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BLACK COLLEGES, BLACK STUDIES          FOSTER

With these facts in mind, we can see that the Black college has an awesome responsibility.  Hence, its main role, of course, is to educate for societal change.  In the area of liberal education, the Black college's responsibility is especially gigantic.  The primary concern of a liberal education must do more than teach students the hard facts about living in an anti-humane society; it must also teach students useful ways of conquering man's inhumanity to his fellow man.  This means unrestrained idealism has little value in our class-rooms during the 1970's.  Teachers must tell it like it is; but in doing so they must not destroy hope for a better tomorrow.  Black students must be motivated out of a sense of commitment and dedication to Black people, not naive idealism and liberalistic rhetoric.  As sensitive as this whole area is, to tell it truthfully about the people and values of this society need not destroy hope that a better tomorrow can dawn in our life time.
 
As for a technical education, Black colleges must equip their students with relevant skills.  Students must be trained as doers (write, create, build, operate computers, etc.); they must be trained as thinkers, not imitators; and they must be helped and encouraged to act always in the interest of Blacks.  Acting in the interest of Black people requires that students know their heritage, are proud of who they are, and demonstrate a willingness to use their skills and every possession for the benefit of Black people on the plantation, in the ghetto, or in the grips of schizophrenia.
  
Clearly, then, the responsibility of the Black college in the 1970's is not substantially different from what it has always been.  Black colleges came into existence, for the most part, after the Civil War and were designed to fill the void left by "white" colleges.  To be sure, Harvard was founded in 1636 and, shortly thereafter, other (what later became "major" colleges and universities) institutions sprang forth to educate some of America's youth.  Included among these "bastions of knowledge" are William and Mary (1693), Columbia (1754), Yale (1701), Princeton (1746), University of Pennsylvania (1740), Brown (1764) Rutgers (1766) and Dartmouth (1769). 

Were it possible to actually count the number of Black graduates from these institutions between 1636 and 1876, we might begin to see more clearly the role of the Black college in this society historically.  Probably, for the entire 240 year period not more than a handful of Blacks got such a "white" education.  Actually, the record indicates that John Russwurm (1826) was the first Black college graduate in the 

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-21 08:41:35