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November 30, 2010
November 29, 2010
THE TALENTED 10TH IS STILL RELEVANT IN 2010....
The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races. Now the training of men is a difficult and intricate task. Its technique is a matter for educational experts, but its object is for the vision of seers. If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may possess artisans but not, in nature, men. Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools � intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it � this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. On this foundation we may build bread winning, skill of hand and quickness of brain, with never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living for the object of life.
If this be true � and who can deny it � three tasks lay before me; first to show from the past that the Talented Tenth as they have risen among American Negroes have been worthy of leadership; secondly to show how these men may be educated and developed; and thirdly to show their relation to the Negro problem.
You misjudge us because you do not know us. From the very first it has been the educated and intelligent of the Negro people that have led and elevated the mass, and the sole obstacles that nullified and retarded their efforts were slavery and race prejudice; for what is slavery but the legalized survival of the unfit and the nullification of the work of natural internal leadership? Negro leadership therefore sought from the first to rid the race of this awful incubus that it might make way for natural selectionand the survival of the fittest. In colonial days came Phillis Wheatley andPaul Cuffe striving against the bars of prejudice; and Benjamin Banneker, the almanac maker, voiced their longings when he said to ThomasJefferson, "I freely and cheerfully acknowledge that I am of the African race and in colour which is natural to them, of the deepest dye; and it is under a sense of the most profound gratitude to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, that I now confess to you that I am not under that state of tyrannical thraldom and inhuman captivity to which too many of my brethren are doomed, but that I have abundantly tasted of the fruition of those blessings which proceed from that free and unequalled liberty with which you are favored, and which I hope you will willingly allow, you have mercifully received from the immediate hand of that Being from whom proceedeth every good and perfect gift.
"Suffer me to recall to your mind that time, in which the arms of the British crown were exerted with every powerful effort, in order to reduce you to a state of servitude; look back, I entreat you, on the variety of dangers to which you were exposed; reflect on that period in which every human aid appeared unavailable, and in which even hope and fortitude wore the aspect of inability to the conflict, and you cannot but be led to a serious and grateful sense of your miraculous and providential preservation, you cannot but acknowledge, that the present freedom and tranquility which you enjoy, you have mercifully received, and that a peculiar blessing of heaven.
"This, sir, was a time when you clearly saw into the injustice of a state of Slavery, and in which you had just apprehensions of the horrors of its condition. It was then that your abhorrence thereof was so excited, that you publicly held forth this true and invaluable doctrine, which is worthy to be recorded and remembered in all succeeding ages: �We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.�"
Then came Dr. James Derham, who could tell even the learned Dr. Rush something of medicine, and Lemuel Haynes, to whom Middlebury College gave an honorary A. M. in 1804. These and others we may call the Revolutionary group of distinguished Negroes - they were persons of marked ability, leaders of a Talented Tenth, standing conspicuously among the best of their time. They strove by word and deed to save the color line from becoming the line between the bond and free, but all they could do was nullified by Eli Whitney and the Curse of Gold. So they passed into forgetfulness.
But their spirit did not wholly die; here and there in the early part of the century came other exceptional men. Some were natural sons of unnatural fathers and were given often a liberal training and thus a race of educated mulattoes sprang up to plead for black men�s rights.There was Ira Aldridge, whom all Europe loved to honor; there was that Voice crying in the Wilderness, David Walker, and saying:
"I declare it does appear to me as though some nations think God is asleep, or that he made the Africans for nothing else but to dig their mines and work their farms, or they cannot believe history sacred or profane. I ask every man who has a heart, and is blessed with the privilege of believing � Is not God a God of justice to all his creatures? Do you say he is? Then if he gives peace and tranquility to tyrants and permits them to keep our fathers, our mothers, ourselves and our children in eternal ignorance and wretchedness to support them and their families, would he be to us a God of Justice? I ask, O, ye Christians, who hold us and our children in the most abject ignorance and degradation that ever a people were afflicted with since the world began � I say if God gives you peace and tranquility, and suffers you thus to go on afflicting us, and our children, who have never given you the least provocation - would He be to us a God of Justice? If you will allow that we are men, who feel for each other, does not the blood of our fathers and of us, their children, cry aloud to theLord of Sabaoth against you for the cruelties and murders with which you have and do continue to afflict us?"
This was the wild voice that first aroused Southern legislators in 1829 to the terrors of abolitionism.
In 1831 there met that first Negro convention in Philadelphia, at which the world gaped curiously but which bravely attacked the problems of race and slavery, crying out against persecution and declaring that "Laws as cruel in themselves as they were unconstitutional and unjust, have in many places been enacted against our poor, unfriended and unoffending brethren (without a shadow of provocation on our part), at whose bare recital the very savage draws himself up for fear of contagion � looks noble and prides himself because he bears not tile name of Christian." Side by side this free Negro movement, and the movement for abolition, strove until they merged in to one strong stream. Too little notice has been taken of the work which the Talented Tenth among Negroes took in the great abolition crusade. From the very day that a Philadelphia colored man became tile first subscriber to Garrison�s "Liberator," to the day when Negro soldiers made the Emancipation Proclamation possible, black leaders worked shoulder to shoulder with white men in a movement, the success of which would have been impossible without them. There was Purvis and Remond, Pennington and Highland Garnett, Sojourner Truth and Alexander Crummel, and above, Frederick Douglass � what would the abolition movement have been without them? They stood as living examples of the possibilities of the Negro race, their own hard experiences and well wrought culture said silently more than all the drawn periods of orators � they were the men who made American slavery impossible. As Maria Weston Chapman said, from the school of anti-slavery agitation, "a throng of authors, editors, lawyers, orators and accomplished gentlemen of color have taken their degree! It has equally implanted hopes and aspirations, noble thoughts, and sublime purposes, in the hearts of both races. It has prepared the white man for the freedom of the black man, and it has made the black man scorn the thought of enslavement, as does a white man, as far as its influence has extended. Strengthen that noble influence! Before its organization, the country only saw here and there in slavery some faithful Cudjoe or Dinah, whose strong natures blossomed even in bondage, like a fine plant beneath a heavy stone. Now, under the elevating and cherishing influence of the American Anti-slavery Society, the colored race, like the white, furnishes Corinthian capitals for the noblest temples."
Where were these black abolitionists trained? Some, like Frederick Douglass, were self-trained, but yet trained liberally; others, like Alexander Crummell and McCune Smith, graduated from famous foreign universities. Most of them rose up through the colored schools of New York and Philadelphia and Boston, taught by college-bred men like Russworm, of Dartmouth, and college-bred white men like Neau and Benezet.
After emancipation came a new group of educated and giftedleaders: Langston, Bruce and Elliot, Greener, Williams and Payne. Through political organization, historical and polemic writing and moral regeneration, these men strove to uplift their people. It is the fashion of to-day to sneer at them and to say that with freedom Negro leadership should have begun at the plow and not in the Senate � a foolish and mischievous lie; two hundred and fifty years that black serf toiled at the plow and yet that toiling was in vain till the Senate passed the war amendments; and two hundred and fifty years more the half-free serf of to-day may toil at his plow, but unless he have political rights and righteously guarded civic status, he will still remain the poverty-stricken and ignorant plaything of rascals, that he now is. This all sane men know even if they dare not say it.
And so we come to the present � a day of cowardice and vacillation, of strident wide-voiced wrong and faint hearted compromise; of double-faced dallying with Truth and Right. Who are to-day guiding the work of the Negro people? The "exceptions" of course. And yet so sure as this Talented Tenth is pointed out, the blind worshippers of the Average cry out in alarm: "These are exceptions, look here at death, disease and crime � these are the happy rule." Of course they are the rule, because a silly nation made them the rule: Because for three long centuries this people lynched Negroes who dared to be brave, raped black women who dared to be virtuous, crushed dark-hued youth who dared to be ambitious, and encouraged and made to flourish servility and lewdness and apathy. But nor even this was able to crush all manhood and chastity and aspiration from black folk. A saving remnant continually survives and persists, continually aspires, continually shows itself in thrift and ability and character. Exceptional it is to be sure, but this is its chiefest promise; it shows the capability of Negro blood, the promise of black men. Do Americans ever stop to reflect that there are in this land a million men of Negro blood, well-educated, owners of homes, against the honor of whose womanhood no breath was ever raised, whose men occupy positions of trust and usefulness, and who, judged by any standard, have reached the full measure of the best type of modern European culture? Is it fair, is it decent, is it Christian to ignore these facts of the Negro problem, to belittle such aspiration, to nullify such leadership and seek to crush these people back into the mass out of which by toil and travail, they and their fathers have raised themselves?
Can the masses of the Negro people be in any possible way more quickly raised than by the effort and example of this aristocracy of talent and character? Was there ever a nation on God�s fair earth civilized from the bottom upward? Never; it is, ever was and ever will be from the top downward that culture filters. The Talented Tenth rises and pulls all that are worth the saving up to their vantage ground. This is the history of human progress; and the two historic mistakes which have hindered that progress were the thinking first that no more could ever rise save the few already risen; or second, that it would better the uprisen to pull the risen down.
How then shall the leaders of a struggling people be trained and the hands of the risen few strengthened? There can be but one answer: The best and most capable of their youth must be schooled in the colleges and universities of the land. We will not quarrel as to just what the university of the Negro should teach or how it should teach it � I willingly admit that each soul and each race-soul needs its own peculiar curriculum. But this is true: A university is a human invention for the transmission of knowledge and culture from generation to generation, through the training of quick minds and pure hearts, and for this work no other human invention will suffice, not even trade and industrial schools.
All men cannot go to college but some men must; every isolated group or nation must have its yeast, must have for the talented few centers of training where men are not so mystified and befuddled by the hard and necessary toil of earning a living, as to have no aims higher than their bellies, and no God greater than Gold. This is true training, and thus in the beginning were the favored sons of the freedmen trained. Out of tile colleges of the North came, after the blood of war, Ware, Cravath, Chase, Andrews, Bumstead and Spence to build the foundations of knowledge and civilization in the black South. Where ought they to have begun to build? At the bottom, of course, quibbles the mole with his eyes in the earth. Aye! truly at the bottom, at the very bottom; at the bottom of knowledge, down in the very depths of knowledge there where the roots of justice strike into the lowest soil of Truth. And so they did begin; they founded colleges, and up from the colleges shot normal schools, and out from the normal schools went teachers, and around the normal teachers clustered other teachers to teach the public schools; the college trained in Greek and Latin and mathematics, 2,000 men; and these men trained full 50,000 others in morals and manners, and they in turn taught thrift and the alphabet to nine millions of men, who to-day hold $300,000,000 of property. It was a miracle - the most wonderful peace-battle of the 19th century, and yet to-day men smile at it, and in fine superiority tell us that it was all a strange mistake; that a proper way to found a system of education is first to gather the children and buy them spelling books and hoes; afterward men may look about for teachers, if haply they may find them; or again they would teach men Work, but as for Life � why, what has Work to do with Life, they ask vacantly.
Was the work of these college founders successful; did it stand the test of time? Did the college graduates, with all their fine theories of life, really live? Are they useful men helping to civilize and elevate their less fortunate fellows? Let us see. Omitting all institutions which have not actually graduated students from a college course, there are to-day in the United States thirty-four institutions giving something above high school training to Negroes and designed especially for this race.
