a position wherein we have "disorders," talks about "law and order," to wage a struggle against the social organ- all of these words are smoke screens, are ization in order to survive. smoke screens to confuse us, to create con- One of the techniques or one of the flicts between the various exploited groups weapons that the enemy uses against us and to turn them against each other. It is in our struggle is to turn words against us, the old technique of divide and conquer. to define our struggle in terms that place What we need and what - if we had any our struggle in a bad light, so that the word sense at all - what we would be working "revolution" is given a bad name, is looked for is to create an alliance between all the upon as a negative term. exploited people within the society so that But what revolution means and what it we could join together to create machinery, means to us is that we are trying to change coordinate our struggle, and coordinate a system that has historically enslaved our our attack against the capitalist system and people, has continually exploited us, has destroy it. Because as along as the capital- discriminated against us and made our ist system exists, by its very nature some lives miserable and kept us underdevel- people will have to be exploited in order oped 'and kept us blind and kept us in a for others to be rich and powerful, so that form of slavery, one form of slavery or the exploited are powerless and in an op- another. Of course, our struggle has con- pressed position. Therefore revolution is a tinually forced the slavemaster to modify glorious term, it is a term to be proud of the terms of the slavery, but every modifi- and we should know that we are morally cation that has been made has only been right, we are right in every sense of the made because the slavemaster found it term and that the oppressor is the one who necessary to make a few minor adjustments is wrong and that the oppressor has no in order to continue his exploitation of us rights which the oppressed are bound to on a new level. respect.

THE B"ACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 47

History is on our side and justice is on white students in harmony with this sys- our side and it is only a question of remov- tem, to keep them supporting the system, ing from positions of power those who are to indoctrinate them to fight the wars that able to judge our struggle and to pass out protect the system, and that extend the in- judgements that denounce us and that fluence and the power of the system. We deny us the right to survive. If we had are all becoming conscious of the evil of revolutionary members from the exploited the system, concious of the fact that this classes sitting on the Supreme Court, in the system can no longer survive, that we have halls of Congress and in the Executive a historic opportunity for attacking the Branch of the Government, then these system and destroying it at its root. Thus revolutionaries in office would give out all of the manipulations that the capitalists revolutionary decisions, the revolutionaries and the watchdogs of the capitalists go on the benches of the court would give out through are designed to destroy the thrust revolutionary decisions on the court cases of the movement, to designate as criminals and the capitalists and the racist police those who are in the forefront of the strug- would be judged wrong. gle and those who are guiding the struggle. They would be the ones who would Historically the struggle in the educa- be sent to prison. They would be the ones tional arena, in terms of black people, has who would be penalized. They would be been waged from, on the one hand the the ones who would be forced to raise a slavemaster not even wanting black people hundred thousand dollars in order to get to learn how to read and write, to black out on bail. In other words, the oppressed people wanting to learn how to read and people have to take control of the govern- write on the other. The struggle then trans- ment, they have to take control of the state, posed itself over into what black people so that in their hands these instruments of were allowed to read and write, until to- power would be turned against the ex- day black people have reached a point ploiters. The exploitative system would be where they want to control totally what dismantled and we could build another they read and write. system that would be based on coopera- This has been a steady struggle against tion, not on a "dog-eat-dog" epic of compe- the opposition of the slavemaster, it has tition, of corrupt methods of exploiting been defeat after defeat for the slave- people. It would be based on how best to master, until now we have burst into con- organize the industries, the means of pro- sciousness, until now we have realized duction, in order to give everybody a good the necessity of taking control of our edu- life. cation. When we see this long line of progression from the struggle to become OUR STRUGGLE to gain black studies de- literate to the struggle today to control partments on college campuses, our strug- totally the education, we can see the true gle to have black studies added to the nature of the opposition that we face now curriculum across the nation is a struggle and faced then. All of these racists and that the enemy sees as a grave danger. The liberals who are opposing our moves to- enemy also recognizes the struggle of day to gain control of our education, are young white people on the college cam- nothing but the descendants of the outright puses and high schools as a grave danger racist slavemasters who opposed us in our and he is right. It is a grave danger be- attempts to learn how to read and write cause what we realize is that the educa- on the plantations during the days of tion that is given is designed to perpetuate slavery. Hence all of their rhetoric, all of a system of exploitation. On the one hand their arguments, all of the changes that it is designed to keep black people and so- they go through, in the last analysis, are called minorities ignorant, and on the other a continuation of the desire and the neces- hand it is designed to keep the masses of sity o£ the slavemaster to keep us ignorant

PAGE 48 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

and unable to manipulate ideas; because in O N THE ONE HAND the rebellion of black order to organize a revolutionary struggle, students and black people thoroughly ex- we must be able to manipulate ideas. We poses the racist policies of the administra- must have knowledge of ourselves and of tions of the various colleges and high our enemy, and of the situations that we schools, and on the other hand there is the find ourselves in, in order to organize a repression that the blacks and the allies true ,revolution to move against the op- of blacks are receiving. It's really incor- pressor. rect to speak of the white section of the movement as being the allies of blacks, ONE OF THE GREAT DANGERS that our revo- because in reality there is no such thing lutionary struggle faces, perhaps the great- as a black movement and a white move- est danger, is that we historically have ment in the United States. These are tended to compartmentalize our struggle; merely categories of thought, that only that is, we get hung up on one aspect of have reality in terms of the lines that the the struggle, without having an overall ruling class itself has drawn and is en- revolutionary perspective and without rea- forcing among the people. lizing that the struggle that we wage is Because the United States is controlled against the total social organism. We focus by one ruling class, one single structure, all of our attention and all of our energy and the whole drama of the black libera- on the educational system, and we don't tion struggle, and the revolutionary strug- realize - or our tactics and our strategy gle in the white community is being played would seem to indicate that we don't on one stage. Because of the division that realize - that this is only one aspect of the ruling class has historically implanted our struggle and that the same people who amongst the people, because of the differ- control the educational facilities, control ent experiences of black people from white the rest of the social structure. Everything, people, the reality of the division is more the economy, the judiciary, the political apparent than real, because at the top op- parties, the political instruments, every posed to both black people and white revo- aspect of society is in the same hands. We lutionaries is a single ruling class, there's need a broader strategy, a revolutionary not a ruling class for blacks and a ruling strategy that aims at overthrowing the rule class for whites, but there's one single of this class as a whole, so we will not just ruling class that rules all, that controls all, be going through changes on the college and that manipulates all, that has a differ- campuses. ent set of tactics for each group, depending The repression against the movement upon the tactics used by the groups, in the that the United States is now mobilizing is struggle for liberation. not a sign of strength on the part of the One of the great weaknesses in the ruling class, but rather the sign of weak- movement at this particular time is in the ness of the ruling class, and a sign of the campus aspect of the attack upon the rul- strength and effectiveness of the move- ing class and the power of the ruling class. ment. All of the lies, the subterfuges, the In the compartmentalized thinking of the hypocrisy of the ruling class has been ex- traditional American society, the college posed, for it can no longer hope to control community and the college campus is or manipulate the movement by words viewed as something separate and distinct alone. It has to resort to the brutal, re- from the rest of the community. The col- pressive forces of the police department . lege is not really looked upon as a part The movement itself has drawn several of the community. People who are not con- lessons from this reaction of repression by cerned with themselves going to college or the ruling class. The clear cut nature of who have no children in college feel that power in the United States and the racist what's going on, on the campus is none of policies of the ruling class are revealed. their business. But nothing could be farther

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 49

from the truth, because in reality they are students and there is not solid and mas- the people's colleges, institutions that have sive community support, then they will be been set aside to perpetuate the human able to get away with it, and slowly but the move- heritage, and to pass on human wisdom, surely they will be able to grind after the knowledge and technical skills for the ment to a halt by cutting off wave lead- further development of society and civiliza- wave of leadership, by expelling the out tion. And every single individual living in ership, and hounding the leadership a given society has a stake in what goes on of existence. in them; he has a stake in seeing to it that what happens on the campus is proper, It's a mistake to think that the ruling and that the best interest of all the com- class cannot be successful if a proper re- munity is being served. sponse is not made from the movement, a and time On the other hand, the attacks focussed mistake that has been made time struggles on the college campuses serve to expose again in the various revolutionary cases the nature of power in the United States. around the world. There have been being very When we look at the composition of the of the revolutionary movement organized, board of regents and administrations, and highly advanced, very well the councils that control the colleges, we find much more organized than we are in them replete with military men, retired United States, with a higher theoretical generals, foundation personnel, and big understanding, and with very good party businessmen. We could say that the boards machinery, , etc. and they have been would that administer the universities are a good crushed because the power structure would barometer, or a clear diagram of the strati- resort to unlimited brutality - it the mass fication of power in the society as a whole. kill, it would imprison. It had the We don't see poor people represented on media in its control, and it could use brain- the boards of administration of the institu- mass media to justify this, and to organized tions of learning, for in the society beyond wash other people who were not re- the college campus, poor people do not enough to do anything about their exercise or possess any power. If they did pressors. . The move- have the power, they would be in a posi- So that it's a question of time has tion to see to it that some of their members ment is always behind, the movement by were appointed to these boards. the initiative . The power structure, itself, But those who control the economy, over-reacting seeks to buy time for those who control the various sources and and the pressure that the movement puts levels of power in the community and on the power structure determines the around it, are able to have their lackeys amount of time that is left. Because if the and their flunkies appointed to administer struggle progresses slowly enough to allow means of coping these institutions of learning. The composi- the ruling class to devise lost and tion of the boards of administration of the with the movement, then all is failure. institutions of learning indicate clearly, the the movement itself is doomed to or powerlessness of the various sectors of So that a broadening of those involved, society and this fact needs to be brought those concerned, and those whose support out much more clearly and brought home is now latent is what is required. white peo- to the community. A connection needs to Poor black people and poor who are not be made between the college campus and ple and middle class people in the college the community so that the repression and themselves directly involved understand the tactics of the ruling class can be de- situation, need to be made to precious lib- feated by the total community being in- that something of their own they volved. As long as the pigs are able to erty, which either they never had or de- vamp on the college campuses and to com- thought aey had, is being decisively going mit mass arrests and brutality against the termined in the struggles that are

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 50

down on the campuses today. Every black whole. These facilities can no longer serve mother, every black father, every Mexican the interests of the crosswork monopolies mother, every Mexican father, every father that are being administered by racists and and every mother in every group, white, by pigs who only want to exploit people Puerto Rican, Indian, Eskimo, Arab, Jew, and sentence people to be cogs in a wheel. Chinese, Japanese, whatever ethnic group In the final analysis, the struggle that is they happen to be in, in the United States, now going on on the college campuses can- need to be made to understand, that if they not be settled on the college campuses. It have no child or teenager involved in the has to be settled in the community, be- educational process today because they cause those that sit on the boards of ad- were not able to afford to send them to ministration of the colleges do not derive college or something of that nature, that their power from the fact that they are sit- this in itself is a criticism of the structure ting on the board, but rather, they sit on of education in the United States. the board because they have power in the community. IT IS THE DUTY of any society to see to it Their power is based on the economic in- that every individual in that society is stitutions of society and other institutions invested with the human heritage and pro- that form the power structure, and be- vided with the technology, the skills, and cause of their relation to these sources of the knowledge that will enable him to "cope power, they're able to be appointed to with his environment, to survive and to these positions of administration. live a good life. It is the duty of the society We have to destroy their power in the to provide this education, just as it is the community, and we're not reformists, we're duty of the society to provide the highest not in the movement to reform the curricu- level of medical assistance, housing and lum of a given university or a given college employment, of every benefit that exists or to have a Black Students Union recog- in society, it's the duty of the government nized at a given high school. We are revo- to provide that. As long as the state is not lutionaries, and as revolutionaries, our goal providing these benefits, it is not worthy is the transformation of the American so- of existing, and under our kind of state cial order. which is called a representative democracy, it is not possible for a capitalistic economy I N ORDER TO TRANSFORM the American to provide a universal education for the social ,order, we have to destroy the present people. What it has been providing is structure of power in the United States, universal brainwashing that masquerades we have to overthrow the government. For as universal education. The quality of the too long we've been intimidated into not education is contemptible, it is inhumane, speaking out clearly what our task is, our and it is only geared to provide a level of task is the overthrow of the government, intelligence or a level of competence that which has to be understood as being will enable the product of the educational nothing but the instrument of the ruling system to become war material, to be class . The court, the congress, the legisla- exploited by the capitalistic economic enti- ture and the executive branches of the ties within the United States. state and federal government are nothing So what we're into today is not only sit- but instruments in the hands of the ruling ting back and criticizing, but actively class, to see after the affairs of the ruling reaching out and challenging the authority class, and to conduct the life of society of those who control the various institu- in the interest of the ruling class. So we're tions in society, not simply challenging this out to destroy this, to smash this machinery authority, but by actively moving to dis- and to erect new machinery. But new rupt the functioning of these facilities in machinery cannot be erected until the pres- the best interests of the community as a ent machinery is destroyed. It is not the

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 5 1 task of revolutionaries to keep their heads his lair, the lair of his power, in his cor- up in the sky, wondering about what they porations! Such attack could be through will do when they have power. What they boycotts of the products of that corpora- have to do at the present time is to have tion, or through the physical destruction of their minds centered on destruction. We the property of the corporation, or the are out to destroy the present machinery physical elimination of him as an indivi- of the ruling class, that is our task. dual. We must do this by the only means pos- We must not get into a bag of thinking sible, because the only means possible is that we're involved in a game: a revolu- the means that's necessary, and the only tion is not a game, it is a war. We are in- means possible is the violent overthrow of volved in a war - a people's war against the machinery of the oppressive ruling those who oppress the people, and this class. That means that we will not allow is the war in the clearest sense of the word. the ruling class to use brutality and force It is only our resistance that is under de- upon us, without using the same force and veloped and it is our resistance that is brutality upon them. We must destroy underdeveloped because the ruling class their institutions from which they derive has formidable arsenals of the materials of their power. A given college president may war to unleash upon us, and they are only have his power as a result of being in- using timid materials at this particular volved in a corporation. We must attack time, because our resistance to their ag- him on the campus but we must also pur- gression has heretofore been timid. sue him off the campus and attack him in

I had been brought up with the democratic idea that this general welfare was the object of democratic action in the state, of allowing the governed a voice in government. But through the crimson illumination of war, I realized and, afterward by travel around the world, saw even more clearly that so-called democracy today was allowing the mass of people to have only limited voice in government; that democratic control of what are at present the most im- portant functions of men: work and earning a living and distributing goods and services; that here we did not have democracy;, we had oligarchy, and oligarchy based on monopoly and income . . . W. E. B. DuBOIS, "Dusk of Dawn"

PAGE 52 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 In the forthcoming issues of THEBLACKSCHOLAR Robert Williams The Black Struggle -1969 Floyd McKissick Toward a Black Ideology Chuck Stone The Black Political Party James F. Turner The Sociology of Black Nationalism Nathan Hare Politics and the Black Intellectual Don L. Lee Directions for Black Writers Robert Chrisman Marxism and the National Question Wm. J. Middleton Pan Africanism: A Historical Assessment Phaon Sundiata The White Reaction to the Black Assertion Nathan Wright Jr. Black Power vs. Black Genocide

You can't afford to miss a single issue!

