The Negro in America Society; 2; Voiceless Rage, The: The Literature of Negro Americans: Bryant Rollins

I have visions of a world to come. That world is not a world in which everybody looks alike. Acts alike thinks alike. But it is a world in which people appreciate and esteem the values. Of other individuals and other groups. I'd like to take a. Quote from Richard Wright. In native son. Bigger says we black they white they got things and we and they do things and we came. It's just like living in jail half the time I feel like I'm on the outside of the world. People threw a knot in the fence. I reject and resent the notion that negroes must assimilate. For our culture to become a valid and legitimate culture. I'm interested in getting some realism into school so I'm not interested in getting premis

into the schools which are middle class negroes living in Wellesley for example which seems to be the tendency most of the integrated primas simply take Dick and Jane and paint them brown. Entry into this society this white society that we find ourselves if entry means that we also have to accept. The press for conformity. The great tensions for success the great pressure that has to do it works around the sense of duty and a sense of promptness. That I don't want any part of. And as a writer it's my feeling and I feel very strongly about this that. By rejecting our culture or attempting to move to our culture into the larger culture totally. It's a literary suicide in a very real sense. Welcome to the second lecture. Community lecture series.

On the negro and American society. As you know this lecture series is a co-operative education program. Sponsored by. Organizations in Roxbury new. The coming together of the. Organizations in Roxbury sponsored this series. Is a reflection of the growing unity in the Roxbury Community. And the coming together of the organizations in Newton with organizations in Roxbury is an indication of the possibility of building bridges. In the white suburbs. And the black ghetto. Our speaker tonight. Is a young man. I won't refer to him as a scholar because he flinches. When I do so. But there's no getting around it. But he does possess. So. Many so many scholarly skills. As well as creative skills.

Our speaker is Mr bright Rollins. Mr. Rollins was born on December 13 1937 Boston. He has lived in the Roxbury Community for most of his life. He attended the Roxbury schools and graduated from English High School. In 1960 he graduated from Northeastern University having earned a bachelor's degree in journalism. From 1961 to 1965 Mr. Rollins worked as a journalist for The Boston Globe which included being a political reporter assigned to the State House in September 1965. He left the globe to become editor of the Bay State Banner a negro operated weekly newspaper and out of Roxbury. Along with his band of ballad duties. He is presently coordinator of the Negro History Unit and social studies curriculum

development and Educational Services Incorporated in Cambridge. He is author of the new novel dangerous song. To be published by Doubleday and Company. And April 1967. Mr. Robinson is an activist in many Roxbury Community organizations particularly Operation Exodus where he serves as vice chair. He resides in Roxbury with his wife Judy. I think all of you are would agree for a young man this is a tremendous list of accomplishments. It is with a great deal of pleasure that I present to you Mr. Bryant Robbins. Who will speak to us. On the voice was rage the literature of Negro Americans Mr. Brown was. Was Thank you. My idea is that tonight we should exchange some thoughts.

And that those thoughts would relate to Negro literature. And to the broader problem of our society and. Our culture in America. Every now and then I have a vision which I imagine many of us have. Of a different kind of world than the world we live in and a different kind of society than the society we live in. I have a vision of a world that is not torn by was. A world that is not. Segregated by nations and by religions and by races. A world in which countries are not barricaded against each other. Moving at a reckless and deadly pace. Towards we know not what you know our wars against each other. I have a vision of a world in which. Human Communication is free and natural.

In which all of the barriers that we are aware of now. Are broken down and nonexistent. However we do find ourselves in a world that is not like that. And we do have political and social realities. To deal with particularly in this country. It's my feeling as James Baldwin has said that this country which is torn with which is in the midst of a world which is torn with racial conflict. With the real possibility that a world racial alignment. A long war like. In a warlike setting will. Happen in the not too distant future that this country is in a unique position to find a way out of this maze because we have our own race problem in potentially controllable and you know content potentially

controllable environment. It seems however that we are failing to deal with that environment. We are failing to take advantage. Of those conditions. My vision of a new world also has a great deal to do with humanity a great deal to do with some of the humaneness and vitality some of the. I'm concerned about technical progress that the black nations and that the black culture in this country can bring to bear. Now what does all of this have to do with negro literature and art. It seems to me that this country and its great press for technological progress. Has distorted many things and among them. Is the role of the artist in a society. The role of a writer in a

society. A writer is more than a reflector and art is more than a mirror. And a very real sense. Writers and Artists. Are seniors and prophets and their job is not so much to reflect but to crack the image in the mirror and to to pave the way for the creation of new images to show and lead in new directions for human to human possibilities. With that as a kind of introduction I want to tell you a story that was first told to me by well the Johnson about a year ago. It's a story about a man named Sam who was a Negro. And Sam. Is broke and needs to get some coins. In his pocket. And is out looking for a job. All of his life he has wanted to be a radio announcer. Some of you may have heard this

one. So Sam goes into a local. Radio station and applies for a job as a radio announcer. He walks into the office and he says say my man. This is the station manager. Big Just Got Out The Army man and. Had myself some signal train and you know. And. See that you need some radio announcers here give me a job here pick up some of your programs and do something station you know. So the announcer actually sitting in a big office cigar in his mouth and is taken aback by Sam's. Approach. And he said well I'm sorry we have very rigid qualifications for our analysis it takes a great deal of training and a great deal of background in electronics and so forth before we will hire anyone is a prominent announcer on our station. We're very

professional as you can see by our layout here. And I'm I just don't think you would fit. Well Sam was very upset by the announcers response and he left the office determined. To get himself that education that training to qualify for the job and he did. He got himself some education he went to every radio school in New York City. He went to electronics school. A year later he came back to the radio station. Gone was a Continental city gone with this dingy broom had. Gone with the contest gone with a spade toe shoes. He was I'd be clean through. And he was pardon me I'd like to apply for a position as a radio announcer. I have. Several degrees now and I have qualified and I have my certificates and I'd like to apply for the position and the analysis just flabbergasted that

