Julius Lester lecture, "DuBois and Education," at the University of Iowa, June-July 1972

Speaker 1: The following is an address recorded at the fourth annual Institute for Afro-American Culture held at the University of Iowa, June 25th through July 7th, 1972. Speaking on Du Bois and education is Julius Lester. Introducing Mr. Lester is Charles T. Davis professor of English at the University of Iowa and Chairman of the Institute. Charles T. Davi...: Mr. Julius Lester is a... The name indeed is a household name for the regular readers of the New York Times because he's a frequent reviewer of Black works in the general area of the humanities for the Times. And one would get just a hint from his reviewing there, of his wide-ranging interests and of the varied forms of his competence. Charles T. Davi...: He is a professional musician with recordings with Vanguard records, a fine guitarist. He's a folklorist, and he's a writer. And he has found time to serve as an organizer, as a director of the Newport Folk Festival, and as the associate editor of Sing Out! '64. Mr. Lester has also had a career as an activist, as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Charles T. Davi...: Before his work on Du Bois, he's written with Pete Seeger, 12-String Guitar As Played by Leadbelly. Other works, Look Out Whitey! Black Power's Gon' Get Your Mama! Which ought to be provocative enough, and To Be a Slave. The two volumes I should say that have most interest for us, to the extent that we have bought them and assigned them to every member of the Institute. And there can be no greater praise than this, is the volume which is called the Seventh Son, his edition of the Thought and Writings of W.E.B. Du Bois. Charles T. Davi...: We are delighted to have Mr. Lester with us this evening. He will be talking about Du Bois and education. Mr. Julius Lester. Julius Lester: Thank you. As was mentioned, when I woke up this morning and I thought I had laryngitis. My throat is sore, so I'm hoping my voice will last for the duration of the evening at least. Julius Lester: We're going to be talking tonight about Du Bois and education. And I don't think there's much point in talking about Du Bois to study anybody if you cannot make some applications to what's going on today. I think that in your studies of Du Bois, you've seen that he was concerned with many of the things that we are concerned with now. And that, that is particularly true when we come to education. It's very interesting, in his autobiography, he said that the two things he was most proud of in his life was, one, editing a magazine called The Brownies' Book, which I'll talk about. And, two, was teaching. That he saw himself as a teacher, more than anything else. I think that, overall one could say about Du Bois that he was concerned about educating, about communicating knowledge and values all of his life. So therefore to define him as an educator before you define him as anything else, I don't think would be inaccurate at all. Julius Lester: Biographically, he spent a good part of his life as a teacher. He taught at Atlanta, he taught at Wilberforce University first when he came back from Europe, 1894, I guess that was, to about 1896. He taught Greek, Latin, and German at Wilberforce. Then in 1897 or 1898, he went to Atlanta University where he taught history and he stayed there until 1910. And then he returned to Atlanta University in 1934 and taught sociology and history for another 10 years. In his own life he was the most educated Black man of his time, with degrees from Fisk, from Harvard, and from the University of Berlin. So a good portion of his life was involved in education and learning. Julius Lester: What I want to do tonight is take a chronological look at his most important articles on education. The dispute with Booker T. Washington, over industrial education versus liberal arts education, his views on separate schools, and finally his views on the Negro college. From this I think we'll get a very, very interesting kind of view of how he saw education. Very prophetic in many ways, in terms of advocating a Black studies approach to education before the term was even coined, and also in terms of values. Julius Lester: So the first thing I want to look at is his dispute with Booker T. Washington. Which I assume you know a little something about. Booker T. Washington was of course the head of Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, was very involved in industrial education. And had a view of education, which was in consonant with the Gilded Age. Which that period was at the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century, the era of rags to riches, and Booker T. Washington was the Black exponent of that. I mean, now we would call him an exponent of Black capitalism. Julius Lester: I want to read you a few things from Booker T., because Booker T. is fascinating. And some of the things he says about what he sees as the aim and object of education. He says that an industrial education would quote, "Provide a material or industrial foundation. On such a foundation, as this will grow habits of thrift, a love of work, economy, ownership of property, bank accounts. Out of it in the future, will grow practical education, professional education, positions of public responsibility. Out of it will grow moral and religious strength. Out of it will grow wealth from which alone can come leisure and the opportunity for the enjoyment of literature and the fine arts." So Booker T. held industrial education was almost like rubbing the magic bowl there, and you rubbed it and you got it, and all these things came. Julius Lester: It's very interesting of course that Booker T. Washington never sent his own children to an industrial school. He sent his children to a liberal arts school, and he didn't hire teachers from industrial school, he hired teachers from liberal arts schools. And a woman he married went to school with Du Bois, and Du Bois sure didn't go to an industrial arts school. So there was a contradiction there. But Washington represented a certain philosophy of capitalism. Julius Lester: Now Washington's era was that, of course he was educating Black people in such a way that they will be obsolete economically by the time they got out of college. I mean, this was a period when in a few years, Henry Ford would come up with a thing called the assembly line and totally turn the American economy, the organization of industry, all around. When industry was getting more highly organized, and Booker T. Washington was educating people in terms of laying bricks and carpentry, which was the first part of the 19th century. Julius Lester: Now Du Bois was opposed to this for many, many reasons. And the primary reason was that he felt that this kind of education would not equip Black people to deal with the problems at hand. So therefore he came out with a concept which he called the Talented Tenth. It's a very, very controversial concept, which a lot of people... I teach at the University of Massachusetts and my students get very, very uptight when we started talking about the Talented Tenth, because they say it's elitist. We live in the age of power to the people and everybody praising the people and the people that are going to lead us to glory and all that, which may or may not be true. Julius Lester: But Du Bois had a whole thing called the Talented Tenth. What he meant by the Talented Tenth was, he said that the Negro race is going to be saved by it's exceptional men. He wrote an essay in 1903 called the Talented Tenth. I want to read some long excerpts from that because in it I think we see the crux of one aspect of his educational philosophy, and it's very, very important. Says, "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." And see, don't get hung up on that term, people get hung up on terms. We're dealing with concepts tonight, I mean he could have called us oranges, for all I care. We talking about concept, okay. Julius Lester: "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. It's technique is a matter for educational experts, but its object is for the vision of seers." Julius Lester: Let me repeat that sentence again. If y'all want to write that sentence down, I see you with your notebooks open and you ain't writing nothing, which is cool. Because I don't like folks to write when I'm talking anyhow. But you want to write something down, write that sentence down. Says "It's technique is a matter for educational experts, but it's object it's for the vision of seers." We'll come back to that because that's very important. Julius Lester: He continues and he says, "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 breadwinning, skill of hand, and the quickness of brain. With never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living for the object of life." Julius Lester: So there we have, I think, the kernel of Du Bois' educational ideals. Because whereas, Booker T. Washington was concerned about... solely concerned about giving a man a skill, Du Bois' concern was, first you educate the man to manhood, then you give him a skill. See, the reason I want to underline this and why I keep coming back to this is because I think that education today, I think as many of us knows that, the American university and the