If you are concerned about the black struggle, Read THE BLACK SCHOLAR

A BLACK VALUE SYSTEM

Umoja (Unity) - To strive for and main- was the culmination, as a period of devo- tain unity in. the family, community, tion and meditation, for the 6 days of nation and race. divine work. Sun-Day. So Maulana speaks Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) - To of spiritual concepts and scientific princi- define ourselves, name ourselves, and ples embodied as a morality system - com- speak for ourselves, instead of being plete in itself, as a contemporary black defined, and spoken for by others. philosophy old as the sun. Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibil- The 7 principles are the spine and total ity) - To build and maintain our com- philosophy of the US organization. They munity together and to make our are simple in what they say, but total in brothers' and sisters' problems our that they evoke all the levels of meaning problems and to solve them together. associated with philosophical systems. Ujamaa (Co-operative Economics) - To The 7 principles are "10 commandments" build and maintain our own stores, yet more profound to us - US because shops and other businesses and to they are pre and post 10 commandments profit together from them. at the same time. If there is Umoja, for Nia (Purpose) - To make as our collective instance, thou cannot kill, steal, bear false vocation the building and developing witness, commit adultery, or any of the of our community in order to restore things the western world thrives on. The our people to their traditional great- commandments are fulfilled by the initial ness. need of blackness for unity-oneness. Kuumba (Creativity) - To do always as But unity is political too. The meaning much as we can, in the way we can in vibrates as a totality. Spiritual unity is the order to leave our community more needed completion of physical and mental beautiful and beneficial than when unity. (The doctrine is made up of the we inherited it. 3 sides of the ancient pyramid-physical, Imani (Faith) - To believe with all our mental and spiritual-in each of its state- heart in our parents, our teachers, our ments. The three pyramids of the US sym- leaders, our people and the righteous- bol meaning "our traditional greatness," ness and victory of our struggle. and by this, our traditional understanding.) The 7 principles are solutions to the politi- HE 7 PaivcipL .Es are 7 because the num- cal dilemma of Black people. I would say ber is a meaning-symbol for this solutions to the political dilemma of all Tworld. As a throw of dice it speaks of men, but I recognize we are different by spiritual concepts and scientific principles. virtue of our concerns and the context of It is because of this that the seventh day our lives.

PAGE 5 4 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

LEROi JONES, poet-playwright and jazz critic, is author of Blues People and Black Music. His plays include: The Dutchman, The Toilet, and The Dead Lecturer. His poetry has appeared in many leading magazines, among them Harper's, Negro Digest, and Liberator. Jones co-edited, with Larry Neal, the anthology, Black Fire. During the rebel- lion in Newark in the summer of 1967, Jones re- ceived head lacerations while being arrested for possession of a pistol.

by I MAMU AMEER BARAKA (LeRoi Jones)

We, the different peoples, are as differ- and spiritual. The One God. And the 7 ent rays of light, each bent to particular principles are a religious creed, in its most articulation of the initial life force, and at practical application, a code of common different stages of evolution (self-con- morality. sciousness) . All men would benefit by the 7 principles. But the black man has created WE NEED a value system to be predictable them out of his specific need. The balancer in our behavior, Maulana has said. Pre- of East and West, completer of this cycle. dictable, meaning stable, pointed toward Umoja (definition : To strive for and a single goal. The liberation of our soul, maintain unity in the family, community, mind and body. A value system is the nation and race). We are a body of people, spine of all cultures. What is good or bad the large Being of Blackness. The many of aside from specific interpretation in spe- us are parts of the body. The whole can- cific context? Through unity, we arrive at not function as it will (Kujichagulia - Self- self-determination and can then proceed to Determination) if it is scattered, the head collective work and responsibility (in the one place, the heart another. Physical organs, or as each one teach one, or paint- unity. Mental unity. We must think one ing a wall), Ujima. The value system selects way of total movement to liberate our- the goal we apply ourselves to it, live by selves. Each has a function but as comple- it, the rest follows. Why Moses gave the mentary parts of a whole. All organizations, commandments for the same result, as a organs really, they must function as of the best way to live. And they will raise us. whole body. So that 's doctrine is Ujima - Collective Work and Responsi- first a value system. It sets forth a value bility. All of the organs must function by system, to be followed, called Kawaida, the same will. We must have a head with literally ("that which is customary, or tradi- control over all the organs. The I's must tionally adhered to, by black people") . A be our many eyes and be a basis for seeing nation is only as great as that set of values in all the places. it actually practices . . . no matter what it One being in harmony with itself, this says, e.g., witness America (white and is the first need to be satisfied before we negro) . The value system is how you live, can deal with an outside world. But it is to what end. And Kawaida is, as the doc- internal unity that makes a single will, trine teaches, "a weapon, a shield, and a which is self determination. What we will pillow of peace." be what we will do, are questions only One cannot have a slave's mentality and we ourselves have the proper answers to. hope to be free, or one can hope, but that The concept of oneness is old and black will not make anything really happen. The

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE SS

freeing of the mind, before anything else the decay of capitalism." Ujamaa has al- can happen. The people must actually want ways been the African attitude towards the to be free. Want it bad enough to be it. distribution of wealth (until they decay A value system that is itself the way of that made our kingdoms fall) . It has never life of a free man of high morality, is what been a European attitude, but rather a the Kawaida teaches. A morality (more) is theory . Can you dig it? (See Julius Nyer- the meaning of what people do. Culture is ere's paper Ujamaa in Uhuru na Umoja. ) how they live, morality is what it means. The "decay of capitalism" theory is also What it means as cause and effect, past another aspect of the European attitude what you or anyone else might think. What of "world revolution," and do not mistake happens as a result of . . . is what morality my meaning, I am talking about the life directs . And there is a finality to this path- style of violence. Vita (violence or war) making that is part of the heaviest truth. in Swahili equals life in Latin. When we To live better, you must live better. It is say "revolution" we mean the restoration simple and complex. of our national sovereignty as a people, a people, at this point, equipped to set new KAWAIDA, or the doctrine of Maulana paths for the development of man. We Karenga, is the measure of that "better" mean the freeing of ourselves from the life. It is African, because we are African, bondage of another, alien, people. We are no matter that we have been trapped in not warring upon our own society among the West these few hundred years. But ourselves . These pigs are no kin to us. We by the quality of what our lives meant we are trying to destroy a foreign oppressor. have transformed the West, even trans- It is not "revolution" but National Libera- formed the white man. The value system, tion. especially as the Nguzo Saba begins to When you speak of capitalism you speak focus it, can give us the identity, purpose of the European mind. We do not want to and direction to move to that better life. be Europeans. No, not of any persuasion. At each level it is a contrast to Euro-Ameri- Just as the, as he calls them, "economic can morality, because first it is based on radicals" of the twenties tried to stop J . A. teachings that are superior to the practiced Rogers, whom they called "a black capital- morality of Euro-American civilization. It ist", from doing his research and rewriting is also a value system beneficial to black our destroyed archives saying Rogers was people. And there is no reason for the "chauvinistic" and suffered an "inferiority practiced value system of Euro-America complex;" they said he should be studying to be beneficial to black people, quite the people like "Marx, Engels, and Lafargue contrary, it has always been absolutely and be preparing for the worker's utopia detrimental to black people. For instance which was just around the corner . . ." (See the fourth principle of the Nguzo Saba is Introduction to Rogers' "World's Great Ujamaa, collective or cooperative eco- Men of Color, Vol. 1") . But are not Marx, nomics. Engels and La(argue just another list of But Ujamaa is not, as it has been called, "great" men . . . but great white men, or at "African Socialism," it is Ujamaa. If any- least white men thought great by one par- thing you could say European Ujamaa, but ticular group of white men? Another group never the reverse. The reason? Ujamaa is of white men might give you another list the traditional way of distributing wealth . . . like say Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, for the black man. It is an economic at- Kennedy, etc. But it is, either way, still a titude older than Europe, and certainly commitment to Euro-American values, to older than the term Socialism. Which fin- whiteness. ally is another thing, coming from the In order to free ourselves, and this may European definition, since the European come as a shock to many "hip negroes," definition is a state that will exist "after we are going to have to do it ourselves!

PAGE 5 6 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

For ourselves. Yes, the world will benefit, An epoch passes because it is played out. but they are not going to do it, any more To imitate the played out is to simulate, than you helped free the Chinese! If you and then not to be able to stop, death. cannot have faith in blackness, in the black So Nia, purpose. What is your purpose, mind and the black man to find a way out for anything? For being alive? If you are of this slavery, you are full of despair, or black your purpose should be the building else emotionally committed to white peo- of Black. The Nguzo Saba says our pur- ple. Which is the terrible truth for many of pose must be the rebuilding of our people us, even our so-called "revolutionaries ." to their traditional greatness. One reason They are so committed to whiteness that for the stress on history, if you do not even they must find a way to make white rele- know of your traditional greatness, then vant some way. The Right will not save you will not aspire to anything but dry rock us so the Left will. This group of white white "radicalism" (like some 1930's vam- people will not do it, but this other group pire rerisen again from the grave to suck of white people will. (Do not misunder- black peoples' blood) as some kind of stand, we will take aid from a scorpion, alternative to the maggoty pork that exists. but we must not confuse our identity. Or But neither is our shot, brother. Initially try to crawl under rocks, with scorpions.) our purpose is Nation building. To raise Another fallacy of many "revolutionar- black people to "our traditional greatness". ies" is the "right around the cornerism" that National Liberation as Malcolm called it. Rogers cites and Maulana Karenga always emphasizes as dangerous. There is no such KARENGA stresses cultural nation for the thing. The work of National Liberation is same reasons that Mao continues his cul- hard and its resolution is to be sought but tural revolution on a continuous basis in not fantasized as the result of unprepared China even after his political revolution spontaneous outbursts of emotionalism. It has been realized. It is a constant process. is work. It will only be achieved by disci- The minds of the people are the most im- plined, dedicated people, with a value sys- portant factor of any movement, without tem that allows them to persevere and re- them you can have nothing else. And we main healthy and rational and committed do not have to settle for maggoty pork or for as long as it takes no matter what hap- renewed draculaism (a white "radical") . pens to anybody or everybody else. We can have and be ourselves. Too often so called revolutionaries with- But you must have the cultural revolu- out a black value system, like Kawaida, do tion, ie., you must get the mind before exactly the same things as the oppressor- you move another fuhtha. There is no vio- people, and as I said, they are always emo- lent revolution except as a result of the tionally committed to the oppressor people. black mind expanding, trying to take con- They speak the same language, think the trol of its own space. Our armies are not same things valuable, have the same yet formed, as armies . We cannot fight a "taste". In fact they are so much the same war, an actual physical war with the forces they can make alliances that are unnatural of evil just because we are angry. We can as far as the natural life styles of the new begin to build. We must build black insti- peoples are concerned. The bush-smoking, tutions. In all the different aspects of wine drinking, homo-superhetero sexual culture. Political, Religious, Social, Eco- bellbottomed life of the hippy (a truly in- nomic, Ethical, Creative, Historical, insti- terracial though white committed phenom- tutions, all based on a value system that enon) is just a phase of death rattle for a is beneficial to black people. culture and a people. The magnetism of All these institutions will be alternatives the final death will compel to death all to the Euro-American or Negro institutions those with the jingling matching magnets that exist, but will exist in their own right around their brains. as expressions of the black sensibility, and