Sam had so quickly acquired the skills that he had acquired in enunciation and so forth and in management of his person. And so he said well we have never hired. One of your people you know but we will give you a trial. And if you pass a trial then we'll take you on as permanent. Your job will be to be an announcer for our weekly radio program a shadow. So Sam got his lines and practice for weeks and the big day came I told all of his friends and family. And this is going to be it. He talked to his friends and family differently. He said this is going to be it. I'm going to make such a big splash. So he went on the radio and. He had this introduction. Commercial first Sam got a sip of water at it. And he said it's the introduction.

Who knows what lurks in the hearts of men. And then he paused a minute for the dramatic effect and he said the shadow do. I have thought a lot about that show because funny stories often. Have a kind of underlying significance to them that we might miss in our initial response to them. And I wondered what was funny about that story and more I thought about the more I realized it was not a funny story. It's a very sad story. It's a story about a man who when he went into the office to apply for a job had a very rich language his own kind of was a way of expressing himself. His own way of communicating in a very friendly kind of way you might say. When you say my man and that automatically

there was a reporter status if the other party had been receptive. But there was a potential for that report. There was a great fluidity perhaps Sam was 10 minutes late as I was to live and the kind of ease of dealing with other people. But when Sam came back to the radio station it was a different person he was. He was formal. He had lost a lot of. The things that he had had originally. In addition to which he failed the test. I want to tell another story about language recently about about a month and a half ago Stokely Carmichael was on Face the Nation I believe one of those kinds of programs you remember the times that Martin Luther was on and the whole group about eight of them and one of the inquisitors on the radio program they obviously are shooting it skillfully made the point that rather asked me whether or not he had actually said it.

He was quoted in The Times as having said if America doesn't start messing with negroes. Doesn't stop doesn't stop beating negroes. The country will be brought to its knees and Stokely said no that's not actually exactly what I said what I said was if the country doesn't start messing with Negroes it will be brought to its knees. And man the reporter said well by that you mean if the country doesn't stop beating negroes and hitting on them and putting them in jail without due process and so forth and you know what I mean is if the country doesn't start messing with us. And that is a very small point but significant to me that Stokeley would not change his frame of reference in order to accommodate or be understood better by the larger white majority. The reality is I'm talking about the situation I'm talking about is a reality a cultural reality a literary reality a reality that has to do with language and

dialectics. It's reality that the boys talked about 30 years ago. To boys was of course a great social scientist. Essentially that's what is known mostly for the studies that he conducted in Philadelphia in Atlanta Georgia on the condition of negroes set social scientific methodology that is still being followed. To some extent today Dubois however was also a seer. He was also an artist. He was also a prophet. And in his book Black reconstruction he sets up a dichotomy. Through the use of an end analogy in the same way that an artist would. He said that the white dominant white society is over here and the black minority is over here and in between the two is a very thick. Glass. And whites can see the negro through the glass. And Negroes can see the whites through the glass.

But the whites can't hear the negroes what's being said and they can't really comprehend what's going on on the other side. And negroes are in pretty bad condition. They're moving into ghetto conditions. There's a great deal of poverty in the south. Hundred of negroes a year are lynched and beaten to death in the south. And because of these things and because of a. New their attempts to move into a new system. There is a great deal of frustration on the side of the glass and it goes on doing all kinds of frantic things to communicate this frustration. They're screaming standing on a pedestal screaming they're sometimes dancing in order to in any way relate relate their the frustration and the feeling that is there. But on the other side the whites look through and they can see these gesticulations and they can see the dancing and the shouting but they can't hear any of the noise they can hear any of the sounds coming through. They can hear the words. So they can

understand. And looking from the side of the glass it just looks like a caricature. It looks like children like silly little silly people playing people that you really wouldn't want to take seriously. I want to also reinforce this. I'd like to take a. Quote from Richard Wright. In native son Thomas. Says pretty much the same thing that the boy said. Perhaps much perhaps more concisely bigger says we black they white they got things and we and they do things and we came. It's just like living in jail half the time I feel like I'm on the outside of the world. Peeping in through a knot in the fence. Negro. Culture. And the peculiar situation of Negroes.

And the ability or the position of Negroes to see American society as it has always been is a very brutal society. Negroes who could not really participate for the most part in the American dream. You have been in a position to relate in a real sense the kind of society this is and Negro writers have as seniors and prophets. Been in the forefront of this potential. But it is a potential that the white society the dominant society has for the most part rejected. And it seems to me that that rejection of Negro artists. By literary critics. Is directly parallel to the rejection of Negro historians of movements like the Garvey movement in the 1920s which is a significant political movement.