American educational system turns out wage earners, but don't turn out people that are worth a damn, generally. Excuse my language, but there was some things they couldn't educate out of me when I went to school. And so y'all just have to overlook me. If you're sensitive, well, you can tell me about it later. Julius Lester: His object was the training of men, not the training of moneymakers. Then secondly, there was second reason I think this is important is that, the dispute that went on between Booker T. and Du Bois, I think is still with us today. The dispute between industrial education and liberal arts education, I think is with us today in terms of technology and the sciences versus liberal arts. I mean we all know a cat who's made it in chemistry or physics or something like that saying, "I don't see why I need to study English. Or why, how come I need to study French, man, I want to be a chemist." And you try to tell the cat, "Well, you can be a dumb chemist. I mean, we got all them chemists up there in Washington, and other places turn out napalm and all kinds of weird things. Laser bomb, they got TV bombs now, which is very heavy. And these cats have obviously been educated in terms of that skill and don't know a thing about being human beings. Julius Lester: So I think that what Du Bois says, it's very relevant to the educational situation that we are in today. The essay goes on from there and he talks historically about the Talented Tenth and the Black race, and the role that education played and how they were educated, et cetera. And I'm going to skip all that, he goes into a lot of figures in terms of Black education at that time, and I want to skip that, and go into to where he talks about what a system of education must do. Julius Lester: He says, "It must strengthen the Negro's character, increase his knowledge and teach him to earn a living." So he says three things. It says, one, strengthen character, two, increase his knowledge, and three, teach him to earn a living. "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." So therefore he's saying three things. That children, the people must be educated too. One character, second knowledge, and then third, is earning a living. Julius Lester: Then he concludes with this sentence. He says, "It is the trained, living human soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breeds the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be Black or white, Greek, Russian or American." Julius Lester: I think one very central thing throughout Du Bois' thought, no matter in what area, is that the concern was always being human. How to reach that object. I mean, sometimes you reached that object by being angry. That being passive sometime was not the way to be human. Many, many ways, but that the object always, in all of his things, he comes back to. He uses a phrase in one of his essays about having commerce with the stars. You have to understand that Du Bois was an idealist. And I mean that in, what I would consider the best sense of the terms. That ideals form the core, the basis of his political, his educational, economic, cultural thought, and what have you on down the line. Julius Lester: So therefore, the Talented Tenth, he saw as having a very particular role in terms of the Black community. That was very simply, that the Talented Tenth would provide the leadership of that community. That if that Talented Tenth did not exist, if that core of people, talented ones, whatever you want to call them. Untalented, you get your own name for them. If they did not exist, leadership for Black people would come not from the Black community, but from the white community. He wrote this in 1903, and I think that in the intervening years he was proved prophetic because the leadership and the ideals for so long did come from without the Black community. Julius Lester: Then he concludes the essay with these words. He says, "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." Let me go over that one again. "Education was 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 man." Okay, that's a brief look at his concept of the Talented Tenth. Julius Lester: When he became an editor of The Crisis in 1910, one of the things that he did annually, and if you ever have a chance to see the original crises, they're fascinating magazines. He did one issue a year on education itself, which had pictures of the outstanding Black graduates of colleges during that year and articles on education, ads for Black schools, and what have you. Julius Lester: He also did one issue a year on children. I mentioned at the beginning that he said one of the things he was proudest of was a magazine called the Brownies' Book, which was a magazine, which he published, I guess, about 1920 to 1922. It was a children's magazine, and it was a magazine for Black children. It had in it all stories and songs and poems, and Du Bois wrote a column for it called As the Crow Flies, which was like a comment on the news for children. I've seen copies of it and it was a beautiful little magazine and it was very touching. Julius Lester: Du Bois has this image, which I'm sure he did a lot to cultivate, of being this very stern, patriarchal figure whom you would quake in the presence of. And it's always very, very... what blows the image is when you look at something like the Brownies' Book, where he used to have a column in there each month where there was this old professor who would talk to these kids, and it would be a dialogue and he'd talk about this, that, or the other thing with them. But that there was this whole other side of his nature, which was very tuned into children and was very concerned about the kind of images, the kinds of concepts and ideas with which children grew up. I think it's interesting that out of all the man did, Pan-African Congresses, Niagara movement, The Crisis. Out of all the fantastic things he did, Encyclopedia Africana, that one of the things that he said that he liked to do most was the Brownies' Book, the children's magazine. Julius Lester: In 1930, Du Bois began to undergo some very serious changes, transformations in his political thinking, which were brought on by the Depression. And led eventually to his ouster from the NAACP. To summarize it very briefly, that he shifted the emphasis in his thought to one of, what we would call now, political separatism. Julius Lester: I want to look at two things that touch upon that, one more directly than the other. The first is an essay called Education and Work, which is a speech he gave in 1930. Du Bois was a very popular baccalaureate speaker and commencement speaker on Black college campuses. So this was an address he gave, I don't remember what university it was. It was at Howard University commencement address June 6, 1930. In it he reviews his whole dispute with Booker T. Washington, and reviews the controversy between industrial arts education and liberal arts education. Julius Lester: He says in the beginning of the essay that the dispute had not been settled. The dispute, as I tried to point out, is still with us. It takes various forms, but it's still with us. And he comes to that all important question of ideals. H says, "That the ideals of colored, college-bread men have not in the last 30 years been raised an iota. Rather in the main, they have been lowered. The average Negro undergraduate has swallowed hook, line, and sinker, the dead bait of the white undergraduate. Who born in an industrial machine does not have to think and does not think. Our college man today is, on the average a man, untouched by real culture. He deliberately surrenders to selfish and even silly ideals, swarming into semi-professional athletics and Greek letter societies." Don't want to offend no AKAs or Kappas out there, but you know how it is. "And affecting to despair of scholarship and the hard grind of study and research, the greatest meetings of the Negro college year, like those are the white college year, have become vulgar exhibitions of liquor, extravagance and fur coats. Julius Lester: See folks always thought, you had this image of Du Bois. Du Bois never got down where the folks was. At least my students always say, "Well Du Bois, he don't get down to the nitty gritty." See the cat knew what was happening man, he could check out folks. Yeah, he knew. I don't need to repeat that sentence, do I. Y'all got that one okay, I think. He says, "We have in our colleges, a growing mass of stupidity and indifference." He was speaking, as I mentioned, at a Howard University commencement, so he was definitely in the lines then, you might say, talking what he knew. Because see, I think that one thing happened, and Du Bois talks about this. I'm trying to think in what... Oh yeah in his book In Battle for Peace, he talks about this, and also in his autobiography. About how, at the beginning of the century, that 1865, Blacks were freed from slavery turn of the century. Julius Lester: 1865 Blacks were freed from slavery. Turn of the century a Black middle class was beginning to develop and Du Bois saw very clearly this Black middle class could become middle class in the worst sense of that word, or it could become the talented 10th. See, that in any kind of social revolution, any change comes from the middle class. Fidel