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 57

not merely as reactions to an alien sensi- let him not call those of us who do not bility. If Mao does not control the minds racists. There are facts, to which any hon- of the Chinese, his political victories are est man had better bear witness. lost, his military is hostile, Maoism is an- other name for what was. Ghana should WHEN WE SAID, Black Art, we meant have had a continuous cultural revolution. Kuumba. The spiritual characteristic of To maintain the consciousness of the peo- revelation through the creative. The artist ple. So that they could not be taken off is respected in Bantu philosophy because by the criminal sickness of the white led he could capture some of the divinity. Be- Negro mentality that re-invaded Ghana. If cause it flowed through his fingers or out the chief of state of Biafra names as his of his mouth, and because he would lend country's national anthem "Finlandia," then this divinity to the whole people to raise we know where his politics are right off. them in its image, building great nations The internalization of a white value reared in the image of righteousness. What system, will always militate for white deci- is soul (like the one sun the sole solar force, sions about the way things should be. in this system) our connection, our relation Whether it is a national anthem or an eco- with the infinite. And it is feeling, like in- nomic system. ner revelation, that is the connection, the Black creativity, Kuumba, is the sixth force of the uncreated, which we con- principle. Which tells us how we must stantly make reference to, bringing into devise a way out of our predicament. How creation. Yehh! we scream, bearing witness we must build, with what methodology. In to the power of Kuumba. what emotionalism, the fire of blackness. But black creativity is what will save So that even Ujamaa is Kuumba in regards us - not just "artists" but all of us - after to the distribution of wealth among men. all is said and done - nothing else. An For the European, Ujamaa, like jazz, is a antidote to birth or mind controll The saying, a pretending illusion, rather than Ngnzo Saba itself is one of the strongest a being. And we are not racists, when we examples of Kuumba. And each idea or say this, we are merely recognizing the act that animates our lives must be meas- traits of different peoples. ured against the Nguzo Saba in each of When we call white people evil it is its components. You must ask of each new based on empiricism, not theory. Do you idea or dissociation that comes to mind, remember bow-you Africans got here to what does this have to do with bringing the Western Hemisphere in the first place? about unity for black people, what does (I mean as slaves, not as Egyptians and it contribute to black people's self-determi- Moorish explorers and settlers.) The re- nation - does it have anything to do with cital of the horrors black people have suf- Ujima, collective work and responsibility, fered at the hands of the white makes us and so on. So, for instance, a "black TV racists? Only to the white, or the white program" with a straight haired sister committed. Herodotus came up with the dancing a Martha Graham - Merce Cun- Teutonic Origins theory of why white was ningham - esque tribute to the ghetto (? ) best and how the rest were not, on a de- is not Kuumba - neither the dance nor the scending xenophobic scale all the way program . down to us. A theory, not a fact. The lynch- A nation coming into being is a new ing and oppression and enslavement of creation. It must be willed into existence black people by European, and the capa- by itself. It is new-it is literally something city for such cruelty by the European mind other than what exists. is fact, not theory. It is empirical, we have Imani is faith - Faith in your leaders, witnessed, and lived through it, are still teachers, parents, - but first faith in black- living through it. And just because some ness - that it will win. Faith in National- dude wants to sleep with a white woman, ism, that we can build ourselves into a

PAGE 5 8 'HE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

conscious nation once again - that we can ciples as the clearest statement of the free ourselves, from the chain of white badly needed new value system . committment - this is all that binds us It is spiritual without being religious. to slavery - the fact that we are emotion- That is, it moves to the higher levels of ally committed to it - to being slaves. human aspiration but describes no ritual Imani is the supra rational aspect of dogma. The Nguzo Saba would organize Nationalism, but the aspect that we can- the morality of the would-be Nationalist, not survive without. We must believe past give him a new and more relevant morality, 2 + 2 or 180 vs 40 that the number we to begin to build Blackness anew. want is the one we can achieve. As long as we are committed to old ways and ideas, to paraphrase Toure, we will SIMPLE FAITH, like church people say and never move from where we are. A value that's what we want - hardrock emotional system is a describer of your life on the faith in what we're doing. The same way planet, how you lived, in what manner and your grandmamma used to weep and wring for what reasons, i.e., to what purpose. If her hands believing in Jeez-us, that deep you do not consciously create a new value deep connection with the purest energy, system, one that is quite different from the this is what the Nationalist must have. Can rest of crazy America's-you will be exactly you understand this? That we must believe what crazy America is and die the way past any bullshit "rationale" that we may she dies. or may not achieve based on 7 million sub- jective-objective variables . We must be- BUT WE WANT TO SURVIVE . We want life. lieve in Nationalism. We must believe in We want to build and create. We do not the justness of our struggle and the cer- want a modified version of what exists, we tainty of our victory. No matter how long want the totally new - newly claimed but this might take. There is no time. Only as the eastern, the tradition, the African, change. the black-i.e., we want a whole different Nationalism must be the basis for our version of men's life on earth. We do not entire lives. It must be the content and ini- want what Marx wanted or what Abbie tiator of anything we do. Always, as the Hoffman wants . We want our new black formulator of any act must be the need selves as absolute masters of our own to see that act contribute to the building space. Can you dig it space, and I repeat of a Nation . That is our purpose, National- it for all these simple "black" cryptohippies ism our direction. Black is our identity . who believe in Malcolm solely because he The totality of these as a life focus is is dead - Space is what we are fighting for. simple faith, even before it exists as spirit- And it manifests itself as anything or every- uality . But that is what faith is, if it is thing. Institutional space, living, ie. human directed toward grace - spirituality. space, thinking space or the actual planet- We say spirituality because the spiritual room una fahamu? Like they say, land. It is the blessing of life. It is what all life is all space. CAN YOU UNDERSTAND?? points toward . Complete consciousness and But the point man is Malcolm never had Nationalism, at this point, is the definer a doctrine - we learned from him because and director of our people toward that goal he was straight and true but he made no of absolute, yes, absolute consciousness. doctrines, no real organization, and we So the 7th principle, Faith, is actually at must face this. This is our work now, today, one with the 1st - to create the whole, the to organize better than Malcolm did. Can one (it's what Umoja means) . you understand? Malcolm's teachings must There is nothing anyone can do about now be analyzed, formalized, and a struc- the fact of the Nguzo Saba. It does - they ture and program issued out of them. do - exist. Now it is only for the studying Elijah had a formal teaching, something or aspiring Nationalist to accept these prin- close to a doctrine and Malcolm sprung

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 5 9

from it, but made some other decisions . perience is a black ideology in toto. A path But he, Malcolm, made no doctrine. But itself to blackness and Nationhood. now a doctrine has been made, formalized The doctrine now is in the head and around a black value system, and this is hands mostly of organization people, and what we need. How you live is how you a few key organizers and student leaders project and how you will project. Your around the country. (The Quotable Kar- progeny, your creations are products of enga is a light sampling of some of the life, manifestations of your way, scenes doctrine's content.) But soon it will be pub- from your path. The Nguzo Saba is the key lished and available to most of us. It is the to the new Nationalism. It is the key to the central ingredient of the new nationalist new learning. And that learning is the organization. It will transform black peo- complete doctrine of Maulana Karenga. ple and by doing this, transform yes, The Nguzo Saba is the first, the basic, America. primary teaching . The rest of the doctrine, You better get ready for it. covering the completeness of modern ex-

PAGE 60 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

THE ARTIST AND THE BLACK UNIVERSITY

by JOHN O. KILLENS

LITTLE MORE THAN A DECADE AGO, some Did black folk merely want to integrate of us said that one of the things lack- into a society that had denied them their ingAin the civil rights movement was a humanity for four hundred years? Were cultural arm, a place in the movement we so uncritical of a society that had used where the artists could play a special role. us and abused us for centuries? Or were Some of the leaders of the movement we working to change this society, funda- took a dim view of the idea. They got all mentally? uptight and over-protective of their leader- We heard, with alarm and disbelief, ship. Unduly so, since none of us saw our- many of the civil rights leaders answer the selves in the role of civil rights leaders. question, "What does the Negro want?" Individual artists were used from time to with the answer, "We want everything you time for prestige value and for fund-raising, got. We just want in." Some of the artists but the movement did not see the artists as said, "Hell no! We don't just want in. If a force which could help the movement Charlie has syphillis, we do not want every- arrive at an ideology and a program based thing he has. We don't want a piece of the on that ideology. I suspect they saw us as action if America is one great whorehouse. a bunch of trouble-making radicals. They Our mission is to change America and the did not see the role that writers and other world and make it a more fit place for artists could make in defining goals and human habitation . To create a world that priciples and strategies for the movement. makes sense, in the words of Margaret What did the movement mean by Walker, for all the adams and eves and "Integration"? What was meant by the their countless generations." Beginning, of "Negro Revolution"? Was it a revolution course, with black folk. or a non-violent improvement association? What was non-violence? Did it deprive the IN 1963 some of us black artists declared black man of the right of self defense? a cultural revolution the purpose of which Could a revolution be waged non-violently? would be to undo the millions of little white lies America had told the world about herself and the African-American ; JOHN O. KILLENS teaches creative writing at Col- to de-brainwash black people in the first umbia University. He is renowned as a novelist instance and all Americans in the second. and essayist. His works include: Odds Against To- morrow, Black Man's Burden, Youngblood, 'Sippi, We said that writers and artists and educa- and And Then We Heard the Thunder. Killens tors would be the most logical people to studied at Columbia University and Howard Uni- attempt this gargantuan task. Out of an versity Law School before turning to writing as a career. He was for two years Writer-in-Residence outraged reaction to the murder of the five at Fisk University. children of Birmingham, a group of us in

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New York formed the Association of Artists there was the hope (I was one of the for Freedom. The group included such naive ones who shared that hope) that, at committed artists as , Ruby universities like Fisk and Atlanta and Dee, Max Roach, , Louis Howard, euphemistically known as "pre- Lomax, Odetta, and John Killens, who was dominantly Negro colleges," black edu- elected Chairman. cators and artists and students could estab- We issued a call to Black America to lish institutions which would have a total boycott Christmas, especially that part of relevance to the black experience and the it that commercialized on the jolly fat cat black community. By the black community, named Santa Claus. Although no civil I mean the community in which a partic- rights organization gave us their open sup- ular institution is located, but much more port, the campaign against Christmas buy- than that. It should have a relevance to the ing had a fair amount of success. We spon- national black community and even the sored a symposium at Town Hall in New international one. Most of today's "black" York City, the theme of which was THE institutions sit uneasily (they used to sit BLACK REVOLUTION AND THE WHITE BACK- complacently) in the midst of the black LASH. Participants included Paule Mar- "ghettos" like oases on a barren desert. shall, LeRoi Jones, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Oftentimes the oasis inhabitants are more the late , John Killens, barren than the desert people. Charles Silberman, James Wechsler and David Susskind. It was highly successful I N DEFINING OUR DEEP CONCERN, some of on several levels. Despite the few suc- us began to talk about a Black "Communi- cesses, the Association enjoyed an illus- versity." The Black Communiversity, when strious, but a very brief life. Artists are we painfully establish it, will have "Home- not easily organized and kept together. coming Week" every week in the year, call- But things were happening almost im- ing on the brothers and sisters to come perceptibly. Black artists were beginning home to their black commitments from to make themselves heard. And they were wherever they find themselves, lost as most being listened to. The movement could no of us are in this vast quagmire of a white longer pretend their non-existence. From supremacist society. A Communiversity, this development and from the new de- where the campus itself would be the very mands of the movement, from civil rights sidewalks of the black community. A Com- to Black Power and its cultural counter- muniversity which would bridge the so- point, Black Consciousness, the artists were called generation gap. Let the white liberal beginning to assume important roles .-All children flaunt their generation gap. Most during these developments, the student likely it's about the only thing humane they movement, itself, was inventing, creating, have to flaunt: More power to them. Black always reacting to the changes going on in people can't afford such bourgeois indul- the so-called "Negro Revolution." Recall gences as generation gaps. Our goal must the sit-ins and the freedom rides and voter be Black Unity. Black understanding be- registration, beginning with the bus boy- tween black of every age and generation cott. Ultimately, the cultural revolution re- is what the Black Communiversity must be flected itself on the campuses with the about. demand by students and a few teachers At Fisk University in Nashville (where (very few) for a black university on the I spent three and a half years as writer-in- one hand and black studies program on residence), there were some beautiful men the other. and women who were dedicated quietly to In both of these demands, the key word, making that university relevant. But there the key demand, was relevance. How to were many obstacles. The first was, of make the college experience relevant to course, the omnipotent Board of Trustees, the black experience. In the first instance, many of them white and conservative and

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representing powerful moneyed interests the fact that most of the most important in this nation. I imagine most private black black writers in the country were in at- schools are faced with this problem on one at these conferences. Indeed, a level or another. Black state schools have couple of the students informed me that problems with the state. one of the black department heads advised Another roadblock, was, of course, the (threatened?) her students against attend- white teachers, who made up approxi- ing the conferences. mately fifty per cent of the instruction These are old-timers at Fisk, Negroes staff. They could be placed into about who still dream of going back to the "old three categories; first were those hard-core Fisk." "What has happened to the old conservatives who saw Fisk as the "Negro Fisk?" they mumble wistfully. The fact is : Harvard." Then there were those whites we black folk are never going back. And who were a wee bit pinker and saw Fisk further, the "Old Fisk" was never really the as becoming a "colored" Oberlin or Anti- "old Fisk." It was a figment of their imagi- och, and then there were the funky, bushy- nations. I am certain that Brother Nathan haired "radicals," who saw Fisk as becom- Hare faced similar (even graver) problems ing the "Afro-American" Berkeley. at Howard and had far fewer colleagues But none of these saw Fisk as becoming on his campus who were sympatico and her own black beautiful self, and being committed to black expression . Neverthe- renamed W. E. B. DuBois University and less, it seems to me, that the logical place being rebuilt in his magnificent image. He to start to build the Black Communiversity is its most illustrious graduate. The other is at the "predominantly Negro colleges." group we had to fight was more insidious than all the others put together, because it O N THE OTHER HAND, if you are a student consisted of some of our own black broth- at Yale or San Francisco State or Harvard ers and sisters of the faculty. They were, or Columbia, the only sensible demand is generally speaking, those who had the for a black studies program. You know that most longevity and tenure at the Univer- these institutions will never be fundamen- sity, twenty-five and thirty years, and who tally relevant to your own black situation. went around talking about the good old It was never meant to even be of service days and the "old Fisk," smiling in your to you, black boy, black girl. Dig. Not even face and whispering behind your back to be of service to you. So the best that about how John Killens and that whole you can do is to creat a "make-do" situa- bunch was bringing the University down, tion. And this is not to derogate or to put "with that Black Power stuff." These were down the black studies programs, but only the same people who thought John Lewis to place them in perspective. They are was out of his mind when he and Diane proper demands, they are demands that Bevels led the non-violent integrationist further the Black Liberation Movement. movement in Nashville. Anything that They are of prime importance to black . whites disapprove of is crazy and out-of- students on white campuses. the-question to them. They see Fisk as a And now it must be said, that as far as finishing school to train black boys and the demands for a Black Communiversity girls how to be nice little young white or a black studies program are concerned, ladies and gentlemen in black skins. neither should be used as cop-outs or ex- For example, we instituted an annual cuses for students not taking care of busi- Black Writers Conference at Fisk, which ness vis-a-vis the books. I'm saying that was held successfully for three years. Stu- the "militant" student should be the best dents attended from all over the country. student on the campus, if he has the capa- I don't believe that the heads of the de- bility. Of course much of what you learn partments in English, Speech and Drama will not be relevant to your black thing. attended a single session. And this, despite Learn it anyhow. Learn everything. Be-

