Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

accomplished any one of them in our haste to do them all . Possibly
we can avoid this if we remember that our goal is the Black University .
We can/must and will be concerned about everything else, but some
of us MUST WORK towards the establishment of the Black University
if it is ever to become a reality. It may, at this point, sound foolishly
ambitious, but the best possible assurance we could provide to see that
our dream is not stillborn would be to find a way to pay a small, but
devoted, group of people to work full-time towards the development of
the Black University and the aforementioned supporting actions . Otherwise,
the risk of failure that we run is incalculable .
Your commentary regarding finances hardly calls for any response,
save a resounding "amen" and an affirmative nod . You are certainly
correct in assuming that the time has come for the northern white institutions
to do something more than attempt to destroy the black institutions
of the South . There are so many ways in which they might begin (or
be forced) to contribute positively that I could hardly begin to list them .
But I should not pass one of these . Many black graduate students across
the country are being paid to act as teaching assistants in their respective
schools ; but who really needs these teaching "assistants," many of whom
are already qualified instructors? Are there not enough white graduate
students in white northern schools to teach introductory courses and to
grade papers? Surely these guilty, "committed" and "concerned" white
institutions would not mind paying the salaries, or some part of them,
of those black students who wished to do their "assisting" in the black
institutions of the South where they are really needed . This is something
that "militant" black students and black teacher recruiting programs
should look into .
The autonomous black foundation of which you speak is long overdue .
(Why did we not think of this at a time less pressing for its need? ) Most
of us know about foundations ; who establishes them, supports them,
operates them and keeps them going . Black professionals, the "middle
class" ("bourgies"), artists and others whose faith, taste, style and nerves
hope that they will not be offended by the jargon-or "INTIMIDATED"
will not allow them to do anything else must be urged to get going . (I
-such is a common excuse for doing nothing) .
Ronald Davis, author of "The Black University : In Peril Before Birth,"
is a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley .
NEGRO DIGEST March 1970 67