The Negro in America Society; 1; Old World of Negro Americans, The: Willard T. Johnson

The negro in American society. Our difficulty is not the fact that we don't know about the Old World the Negro Americans or the connections between it and the achievements of our own dynamic age. Our trouble is the fact that so many people are so sure that there never was or is such a world or nothing about which could be relevant to our own. The greatest part of our problem I think is that we confront each other as black and white American. And indeed as we confront the rest of the world ignorant of just who we are. Lester Maddox has said for example that a single drop of negro blood can set a person back 3000 years. But when you consider that all of mankind began in Africa. As the skeletal remains of being found in Tanzania today tell us then all of us. White or black are at least partly African.

What are the facts then about the old world of Negro Americans. And what shall we make of them once we know what they are. The negro in American society six studies by eminent negro scholars and personalities tracing the history of the American negro from the time of the African experience to the present day. Tonight part one. Willard T Johnson looks at the old world of Negro Americans recorded from the Patrick J Campbell High School in Dorchester. The first meeting of the community lecture series is opened by Chairman Hubert Jones. Welcome. To the first lecture. Of the community lecture series. On the Negro in American society. I know. Many of you have heard all about the series but I'd like to tell you that this is a co-operative educational program.

Sponsored by organizations in both Roxbury and Newton. And I like to read the names of the sponsoring organizations so you all know who they are. In Roxbury the American Friends Service Committee the Boston National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The Blue Hill Christian Center. The Bay State Banner. The Catholic interracial Council. Freedom House. The hill top Santa the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity better known as Medco the New England grassroots organization better known as Negro. Operation Exodus the Roxbury multiservice center. And St. Joseph's Church. In Newton. The community parents organization the First Unitarian Society in West Newton the League of Women Voters the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The South Middlesex chapter.

The new committee for Fair Housing and Equal rights. Than. The Newton committee for Operation Exodus. The Newton Medco Coordinating Committee the Newton Rasbora Newton Freedom School. St. Bernard Church Temple Shalom the voice of women and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. My name is Huey Jones and I have the the honor of serving as chairman for the community lecture series. I like to tell you a little bit about the purpose of the series. But before that I think you can see by the number of organizations that we have representing here that we this is a significant event. I think the number of organizations from Roxbury that have come together to sponsor the series. Is another indication of the growing potential for unity in this community. I think the number of organizations from Newton who have come together to sponsor this with organizations from Roxbury indicates the potential for building bridges between the black ghetto.

And the predominately white suburbs. The purpose of the community lecture series is to provide a better understanding of contemporary events. The presentation of the history of the Negro in America. To expose the Negro in Roxbury communities the Newton and Roxbury communities. To outstanding negro intellectuals. Who have made substantial contributions to America. To develop an awareness that the true history of the Negro in America. Has been excluded from educational curricula and from the consciousness of white America. To stimulate an interest in pursuing further reading and study on ethnic aspects of American history. And to provide an opportunity. For people from Newton in Roxbury. To share a significant educational experience we think we have provided. The framework. Or the structure. For a very valuable educational experience.

We are very fortunate tonight to have as our first lecturer Dr. Willett Johnson from MIT. Dr Johnson was born on November 22nd nineteen thirty five in St. Louis Missouri. He resided in Alabama in Pasadena California and he attended the public schools of in Alabama and in and in California. His undergraduate collegiate study was undertaken at UCLA. Where he received a B.A. degree in international relations in 1957. He later received a master's degree in African studies from John Hopkins University of Advanced International Studies in 1961 in 1965 Dr. Johnson received a doctorate a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. He spent the year 1963 in the Republic of the Cameroon engaged in

research for his doctoral dissertation. He has made many brief research visits to Nigeria Ghana Liberia Guinea and Senegal during the summer of 1961. Dr. Johnson was a leader of an operation crossroads AFRICA team to the Republic of Guinea. He has been the recipient of numerous scholarships and awards including the John Hay Whitney opportunity fellowship in 1962. He has written several articles which have been published about African political integration and is currently writing a book on the subject. Dr. Johnson as a young man. A young scholar and many of us believe that the time he's 40 years of age will probably be probably be one of the leading authorities in this country on Africa. Presently as I said before he is the assistant professor of political sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and he resides in Cambridge with his wife Vivian who's here tonight.

And his two daughters. It is my great pleasure to introduce to you as our first lecturer Dr. Woolley Johnson. Thank you. I'm fine. I'm going to start this discussion of the history of the Negro in America by in fact going outside America and talking about the history of the negro and what I call the Old World. Africa. And I entitle this note for sons of natives. How extraordinary it is that we are here tonight after all around the world great events are taking place new feats are being achieved that in their magnitude and in their power. And their costs.

Surpass anything that's ever been done before. And the American branch of mankind seems particularly daring and dynamic in these days. We fight a war again. For example hurling bombs screaming through the tired air to splatter their scorching death on both enemy and friend soldier and civilian. Man and Woman adult and child alive. All this to save a people from themselves even if it costs. The life of every the enemy. Overhead astronauts walked around the earth in less time than it will take me to have my say here tonight. No doubt this nation intends to keep pushing out from this tiny space ship that is Earth conquering the secrets and gigantic reaches of all around us. Even if it costs the well-being of everyone of the 35 million

Americans so it is indeed extraordinary that we've taken the time in the midst of this new world bursting forth from such great and captivating events. To talk about the lives and deeds of obscure men in far off old world places many years ago but I think that I do more than simply flatter myself to suggest to you that the time and the effort that we'll spend together will be worth it. This is so not simply because most of us are ignorant. About the things. Of which I'll speak for indeed we have a great deal more than ignorance to overcome. One of the sayings that has come down the Negro folk literature states the following. It ain't the things you don't know what gets you in the trouble it's the things you know for sure.