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gurgitate that which is not relevant or use- black parents will sacrifice and send their ful to you later on. It should be clear to sons and daughters to college, and when all of us, that in order to beat Charlie's they return home, their parents can no game you've got to know his system. longer understand them, and vice versa. So that, while we work for and empha- They no longer speak the same language. size black studies, we, simultaneously, The college man speaks so "proper" he can learn everything we can about this game hardly understand himself. He no longer the man has been running on us for cen- speaks Afro-Americanese. Instead of serv- turies . Otherwise, we would be working ing the community, he is lost to it. And it in an unreal situation, and most black peo- to him. In the end, he becomes the greatest ple and black students would have better loser, the Lost Man. sense than to follow us and would be justi- There are a few black folk who say that fied. What I am saying, brothers and sis- the demands for the Black University and ters, is that some of us are shucking and black studies programs are impractical. jiving and hiding behind the cover of Somebody has even said that these pro- "militance and relevance." The Liberation grams would only prepare black students Movement needs doctors, teachers, law- to be educated cotton pickers. On the con- yers, engineers committed to the move- trary, the Black Communiversity would ment, and some of you are copping out prepare its students to be black men and because "it ain't relevant." There is a great women in a white society. What's imprac- danger of a whole crop of "militant" stu- tical about that? It would also prepare dents, wonderful people, becoming irrele- its students to revolutionize this society, vant to the movement. Dig it. change it, so that it makes sense for black The Black University and the cultural people, Mexican people, Puerto Rican peo- revolution is not separate and apart from ple, poor people, the disenfranchised and the Liberation Movement. It is at the core the disinherited . This is the role of the of the movement; the brain of the move- Black Communiversity: to make sense to ment, that builds the engine, that puts the us, to be practical for us, to prepare us movement into motion. There should be for the black reality in this white society. no contradiction between the Cultural And to build a black society. Revolution and Black Liberation. Picture a Let us build a Communiversity where brother down-South in Mississippi or up- black artists and scholars and community South in New York City. He is a com- people and educators and students and mitted revolutionary, right? And Chuck's activists will come together regularly be- police is chasing him and he runs onto the cause they are a part of the Communiver- airstrip to make his getaway on a waiting sity and the Communiversity is a part of plane. You are the pilot. Right? There you them. Our Board of Trustees will be made stand in a beautiful dahsiki underneath up in the main of the people of the com- an Afro so way out the sun can't get to munity. At this Communiversity we will you. You are turning white for lack of sun- redefine ourselves in our own black image. light. But there you stand pumping your For centuries black people have looked at arm up and down and shouting "Black themselves through the eyes of white Powerl" The only problem is : you forgot America. Words have been used to enslave to learn how to fly the plane because it and colonize colored peoples throughout wasn't relevant. Can you dig it? the earth. We must use words, as well as other weapons, in this war of liberation. L ET US BUMD A BLACK COMMUNivERSrry We must decolonize the language. For ex- which will educate our people from the ample, in terms of redefining ourselves, cradle to the grave. (Repeat: devoid of why should we call our community the generation gaps.) One of the grave prob- "ghetto?" It is a Western word of contempt lems facing the black communities is that used by the oppressors to designate their

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victims, the inhabitants of the so-called group. A young man is writing a novel in "ghetto." a New York workshop, the theme of which They also refer to our community as is : "The black man has two enemies, the the "jungle," thereby creating the image of white man and the black woman." How a place inhabited by savages and beasts, did this misconception come about? We where missionaries venture, and wise men must deal with all these questions at the tread at their own peril, to bring the "na- Communiversity. As Malcolm taught us, tives" goodies and glad tidings of Chris- we must close the door to outsiders and tianity and civilization; Afro-Americanese deal with questions like this in a family translation: oppression and exploitation. It way. will be up to us to determine how we will And how shall our people learn to ap- regard ourselves. What shall we call our preciate black literature? At the Communi- community? The Turf? The Neighborhood? versity, black literature will be read aloud, What is the word in Afro-Americanese? acted out, even excerpts from black novels. The writer will be invited to the Com- THE ARTIST has a crucial role to play at muniversity to discuss his work with the the Communiversity, and the Communi- students and the people of the community. versity can play a crucial role in the lives Let the artist meet his critics here. Con- of black artists. We have been discussing struct black schools of literary criticism at the function of the Communiversity, one the Black Communiversity. Far too long of which is redefinition - of itself, the the black writer has been fair game for community (which it must become and the white critics, none of whom could which must become itself) . The artist is a really dig him. Far too long he has thought man who redefines himself every time he he had to please white critics, and has puts oil to canvas and his fingers to the written, not to us but to be understood by typewriter ; each time he performs another them. It is self-defeating enough for him role in the theatre. The artist is a self-criti- to have the white publisher staring over cizer. Therefore he has an important func- his shoulders. tion. At a real Black Communiversity there will be workshops in black art, black cre- ative writing, black music, black film, black WE WILL MAKE black literature and art dance, black poetry and black drama. We as relevant and essential to black existence will establish rotating chairs for artists like as bread and milk. It is true, Man cannot Sister Aretha Franklin and Brother Ray live by bread alone. Everywhere Western Charles and Stevie Wonder and Belafonte man went he made men into niggers, the and Odetta and Poitier and Sammy Davis. easier to enslave and colonize them. One of Most of these Brothers and Sisters would the key tasks of the Communiversity, and be proud to have chairs in their names, or the artist is the same as that of the Black in the names of men like Brothers Martin, Liberation Movement; to deniggerize the Malcolm and DuBois . earth. Human reconstruction is the goal It is time for black artists and educators of the Black Communiversity. To rid the to come to grips with the white-manufac- world of niggers. tured-myths of the "Black Matriarchy" and There are some brothers in North Caro- "Black Male Irresponsibility," And "Black lina struggling to bring into being a Black Male obsession vis-a-vis The White Wom- University in the name of one of the an." Many black artists are peddling these great black teachers of the Twentieth Cen- themes today and receiving wide acclaim tury: Malcolm X. Liberation University . as well as great financial rewards. It is Brothers, sisters, artists, activists, teachers, time for us to deal with these questions let us all give our support. It could be a that separate us, cause dissension in our great homecoming.

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BLACK ADMINISTRATORS AND HIGHER EDUCATION

N THE WAKE OF BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS, improvement of its deplorable condition. black power, black studies, the free It is my intention not to cover the broad speech movement, and the "relevancy ex- spectrum of higher education, including plosion" on college campuses, a need for both black and white institutions, but more black administrators has become un- rather to deal with the phenomena of the deniably apparent. The question which white institutions which are, as we all must be answered without too much delay know, hard put to come up with some is, how are the desperately needed admin- vehicle to fulfill the national purpose con- istrators going to become prepared to cope fronting them today - getting black folk with the charges which the black college into the main stream of higher learning. A students have placed before the predomi- lot, perhaps not enough, has been said nant white college campuses across the about the problems of the "Negro institu- continent? tions." I would like to beg off discussing The non-black has traditionally risen Negro colleges this time, but some would from the ranks of the faculty to dean, vice- say that Negro institutions, traditionally president, and culminated his ascension speaking, would be one and the same as with the presidency of a given institution. white colleges, as regards black administra- However, with the-.immediate demand be- tion. fore higher education for more black ad- ministrators to serve the recently recruited A S IT STANDS now the black administra- black students, the black scholar contin- tion at non-black institutions is manifested gency cannot climb the administrative lad- in several individuals who occupy "window der in such a precise order. The customary dressing positions." They are the recently order of entering the administrative frame- acquired black manikins who are brought work within higher education will have to out on special occasions, say like on be re-evaluated, re-defined, re-oriented, "Mother's Day," to do a special job of se- and the need reconciled if a legitimate ef- duction for very esoteric audiences. These fort is going to be made to assist the black audiences and special occasions, can run students once they reach the predominantly the gamut, from seeing a press release non-black campus. about the institution's involvement in the The major thrust of this writing will be plight of the black community (in most an analysis of the current problem facing cases, a sham) to displaying the new fire higher education vis-a-vis black administra- extinguisher to dash out blazes which fre- tors, the current state of higher education quently result as a corollary of black and (a caricature which is difficult to eluci- white basic encounter sessions - and I date), and some suggestions for possible have no reference to the ones which are

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ROOSEVELT JOHNSON is the Director of Collegiate Assistance Programs at St . Louis University, where he is a candidate for the Ph .D . in Higher Educa- tion . He has been a consultant for such projects as the Concentrated Employment Program (East St . Louis) and the Human Relations Commission . Johnson is a member of the Special Committee of the North Central Accrediting Association and head of a "black power family" which includes a wife and one young daughter .

by ROOSEVELT JOHNSON

conducted by the Human Relations Com- been done in this Area, at this point, to mittee. elaborate upon the fate of these aborning They are usually consigned to one of administrators to speak of their efficacy; the following pseudo-administrative type they represent a possible break-through on "jobs": an admissions officer - to concen- this whole business of blacks and higher trate upon the ghetto schools with plati- education. tudes sent by the institutional power struc- However, the Black Studies Director ture; a black counselor in the advisement must be ever conscious of the tremendous office, if the institution has one, to handle task which lies before him at every writing the "militant advisee"; an assistant to the of the memoranda requesting budget re- Director of the Student Center to keep the visions, at every conference with the black Director up on the latest dances and in- student pressure groups calling upon him, form him of what soul records should be conscious of the vicarious needs of the on the music box and an assistant to the white faculty calling upon him for possible Chancellor to act as the integrating agent teaching positions, and especially tuned in in his public retinue. to the brother approaching him in the da- Usually the extent of the black adminis- shiki who espouses blackness but whose trator's power and decision-making ability goals may be the antithesis of the whole is relegated to a private conference with movement. Although the outcome of the his superior to advise him on how to handle Black Studies Director's role in higher edu- some trivial confrontation between two cation is too new to be evaluated, his ethnic group social fraternities and possibly daily operation will be tremendously for- to act as a "go-between" when the black midable and challenging. students get up to their necks in absurdi- ties and rebel by taking over a dean's of- BACK TO THE BUSINESS AT HAND, that Of fice or perhaps, depending upon the extent trying to illuminate what I had reference of the oppression, a building. to when I alluded to the terminology of If per chance one has been sensitive "window dressing." Well, it certainly does enough to note that I have left out the not take an intelligence quotient of 150 to Director of the Black Studies program, know the quaint psychology of having-one- then it is fitting to draw the conclusion that of-the-enemy-on-our-side : we have seen the reader's aptitude on the question of this type of operation since silent movies. blacks and higher education is exception- Let us take a look at the movies that we ally elevated. This exclusion of the Black currently see on the late, late show, for Studies Director is intentional. Why? The example, to get a better picture of the pre- reason is quite simple - not enough has dicament. When one sees re-runs of Ra-

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mar of The Jungle, and other such anti- those very well-deserving edifices, as quated movies, the psychology becomes all though we were some sort of "black car- too clear to the sensitive black. As far as rot" to attract some foundation's investi- I am able to remember, Ramar, the great gator. The investigator, not too recently white physician, always had along "Willie removed from an impoverished situation Willie, the ignorant looking black," to talk himself, is apt to become enraptured with to the natives in the many dialects of which our plush offices and the administration's he displayed competent knowledge, so that "mouthing" of a black enrollment to equal Ramar, in the event of danger, could call that of the national proportion of the black upon Willie Willie to offset aggression so population, so much that he is prone to that he could go about his business of per- grant funds to the institutions at hand, forming experimental medicine on the thinking that a concerted effort is really tribes he came into contact with. Think being made in an attempt to achieve that about this for a second and let the full ef- goal. fect grab you. Willie Willie, for all intents and pur- THE "WINDOW DRESSER" is usually placed poses, had to have been a very gifted in- in some conspicious "cubby hole," where dividual to go about the Mother Country he must be seen by the public, and is and talk all of those languages to keep given some perfunctory "job." I know of Ramar alive. Well, the same situation is an assistant to a Director of Financial Aid apparent today on the modern American at a leading Mid-Western university whose multiversity-the good native black brother sole purpose for being there, he feels, is to has been hired, in most cases, to keep the act as a countervailing agent in the event great experimenter alive via his interac- of some confrontation by the black stu- tions with the hostile young "natives" from dents on that campus. He is virtually with- the alien tribe across the railroad, which out any power and the decisions he has the colonial power structure has admitted to make are unbelievably frivolous. He to the "king's courtyard" - college campus has the authority to assign part-time jobs U.S .A. In the final analysis, seeing that which have been designated by some tacit Willie Willie was so intelligent and had systematic method as being for the black so much insight into the customs of all the students on this particular campus - jani- tribes, he should have, in fact been hired, torial, cafeteria, and odd job work at fac- not as a guide, but, to put him on parity ulty members' homes. In terms of having with Ramar, as a professor of cultural an- the authority to make the decisions con- thropology. Show me an employed black sidered to be important to the students, he man and I'll show you an under-employed is administratively emasculated. He, for man! example, has nothing to do with the grant- I insist that when blacks are brought into ing of the National Defense Loans, the the polluted mainstream of higher educa- state grants, the achievements awards, the tion to perform these "window dressing voting upon scholarship recipients, nor can roles" that these roles can serve as a posi- he approve an emergency loan of, say, five tive correlative of just how far blacks have dollars. gone in the United States since Reconstruc- I ask, is this administration? To further tion - we have gone, intervally speaking, make the situation appalling is the self- not one hash mark up on the scale of social realization on his part of the role he is progress. The Reconstruction was a farce having to play. This is truly a dilemma! and I would submit that, at this point the What is he to do? If he speaks up, he is business of black administrators in the very likely, says he, to be "professionally" higher educational arena today is just as castrated and the pursuit of his advanced much a farce. We are constantly dangled degree forfeited. If he continues to be out in front of the benevolent foundations, docile, he will not last another year with

