Black Journal; 6

The following program is from NET, the National Educational Television Network. The National Educational Television Network. Good evening, Jambal, Assalamu Alaykum brothers and sisters. This is blank journal with William Greaves. I'm Lou House and excuse the shades cold on the eye tonight. And now here's William Greaves with people in the news.

Jim Brown, the former Cleveland Browns fullback, came to Harlem as president of the Negro Industrial Economic Union, a nonprofit organization to assist in the development of black owned businesses. To Brown, black power is synonymous with economic power. Said Mr. Brown, let's utilize the techniques that have been used by every other ethnic group in this country to achieve the American dream. While on tour in Guinea, Miriam McKibba gave an electrifying to our performance to an audience which included her husband, Stokely Carmichael, Guinea President Seku Toure, and author Shirley Graham, the widow of the late Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois. Those who have long been fans of Miss McKibba said this was her greatest performance. The coronation of Maxine Thomas as the black homecoming queen highlighted Iowa University's homecoming activities in Iowa City.

School officials rule that black cohorts could not enter the university's contest. The reasons given were that the black cohorts either lived off campus or had no sponsor. As a result, the Afro-American Students Association initiated its own contest in Queen. Jet Magazine reports President-Elect Richard Nixon invited 12 prominent Afro-Americans to his New York City apartment for a conference, the purpose to assure them that he is not a racist. Says Jet, the rejection rate of the invitations was so high that AIDS cancel the function. Defeated presidential candidate Dick Gregory announced that he would set up a little black house in Washington as President in exile. How does that grab you? In New York politics, Congresswoman-Elect Mrs. Shirley Chisholm rode to victory with the slogan, Unbought and Unsold. She defeated James Farmer, former National Director of Corps, and the newly created 12th Congressional District in Brooklyn.

Congresswoman Chisholm will be joined by two other freshmen congressmen in the House, Louis Stokes, Brother of the Cleveland Mayor, and William Clay of St. Louis. This brings to mind the total number of Afro-Americans in the House of Representatives. And from Washington, the Supreme Court announced that the court would examine the complaint of Congressman Adam Clayton Powell that the House of Representatives unconstitutionally deprived him of his seat in the 90th Congress. There are indications that the new Congress will seat Dr. Powell after it convenes next year, whether or not he will retain his seniority is still a matter of debate. And now for an analysis of the elections as they affect the black community, here is Lincoln Lynch, an executive vice president of the New York Urban Coalition. There are some who say, as far as black people are concerned, if you've seen one president, you've seen them all, I share that view. I do not think that the election of Mr. Humphrey would have meant as much as it was hoped to black people in all the minorities.

There is no question in anyone's mind that President-elect Nixon did not receive a mandate from the American people. In terms of black and Spanish-speaking Americans, certainly here in the east, his candidacy was rejected. Nevertheless, come January 20th, Mr. Nixon and his new administration will occupy the seats of power and will continue to do so for the next four years. Much has been said of Mr. Nixon's support of black capitalism, of his rapport with the business community, of his lack of credibility with the minority community. It appears to me that if the president selects intent of unifying the country is sincere, if his desire to attract minority people to his banner is genuine, then it is incumbent upon him to develop such programs as will ensure that a larger share of the gross national product is used to develop black businesses, certainly along the cooperative lines, what we call horizontal development, that he will develop and continue manpower programs, health programs, special aid to education,

housing programs to leave the abysmal squalor in which poor black people and poor Puerto Ricans live in our central cities. Failure to do this would make a hollow mockery of his expressed intent, and certainly set the stage for more intense urban rebellion with all the tragic ramifications, both domestic and foreign. The black community with its new sense of revolutionary pride has increasingly come into conflict with police establishment, significant elements of the black community view the police as agents of the white power structure who seek to maintain order at the expense of justice. As more efforts are made to recruit blacks for local police forces across the country, black communities are more and more turning their attention to the black cop.

Now black journal asks who is the black cop, where is he at? In New York City, whose black population approaches 20%, only 6% of the police force is black. David Walker is one of the 1400 black members of New York's finest. His goal has always been to be a cop. Now a veteran of two years on the force is beating central Harlem, a community bursting at the scenes with a new sense of black awareness. As a black cop, David Walker's allegiance to this ideal is constantly under question. All of this basically is an education for me because I'm with the life, I'm very close to life.