What ain't so. Our difficulty is not the fact that we don't know about the Old World and the girl Americans or the connections between it and the achievements of our own dynamic age. Our trouble is the fact that so many people are so sure that there never was or is such a world or nothing about it which could be relevant to our own and the greatest part of our problem I think is that we confront each other as black and white Americans and indeed as we confront the rest of the world ignorant of just who we are. America is it really that you're so rich and so powerful and so technologically advanced so ubiquitous throughout the world simply because God shed his grace on thee. Well certainly many super patriots would have us think so. But as we confront the forces of other ideologies. We see ourselves as a

symbol in the thin air of a more mass tradition. Something that some people call Western or European civilization. And as we disperse our eager and self-confident young people throughout the world the poorer areas of the world. We see ourselves the carriers of a more grand and revolutionary lifestyle something that we call modernity. Rational progressive. Unprecedentedly productive. We seem to think that the others the world natives of the world. Savage and uncivilized must adopt this our way. If they wish to rise to within our science. What is it more important to be than American. WESTERN. Or modern. Or are these really all synonymous terms. Can one really be American without being Western or modern or both. Can one be truly modern without being American. These are the

questions we ask ourselves. And indeed we are torn by doubts and dilemmas. When we look outward at the rest of the world and when we look inward at our own people. Some of the American people are obviously not Western in the sense of being European. Very few middle class white Americans or even black Americans. Can see themselves but for the grace of God and the negro tenant farmers. Of Alabama Mississippi. Some Americans. Some American Negroes at any rate. Seem so brash asked to reject Western standards as irrelevant or even degrading to their own. Can they be recognized as Americans. Or must they all take on the ways of the European. His books. His walk. His talk his thoughts. His principles and his prejudices. And those who are mindful of the distinctiveness of the American way of life.

And of its position as a most powerful and productive society ever organized by man. Seem to feel threatened at home and abroad. Why is this so. They become an easy afterthought of a world in such a state of change with deeply affronted peoples pushing. For a place in the glorious sun of twentieth century man. But pushing on their own terms and not on ours. They seem fearful these defenders of the American way of the growing cultural and political assertiveness of black or brown or even red Americans. At home. No doubt the fearful Americans believe that our way of life is threatened. Because there is only so much of it. And if new groups of prior some of it. Then obviously older groups. Must lose some of it. If whites define America to be European. And or modern. Then what will become of that when non Europeans. Sons of uncivilized

natives. Become a functioning and powerful part of it. All some of them say. And indeed I've heard this. If only they could all look and act like Edward W. brook. Then we could call them honorable. Well obviously the great bulk of black Americans will find it impossible. To closely identify with the Honorable Edward W. broke. And I think that it is our task. To make it unnecessary for them to do so. I'm suggesting that we have an identity crisis and I think that identity is an exceptionally difficult concept. For Americans. We. We know that to have identity for example certainly to assert it is to be distinctive in some kind of way. To stand out from all else. To have certain characteristics that make one recognizable.

Thus we see that identity as some kind of market different. But what we fail to grasp it seems is that identity is also a mark of similarity. Identity affirms the existence of a thing. And thus it denotes the fact. That it shares the common experience of being. To emphasize distinct distinctiveness in a thing. Is to indicate that there are other things with which it might be confuse. And thus to insist on the distinctiveness of Western civilization. Is in fact to recognize the existence. Of non-western civilizations. From which one must may wish to distinguish it. Now some student. Of history at least. Seemed to insist upon writing civilization with a capital C implying that there is only one civilization. And beyond that of course implying

that ours is that one. But it would seem to me that this is merely another way of saying then that ours must be derived. From all the others that preceded it. Unless we are trying to assert that somehow western civilization was grown. Was born full grown. Like the like the Negro folk hero John Henry. Full grown then. The day that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Other students of history are no time in towing be as one. Insist upon righting civilization with a small c to denote the fact that history record. Many civilizations. But what is important for us tonight. Is the tendency for Western historians even toing be. To exclude the negro from either one of these two approaches. To regard negroes either as utterly devoid. Of any tradition of civility of their own or worse yet as being incapable of assimilating the traditions of others.

Our problem is. That such racists taken ethnocentricity views remain so effective. In shaping our public attitude is. Causing people to fear negro pride in their own distinctiveness. And to oppose negro claims for power in their own community and control over their own lives. At least to the extent that the democratic system grants power and control to any locality. This reflects I think of criminal negligence. In the study and writing of history. And in the teaching of it in our schools and through the mass media. What are the facts then about the old world of Negro Americans. And what shall we make of them once we know what they are. All on a student. Know for example. That Egypt was a great civilization. Those who believe that civilization is all of a single piece. Must

therefore place Egyptian civilization along with the Samarian. At the very source of our own way of life. And indeed those who approach the study of civilization differently. Must see the Gyptian civilization as a remarkable achievement unto itself and indeed most people do. In. Other civilizations coming later will either emulate Egyptian. Or have to discover a new. The use of writing. Especially writing with an alphabet they would have to invent an accurate calendar and thus also a sophisticated astronomy they would have to establish an extensive and stable political system capable. Of making a grand enterprise of Agriculture. And of providing the security and order necessary for grand our architectural. And engineering theories. For this in turn they would need a knowledge of geometry. They would have to devise a religious system capable of satisfying knowledgeable people and providing an acceptable explanation

for the mysteries of nature. And all of that is accepted. But what does it have to do with negro. Well just who were the objections. William Langer who. Has written the monumental encyclopedia of world history. States that the ancient Egyptians were a mixture of several stops. And then goes on to say. But they are to be ascribed to the quote Mediterranean race and quote. Such an inscription is as arbitrary as it is convenient. A mixture of what stocks. He doesn't say. What are we to make of the fact then that of these some eight hundred odd skulls and skeletal remains. Of Ancient Egyptians even Delta Egypt sions who come from the area at the mouth of the Nile. Surely in the Mediterranean. Are of the negroid type.

