Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

at a time when the ratio of Negro
dentists to the Negro population
is at a crisis low level, around 80
percent of the entering freshmen
(1966-1967) at the dental college
of Meharry Medical College, one
of the twc Negro medical colleges,
were white students .
Are educational institutions,
faced with the task of educating
black people, committed to the
task which should be within their
special province? While northern
schools are crying out for teachers
with a specialty in motivating and
educating the culturally divergent
child, is the Negro university training
its student teachers to meet
this demand? The northern and
western college, having admitted to
the historical distortions which
have created the American image
ir. all its unreality, is now seeking
teachers who are aware of the inclusivity
of America's heritage . Are
the Negro universities teaching
Contemporary American Literature,
which includes the contributions
which have been, categorically,
excluded from "main-stream"
anthologies because it represented
Black Art?
Do they offer courses in Revisionist
History, Revolutionary
Black Sociology, Afro-American
Culture anc Humanities, Black Art
and Life, Political Science in the
Flack Community? Black students
at many of the Ca~ifornia colleges
and universities are demanding a
black curriculum as a specialty in
the Black Studies Department
NEGRO DIGEST March 1969
which will ultimately offer a degree
and a new career field. This, of
course, enables the student so
trained to be a more effective worker
in community action programs
involving minorities . Does the
Negro campus provide an atmosphere
for innovative programs and
a laboratory for testing new methodology?
The Black intellectual must be
willing to choose fi position which
offers more in humanistic rewards
than materialistic gains . His role
as a missionary, if he must assume
that role at this time, must be
played out with black principals as
supporting members of his cast and
on location in the black ghettoes
across the land . Being white-world
missionaries spreads us too thin
and dissipates our energies without
the benefits of making racial gains.
Ambition must be tempered with
compassion and concern for the
black brother . On the other hand,
the black communities, wherever
they exist, must prepare for this
second coming . They must prepare
the way for him ; this time
around he should be the welcomed
guest and not the intruder . They
must lay the groundwork which
will result in an acceptance of him
in the same good faith as he accepts
the challenge. The educational
institutions must have no
doubts about his belonging, about
the role he is destined to play in
reconstructing a healthy American
society . Above all, it must be made
clear that the Black Intellectual is
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