I'm seeing all phases of life being performed. I see death and I think performing in that sort of a function, I'm fulfilling my own life and being of a service to the community. I feel my job is to protect property and life, life and property. But I'm not going to put myself in a position of the judge, the jury and the executioner. If I shoot that fellow for stealing a TV or case of beer, why should I shoot him when he goes to trial and court to judge the maximum sentence he'll get in about two years?

I'm just as loyal as any other cop. I feel them feeling for my loyalty. It's hard to explain, but it's like having a monkey on your back. I feel that because you're working in a black community, you should be out in the front, you should be the front runner, this suppression of crime, controlling situation. They look at you. I feel them looking at me all the time, looking at how I handle a certain situation. In fact, I'm careful because I feel I'm being used as a guide and they learn from me. I'm not going to let you go. I'm not going to let you go. I'm not going to let you go.

I'm not going to let you go. I'm not going to let you go. You were being used like tools for the system of black cop today, which I think is unfortunate. It's a lot about the system that should be changed. I'm not in a position to make these changes. If I can help in any way to change the system, I'll help as much as I can. It's a difficult position to put yourself in.

All these organizations, I feel, help out people in some way. Anything that can help out people, it's beautiful to me, really. As long as you don't overdo it, when I say overdo it, I mean, exaggerate the point one day and run away the next day. You want me to elaborate on that? We have a few militants out there in the street who are hopping and barking about what should happen, how many changes should be taken place. As soon as their point is made, as soon as the little money is put in their pocket, they'll make it the next day. You won't see them again for a while. Then they'll come back next week, try to make money another way, extortionize, I call them. The fear of being a policeman shows that he's turned against blackness because to be a policeman, he has to act like a white man.

Therefore, he's nothing but off the top. I don't feel sleepily together inside, because I know I'm caught in the middle. I think the thing to do is to keep trying to find a way out, and not until I find that way out, will I actually be comfortable with myself. Deputy Inspector Arthur C. Hill, commander of the 28th precinct in Harlem, and one of the highest-ranking black men on the New York force, discusses the black officers dilemma. I would suspect that most black officers as I do wear two hats, and I would suspect strongly that officers have a problem in identifying which self to surface. I personally, this is just an opinion. I see unless conditions change, black officers, or at least black administrators and police agencies, having definite problems, psychological problems.

The much of the community views him as a representative of the establishment that they consider responsible for their fight, and in many ways they see him as some kind of Judas. Many black officers are very sensitive to the needs and problems of the black communities. This is one of the reasons that we're so much in demand of black officers. This is why we're trying to gear some of our recruitment to black communities to increase these. Of necessity, a black man can empathize and understand black problem better, I believe. I have met some white officers that, because of their socialization process, do really dig black people, do understand the problem, and do relate very positively. I've seen some, right in this command.

I would not eliminate anyone from serving a black community based on skin color, but say, no, I'm not in that position. I do think that by and large, generally black officers can understand the more raised in the folkways and the values of black people, or where they extend, then white people that came from a foreign environment, so to speak, like Suburbia. We asked Deputy Inspector Hill whether civilians should be in control of the police. I would suspect it, as was brought out in the paper, the white cops felt that civilians didn't have the sophistication or expertise to evaluate police conduct. This is just a reason why I think I favor it. I believe in civilian control of military and police institutions. I think we tread on dangerous ground when the civilian can't control these organizations.

In Los Angeles, 4% of the police force is black, while 14% of the population is black. Elements of the black community consider the black cop to be even more repressive than his white counterpart. Their motto is to protect and serve, but they don't protect the black cats off in the ghetto. They more or less harass them. To be a policeman, it takes a certain kind of person. And my own personal opinion is that they usually are brutal. They like the instant authority that comes with the badge and the uniform. Harrison Bailey is one of 200 black policemen here on the Los Angeles Force. A veteran of 20 years, Officer Bailey prepares for night patrol in the Wilshire section of Los Angeles.