Castro was a middle class dude, Mao was from the middle class. It makes me mad when folks start knocking the middle class, and you bougie and all that, man. All of them cats were middle-class. And it's what you do from that. Du Bois knew that the middle class could either get into the fur coat and the party bag, which we all know all about, or they could become the talented 10th, which was to become the leaders. Julius Lester: And so he preached very strongly and emphasize the ideals, the ideals, the ideals, and then in one of the saddest passages in his autobiography, he talks about looking around the 1940s and saying that Black people had not followed ideals, but had followed the ideals of the white middle class, and had become consumers, and had not developed the kind of leadership that they should have developed. And so this is why when he's talking at Howard University and talking what he's talking is very important because he could see what was happening already. He was trying to stop that. Julius Lester: He goes on in the last part of the essay, and I don't want to read long, but I want to read most of it because I think it's very important. He talks about teachers, he talks about ideals, and this is what he has to say about teachers. Julius Lester: He says that the teachers must be of a high order. College teachers cannot follow the medieval tradition of detached withdrawal from the world. A professor of mathematics in our college has to be more than a counting machine, or proctor of examinations. He must be a living man acquainted with real human beings and alive to the relation of his branch of knowledge, to the technical problem of living and earning a living. The teacher in a Negro college has got to be something far more than a master of a branch of human knowledge. And don't get hung up about the teacher in a Negro college. This applies to a teacher anywhere. Julius Lester: He has got to be able to impart his knowledge to human beings whose place in the world is today precarious and critical, and the possibilities and advancement of that human being in the world, where he is to live and earn a living is of just as much importance in the teaching process as the content of the knowledge taught. Julius Lester: The man who teaches Blacksmithing must be more than a Blacksmith. He must be a man of education and culture acquainted with the whole present technique and business organization of the modern world, and acquainted to with human beings and their possibilities. Julius Lester: The teachers then cannot be pedants and dilettantes. They can not be mirrored technicians and higher artisans. They have got to be social statesman and the statesman of high order. Julius Lester: The student body of such schools has got to be selected for something more than numbers. We must eliminate those who are here because their parents wish to be rid of them, or for the social prestige, or for the passing the time, or for getting away, or for getting as quickly as possible into a position to make money to throw away. And I will add or to escape the draft. And we must concentrate up on young men and women of ability, and vision, and will. Julius Lester: To translate that, I think that what he was talking about is he was talking about cadres. But in political terminology you would call a cadre. That like... Okay, there's universal education, which, okay, I got no objections to that, but then there is a very particular kind of education where you select your students very carefully. And you select your teachers very carefully. So you can... There are some teachers which I had... I was lucky. I had mostly very, very good teachers, but there are some teacher I had that I was sorry that I had to be subjected to them teachers. And y'all, I'm sure, had them kind of experiences too. Why did I have to spend a year under this dude? Who didn't do nothing, but try to mess up my head for a year when I could have made so much more progress with somebody who was loving my head. It's a whole different thing. Julius Lester: And so I think that what he was talking about in terms of political future of Black people was a cadre concept of education, of people who were number one, teachers who were wholly educated. It's like before you become a psychiatrist, you got to be psychoanalyzed, yourself. Julius Lester: And I was thinking the other day... I ran into an old friend of mine the other day. A girl I went to school with. I went to Fisk. As a girl I went to school with, and she said she was teaching. And she's a girl I used to hang out with. We were friends and all that. I dug her, but when she said she was teaching, I knew that all she was doing was holding the gig. She was holding a job. I got to thinking after I left her, what that must be like for them kids. Then I got to thinking that, well, [inaudible] to them folks who are teaching are holding jobs. Then I got to thinking, well, wow, Jim. I got two kids. My kid's going to be going to school for, umpteen years, and they're going to be subjected most of each day, most of each year to some job holders. And yet this education is the core experience of their lives from age. six, the 21. Then we submit them to job holders. Are we out of our minds? That is insanity. That is sheer insanity. Julius Lester: Then I got to thinking... Once my mind started going, I just go off. So then I got to thinking about how you could you begin to educate teachers, and educate teachers in terms of values, and in terms of ideals. Let me back up and say that I know a lot of good teachers, and I ain't down on teachers because I know a lot of conscientious, hard working teachers who are struggling. I realize the board of education is at fault a hell of a lot of time. But that anyway, this is what Du Bois is talking about. Same kind of thing he's talking about. Talking about teachers who first are human beings. And then secondly have learned the skill of communicating knowledge and humanity. Being a teacher, man, teaching is hard. It's work. It really is man, because students come in class ... I got to... I can't get mad at the dude. I got to try communicate. Open up to this dude, And it wears me out. Okay, let me go on back to Du Boise, here. But y'all see the connection. Julius Lester: Then he goes on and he talks about ideals. He lists several ideals. The ideal of poverty, ideal with work, ideal of knowledge, and ideal with sacrifice. I'm a warn you now, this is going to be kind of heavy. So if y'all want to go out, smoke a cigarette, or get a Coke or something and come back in about five minutes that's okay because this is kind of heavy. Because Du Bois don't play. Julius Lester: He says that we have lost something, brothers. Wandering in strange lands. When he gets back in his preacher bag, he cracks me up, boy. He says, we have lost something, brothers. Wandering in strange lands, have mercy. We have lost ideals. We have come to a generation which seeks advance without ideals. Discovery with stars. It cannot be done. Certain great landmarks and guiding facts must stand eternally before us, and at the risk of moralizing, I must end by emphasizing this matter of the ideals of Negro students and graduates. Julius Lester: The ideal of poverty. This is the direct antithesis of the present American ideal of wealth. We cannot all be wealthy. We should not all be wealthy. In an ideal industrial organization, no person should have an income, which he does not personally need. No wheel of power solely for his own whim. As civilization is a turnout millionaires, it will also turn out beggars and prostitutes either at home or among the lesser breeds without the law. A simple, healthy life on limited income is the only reasonable ideal of civilized folk. Julius Lester: The ideal of work. Not idleness, not dawdling, but hard, continuous effort at something worth doing by a man supremely interested in doing it, who knows how it ought to be done, and is willing to take infinite pains doing it. Julius Lester: That's beautiful. Let me read that one again. Hard continuous effort at something worth doing by a man supremely interested in doing it, who knows how it ought to be done, and is willing to take infinite pains doing it. Julius Lester: The ideal of knowledge. Not guesswork, not mere callous theory, not inherited religious dogma clung to because of fear and inertia, and in spite of logic, but critically tested and laboriously gathered fact material, fact marshaled under scientific law, and feeding rather than choking the glorious world of fantasy and imagination of poetry and art of beauty and deep culture. Julius Lester: Finally, and especially the ideal of sacrifice. I almost hesitate to mention this. So much sentimental twaddle has been written of it. When I say sacrifice, I mean sacrifice. I mean a real and definite surrender of personal ease and satisfaction. I embellish it with no theological fairytales of a rewarding guard our milk and honey Heaven. I am not trying to scare you into the duty of sacrifice by the fires of a mythical Hell. I am repeating the stark fact of survival of life and culture on this Earth. Thou shalt forego. Thou shalt do without. Julius Lester: The insistent problem of human happiness is still with us. We American Negroes are not a happy people. We feel, perhaps, as never before