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the pressure being exerted upon him by usually pointing his finger at that black the factions of the black students on the compromiser would be hard put to explain campus who are unquestionably aware of his presence on the "lily white" campus his behavior, which is in some instances, which he is trying to reform. So much for interpreted as cowardice. that. The point is this: the black adminis- What is the responsibility of a quasi- trator is caught in a game of double jeop- administrator, who is black and/or Negro, ardy between the hustle of the white power whatever the case calls for, who is directing structure and the young, vicious, energetic, a large program in the Mid-West which and answer-seeking black warriors. He is is handsomely funded by one of the lead- caught in a web of hostility which is relent- ing foundations in the country and who less in either quarter and it is compelling does not have control of his budget? How upon him to cope with every traumatic can he wear the title of Director of any- second and emerge immaculately free of thing when, in fact, he cannot direct his any psychological ramification or anxieties secretary to purchase a postage stamp of having betrayed his dual responsibili- without the approval of some uninvolved, ties - a case of academic administrative uninterested, glory-seeking white superior? ambivalence. I would assert that implicit in any admin- istrative role is the presence of a budget AMORE COMMON ROLE played by black commensurate with the responsibility of administrators is that of Director or Co- role. In saying this, one could conclude ordinator of the remedial or compensatory that the absence of control of money in- programs on the campus such as the Up- dicates the circumvention of black admin- ward Bound Program, the Education Op- istration. portunity Programs, Educational Talent Any newly recruited black administrator Search, etc. True, these positions should be must go into the interview situation point- held by blacks if the largest percentage of ing out the principles he has within him the students enrolled in such programs is that are not negotiable. This adminis- black. No matter, however, what the case trator must know from the word "go" that may be vis-a-vis a particular minority, it is doing a good job and having job security important that these positions be held by are not postively related when it comes to non-whites. Accordingly, this black individ- the black administrator. That doing a good ual, if there is not an identity crisis, is apt job is important and must be striven for to have (aboriginal or soulful) insight into cannot be overemphasized. However, if a the problems of the "high potential" re- good job means taking demeaning roles cruits. and engaging one's self in sophisticated To further emphasize this sensitiveness, "shuffling," then the job is not good enough will one please concern himself with this to be done. thought? All of us black administrators now Not only are white administrators across holding Ph.D's and other high caliber the country playing a teasing game with white credentials, know full well the disci- the black administrators at the "knowl- plines and subject-matter area where we edge factories," but the black students are encountered the most difficulty. Namely, in giving them a fair share of hell in their most cases, English composition and math- own right. However, I am not at all sure ematics, and I have no quarrel with any that some of the black students are acting brother who might want to disagree with rationally when they accuse the black ad- my assessment of the areas of difficulty - ministrators of "selling out to the system" to each his own. However, I would hold when, on certain occasions, it appears as tenaciously to these two areas. If we know though he is acting a little white." Let's that these are the areas in which we have face it : we all have a little white orienta- encountered difficulties, should not our tion in us. That militant student who is counseling and development of the spe-

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are cial curriculums take the same into ac- The black rebels on college campuses with a count? It certainly should. That is, if that resorting to primitive ways to deal con- certain indigenous soulful concern has not primitive mode of oppression, via the away been crucified out of the particular admin- ditioning of minds by educating one istrator by the white ethnocentric curricu- from his identity. lums across the nation. The failure of the white educational sys- constituency, has If a brother administrator is willing to tem, relative to the black failed! The di- come to grips with himself and reconcile been pre-supposed . It has must take his close natural association and physical rectors of these black programs conclusion attributes of remarkable similarity with the heed and come to the naked and that students so enrolled in his program - in that they must try something new will shock short, if he identifies-he does not have to they must be the agent which into a new have that many meetings with the black the institutional power structure axiom that students to ascertain what they want; he mentality predicated on the . That knows what they want! What's more, he blacks will not be educated as usual performing is capable of articulating needs to the in- there is more than one way of fore- stitutional power structures in such an elo- the same task is an adage which our rea- quent manner that they are apt, if they fathers believed. To the extent that we flexibility and have legitimate intentions, to respond with lize the uncompromising cliche we will rapidity. validity implicit in such a innovating the All too often, regrettably, too many of achieve in renovating and in higher edu- our black administrators fortunate enough current curriculum patterns to move into one of the alluded-to posi- cation. tions, forget from whence they have come. compensa- Although there is probably some self-hate BLACK ADMINISTRATORS of the must syndrome immediately beneath the surface, tory programs on the various campus re- there is no reason for such a total "de- grapple with this whole problem of blackification" so prevalent in and around mediation and lead in innovation. It is not certain "cities of intellect." For in the words true that all study is a remedial experi- that one of Saint Malcolm X, when addressing an ence? A remedy for something audience at a leading Eastern university does not know or has a deficit in? Posing we af- after having received sharp and cutting re- this question, I would then ask, can traditional marks from a Negro Ph.D. who was in the ford to wait to remediate in the ameliorate crowd, said he, in essence, "Do you know sense of the term in an effort to what they call you, Ph.D.? A nigger." This the conditions of the black "high potential" we is to say that all of those brothers who are student? I, personally, do not think that "neo-toms," and Oreo's turning into vanilla can tackle this problem of remediation and wafers will not be saved when all of the compensatory education in the traditional acting is over, and the circumstances lead sense. If we continue upon the thesis that to the final confrontation. The oppressive, the path to liberation of the mind is de-humanizing, institutional racism that through the currently established curricu- with us since the they are helping to nourish will make no lums, which have been Medieval Period effort to distinguish in the degrees of black- University of Paris and to an elitist ness - at the moment of truth, it is black and which have been geared search into a survival against psychological genocide. society, we will continue to radiant red Get those "soulful insights and aboriginal darkness so pervasive that the lynching cannot traits" out front and put them to use for blood from 350 years of the sake of liberating the black minds of illuminate it. administra- our well-meaning, often too naive, black It is pressing upon all black equip them- brothers and sisters who are calling upon tors in remedial programs to curricu- us the best way they know - a native way. selves with a diversified body of

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lum development and go to war with the subtle or blatant fashion, depending upon central, oh yes, conservative administration the severity of the incident which triggers and push for compensatory programs that the charge. The conspicious exclusion of will offer the participants some type of pro- blacks from the viable and legitimate ad- rated credit toward graduation. I will con- ministrative roles is one of the central, tend that we cannot, at this point, ask our underlying forces which have detonated undergraduate brothers and sisters to en- most of the campus explosions where black gage themselves in programs of compensa- students were involved. tory and remedial education which will not With the exception of a very few cases afford them any credits toward the bacca- of campus activity during the last academic laureate degree. I am not so obstinate that year, the principle cry heard after a con- I would insist that the participants receive frontation was that the students did not full load credits each semester or quarter utilize the proper protocol to make their (it would be nice though) but I am saying needs known to the administration. How, that they must receive some credit for the pray tell, will these students be able to work on which they are expending a tre- discern the different roles and functions of mendous amount of time. I will offer no university offices when the multiversities specifics in this case; let every institution are growing to such magnitude that the assess its own milieu and adapt its program mail clerk and the plumber are the only to that particular environment. ones who know where the offices are? Of That black administrators should direct course, this is not true in all cases, but for compensatory programs cannot be over- the large campuses where activity erupted stressed, but the ultra significant, impor- this will hold true in more cases than one. tant positions into which blacks must be If, we come to grips with the university's placed, without too much gradualism, have socio-historical developments and study its to do with the decisions and policy-making origin in the U.S. we will discover that this for the entire university. Power must be particular institution has grown only one available which will afford black America way - horizontally. Therefore, it would an opportunity to effect significant educa- behoove us, the black administrators, not tional change. There must be actions in- to work for change which will call for a stead of motions, realism instead of rhe- redevelopment of a college or a department toric, and power in place of ambassadorial within a university. Rather, we will have to platitudes and euphemisms. That is, posi- work for additional departments and/or in- tions which make themselves felt in such stitutes which will be grafted onto the areas, as curriculum planning with intra- existing structure. White faculties are by component colleges and divisions, person- nature conservative ; white administrations nel of the professional and paraprofes- have, at one time, been white faculty; the sional nature, academic policy, rank and board of trustees, in a number of cases, tenure, management of all aspects of the represent the alumni, who are conserva- University . tive; and the alumni are the personifica- I will contend that it is contradictory to tions of arch-conservative views. Calculat- pass legislation, appropriate funds, recruit ing such a homogenous group yields a and enroll black students who, for some monolithic index. Taking this tremendous asinine reason, have been tagged "high impasse into serious account, no alterna- risk," if no instrument is available whereby tive is left but to add some instrumentality their needs can be communicated to the onto this monolith, an instrument which higher echelon of the college administra- will receive its impetus from a viable ex- tion and, for heaven's sake, the faculty. ternal pressure group - black America. Where this instrument is lacking, turbu- The black student pressure organizations lences are in the making and some type of on campuses are attempting to do their "undesirable" confrontation will ensue in a part to "negotiate" for constructive change,

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but they are "only" students in the eyes of community generally, and in higher educa- the faculty and administration, and to fur- tion, the young black students who are not ther emphasize the point - only black cognizant of any changes which have been students. There needs to be some modifica- made to enhance the black condition. tions made in the triangle of students, In some cases, it would not be possible faculty, and administration which comprise for the black students to constitute this the university. vehicle of communication. In these situa- tions, it would be wise to include, by any There is no use in recommending the means necessary, a black faculty member "playpen" student governments as the an- or administrator on one of these bodies in swer. That simply will not work. It appears an attempt to keep the- university com- to me that in addition to permitting stu- munity, at large, attuned to the needs and dents to sit on the board of trustees, a stresses of the black students on the cam- new movement, we must now place tactful pus. This individual ought to have rank statesmanship right out front and ask at within one of the departments and should institutions where the black enrollment is not be linked officially to the black student increasing, that black students be placed pressure group on the campus. (By virtue on the policy working bodies within the of his blackness, however, he will inevit- institutional framework. This ought not be ably be thought of, by certain quarters of a "show" position; it should rather, be a the faculty, as being a part of the "con- position whereby the needs of the black spiracy" to over-throw the system of higher constituency can be articulated to the in- education within the United States .) For dividuals who are professing meager all intents and purposes, this black faculty knowledge of the black man's plight. These member will serve as a professional sensi- students should be in a position to exercise tizing agent to keep the administration and full voting rights on these key policy the faculty honest in their endeavors to bodies. educate the black students. There is no use in our "rappin" about Again, tradition must be, laid aside if a who the institution is for, for we will not serious effort is going to be made to insti- come to any consensus on this topic. The tute some instrument for comunication . faculty will say it's for research, the stu- Tradition would have us wait two decades dents will say it's for teaching, the admin- for the newly acquired black students to istration is apt to espouse any number of establish themselves for positions on these reasons for its being, but one can rest as- faculty councils and other machinery sured that none of these bodies will ex- found on college campuses, which would press a position that it is for society as a put us in an inoperable position. An arbi- whole. If, perhaps, they could bring them- trary edict must come forth and direct the selves to a point of serious deliberation college to select individuals who are black about the concept of society, they would and carry rank, to immediately become learn that the black spectrum is definitely parts of that machinery. I would suggest, a part of the society and by virtue of our wherever a reluctance is discovered on being a part we deserve a role in the pro- campuses to make policies which will ef- cess of making decisions about our destiny. fect immediate change, that that institution The white power structure has always is a bigoted caricature of a university or honored administration via sub-group pres- college. sure. It is now incumbent upon them to come to the realization that the temporal AT INsTrruTIONs where the Board of trend within this country makes it essential Trustees are espousing a doctrine of "con- for them to come around to a new wary of cern for black student enrollment," a posi- thinking and effectuate a receptiveness to tion of Vice-President, Vice-Chancellor for the emerging sub-group pressures: the black Minority Group Affairs should be estab-