I prefer being a working policeman in the street. Between the two of us, my partner and I, we have almost 40 years of experience. I think in my original training, I go back to the concept of the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. If the law was enforced to the letter of the law in every instance, then sometimes gestures wouldn't prevail. Some individuals are going to be so to speak, a little drunk with power. I have seen it. I don't feel that way because over a period of years, I've gotten to the police where I don't have that personal feeling, or I don't become emotionally involved in a situation whereby it's a direct front towards me as an individual.

I've been called an Uncle Tom more than once. A model respect that all policemen have, or be black or white, has gone down over a period of years due to the way the laws have been changed around in the way the courts have handled the situation. I've had experiences with black cops that came down in a worse manner than the white ones have. More brutal. I don't know. It's just an ego thing with them. Any time a man can deprive another person of his liberty, he's not going to like you. I mean, there's no way in the world that you're going to get people to actually love a policeman. He's not going into the white neighborhood, stopping these people from doing things. He's going around us. He can mingle with us because he's black, and then he takes advantage of us.

And so many different ways, like we get stopped. Instead of normally, you know, get pulled over to the side and say, okay, give me an operator of license, there's something I do. You don't get this kind of treatment, you get knocked up against something that's just major. It's a really good talent. It seems to take the attitude that just because the Arab Black, the law doesn't apply it to them equally as well as somebody else. And I think this is where part of the problem lies. They want to be exempt from the law because I am of color and I am a policeman, so they feel that I should allow them to go and take somebody else. But I don't feel that way about it at all. Lieutenant Edward C. Henry, highest-ranking Negro on the Los Angeles Force. I think it's very important, the manner in which the officer conducts himself. If he conducts himself in a manner in which we'll invite to respect the community, then he will get it.

If he doesn't, then he will receive the disfavor of the community and they will not respect him. And he is the officer who is accused of being the Uncle Tom and being a traitor to the Black community. I think if the Black policeman would identify his role as a policeman, as opposed to his role as a Negro, then this dilemma would be somewhat lessen or even completely eliminated. The Black cop is the man in the middle. He seeks acceptance in the police community, which reflects the white society and the status quo. On the other hand, he is a Black man from a Black community, which is demanding change, a community which continues to ask him which side is he on. I'm happy to have with me on blank journal five young people from around the United States. They're very much concerned about the situation in our public schools. And on my left is Glenn Grayson.

I'm from Boston, Massachusetts. I'm a senior at English High School and a member of the Black Student Junior. Sharon Harris from Hyde County, North Carolina. I am a junior OAP High School, and I'm with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Christopher Williams of New York City. I'm a sophomore Brooklyn Technical High School, and I belong to Bethes Service and Sports Unlimited. Anapu Hall's senior at Columbus High School and an active student in the student council. Victor Adams, president of Chicago, branch of a new breed, member of the LPPAC branch of the Education Committee. Teachers have just come off a strike here in New York City. Chicago, the school system has boycotts on Mondays. We've had a lot of talk about we want black history taught in the schools. We want black teachers to teach it. You don't like the curriculum.

Is that rhetoric or you got something to say about the system? Is the system good or are the systems bad? No, it's more than the curriculum, because in Boston they have police in the school, chains on the doors, the lunch stinks. I wouldn't even feed it to a dog. You can't go to school in these conditions. It's like a prison, so it's more than just the curriculum. It's also the administration. If you go to a school up in a white community, it involves a student body there also. It's the whole thing where you have a middle class white controlling a black or a Puerto Rican student body. Here in New York City, they have more or less the school curriculum is imposed on the student. The community has no say in the proposal. And now we're fighting for decentralization so that we will have a say in our school system and have a say in what we want to learn. Also, if those adults are white, how can they teach a ghetto child who comes from the house with roaches and rats running all around the place?

How can I communicate? How can a white teacher communicate with me? He hasn't gone through what I've gone through. Well, maybe he has. Maybe he came from Appalachia or someplace. Maybe he came from whites who are poor in this country. Not realistically. Maybe he came from Appalachia or something like that. What I'm saying is he didn't come from the community. Say you got in one apartment building's hallway and there is a bathtub full of garbage. He has never seen this. He has never been in this building. All you're seeing was the outsiders building. He looks on this building as shame and he feels sorry for the students and so he brushes the work off with pity and sorrow. He shouldn't feel sorry for us because if anybody is going to feel sorry for us, it's going to be ourselves. You think that the colleges or teachers are teaching the wrong methods to teach you in high school? In other words, middle class background college, middle class background teachers coming into our slum areas and trying to teach us middle class values. Are you rejecting those middle class values? Let's look at it from this standpoint of view.