the stinging and the bitterness of our struggle. Our little victories won here and there served, but to reveal the shame of our continuing semi slavery. We are torn a Sunday within our own group because of the rasping pressure of the struggle without. We are as a race, not simply dissatisfied. We are embodied dissatisfaction. Julius Lester: To increase abiding satisfaction for the mass of our people, and for all people, someone must sacrifice something of his own happiness. This is a duty only to those who recognize it as a duty. The larger the number ready to sacrifice, the small other total sacrifice necessary. No man of education, and culture, and training who proposes to face his problem and solve it can hope for entire happiness. It is silly to tell intelligent human beings, "Be good and you will be happy." The truth is today. Be good, be decent, be honorable and self-sacrificing, and you will not always be happy. You will often be desperately unhappy. You may be even crucified, dead and buried. And the third day you will be just as dead as the first. But with the death of your happiness may easily come increased happiness and satisfaction and fulfillment for other people, strangers, unborn babies, uncreated worlds. If this is not sufficient incentive, never try it. Remain hogs. I ain't going to say nothing more about that one. Julius Lester: 1935, he gave another commencement address. I think this one was also at Howard. Oh, well maybe this was an article. I don't remember. It don't make no difference nohow. It's in here. Does the Negro need separate schools? I think the relevance of this become immediately apparent in the midst of everybody's talking about busing these days, and integrating schools, and all of this. So Du Bois addresses himself to the question of separate schools, and he says, "Yes, separate schools are needed." He says "The proper education of any people include sympathetic touch between teacher and pupil." Julius Lester: So you got to read Du Bois so closely. See, because he drops little things in there. Generally when I read I skip a lot of adjectives and adverbs. I get the subject and the verb and I roll along. He went... I ain't found out where he went later. I can pick that up in there. You can't do that with Du Bois. You got to get every little word in there. That key word there, the proper education of any people includes sympathetic touch between teacher and pupil. Julius Lester: Knowledge on the part of the teacher, not simply of the individual taught, but of his surroundings, and background, and the history of his class and group. Such contact between pupils and between teacher and pupils on the basis of perfect social equality as will increase the sympathy and knowledge. Facilities for education, and equipment, and housing, and the promotion of such extracurricular activities as will intend to induct the child into life. Julius Lester: Now he says that I know that race prejudice in the United States is such that most Negroes cannot not receive proper education in white institutions. And he goes on to say that he knows there are many schools in the North where Black children are admitted and tolerated, but they aren't educated. He says they're crucified. Julius Lester: So he goes on, and he talks about all the negative things about integrated schools, mixed schools, but then he goes on and he says that there are a lot of positive reasons why school should be separate. He says that American Negroes, have because of their history, group experiences, and memories, a distinct entity whose spirit and reaction demand of certain type of education for its development. Negroes must know the history of the Negro race in America and this, they will sell them get and white institutions. Julius Lester: He goes on and he talks about that a little bit. And he says, y'all have to study intelligent land from their own part of you, the slave trade, slavery, emancipation, reconstruction, and present economic development. Remember now he's talking in 1935, he ain't talking today. This is 1935. Julius Lester: Negro colleges ought to be studying anthropology, psychology, and the social sciences from the point of view of the colored races. In history and social sciences, the Negro school and college have an unusual opportunity and role. It does not consist simply in trying to parallel the history of white folk with similar boasting about Black and Brown folk, but rather an honest evaluation of human effort and accomplishment without colorblindness and without transforming history into a record of dynasties and prodigies. Julius Lester: I want to stop right there for a minute because it's very important because I think that so much, we talk about Black history. We talk about Black studies. I get very worried sometimes that what we're talking about is a parallel kind of history that will have within it the same kinds of values, and be based upon the same concepts as white history, as we have been taught it, and will not be qualitatively different. Julius Lester: And this is what he's talking about there when he talks about an honest evaluation of human effort and accomplishment without colorblindness, and this important phrase, "And without transforming history into a record of dynasties and prodigies." Implying with that, I think number one, a criticism of Western history. Julius Lester: I was an English major, man. I had... Would you believe I had to learn all the Kings of England? And dates from Alfred. Wasn't Alfred the first one? I don't even remember first dude was. Whoever was first, from him on up to Elizabeth. I knew him and Elizabeth, then in between, I just couldn't hack it. Julius Lester: History being a record of prodigies, and I think I can interpret that as like we study history... There's this whole great man theory of history. And so you study history, and you studied European history, and you studied Napoleon, and you study all these dudes. You don't say nothing about the folks. What you study as a political history. I think that when we talk about Black history, we have to be sure that we don't start doing the same thing, which is teaching a great man theory in Black history. Of teaching of... Well, like I run up on people who have this whole glorification attitude of Black history, and the Black man discovered steel, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah in Africa. That's well and good, but that ain't done me a damn bit of good over here. The fact that they discovered steel in Africa and as far as I'm concerned that ain't what Black history should be about anyway. So He touches on that there. Julius Lester: He goes on to talk about Black schools being the perfect place for the development of the study of Black music, Black folklore, what have you. He says that Black schools can become centers of a new and beautiful effort at human education, which may easily lead and guide the world and many important and valuable aspects. Then he, of course, was criticized quite a bit for his separate views during the 1930s. And he says that I know this article will be interpreted by certain illiterate nitwit as a plea for segregated Negro schools and colleges. It is not, it is simply calling a spade, a spade. It is saying in plain English that a separate Negro school where children are treated like human beings, trained by teachers of their own race, who knows what it means to be Black in the year of salvation 1935, is infinitely better than making our boys and girls doormats to be spit and trampled upon and lied to by ignorant social climbers whose sole claim to superiority is the ability to kick niggers when they are down. That's a mouthful, boy. Julius Lester: Then he sums up, and he says, theoretically the Negro needs neither segregated schools, nor mixed schools. What he needs is education. What he must remember is that there is no magic either in mixed schools, or in segregated schools. A mixed school with poor and unsympathetic teachers with hostile public opinion and no teaching or truth concerning Black folk is bad. A segregated school with ignorant placeholders and adequate equipment, poor salaries, and wretched housing is equally bad. Other things being equal. The mixed school is the broader, more natural basis for the education of all youth. It gives wider contacts and inspires greater self confidence, and suppresses the inferiority complex. But other things seldom are equal, and in that case sympathy, knowledge, and the truth outweigh all of the mixed school can offer. Julius Lester: So in concluding... Du Bois is so beautiful because you really can't stick him in any bag, see, because he says very cleanly that segregated schools, nor mixed schools is not the argument. The argument is... It's not the point. The point is education. So he's not saying that a Black school, a separate school, automatically will give a better education to a Black child. No, he's not saying that. Don't nobody go out and say that Du Bois said that because you'd be lying. Okay. He says that ideally a mixed school is better, and he lists the reasons why. But he says that since we ain't dealing with no... Ain't no ideals here that we can look at, then under the present circumstances, separate schools are better. Julius Lester: Then I want to conclude with article, and I think