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DILEMMA OF AFRO-AMERICAN EDUCATION     MOORE

Discussing Black Studies on the secondary level, Dr. Anderson seems to evade the vital issue in much the same way she suspects the school system would. "Until the educators think this is important themselves, only then will they be part of the curricula...." What about the opinion of the black community and black students which she said were going to "help the institution, because we are part of the institution." What about her own thoughts on the matter? Dr. Anderson's final confrontation with the Commissioner concerns housing, tying this in with deprivation of experience, acquisition of conceptual patterns, and the solution to the problem of integrating schools. The Commissioner does an about face, to which Dr. Anderson doesn't reply, by throwing the weight on blacks not wanting to live among whites. Integrated schooling may, he hopes, help the black child "when he becomes an adult and has to decide where to live...feel a lot less sensitive about living in a community that may be 90 percent white." With only a few seconds left to the interview Dr. Anderson deserves the benefit of the doubt for not correcting this ludicrous line of reasoning in her closing statement.

The third section of the book, "The University Scene," contains a very fine article by Benjamin E. Mays. Dr. Mays presents a historically grounded case that Black Education is not a new phenomenon; it has roots and a tradition. Furthermore, it has never depended for its direction on the government and, in the case of at least one black institution, Howard University, has consistently preserved the integrity of its ideals. The federal government passed civil rights legislation only to feel that it had done enough: "let the Negro now make it his own, sink or swim, live or die!" Law has little value, but Mays is not disillusioned. Rather, he summons forth the will to create the substance of law. Here is a great man speaking with sobriety and the wisdom of experience and knowledge. Specific to the point of education he says, "There has never been and there never will be a substitute for academic excellence, and none for possessing skills that the community needs." If the student is without resources or skills, "he must inevitably lend himself to carrying out the directions and ideas of others." Finally, he warns us about the pitfalls of a desegregated society; it does not mean, for instance, that black people will be a significant part of the policy-making bodies that shape education, industry, and government. Integration, however, is an issue to Dr. Mays and must be distinguished from desegregation. In his view, integration implies nothing less than the organic restructuring of the institutions and consciousness of present day society.

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