Three of these were established in border States before the War; thirteen were planted by the Freedmen�s Bureau in the years 1864-1869; nine were established between 1870 and 1880 by various church bodies; five were established after 1881 by Negro churches, and four are state institutions supported by United States� agricultural funds. In most cases the college departments are small adjuncts to high and common schoolwork. As a matter of fact six institutions � Atlanta, Fisk, Howard, Shaw, Wilberforce and Leland, are the important Negro colleges so far as actual work and number of students are concerned. In all these institutions, seven hundred and fifty Negro college students are enrolled. In grade the best of these colleges are about a year behind the smaller New England colleges and a typical curriculum is that of Atlanta University. Here students from the grammar grades, after a three years� high school course, take a college course of 136 weeks. One-fourth of this time is given to Latin and Greek; one-fifth, to English and modern languages; one-sixth, to history and social science; one-seventh, to natural science; one-eighth to mathematics, and one-eighth to philosophy and pedagogy.
In addition to these students in the South, Negroes have attended Northern colleges for many years. As early as 1826 one was graduated from Bowdoin College, and from that time till to-day nearly every year has seen elsewhere, other such graduates. They have, of course, met much color prejudice. Fifty years ago very few colleges would admit them at all. Even to-day no Negro has ever been admitted to Princeton, and at some other leading institutions they are rather endured than encouraged. Oberlin was the great pioneer in tile work of blotting out the color line in colleges, and has more Negro graduates by far than any other Northern college.
The total number of Negro college graduates up to 1899, (several of the graduates of that year not being reported), was as follows: Negro White Colleges Colleges Before �76 137 75 �75-80 143 22 �80-85 250 31 �85-90 413 43 �90-95 465 66 �95-99 475 88 Class Unknown 57 64 -------------------------------------------- Total 1,914 390
Of these graduates 2,079 were men and 252 were women; 50 percent. of Northern-born college men come South to work among the masses of their people, at a sacrifice which few people realize; nearly 90 per cent. of the Southern-born graduates instead of seeking that personal freedom and broader intellectual atmosphere which their training has led them, in some degree, to conceive, stay and labor and wait in the midst of their black neighbors and relatives.
The most interesting question, and in many respects the crucial question, to be asked concerning college-bred Negroes, is: Do they earn a living? It has been intimated more than once that the higher training of Negroes has resulted in sending into the world of work, men who could find nothing to do suitable to their talents. Now and then there comes a rumor of a colored college man working at menial service, etc. Fortunately, returns as to occupations of college-bred Negroes, gathered by the Atlanta conference, are quite full � nearly sixty per cent. of the total number of graduates.
This enables us to reach fairly certain conclusions as to the occupations of all college-bred Negroes. Of 1,312 persons reported, there were: Teachers, 53.4% Clergymen, 16.8% Physicians, etc., 6.3% Students, 5.6% Lawyers, 4.7% In Govt. Service, 4.0% In Business, 3.6% Farmers and Artisans, 2.7% Editors, Secretaries and Clerks, 2.4% Miscellaneous, .5
Over half are teachers, a sixth are preachers, another sixth are students and professional men; over 6 per cent. are farmers, artisans and merchants, and 4 per cent. are in government service. In detail the occupations are as follows: Occupations of College-Bred Men. 701 Teachers: Presidents and Deans, 19 Teacher of Music, 7 Professors, Principals and Teachers, 675 221 Clergymen: Bishop, 1 Chaplains U. S. Army, 2 Missionaries, 9 Presiding Elders, 12 Preachers, 197 83 Physicians: Doctors of Medicine, 76 Druggists, 4 Dentists, 3 74 Students 62 Lawyers 53 in Civil Service: U. S. Minister Plenipotentiary, 1 U. S. Consul, 1 U. S. Deputy Collector, 1 U. S. Gauger, 1 U. S. Postmasters, 2 U. S. Clerks, 44 State Civil Service, 2 City Civil Service, 1 47 Business Men: Merchants, etc., 30 Managers, 13 Real Estate Dealers, 4 26 Farmers 22 Clerks and Secretaries: Secretary of National Societies, 7 Clerks, etc., 15 9 Artisans 9 Editors 5 Miscellaneous
These figures illustrate vividly the function of the college-bred Negro. He is, as he ought to be, the group leader, the man who sets the ideals of the community where he lives, directs its thoughts and heads its social movements. It need hardly be argued that the Negro people need social leadership more than most groups; that they have no traditions to fall back upon, no long established customs, no strong family ties, no well defined social classes. All these things must be slowly and painfully evolved. The preacher was, even before the war, the group leader of the Negroes, and the church their greatest social institution. Naturally this preacher was ignorant and often immoral, and the problem of replacing the older type by better educated men has been a difficult one. Both by direct work and by direct influence on other preachers, and on congregations, the college-bred preacher has an opportunity for reformatory work and moral inspiration, the value of which cannot be overestimated.
It has, however, been in the furnishing of teachers that the Negro college has found its peculiar function. Few persons realize how vast a work, how mighty a revolution has been thus accomplished. To furnish five millions and more of ignorant people with teachers of their own race and blood, in one generation, was not only a very difficult undertaking, but very important one, in that, it placed before the eyes of almost every Negro child an attainable ideal. It brought the masses of the blacks in contact with modern civilization, made black men the leaders of their communities and trainers of the new generation. In this work college-bred Negroes were first teachers, and then teachers of teachers. And here it is that the broad culture of college work has been of peculiar value. Knowledge of life and its wider meaning, has been the point of the Negro�s deepest ignorance, and the sending out of teachers whose training has not been simply for bread winning, but also for human culture, has been of inestimable value in the training of these men.
In earlier years the two occupations of preacher and teacher were practically the only ones open to the black college graduate. Of later years a larger diversity of life among his people, has opened new avenues of employment. Nor have these college men been paupers and spendthrifts; 557 college-bred Negroes owned in 1899, $1,342,862.50 worth of real estate (assessed value), or $2,411 per family. The real value of the total accumulations of the whole group is perhaps about $10,000,000, or $5,000 a piece. Pitiful is it not beside the fortunes of oil kings and steel trusts, but after all is the fortune of the millionaire the only stamp of true and successful living? Alas! it is, with many and there�s the rub.
The problem of training the Negro is to-day immensely complicated by the fact that the whole question of the efficiency and appropriateness of our present systems of education, for any kind of child, is a matter of active debate, in which final settlement seems still afar off. Consequently it often happens that persons arguing for or against certain systems of education for Negroes, have these controversies in mind and miss the real question at issue. The main question, so far as the Southern Negro is concerned, is: What under the present circumstance, must a system of education do in order to raise the Negro as quickly as possible in the scale of civilization? The answer to this question seems to me clear: It must strengthen the Negro�s character, increase his knowledge and teach him to earn a living. Now it goes without saying that it is hard to do all these things simultaneously or suddenly and that at the same time it will not do to give all the attention to one and neglect the others; we could give black boys trades, but that alone will not civilize a race of ex-slaves; we might simply increase their knowledge of the world, but this would not necessarily make them wish to use this knowledge honestly; we might seek to strengthen character and purpose, but to what end if this people have nothing to eat or to wear? A system of education is not one thing, nor does it have a single definite object, nor is it a mere matter of schools. Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men. If then we start out to train an ignorant and unskilled people with a heritage of bad habits, our system of training must set before itself two great aims � the one dealing with knowledge and character, the other part seeking to give the child the technical knowledge necessary for him to earn a living under the present circumstances. These objects are accomplished in part by the opening of the common schools on the one, and of the industrial schools on the other. But only in part, for there must also be trained those who are to teach these schools � men and women of knowledge and culture and technical skill who understand modern civilization, and have the training and aptitude to impart it to the children under them. There must be teachers, and teachers of teachers, and to attempt to establish any sort of a system of common and industrial school training, without first (and I say first advisedly) without first providing for the higher training of the very best teachers, is simply throwing your money to the winds. School houses do not teach themselves - piles of brick and mortar and machinery do not send out men. It is the trained, living human soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black or white, Greek, Russian or American. Nothing, in these latter days, has so dampened the faith of thinking Negroes in recent educational movements, as the fact that such movements have been accompanied by ridicule and denouncement and decrying of those very institutions of higher training which made the Negro public school possible, and make Negro industrial schools thinkable. It was: Fisk, Atlanta, Howard and Straight, those colleges born of the faith and sacrifice of the abolitionists, that placed in the black schools of the South the 30,000 teachers and more, which some, who depreciate the work of these higher schools, are using to teach their own new experiments. If Hampton, Tuskegee and the hundred other industrial schools prove in the future to be as successful as they deserve to be, then their success in training black artisans for the South, will be due primarily to the white colleges of the North and the black colleges of the South, which trained the teachers who to-day conduct these institutions. There was a time when the American people believed pretty devoutly that a log of wood with a boyat one end and Mark Hopkins at the other, represented the highest ideal of human training. But in these eager days it would seem that we have changed all that and think it necessary to add a couple of saw-mills and a hammer to this outfit, and, at a pinch, to dispense with the services of Mark Hopkins.
I would not deny, or for a moment seem to deny, the paramount necessity of teaching the Negro to work, and to work steadily and skillfully; or seem to depreciate in the slightest degree the important part industrial schools must play in the accomplishment of these ends, but I do say, and insist upon it, that it is industrialism drunk with its vision of success, to imagine that its own work can be accomplished without providing for the training of broadly cultured men and women to teach its own teachers, and to teach the teachers of the public schools.
But I have already said that human education is not simply a matter of schools; it is much more a matter of family and group life - the training of one�s home, of one�s daily companions, of one�s social class. Now the black boy of the South moves in a black world - a world with its own leaders, its own thoughts, its own ideals. In this world he gets by far the larger part of his life training, and through the eyes of this dark world he peers into the veiled world beyond. Who guides and determines the education which he receives in his world? His teachers here are the group-leaders of the Negro people � the physicians and clergymen, the trained fathers and mothers, the influential and forceful men about him of all kinds; here it is, if at all, that the culture of the surrounding world trickles through and is handed on by the graduates of the higher schools. Can such culture training of group leaders be neglected? Can we afford to ignore it? Do you think that if the leaders of thought among Negroes are not trained and educated thinkers, that they will have no leaders? On the contrary a hundred half-trained demagogues will still hold the places they so largely occupy now, and hundreds of vociferous busy-bodies will multiply. You have no choice; either you must help furnish this race from within its own ranks with thoughtful men of trained leadership, or you must suffer the evil consequences of a headless misguided rabble.
I am an earnest advocate of manual training and trade teaching for black boys, and for white boys, too. I believe that next to the founding of Negro colleges the most valuable addition to Negro education since the war, has been industrial training for black boys. Nevertheless, I insist that the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men; there are two means of making the carpenter a man, each equally important: the first is to give the group and community in which he works, liberally trained teachers and leaders to teach him and his family what life means; the second is to give him sufficient intelligence and technical skill to make him an efficient workman; the first object demands the Negro college and college-bred men � not a quantity of such colleges, but a few of excellent quality; not too many college-bred men, but enough to leaven the lump, to inspire the masses, to raise the Talented Tenth to leadership; the second object demands a good system of common schools, well-taught, conveniently located and properly equipped.