And indeed as one mounts the Nile. Into the area of Upper Egypt. One will confront. People who have less and less similarity to Mediterranean peoples. The people who are indeed even today very very dark. And certainly were much more so. 5000 years ago. This is still not today or even Then what one would call black Africa. Or as the Greeks called it Ethiopia. However these deeply tanned peoples of the delta. And these brown people of New Bia. And the black people further south were all known to each other. And there was extensive interaction and borrowing and giving and into marrying. Among them from the earliest time zone. Indeed it's not necessary for us to conjecture about the Egyptians from spurious categories of head types. One of the achievements of that remarkable people.

It was the fact that they have their pictorial and plastic arts. Utilize a very rich array of pigmentation. And depicted features with extraordinary naturalism. So what did the Egyptians themselves think they look like. Well I want to show you a few examples. This is in fact one of the. Mediterranean types from the Delta area of Egypt. This is. Prince's. Nephrotic. From medium who ruled in the fourth dynasty. The next picture. However. Shows you her husband. Who in fact. In this particular instance was seated. Immediately next to her. And. Represents I think I mean a remarkably similar. Reminiscent. Pattern. Of mixtures of.

African and Mediterranean stock that we find today in Puerto Rico for example. What about the Egyptians of the upper Kingdom. Well the next picture will show you. What. The most famous of them. A very young king who took the throne at the age of seven and died at the age of 18. It looked like his name. To the outcome of. His tone provided one of the most magnificent collection of Egyptian art artisan RI we know of. And he rules. Egypt from CVS as part of the 18th dynasty. Now who would think of degrading and humiliating a man so splendidly depicted. Obviously his was a munificent. Culture. Yet it is worth asking whether he could have bought a fried chicken dinner from Lester Maddox.

Is he a white Mediterranean man. Well let's look again. Here he is represented surely enough in a white skin. But that's due to the medium. This is carved in Alabaster which is naturally white. But the features are becoming. Reminiscent. Well let's look again in glorious technicolor. And see what he looks like. When he Gyptian is applied pigmentation. This is the same man to Tom Thumb and. A bust of him that have showed the ages. But clearly depicts. His color. And in fact. There's another picture of him. With his wife. That. Reveals. A bit more of. Not only his color but his features.

Well these then are Langer's Mediterranean. Now if there is any doubt about it. We could now add. That. That To not the man was at least half new being. On his maternal side. And indeed too little head is said in the histories of Egypt the role of the Nuvi it played in Egyptian history. Newbie a figure very centrally in the various phases of that story. It provided many of the soldiers for the Empire and provided much of its meat and oil. And it provided a number of his rulers. Nuclear was an important trading center because it had contact with the lands to the south and to the west. The land of Cush. What may be today Ethiopia or at least the southern part of the Sudan. In fact all of this in the northern part of the Sudan and into the area of Ethiopia. Which is on the right side of that map. You know. You know these places.

And it had trading contacts with China and India as a matter of fact through. The trade routes through kush. Which are through punch rather P U N T which probably referred to the area that is is now Ethiopia and Somalia. From these places for example came the MER in the frankincense. Which the wise man brought to the Christ Jesus. Some of the most splendid Egyptian temples and monuments are to be found the Nuvi and an example is Abu Simbel. Which the collective effort of the nations of the world has just saved from the waters rising. Back of the eye damn it aswell. Surely the new View was an important part of Egypt. But was it part of Negro land. Well I don't think it's begging the question to say that the answer to that question depends on what you mean by negro. For those who apply

science to the Study of Race the newbie ends were not negro. But then hardly anyone else in Africa is Negro. Science is in fact coming to reject race as anything but a social idea. At the very best. We can simply identify something called a negro boy or Caucasoid or Mongoloid type. Which have more or less pure representations. Around the world. And in these terms in surely newbie and who are part in a very large part negro. Lester Maddox has said for example that a single drop of negro blood can set a person back 3000 years. Well were that to be true. The newbie and even Delta. Would still be tadpoles swimming around the shores of the NA. The new beings were certainly utterly and entirely African. They derive from a stock that had never been anywhere else as far as I know. But when you consider that

all of mankind began in Africa. As a sculptor. The skeletal remains have been found in Tanzania today tell us then all of us. White or black are at least partly African. Lester Maddox had better watch out. Because obviously then we're all tadpoles. The new Vians were certainly a dark and very dark people as we've seen. And. We have. Some indication. Of this. In. The Egypt representation of newbie and soldiers. The soldiers who are probably pressed into military service to the fin the Delta area of Egypt. From the Libyans in the Hittites around 2000 years before the birth of Christ. These are newbie and soldiers now my question is could they expect any of them to get a decent education in any school system led by Louise they head.

Well in fact in Egypt many of them did get a good education. They were pressed as I said into military service but many of them rose to be important military figures. A great number of them in fact. Were educated along with the sons. Of. Lower Egypt and princes. This is still in the Old Kingdom of Egypt. And some of them in fact finally came in fact to be instructors of those sons of. The Lower Egypt. Francis. The. Area of new BIA was in fact conquered by Lower Egypt. In the first dynasty. But it was in new BIA that the center. Of the Egyptian political system. Lay. And it was from. That area that he had acquired his greatness. As an empire.