one of the most important ones he did, called The Negro College from 1933, which was a commencement address he delivered at Fisk University in 1933. And it's an expansion of... Well, actually, I guess it's linked with the article I just read, The Separate Schools article, and sets forth more, in terms of what he sees as Black education. What we now call Black studies. Julius Lester: A Negro university, the United States of America begins with Negros. It uses that variety of the English idiom, which they understand, and above all it is founded, or it should be founded on a knowledge of the history of their people in Africa, and the United States, and their present condition. Without whitewashing our translating wish into fact, it begins with that. Then it asks, how shall these young men and women be trained to earn a living and live a life under the circumstances in which they find themselves or with such changing of those circumstances as time, and work, and termination will permit. And then he goes on, and he talks about the fact that a German college, which is in Germany is a German university. A college, which is in France. Julius Lester: Which is in Germany, is a German university. A college which is in France is a French university. And that people must begin to view Negro colleges, Black colleges in the same way. And that it says that Negro college cannot begin with history and lead to Negro history. It cannot start with sociology and lead to Negro sociology. It must start with the particular, which is Black history, and lead out from there to Western history, world history, universal man, and what have you, whichever trip you want to go on off on with that. Julius Lester: And then he comes back, once again, linking a liberal arts education with the practical. Throughout this, he's always mentioned about the necessity, about earning a living. His head wasn't off up in no clouds. And he says at the university must become not simply a center of knowledge, but a center of applied knowledge, and guide of action. Julius Lester: This is all the more necessary now, since we easily see that planned action, especially in economic life, is going to be the watchword of civilization. And what that is a reference to, it's a reference to the kind of economic planning the federal government was beginning to do to deal with the depression. The kind of things that Franklin Roosevelt was beginning to do with Tennessee Valley Authority, the TVA, with the federal work projects, and that kind of thing. And Du Bois felt a great urgency that Black people should come out with an economic program for the Black community. Based, he felt, around consumer cooperation, around co-ops. And he pushed that very, very strongly during the 1930s. Not too many people listened to him. Julius Lester: And then, his conclusions, and, to be also, my conclusions, says that a Negro university, from its high ground of unfaltering facing of the truth, from its unblinking stare at hard facts, does not advocate segregation by race. It simply accepts the bold fact that we are segregated apart, hammered into a separate unity by spiritual intolerance, and legal sanction backed by mob law. And that the separation is growing in strength and fixation, that it is worse today than a half century ago, and that no character, address, culture, or desert, is going to change it in our day, or for centuries to come. Julius Lester: Recognizing this brute fact groups of cultured, trained and devoted men gathering in great institutions of learning, proceed to ask, "What are we going to do about it?" It is silly to ignore the gloss of truth. It is idiotic to proceed as though we were white, or yellow, English, or Russian. Here we stand. We are American Negroes. It is beside the point to ask whether we form a real race. Biologically, we're a mingle of all conceivable elements, but race is psychology, not biology. Julius Lester: And psychologically, we are a unified race with one history, one read memory, and one revoked. It is not ours to argue whether we will be segregated, or whether we ought to be a caste. We are segregated, we are a caste. Our problem is how far, and in what way, can we consciously, and scientifically, guide our future so as to ensure our physical survival, our spiritual freedom, and our social growth? Either we do this, or we die. Julius Lester: Let us not beat futile wings in impotent frenzy, but carefully plan and guide our segregated life, organize an industry and politics to protect it, and expand it. And, above all, to give it unhampered spiritual expression in art and literature. Julius Lester: Now I think that many of those words, that general sentiment, I still think that that is very true today, in different ways than in 1933. But I think that the mission which Du Bois outlines is still a mission, which needs to be carried out today. Julius Lester: And in conclusion, I'd like to go back to the talented 10th, and just touch once again on what I think is the core of his educational philosophy, and I think touch a lot of what the core of W. E. B Du Bois is all about. We've talked about, I think essentially two things. We've talked about ideals, and then we've talked very specifically about the Black university, what it should do very specifically in terms of a Black education. Julius Lester: And I want to go back to this. Now, the training of men is a difficult and intricate task. It's technique is a matter for educational experts, but it's object is for the vision of seers. If we make money, the object of man training, we shall develop moneymakers, but not necessarily men. If we make technical skill, the object of education, we may possess artisans, but not in nature men. Julius Lester: 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 to life. On this foundation, we may build bread-winning skill of hand, and quickness of brain. With never a fear or less the child and man mistake the means of living for the object of life. Julius Lester: 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. Thank you. Julius Lester: Yeah, if there are questions, or criticisms, or anything that y'all want to talk about, we can do that now. I'm through. [crosstalk] Yeah. Speaker 2: I think that you have given us a very interesting outline of the pool of the educational theory, that the educational theory, that voice, [inaudible]. And in the case of Washington, for instance, it's fairly easy to make an assessment, because there is a theory on the one hand, a practice on the over. There was a relationship that existed. Speaker 2: As far as Du Bois was concerned, it's a little bit more difficult. But I wonder if he would give an assessment in terms of how these ideals on the one hand, and the relationship between these ideals and the practice, or the realization of certain ideals. For instance, at his real world experiences, Atlanta University experience, and then I think there are some other tools that the educational world used other than formally affiliating himself with the university. Julius Lester: Did everybody hear her? What she said was that, essentially, if I can summarize it, was that it's fairly easy to make an assessment in terms of Booker T. Washington in terms of his ideals, and his practice. But it was much more difficult in terms of Du Bois, and all she wanted. If I could make some such [accessment] between his educational philosophy ideals, and his practice. Julius Lester: In terms of Du Bois as a teacher, I have met several people who studied under Du Bois at Atlanta University, and it's kind of difficult at this point in time to know whether a person is telling the truth or not, because if a cat studied under Du Bois, and Du Bois was the worst teacher the cat ever had, he ain't going to say so, because it was an honor to have studied under Du Bois. Julius Lester: I mean, the way that I assess Du Bois' educational ideals is in terms of himself, in terms of that, okay. He had a certain concept, a certain vision of what a man should be as a product of education. And that doing the book was a very, very valuable experience for me because one of the things that I learned from Du Bois was a fantastic ... Du Bois was a fanatic about truth. I mean, Du Bois did not bite his lip about anything. Julius Lester: And, I mean, one of the reasons that he's so difficult, and seems on the surface to be filled with so many contradictions, is that he doesn't care whether people think ill or good of him, about what he has to say. He told the truth, as he saw it, all the way down the line. And in many instances, he must have been a very, very lonely man because the things he had to say, people did not want to hear in many instances. Julius Lester: And that to me, I mean, secondly, the kind of scholarship that he brought to his own work. I mean, for example, if you ever look at the Atlanta University studies, the selections that are in the Seventh Son, I chose for a particular reason because okay, the Atlanta University studies, with sociological studies. But what Du Bois did say when the study on The Negro Artisan where he's doing a sociological study of Blacksmiths and artisans in the South. He prefaced that with number one, a history of a artisan in Africa, then a history of a artisan during the slavery. Thus, providing a historical framework, the