The Sixth Atlanta Conference truly said in 1901:
"We call the attention of the Nation to the fact that less than one million of the three million Negro children of school age, are at present regularly attending school, and these attend a session which lasts only a few months.
"We are to-day deliberately rearing millions of our citizens in ignorance, and at the same time limiting the rights of citizenship by educational qualifications. This is unjust. Half the black youth of the land have no opportunities open to them for learning to read, write and cipher. In the discussion as to the proper training of Negro children after they leave the public schools, we have forgotten that they are not yet decently provided with public schools.
"Propositions are beginning to be made in the South to reduce the already meagre school facilities of Negroes. We congratulate the South on resisting, as much as it has, this pressure, and on the many millions it has spent on Negro education. But it is only fair to point out that Negro taxes and the Negroes� share of the income from indirect taxes and endowments have fully repaid this expenditure, so that the Negro public school system has not in all probability cost the white taxpayers a single cent since the war.
"This is not fair. Negro schools should be a public burden, since they are a public benefit. The Negro has a right to demand good common school training at the hands of the States and the Nation since by their fault he is not in position to pay for this himself."
What is the chief need for the building up of the Negro public school in the South? The Negro race in the South needs teachers to-day above all else. This is the concurrent testimony of all who know the situation. For the supply of this great demand two things are needed - institutions of higher education and money for school houses and salaries. It is usually assumed that a hundred or more institutions for Negro training are to-day turning out so many teachers and college-bred men that the race is threatened with an over-supply. This is sheer nonsense. There are to-day less than 3,000 living Negro college graduates in the United States, and less than 1,000 Negroes in college. Moreover, in the 164 schools for Negroes, 95 percent. of their students are doing elementary and secondary work, work which should be done in the public schools. Over half the remaining 2,157 students are taking high school studies. The mass of so-called "normal" schools for the Negro, are simply doing elementary common school work, or, at most, high school work, with a little instruction in methods. The Negro colleges and the post-graduate courses at other institutions are the only agencies for the broader and more careful training of teachers. The work of these institutions is hampered for lack of funds. It is getting increasingly difficult to get funds for training teachers in the best modern methods, and yet all over the South, from State Superintendents, county officials, city boards and school principals comes the wail, "We need TEACHERS!" and teachers must be trained. As the fairest minded of all white Southerners, Atticus G. Haygood, once said: "The defects of colored teachers are so great as to create an urgent necessity for training better ones. Their excellencies and their successes are sufficient to justify the best hopes of success in the effort, and to vindicate the judgment of those who make large investments of money and service, to give to colored students opportunity for thoroughly preparing themselves for the work of teaching children of their people."
The truth of this has been strikingly shown in the marked improvement of white teachers in the South. Twenty years ago the rank and file of white public school teachers were not as good as the Negro teachers. But they, by scholarships and good salaries, have been encouraged to thorough normal and collegiate preparation, while the Negro teachers have been discouraged by starvation wages and the idea that any training will do for a black teacher. If carpenters are needed it is well and good to train men as carpenters. But to train men as carpenters, and then set them to teaching is wasteful and criminal; and to train men as teachers and then refuse them living wages, unless they become carpenters, is rank nonsense.
The United States Commissioner of Education says in his report for 1900: "For comparison between the white and colored enrollment in secondary and higher education, I have added together the enrollment in high schools and secondary schools, with the attendance on colleges and universities, not being sure of the actual grade of work done in the colleges and universities. The work done in the secondary schools is reported in such detail in this office, that there can be no doubt of its grade."
He then makes the following comparisons of persons in every million enrolled in secondary and higher education: Whole Country. Negroes. 1880 4,362 1,289 1900 10,743 2,061
And he concludes: "While the number in colored high schools and colleges had increased somewhat faster than the population, it had not kept pace with the average of the whole country, for it had fallen from 30 per cent. to 24 per cent. of the average quota. Of all colored pupils, one (1) in one hundred was engaged in secondary and higher work, and that ratio has continued substantially for the past twenty years. If the ratio of colored population in secondary and higher education is to be equal to the average for the whole country, it must be increased to five times its present average." And if this be true of the secondary and higher education, it is safe to say that the Negro has not one-tenth his quota in college studies. How baseless, therefore, is the charge of too much training! We need Negro teachers for the Negro common schools, and we need first-class normal schools and colleges to train them. This is the work of higher Negro education and it must be done.
Further than this, after being provided with group leaders of civilization, and a foundation of intelligence in the public schools, the carpenter, in order to be a man, needs technical skill. This calls for trade schools. Now trade schools are not nearly such simple things as people once thought. The original idea was that the "Industrial" school was to furnish education, practically free, to those willing to work for it; it was to "do" things � i.e.: become a center of productive industry, it was to be partially, if not wholly, self-supporting, and it was to teach trades. Admirable as were some of the ideas underlying this scheme, the whole thing simply would not work in practice; it was found that if you were to use time and material to teach trades thoroughly, you could not at the same time keep the industries on a commercial basis and make them pay. Many schools started out to do this on a large scale and went into virtual bankruptcy. Moreover, it was found also that it was possible to teach a boy a trade mechanically, without giving him the full educative benefit of the process, and, vice versa, that there was a distinctive educative value in teaching a boy to use his hands and eyes in carrying out certain physical processes, even though he did not actually learn a trade. It has happened, therefore, in the last decade, that a noticeable change has come over the industrial schools. In the first place the idea of commercially remunerative industry in a school is being pushed rapidly to the background. There are still schools with shops and farms that bring an income, and schools that use student labor partially for the erection of their buildings and the furnishing of equipment. It is coming to be seen, however, in the education of the Negro, as clearly as it has been seen in the education of the youths the world over, that it is the boy and not the material product, that is the true object of education. Consequently the object of the industrial school came to be the thorough training of boys regardless of the cost of the training, so long as it was thoroughly well done.
Even at this point, however, the difficulties were not surmounted. In the first place modern industry has taken great strides since the war, and the teaching of trades is no longer a simple matter. Machinery and long processes of work have greatly changed the work of the carpenter, the ironworker and the shoemaker. A really efficient workman must be to-day an intelligent man who has had good technical training in addition to thorough common school, and perhaps even higher training. To meet this situation the industrial schools began a further development; they established distinct Trade Schools for the thorough training of better class artisans, and at the same time they sought to preserve for the purposes of general education, such of the simpler processes of elementary trade learning as were best suited therefor. In this differentiation of the Trade School and manual training, the best of the industrial schools simply followed the plain trend of the present educational epoch. A prominent educator tells us that, in Sweden, "In the beginning the economic conception was generally adopted, and everywhere manual training was looked upon as a means of preparing the children of the common people to earn their living. But gradually it came to be recognized that manual training has a more elevated purpose, and one, indeed, more useful in the deeper meaning of the term. It came to be considered as an educative process for the complete moral, physical and intellectual development of the child."
Thus, again, in the manning of trade schools and manual training schools we are thrown back upon the higher training as its source and chief support. There was a time when any aged and wornout carpenter could teach in a trade school. But not so to-day. Indeed the demand for college-bred men by a school like Tuskegee, ought to make Mr. Booker T. Washington the firmest friend of higher training. Here he has as helpers the son of a Negro senator, trained in Greek and the humanities, and graduated at Harvard; the son of a Negro congressman and lawyer, trained in Latin and mathematics, and graduated at Oberlin; he has as his wife, a woman who read Virgil and Homer in the same class room with me; he has as college chaplain, a classical graduate of Atlanta University; as teacher of science, a graduate of Fisk; as teacher of history, a graduate of Smith, � indeed some thirty of his chief teachers are college graduates, and instead of studying French grammars in the midst of weeds, or buying pianos for dirty cabins, they are at Mr. Washington�s right hand helping him in a noble work. And yet one of the effects of Mr. Washington�s propaganda has been to throw doubt upon the expediency of such training for Negroes, as these persons have had.
Men of America, the problem is plain before you. Here is a race transplanted through the criminal foolishness of your fathers. Whether you like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down. Education and work are the levers to uplift a people. Work alone will not do it unless inspired by the right ideals and guided by intelligence. Education must not simply teach work � it must teach Life. The Talented Tenth of the Negro race must be made leaders of thought and missionaries of culture among their people. No others can do this work and Negro colleges must train men for it. The Negro race, like all other races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men.
If this be true � and who can deny it � three tasks lay before me; first to show from the past that the Talented Tenth as they have risen among American Negroes have been worthy of leadership; secondly to show how these men may be educated and developed; and thirdly to show their relation to the Negro problem.
You misjudge us because you do not know us. From the very first it has been the educated and intelligent of the Negro people that have led and elevated the mass, and the sole obstacles that nullified and retarded their efforts were slavery and race prejudice; for what is slavery but the legalized survival of the unfit and the nullification of the work of natural internal leadership? Negro leadership therefore sought from the first to rid the race of this awful incubus that it might make way for natural selectionand the survival of the fittest. In colonial days came Phillis Wheatley andPaul Cuffe striving against the bars of prejudice; and Benjamin Banneker, the almanac maker, voiced their longings when he said to ThomasJefferson, "I freely and cheerfully acknowledge that I am of the African race and in colour which is natural to them, of the deepest dye; and it is under a sense of the most profound gratitude to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, that I now confess to you that I am not under that state of tyrannical thraldom and inhuman captivity to which too many of my brethren are doomed, but that I have abundantly tasted of the fruition of those blessings which proceed from that free and unequalled liberty with which you are favored, and which I hope you will willingly allow, you have mercifully received from the immediate hand of that Being from whom proceedeth every good and perfect gift.
"Suffer me to recall to your mind that time, in which the arms of the British crown were exerted with every powerful effort, in order to reduce you to a state of servitude; look back, I entreat you, on the variety of dangers to which you were exposed; reflect on that period in which every human aid appeared unavailable, and in which even hope and fortitude wore the aspect of inability to the conflict, and you cannot but be led to a serious and grateful sense of your miraculous and providential preservation, you cannot but acknowledge, that the present freedom and tranquility which you enjoy, you have mercifully received, and that a peculiar blessing of heaven.
"This, sir, was a time when you clearly saw into the injustice of a state of Slavery, and in which you had just apprehensions of the horrors of its condition. It was then that your abhorrence thereof was so excited, that you publicly held forth this true and invaluable doctrine, which is worthy to be recorded and remembered in all succeeding ages: �We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.�"
Then came Dr. James Derham, who could tell even the learned Dr. Rush something of medicine, and Lemuel Haynes, to whom Middlebury College gave an honorary A. M. in 1804. These and others we may call the Revolutionary group of distinguished Negroes - they were persons of marked ability, leaders of a Talented Tenth, standing conspicuously among the best of their time. They strove by word and deed to save the color line from becoming the line between the bond and free, but all they could do was nullified by Eli Whitney and the Curse of Gold. So they passed into forgetfulness.