And indeed. From the 18th Dynasty on. New BIA was a dominant influence in the Empire. As indicated by the. Life of Queen tee. Who was the mother. Of. The Pharaoh Tutankhamun that we've already seen. And the wife of Pharaoh. I'm in the office the third. Who was Pharaoh at the height of the new kingdom. 20 you was Gar 5 as no other the different Queen had been. Except perhaps Queen had ships it. And only during the times of Queen. Did the artists. Of Egypt depict. Only the Queen and the princes is leaving out the male officials and altogether. He is obviously a newbie and of extraordinary beauty. And I think most Americans. This by the way is carved wood painted.

To reveal her color. To be found in the museum of Berlin. I think most Americans would call this a negro woman. The. There is a bust of another newbie in princes which I'd like to show you which reveals even more strongly. The African influences even more strongly. The features of newbie end. OK. I want to turn then to the question of what Egypt sions thought of the rest of Africa. And the land of truly black Africa. They were close there was close contact. Between. Bush. And Egypt. Egypt now meaning both new and lower Egypt. At least from. The year five one thousand five hundred twenty five before Christ. Which was during the reign of two most is the first. Because we have written records

of. Trade contacts from. His Rome. And we know that kush was indeed quite wealthy in the products that Egypt needed such as ebony wood. And leopard and other animal skins ivory. Ostrich feathers and eggs copper sealing wax. Product call red ochre. Amazon stone which is the. I think the blue stone you see in late. In some of the sculptures giraffes. Other exotic animals. But most importantly it was a source of gold. Bush was the center of a trading network I've already indicated that reached to the west all the way to Lake Chad. And those trading routes also reached South. From push. Through Somalia. To the coast. Bush was subjugated by Egypt during the reign of say newsreel at the first

which was about. As long before Christ as our day is after. But kush rebel several times enjoyed sporadic episodes of Independence. And indeed throughout its long life it was very heavily influenced by Egyptian culture that made its own contributions to Egyptian culture. When King Solomon ruled in the in years Rajel. And Queen of Sheba. Which the Bible describes as black but comely. And when the Queen of Sheba made her famous visit to the realm of Solomon and indeed gave birth. Thereof to the first Solomon IC dynasty of which has ruled Ethiopia off and on ever since. At that time kush made his final break from the Egyptian control. And developed great strains. As the rest of Egypt became subject to Libyan influences and Hittite influences on the code.

A bit later pushed subjugated first new BIA or Upper Egypt. And then in fact liberated Lower Egypt from. The Hittites. And gave to Egypt to the Egyptian restored the Egyptian empire and gave to it its 25th dynasty. Now given the intimacy between the three areas Lower Egypt Upper Egypt and kush. I think placing the rule of the question Emperor within the context of general Ethiopian history by calling it the 25th dynasty is appropriate. Bush was deeply influenced by Gyptian culture but it was not altogether itself Egyptian. It had a distinct culture of its own. For example it developed its own writing and in fact it had both a hieroglyphic form in a cursive script form writing which remains under ciphered in modern times and the papa. Was the northern

first capital of course and yet being closer to Egypt was obviously revealed much more Egyptian influence. But the center of course is culture and commerce was the city of Merril way and Mehra way developed into one of the early industrial centers based on the working of iron in tropical Africa. This was stimulated by the defeat of Egypt by the Assyrians in biblical time. But it probably was not inspired. By that. It seems that Marilee was working on even before marriage was an important center for the worship of the sun god and this cult was of extreme importance in Egypt where this god was once and initially depicted as a glow. But later took on the ironic form of a ram more akin to its form use in

Kush and the Egyptian reference to the black lands to the south that you find in a number of its engraved temples as the land of our gods. That is to say the Egyptians referred to the southern lands as the land of their gods the origin of their gods. This may indicate that it was from place that in fact Egypt borrowed the RAM as a symbol for the sun god and then the attempt to introduce the Sun God our moon as the only god in Egypt. May account for the importance that cushion knew via sources of this great gulf. The importance they play in Egyptian development. In any case it's clear that the relationship between the sun worshippers in place and those in Egypt was intimate. Now it may well be that it was Egypt that influenced course. But if that was all we're not sure. There's every reason to believe just the reverse.

It's clear that the influence was carried by Christians themselves since the only. Artist and he Gyptian influences. In cush were limited to political overseers during the time that Bush was part of the Empire. And indeed in the twenty third Dynasty Bush was ruler of all of Egypt. And perhaps it was the rulers of kush or some of its important families at least that carried the Gyptian newbie and pushed influence deep in the tropical Africa following the defeat of their kingdom by oxen or what is today Ethiopia. Such influence is evidence in the styles and methods used in the artwork and in certain aspects of the cosmetology of tropical African peoples. As well as in aspects of their political organization and in their folk legends about their own origin. Not long after the fall of kush for

example there sprang up in the area near Lake Chad an important culture among what were called on are now called the SOL people and they sculpture it in this period using the lost wax method which had been so highly developed. In Egypt and Kush perhaps they learned these techniques from the cushion perhaps in fact the SOL work could. We don't know but we do know is that 1000 years after the Sahel people in the 13th century A.D. this same technique would be developed to absolute perfection among the Ethiopian Bane in peoples of what is today Nigeria and indeed among the barman peoples of present day Cameroon. Another feature of tropical African culture that is reminiscent of Egypt and kush is the idea of divine kingship which is to be found throughout West and Central Africa. One bit of evidence that this may reflect Gyptian influences is that it

is often it often occurs in the société Sion with the use of the ram. As a symbol of kingly authority. I have a couple of pictures of RAM. Figures from places as far away as the Yorba country in Nigeria Western Nigeria and from the Baquba peoples in the Congo. These two symbols. Represent in the tribal areas the authority of the King and are associated with the tradition of divine kingship. Similar practices are to be found all across western central Africa among such diverse groups as a man dingo in Mali. The ballet and Ivory Coast the fon and da homie. Finally we have the talk that the the folk legends about the origins of African peoples throughout West and Central Africa and these often mention an early