backdrop, by which to assess his information that he gathered there. Julius Lester: And that, he was always teaching, and he was always saying, "Listen, knowledge is interrelated." And that, these people now, I mean, this is a number crazy country. It really is, man. Oh wow. Over the weekend, I was reading the paper, and they say that, right in the paper it says, "Yeah, it was expected that a million people will be on the highway this weekend, and 700 of them millions going to get killed. Now some dude done sat down and figured out these numbers, well, some folks are going to die this weekend. He throw it in the paper, numbers every place. And we just get hung up in numbers. Julius Lester: Du Bois was a sociologist, but he put that, if you read The Philadelphia Negro, what do you get first? You get a history of Blacks in Philadelphia, broken down by period. Then, he deals with the period that he's talking about, 1896. Julius Lester: That's the best way that I can assess his educational ideas was ideals, was that, can I learn those ideals from the man himself, from his writings? And yeah, very definitely. I think more than anything else, that's what I learned from Du Bois by working on the books, by doing the books. Speaker 2: [inaudible] last year, you spoke about separate Negro school. Which in my mind maybe associate with the bussing issue. Is it not true that in the 1960s [inaudible] came back and said, you have to get rid of the dual education system because, I thinks it's around page 678 [inaudible] essay on the fact that ignorance, particularly in the South, North Carolina, it's a big issue there [inaudible]. All the ways to get rid of the dual system [inaudible]. Julius Lester: Yeah, I wish you could find it specifically, because it's not on 678. Speaker 2: [inaudible]. Julius Lester: Let me see if I can find it because ... Oh, [crosstalk] No rhyme or reason, no justice for today, is that what you're talking about? Speaker 2: Yes. Julius Lester: Yeah, okay, 671, you was close. Speaker 2: [inaudible]. Julius Lester: Yeah, see, the only ... Yeah, I wish I could find it specifically because I can't find it specifically here. And, I mean, I think we have to put that into context. And 1960, Du Bois was a former Marxist, Leninist, and a socialist, and that his, I find that there's a certain critical element that leaves his writing at this period, because he begins talking more and more what I consider, putting everything within a Marxist, Leninist framework. Julius Lester: And he was very much influenced by his trips to Russia, and his trips to China in the late 1950s. And his mind and attention was given much less to what was going on in this country, and he was much more concerned with the international scene. And he saw that Black people's problems could not be solved under a democratic system. And so, that I would put that in the context of his socialism, and, even though I can't find the exact passage, I would hazard a guess, and say that he would say that yes, integrated schools would work under a socialist system. Speaker 2: [inaudible]. Julius Lester: Yeah. Speaker 2: [inaudible 00:01:05:40]. Julius Lester: Yeah. I don't know whether I would put it quite that way. I mean, it's difficult to talk about. I look at the changes in Du Bois not so much as qualitative changes, but changes in terms of emphasis, which I think is one way of looking at it. Yeah. Speaker 3: This whole thing about educating men, to me, it all sounds very good. But I'm concerned about the practicality of putting that first. What do you think about it? Julius Lester: Why don't you talk a little bit more about what your concern is, so I can better understand that. Speaker 3: Okay. Why do you educate men, man to man, equally, in the meantime, need food, shelter, those kinds of basic needs. And from your discussion, I gather that Du Bois put this kind of humanistic thing over basic needs. Julius Lester: No, he didn't. He put them together. He didn't separate them. See, I think that one thing which Du Bois is seldom guilty of, which we are, is what I would call consecutive thinking. One, two, three, four. And I don't think you live life that way. I don't think things exist that way. That things exist, a lot of things exist simultaneously on many levels. Julius Lester: And I think that what Du Bois would say is that what has happened, is that people have talked about the physical needs, and put the emphasis in priority there, and that he is simply trying to balance that and say, "No, if you do that, you going to end up wrong." That, I mean, we got the most well fed, well clothed, best living country in the world, and it's the sickest country in the world, so that should tell us right there that something's wrong with our approach. And so, therefore balance that out, and I think that's what he's saying. Julius Lester: Go ahead. Speaker 3: I could see that applied to the country, well fed, well clothed, and all that, and all that kind of thing. But when you come to the Black community, that is not the case. Julius Lester: No, it's not the case. Speaker 3: And certainly, you will need food before you'll need appreciation of art. Julius Lester: See, there you go again. Either or, one before the other. See, number one, Black folks appreciate art. You dig how Black folk dress? That's art. I ain't talking about me. I'm just here. I ain't talking about me. You know who about you who I'm talking about, folks who can blend all them clothes together. That's art. Julius Lester: See, let me say this to you. The reason I mentioned about America being well fed, well clothed, and very sick, is that, see, we can turn around and do the same thing. We can organize that, and get folks together, and feed them, and clothe them, get folks all welfare. And then find out that they end up as sick as White folks are in this country already. Julius Lester: And so, that the importance of what Du Bois is saying, is that, yeah, folks physical needs have to be spoken to. But at the time you're doing that, see, is that okay? There are values which go along with how you feed people, how you take care of people. And so, therefore, make sure that your values are human value, so that you won't come out with a well fed automaton, or a well fed bomber pilot. I mean, that's what he's saying. Julius Lester: And so, therefore, see, quite the contrary. See, I don't think that the priority is food before art. The priority is both. Speaker 3: Okay [inaudible]. Julius Lester: And you don't separate the two, and you don't let anybody break them down into, well, we got to serve the beans before we play the music. Nah, fool, play the music, and we serve the beans at the same time. Damn, what's wrong with you? But people break into that kind of thing, and you can't do that. Just can't do that. Speaker 4: This maybe a hostile question. Julius Lester: I don't deal with it. That's all right. Speaker 4: Could you give us the credentials, for evaluating [inaudible]? Julius Lester: My credentials. Why do you want to know my credentials? Speaker 4: Well, what I mean is where did Du Bois educational ideas come from? Julius Lester: Where Du Bois' educational ideas come from. What are you getting at? Speaker 4: Well, what I'm getting at is that certain ideas about theories about education that I don't think anyone discussing, Du Bois [inaudible]. For example, if you read [Peterson's] New England College [inaudible] University. [inaudible]. Julius Lester: What would I learn from that? Speaker 4: Well, was Du Bois exposed to any of these influences? Julius Lester: I don't know. Speaker 4: You don't [inaudible]. Julius Lester: I'm asking you, since you've read them, but what would I learn from that. Speaker 4: All right, [inaudible] you share the ideal [inaudible]. Julius Lester: The what? Speaker 4: You share these educational ideals, you've spent some time outlining. Julius Lester: I mean, why don't you go on and attack me, instead of trying to set me up? Okay, I mean, be honest with me. You playing head games. Be honest. There's something you didn't dig, what was it? Talk about it. Speaker 4: Okay [inaudible]. Julius Lester: [inaudible]. Speaker 4: Do you think Du Bois would have [inaudible]? Julius Lester: Do I think? Hey, I never met Du Bois. I met him through his records. Okay. Du Bois might've come out here and danced. I don't know what Du Bois would have done if he'd come out here. I came out here and did what I did because I say, okay, there are two things I can do, is I can come out here, and I can paraphrase Du Bois, or I can read what Du Bois said. Julius Lester: And that from my experience as a student, I always found that no matter how much I read something, that when a teacher read it in class, I heard, I saw something that I didn't see before. Okay, that didn't happen for you. I bored you. You should have split. Julius Lester: If Du Bois would've come out and read a speech, because Du Bois didn't talk extemporaneously. He would have read the whole speech on Negro College, so if I did you a disservice, I don't apologize. You should've split and not wasted my time. Anything else you want to say? Speaker 4: [inaudible]. Julius Lester: No, no, no, no, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I really want ... Okay, what you were saying about had I read the