But their spirit did not wholly die; here and there in the early part of the century came other exceptional men. Some were natural sons of unnatural fathers and were given often a liberal training and thus a race of educated mulattoes sprang up to plead for black men�s rights.There was Ira Aldridge, whom all Europe loved to honor; there was that Voice crying in the Wilderness, David Walker, and saying:
"I declare it does appear to me as though some nations think God is asleep, or that he made the Africans for nothing else but to dig their mines and work their farms, or they cannot believe history sacred or profane. I ask every man who has a heart, and is blessed with the privilege of believing � Is not God a God of justice to all his creatures? Do you say he is? Then if he gives peace and tranquility to tyrants and permits them to keep our fathers, our mothers, ourselves and our children in eternal ignorance and wretchedness to support them and their families, would he be to us a God of Justice? I ask, O, ye Christians, who hold us and our children in the most abject ignorance and degradation that ever a people were afflicted with since the world began � I say if God gives you peace and tranquility, and suffers you thus to go on afflicting us, and our children, who have never given you the least provocation - would He be to us a God of Justice? If you will allow that we are men, who feel for each other, does not the blood of our fathers and of us, their children, cry aloud to theLord of Sabaoth against you for the cruelties and murders with which you have and do continue to afflict us?"
This was the wild voice that first aroused Southern legislators in 1829 to the terrors of abolitionism.
In 1831 there met that first Negro convention in Philadelphia, at which the world gaped curiously but which bravely attacked the problems of race and slavery, crying out against persecution and declaring that "Laws as cruel in themselves as they were unconstitutional and unjust, have in many places been enacted against our poor, unfriended and unoffending brethren (without a shadow of provocation on our part), at whose bare recital the very savage draws himself up for fear of contagion � looks noble and prides himself because he bears not tile name of Christian." Side by side this free Negro movement, and the movement for abolition, strove until they merged in to one strong stream. Too little notice has been taken of the work which the Talented Tenth among Negroes took in the great abolition crusade. From the very day that a Philadelphia colored man became tile first subscriber to Garrison�s "Liberator," to the day when Negro soldiers made the Emancipation Proclamation possible, black leaders worked shoulder to shoulder with white men in a movement, the success of which would have been impossible without them. There was Purvis and Remond, Pennington and Highland Garnett, Sojourner Truth and Alexander Crummel, and above, Frederick Douglass � what would the abolition movement have been without them? They stood as living examples of the possibilities of the Negro race, their own hard experiences and well wrought culture said silently more than all the drawn periods of orators � they were the men who made American slavery impossible. As Maria Weston Chapman said, from the school of anti-slavery agitation, "a throng of authors, editors, lawyers, orators and accomplished gentlemen of color have taken their degree! It has equally implanted hopes and aspirations, noble thoughts, and sublime purposes, in the hearts of both races. It has prepared the white man for the freedom of the black man, and it has made the black man scorn the thought of enslavement, as does a white man, as far as its influence has extended. Strengthen that noble influence! Before its organization, the country only saw here and there in slavery some faithful Cudjoe or Dinah, whose strong natures blossomed even in bondage, like a fine plant beneath a heavy stone. Now, under the elevating and cherishing influence of the American Anti-slavery Society, the colored race, like the white, furnishes Corinthian capitals for the noblest temples."
Where were these black abolitionists trained? Some, like Frederick Douglass, were self-trained, but yet trained liberally; others, like Alexander Crummell and McCune Smith, graduated from famous foreign universities. Most of them rose up through the colored schools of New York and Philadelphia and Boston, taught by college-bred men like Russworm, of Dartmouth, and college-bred white men like Neau and Benezet.
After emancipation came a new group of educated and giftedleaders: Langston, Bruce and Elliot, Greener, Williams and Payne. Through political organization, historical and polemic writing and moral regeneration, these men strove to uplift their people. It is the fashion of to-day to sneer at them and to say that with freedom Negro leadership should have begun at the plow and not in the Senate � a foolish and mischievous lie; two hundred and fifty years that black serf toiled at the plow and yet that toiling was in vain till the Senate passed the war amendments; and two hundred and fifty years more the half-free serf of to-day may toil at his plow, but unless he have political rights and righteously guarded civic status, he will still remain the poverty-stricken and ignorant plaything of rascals, that he now is. This all sane men know even if they dare not say it.
And so we come to the present � a day of cowardice and vacillation, of strident wide-voiced wrong and faint hearted compromise; of double-faced dallying with Truth and Right. Who are to-day guiding the work of the Negro people? The "exceptions" of course. And yet so sure as this Talented Tenth is pointed out, the blind worshippers of the Average cry out in alarm: "These are exceptions, look here at death, disease and crime � these are the happy rule." Of course they are the rule, because a silly nation made them the rule: Because for three long centuries this people lynched Negroes who dared to be brave, raped black women who dared to be virtuous, crushed dark-hued youth who dared to be ambitious, and encouraged and made to flourish servility and lewdness and apathy. But nor even this was able to crush all manhood and chastity and aspiration from black folk. A saving remnant continually survives and persists, continually aspires, continually shows itself in thrift and ability and character. Exceptional it is to be sure, but this is its chiefest promise; it shows the capability of Negro blood, the promise of black men. Do Americans ever stop to reflect that there are in this land a million men of Negro blood, well-educated, owners of homes, against the honor of whose womanhood no breath was ever raised, whose men occupy positions of trust and usefulness, and who, judged by any standard, have reached the full measure of the best type of modern European culture? Is it fair, is it decent, is it Christian to ignore these facts of the Negro problem, to belittle such aspiration, to nullify such leadership and seek to crush these people back into the mass out of which by toil and travail, they and their fathers have raised themselves?
Can the masses of the Negro people be in any possible way more quickly raised than by the effort and example of this aristocracy of talent and character? Was there ever a nation on God�s fair earth civilized from the bottom upward? Never; it is, ever was and ever will be from the top downward that culture filters. The Talented Tenth rises and pulls all that are worth the saving up to their vantage ground. This is the history of human progress; and the two historic mistakes which have hindered that progress were the thinking first that no more could ever rise save the few already risen; or second, that it would better the uprisen to pull the risen down.
How then shall the leaders of a struggling people be trained and the hands of the risen few strengthened? There can be but one answer: The best and most capable of their youth must be schooled in the colleges and universities of the land. We will not quarrel as to just what the university of the Negro should teach or how it should teach it � I willingly admit that each soul and each race-soul needs its own peculiar curriculum. But this is true: A university is a human invention for the transmission of knowledge and culture from generation to generation, through the training of quick minds and pure hearts, and for this work no other human invention will suffice, not even trade and industrial schools.
All men cannot go to college but some men must; every isolated group or nation must have its yeast, must have for the talented few centers of training where men are not so mystified and befuddled by the hard and necessary toil of earning a living, as to have no aims higher than their bellies, and no God greater than Gold. This is true training, and thus in the beginning were the favored sons of the freedmen trained. Out of tile colleges of the North came, after the blood of war, Ware, Cravath, Chase, Andrews, Bumstead and Spence to build the foundations of knowledge and civilization in the black South. Where ought they to have begun to build? At the bottom, of course, quibbles the mole with his eyes in the earth. Aye! truly at the bottom, at the very bottom; at the bottom of knowledge, down in the very depths of knowledge there where the roots of justice strike into the lowest soil of Truth. And so they did begin; they founded colleges, and up from the colleges shot normal schools, and out from the normal schools went teachers, and around the normal teachers clustered other teachers to teach the public schools; the college trained in Greek and Latin and mathematics, 2,000 men; and these men trained full 50,000 others in morals and manners, and they in turn taught thrift and the alphabet to nine millions of men, who to-day hold $300,000,000 of property. It was a miracle - the most wonderful peace-battle of the 19th century, and yet to-day men smile at it, and in fine superiority tell us that it was all a strange mistake; that a proper way to found a system of education is first to gather the children and buy them spelling books and hoes; afterward men may look about for teachers, if haply they may find them; or again they would teach men Work, but as for Life � why, what has Work to do with Life, they ask vacantly.
Was the work of these college founders successful; did it stand the test of time? Did the college graduates, with all their fine theories of life, really live? Are they useful men helping to civilize and elevate their less fortunate fellows? Let us see. Omitting all institutions which have not actually graduated students from a college course, there are to-day in the United States thirty-four institutions giving something above high school training to Negroes and designed especially for this race.
Three of these were established in border States before the War; thirteen were planted by the Freedmen�s Bureau in the years 1864-1869; nine were established between 1870 and 1880 by various church bodies; five were established after 1881 by Negro churches, and four are state institutions supported by United States� agricultural funds. In most cases the college departments are small adjuncts to high and common schoolwork. As a matter of fact six institutions � Atlanta, Fisk, Howard, Shaw, Wilberforce and Leland, are the important Negro colleges so far as actual work and number of students are concerned. In all these institutions, seven hundred and fifty Negro college students are enrolled. In grade the best of these colleges are about a year behind the smaller New England colleges and a typical curriculum is that of Atlanta University. Here students from the grammar grades, after a three years� high school course, take a college course of 136 weeks. One-fourth of this time is given to Latin and Greek; one-fifth, to English and modern languages; one-sixth, to history and social science; one-seventh, to natural science; one-eighth to mathematics, and one-eighth to philosophy and pedagogy.
In addition to these students in the South, Negroes have attended Northern colleges for many years. As early as 1826 one was graduated from Bowdoin College, and from that time till to-day nearly every year has seen elsewhere, other such graduates. They have, of course, met much color prejudice. Fifty years ago very few colleges would admit them at all. Even to-day no Negro has ever been admitted to Princeton, and at some other leading institutions they are rather endured than encouraged. Oberlin was the great pioneer in tile work of blotting out the color line in colleges, and has more Negro graduates by far than any other Northern college.
The total number of Negro college graduates up to 1899, (several of the graduates of that year not being reported), was as follows: Negro White Colleges Colleges Before �76 137 75 �75-80 143 22 �80-85 250 31 �85-90 413 43 �90-95 465 66 �95-99 475 88 Class Unknown 57 64 -------------------------------------------- Total 1,914 390
Of these graduates 2,079 were men and 252 were women; 50 percent. of Northern-born college men come South to work among the masses of their people, at a sacrifice which few people realize; nearly 90 per cent. of the Southern-born graduates instead of seeking that personal freedom and broader intellectual atmosphere which their training has led them, in some degree, to conceive, stay and labor and wait in the midst of their black neighbors and relatives.
The most interesting question, and in many respects the crucial question, to be asked concerning college-bred Negroes, is: Do they earn a living? It has been intimated more than once that the higher training of Negroes has resulted in sending into the world of work, men who could find nothing to do suitable to their talents. Now and then there comes a rumor of a colored college man working at menial service, etc. Fortunately, returns as to occupations of college-bred Negroes, gathered by the Atlanta conference, are quite full � nearly sixty per cent. of the total number of graduates.