Everything that we have comes from the teachers teach in a system. We learn systematically. We are all involved in a system, believe it or not. Now, for example, most of the teachers that teach in the black ghetto communities come from a leave it to be of a neighborhood with their eyes inherent surroundings. And let's face it, we don't have that in the black community. And then they try to elevate us to the level whereby we can sort of comprehend what it's like to live in the white community. And what black youth in Chicago are saying, we don't want that white community. We don't want to move next door to you. We don't want to be trained for that type of social setup. We want an education that is relevant to black students and we want it now. Didn't you have a confrontation with the school board in Chicago, Sakaya? Well, now when you had the confrontation, you went down town. What did you tell them? What were your demands? Well, we told them that we wanted community control of school and that unless they gave us community control of school, there would be no school in the black community. How about here in New York? You have a crisis here also, Chris concerning the Ocean Hill Bronzeville situation.

Now, the school problem, it seems, at least for as far as the strike is concerned. That's over, supposedly. Now, the unionists are going back, but didn't that school put the unionist out? Isn't that a controversial subject still in that area? Well, they didn't exactly put the union out. They put the teachers that walked out on them and crippled their school system during last spring for a while. Like, this strike has crippled our school system. Now, I think that they have every right to ousted these teachers because of what they did to them. They took and walked out and left this black community unable to function. They had to close the schools and these children went without education. So, I think they have every right. And I think that white Americans should get hit to this. There's no reason why our black and Puerto Rican kids, children in our communities have to be reading and a three and a two point level when they should be reading seven and six. Because seven and six is read in a white community. Now, why is this so? We have white teachers teaching our black and Puerto Rican kids. Maybe these white and white teachers cannot teach our black Puerto Rican kids. They don't know how to communicate.

They come in here teaching us how to read about Dick and Alice and Jane and the dogman's body. That doesn't exist in our community. How about the groups in the country right now? Black Puerto Ricans, black Americans are looking at a curriculum. Let's say there are number 30 million or so and you learn German, Spanish, French. Are you for having African languages in black schools? Are you going to get with your black brothers and other languages communicating around the world? Are you for that or against that? I'm for it. I'm for it. Definitely for it. Because if we live in a black community, while ancestors did come from Africa, then we should be able to learn languages that do persist to Africa because none of our ancestors came from Europe. So, why should we learn a language that is in Europe that they do use in Europe? It has no function in the black community. Well, how about this integration thing? I know in the South, we have a problem there talking about integration. Now, how about you good sister? You're from North Carolina. Now, you have from a county where you have three schools and you have a school inside the county, a white school in the center. Now, do you want to go to the white school or you want them to come to your school and you control your school? How do you look at that?

Well, we want them to come to our school so the black teachers will have a job, the teaching, the black school. How about SCLC and other groups that you work with? Are they looking at this problem in North Carolina? Yes, SCLC is one that's down there and they are really helping the black people to tell these white people that they're not going to come over to their side. The white that come over to the black side and they are down there and they're trying to get us together so we have a soul power so we can really stick together and carry this bag out. Well, one final thing, we've been talking about some of the people in schools, you have the problem of history. Are you looking at African American history, black history or history in culture of black people? And if you are, should it be taught in school or should it be given release time to go outside the school and learn? It should be the history and culture of black people and it should be taught in the school since this is what the school is supposedly set up for, which isn't happening in the school. Well, my personal opinion is that you cannot under the present system teach anything relating to black history and black culture in the present school's setup.

The fact is that we have found out in Chicago that white people will not let any sort of organization or any community or organization function within what he calls his school building unless he is there to co-opt it. So what we're saying is that in Chicago that if we don't control our schools then we will take the black students away from those schools and educate them in blackness and not program them in whiteness as they're doing now in our present school. Now, young people are pushing the adults. Do you think the adults are going to give you the proper support that you'll need to further for your goals to achieve the demands that you've made? Now, of course, it means to be behind and, you know, use force to push forward. We in Chicago are no longer hung up about pushing our parents. We're moving. The fact is that we know the old Uncle Tomas and Ways or their Uncle Tomas and Ways have co-opted the young people for too long. So now we're moving and we hope by the time we reach our goal they will have seen the importance of the student movement now. But as it stands, we're moving and letting them know step by step, believing in the trail for them to follow.