My concern is that today we are faced with some political movements similar to what Gabi was attempting to do which are much. Broader have a much greater chance of succeeding. Partially because Africa is present now. And present a much greater danger to the country. Kenneth Clark the psychologist. Was quoted in Jet magazine recently. He said that he's doing us preparing a book as I understand it on riots in urban ghettos. He said from his observations. If riots in ghettos across the country continue and expand it's not and it's entirely possible entirely with this in the realm of reason that these ghettos will become a virtual concentration camps in a period of five to six to seven years. The country is not dealing with social problems in the ghettos in any real viable sense seems to me

that what Dr. Clark fears may very well come to pass. I think though that the solution to preventing that kind of thing from coming to pass and I think anyone all of us can see that the ramifications of that kind of a situation in which basic American right are being denied people because of. The need to cut our rebellions in ghettos. I. Think the ramifications of that kind of thing a fearsome but again I think that the solution potentially lies in. Some things negro writers have been writing about for quite a while. First and secondly in a recognition of the dualistic nature of our society. As regards negroes I think that Negroes are different. A different culture at this point and have been. Negro writers have been reflecting this difference for a long

time. The white society has refused to recognize negro writers as they reflected this difference and instead has accepted writers. Who have been more attuned to the kinds of things to that the white society wanted to hear. They have accepted negroes who in fact reinforced the values of the white society and rejected writers who challenge like Claude McKay to challenge the values of the of the white society. But it seems to me that in saying that there is a different society a different culture for Negroes in making this plea for cultural dualism and for the recognition of this dualism as a legitimate of this culture as a legitimate culture. Negro writers were saying you also are going to have to recognize negro political institutions and deal with them in a real way. I'd like to go back now. And talk a little bit about some

specific literature and some current and trends. And in doing this attempt to point out the way in which negro writers have felt the need to press to assimilate and to accommodate to the larger white society to reject their grass roots to reject their roots in their culture and to write in a way in a language in a frame of reference that was very close to as close as they could get to what the white society wanted them to say. I'd also like to point out several writers who have not done that and whose names are very unfamiliar to all of the children now are going to schools and colleges and learning about American literature. But who must at this point. Be reborn in a sense in this society. If we had to begin to deal with the negro culture as it is and begin to recognize.

Negro political movements such as PSINet negro grassroots movements as legitimate expressions of social movements. Well as Johnston pointed out last week that. The African tribes that reside along the coasts the west coast of Africa were for the most part not literary tripe. They were not writers. They were storytellers and they express their culture through tales folk tales and that kind of thing. For the most part these are the Africans who came to this country. And so it is kind of a cultural heritage. In a sense. That we find in the early years of slavery in this country in which negroes are not writing. More importantly however. It is the nature of the slave system. The slave system deprived

First of all made it illegal for Negroes to learn to read and write. Also deprived negroes of cultural backgrounds language backgrounds. And that kind of X means of expression. The principal means of expression that was left there for were the song in the dance. And I think it's clear today that our culture still expresses itself most clearly in the song in the dance. There were in those early years some few writers there were people like Phillis Wheatley and there was Frederick Douglass. There were but these writers for the most part were either in the case of Phillis Wheatley highly acceptable to the dominant society. From an artistic point of view or acceptable from a political point of view as was Frederick Douglass acceptable to a certain aspect of the north and white society. Frederick Douglass became. The man who is a man who is undoubtedly a genius in his own right

became our leading spokesman for abolitionism as you know. Negro literature does not really begin Therefore until after emancipation until negroes began to get some some rights until some of the laws that prevented negroes from learning to read and write were done away with in the south. But even after emancipation which freed four million negroes most of the black people in this country were in the south wandering around homeless trying to find themselves in this new freedom this new setting and eventually wound back on the farms where they had started in a kind of have a very similar role to a slave role except that they were not legally slaves and were now able to sign contracts since they weren't able to read and write all these contracts very frequently deprive them of were not real contracts and and duped them into virtual. Slavery again during this time however there were a few

Negro writers. They were for the most part mulattos. Who had. Had an opportunity to learn to write because they had been around the Master or had been in some special position of favor with the master. They were genteel. They were they reflected the Calvinist sentiment that was abroad in the northern part of the country they were most. Most of them lived in the north I think except. Three. They would assimilationist and they were in a very real sense anti negro. I'd like to read to you just one. Of the briefs. Which is it's interesting to look at some of these things in a kind of modern light. And to think about them because they in a sense they sound similar to some of the things that are being said now. About. By middle class negroes that have been said in the recent past that this country this is written by Charles chestnut.

It's contained in a novel called The Colonel's dream and he says he writes in a style that is. Indistinguishable from the way in which whites were writing. There were criminals in New York he knew very well. But he had never seen one. They were not marched down Broadway in stripes in chains. There were certain functions of society as of the body which were more decently performed in retirement. Another quote from Chestnut comes from a book called the marrow of tradition. These people speaking of some negroes he found himself in the strange situation of being placed on the Jim Crow train and being forced to be with negroes they didn't really want to be with these people were just as offensive to him as to the whites in the other end of the train. August Shackleford wrote a book called House of go 1996 and this is a paragraph from that book. He's talking about a principal character in the book

she could understand why Jim Crow cars and all other forms of segregation in the South were necessary but she could not feel it was fair to treat all colored people alike because all were not alike. And it's significant that the next two or three pages he goes on to suggest some ways in which fairer kinds of segregation could be. Legislated or settled upon the ways in which she would not be forced to be with these low class negroes. I think that you can see that the tone of the negroes who were writing for the most part. During this period of from emancipation until around 1890 was very much in this vein. And it's striking to me to look at negro blues and negro slave songs. Which were really the only way that the negro masses could express themselves and Negro blues was very rich and very different from the kind of thing