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lished. To many, the ones living in retro- whenever any situation arises concerning grade, this idea could sound unrealistic. the minority students on campus. I am in- To them, I would say that perhaps it is formed of the fact that there are now sev- better for them to research the develop- eral institutions who are employing vice- ment of student personnel administration presidents and chancellors for Foreign in higher education and learn of the fac- Students' Affairs . I insist that it is wrong tors influencing the development of spe- to employ individuals in this capacity cific areas into established components of to deal with aliens when so many descen- higher education; student personnel admin- dants of the men who built this country istration was an effort to ensure a harmon- are standing around with an unquenchable ious college life for the student. At one thirst for a higher education. time the president performed all of the administrative functions of the college. As The writer envisages this black admin- administrative needs grew, more personnel istrator working on an executive and ad- had to be sought. Thus, the dean of stu- ministrative parity with the chief academic dents, the counselor, health services, regis- officer, the one under the President, of the trar, etc., became meaningful parts of the University . If this happens to be the Dean college community as the temporal needs of the Faculty, then he should work con- became apparent. There is now a temporal gruently with him; if this is the Academic need - a need for black representation at Vice-President, then he should work con- the decision and policy-making level in col- gruently with him; if he should be the leges and universities. Having such will Academic Chancellor, then he should work benefit the faculty and administration as congruently with him; the desirability of well as the student, to whom the most having this black officer working at the worthy consideration must be given. top of the vertical hierarchy is obvious. I envision such a position as that of Vice- If one would note, in the above, the President or Vice-Chancellor for several emphasis on the word "academic" or reasons. Ordinarily, these individuals "faculty," it should become apparent the would report directly to the president of significance I bestow upon the academic the institution who in turn would go di- framework of the university. The university rectly to the Board of Trustees. Unless the is positively related to academe. If we were president is some omnipotent god, he is to remove the concept of academe, we apt to give this position academic "carte would not have a college or university. blanche" in its realm of operation.. Con- Therefore, taking that assertion into ac- comitant to this position would be power. count, one must conclude that academe This individual should have a budget com- defines all segments of the university. If mensurate with his title and responsibility. this is the case, and I believe it to be, all This individual should have enough power other offices, departments, schools, insti- to effect the administrative changes which tutes, etc., are merely ancillary machinery would derive from his title and responsibil- necessitated by the student's central pur- ity. This individual should be answerable pose for having attended college-to master only to the President. academic material. In the organizational structure this ad- No office, it appears to me, could justify ministrator should be on the line directly its reason for being if it were not for the beneath the President of the institution academic framework of the university. with authority lines feeding into all seg- Advancing this concept a bit further, I ments of the university community, as would assert that all offices, departments, these would have to do with meeting the and schools are, or should be, answerable needs of the American Minority Group to the top academic officers of the uni- Student. His services should be called upon versity or the college. In the final analysis, by the other vice-presidents or chancellors it is uncontrovertibly necessary for the

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black administrator recruited and hired for must be rediagnosed and reacted to in a this position to have the authority and de- pervasively different manner. cision-making ability commensurate with Back to the point of black Ph.D.'s being that of the chief academic officer under the educated away from the personal involve- President of the university. ment. This brings to mind a conference I attended recently in Atlanta, Georgia, THE R E is not enough time to wait for where black educators were assembled a generation of Ph.D .'s to be exuded into from across the country to deal with and the main stream of higher education in an develop new perspectives in black educa- equal manner to satisfy the caprices of the tion and to come up with creative solu- white institutional power structure. No, we tions. While I am not at liberty to quote cannot wait! There is also reason to believe, the member of Ph.D.'s present (it would by looking at most of black scholars today, be a guess), I can say that very few of the that the acquisition of the Ph.D. is leading supposedly nationally known black scho- the black away from teaching and personal lars were present. Black people at that involvement rather than into this involve- conference came with deep convictions and ment. The actualization of this critical hopes of acquiring new and meaningful situation is leading any number of us to knowledge, but to their dismay, they were believe that we must now impress upon the left without the knowledge of some of our white institutional power that good teach- foremost black writers and scholars to help ing and research are not necessarily posi- them with their attempts at legitimate and tive correlatives with Ph.D. With all of the viable change. To you all, where were you? countries represented in the whole of That particular episode could easily American Higher Education, it must be- serve as food for thought on the subject hoove us to pusb to get some African- of the mentality which a number of black Americanism represented in the diversi- scholars must have on the college campus fied relics which we find alienating us -the Ph.D. black scholars. Therefore, we today. must take a different bearing as to how we The one simple way of instituting this are going to provide the needed black ad- change into higher education is by refusing ministrators on the predominantly white to cater to the whims of the white institu- college campus. And after having found tional power structure. When they go into some type of solution to this problematical the academic euphemism about wanting situation, we must interpret it to the exist- only blacks with Ph.D.'s, we must keep ing institutional powers and be obstinate the truth right out front, that because of in our belief that the road down which we the social injustices and racism, we are have chosen to travel must be one navi- unable to come forth with this cadre of gated by our cognition. I say it can be Ph.D.'s which most of them are well aware done! of our not having. Whenever white admin- This is being stressed for those unreal- istrators ask for blacks with that terminal istic and antipathetic majority group ad- degree to fill a position, that is a true sign ministrators who feel to date that the only of a "cop out" and we must realize that we blacks who are qualified to become mem- have been hit again with the "qualification bers of their institutions must have all the syndrome"- remember Willie Willie. We makings of the archaic conceptualization must refuse to go along with the "qualifi- of the "super Negro." The time has now catitis" which the white administrators are come in higher education when the criteria constantly trying to ram down our parched for selection of black administrators will throats. That is, the symptoms which show have to be re-defined in black terms and the signs of equating academic qualifica- with black standards of excellence. Engen- tions with the Ph.D. degree in order to dering the principle of "preferential treat- enter the bureaucratic "city of intellect," ment" as the primary criterion for selection,

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will be a step in the right direction for Institute for Black College Administrators breaking the cycle which has enmeshed should be administrated by black academi- the black psyche in a deep woven web of cians who have shown their ability to be inferiority caused by abandonment neu- creative and effective. These institutes rosis, oppression, and social injustices. would have to be instructive and have some academic format of transmitting The Institute for Black College knowledge. Therefore, all platitudes about Administrators having equal time for "rappin" will have to be dispensed with. We must asume that Robert J . Wert, one time Executive certain individuals have more knowledge Associate, Carnegie Corporation of New and experiential background and implicit York, said in Current Issues in Higher Edu- in such an assumption would be the propo- cation, 1959, "Most presidents have had no sition that one can learn something from particular preparation and a few, at least, another. will never miss it. Either they are instinct- If predominantly white universities are ively good administrators or they have legitimately interested in recruiting black worked on their own to learn adminis- administrators, they should be capable of trative theories and practices." In view of recruiting aspiring black college admin- this statement concerning college presi- istrators and financing their periodic for- dents, I would think that a similar state- mal training in order to keep abreast of the ment could be made about individuals of trends in higher education as seen from a lesser line authority in a college organiza- black perspective. Not only would the in- tional structure. In the future as in the stitute, which could be held each summer, past, I would venture to say that admin- be beneficial to the black administrators, istrators will continue to become so without and scholars, but it should strengthen the any formal training. white colleague as well. However, to tranquilize the whims of If the Department of Health, Education, many "majority group" administrators, I and Welfare is serious about the Higher submit the following as a means for aspir- Education Act, then I feel that this govern- ing black administrators to supply evidence mental agency should be of some financial of their qualifications as a black admin- assistance in an endeavor of this nature. istrator in higher education. Please learn The benefits of such a program would stim- that the writer feels that this plan is of- ulate black individuals who are not in fered to meet the immediate needs. It has higher education to enter the "closed cor- been said that we are witnessing a social poration" without having to resort to re- revolution. Thus, a revolution is supposed dundant types of learning activities which to encompass a magnitude of abrupt their professional fields covered in their changes. Anything taking a conventional or undergraduate and graduate curriculums. traditionalistic path in an attempt to make changes is, then, a reformation. To keep in THE FORMAT would be that of a common pitch with the crescendo of the militant course where the learning activities and symphony of unrest on college campuses, workshops would run the gamut of all the academic conductors must move the phases of Administration in Higher Edu- baton of change with extreme rapidity. cation from the black perspective. The The Institute for Black College Admin- participants would assemble at the said istrators should be held at universities and universities for a period of twelve weeks . colleges centrally located by geographic The individuals attending would register regions throughout the nation. Perhaps to in advance and would have the option of have them housed at the several centers for participating in the institute for credit or the study of higher education would be as no credit. Each visiting professor would good a place to initiate them as any. The have a two to three day stay at the respect-

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ive campus for presenting and leading the tive area must be systematically studied learning relative to his expertise and topic. and researched in our institute. These In the main, these learning activities alluded-to areas must be built into the would be in the art and the science of Ad- proposed institute with a plan carefully ministration in Higher Education. Inherent prepared and earnestly addressing itself to in this type of format would be the socio- the stated hypothesis-if given a chance, historical development of the American the black can be an effective administrator Higher Educational System to gain insights in higher education. as to how the system developed, thus af- There would be research possibilities. fording the participants an opportunity to Each participant would be presented with formulate their own theories about possible a topic on which he could do research for solutions to the problems which are uni- the academic year to be completed and versal in higher education. The influences ready for submission at the onset of the of Holland, Scotland, and Germany would following summer institute. For this work be systematically studied to indicate the credit would be given by the sponsoring many piece-meal components of the sys- institution. tem of higher education in the United The administration of the institute would States of America. also have the responsibility of coordinating an internship for black administrators. AvrrAL KNOWLEDGE to any college admin- The major thrust of such a program istrator is the financial administration in would be the immediate availability of higher education. As I am sure that no black college administrators at the begin- black administrator will have a long while ning of each academic year. The program before he will be involved in the system would entail enough flexibility to attract to such a degree that he will learn all of the blacks who are currently employed outside sources of income for the "closed corpora- of higher education. It would afford an tion," I, then, cannot over-emphasize the ongoing opportunity for research on the importance of knowing all of the ramifica- various areas of higher education from the tions of budget preparation and control. black perspective. It would* be of tremen- The whole area of student personnel dous assistance in providing the personnel administration will have to be studied and which the growing community college solutions to problems dealt with from a demands . black perspective. It is staggering to wit- In conclusion, the problem is irrevocably ness the vastness of this particular phase upon us and nothing less than a program of higher education and look at how enor- which will show tangible, legitimate yields mously it has grown during the twentieth in the shortest period of time, will do in century. However, we must realize that it trying to meet the needs of the ideological, must grow even more to incorporate within politically energetic black students present- it the black man's plight. This administra- ly enrolling on American college campuses-

PAGE 7 6 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

THE CRISIS OF HAROLD CRUSE

by ROBERT CHRISMAN

AROLD CRUSES's book The Crisis of the Intellectual. In substance, in rhythms, in Negro Intellectual, is a remarkable tone, Cruse's work registers the crisis of the Hachievement. Historical in approach, it contemporary black intellectual like a fever traces the shape of black American cul- chart. tural development for the last six years It is not by accident that Baldwin and and the role of the black intellectual in Ellison come to mind with respect to that development. Documentation is thor- Cruse, for each of these authors was pri- ough and extensive; many texts and sources marily concerned with the problems of on black experience emerge for the first sensibility that press upon the black time or are pleasantly renewed and the intellectual . index is excellent. The Crisis of the Negro But where Baldwin's concern has been Intellectual is by far the most impressive for individual black sensibility, Cruse is history of black intellectual development concerned with collective black sensibility, to emerge in this decade. what he terms, "the residual stratum of Indeed, it has the same quality of im- Negro ethnic group consciousness," and pact on black letters and the total Ameri- how that group consciousness has been ex- can sensibility that James Baldwin's Notes pressed and represented by black intel- of a Native Son and 's The lectuals from approximately 1900 to the Invisible Man had before it. Like those present. works, Cruse's isolates, defines and crystal- Cruse maintains that enough "ethnic izes the major black concerns and climate group consciousness" has always existed in of its time. Like them, it is not only a black Americans sufficient to create a peo- definition of contemporary black crisis but ple that are definable not only by their an act of self-definition as well. The same physical characteristics, but as possessing kind of personal urgency that pervades a potential for developing a distinct culture. Notes of a Native Son and The Invisible The distinction between possessing a cul- Man also burn in The Crisis of the Negro ture and possessing a potential for culture is important here. Cruse contends that a ROBERT CHRISMAN is a young poet and a professor distinct black culture has yet to be realized of English and Black Literature at San Francisco from that potential, despite its occasional State College. He was graduated from the Univer- flowerings . sity of California, Berkeley, and holds a master's degree from San Francisco State College, with The creation of this black culture and further study at Southern Illinois University. the sustaining of it, he maintains, is the He has been published in a number of little maga- task of the Negro intellectual and artist. zines and has given readings and presentations on college campuses. Chrisman also is editor of THE The Negro intellectual has a crucial task, BLACK SCHOLAR. one on which pends the collective destiny