This enables us to reach fairly certain conclusions as to the occupations of all college-bred Negroes. Of 1,312 persons reported, there were: Teachers, 53.4% Clergymen, 16.8% Physicians, etc., 6.3% Students, 5.6% Lawyers, 4.7% In Govt. Service, 4.0% In Business, 3.6% Farmers and Artisans, 2.7% Editors, Secretaries and Clerks, 2.4% Miscellaneous, .5
Over half are teachers, a sixth are preachers, another sixth are students and professional men; over 6 per cent. are farmers, artisans and merchants, and 4 per cent. are in government service. In detail the occupations are as follows: Occupations of College-Bred Men. 701 Teachers: Presidents and Deans, 19 Teacher of Music, 7 Professors, Principals and Teachers, 675 221 Clergymen: Bishop, 1 Chaplains U. S. Army, 2 Missionaries, 9 Presiding Elders, 12 Preachers, 197 83 Physicians: Doctors of Medicine, 76 Druggists, 4 Dentists, 3 74 Students 62 Lawyers 53 in Civil Service: U. S. Minister Plenipotentiary, 1 U. S. Consul, 1 U. S. Deputy Collector, 1 U. S. Gauger, 1 U. S. Postmasters, 2 U. S. Clerks, 44 State Civil Service, 2 City Civil Service, 1 47 Business Men: Merchants, etc., 30 Managers, 13 Real Estate Dealers, 4 26 Farmers 22 Clerks and Secretaries: Secretary of National Societies, 7 Clerks, etc., 15 9 Artisans 9 Editors 5 Miscellaneous
These figures illustrate vividly the function of the college-bred Negro. He is, as he ought to be, the group leader, the man who sets the ideals of the community where he lives, directs its thoughts and heads its social movements. It need hardly be argued that the Negro people need social leadership more than most groups; that they have no traditions to fall back upon, no long established customs, no strong family ties, no well defined social classes. All these things must be slowly and painfully evolved. The preacher was, even before the war, the group leader of the Negroes, and the church their greatest social institution. Naturally this preacher was ignorant and often immoral, and the problem of replacing the older type by better educated men has been a difficult one. Both by direct work and by direct influence on other preachers, and on congregations, the college-bred preacher has an opportunity for reformatory work and moral inspiration, the value of which cannot be overestimated.
It has, however, been in the furnishing of teachers that the Negro college has found its peculiar function. Few persons realize how vast a work, how mighty a revolution has been thus accomplished. To furnish five millions and more of ignorant people with teachers of their own race and blood, in one generation, was not only a very difficult undertaking, but very important one, in that, it placed before the eyes of almost every Negro child an attainable ideal. It brought the masses of the blacks in contact with modern civilization, made black men the leaders of their communities and trainers of the new generation. In this work college-bred Negroes were first teachers, and then teachers of teachers. And here it is that the broad culture of college work has been of peculiar value. Knowledge of life and its wider meaning, has been the point of the Negro�s deepest ignorance, and the sending out of teachers whose training has not been simply for bread winning, but also for human culture, has been of inestimable value in the training of these men.
In earlier years the two occupations of preacher and teacher were practically the only ones open to the black college graduate. Of later years a larger diversity of life among his people, has opened new avenues of employment. Nor have these college men been paupers and spendthrifts; 557 college-bred Negroes owned in 1899, $1,342,862.50 worth of real estate (assessed value), or $2,411 per family. The real value of the total accumulations of the whole group is perhaps about $10,000,000, or $5,000 a piece. Pitiful is it not beside the fortunes of oil kings and steel trusts, but after all is the fortune of the millionaire the only stamp of true and successful living? Alas! it is, with many and there�s the rub.
The problem of training the Negro is to-day immensely complicated by the fact that the whole question of the efficiency and appropriateness of our present systems of education, for any kind of child, is a matter of active debate, in which final settlement seems still afar off. Consequently it often happens that persons arguing for or against certain systems of education for Negroes, have these controversies in mind and miss the real question at issue. The main question, so far as the Southern Negro is concerned, is: What under the present circumstance, must a system of education do in order to raise the Negro as quickly as possible in the scale of civilization? The answer to this question seems to me clear: It must strengthen the Negro�s character, increase his knowledge and teach him to earn a living. Now it goes without saying that it is hard to do all these things simultaneously or suddenly and that at the same time it will not do to give all the attention to one and neglect the others; we could give black boys trades, but that alone will not civilize a race of ex-slaves; we might simply increase their knowledge of the world, but this would not necessarily make them wish to use this knowledge honestly; we might seek to strengthen character and purpose, but to what end if this people have nothing to eat or to wear? A system of education is not one thing, nor does it have a single definite object, nor is it a mere matter of schools. Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men. If then we start out to train an ignorant and unskilled people with a heritage of bad habits, our system of training must set before itself two great aims � the one dealing with knowledge and character, the other part seeking to give the child the technical knowledge necessary for him to earn a living under the present circumstances. These objects are accomplished in part by the opening of the common schools on the one, and of the industrial schools on the other. But only in part, for there must also be trained those who are to teach these schools � men and women of knowledge and culture and technical skill who understand modern civilization, and have the training and aptitude to impart it to the children under them. There must be teachers, and teachers of teachers, and to attempt to establish any sort of a system of common and industrial school training, without first (and I say first advisedly) without first providing for the higher training of the very best teachers, is simply throwing your money to the winds. School houses do not teach themselves - piles of brick and mortar and machinery do not send out men. It is the trained, living human soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black or white, Greek, Russian or American. Nothing, in these latter days, has so dampened the faith of thinking Negroes in recent educational movements, as the fact that such movements have been accompanied by ridicule and denouncement and decrying of those very institutions of higher training which made the Negro public school possible, and make Negro industrial schools thinkable. It was: Fisk, Atlanta, Howard and Straight, those colleges born of the faith and sacrifice of the abolitionists, that placed in the black schools of the South the 30,000 teachers and more, which some, who depreciate the work of these higher schools, are using to teach their own new experiments. If Hampton, Tuskegee and the hundred other industrial schools prove in the future to be as successful as they deserve to be, then their success in training black artisans for the South, will be due primarily to the white colleges of the North and the black colleges of the South, which trained the teachers who to-day conduct these institutions. There was a time when the American people believed pretty devoutly that a log of wood with a boyat one end and Mark Hopkins at the other, represented the highest ideal of human training. But in these eager days it would seem that we have changed all that and think it necessary to add a couple of saw-mills and a hammer to this outfit, and, at a pinch, to dispense with the services of Mark Hopkins.
I would not deny, or for a moment seem to deny, the paramount necessity of teaching the Negro to work, and to work steadily and skillfully; or seem to depreciate in the slightest degree the important part industrial schools must play in the accomplishment of these ends, but I do say, and insist upon it, that it is industrialism drunk with its vision of success, to imagine that its own work can be accomplished without providing for the training of broadly cultured men and women to teach its own teachers, and to teach the teachers of the public schools.
But I have already said that human education is not simply a matter of schools; it is much more a matter of family and group life - the training of one�s home, of one�s daily companions, of one�s social class. Now the black boy of the South moves in a black world - a world with its own leaders, its own thoughts, its own ideals. In this world he gets by far the larger part of his life training, and through the eyes of this dark world he peers into the veiled world beyond. Who guides and determines the education which he receives in his world? His teachers here are the group-leaders of the Negro people � the physicians and clergymen, the trained fathers and mothers, the influential and forceful men about him of all kinds; here it is, if at all, that the culture of the surrounding world trickles through and is handed on by the graduates of the higher schools. Can such culture training of group leaders be neglected? Can we afford to ignore it? Do you think that if the leaders of thought among Negroes are not trained and educated thinkers, that they will have no leaders? On the contrary a hundred half-trained demagogues will still hold the places they so largely occupy now, and hundreds of vociferous busy-bodies will multiply. You have no choice; either you must help furnish this race from within its own ranks with thoughtful men of trained leadership, or you must suffer the evil consequences of a headless misguided rabble.
I am an earnest advocate of manual training and trade teaching for black boys, and for white boys, too. I believe that next to the founding of Negro colleges the most valuable addition to Negro education since the war, has been industrial training for black boys. Nevertheless, I insist that the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men; there are two means of making the carpenter a man, each equally important: the first is to give the group and community in which he works, liberally trained teachers and leaders to teach him and his family what life means; the second is to give him sufficient intelligence and technical skill to make him an efficient workman; the first object demands the Negro college and college-bred men � not a quantity of such colleges, but a few of excellent quality; not too many college-bred men, but enough to leaven the lump, to inspire the masses, to raise the Talented Tenth to leadership; the second object demands a good system of common schools, well-taught, conveniently located and properly equipped.
The Sixth Atlanta Conference truly said in 1901:
"We call the attention of the Nation to the fact that less than one million of the three million Negro children of school age, are at present regularly attending school, and these attend a session which lasts only a few months.
"We are to-day deliberately rearing millions of our citizens in ignorance, and at the same time limiting the rights of citizenship by educational qualifications. This is unjust. Half the black youth of the land have no opportunities open to them for learning to read, write and cipher. In the discussion as to the proper training of Negro children after they leave the public schools, we have forgotten that they are not yet decently provided with public schools.
"Propositions are beginning to be made in the South to reduce the already meagre school facilities of Negroes. We congratulate the South on resisting, as much as it has, this pressure, and on the many millions it has spent on Negro education. But it is only fair to point out that Negro taxes and the Negroes� share of the income from indirect taxes and endowments have fully repaid this expenditure, so that the Negro public school system has not in all probability cost the white taxpayers a single cent since the war.
"This is not fair. Negro schools should be a public burden, since they are a public benefit. The Negro has a right to demand good common school training at the hands of the States and the Nation since by their fault he is not in position to pay for this himself."
What is the chief need for the building up of the Negro public school in the South? The Negro race in the South needs teachers to-day above all else. This is the concurrent testimony of all who know the situation. For the supply of this great demand two things are needed - institutions of higher education and money for school houses and salaries. It is usually assumed that a hundred or more institutions for Negro training are to-day turning out so many teachers and college-bred men that the race is threatened with an over-supply. This is sheer nonsense. There are to-day less than 3,000 living Negro college graduates in the United States, and less than 1,000 Negroes in college. Moreover, in the 164 schools for Negroes, 95 percent. of their students are doing elementary and secondary work, work which should be done in the public schools. Over half the remaining 2,157 students are taking high school studies. The mass of so-called "normal" schools for the Negro, are simply doing elementary common school work, or, at most, high school work, with a little instruction in methods. The Negro colleges and the post-graduate courses at other institutions are the only agencies for the broader and more careful training of teachers. The work of these institutions is hampered for lack of funds. It is getting increasingly difficult to get funds for training teachers in the best modern methods, and yet all over the South, from State Superintendents, county officials, city boards and school principals comes the wail, "We need TEACHERS!" and teachers must be trained. As the fairest minded of all white Southerners, Atticus G. Haygood, once said: "The defects of colored teachers are so great as to create an urgent necessity for training better ones. Their excellencies and their successes are sufficient to justify the best hopes of success in the effort, and to vindicate the judgment of those who make large investments of money and service, to give to colored students opportunity for thoroughly preparing themselves for the work of teaching children of their people."
The truth of this has been strikingly shown in the marked improvement of white teachers in the South. Twenty years ago the rank and file of white public school teachers were not as good as the Negro teachers. But they, by scholarships and good salaries, have been encouraged to thorough normal and collegiate preparation, while the Negro teachers have been discouraged by starvation wages and the idea that any training will do for a black teacher. If carpenters are needed it is well and good to train men as carpenters. But to train men as carpenters, and then set them to teaching is wasteful and criminal; and to train men as teachers and then refuse them living wages, unless they become carpenters, is rank nonsense.