that I've just read while Mrs. promised me when she died she set me free. This is died nine years ago. Here I am in the same room. That's the beginning of the blues and you can see the difference between. Almost a kind of class difference between. The lower class negroes and the assimilation as Negroes. But I would like to point out that there is a certain danger. There is a certain danger. When one accepts what Charles just not is writing. And rejects what this anonymous sleigh was singing because both are legitimate means of expression and both are equally valid as a means of expression. At around 1890 they began to develop a. Kind of coterie

of Negro writers. Their point of view their approach their view of life was pretty much the same as the negroes who were writing prior to 1890 and some of them were the same individuals. They were still very much separated from the lower class negroes from the former slaves or the tenant farmers. They were for the most part teachers or some professional some professionals of of one kind or another their routes significantly some statistics that I've seen show that. They are pretty much second generation. One generation away from slavery. They were perhaps in a favored position in slavery but their parents were still one parent or another because they are usually. Their parents were one of them were slaves and so it's quite a quite a drastic change that they must have gone through you can imagine in trying to

assimilate trying to get as close as they can to the dominant white society as far away as they can from the negro's. Society from which they evolved from which they came. Between 1890 and in 19 20 this general trend of Negro writers being very divorced from the masses of Negroes. This trend continued and became accentuated during the same time however some other social forces were at work and there began some movements. Which were beginning to force negro writers and Negro intellectuals generally to look back at what had been happening and to re-establish roots with the negro masses. One of the things that happened was the war and that disillusion a great many people in general. There were there was a general

revulsion in the society as a whole to the war. There was a particular revulsion among Negroes because segregation still existed in the war and soldiers who fought or participated in the war came back to a society which was not changed for them although they had been fighting for for the kinds of freedom and justice and liberty and so forth. Their world in America had not changed. The second thing that happened was a migration. In the 1890s 1880s there were they began in the south a system of brutality that we're all aware of. We know about the KKK and the Knights of the white community and those kinds of things we know about the statistics of twenty five or so hundred negroes were lynched in one way or another from around 1890 to around 1918 as a result of that brutality large numbers of negroes left the South. About two million negroes between eight hundred ninety one thousand twenty and settled in cities in the north.

This added another element a kind of vitality in the coming together of large numbers of people among whom were writers who could then exchange ideas and who retain their connections in the grassroots. But how the Renaissance was and the best known manifestation of this new development. I think first of all that before I go into the house I'm going to start I'd like to talk just one minute more about. The writers who are moving into the Renaissance the writers. Of which Charles just not was one. Sutton Graves was a Negro Baptist minister from Nashville and he wrote a book called imperium in Imperio. And it's a story of a negro who gets together a group of other negroes and attempts to take over the state of Texas to just get the whites out of there and take over the St..

Paul arms Dunbar was also writing at that time. He is more well known as a poet than a novelist but he also was beginning to reflect. There is a feeling among some scholars that he was basically in a very basic way and. He was beginning to reflect some feelings about Negro aesthetics black aesthetics of beauty of blackness the beauty of black rhythms and black music and those kinds of things. His he was able to say these things in his art. He was not able to make the transition into into politics. And so he he was one of the people who remained in the South during this period of great migration and was very strong in telling other negroes don't go to the north don't go to the cities will be destroyed in stay in the south this lovely system here where we all live together in harmony and this remarkably was during this time when about 100 negroes in one way or another in the south.

The boys was also writing during this period and it's one of the things that I've doing some research for this. One of the things that I'm remarkable to boys is that during the times a Harlem Renaissance he was 50 years old. He lived to be 95. He was 50 years old and I was a little shocked at first because he was opposed to the how I'm going to science and he said some very nasty things not only about the negro writers who are now beginning to feel a racial pride but also about Marcus Garvey and he were involved in quite a controversy. And it's startling to see the boys who was involved with it on the one hand in a controversy with Dobby who is a strong nationalist on the other side involved in a controversy with Booker T Washington who is not a strong nationalist in the same sense in the middle of that. But the point the problem is that at this point in his life the voice is no longer a young man he was 50 years old and he's beginning to become a little more conservative. Now I don't know what that says about his later life because as you know he later became very very radical and

a kind of rejuvenation of a sort I guess. But it was interesting to look at him in this in this light. The HOW him innocence began in 1920 or thereabouts. And it was kind of a finding oneself I suppose. You could say. Negro intellectuals who had been moving towards assimilation and not really think of feeling comfortable in that but doing it because this was the only way to make it the only way to become something and to move upward in one way or another. But still not feeling comfortable feeling guilty. Most of the time probably. Now began to turn back into the ghetto. Particularly in Harlem and find. Beauty and straights find all of the elements that any artist need to have to write about. Finding all of those things in the vitality.

Of the ghetto and the vitality of the black community. It's not and this doesn't apply simply to writers there was the Jazz Age began at the same time. And the political movement the Garvey movement began at the same time shortly before the NAACP and the Urban League had begun. So it was a time when the negro intellectuals in a sense were making a decision and were saying. I'm not going to give up everything in order to get the nice comfortable things that the society has to offer. First. And one of the things I'm not going to give up is a social conscience and a desire to help. My people. There are many writers who are significant during the Renaissance. Some for reasons that are not literary some because they are the things that they wrote. First so to speak and some critics critics

negro scholars have been accused of making runs into racial home runs. In this fear because they all take have been accused of taking the smallest accomplishment by negro and magnifying it into some something which it was not so negro riders during this period. Were significant for a number of reasons and those reasons were not always literary. There are a couple there are two people though that I think. There are more than two but there are two which bit discussion today. The first of them is Claude McKay. Claude McKay was a Jamaican and someday someone ought to do an investigation into the influence of Jamaicans in American Negro society because Claude McKay and Stokely Carmichael and Marcus Garvey all were West Indians and had a very strong feeling of racial pride. Claude McKay had a very strong feeling of racial pride and he was very much anti-white.