migration from the east and in some cases Egypt or at least the middle Nile is mentioned specifically. This occurs precisely among the peoples from whom most of the blacks in North America were taken as slaves. For example the orrible who inhabit what used to be called the slave codes they trace their origins to the middle Nile and they. They think themselves that they migrated between the 7th and the 10th centuries to their present location in Nigeria. Some writers are careful to point out that these many stories throughout West Africa may simply reflect influences rather than actual derivation. But either way it indicates that the inner It indicates something of the interaction of African peoples and the diversity of their cultures and physical types. Nothing could be more absurd than the notion that all Africans even quite black Africans look alike. The stereotype of Negro features that we're familiar with in

this country are often to be found even in this country. But. Just as the stereotype of Anglo-Saxon American stereotype can also be found on occasion but always within a quite varied context and this is certainly true in Africa the magnificent sculptures of each day and they need to reflect this. And of course they reflect also all the level of artistic achievement worthy of world know. That those people achieve. Consider them then from this dual aspect both for what they depict of the culture and its level of artistic achievement as well as for what they tell us about what the people look like what their features were in the varieties that one can find among them. And the first that we shall see is the terra cotta our fired clay sculpture from ether one of the earliest cultures to develop in the area of what is now.

Nigeria. There is hardly. A stereotyped American Negro feature. We have another example from the fair. This one of Ron. Sculptured by the lost wax process that I mentioned before developed in Egypt and pushed reveals to some people a slight resemblance to leaven. I have another example of if a bronze work. Also produced by the lost wax process. Which looks remarkably Oriental. In fact this is one of the finest pieces of lost wax bronze casting in

existence anywhere. These all date from the 16th century. I'd also like to show you a number of carvings from neighboring Bay Nein who learned their techniques of sculpture from. The ether Europa. And who produced an empire that I will talk about in a few minutes of considerable magnitude. This is a carved ivory from a name its date I'm not familiar with I believe it's 17th century but I'm not sure of that. Some of you in the audience may know it's a quite famous piece and it's a style. That. Is very distinctive of that area at that particular time fine. There are number of pieces quite similar to this one is located in the museum of primitive art for example in New York.

Well. These sculptures represent the artistic side of what was also an impressive and impressive political achievement in the forest regions of West Africa. Now a large scale State Building is obviously very difficult enough enough for situation and yet the euro and the Eidos speaking peoples established city states and even the empires of considerable size and power statecraft began among the euro about anything as I mentioned. But we still know little of that tradition until it flowered and a name which began to become large and powerful between the 10th and the 12th centuries. It reached its apex of political and cultural development three centuries later though there were brief periods of republican government. They needed was built upon a deeply rooted tradition of divine kingship again

recalling. The Gyptian and cushioned prototype. And indeed this subject was made no doubt by the earliest Portuguese visitors who had some similar pretensions at home. In fact intimate contacts developed between the Portuguese and brainy as they would also between Portugal in the kingdom of Congo to the south. In what is now Belgian Congo at the mouth of the Congo River in the northern part of Angola. A lively trade developed between the Portuguese and they name in copper and coral silks and firearms which the bay need brought up in return for pepper at first and then slaves in great quantity. The Portuguese assisted by name to conquer some of its own neighbors that is to say some of the names neighbors and in return the king of the name pay Portugal the tribute of ordering his own sons to become Christian.

They name was part of the evil civilization. It had a highly developed and distinctive artistic tradition. It had a stable and quite powerful state. It had an urban tradition and a distinctive and well ordered religious system. They named City which was its cultural political and commercial center was one of the few large towns to have a reason in a forest area anywhere. A Dutch visitor to the city in the 17th century said of it and I quote from where I was lodged which was as much as a corner our. HUMINT wall. From the gate. I still could not see any into the street the main thoroughfare through the town. But I did see a big tall tree as far away as I could distinguish anything. And I talked with a Dutchman who said that he had been as far as that tree but could still see no end to it. He observed that the houses were arranged in an orderly fashion and baby sitting side by side

enjoying to each other in a manner very similar to that which was familiar to him in his own native Holland. But there were other important towns that developed along the coast and in the regions immediately to the interior. There's old if a Ojo the bog down among the Kano. A bit further north among the houses in northern Nigeria which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was half the size of London. Or London that that time. About 100 years ago. A bargain was already a city of 70000 people and today it's well over a million. Most of the kingdoms which developed in this area were in fact city states powerful kingdoms built around a single or small cluster a fortified town a few large empires did develop our old all yo. Is one of them which ruled from Newquay in the north of Western

Nigeria about 60 miles square miles in surface. The armies of the Confederation of Ashanti much further west in what is now Ghana were exceptionally strong. They defeated for example the British in major campaigns in three separate occasions between eight hundred six and eight hundred sixty five. But of course ultimately all of the coastal states succumb to either the slave trade or to what fall of the slave trade the coming of European colonial rule. Not only along the coast but also later in the interior. But the achievements of black Africa in the interior West Africa is much more impressive even than that along the coast for politically great empires arose. In the lands bordering the Sahara Desert. Much more

powerful than their coastal counterparts because of the relatively flat and open land which permitted the use for example of cavalry and of large land armies. And it also had the advantage of a religion Islam which permitted political organization on a broader basis than that which a single tribe or local ethnic culture could provide. The most extensive of these empires is now become rather rather famous though it may still be unknown to a lot of people in this room. It was call song high and it covered an area of over 1 million square miles in surface. About one third the land area of the continental United States in its heyday which was a sixteenth century. It was it kept merely a tradition that included also its predecessor the Mali Empire which was nearly as large and about as

impressive which flourished in the 13th century and that in turn was preceded by Guyana much smaller and much less but still notable. Much less impressive but notable which was most powerful during the 10th and 11th century. Now all of these empires and especially Songhai were organized along fairly modern lines to the political scientists. They were headed by an emperor but one and one who generally inherited the throne except on occasion when of course there were rebellious military men or vassal kings who did occasionally usurp the throne. Serving the Neath the emperor was a group of territorial governors seven in all for Songhai who were themselves grouped into three broad regions or Confederated States and at the head of those regions was usually placed a brother of one of the emperor because at that point it was most crucial to have someone who could be trusted utterly. By the