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of black America. For Cruse, only the notations deriving from each meaning. Cul- black intellectual can create a black cul- ture can mean the acquisition of esthetic ture and without a black culture there can judgement, taste, fluency with the fine arts. be no political and economic advancement: So used, culture connotes breeding and re- finement and the cultivation of non-func- "As long as the Negro's cultural identity is in question or open to self-doubts, then there tional skills and appreciations. Or, culture can be no positive identification with the can mean the physical and institutional real demands of his political and economic equipment a people have developed in existence. . . . Thus it is only through a cul- tural analysis of the Negro approach to group order to survive, in which case culture is `politics' that the error, weaknesses and goal- functional, rather like a set of survival tools. failures can cogently be analyzed and posi- tively worked out." MOST OFTEN, Cruse appears to use culture The Negro intellectual has not yet cre- in the esthetic sense of the word to indi- ated that culture, states Cruse. But, in- cate the literary, dramatic, musical and stead, through folly, poor judgement, lack philosophical values and achievements of of insight and foresight and his subversion black people, or to bewail the "fact" that by black rivals and by other interest black people do not have culture, in his groups, he has consistently aborted its de- opinion. He does not discuss "functional" velopment and failed his intrinsic respon- culture in any depth, so one must assume sibility to his people. that he is confining himself to "esthetic" It is a furious book. At times vitriolic, culture. and often captious, The Crisis of the Negro It is unfortunate that he limits his con- Intellectual is nihilistic at its worst and a sideration of culture to the esthetic realm, source of terse, seminal insight at its best. for the total culture of a people is com- Cruse may not be the gadfly of Athens, but posed not only of its arts and philosophy, he is certainly the horsefly of Harlem. but also of its tools, work habits and survival patterns. Any serious discussion of black American culture must consider THERE ARE nonetheless some very deep both the functional and the esthetic and confusions and contradictions within it, realize that they are fused, are reciprocat- confusions and contradictions that revolve ing agents. Such a consideration would around some of its most basic terminology lead one to realize that a black American and concepts. Cruse never defines his culture does exist and that it has remark- vision of culture, or culture itself, for that able power, complexity and grace-enough matter. Nor is there an operational or pre- to sustain black Americans for over 350 scriptive definition of an intellectual . His years with a strength that has intensified, concepts of nationalism and integrationism not waned. have a similar haziness. But this is not the culture Cruse is talk- There is a vicious anti-Semitism through- ing about, though it is of and from this out the work. When faced with complexity, functional culture that the more glamorized Cruse finds the nearest scapegoat and (nowadays) aspects of blackness derive : furiously lashes his way out of the jam. soul food, field hollers, blues, holy roller The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual is the churches, gospels, dances, hunting, fishing crisis of Harold Cruse more than it is any- and working skills, not to mention strate- thing else. Where his vision of black ex- gies for social behavior, from loud talking perience should crystallize and develop a to bad mouthing to tomming to signifying new intellectual framework, it lapses into to running amok. John Henry, Stackolee a fog of personal confusion and spite, and and others represent this functional cul- imprecision on basic issues and concepts . ture in black folk literature. But this is not In general usage, the word "culture" has the kind of culture that Cruse addresses two meanings, with almost opposite con- himself to. Nor does he advocate a return

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to the culture of a romanticized African WHY HAS THE NEGRO intellectual failed to past. create that culture? The answers are vari- Cruse instead maintains that culture pre- ous -and naive. The "integrationist" black cedes political and social change; that cul- has been responsible. The Jew has been ture is created by intellectuals and artists responsible. The Communist has been re- and then shoveled to the masses who sponsible. A communist, Jewish, Zionist eventually grow politically and socially ac- liberal, integrationist conspiracy has smoth- tive from the culture they have acquired. ered black culture for sixty years, says In this theory, esthetic culture is a catalyst Cruse. for social change, with an apolitical, non- The book then becomes a catalogue of activist intellectual in the vanguard. colored ineptitude. Claude McKay blew it; If Cruse were to maintain that esthetic blew it; culture is active propaganda, is a form of blew it; Richard Wright blew it; Paul agitation, then his theory might be more Robeson blew it. Baldwin, Ellison, Hans- credible. But he does not. He instead es- berry, Killens, Ossie Davis, LeRoi, A. Philip tablishes culture as expressing ethnic con- Randolph, Malcolm X, DuBois - name a sciousness through esthetic contemplation brother and you'll find out he blew it. The and he believes that such cultural activity only blood left intact is Phyllis Wheatley. has revolutionary potential. The rich - almost magnificent - dimen- sions of The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual are choked, precisely when the work must deal with crucial questions, questions that I T IS AN ELITIST THEORY- and a foolish Cruse himself poses and then thwarts. The one. If art alone could make revolution, book does not resolve its own conflicts nor there would be daily upheavals. Esthetic fulfill its thesis. It rides through its 500 culture comes after a social upheaval has pages on a razor's edge of ambivalent fury. been started or realized. But if, in addition, The fury is most precise and lethal when the creative intellectual is apolitical, then it is turned to blacks and other minority his work can have no dynamic bearing on groups of ethnic or political nature. When social change. Certainly middle class in- turned toward the individual and instu- tellectuals and artists have started and led tionalized oppression of white America, the revolutions, but as political activists, and fury of Cruse sputters, fizzles, and fails. their politics take precedence over their Fails, falls back upon itself and any black art or culture. Patrice Lumumba, Fidel within its range. Castro, Lenin and Mao Tse Tung are some And so, blacks come off far worse than examples. Yet Cruse can say at his book's whites in the book, even though Cruse's conclusion that : own orientation is black nationalist more than it is integrationist. "The only real politics for the creative in- tellectual should be the politics of culture . The activists of race, nationalism, and civil rights will never understand this, hence this THE TASK OF the black intellectual is dilemma becomes another ramification of the vision, in both senses of the word - vision manifold crisis of the Negro intellectual." in the sense of seeing what exists and vision in seeing what should exist and has existed. Such is the thesis of The Crisis of the To see the problem of blackness in the Negro Intellectual, that it has been the United States as a matter of integration task of the black intellectual to create a versus nationalism is like looking through framework for radical black change and a pair of binoculars with each eye piece in that he has failed. Putting the faultiness of opposite focus to the other. Each eyepiece the thesis aside, let us examine the book contradicts the other and nothing can be further. seen, not to mention envisioned.

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 79

In a peculiar sense, the book is blind. that Harlem was a playpen for white nou- Sixty years of black culture are seen and veau riche during the Twenties. They and not seen. Black achievement is not recog- their involvement ended with the Depres- nized, nor is the full nature of white op- sion. So did the Harlem Renaissance. Seri- pression. For, both integration and separa- ous black artists and intellectuals continued tion are responses to white oppression; if their work - Langston Hughes, W. E. B. one fails to see them in perspective to DuBois, Duke Ellington, and new artists white oppression, then error occurs. emerged. The fact that this renaissance One encounters this problem of vision died when whites withdrew their financial often in The Crisis of the Negro Intellec- support and interest should have told Cruse tual. In discussing black music, Cruse gives something about it, that it was as much a an excellent analysis of the colonization white bubble as a black song. Yet he can of jazz by white musicians, and the whole take Langston Hughes to task for saying, bizarre double minstrel show that has taken American culture, wherein white "I was there. I had a swell time while it place in lasted. But I throught it wouldn't last long . . . "artists" will take a black experience and For how could a large and enthusiastic num- paint it white or take a white experience ber of people be crazy about Negroes forever? and paint it black. Discussing music, Cruse They thought the race problem had at last been solved through Art plus Gladys Bentley." says, in 1929, "But symphonic music is not really an The Harlem Renaissance ended American product. The native American music when white fortunes collapsed and its is Negro jazz. Why, with all the Negro folk- patrons could no longer afford to support music tradition forming the basis of almost it. It would have been a convenient point all American popular music, has America never produced a black Gershwin?" (em- for Cruse to discuss the relationship be- phasis Cruse) tween art and economics and, more impor- tant, the relationship between black art The blame falls on the black intellectuals: and white money.

11 . . . their washed-out brains reacted with not a modicum of critical assessment . This is especially true of that clique of writers and C ULTURE IS EXPENSIVE. The black culture critics hatched out of the cultural henhouse Cruse demands - theatre, dance, music - of the old leftwing in Harlem . For their col- lective mentalities are obsessed with little would have to be supported with black else but the folklore of integrationism, trans- bourgeois money if it were to parallel, say, posed from the civil rights front to the cultural the European symphony or ballet tradi- front." tions, which were both bought and paid It's an extraordinary passage. Cruse's de- for by the European bourgeoisie. But there mand for a "black Gershwin" is absurd. is no involved black establishment to sup- Evidently, for jazz to become culture it port that black culture. must have "white" form. Does black esthetic White America buys and supports only culture have to be "whitened" and Euro- that black art and thought that it likes pean in form to qualify as culture? The or that it needs to sustain an image of greatness in jazz that Cruse demands has itself. Jazz musicians die like flies as a already been achieved, and not in Euro- result. Black actors and entertainers per- pean forms. Who needs a black Gershwin form in productions owned by white Amer- when there is a black John Coltrane, a icans. Black writers and intellectuals are black Charlie Parker, a black Miles Davis? published by white firms. With a brutal In crying for a black culture, he ignores directness, white economics affects the ex- the black culture that exists - and his ig- pression of black culture, censors it, praises norance comes in the name of blackness . it, condemns it, nurtures it or kills it. The In the Section on the Harlem Renais- black bourgeoisie ignore it. In fact the sance, he portrays very clearly its nature - black bourgeoisie mainly consist of actors

PAGE 80 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

and entertainers sustained by white history of racial exploitation . These two America. facts would make any black intellectual of Cruse ignores that, too. Instead, he says : the Thirties skeptical of American capital- "American capitalism must prove that po- ism. litical democracy, economic democracy and But laying aside economic facts, Cruse cultural democracy are possible under free continues enterprise. It means that free enterprise must lay the economic basis for all three objectives . . the great brainwashing of Negro radi- by direct financing of new parallel institutions cal .intellectuals was not achieved by capital- within the ghetto of an economic, cultural ism, or the capitalistic bourgeoisie, but by and class-ownership nature." Jewish intellectuals in the American Commu- nist Party." Shades of Booker T. Washington! Ameri- can captialism will take only those actions His conclusion is clear. It is not the vast necessary to preserve itself. Ghettoes such institutional machinery of American racism as Harlem exist because race exploitation which has inhibited the development of a is one of the economic corner stones of black culture, but Communist Jews. American capitalism . It will eliminate racist Were the black intellectual inventive, exploitation only when it is no longer faithful and ingenious enough, he would profitable . Racism has been profitable in find a way to culture in a country whose the United States since 1619 and it is still first act was to demolish the African cul- profitable. How can Cruse expect free ture of the first black imports 400 years ago enterprise to now provide a parallel econ- and forbid their wages, education, literacy, omy for blacks, when economic exploita- marriage, legal stature, property and cus- tion of races has been its policy since 1619? tody of children, a scheme of action which Having evaded an analysis of American continues today in subtler forms. Educa- capitalism and economic racism and the tion, money, law, family and property are relationship between capitalism and cul- the raw materials of culture. When they are ture, Cruse returns to his favorite whipping denied and inhibited, how can blacks de- boy, the black intellectual . Black gullibility velop a bourgeoisie culture or cultural and communism were responsible for the establishment? absence of an elite cultural establishment, Cruse assumes that such a black culture not the economic racism of American "free" would inculcate blackness, which would in enterprise and the literal poverty of black turn lead to economic progress through a Americans. cooperating white capitalism . Hence, his In the case of Richard Wright, ". . . vulgar antipathy for what he calls "integrationist" Marxism had rendered him incapable of intellectuals and trends . Generally liberal, seeing unique developments of American left wing or Marxist, these "integrationists" capitalism . Uncharted paths existed for the drift away from black nationalism and col- Negro creative intellectuals to explore, if laborate with whites, in their efforts at only they could avoid being blinded by social change. The specific black interests Communist Party propaganda [for] the of these intellectuals is coopted by the path to the ethnic democratization of whites, and so is black culture. This has American society is through its culture." been true, when the price of white support has been abandonment of blackness. On the other hand, a separatist approach has AMERICAN CAPITALISM did make some the disadvantage of isolation and also ac- radical democratic shifts in the Thirties, commodates the white power structure by not because of culture, but from economic tending to make fewer real demands of it. and social pressure applied by groups such In The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, as the Communist Party, organized labor, there is an impression in the terms, NAACP and other groups. Capitalism had "integrationist" and "nationalist-separatist", failed during the Depression and it has a their context in the whole of American

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 87

culture. Fredrick Douglass is viewed as an they did), Douglass was not an "integra- "integrationist" and Booker T. Washington tionist." as a "nationalist," which is a rather strange His opposition to the black migration equation. Civil rights, racial equality, free- from the South of the late 1870's was dom are seen as integrationist by Cruse. strategically sound and what might be Separatism, "accommodationist self-segre- called "nationalist" from another perspec- gation," are viewed as nationalist. tive. He recognized that migration would Presumably, civil rights and freedom are diminish the rather formidable black popu- integrationist because their black advocate lation concentration in the South and re- intends to exercise them among white sult in a mutual dilution of black force, Americans. That is true. In fact, it is a both in the Southern base, and at the place truism. They would not be exercised among of disembarkation, the Midwest. Douglass' white Americans in some capacity only if theoretics consistently recognized that the the black man did not live in the United relationship between white and black States. The struggle for equality and free- America was an antagonistic one, that dom from oppression is not necessarily as- white dominance had been initiated and similationist, but a drive for control over sustained by force and that black struggle the conditions of black existence. was the key to black liberation, that, as In this light let us review Douglass at a he put it, "Power never yields without a midnight hour, when he ponders the de- struggle." cision to attempt to escape or stay on the Cruse is much more favorable toward plantation : the "economic nationalism" of Booker T. Washington, a nationalism that was more "On the one hand, there stood slavery, a integrationist than separatist at the sources stern reality, glaring frightfully upon us - its robes already crimsoned with the blood of real economic and political power. An of millions, and even now feasting itself examination of Washington's Up From greedily upon our own flesh. On the other Slavery reveals the intricate web of his hand, away back in the dim distance under the flickering light of the north star behind involvement with the white power struc- some craggy hill or snow-covered mountain, ture, politically, economically and psycho- stood a doubtful freedom - half frozen - logically. beckoning us to come and share its hospital- ity." The keys to the psychological identifica- tion with white power sound early in his Douglass had no illusions here in terms book. There is the touching and pathetic of an "integrationist" North or slaving little boy's dream of eating ginger-cakes in South; there was only "a doubtful free- the "big house," and the reflection that dom." ". . . the black man got nearly as much out Starvation, "causing us to eat our own of slavery as the white man did," and the flesh," "the fangs of the terrible blood- general repression of the horrifying experi- hound," scorpions, snakes, capture and ex- ence of being enslaved, by accepting the ecution are pondered, and the decision values of the slave-master . The compulsion emerges : for cleanliness and frequent washing that "In coming to a fixed determination to are expressed throughout his autobiog- run away, we did more than Patrick Henry, raphy and to which he literally attributes when he resolved upon liberty or death. much of his success, might reflect a desire With us it was a doubtful liberty at most, to wash the blackness out of his skin. and almost certain death if we failed. For Washington was brilliant, diligent and my part, I should prefer death to hopeless shrewd. And, also a brother. The enjoy- bondage." ment of black folks pervades the book, but Escape he did. And in advocating regi-

ments of armed black soldiers to return *Fredrick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, Dolphin and destroy Southern slaveholders (which Books, Doubleday, Garden City, New York, p . 85.