He was a very cosmopolitan man he traveled a great deal and he was very much influenced by. Various political movements such as Marxist movement. So. In addition to that he over a period of time developed a theory which was very much in opposition to and in a sense resented the white dominant the values of the white dominant society. He said first of all the society is. And he reflected all of this in his in his writings and in his novels and in his poetry particularly. First of all he said that the white society is prejudice and it's full of bigots and full of racial prejudice. He says that he said that there was an over emphasis on commercialism that this society and its attempt to move ahead technologically to build. Physically. Has some where along the way lost some of the humaneness that it might have had.

He said it's full of hypocrisy that people say one thing and mean another. Don't tell the truth. And that's the standard of of every day life. He said that there are there are terrific sex repressions. So much so that they walk the lives of people and make them into perverts. You know in a sense that is not dissent the traditional sense of the word. And he said there was a tremendous crush took toward conformity there were four said in the society something about a society that forces people to conform to very rigid criteria and ways of life and styles of living and he rebelled against all of that in his life and in his writings. There is another writer whose name is Jean Toomer. And those of you who have heard of Claude McKay probably don't have not heard of Jean Toomer but he's a better writer than Clive McKay in the things that he has written his literature was

not well received. And after two novels he retired as a writer. He did write a novel called Kane and he's one of the few Renaissance writers who attempted to get away from the ghetto and to return to the south. And he began a trend that was picked up during the 1930s and he wrote a book called cane which I would I would recommend as one of the the best novels. Written by American century. It ranks equally I think with Alison's book. And with with native signed by right. It's a series of vignettes which And it's hard to describe the book because of that. It's a series of kind of biographies of people in a small town in Georgia where he went to teach school. And it it's in the force of the writing that the book is carried. It also has great strength in that it gets away from the traditional

writing that Negroes were doing it is not in the style of Tom McKay who attempted to reproduce word for word the vernacular that negro spoke in the ghetto. It's a very much an impressionistic book and full of beautiful long passages and things like that. It also contains some of the vernacular. There is one other writer that I'd like to talk about and his name is George Schuyler. He writes for the Pittsburgh Courier. And somebody out there is frowning and nodding. Schuyler is an arch conservative I think he supported Goldwater last time around and he has for the last couple of months been writing diatribes against Okla Carmichael and the young Negro movement Guiler was and was a writer. Schuyler was a radical in the 1930s. He was a communist. He was a shaker and mover.

He wanted things to change quickly and very quickly became disillusioned. But I think this change is significant for this reason. What he wanted most and what I think he really still wants is to be quite in a very real sense has to be get this close to being white as he can. It was for that reason that he joined the Communist Party when given the option of either working or moving in the Harlem community or working and moving with the communists which is which a predominantly white movement he chose the Communist movement. This is a dichotomy that negro writers face and have faced and will face. And if there are several elements to it. One of them is the fact that this society that we live in this country is in many ways a very enticing country and this society is very tightly knit tracks one minute

if a man is intellectual and has the abilities to make money it's a very tempting kind of thing. And the tendency may be to accept many of his values and become uncritical by the siren song that this country sometimes things on the other hand I think that there is among Negroes. A very strong feelings that are anti-white at their base. And I don't mean anti white individuals I mean anti the white system. It seems that to me that it's clear that this country has done things to Negroes that will be a long time. In being eradicated if ever. And a long time being forgotten particularly by Negroes. And so there are these two dichotomies. Negro writers have attempted to deal with them in many ways Baldwin wrote a book that was he said graceless several writers have attempted to do that

and I'm not at all putting your be in the same class with them. The assumption is that by writing a story which is has no racial identifications it will be a more humane story. It will be. Less. Restrictive. It will be universal. I think this is one of the unfortunate results of this dichotomy between the rejection and attractiveness of a white society. There are other manifestations. There are other problems that negro writers had to deal with however. One of them is a problem that many writers in turmoil conditions of turmoil have attempted to deal with and it has to do with the problem of protest versus art. And it's I'm bringing these things up simply to say that these are some of the things that have influenced negro writers and with which negro writers have attempted to deal. The question of whether

a man should when faced when in the midst of a deep social problem. Use his writing ability to alleviate that. The conditions which are very present in the society conditions of great suffering and great inhumanity or whether he should detach himself from those conditions and relegate all of his talents to his art is a question that writers have wrestled with for centuries. I don't think that negro writers have been any more successful in solving it than any other group of writers and I present this simply as another of the many problems that negro writers have had to deal with. I'd like to conclude and open up the floor for questions. We're talking about one book by an African whose name is France Fernando. Fernand has written a book which is not which is for

blacks. I guess that's the best way to describe it. It's a book in which he says I don't give a damn. Fernando is an Algerian. I don't care. I don't give a damn whether one white colonialist one white person in the world understands this book. This is a book which outlines some programmes for action in which he discusses some of the results. Of black nationalism in Africa African nationalism. Some of the things with which black nationalists in Africa will have to deal. It's a book for us. And I think that it's a it's a book that whites however should read and I'm not so concerned with people really really I suppose. The book as I am with the introduction of Paul Sartre has written because he says this that this is a book for white and that whites are going to have to understand begin to understand that Negroes are going to talk among themselves now a great deal and a bigot