Emperor administration was carried on by civil service which was recruited largely in recognition of the talents of the person involved in the cabinet directing members of the administration or civil service administrative or civil service were ministers of the interior of finance of justice of agriculture water and forest resources of protocol and a minister of what was called the white tribe who were in fact Berber. To our ragged nomadic peoples who either lived near the major towns of the empire or roam the deserts to the north. The emperor's armies were in on all occasions quite large. I want a cation. We have a record of his having fielded two hundred twenty two hundred and fifty thousand men his own personal mounted bodyguard

off a number of 3000 men. There was a navy and so on how I would utilize the Niger River as a means of rapid transport across most of the empire and indeed a system of canals was used to permit the army to move inland on occasion and there's a record of one. Fanciful. Project to build a canal from Timbuktu 200 miles into the interior in order to subdue a recalcitrant. Vassal King. Apparently that was abandoned before it got too far. The Sudan again for years were also quite rich. In fact even before European Qatada for years could be located on their own maps the kingdoms of Ghana or Mali they knew them to be a fabled source and go. An Arab visitor to Guyana for example who seems to have had little respect for Africans given some of the comments he made. Nevertheless described the king as

quote the richest in the world because of his gold. The greatest emperor of Mali a man by the name of months and months a meaning emperor made a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in 13 24 during which he made such an impressive display of wealth. That he then in there injured the history books. He travelled for example with 500 retainers. Each of them carrying a six pound staff of pure go behind came over 100 camels each loaded with three hundred pounds of gold. Now were amongst the most of the take all that gold afford for Knox today. He would get about eighteen point five million dollars. In the holy city and in Cairo mounts the most in fact gave away most of that fortune. To the charities of those two cities. He carried on his own private anti-poverty program.

In fact he loosed so much gold in the markets of Cairo. That the price of gold was lowered for 15 years. Thereafter. Now it's claimed that about one hundred and seventy years later the Emperor of Songhai Mohammad or Muhammad the great made even more impressive pilgrimage. But unfortunately the details of how much wealth he may have taken along in his anti-poverty program remains of skew what we do know however is that when the Moroccan empire finally invaded and sacked a song immediately after ASCII and 15 91 they brought back to the cities of Morocco six hundred thousand six hundred four thousand eight hundred pounds of gold or today's equivalent of a third of a billion dollars. The trading centers of

Songhai as those of Molly before. Were tied into a network of world trade food and fiber was in abundant supply locally but from Egypt and from North Africa and from Europe came calicoes and cartons and velvets silks were imported from the Orient. And then in fact often taken apart and re woven into patterns more in keeping with local custom. I want to show you in fact a modern example of some of those patterns. Which will depict local styles. That must. Have been utilized in those times from the self. This is the king of Ashanti in Ghana wearing a declaw of incredible richness of design and in fact all material since that goal thread woven into it and his anklet and. Arm.

Bracelets and head pieces made a few ago. In Kano. Well let me mention the fact. That even from Timbuktu. In the middle of the desert which was one of the centers of Songhai over 20000 camels were sent out each year on trade caravans to Cairo alone. They surely stopped on the way and other places but that was one trade route. Others went north. We know that from Kano during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as many as 20000 horses or oxen were sent to other West African markets loaded with gunpowder medicines leather

goods Prof. So forth. And what of the intellectual life. Of these early Sudan and empower literacy was certainly an important skill in all the commercial centers. And I think we can say it has been said that these societies were about as literate as those of Europe were at the time which is by no means to say that literacy was a Maskil but in every Moslem town there were lawyers and jurist and learned students of the faith inscribed many of the foreign visitors to these areas noted the devoutness of the people and the attention they gave to the study of the sacred books. One such visitor is given by a tutor. Who was born in Tangiers and very widely travelled before he went to Africa. His

travels included China India Ceylon the Middle East for example prior to the time that he visited Mali in thirteen fifty two. The people were propped him punctually as in observing the hours of prayer and studying the books of law. And memorizing the Qur'an is the way he noted it in Timbuktu he visited the grave of the noted poet an architect from Granada Spain whom on some moose I had recruited to Suncor a university from Cairo some curried university was located at Timbuktu and it flourished for at least 200 years more before it was again visited in 15 25 by another famous world traveler. Who took the name of Africanus because of his writings about Africa. This person was a Spanish move. Who wrote about his visits to Timbuktu that visit being made during the reign of ASCII of the

grave as a matter of fact who wrote about that visit while on scholarship from the Medici Pope Leo the tenth in Rome. Leo Africanus writes this about the city of Timbuktu and about its intellectual interests. Here are great score of doctors and judges and priests and other learned men that are bountifully maintained that the King's cost and charges and hither are brought divers manuscripts of written books out of Barbary which are solved for more money. Than any other merchandise books were also written in Timbuktu the Tariq S. Udaan and the Tariq L.. Written in Arabic in the 17th and 16th centuries respectively and now translated into French and available for curious minds in the Harvard University library are two such examples. These give a chronicle of political

regimes of the Mali and Songhai. Well we might go on and talk about other tropical States and cultures some of them well-known like Born new con them in northern Nigeria and Chad or Congo. In the time of the early Portuguese contacts or about cultures that in fact are still shrouded in a great deal of obscurity like the culture that produced the great ruins that Zimbabwe and Rhodesia or the magnificent mosque that killed the Tanzania coast. But I think by now my point should be made. So I want to pose the question then what do we make of these fact. Why is it important. To know about these things. Surely it seems to me Negroes have just cause to take pride in a heritage so rich with accomplishment they have as much right and reason to do so as any individual. Has in studying any