The United States Commissioner of Education says in his report for 1900: "For comparison between the white and colored enrollment in secondary and higher education, I have added together the enrollment in high schools and secondary schools, with the attendance on colleges and universities, not being sure of the actual grade of work done in the colleges and universities. The work done in the secondary schools is reported in such detail in this office, that there can be no doubt of its grade."
He then makes the following comparisons of persons in every million enrolled in secondary and higher education: Whole Country. Negroes. 1880 4,362 1,289 1900 10,743 2,061
And he concludes: "While the number in colored high schools and colleges had increased somewhat faster than the population, it had not kept pace with the average of the whole country, for it had fallen from 30 per cent. to 24 per cent. of the average quota. Of all colored pupils, one (1) in one hundred was engaged in secondary and higher work, and that ratio has continued substantially for the past twenty years. If the ratio of colored population in secondary and higher education is to be equal to the average for the whole country, it must be increased to five times its present average." And if this be true of the secondary and higher education, it is safe to say that the Negro has not one-tenth his quota in college studies. How baseless, therefore, is the charge of too much training! We need Negro teachers for the Negro common schools, and we need first-class normal schools and colleges to train them. This is the work of higher Negro education and it must be done.
Further than this, after being provided with group leaders of civilization, and a foundation of intelligence in the public schools, the carpenter, in order to be a man, needs technical skill. This calls for trade schools. Now trade schools are not nearly such simple things as people once thought. The original idea was that the "Industrial" school was to furnish education, practically free, to those willing to work for it; it was to "do" things � i.e.: become a center of productive industry, it was to be partially, if not wholly, self-supporting, and it was to teach trades. Admirable as were some of the ideas underlying this scheme, the whole thing simply would not work in practice; it was found that if you were to use time and material to teach trades thoroughly, you could not at the same time keep the industries on a commercial basis and make them pay. Many schools started out to do this on a large scale and went into virtual bankruptcy. Moreover, it was found also that it was possible to teach a boy a trade mechanically, without giving him the full educative benefit of the process, and, vice versa, that there was a distinctive educative value in teaching a boy to use his hands and eyes in carrying out certain physical processes, even though he did not actually learn a trade. It has happened, therefore, in the last decade, that a noticeable change has come over the industrial schools. In the first place the idea of commercially remunerative industry in a school is being pushed rapidly to the background. There are still schools with shops and farms that bring an income, and schools that use student labor partially for the erection of their buildings and the furnishing of equipment. It is coming to be seen, however, in the education of the Negro, as clearly as it has been seen in the education of the youths the world over, that it is the boy and not the material product, that is the true object of education. Consequently the object of the industrial school came to be the thorough training of boys regardless of the cost of the training, so long as it was thoroughly well done.
Even at this point, however, the difficulties were not surmounted. In the first place modern industry has taken great strides since the war, and the teaching of trades is no longer a simple matter. Machinery and long processes of work have greatly changed the work of the carpenter, the ironworker and the shoemaker. A really efficient workman must be to-day an intelligent man who has had good technical training in addition to thorough common school, and perhaps even higher training. To meet this situation the industrial schools began a further development; they established distinct Trade Schools for the thorough training of better class artisans, and at the same time they sought to preserve for the purposes of general education, such of the simpler processes of elementary trade learning as were best suited therefor. In this differentiation of the Trade School and manual training, the best of the industrial schools simply followed the plain trend of the present educational epoch. A prominent educator tells us that, in Sweden, "In the beginning the economic conception was generally adopted, and everywhere manual training was looked upon as a means of preparing the children of the common people to earn their living. But gradually it came to be recognized that manual training has a more elevated purpose, and one, indeed, more useful in the deeper meaning of the term. It came to be considered as an educative process for the complete moral, physical and intellectual development of the child."
Thus, again, in the manning of trade schools and manual training schools we are thrown back upon the higher training as its source and chief support. There was a time when any aged and wornout carpenter could teach in a trade school. But not so to-day. Indeed the demand for college-bred men by a school like Tuskegee, ought to make Mr. Booker T. Washington the firmest friend of higher training. Here he has as helpers the son of a Negro senator, trained in Greek and the humanities, and graduated at Harvard; the son of a Negro congressman and lawyer, trained in Latin and mathematics, and graduated at Oberlin; he has as his wife, a woman who read Virgil and Homer in the same class room with me; he has as college chaplain, a classical graduate of Atlanta University; as teacher of science, a graduate of Fisk; as teacher of history, a graduate of Smith, � indeed some thirty of his chief teachers are college graduates, and instead of studying French grammars in the midst of weeds, or buying pianos for dirty cabins, they are at Mr. Washington�s right hand helping him in a noble work. And yet one of the effects of Mr. Washington�s propaganda has been to throw doubt upon the expediency of such training for Negroes, as these persons have had.
Men of America, the problem is plain before you. Here is a race transplanted through the criminal foolishness of your fathers. Whether you like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down. Education and work are the levers to uplift a people. Work alone will not do it unless inspired by the right ideals and guided by intelligence. Education must not simply teach work � it must teach Life. The Talented Tenth of the Negro race must be made leaders of thought and missionaries of culture among their people. No others can do this work and Negro colleges must train men for it. The Negro race, like all other races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT....
At a certain age in your life (when you reach true maturity, not just when you are "grown") you learn how to evaluate circumstances and situations in a different light. If you are past the age of 25 and still dealing with the same shit you dealt with in high school or college, YOU are the problem. Petty, insecure, im...mature, no good people attract petty, insecure, immature, no good people....
RAPE STATISTICS ARE OUT OF CONTROL IN SOUTH AFRICA....
A study commissioned by the Medical Research Foundation, a group funded by the South African government, has wielded some disturbing findings about violence against women. According to the study, more than 1-in-3 men of Johannesburg have committed rape at some point in their lives. Roughly seven percent of the men sampled admitted to participating in a gang rape.
The study also found that over 51 percent of the 511 women surveyed had been victims of violence from men. Also, 78 percent of men admitted to committing a violent act against a woman. One fourth of the women in the survey said that they’d been raped, but only about four percent of these rapes are reported to police.
These findings are similar to a 2008 study that found that 28 percent of the men in Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces had committed rape against a woman or girl. Also, one-third of the men said they did not feel guilty for what they’d done. Two-thirds of the men claimed to have committed rape out of a sense of entitlement, and others raped out of boredom or a desire to punish women who’d rejected them.
The study’s author, Rachel Jewkes, said that apartheid may have played a role in creating a culture in which violence against women has been trivialized.
“Apartheid has contributed to culture of impunity surrounding rape in South Africa,” said Jewkes. She also says that men who experienced trauma or were abused were much more likely to commit rape than other men.
November 23, 2010
November 22, 2010
ONE WISH, LAST WISH....DUDE YOU ARE OUT OF WISHES....
THEN....
WHY DIDN'T HE WISH FOR BETTER SINGING SKILLS?
SOOOO GOOD I HAD TO REVISIT THIS POST.....(MORE REASONT O LOVE FOOTBALL PLAYERS)
NOTICE HOW ALL EYES ARE ON HIM!!!
November 17, 2010
IGNORANCE AT IT'S BEST....(OR WORST)
"Yo, I want to let people know that I'm tough, and strong, and wild like a animal. But I also want people to know that I'm gangsta and powerful and I make things happen like a mob boss. Hmmmm... I'm like a gorilla! But like a really smart one with mafia connections like a Don! Don Gorilla! Donnie G!"
Fail.
TO CANT SEEM TO KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT....EVER
Terrell Owens went on his national TV show and lobbed insults at former Philadelphia Eagles teammates Donovan McNabb and Andy Reid on Tuesday night. Owens also implied that he was behind several Twitter messages he first blamed on “his brother” that ripped McNabb.
Then Owens had a back-handed compliment for his former Eagles’ coach, Reid. Owens is now playing for the 2-7 Cincinnati Bengals, and while putting up big numbers, his reluctance to catch passes in the middle of the field has cost the Bengals dearly.
“My thing is I don’t have anything against Donovan. Trust me I’m all happy that he got a $78 million contract but how do they justify the $78 million contract when just two weeks ago the head coach just benched the guy because he wasn’t playing well or couldn’t conduct the two-minute offense, that’s all I’m saying,” Owens said.
On Monday night, Owens said McNabb didn’t deserve his contract. Owens went on to say Reid made McNabb look good.
“I don’t know how much I can say about Andy Reid, this guy is a mastermind. Look at this guy on the sidelines, he looks like the Pillsbury doughboy but this guy is very smart,” McNabb said.
McNabb had already responded to Owens’ comments.
“It’s unbelievable how they can comment on what I’m doing over here,” McNabb said about Owens on Tuesday. McNabb also said Cincinnati quarterback Carson Palmer makes more money than he does and cited the Bengals’ 2-7 record.
Owens also went out of his way to praise Michael Vick on Monday night.
November 16, 2010
COLLEGE PRESIDENTS GET PAID EVEN WHEN THE SCHOOL IS STRUGGLING....
The Chronicle on Higher Education reported that Walter Broadnax received $1.1 million for the 2008-2009 fiscal year, his last at Clark Atlanta. That put him among the 30 top-paid presidents of private colleges in the nation, the Chronicle said.
The news outraged current and former professors, among whom Broadnax had been deeply unpopular.
“That is criminal,” said retired professor Bob Holmes. “On what basis did the board of trustees agree to that? It’s not a golden parachute because he didn’t have a contract after five years. … The alumni association should file a lawsuit against the board for malfeasance.”
Faculty had overwhelmingly voted for a resolution of “no confidence” in Broadnax in 2007.
The embattled Broadnax announced his retirement from the college in February 2008 and he left that July after six years at the helm. When Broadnax arrived in 2002, he also inherited a university beset by financial struggles and was credited with stabilizing the college’s enrollment and its finances.
Broadnax contended his compensation package was closer to $800,000 than $1.1 million although he was unable to give an exact figure. He said he was guaranteed a retirement package when he became president because he had left a secure position at American University and would have to make unpopular decisions at Clark Atlanta.He is currently the Distinguished Professor of Public Administration at Syracuse University in New York.
The 66-year-old said the university had drained its endowment of $40 million for operating expenses before he came aboard and was teetering on bankruptcy. He had to to fire faculty and eliminate programs.
“What you see is the honoring of a contract,” he said of his compensation. “They (the trustees) understood it was giong to be a fairly rough road if I did the things that needed to be done
“The only reason Clark Atlanta is still around is because of the steps we took and they were tough.”
Clark Atlanta spokeswoman Donna Brock said the reported payout to Broadnax of $1,158,537 was correct and part of it was contractual. She didn’t know the amount.
Brock declined to provide the rationale for the payout but said there was an error on the college’s tax returns because the university had lumped together Broadnax’s base pay — which she said was approximately $305,000 — with a contractual bonus and payments related to retirement.
November 11, 2010
JUSTICE FINALLY SERVED....
The Georgia Department of Corrections will not house the woman convicted of causing the deadly Easter crash and her mother who was convicted of covering up the crime in the same prison.
Officials with the Fulton County Jail told Channel 2’s Tom Regan that Aimee Michael, 24, and her mother, Sheila Michael, will each serve their sentences in separate state prisons.
Michael, who was sentenced to serve 36 years in prison, was transferred to the Metro State Woman’s prison on Constitution Rd in Southeast Atlanta.
