Viewing page 99 of 132
This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
Blues for Negro College Dent student pressure. If that's what it takes that's fine, for I believe the black colleges - all of them - must move toward a stronger black identification. This is the way to insure survival and vitality. For one thing black communities have a right to demand that the black colleges play a role in the liberation fight. The colleges have too long lived in their own cocoon, their own fantasy world, separate and detached from the black community, toward which they often feel superior. In this age the colleges can play a key role in counteracting the self-negation and self-hate which are still rampant in our communities by dispensing, not necessarily self-love, but self-knowledge and self-acceptance. The April, 1968 issue of Negro Digest contains several articles on the Black University as an ideal concept. I was particularly impresed by Darwin T. Turner's phase-by-phase discussion of modifications needed in existing colleges, and wholeheartedly agree with Turner that it is much easier to modify some of our existing schools into a black curriculum than create an entire new Black University from scratch. Surely most of the private colleges could take on special projects to augment curriculum, such as Black Arts Festivals (the student organized Afro-American Arts Festival at Dillard last winter was an overwhelming success), Black Writers Conferences (several colleges have instituted these), workshops in current events using visting participants who have valuable experiences, writers-in-residence, (especially jazz musicians), and use of other people who do not have academic orientations (most creative black people don't), but have rich experiences. None of these suggestions is radical, non terribly expensive. These are things which can be tried now. Some colleges should look into community-related projects, particularly those which are the only colleges in their community. Mary Holmes Jr. College in West POint, Miss., for instance, is the conduit for federal funds for the statewide Child Development Agency and serves as a center for much of the actiity of West Point's strong black community organization. In some cases, colleges may serve a useful purpose by simply making facilities available to community groups, a small thing but a service too often denied. All of the colleges should move toward augmenting and modifying their traditional curriculum by adding courses which deal with black life. All colleges, black or white in America, should have some form of Affrican history. Imaginative sociology courses which deal with aspects of black life and the current liberation struggle would be a 393