history. For give some indication of what his potential and capacities are and what adversity can be endured in fact overcome. Now if Negroes can read this history with some special sense of pride and identification then what lessons and benefits does it hold for why they can and should read it for what it indicates of the source's of the civilization that forms us all white or black. At least it indicates that civility itself. Suffers no threat from association with black people. More importantly however whites and negroes alike. Can find in this record in an indication of the creativity and the daring in the industry of humankind a source of strength when our own burdens seem overwhelming. But after all group achievements are usually really only individuals achieving knowledge of them does

not remove the need for individual drive or determination or hard work. But there is surely no excuse anymore ever again for Negro children to feel defeated before they even stop. They comes to a criminal neglect neglect or suppression of their own group's place in history. They are after all denied a normal and healthy self-love because of group and not individual characteristics. No one need take offense then at the call a long time ago but repeated now. Up up you mighty race. Negroes must never again sell themselves short. And I think to borrow the wisdom of another culture to conclude simply if I'm not for myself then who am I and if I am for myself alone then what am I. And if not now when.

Thanks. That has been something. At this time I'd like to. Bring Dr. Johnson back to the podium. And entertain questions from the floor. Radisson. Yes. So. There.

We. Go. Oh. My. Well it takes a great deal of searching. But I think the wealth of materials available at the front of the room indicates something of the search that has gone on. This would have been impossible just a few years ago. There is an incredible amount of material that we just haven't yet got access to or study. To try to go through that question in its various stages I think a great deal must have been destroyed at the time that not only European political control came in but just as a result of the disturbances that went on with the slave trade itself. And you have to realize that the slave trade is one half

of. Bigger process which also includes slave trading. Part of that a great deal of it most of it meant warfare among African groups to try to save themselves from being captured and to turn Turkey on the other guy if possible and get him first. And that meant that you had a lot of a lot of destruction in the 17th and 18th centuries. That must have affected in some way the storehouse. But then. There's another aspect and that is the fact that. Some of the materials have. Been kept in private holdings in private libraries that we've been unaware of until just now and perhaps won't become aware of until sometime in the future. I have a friend for example. Who happens to be white who took the time to learn Arabic and who spent two full

years in the old city of Kano. Trying to study the role of Islamic brotherhoods in that area and it was at the end of that two years only that he began to realize what a great source of wealth in terms of research materials existed in Kano as people began to bring out old dusty manuscripts and in fact he brought back over 100 manuscripts written in Arabic to this country to be photographed and put in deposit here in museums and libraries. And obviously they have been read by by anyone outside those families so we don't know what they say. We know for example that copies of Aristotle were brought in the cono by a man named The Hague in the 17th century. There must have been a rich tradition of of. Of writing in Kano and other Moslem areas there was not a rich tradition of writing on the coast the coastal peoples recorded their histories and other

ways they recorded it in folk literature. That is to say in song and in dance and in stories and African stories are very rich and are just now being studied for the historical content. And they recorded it the way depictions often recorded there's in sculpture and Alfy African sculpture is only now being subjected to historical as opposed to artistic study. Even for new BIA you know one of the oldest of the areas there remain at least 200 sites that are at the unified noted and ready for some bright young energetic archaeologist to go out and start digging and decipher and we haven't even deciphered the script. So there there is a great storehouse of information I'm sure that will come out about the technique used now to study history that's never been used in Africa before as a language. We're learning a great deal from that. But a lot of it is lost

unfortunately. We have to piece together the rest of it from what we can find. Or. Not. Well someone says that probably the darkest thing about it was our ignorance of it. It was dark first because it was physical but I think that what you put your finger on is just a reflection of the the justification that Europe created for the slave trade. I think if you look at these early documents in about two days writings legal Africanus. Any number of even of European explorers who came in prior to the time the slave trade became such a dominant influence in western history. You don't find this kind of for George IV treatment of these people and an unwillingness to be responsive to their own achievements. You find out only later in its development to no higher degree than

among Americans particularly men the fichu who can tell you a great deal about how uncivilized dark Africa was. Of course he didn't know the first thing about it and obviously neither did we at that point. We had lost it too. Yes. What is the population of Africa and what percent of African percentage of African surface is habitable. Well the to answer the second part there's no way to answer that because you'd be amazed at. Where people can live in the Kalahari desert looks about as inhabitable as any place on earth by the Bushman do very well there. We would not do very well there. There are over

I think two hundred and twenty five or thirty million people on the African continent now. Yes the myths are that black Africa alone both that is tropical Africa and with some compromise that I've already indicated we've talked about newby and coolish but coastal African let's say West and East lost perhaps as many as 40 million people through the slave trade. That doesn't mean 40 million people became slaves in the world a great many of them died in the process of being taken. About half of them died in the in the way over. There are records that indicate maybe as many and as many as 10 million went eastward into Arabia India and Asia. And what's happened to those 10 million so brothers I don't know. But we have to find them. There is a

record by the way I come across of. A black. General in the Japanese army of the 16th or 17th century. So evidently some of them made good. It was a question oh. Yes or. No. That's a fair question I think. The question was if these civilizations were so great why did they not continue to progress as other civilizations progress. Well toeing the talks about 21 civilizations and he says that only 5 remain extending only one of those is progressive. So that presumably there are a great many lost civilizations in the world or

civilizations that are stagnant that have not. Undergone the kind of momentous up evils. That the Renaissance and the industrial revolution I think that we're really talking about the industrial revolution and what it did to Western civilization and makes it so distinctive. The. You know there is an answer to part of that. For example song Songhai might well have gel into a stable. Moslem civilization after all Moslem civilization. But it was defeated by another North African Moslem civilization namely Morocco. And you may recall that in 1961 when Mauritania was supposed to become independent Iraq called up some claims Mauritania as part of his lost empire. It too wondered about why it had gone on. And.