There's one final thing I think we're going to have to cut off here and I'm sorry, it's so short, but do any of you feel that the school, do you think the school systems are adequately preparing black people to be black people? No, not until black people come. No, no. No, we've just started with a group of young people, five of them from various parts of the country here on black journal. And I hope that we can get them back again to continue this discussion. We've talked a lot about the African American history. We have with us today, painter Earl Sweeting and historian Dr. John Henry Clark. We'll be talking with them shortly. But first, let's look at some of the scenes depicting ancient African history as viewed by Mr. Sweeting. Each painting of artist Earl Sweeting reveals a moment in Africa's rich and varied history. Shoes first created by the ancient Egyptians. The first alphabet came from the Egyptians who devised phonetic signs representing syllable. This development was the major turning point in human history. From Egypt, the alphabet went to Phoenicia, then to Greece, then to Rome, then to Britain.

The origin of paper in ancient Egypt, here King Kufu, listens to a kneeling chemist, explained the discovery of the paper making process. Before this time, writing was done on heavy slate. The world's first library was created in Africa. The Egyptians were the first people to collect and codify the literature of their nation. Born 103 years before Christ of a Roman slave, on the estate of the Roman Arita Cicero, Tyro, the African, became his secretary and created the art of shorthand writing. The Egyptians invented a mathematics called geometry. It was the basis of the science of engineering, which was also developed in Egypt. Using geometry, the Egyptians were able to build their pyramids, survey land, and construct temples and public buildings.

From Egypt, geometry laid a past on to Greece. The early Egyptians possessed knowledge of the use of metallic oxides and acids, as evidence from the type of dyes applied to their glass in porcelain. Here, a chemist works in the ancient empire of Ghana. It was in Africa that the science of chemistry was created. Medicine has practiced an ancient Ghana, imhotep of ancient Egypt, with the real father of medicine. He lived about 2,300 BC. Greece and Rome's basic knowledge of medicine came from his work. Nefertiti, wife of a heredic king of ancient Egypt, 1,300 years before Christ, her husband, Aknatin, preached the doctrine of one all loving, all powerful God. These are our ancestors, brought to life for us on the canvases of Earl Sweeting, Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.

Asop, lecturing to the Greeks, from his fables come such axioms as necessity as the mother of invention, in union there is strength. Septimus Severus, Emperor of Rome, a Romanized African who took the imperial throne in 196 AD. Can I say, King of Ghana watches 10,000 of his subjects at a palace banquet. A scene from the empire of Ghana founded in 300 AD. A civilized kingdom extending from the Niger basin to the Atlantic coast and north to the Sahara. The city of Ghana, capital of the empire, consisted of two townships. Here, scholars, professors, theologians, priests, hell office and administered the affairs of state. Arabic letters were used throughout the empire to record the language.

The University of St. Cor in Timbuktu, a center of learning which existed long before colleges were founded in Europe, trading books was the city's major item of commerce. Africans voyaged across the Atlantic 500 years before Christopher Columbus. Blacks from the Mali and Songhae empires crossed the Atlantic to carry on trade with the Indians of the Western Hemisphere. Even today in West Africa can be found the decorative clothing, headdresses and hairstyles so typical of the American Indian. Those pictures we just looked at on film came from this book, African History, and the pictures inside are all paintings of the good brother on my right, who was with us on Black Journal this afternoon, is Brother Earl Sweetie. And the forward was written by Dr. John Clark, who was on my left. I had noticed that last picture of Brother Sweetie and that was a red minute and black minute. It looked like it said something about the seafaring group of Africans who had come across the Atlantic and had discovered America prior to Christopher Columbus.