are going to begin to have developed their own enhanced their own cultural political and social values in a way that we may not understand. But if we don't understand them the least we can do is leave them alone and not attempt to inhibit them or prevent them from happening. And I think that that introduction to whites will be significant. And I think that the book for Negroes will be significant. I said when I began that I have visions of a world to come. That world is not a world in which everybody looks alike. Acts alike thinks alike. But it is a world in which. People appreciate and esteem the values of other individuals and other groups. Are rejected and resent the notion that negroes must assimilate for our culture to become

a valid and legitimate culture. I was reading in The New York Times two days ago. Someone has done a study of the suicide rate in Washington D.C. among Negroes. It's gone up 165 percent in the last two and a half to three years. Negro suicide rate has always been about since statistics have been compiled one third that of the white suicide rate. This seems to me something that I would want to continue. On the other hand. If entry into this society this white society that we find ourselves the full entry means that we also have to accept the press for conformity. The great tensions for success the great pressure that has to do or works around the sense of duty and a sense of promptness. That I don't want any part of.

If I want to be late tonight I want to be late. I think that these are the kinds of things that go into increasing a suicide rate. And as a writer it's my feeling and I feel very strongly about this that by rejecting our culture or attempting to move to our culture into the the larger white culture totally. It's a literary suicide in a very real sense. It's a it's a suicide that I don't want certainly to take part in and will not and will in everything that I write. Move in exactly the other direction toward strengthening the things that I know about my people towards strengthening the values that I saw in Roxbury as I grew up and the values that I see in Roxbury as I live there now as an adult. I think that however as Baldwin said Art is important but it would not be so important if people were not more important

and people relate in a political way. And although as a as a writer I'm concerned with the salvation of Negro culture and Negro literature and Negro art as Negro culture and. I am also concerned with negro political movements. I think that the country has to recognize this duality of culture. And not place judgments upon it. It has to recognize a duality in political institutions and not place value on their work. It has been of great significance to me in Boston that Operation Exodus of which I am vice chairman has not been able to get funds from the federal government to support its many programs. Despite the fact that the federal government is spending billions of dollars on

various kinds of social and political programs with social and political emphasis it's also of great significance to me that all we always cut off the funds to see DGM in Mississippi. Movements like CDG and Exodus and all I see in Roxbury grassroots community organization which reject the political. Halves. Of the dominant white society and say we want to go out on our own we want to have our own. Way of dispensing social welfare funds. We want to have our control of our own school system. We want to set our own priorities for public housing. Until the federal government begins to recognize negroes who are saying these things then I think that the trend towards riots in the cities frustration at the lack of power in ghettos will increase. And the chance that. There will be this kind of encirclement of ghettos by

police departments grows greater and greater every day. It's for that reason that the notion of black power has great significance to me because I'm aware of the power of words. And I know that the words black power are only words but they are the words that some of us at least some of us who are moving have chosen to use in regards to what we want to do in our communities. People who are white in this society in particular the government must learn to accept and deal with black power and the tendency toward black power and the decision by Negroes that that will be the term that we will use. Must learn to deal with that immediately. And it's because I'm concerned about press preservation of these values. It's because I'm convinced that we can have a system

which has cultural diversity with. Well I'm not really convinced because I'm not sure the country is capable of moving swiftly enough. But it's. It's possible for this to happen for there to be cultural diversity without cultural antagonism. It's for that reason that I think that black power is is so important in education. I want to have in my community the black power to decide what kind of education my children will get. I want to have the black power decide to decide what kind of economic system we're going to have. I want to have the black power to decide what kind of political institutions we want to establish. I want to have the black power to decide what our my community will look like what kind of housing there will be. Those are the kinds of black power that is significant meaningful to me. That's why the word the term black power. Every time I get up every day that I get up becomes more and more significant

because the problems are becoming more and more. Pressing. That's why the term Black Power must be dealt with by people in this room and by the government. And my notion of a different kind of society would be a society in which we would not see the reaction to the two words that we've seen in this country and a society in which art. Would play its proper role. As a prophet. An artist and as a seer and as a setter of. Human possibilities. Thank you. Was. Now I'd like to bring.

Brian back to the podium. I know most of you have questions and probably the first question that many of you have is who is Marcus Garvey and what was he really talking about. Advocate. Questions. Yes. Found on FAA A.N.. I'm sorry Richard. Yes it's called Much of the earth. The question is What role did Langston Hughes play in the Negro Renaissance and what.

Langston Hughes. Well first nights and he was a poet and essayist. He's a poet who is the essayist in this role who has created the role of just simple. He evolves out of the Harlem Renaissance philosophy that. Negro writers should be writing about the folk. And so he created a character whose name is just be simple actually just be simple be translatable to just just be simple just be what you are. I don't think that he has had a great influence. On negro writers. And I'm not sure what the reasons are. I think that one reason that it is he is very much of an individual this kind of writer. He did not

really break new ground but was simply much better at doing what other writers were trying to do. At the same time. I don't think that he created any new patterns really except that the breadth of his his talent primitive him to express things that others were trying to express in a much better way. It does appear however from some research that I've heard about and I haven't read that he did have has had quite an influence on African writers. Lankes is one of those it was a romantic. Essentially and and performed a very romantic artistic poetic. Act. And when he was I think twenty one to twenty two years old he had been writing for some time in college and he had lots of things that he had written and he began to look at them and I guess became disgusted with them and decided he's going to go