college in New England, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, my qualifications, et cetera, et cetera. See, I think that when I was in college, one of the reasons I didn't major in education was because it was full of shit. Excuse me, but it was full of a lot of crap. Speaker 4: [inaudible]. Julius Lester: Okay. Now, what is teaching? Far as I'm concerned, from my experience as a teacher, teaching is how do I communicate knowledge and values to a group of folks in front of me? Okay. Anybody can sit down and get some knowledge from a book, because the whole point, however, for having a teacher, which is a human exchange, a human thing. Okay. Julius Lester: Therefore, I don't need to know the history of Harvard, nothing else to do that. What I need is to know myself as a human being, and to be able to sit in a classroom, and open myself to my students, to my students to say, "Hey, you wrong." And instead of getting uptight, like my teachers did say, "Why am I wrong?" Julius Lester: Okay. Now what I have learned from Du Bois is that saying about values. I sit in the classroom, and okay does administration on hand, who's telling me that grades got to be in at a certain time. I got to give an exam, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I got these kids in front of me, and I had to make some decisions about what kind of experience are we going to have for 14, or 15 weeks, and what I want.want them to go away with, certain amount of knowledge and I want them to go away a little changed as human beings and that as far as I'm concerned that whatever I teach, Black nationalism, Du Bois, Harlem Renaissance, history whatever I teach, is a mere tool for teaching certain ideals, which Du Bois articulates, which I agree with. A lot of things he didn't articulate, which I try to do, but that's a mere tool. I can be teaching underwater basket weaving, jiving on the corner. I could be teaching Chitlins 201, still be the same thing I'm concerned about that human being and something happening inside him. Does that kind of answer? Speaker 5: Well, yeah. But I think my point was that- Julius Lester: Yeah. What was your point? That's a good [crosstalk]. Speaker 5: There are other educational items. You're are set on education, but- Julius Lester: That's what I came here to do. Speaker 5: But I think that as we get into this, what influences gave you the voice? Julius Lester: That's a very good subject for a paper. Speaker 5: Should he read John Dewey, for example? Julius Lester: That is a very good subject for a paper. And if y'all have to do papers, you may want to do that. I ain't got time for that. I don't much care. You know? I mean, that's an academic thing and that's very interesting. And if I were going to spend my life on Du Bois, I would say, "Well, yeah. Yeah. I'm going to read John Dewey and all that." But I ain't got time. Speaker 5: [inaudible] They're academic theories that we should read about. Julius Lester: When Du Bois sat down and wrote and spoke about education, he wasn't no academic person. He was a human being. That's how I meet him. That's how I learned from him. What more can I tell you? Julius Lester: Yes. Ma'am. Speaker 6: I think it's good to be helping the field. It's one of the most valuable cultures to understand the Black experience with society [inaudible] to the experiences of other people and to look at each institute [inaudible] Black people. As I said it, each institution will just be held in a segregated state way, although there are certain instances where [inaudible] So it is perfectly valid to do this, and I think that it comes up for the [inaudible] today, because they did not realize that the evolution of the Black family was even as a very separate and distinct history, all by itself so that we can approach Black history [inaudible] but it's also valid to see that each institution, Black experience developed. So it's perfectly valid to see Du Bois as a creative person who, because he was unique, developed his concepts with whatever resources he had. Speaker 6: There are some families in Europe that have some [inaudible] background and those should be a part as we piece together the influences [inaudible] beyond that. But the other token is that the education of Blacks is a separate issue all together. [inaudible] families [inaudible] service to them. You don't have to go to a prepared English class [inaudible] anything else. As far as I understand, the Black experience was [inaudible]. Speaker 7: Thanks. Any Comment? Julius Lester: No. I don't mind that. That's all good. Speaker 7: Yes. [inaudible]. Speaker 8: [crosstalk] you have got to, and also as you very prominently hit, try to understand how what he had to say was relevant to the problems that we still haven't healed from as people. But one thing, I'd like you to kind of move further on me, because I think in my mind we have this sort of double theme about this many years how [inaudible] hardest for us Americans to talk about because this is still an [inaudible]in American society. You mentioned, I think, that you feel that there's ammunition [inaudible]. On the other hand, you also said, in a sense there's simply a chain of [inaudible] that is international interest, because I know this may profound, seems to become more central in these last years. I'd just like you to comment further on this, because this is the trickiest part for an America today to deal with, and I know that you've had a great deal of thinking [inaudible]. Julius Lester: I think that the turning point comes in 1950, 51, when Dubois was indicted as an agent of a foreign government. And I think that's the turning point because Du Bois was indicted and that the response of Black people in the main to the boys was to keep hands off. That he got some little support from the Black press, but only one Black college president supported him, Charles Johnson at Fisk. And that the people who came to his support were the white radicals and the communist party. And I think that they became his immediate environment, so to speak, and that in his book In Battle for Peace, it's a very, very sad book because he was very hurt by the lack of response, lack of support that Black people gave him during this period. Julius Lester: And I think that had given his entire life to Black people. He was 81 years old, 83 years old. He was put up on the rack and like nobody came to his aid, and he made a kind of psychological break, I think, with Black people at that point. And so thereby from that time for the last 13 years of his life was, where was he honored? He was honored in Czechoslovakia. He was honored in Russia. He was honored in China. All of the recognition for the greatness of his work and his life came from the socialist world. Then, secondly is the fact that Du Bois had been a socialist since 1909, maybe even before that. 1906, maybe. Julius Lester: And that he had always kept it in the foreground, and the background of his work and his thought. And I think that during this last period of his life, it came more and more to the foreground. And so thereby he addressed himself much more to the international things and not what was happening nationally. And then the dualism in Du Bois, the other thing he addressed himself to was Africa. And I find, if anyone at symbolizes, Du Bois talks about this dualism, Negro having two warring souls and souls of Black folks, and if anything, symbolizes it. Julius Lester: And I remember it vividly because I was living in New York then, and October, 1961, I guess it was, he joined the communist party. October of 1961, he went to Africa, which is fascinating. They would have welcomed him in Czechoslovakia, Romania, Russia, China. He could've gone to any socialist country in the world. And then the grand old man, he chose to go to Africa. Julius Lester: And so there it was at the end, that split, socialism, but yet he chose to go to Africa. And in the introduction to The Seventh Son, I say that that perhaps he finally achieved a unity in being a pan-African socialist, because he was pan-Africanist. Julius Lester: The majority of his writing in the 50s is about Africa. Maybe he'd finally achieved some kind of unity within himself by joining the communist party. But it was very clear by joining the party, that he wasn't going to be an active member, because he moved to Ghana. Julius Lester: Does that kind of answer the question? Speaker 8: Yeah. I guess that was directed at the kind of thing. You have done [inaudible] but I've heard it done [inaudible] times saying, "Yes, he was very great, but until then he must have [inaudible] he must have been crazy and so on." And I think that your explanation, your discussion brings it into a perspective that makes it more possible to deal less with [crosstalk] Julius Lester: When I said that was a diminution, I think that that is because something Du Bois had never done was Du Bois had never accepted or aligned himself wholeheartedly with any ideology, but all of his life, he had been in the process of creating different aspects of one. Once you accept any ideology, be it Americanism, Episcopalianism, Catholicism, Marxism, Leninism, then you are going to see the world in those terms. Julius Lester: And so thereafter, Du Bois saw the world and interpret the world more and