It seems like it's kind of contrary to the history books I've been reading for so long in my young life. Yes, it is. Suppose it's one of those things where there has been hidden history. That's the history that we don't hear about. They came here to America 500 years before Columbus. And that's the thing today that we're doing a tremendous lot of research on. And we have done a tremendous lot of research on the records written by renowned scholars on the subject. Well, when you painted these paintings in your book, African History, and I know she had the paintings, who did the writing of this documentation from other historians? This is most less documentation, yes, as well as documentation from other historians. Well, Dr. Clark, we were talking earlier, remembering we were saying about we've seen our history books, Columbus Discovered America. I was telling you, he found America, and now we have something else that Earl Sweetie is putting to us that black man was here with the red man.

Not only Columbus did not discover America, he discovered some of the discoverers, and someone might have predated them. Now, this situation is not particularly new. Professor Leo Weiner in 1921 wrote a three-volume work on it called African the Discover of America, which proved that the African was an America before the Indians. And young African American historian Harold Lawrence has written a book called African Explorers to the New World, which proved that there were African civilizations in South America and Indian, and there all knocked civilizations in Mexico and South America, distinctly African, the massive heads that you see are distinctly African. What other people ever sculptured like the African? We also know, too, Dr. Clark, that there was a black man on the ship when Columbus found America, is this true? Alonzo Nino was on one of Columbus' ships, and yet this owner represented one aspect of the role of the African and Exploration of the New World. They were not only black men with Columbus, it was a black man with cartairs in Mexico, who introduced Wheat Farming in the Western world,

was a black man with Magellan, is a black man with poster Leon, and is such for the founding of youth. In fact, black men were in America as free booters and sailors and explorers, 100 years before the formal start of the slave trade. How about the fact of a black awareness today with your art, with your history? How does that affect black people all over? How does this black awareness, how is it getting to us? What effect does it have? It's black awareness because what we're doing, we're trying to make something beautiful that so other people said is ugly. But I think eventually, once we understand, once the things soak in, we are the people who will make color irrelevant. I think at this point, we were going to leave on note of blackness. My two guests on Black Journal have been Brother Earl Sweetie, who was the artist for African History of Brooklyn, and forward and also historian Dr. John Clark. Thank you both.

Thank you. Now to William Greaves and Press News. Washington, D.C., the District of Columbia has its first black daily newspaper, The Washington Daily Sun. Its publisher is 35-year-old Eugene M. Gardner. Says Mr. Gardner, we're aiming for a circulation of 100,000. And in New York, a new weekly newspaper hit the streets recently, it is the Manhattan Tribune, published by Cores National Director Roy Innis and William F. Haddard, former prize-winning reporter for the New York Post and Harold Tribune. In a statement of purpose, the Tribune asserts it will provide a much-needed forum for the black and Puerto Rican communities of the city. It will also serve as a training ground for minority group reporters. The Chicago Daily Defender says a black farmer's cooperative in Alabama, founded by the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has filed suit in federal court.

The suit seeks to end, quote, the harassment and intimidation end, quote, by Governor Albert Brewer and other state officials. The group, the Southwest Alabama Farmers Cooperative Association, is asking the federal court to lift a state court order. The order is blocking the cooperative's use of more than $1.5 million in federal aid. The Cleveland Herald dispatch in bold headlines says that a strange combination of dissident cops, right wingers and white racists are demanding the recall of Mayor Stokes of Cleveland. Stokes reorganization of the police department is reportedly the reason for the impeachment effort. And now, here's Lou House. During the civil rights days, the black church provided much of the base around which groups like CORE and SNCC organized their programs. Even before that, the church played many roles, ranging from eating slavery resistance to providing both material and spiritual service to its members. But now activists are putting down the ministers, saying that not only are they not helping the liberation movement, they're slowing it up.

The criticism has caused some black churches and churchmen to take a look at themselves, but has caused others to merely update their vocabulary with black power phrases. Earlier this month, over 700 churchmen from all denominations gathered in St. Louis, Missouri, at the Gateway Hotel, to discuss the question of the church's part in the black liberation movement. Keynote speaker, Vincent Harning, a Spellman college, summed it up this way. Time when we cannot afford the luxury of driving each other. I wonder if we know, and if we're ready to deal with and face the fact that there are a lot of black folks who can't believe that there is a law. And certainly not a precious one. Because they say if he is, then why are our hands so tired, and empty, and bloody, and cold? What kind of precious law is this?