to Africa wash out his past you know intellectualizing and begin again. And so he got. A. Ticket on a tramp tramp steamer and as it seem a pulled out of New York Harbor he took all of this. Literature everything that he had written which apparently is quite a bit of stuff and threw it overboard. And said I'm going to begin again and he went to Africa and began to write all over again. But while he was there he did meet. And also while he was in Paris did meet African writers upon whom he had some effect. Africans intellectual Africans have many of the same hang ups that Negroes have because they have been been brought up under under a colonial system which is. Tends to force Western values on them. And when Langston went there and he was at a point in his life he was feeling very nationalistic and very very a great deal of racial pride and strong

connections with Africa and with his roots in the in the south. And when he went to Africa he began to talk about this to Africans and was able to kind of direct communication. Influence a couple of Africans at least. With this feeling of racial pride and black nationalism and black solidarity. So if that is I answer any other questions. Yes. I think that that's a very significant controversy although the globe and others attempt to demean it. The controversy is this. The question is would I comment on the Huckleberry Finn controversy and that controversy is that a group of students at University of Massachusetts mostly Negroes have protested against a

class in literature I think in which they are asked to read Huckleberry Finn with the characterizations of Negroes. The defense says something like this is great literature. And Jim comes out in the end is a very strong courageous and humane person. And I think that the accusation is that whites are not ready to see the humaneness in the courage in Jim and what they see is a gross caricature of who simply carries forward for them all of the stereotypes that they have about Negroes. Well I agree. I agree with you in a sense both points of view. I agree that Jim is a human person. If you have the ability to see the humanness in him I also agree that most whites are not at this point ready to ready to see that humane. But another point that was made by the students at UMass. Interest me more directly to what we're talking about more directly the

fact that very little real good literature is taught in schools and students simply are not exposed to any of the things that we have. We have mentioned tonight I think that I would be less wary of students receiving Huckleberry Finn if I were sure that some of these things that they had talked about. That we have talked about had gone had gone into their educational experience prior to that time. And so I think that the my my opinion would be that that they are right and that they should not be forced to read Huckleberry Finn and education America all of it has to be revamped and this is just one small part. And that kind of literature should not be given to students who are not prepared for it. Yes.

As a writer Sammy Davis Jr. is a good dancer. I do think however that his book yes I can. Is interesting in the same way that Claude Brown's book Manchild in the Promised Land is is interesting and instructive and should be read because it does tell people about the problems that Negroes. Had during the war. The racial problems that the negroes had to face during the war. And it does it is able despite the literary weaknesses to to get across the intenseness of. The intense way in which negroes feel about being colored and the hour by hour and minute by minute pressure that is upon

negroes when dealing in a white society to be on guard and. Aware and defensive in a sense. Yes. Yes having opinions about William Calley who is a contemporary he's my age and he's written to a different drummer. Two other novels in a book of essays. William Kelly is his name. It's very hard to comment on a person who is contemporary with you because judgement is lacks perspective. But I would say that he has is not an amateur novelist yet. I think that he has really great ideas here.

For example his book A Different Drummer has to do with Negroes just leaving the south and leaving all the white flight and that's a really nice idea you know nice kind of anti-social approach to a novel. But I don't think that. As a novelist he's mature. Yes. And he has a question. I have no idea. I think those that. I know of in negro colleges it's very widespread. And in this regard negro colleges provided better in terms of Negro history and Negro literature this kind of thing negro colleges tend to provide a better education than white colleges. But even in white colleges where it is tight I'm concerned about who they are which authors are selected as examples

of Negro literature and and for what reasons. So I danced the question said I don't know what kind of. Courses are available in colleges I know that I went through Northeastern University. I got I got really a lousy education without ever having read a negro writer or. Are you a European writer. Now that may have been a hangover from from World War 2 that we none of us are you know German novels were simply not being read after World War 2. But I did not I did not read it as a novel by a negro in my education my formal education. Yes. And you know on a very superficial level I do some work at a place called Educational Services Incorporated and we're working on some curriculum in Negro history

which is being tested in a couple of Roxbury schools and we hope eventually to be able to get into those and into more schools in Roxbury but know that there is no intensive program to getting good literature of this kind into the schools in Roxbury or into the public schools in Boston. Yes. The question is what is my opinion about integrated primers for young children. I think that Mike. I mean I'm in favor of integrated primers with one bit of reservation. I'm interested in getting some realism into schools so I'm not interested in getting premis into the schools which show middle class negroes living in Wellesley for example which seems to be the tendency most of the integrated primas simply take Dick and Jane and paint them brown. I don't think that that's a fair representation of our culture.

So what I have seen a couple of problems however that do give a fair representation of of our culture and those you know I'd say yes get them into the schools but the other things you might as well just leave I'm white but. My wife would know the name. She's educated. Well the one from the one from San Francisco and in the Bank Street the Chandler series. Yeah. Yeah. That's the skyline series. Who put you who.