Sheila Michael, 53, who was ordered to serve eight years in prison, is now at Lee Arrendale State Prison north of Gainesville. Her husband, Aimee’s father, will have to drive 5 hours from Atlanta to visit his wife.
Last week Michael was found guilty of five counts of vehicular homicide, one count of failure to maintain lane and one count of serious injury by vehicle, hit and run.
Police say Michael was on an ice cream run on April 12, 2009 when she caused a horrific accident that killed 5 people, including 3 children, and injured a woman on Camp Creek Parkway.
Michael fled the scene of the accident but she was arrested 10 days later.
November 10, 2010
CAN YOU SAY AHHHH....(AT LEAST HE HAS GOOD TASTE)
Rumors of bisexuality continue to hound R&B heartthrob Trey Songz who is now being linked to a young male record label employee!!!
Bossip sources tell us there is a new man in Trey’s life: 24-year-old Brandin Deida, an employee of RocNation.
Our source tells us that Brandin is an NYU graduate who worked at Sony in their A&R department before getting his gig at RocNation. From what we hear he’s quite a looker. He’s described as being a 6’4 lightskinned young man who sports waves and a few tattoos.
According to a Bossip inside source, Trey and Brandin met in Los Angeles on September 12 — a day before the MTV Video Music Awards.
“They’ve been inseparable ever since,” says the source, “but everything is very lowkey.”
Our source tells us the two have avoided being photographed together thus far, but Trey is always visiting Brandin at the 1411 Roc building in NYC where he works since Trey has spent a great deal of time in New York since finishing his Beacon Theater dates on 10/14 and 10/15 when his tour with Monica wrapped up.
“Trey is in Seattle right now preparing for the OMG Tour which starts tomorrow,” the insider tells Bossip, “and Brandin is there also, presumably on “business”.”
Apparently Trey and Brandin have been trying hard to cover their tracks and have a set routine for the hotel stays. The pair are currently staying at the same Seattle hotel where Brandin has a room to himself and Trey does as well. Our source tells us that despite the separate rooms, Trey and Brandin often end up being together for the night.
“Everything they do is very elaborate,” the source says of their attempt to cover up.”They don’t ride in the same cars either.”
From what we hear Trey is also about to sign a major deal with Roc Nation next year, which seems likely considering his strong relationship with Jay-Z, who signed him to a Rocawear campaign after their tour earlier this year. Landing at RocNation means that Brandin
will undoubtedly be working a lot closer with Trey and it will become even more difficult to conceal their secret relationship.
“The two are very private and scared about anyone finding out about their relationship, but it’s just a matter of time until things start coming out,” Bossip’s source predicts.
November 9, 2010
"FOR COLORED GIRLS" ONLY SHOWS BLACK MEN IN A NEGATIVE LIGHT....(FOR THE MOST PART)
A rapist, a war crazed, drunken, child murdering father and an HIV-infected husband on the “down low” are all black male characters you will find in Tyler Perry’s film “For Colored Girls”.
Before the film even finished production there was already talk about the impact it would make, that it would follow in the footsteps of “The Color Purple” by beating the pulp out of the black male image.
Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy gives the film a hard look in his latest essay “For Black Men Who Have Considered Homicide After Watching Another Tyler Perry Film
“Don’t laugh,” says Shadow and Act, an online publication about black films and filmmakers. ” ‘For Colored Girls,’ an Oscar contender?”
Oscar for what?
In the category for best infection of a black woman with a sexually transmitted disease that renders her infertile. . . . And the winner is: black man.
For best down-low, double-dealing husband who has sex with wife while sneaking around having sex with men on the streets. . . . And the winner is: black man.
For best portrayal of a guy who at first seems nice but turns out to be a rapist. . . . And the winner is – OMG, his third of the night – black man!
“You will want to know that two kids get thrown out the window by their father,” wrote Jane Nosonchuk for Hamptonroads.com. “The scene is well done.”
Do I hear another Oscar nomination?
“The men in the movie are all bad guys except for the cop,” Nosonchuk wrote. “They are a means to an end rather than any lead characters.
We see where Milloy is coming from and even his argument allows for the fact that Perry isn’t the only one guilty of the cinematic “lynching” of the black male image.
To be fair, folks familiar with the original Ntozake Shange choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who’ve Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf” should’ve known what to expect. After all — we read about Beau Willy.
But Ntozake Shange’s play did not have HIV or the down low and it’s characters were identified by color, not name — so if Tyler was able to make those kinds of changes — why not allow for more than just the glimmer of hope for the black man (the glimmer being Hill Harper with his small part and few lines).
For those who have seen the film — Do you think Tyler fairly portrayed black men in “For Colored Girls”?
For those who have not seen the film — what role did the inevitable black male bashing play in your decision not to support “For Colored Girls”.
For everyone — Do you think Hollywood doesn’t want to allow for more positive black male roles in film? Should black filmmakers be more dedicated to positive portrayals?
Before the film even finished production there was already talk about the impact it would make, that it would follow in the footsteps of “The Color Purple” by beating the pulp out of the black male image.
Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy gives the film a hard look in his latest essay “For Black Men Who Have Considered Homicide After Watching Another Tyler Perry Film
“Don’t laugh,” says Shadow and Act, an online publication about black films and filmmakers. ” ‘For Colored Girls,’ an Oscar contender?”
Oscar for what?
In the category for best infection of a black woman with a sexually transmitted disease that renders her infertile. . . . And the winner is: black man.
For best down-low, double-dealing husband who has sex with wife while sneaking around having sex with men on the streets. . . . And the winner is: black man.
For best portrayal of a guy who at first seems nice but turns out to be a rapist. . . . And the winner is – OMG, his third of the night – black man!
“You will want to know that two kids get thrown out the window by their father,” wrote Jane Nosonchuk for Hamptonroads.com. “The scene is well done.”
Do I hear another Oscar nomination?
“The men in the movie are all bad guys except for the cop,” Nosonchuk wrote. “They are a means to an end rather than any lead characters.
We see where Milloy is coming from and even his argument allows for the fact that Perry isn’t the only one guilty of the cinematic “lynching” of the black male image.
To be fair, folks familiar with the original Ntozake Shange choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who’ve Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf” should’ve known what to expect. After all — we read about Beau Willy.
But Ntozake Shange’s play did not have HIV or the down low and it’s characters were identified by color, not name — so if Tyler was able to make those kinds of changes — why not allow for more than just the glimmer of hope for the black man (the glimmer being Hill Harper with his small part and few lines).
For those who have seen the film — Do you think Tyler fairly portrayed black men in “For Colored Girls”?
For those who have not seen the film — what role did the inevitable black male bashing play in your decision not to support “For Colored Girls”.
For everyone — Do you think Hollywood doesn’t want to allow for more positive black male roles in film? Should black filmmakers be more dedicated to positive portrayals?
SAD BUT TRUE...CHECK THE STATISTICS....
A new study shows that way more Black babies are being born to unwed mothers in America. That number is much crazier than you may realize.
Children of unmarried mothers of any race are more likely to perform poorly in school, go to prison, use drugs, be poor as adults, and have their own children out of wedlock.
The black community’s 72 percent rate eclipses that of most other groups: 17 percent of Asians, 29 percent of whites, 53 percent of Hispanics and 66 percent of Native Americans were born to unwed mothers in 2008, the most recent year for which government figures are available. The rate for the overall U.S. population was 41 percent.
“The girls don’t think they have to get married. I tell them children deserve a mama and a daddy. They really do,” [Houston OB/GYN Natalie] Carroll says.
“A mama can’t give it all. And neither can a daddy, not by themselves,” Carroll says. “Part of the reason is because you can only give that which you have. A mother cannot give all that a man can give. A truly involved father figure offers more fullness to a child’s life.”
There are simple arguments for why so many black women have children without marriage.
The legacy of segregation, the logic goes, means blacks are more likely to attend inferior schools. This creates a high proportion of blacks unprepared to compete for jobs in today’s economy, where middle-class industrial work for unskilled laborers has largely disappeared.
The drug epidemic sent disproportionate numbers of black men to prison, and crushed the job opportunities for those who served their time. Women don’t want to marry men who can’t provide for their families, and welfare laws created a financial incentive for poor mothers to stay single.
If you remove these inequalities, some say, the 72 percent will decrease.
In September, Christelyn Karazin, who is black, marshaled 100 other writers and activists for the online movement No Wedding No Womb, which she calls “a very simplified reduction of a very complicated issue.”
“I just want better for us,” Karazin says. “I have four kids to raise in this world. It’s about what kind of world do we want.”
“We’ve spent the last 40 years discussing the issues of how we got here. How much more discussion, how many more children have to be sacrificed while we still discuss?”
Amy Wax, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that even though discrimination caused blacks’ present problems, only black action can cure them.
“The black community has fallen into this horribly dysfunctional equilibrium” with unwed mothers, Wax says in an interview. “It just doesn’t work.”
“Blacks as a group will never be equal while they have this situation going on, where the vast majority of children do not have fathers in the home married to their mother, involved in their lives, investing in them, investing in the next generation.”
“The 21st century for the black community is about building human capital,” says Wax, who is white. “That is the undone business. That is the unmet need. That is the completion of the civil rights mission.”
NEW BIRTH CHURCH RESPONDS....
This week was the church’s turn to answer to those sexual abuse allegations. And they pretty much threw Bishop Daddy under the bus.
Responding on Monday to four lawsuits alleging that Bishop Eddie Long coerced young men into sexual relations, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church acknowledged that the accusers accompanied the pastor on trips but said it could not confirm or deny whether anything inappropriate took place.
The LongFellows Youth Academy, the church’s mentoring program for males 13 through 18, also filed responses. Long is identified as the founder and chief executive of the academy, which is named in three of the lawsuits.
The Lithonia megachurch, in its response filed in DeKalb County State Court Monday, acknowledges that the men accompanied Long on trips, in some cases overseas, but said it couldn’t explain the nature of relationships that may have existed between Long and the men.
The church said Anthony Flagg, one of the accusers, traveled with Long on trips to Tuskegee, Ala., New York and Las Vegas, but couldn’t provide further details. It said it could not “admit or deny” allegations that the two were intimate.
The response said “the church understands that Bishop Long often shared hotel rooms with members of the congregation while traveling,” but it couldn’t say whether Flagg shared a room with Long.The response was filed by attorneys with the Atlanta law firm Drew Eckl Farnham.
November 8, 2010
A SIN AND A SHAME....SENSELESS ACT OF VIOLENCE...
The mother of a Douglas County teenager beaten to death during a Saturday night house party called her only son “my best friend” and “a ray of sunshine through every dark cloud that anyone had.”
Bobby Tillman, 18, was beaten to death after a party early Sunday in Douglas County.
“He was an angel here on Earth, and I was blessed to be his mother,” Monique Rivarde said Monday of 18-year-old Bobby Tillman.
Rivarde spoke to the media just after a Douglas County judge denied bond for the four men charged with the murder of her son.
“I just miss him and I just want justice done for him,” she said. “All I want to say is he was very strong, so I’m going to be strong for him.”
Rivarde said she prays that her son’s death was not in vain. “Something will be done about these children attacking each other for nothing,” she said.