There is a significant stream of thought in the black community, which suggests that it is totally an aquanistic, totally contradictory to have black churchmen. But there are lots of people in the black community who just can't believe that the two go together. That you can be black and have anything to do with church. That is not Negro or college, you see. But black, ideologically speaking. One of the most controversial ministers at the conference was Reverend Albert Kleeg Jr. Pastor the shrine of the black Madonna church in Detroit, Michigan. I'm a Christian black nationalist. I believe in black power, and I believe in black nationalism, and I'm also Christian. So you know, you put them all together. The type of Christianity that I preach, which is essentially a reinterpretation of the Old Testament, reinterpretation of the first three gospels, which is based on the basic historic fact that Israel was a black nation fighting for freedom, and that Jesus was a black militant revolutionary leader.

That kind of Christianity is compatible with black nationalism and black power. But essentially, we've got to make up people. That's why I think the church is so important. We're not a people. We're fragment, and we're divided. We've got all kind of different ideas. Each black person is trying to get something for himself. He's trying to make the white man think he's a good one, so the white man will do something for him. Now as long as we're fragmented in that fashion where we're not a people working together, trying to do something together, we can't get any kind of power. So essentially, we've got to come together as a people, and then as a people, we try to do the things that have to be done. The ministers were briefed by economic experts on ways in which the church could catch up with the black revolution. And America are like black people in a capitalistic nation without any capital. We've got to get this capital, and we're going to own the institutions to run our own nation. And the church can play a critical role here.

Another place the church can play a critical role. There are lots of people in our community who will go outside and buy elsewhere leaking off purchasing power. We have to use our pulpits as a full room for educating people about the services that brothers can perform. And we ought to realize that some of our businessmen by operating our own communities play a racial tax by being by. So that we ought not to feel offended if we have to pay just a little bit more, because if we patronize our own institutions, they'll grow larger. And they'll develop the same economy to scale as some of the larger white businesses staff establishment. Let me add that there's a lot of basic humanity involved in ownership and management of fairly large-scale business operations. What's being built is confidence and know-how. And these are essential qualities to an individual in personal strength.

I'd like to just make one comment on that. I think we ought to realize this. That when we talk about human values, I think we're going to have to specify it more. One, we are powerless people. And the economic development program that we're involved on is Senator getting us some power. Now the common denominator for that is control of wealth. The church can play a significant role in building the pride in setting up the organizational structures that are necessary to control the black ghetto, in formulating programs, and putting money into these programs. The church can play a significant role in doing all of them. But if the church doesn't play a significant role, the revolution is going on. The revolution is not going to stop. Brothers and sisters in the street are not going to wait to see whether the church plays a significant role or not. The revolution is going on. The church can either step in and guide and lead and help or the church can die. A racial slur by a waitress in the hotel dining room caused the ministers to caucus for over four hours to determine a course of action.

The result was a traditional sit-in in the hotel lobby, the kind that made Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. famous as an apostle of nonviolence. But Martin Luther King is dead, and many say nonviolence died with him. Indeed, the whole question of church leadership and the liberation struggle has been openly challenged by many, particularly the activists. We spoke to one of these activist groups, the St. Louis Black Liberators, a community self-defense group. During the month before the conference, they've had several confrontations with the police. The Liberators' views of the churchmen were given by their leader, Charles Cohn. If they began to come out in the streets, you know, if they began to become involved in doing things for the movement, then it would be revolutionary. But if they just stayed back and talk about it in the pool pits and don't do a fan-fan father, then they're not revolutionary.

Now, like the ministers who were here, this conference, we have not been contacted. And, you know, like we were just beaten almost to death last month in the ninth district station. Not eight ministers, black ministers, who has been here has contacted us concerning this. And if they're going to do a revolutionary thing, as you've mentioned, they were talking about the revolution. They would be down here. They would talk with this group and with other groups who were revolutionary groups, proud to leave them, and have some type of joint understanding what they're going to do from their pool pits, and how we can work together in terms of keeping the man from vamping down on them. I think that what they did here was a good thing. You know, I think what they said about revolution is a good thing. Now, it's left up to us to make sure that they live up to these things. And make them go beyond, just talk, make them get down to the real thing, make them begin to do. But you're bad, Sam. Say it loud. Say it loud.