Continue to develop and they wanted to go back and pick up some of the pieces. Well then the Moroccan invasion of Seoul is high utterly. Ruined its day. There's no doubt about that. The intrusion of the slave trade and the view of colonialism in West Africa and in ultimately in all of black Africa certainly was sufficient to do it. There are parts of it that remain a base on which to develop now. Surely the Evos are an energetic people and they they will do some great things there and we're sure that if you talk about the will to develop the kind of psychological outlook. For development the need for achievement as David McClellan at Harvard University calls it. In fact you'll find that the e balls are the most highly motivated for achievement among peoples of the world. The net adds that

proved to be so in his own test. So there are a variety of reasons historical the accidents of history geographical to a large extent. It's just very difficult for a great many areas of Africa for the Congo Basin for example or for the dense forest areas of the. Western coast to produce very very large political system. There are artistic religious ethical achievements may well outshine our own. We have only to learn them the find out. Their physical culture. It was was not all of that impressive Timbuktu is a large city but it did not build the cologne didn't have to. Indeed cologne wouldn't survive in the Sahara Desert. What they built was suited

to the region and it lasted. And this is the final thing I'd like to say about it. We have to. Take time into perspective here too. After all gonna started somewhere around the seventh or eighth century and flourished until the 13th. That's 500 years. The United States started when Molly developed out of Ghana carried on that tradition encouraged to the 15th century. That's a thousand years. How long has the US existed Songhai carry that on into the 16th century. Obviously the Egyptian civilization has been there five thousand years. So in a sense we may be premature in suggesting that we are going to be half as successful as any one of the ones I've already talked about. Answer. There are bits and pieces we know that

life in most of the localities of say Songhai went on as they always had gone on. People produce their own food and they threw out markets and they traded and so forth. And they didn't need any any style of labor any different than the AF today which is communal labor communal organization of their own land farms and so forth. There were various Gill groups that. Group the artisans. There was always for example a particular clan or at least an dot in this group for the blacksmith's because iron working was a very central. Part of the power. Of a system and they know what they want to make sure that they always had iron workers available and those people were sort of fed up doctrine that they were separate apart distinct perhaps even inferior I don't know but they may abided by those rules

by and large and you find a kind of caste element that comes in that keep certain groups as blacksmiths and other people as carpenters and so forth. Then there was a system of tribute to the retainer ship or client ship which Westerners have call slavery but which really wasn't that. Because there was not the notion of ownership of people. For one thing Islam for bad it and we know that throughout the. The Moslem regions however there have been things close to slavery. So I wouldn't base it all on Islam. But it just seems to be the fact that. People whom we would call slaves did at least have the right to defend themselves in court to marry their children were always free. Slavery was not a status that you could pass on to your descendants. It was in effect the tribute that subdued kingdoms paid to the realm. Since there was perhaps not an awful lot of goal throughout

the system it was already owned by the Emperor. Maybe they paid their federal income taxes by sending some of their people down the Washington we send them out to Vietnam. AS. Well. Would you like to make a choice. Well. I mean. I suppose you have to ask the Portuguese. I read. I don't. Really Know a good historical answer to that other than the fact. Perhaps that Africans seem to bear up a little bit better than the others. The Portuguese and the Spanish both tried to enslave other peoples but the Indians had a bad habit of dying off. And this was tried in the new world it did attempt to utilize indigenous Indians for the plantations in the Caribbean and southern US. And in Latin America but the African stock physically lasted

longer was capable heartier were and I suspect that's the principal reason once the trade was underway it became its own justification. You found. Pagan and Christian ally caught up in the process of extolling the virtues of pressing people in the slavery for example one of the largest slave ports in Africa and was located in Fernando Poe which was under the direct rule of a bishop sent out from Portugal to Christianize the people. He got a 25 percent kickback on every one that he sent on. There's no question but what it corrupted and once it corrupted it fed upon itself. So I think probably for those two reasons with other areas that may have influenced it secondarily. Became a monster. Thank you very much you've been to AA.

Thank you. I. Hope. The old world of the American Negro part one in the community lecture series on the negro in American society. You heard this evening Willard T Johnson assistant professor of sociology at MIT. Next Sunday evening at the same time. Part two. The voiceless rage. The literature of Negro Americans. The speaker Brian Rollins editor of the Bay State Banner. Tonight's opening meeting in the Roxbury Newton community lecture series was recorded on November sixty one thousand nine hundred six at the Patrick J Campbell Jr. High School in Dorchester. They.

Are AND I AM I AM I AM I AM I AM I AM I AM I AM I AM I AM I AM. This is the eastern educational radio network.

Pianist Earl Wilde performs Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops in a concert broadcast live from the 1967 Berkshire music festival Tuesday at 8. This is WGBH FM eighty nine point seven mega cycles in Boston. From the 18th festival. We present a concept given in the by Benjamin Britten Dennis Simmons and Howard Davies violin viola and. The concept begins with a performance of the respect for baritone violins and continued by Henry person. In the realisation by Benjamin Britten.

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was weak. With. Teeth. This.

Was. A hard. Hit. That is they eat.

Eat eat. The thing I am living. In. You have just heard the secular cantata. When night her purple veil has

softly spread by a person. Now Dennis Simmons and Howard Davis violin and John White are to play the trio Rhapsody by Frank Rich. The manuscript has only recently come to light. And although the work was written in 1928. This is apparently its first performance. BENJAMIN.