Who and who publishes that you know. Yeah. McGraw-Hill Yes. I believe in free access. I believe in it. In this society. We ought to be working towards free access so that a person can go wherever he wants. Without harassment and without fear. From my kind of observation and from the only good piece of research that I'm aware of. Negroes are most Negroes are not interested in the simulating or moving to the suburbs. Tufts University did a survey from 1968 in 1955 and they

interviewed 150 families who said something like 5000 to 20000 dollars a year people who would be able to move into the suburbs as they wanted to. They interviewed them in 1960 and they said are you going to move to the suburbs. They had to view them in 1965 and said Why haven't you moved or why have you moved and they found out that something like 72 percent initially said they didn't want to move. And in fact didn't and maybe 15 percent said they did want to move and in fact did and the rest said I don't know. And and those also stayed in the ghetto. So. I'm interested in providing free access for people who want to move out. But it seems to me that most Negroes are uninterested in that. But I. So what are we going to do about the conditions in Roxbury where most Negroes want to live. Seems to me we have to provide some alternatives now I'm all for busing program so that people who want to get their kids into integrated

situations. But one of them in Roxbury can do that. More importantly however since most Negroes apparently do want to live among their own. More importantly we have to begin to meet the needs of of the ghetto. And in order to do that we have to as I say we I mean the country and particularly the government which has all the money begin to recognize grass roots movements in ghettos. And to fund those programs that people in the grassroots feel are of priority to them. It's a mansion. Right. Yes. There are several bibliographies that are available now and I guess the one that I would suggest is Elizabeth Miller's book called I think the Negro in America

writers and Negro in American history. I guess that's what it's called and it's it's just published by Harvard University Press. And it has a section on fiction and it includes all of the people that I mentioned I believe. Yes. Right. I think it's a problem. A question of semantics. I think I speak two languages and

it's like it's if as if I were a French woman and I came here and had an accent and sometimes use the wrong word and sometimes said knew what I meant something I don't speak French when I meant something that was not quite that. I do in fact speak two languages. Most Negroes do in fact speak two languages and sometimes we get our languages mixed up. And I to so I say I think it's a problem of semantics. I don't when I say we I don't always mean the country as a whole. Sometimes I do and that's why sometimes I have to stop and explain that in this particular reference my my word refers to whatever it is. But I bet that doesn't sadden me a bit to tell you the truth I mean it seems to me that if I were came here and I spoke French in English that would be considered a detriment to be bilingual. You know it's been say that it's a great thing to have. And the more languages you can speak the more educated you are considered. And I consider myself more educated because I speak two languages.

Here was. And.

That. Night. That.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah yeah. Why. First I'd like to say first that the more I submitted to title the voiceless rage perhaps a month ago so for posters and public

publicity reasons the more I thought about it the more I realized that it was not an appropriate title. Because the rage is not voiceless. The rage is unheard. And so I'd like to make that amendment to start with. I think that the rage is expressed. Probably more eloquently. Our rage the rage of our people more eloquently than the rage of any. Group or of the country as a whole against the kinds of things that the kinds of tendencies the pressures to conform and so forth. But it is not considered a legitimate range or the means of expression and not considered legitimate. And it is not therefore heeded or heard or understood. I think that we as a group do provide some answers to some of the problems which are certainly human problems that we do have answers to some of those problems and they relate to our style

of life. They relate to our slave history and they relate to our African past. I think that. Western society which has certainly moved. With enormous technological rapidity towards something. Has made some sacrifices in order to move with that rapidity in order to build its big buildings in order to have progress at that rate. And I think that you know trying to answer this first in general terms and then I'll get down this Pacific. I think that since negroes in this country did not participate in this technology but it's a matter of fact we're usually the the most suffering victims of the technology.

That negroes were not. Able to participate in that those. Steps of progress. Specifically. There are some people who are getting together now trying to set up an independent private experimental school in Roxbury. Education is a very crucial issue in this country and in any country the education of that country's children. Children in this country educated along certain lines that lead to things like. Competition duty promptness. Conformity and maybe there's a list of words that three or four times isn't but that's a tendency I would. My feeling is that the school that we set up in Roxbury and I'm trying to to show you by example ways in which I think we can bring different approaches to these problems. The

school that we serve will be something like this. There will be no bounds. To designate class times. I don't know maybe somebody doing this already. So maybe I'm like that ever again. There will be no bells. Children will learn to count. It seems to me that there are other better ways to learn to count than by rote and that's been proven. But children will learn to count negroes. By learning to dance or by using the dance the dance is a very significant element in the young life of ghetto children. It seems to me that what a school should do is draw upon these. Elements of a lifestyle to educate so that a child will learn to count in order to learn steps. To advance in order to analyze a dance one must count. And I think it's a very simple thing for an educator to devise a curriculum which would use a dance for mathematics for physics. What is a body but a better machine for chemistry I think would be a very simple thing.

I also think that that music could be used for some of those same things learning rhythms learning to count by analyzing rhythms and things like that. So I'm what I'm saying is that by using the example of the school. We do have a kind of lackadaisical thing about time. Some people say that it goes back to Africa where they have a same kind of time. This is always been considered a detriment and the proper negroes always said well they're lazy shiftless and they don't care. Responsible seems to me that's a very nice kind of way to live to be irresponsible. That's what. Probably most white Americans would love to do to be irresponsible to not have to be in X place at 9:00 in the morning in another place at 10:00 to have a much more relaxed lackadaisical sense about time and promise and duty and responsibility and conformity to be more individualistic. I think that what for example Ralph

Ellison tells people is that. Racism in this country has tried to destroy him and his individuality in the same way. And this is where our Alison becomes universal in the same way that the society and the machines and the technology. Have tended to destroy the individuality of everybody. And I think we have these things to offer to the society and I'm not concerned with provincialism. As long as we can universal. As long as we can make it applicable to wider human goal. Now I have not thought this out a great deal. I've only begun to think probably because I'm still young. But I'm sure that as I grow and grow and mature and as I learn and see things around me more and more evidences this is not a

very scientific approach. More and more evidences of this. Or potential will reveal themselves. Thank you Arwa.