Douglas County District Attorney David McDade, talking about Tillman’s death, said, “senseless is the only word I can describe. Young people that had a life ahead of them, on both sides.
“This is an absolutely unprovoked, senseless killing by young people killing another young man for no reason, no motive,” McDade said.
Douglas County Sheriff Phil Miller echoed McDade’s thoughts, saying, “it doesn’t get any more tragic than that.”
Tillman died of blunt force trauma to the head and chest, Coroner Randy Daniel told the AJC on Monday.
The teen was beaten and stomped to death after he walked by his attackers at the wrong time, Miller said Sunday.
Tillman died before he could be transported to the hospital early Sunday, Miller said.
Four people have been arrested in connection with the teen's death.
The four arrested were identified as Quantez Devonta Mallory, 18, Horace Damon Coleman, 19, Emmanuel Benjamin Boykins, 18, and Tracen Lamar Franklin, 19.
All four appeared Monday morning before Judge Robert James in Douglas Superior Court, where they were ordered held without bond.
They are being held in the Douglas County Jail, charged with murder. Three were taken into custody at the scene of the beating early Sunday, and Franklin turned himself in later in the day, Miller said.
What started out as a small party at a home on Independence Drive ended up with between 60 and 80 people, Miller said. (Read a neighbor's account.)
“Some very responsible parents let their daughters have a party at their house, and there were only 10 people expected to come," Miller said.
The parents asked the party-goers to leave, and a fight began between two girls outside the home, Miller said.
One of the females hit a male, who said he wouldn't hit a girl but would hit the next male that walked by, Miller said. The 5-feet-6-inch, 124-pound Tillman was the next male. Several people then joined in the attack on Tillman, investigators said.
Tillman was still breathing as deputies arrived at the scene, Miller said. Deputies administered CPR to the teen, who did not survive.
"It'll bring tears to your eyes," Miller said. "It's just so sad."
Four people were arrested, and investigators do not believe there will be additional arrests, Miller said. The homeowners are not expected to face charges, he said. No drugs or alcohol were involved, Miller said.
"They [the parents] were doing the very best they could," Miller said. "The situation got out of hand."
Tillman's death came as a shock to friends and former classmates of the 2010 graduate of Chapel Hill High School. Some, such as 18-year-old Adrienne Anderson, learned of his death on Facebook.
Anderson said Tillman didn't attend Chapel Hill very long, but made a lot of friends before he graduated.
“He never bothered anybody," Anderson said. "He was an all-around nice person.”
Anderson said she had planned to attend the party Saturday night but changed her plans. "I was supposed to be going, but I'm glad I wasn't there," she said.
Witnesses were taken by bus to the sheriff's office, Miller said. Channel 2 Action News reported the NAACP was questioning whether investigators followed proper procedures in questioning the witnesses and whether they were allowed to call their parents.
Miller defended the deputies, saying they were just doing their jobs.
"I had six people to interview 57 people," Miller told the AJC on Monday. "I didn't violate anybody's rights. We loaded them onto a bus, there was heat on the bus, they were allowed bathroom breaks and we interviewed 57 people between 2:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. Sunday. Our goal was to find out who murdered this young man."
Miller said his investigators were somewhat hampered by a local attorney, "who came up there and advised witnesses -- not suspects, witnesses -- not to talk to us."
"It's not about the NAACP, it's not about the sheriff's office, it's about the murder of a nice, young man who was murdered and it was not provoked," Miller said.
"I apologize if I offended anyone, but I'm not required by law to notify parents," the sheriff told the AJC. "If the parents were so interested, why were those kids out after midnight?"
Bobby Tillman, 18, was beaten to death after a party early Sunday in Douglas County.
“He was an angel here on Earth, and I was blessed to be his mother,” Monique Rivarde said Monday of 18-year-old Bobby Tillman.
Rivarde spoke to the media just after a Douglas County judge denied bond for the four men charged with the murder of her son.
“I just miss him and I just want justice done for him,” she said. “All I want to say is he was very strong, so I’m going to be strong for him.”
Rivarde said she prays that her son’s death was not in vain. “Something will be done about these children attacking each other for nothing,” she said.
Douglas County District Attorney David McDade, talking about Tillman’s death, said, “senseless is the only word I can describe. Young people that had a life ahead of them, on both sides.
“This is an absolutely unprovoked, senseless killing by young people killing another young man for no reason, no motive,” McDade said.
Douglas County Sheriff Phil Miller echoed McDade’s thoughts, saying, “it doesn’t get any more tragic than that.”
Tillman died of blunt force trauma to the head and chest, Coroner Randy Daniel told the AJC on Monday.
The teen was beaten and stomped to death after he walked by his attackers at the wrong time, Miller said Sunday.
Tillman died before he could be transported to the hospital early Sunday, Miller said.
Four people have been arrested in connection with the teen's death.
The four arrested were identified as Quantez Devonta Mallory, 18, Horace Damon Coleman, 19, Emmanuel Benjamin Boykins, 18, and Tracen Lamar Franklin, 19.
All four appeared Monday morning before Judge Robert James in Douglas Superior Court, where they were ordered held without bond.
They are being held in the Douglas County Jail, charged with murder. Three were taken into custody at the scene of the beating early Sunday, and Franklin turned himself in later in the day, Miller said.
What started out as a small party at a home on Independence Drive ended up with between 60 and 80 people, Miller said. (Read a neighbor's account.)
“Some very responsible parents let their daughters have a party at their house, and there were only 10 people expected to come," Miller said.
The parents asked the party-goers to leave, and a fight began between two girls outside the home, Miller said.
One of the females hit a male, who said he wouldn't hit a girl but would hit the next male that walked by, Miller said. The 5-feet-6-inch, 124-pound Tillman was the next male. Several people then joined in the attack on Tillman, investigators said.
Tillman was still breathing as deputies arrived at the scene, Miller said. Deputies administered CPR to the teen, who did not survive.
"It'll bring tears to your eyes," Miller said. "It's just so sad."
Four people were arrested, and investigators do not believe there will be additional arrests, Miller said. The homeowners are not expected to face charges, he said. No drugs or alcohol were involved, Miller said.
"They [the parents] were doing the very best they could," Miller said. "The situation got out of hand."
Tillman's death came as a shock to friends and former classmates of the 2010 graduate of Chapel Hill High School. Some, such as 18-year-old Adrienne Anderson, learned of his death on Facebook.
Anderson said Tillman didn't attend Chapel Hill very long, but made a lot of friends before he graduated.
“He never bothered anybody," Anderson said. "He was an all-around nice person.”
Anderson said she had planned to attend the party Saturday night but changed her plans. "I was supposed to be going, but I'm glad I wasn't there," she said.
Witnesses were taken by bus to the sheriff's office, Miller said. Channel 2 Action News reported the NAACP was questioning whether investigators followed proper procedures in questioning the witnesses and whether they were allowed to call their parents.
Miller defended the deputies, saying they were just doing their jobs.
"I had six people to interview 57 people," Miller told the AJC on Monday. "I didn't violate anybody's rights. We loaded them onto a bus, there was heat on the bus, they were allowed bathroom breaks and we interviewed 57 people between 2:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. Sunday. Our goal was to find out who murdered this young man."
Miller said his investigators were somewhat hampered by a local attorney, "who came up there and advised witnesses -- not suspects, witnesses -- not to talk to us."
"It's not about the NAACP, it's not about the sheriff's office, it's about the murder of a nice, young man who was murdered and it was not provoked," Miller said.
"I apologize if I offended anyone, but I'm not required by law to notify parents," the sheriff told the AJC. "If the parents were so interested, why were those kids out after midnight?"
SOME MONDAY INSPIIRATION...(THERE IS HOPE)
High-school sophomore Ricky Smith has been collecting up to $15,000 an event in cover charges for hosting drug- and alcohol-free teen dance parties throughout the city.
Called “Lost Generation,” the series of parent-friendly parties attracts up to 500 teens from elite Manhattan public and private schools to lofts and clubs for a night of nonstop, juvenile booty-shaking.
“My goal was to monopolize the teen party business in New York City,” said Smith, who organized five megaparties this year.
Each party — advertised on Facebook and by individual promoters he recruited in dozens of schools — is staffed with professional bouncers who have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to booze, dope or fisticuffs.
“It’s like walking into a club — usually a lot of house music and popular music you’d hear on the radio,” he said. “Lots of dancing and, yes, fist-pumping.”
Music is provided by aspiring teen deejays.
Some older teens scoff at the whole concept, but for Smith, a sophomore at the Professional Performing Arts School, it just means better business to focus on 14- to 15-year-olds.
They like it, he said, because older teens aren’t around to intimidate them and parents, especially girls’ parents, feel it’s a safer environment.
Ricky said he doesn’t see a career in the club or party promotion business.
“I want to work in math or science, my strong subjects,” he said.
ANOTHER YOUNG BROTHER LOSES HIS LIFE DUE TO IGNORANCE...
This young mans name is Bobby Tillman. He was 18 years old and he lived in Douglasville, Georgia. Late Saturday night he was beaten and stomped to death by 4 cowards. Read the sad story after the jump.
What started out as a small party at a home on Independence Drive ended up with between 60 and 80 people, Miller said.
“Some very responsible parents let their daughters have a party at their house, and there were only 10 people expected to come,” Miller said.
The parents asked the party-goers to leave, and a fight began between two girls outside the home, Miller said.
One of the females hit a male, who said he wouldn’t hit a girl but would hit the next male that walked by, Miller said. The 5-feet-6-inch, 124-pound Tillman was the next male. Several people then joined in the attack on Tillman, investigators said.
Tillman was still breathing as deputies arrived at the scene, Miller said. Deputies administered CPR to the teen, who did not survive.
Now we agree that a man hitting a female is b*tch-made, but its JUST as b*tch-made to RANDOMLY pick a smaller kid to beat up! SMH
Four people have been arrested in connection with the teen’s death.
The four arrested were identified as Quantez Devonta Mallory, 18, Horace Damon Coleman, 19, Emmanuel Benjamin Boykins, 18, and Tracen Lamar Franklin, 19.
All four are being held in the Douglas County Jail, charged with murder. Three were taken into custody at the scene of the beating early Sunday, and Franklin turned himself in later in the day, Miller said.
Miller said all four would have their first court appearances before a Superior Court judge, likely late Monday morning.
November 5, 2010
November 4, 2010
November 3, 2010
Transgendered ‘male’ will continue to play for women’s team
I’m sure by now you’ve heard about Kye Allums, the transgendered ‘male’ who plays for the George Washington University women’s basketball team.
Allums, who changed her name from Kay-Kay to Kye, identifies as a man even though she has not had the sex reassignment surgery nor is she taking male hormones.
Under NCAA rules ‘he’ can continue to play for the women’s team because ‘he’ has not had the surgery and is not taking hormones.
So what we have here is a chick who looks like a chick — who still has all her functioning chick parts — but she wants to be called a man now. And she, excuse me, he plays for a woman’s team.
If that’s not confusing enough, Kye says “My teammates have embraced me as the big brother of the team. They have been my family, and I love them all.”
So all you have to do now is say you’re a man and that’s it?
Oprah Winfrey made this trend popular when she had that pregnant woman on her show calling herself a pregnant man.
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