We're here. Some people say we got a lot of manners. Some say it's a lot of nerve. But I say we won't move it until we get what we deserve. We've been built, and we've been gone. We've been free, man. Talks about it as soon as you move. Doesn't show as it takes you eyes to make a pal. Brother, we can't win. Until we get our share. Say it loud. Say it loud. When we get people dance anywhere in the world, the onlook is usually struck by the total enjoyment of the dances. But is having a good time all that matters? Percevel Board, Dance Historian and Instructor, discusses comparisons between African and European dancing. Dance in Africa is a beautiful art.

It is the cultural art of our people. And wherever you find the cultural art, you find meaning in depth of tradition and legend. And so is the dance in Africa. Every movement, every gesture has meaning. Every dance is for a specific purpose. And it wasn't something separated from the society. And people didn't just go off and dance. They danced for a reason. They danced at birth. They danced at the engagement. They danced at wedding. They danced at the death. Ow! The dance in the Western world grew up under different social conditions all together. And whereas the dance in Africa is part of their society, here the dance was in spite of the society. Mr. Bourd emphasizes this relationship when he teaches his students at the Rebecca

Harkness School of Dance in New York City. We are going to interchange the old African ritual with the modern jazz of the Black Man today. Let's try it. The ritual. But with it, it ain't easy for us. Take it here with your arms open. Then just work right and do it. One, two, three, step across, step across. Step across, step across, step across, step across. Now let's go. We are coming through the jazz. It's a change in now with the jazz. And. Go on, go on, go on, go on. As African dance migrated to other parts of the world, it evolved into new forms.

Well, we have an excellent example in the Calypso dancers, they say, quote unquote, because actually the Calypso is a song and is music, the Calypso music. But the dancing is a dance done at the carnival time, too, Calypso music. And this, in this dance, you can see how the Black Man has used his body to have a social protest. In this, in the West Indies, they kept the drum. This is a part of a ritual of the on the drums. You heard of Shango, Fudu, Radha, Mokumba writes in Brazil. These are religions that persisted in the Western world in spite of persecution. And when they danced, they moved with their bodies pushing forward their chest, held high, their head held high. And many casual observer would think, well,

it was just a rhythm going through his body, yes. But together with that was the defiance that he projected. It was actually a dance of social protest. They were protesting the things that went on in his society. And you find that the Black people usually take the lead at this, take the Lindy Hop, the rock and roll, all these variations upon the same theme. And so when dances is popular and jazz, he is telling somebody something, and they better listen. Iliopomare, a new breed of choreographer, represents the new Black approach to dance. His concert pieces are based on our varied experiences in the city. There's definitely a relationship between the social dances and dances, which I have choreographed at the stage.

I feel that if we use social themes, that the movement comes out of themes, what is happening to people, their actions, and their reaction causes them to move in specific ways. And I have found audience response in majority of Black audience, very beautiful, because they see something happening on the stage, which is a part of their life. It's a type of togetherness that happens. And this creates an awareness of oneself. Using modern dance form, Mr. Pomare and dancer Diana Ramos continue the African tradition of conveying messages through the dance, which tell of our view of the world. They tell me that I was born somewhere. God helped the place where I was nursed on textured brown breast, struggled and crawled, clung to mama,

the daughter of the daughter of our Black woman, whose name was slave. God helped the place where that slave woman was abused, where she watched her children taken away to be sold on an auction block by the hate lovers, to other haters and burners of innocent flesh. They told me that I was born somewhere. I don't remember where, Alabama, New Orleans, Georgia. God helped the place where naked Black bellies pulsated, covered in swamp darkness and ecstasy, near the edge of some southern town, where

Black bodies hung from the green limbs of trees. They tell me that I was born. They ask who I am and where I am going. I am laughter. I am half smiles. I am stifled screams. I am a country girl who lives in the city. I am a woman who moved from the plantation to the ghetto. I am the daughter of 400 years of Black tears. Be careful. That was beautiful, wasn't it, brothers and sisters? I really dug that. Incidentally, that poem was written by Mr. Promare. It's from his work Beginsville. And that's it for Black Journal for this evening, brothers and sisters. I'll return with William Greaves on the 30th of next month. Remember, next Black Journal will be broadcast December 30th.

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