more, not from his own, very special personal perspective, but from a Marxist Leninist perspective. And so therefore, if you want an interesting comparison of this 1909, 1910, he wrote John Brown. International publishers reprinted John Brown and Du Bois added material to it. Julius Lester: In the latest edition of John Brown, the added material is in italics. So you have a chance to read the original last chapter and then see what Du Bois's additions are. And that it's a fascinating comparison because the additions are what, to me, are very dull, boring Marxist-Leninist knows working class, the proletariat, blah, blahdy, blah, blah, blah. Stylistically, there's a great contrast between what he wrote in 1909, and then conceptually there's a great contrast. Julius Lester: And so I think that's how the diminution came about, was through the acceptance of Marxism-Leninism. Speaker 8: [inaudible] so excited about [inaudible]. Julius Lester: Oh, yeah. Speaker 8: He said, "Wow, this gives me a whole new way of looking at this. And how come I never studied it, and how come, not only how come I never studied this hard, because I didn't respect [inaudible] but when I went to Germany, how come I never studied this there?" Julius Lester: Yeah. Speaker 8: To an extent. Julius Lester: Yeah, we'll see. But what's interesting in those, Crisis. He did a series of articles in The Crisis on Marxism, the American Negro, et cetera. And they were more articles explaining more than anything else. He was excited by Russia, but that he did not become a Marxist Leninist. And that I do not find, I mean, I think the first place you find the influence of Marxism-Leninism in his writing is with Black reconstruction. Which is, I think a Marxist-Leninist interpretation, and a very valuable study because he's applying it to a whole which nobody had dealt with. And he used it very creatively. And I think at the end of his life, that creative aspect of it was not there. It was much more mechanistic. Speaker 9: You talk about the ideas of poverty, work, education, and sacrifice, resulting through the ideals of poverty being a big part of it. Julius Lester: Yeah. What he was saying essentially is that if you're serious about being a Black teacher or Black, whatever, then you have an idea with poverty, which is that I need a certain amount of money to exist upon and no more. And thereby you do not get hung up in making money. That's all. Which is very easy to do in this country. You can get hung up on making money, and not know you're getting hung up making money. Julius Lester: Because especially now since, Black is such a high premium and you know, colleges are looking for Black teachers. I won't say they - as long as he's Black, they offer you a whole bunch of money and that may take you away from what you define as your main work, but you get more money. So therefore you go do that, until the boys say, "Well hey, you just take a vow of poverty. You won't get hung up in that." Julius Lester: Yeah. Well, he had his hand up for several times. Speaker 10: Can you tell us how you can stay on top of the whole education process as far as the main [inaudible]? Julius Lester: How I stay on top of the education process? Speaker 10: [inaudible]. Julius Lester: Oh. Very simple. I didn't look upon school as being where I was getting educated from. I educated myself. Me and the library and I had a couple of very important teachers. And so that was my education. I went to school for my parents. When I graduated, I walked over to my mother and I handed her the piece of paper and I said, here, mama, you earned it. I'm gone. Because that didn't had nothing to do with me. Julius Lester: I was very lucky. I wasn't caught up with ambition, I was going to be Phi Beta Kappa, and Magna Cum Laude, and all them things. And I was very lucky. My first semester I took math. I'm dumb in math. Whew, am I dumb. And the cat gave me a D, but you can't make Phi Beta Kappa with a D. So I was free. They freed me. I had that Phi Beta Kappa monkey off my back. Julius Lester: And so I say, "Well, hey. That's solid. Now I can go and get educated and start worrying about making grades and stuff." And so, my feeling was what if I went to class that was a C if I stayed awake, that was a B. And if I bought the book, that was an A. So I just went to class and caught my C's, and slid on through. That was all. Julius Lester: See, I mean, okay, we talked about money before. Grades are money. If you have a C average, and you say my philosophy is C average, then you don't get hung up on grades. You know? Speaker 11: Yeah. I have series of question because as you said, you read the messages, but you know, somehow we didn't get a critical perspective on an idea of education, and that's where I guess, comparisons come in, whether you make comparisons with other Black other people who are living on Black education or with white education in this country and whatever. You seem to go along with almost all the passages you quoted and you were talking about how they are relevant to the present where, to me, for example, the ideal poverty and sacrifice look unnecessary. Speaker 11: Why should a Black teacher have to have these ideas? Why can't he have a bit of what everyone is having? Why should it be? This looks like having pain for the soul's sake. You must stay poor and you must sacrifice and it's close [inaudible] I can see, but it looks like that's it. Number two, do you find in him any ideas, is education clearly a philosophy? We cannot relevant to the present for? Currently do you see any progress from his beginning to the end of his career in his education? Julius Lester: Do I see any what? Speaker 11: Any progress, any change, any development in his basic, not only specifications, but in his theory or concepts of education? Julius Lester: Okay. In terms of the last one first, I think that what I tried to do by presenting it chronologically was that I tried to show a development and evolution from a talented 10th kind of concept. The ideals. And then more specifically in the 30s, a separatism and an idea for a Black college for Black studies, what have you. So I tried to show, implied an evolution. In terms of your second question, which I think was in terms of critical, right? Type thing. Julius Lester: Let's see. I guess perhaps I should have explained before I started was that, I know what academics do. Let's people, a lot of time, academics, which they come and read, learn it, papers and criticized and blah, blahdy, blah, blah, blah. I just don't do that, just because what I'm concerned about is learning. Julius Lester: And if there are any aspects of Du Bois's educational philosophy, which I don't agree with, I don't know what they are off hand and they wouldn't be relevant as far as I'm concerned. I mean, what's the point of my coming all the way out of here and telling you what I disagree with about Du Bois and stuff seems to me to be a waste of your time. What I was trying to do, which maybe I didn't do was I was trying to share with you what I had learned from Du Bois about education and what excited me. And maybe I wasn't supposed to do that, but that's the way I am. Julius Lester: And then the first thing you asked me, what? Cause I forgot. Speaker 11: [inaudible]. Julius Lester: Oh yeah. Right. Okay. I mean, I think this is very simple, which is that things corrupt. I mean, it's like power corrupts. Things corrupt in and of themselves. Julius Lester: There's so many, so many Black kids, in school now who like talk about wanting to go back to the community and work in the community and blah, blahdy, blah, which is very, very good. And they're full of a lot of good emotion and a lot of good feelings, good ideas and stuff. And that can become corrupted, so easily. It's a difference between buying a Volkswagen and buying an MG. See, buying an MG, you're going to be paying for it twice as long. Whereas, both of them are cars. Both of them will get you where you want to go. Right? But an MG is getting into a whole, the MG is a very special kind of language. MG is. You know? Julius Lester: So therefore, if you're this kid and you want to work in the community and say you're a young lawyer or something. If you got to spend six years paying for your MG, rather than two or three years playing for your VW, you done got corrupted. Julius Lester: Cause see, when her brother come in and he just got busted by the man and he ain't got no money and you ain't had no cases in four months to pay you any money. And then a dude comes in, who's going to pay you a thousand bills to take his case. You got your car note due, you going to take the cat with the money and the brother who ain't got no money you going to let go. Right? Julius Lester: And so therefore, if you just take that vow and say to yourself, "Well, hey, I can't go that way. I can't go that way. I cannot let the ..." Julius Lester: See, I mean, money is a puppeteer. It really is. And money will tell you what to do. I mean, it really will. Right? I mean, this can be carried out a lot of ways. I mean, like I'm divorced. Right? So I got to get up off a certain amount of money for child support every month. So therefore I got to do certain things every month to make some money. Cause the man that comes over me in jail. [inaudible]