PAGE 82 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969

that Gemutlichkeit is dominated by a Cal- dependent upon a white capitalism for vinistic conviction of the superiority of their survival and upon a white culture for whiteness and an oblique, distant contempt their identification. for black capability. Washington's peculiar The anti-intellectualism of Booker T. is combination of scorn and affection for notorious and it provided no cultural ap- blacks (in the place of respect) is a mirror- paratus for the black identification of his ing of the white man's model, a weird psy- students and protegees. Indeed, he blocked chological concoction which draws us the appointment of W. E. B. DuBois to blacks into both intense collaboration with, Tuskegee and impeded the continuance of and betrayal of, each other. In Washing- DuBois' Atlanta Conference project, which ton's own parable, "Negroes are like crabs was in essence a black cultural center. in a basket. When one has just about Washington did not avail himself of the crawled out, another one reaches up and cultural power of DuBois and instead, har- pulls him down." assed and impeded it. The result was that The deepest refutation of Washington's white leadership, white culture and white "nationalism" comes when we examine how identification filled the vacuum for Wash- deeply integrated his economic base was ington's graduates - and several genera- with the capitalism of the white establish- tions of black America. ment. That integration was not a by-prod- A black originated system such as Wash- uct of American economy but occurred ington's, which carries within it all the ma- because Washington and all his projects chinery for white domination, would quite were subsidized that by establishment - logically receive white support. So much Carnegie, Rockefeller, so Roosevelt, Taft, etc. that 70 years later, Richard M. Nixon can Significantly, the massive outpouring of use the same economic scheme - black white support came after the Atlanta Ex- capitalism - with enough success to get position Address, an incredible abdication elected President of the United States, of social struggle. passing among black people as a white Booker T. Washington.

WASHINCTON's economic nationalism was rewarded by the power structure of the United States, not because it carried within LAND, HEAVY INDUSTRY, and the state must it the seeds of black liberation, but because be the real concerns for the serious nation- it instead provided a means of maintaining alist. Had Lyndon Johnson or Richard control over the black population. If we Nixon been serious about a black national- are concerned with economic nationalism, ist kind of economic development, the we must examine what is necessary for Federal government would have purchased such a thrust in the United States - or Ford and Chevrolet factories for blacks, to elsewhere. Ownership of heavy industry, be owned and operated by a cooperative investment capital and land constitute en- of the entire black community in which the during economic power in this country. factory was located. Those are the tools which consolidate na- But such an act by them would abdicate tionhood . the exclusive control of economic power and A nation, after all, is a parcel of land privileges which constitutes capitalism, and which sustains an organized body of peo- it would abdicate white establishment con- ple of common origin; in these times, heavy trol of black people. The United States industry and capital are those sustaining cannot afford a non-capitalist liberation agents. Washington's views sufficed to cre- of ten per cent of its population, when that ate a rather narrow black middle class of system has controlled them for the pre- professionals and technicians who were vious 400 years.

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 8 3

It is for these reasons that the conceptual during the Martin Luther King period, framework of The Crisis of the Negro In- both for the same purpose - control of a tellectual is limited and the promise of the black population. book is strangled by that limitation. Inte- gration versus separation is a false proposi- INTEGRATION and segregation are concepts tion. Freedom is the real issue. Both inte- defined by this establishment as means of gration and separation are proposals for dealing with a malcontent black popula- dealing with a racist society: the degree of tion. One cannot accept the conceptual involvement (integration) or separation framework of the oppressor and find in it (segregation) from this society is almost a ladder to freedom. To accept the op- academic. Neither truly challenges the pressor's definition of the black condition racist structure of American society but, is to continue the colonization of the mind instead, each accommodates it in different which cripples so totally. That is the crisis ways. White America pushed segregation of the black intellectual, and it is the par- during Washington's time and integration ticular crisis of Harold Cruse.

ATTENTION: COLLEGE STUDENTS THE BLACK SCHOLAR needs your help for subscriptions, distribution and circulation . Be a sales representative for THE BLACK SCHOLAR. For information regarding promotion and sales materials, write: STUDENT SUBSCRIPTION PROGRAM THE BLACK SCHOLAR Box 908 Sausalito, Calif. 94965

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Book Review

The Black Curriculum : Developing a Program in Afro-American Studies by Sidney F. Walton, Jr. published by the Black Liberation Publishing Co., P.O. Box 10242, East Palo Alto (Nairobi) California 94303. 522 pp. $10.00. Most black writers - and even black leaders - whether knowingly or not - have written about black people or the black condition for an essentially white readership. The name of the game was "convince white America of the essential humanity, educability, employability, worthiness or what have you, of black people." If blacks read the books or received the message, it occurred mainly be- cause they were curious or were good listeners. The white man's reaction was usually the key. The Black Curriculum does not meet the traditional westernized standards for a "book"; neither is it a mere non-book. In reality it is a black experience on paper. It is the work of a revolutionary black intellectual on how-to-survive as an authentic black educator within a white-dominated institution. Brother Walton's efforts spell out how he chose to fight white racism as a means to his own survival. Survival at a lesser cost was. not worthwhile to Walton. Walton asked himself a different question: "What the hell was I doing for my people? Nothing really in the schools, other than offering my presence, accepting the absence of blackness, and perpetrating racism by not offering alternatives to the racist system." It was while in search of these alternatives that The Black Curriculum be- came a reality. Walton's forthright honesty, ability to examine his own behavior, the authenticity and reasoning that undergirds his anger, the consummate skill with which he clarifies the issues - and forces his readers into self-confrontation - and his ability to transform the extraneous white into the germane black makes a studied journey through this text a memorable encounter. A major contribution of this endeavor is the clarification of terms such as black racism, mother-fucker, the credentialing system, and in fact to develop a survival language for black people. In a discussion of semantics, Walton notes : "The tuning in on words rather than messages is a perpetration of the great American hang-up of tuning in on the color of man rather than on the dignity and worth of the man." His message to black men is that "humanism" must be reborn within them. Their sense of dignity and worth must become indelible, indestructable char- acteristics, collectively self-reaffirming. Tune in on black humanism - the medium of black survival. The new language, then, is not words but meaning.

THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 PAGE 8 5

Readers will become immediately aware of why black students have cam- paigned for independently-controlled black studies programs. They refuse to integrate themselves into racist educational programs which predestine them to fail or to be conditioned against the best interests of their own people. Black students cannot "succeed" within a racist program. Such a course now leaves them but one destiny: to emulate white Uncle Toms. As Brother Walton put it : "Racism is psychologically unhealthy for black youngsters whether it is labelled `quality', `integrated' or `segregated.' We want our young- sters to learn, and it seems we have the answer - All black educational environments which do not dehumanize black children." The Black Curriculum is a collection of semi-official documents - memor- anda, letters, reports, reprints of articles and studies - whose combined impact, when elaborated upon by Brother Walton, leaves no doubt that most black men employed within white institutions are playing the game of self-survival. This is not a put-down; it is a mere statement of fact. Walton is compelled by a desire to foster the collective survival of black people. It is this committment that enriches his effort. Conceptually, the book redefines education for black people into a day-to- day struggle; and into a broad spectrum of social and political concerns with the classroom and the transfer of knowledge to students being a very small part of the whole.-The black educator becomes an advocate for the black agenda; the white educator is also educated as to how to join the struggle to redefine himself. This book is sure to gain historic stature within the black world. It confronts the Emily Post, WASP, Victorian, "law and order" and scholarship standards of white America; not intentionally however. . Readers must understand that it was not addressed to the black reader from that vantage point. It is a black "I.Q." test, ethnically-oriented, humanistically political, educationally relevant - for black people - and white humanists. In the last analysis, readers who experience the book will be richer because they are able to do so. Those who remain as mere readers are still trying 'to make it wtih white people. Those who reject it completely are already doing the bidding of white people. The fact of the matter is that no one - readers or non- readers - will escape the impact that the book is bound to have on education for black liberation.

PRESTON WILCOX, Chairman National Association For Afro-American Education

PAGE 86 THE BLACK SCHOLAR NOVEMBER 1969 eri ~ublishers873 broadway new york, n.y. 10003 telephone (212) 673-4900

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W. E. B . DU BOIS SPEAKS . Edited by Philip S. Foner. With a Tribute to Dr. Du Bois by Martin Luther King. The speeches span Du Bois' career from 1890 to 1962 . THE CASE OF THE FORT JACKSON EIGHT and GIs United Against the War in Vietnam. Interviews of the participants by Fred Halstead . With an introduction by Attorney Michael Smith.

BLACK VOICES FROM PRISON . By Etheridge Knight. Half of the articles and stories in this book are by Knight; the remainder are by his fellow prisoners in Indiana State Prison . Knight, already known as a poet, reveals himself here as a prose writer of great talent. BLACK NATIONALISM AND THE REVOLUTION IN MUSIC. By Frank Kofsky . The radical changes in the thinking and mood of the black ghettos have produced a radical new music . Special attention is paid to the art of such seminal innovators as John Coltrane. CUBA FOR BEGINNERS. A cartoon history of Cuba from its discovery by Columbus to the tenth anniversary of the Fidelista revolution . This hilarious anti-imperialist volume has had six editions in Mexico. By the brilliant Mexican artist RIUS, who has updated the book for its first U .S . edition. EUGENE V. DEBS SPEAKS . Edited by Jean Tussey. Selected speeches and writings of the great socialist orator and agitator. LEON TROTSKY ON LITERATURE AND ART. Edited, with an introduction by Paul N . Siegel . Trotsky's ideas on literary and artistic criticism set forth in selections from his writings, followed by a section of book reviews, essays, and articles showing his application in practice of these ideas. MALCOLM X ON AFRO-AMERICAN HISTORY. An expanded and illustrated edition of this popular work. 80 pp.

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FUGITIVE SLAVE SERIES

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE REVEREND JOSIAH HENSON With an Introduction by Robin W. Winks, Yale University Paperbound, 190 pp, $2.45

THE NARRATIVE OF WILLIAM W. BROWN, A FUGITIVE SLAVE With an Introduction by Larry Gara, Wilmington College Paperbound, 98 pp, $1 .95

AUSTIN STEWARD : TWENTY-TWO YEARS A SLAVE AND FORTY YEARS A FREEMAN BLACK With an Introduction by Jane H . and William H. Pease, University of Maine Paperbound, 221 pp, $2.45

THE REFUGEE : A NORTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY BY BENJAMIN DREW WSTORY With an Introduction by Tilden G. Edelstein, Rutgers, The State University Paperbound, 272 pp, $2.45

FOUR FUGITIVE SLAVE NARRATIVES This volume combines the four paperbacks. BY Hardbound, 272 pp, $12.95

THE BLACK RESPONSE TO AMERICA From to the NAACP By Robert L. Factor, Queens College of the City University of New York BLACKS With an Introduction by Merle Curti, University of Wisconsin This text explores the various motives, tech- niques, problems, and sources of strength and weakness of Black leaders beginning with an interpretation of Frederick Douglass and in- cluding an analysis of black responses to Post- Reconstruction America and the central role of Booker Washington. The political, legal, eco- nomic, and intellectual responses are discussed and analyzed . In press (1970) .

Addison-Wesley PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC . Reading, Massachusetts 01867 The Black World Foundation is a non-profit organization for the purpose of creating, publishing and distributing black educa- tional materials. This is a time of struggle, but there can be no meaningful, sus- tained black liberation unless there is a research and production center for study, analysis and creation of the necessary mate- rials.

The Black World Foundation has been designed to meet that need . The overall objective of The Black World Foundation is: " To provide a forum for extensive research and dialogue for a revolutionary black ideology, the basic premise being that no fundamental change in our society is possible without an ideology that will inspire and lead to revolutionary change . This objective will be implemented through publication and through special projects. In publication, The Black World Foundation will: " Publish THE BLACK SCHOLAR on a monthly basis, 10 issues per year. " Publish basic black books by old and new writers, including booklets, pamphlets, textbooks, poetry, art reproductions, photographic essays, etc. " Establish extensive apparatus for printing, distribution and promotion of black literature . The Black World Foundation will establish the following projects: " A Center for Research, Planning and Statistics, to gather data relevant to this generation of black Americans, its goals, strategy and tactics . " Symposia and seminars on every phase of black America . " Dialogue among various liberation groups and progressive factions within the United States, for an effective and crea- tive exchange of information. " Liaisons with African cultural groups for the purpose of de- veloping a new type of cultural renaissance - from kinder- garten to university . For further information, write: Black World Foundation Box 31245 San Francisco, Calif. 94131 THEBLACKSCHOLAR CALENDAR.

DECEMBER Black Politics : Ideology Nationalism The Black Party

JANUARY The Black Woman in the Black Struggle

FEBRUARY Black History: In Memoriam W. E. B. DuBois

MARCH The Psychology of Blackness

APRIL American Cities : Black City States or Black Colonies

MAY (double issue) Agenda for Revolution Malcolm X : In Memoriam Black Labor: History and Prospects

JUNE (double issue) The Black Artist: A Celebration of Black Culture