- [Announcer] The following program, "Blacks, Blues, Black!"

is made possible by a public service grant from the Olympia Brewing Company.

(singing in foreign language) - Hello, my name is Maya Angelou.

We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, and this debt we pay to human guile.

With torn and bleeding hearts, we smile and mouth myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise in counting all our tears in size?

Nay.

Let them only see us while we wear the mask.

We smile, but oh, my god, our tears to thee from tortured souls arise.

♪ We sing ♪ Oh, but god, the clay is vile beneath our feet, and long the mile.

But let the world think otherwise.

We wear the masks.

Well, that was true.

Mr. Paul Lawrence Dunbar wrote that poem in the late 1800s.

And it was true for many, many years.

We wore the masks.

But our young people are saying today, "Take off the mask."

They refuse to wear the masks.

And we have to deal with a reality that is mask-less.

So that means then we must now take off the mask and look at ourselves.

In the first program, I discussed positive Africanisms and how they helped us to survive.

Now, in this program, I'm going to discuss negative Africanisms.

In many cases, we have used them as survival tactics, but as the Africans say, "Today be today."

Now we are taking off the masks.

We don't need them anymore.

There are sayings that include profound directions for us.

The Africans say life is an unbroken line.

We who are here today, in the middle, say we are caretakers of and adders to those things that have gone before, for those who are yet to come.

You see, if we listen to these things, then we can picture ourselves in a healthy future.

There's a poem that was written by Mr. Hughes, a black American poet in the 1800s again, and I think in this point we see how we've used what we call Thomism.

The poet says, "You has told us so often, master, that we's free as we can be.

But we need some kind of check, sir, so's we'll keep on being free.

Please don't whip me this time, master, though I knows you's good and kind, but ain't no slavery on this earth, sir, like the slavery of the mind.

Ain't but one compound solution to this problem, as I see.

If a man's mind's in slavery, ain't no way to set it free."

Now if the prophets are right, and if my own analysis of the next 30 years is valid, then we are going to suffer and endure a holocaust that will leave the world as we now know it in scattered pieces.

The only way we can project ourselves into being able being healthy enough to pick up the pieces and build a healthy society at its inception is to start now to look at ourselves.

In 1619, one year before the celebrated Mayflower docking, the first Africans were brought to the shores of what later became the United States of America.

In 1629, they began their first appeal to the authorities for their freedom.

For 349 years, black Americans have begged, beseeched, prayed, whined, implored, threatened, fought for their freedom.

They have risked, and in many cases lost their dignity in a vain attempt for dignity.

I suggest that this ability to take rejection, the refusal of a request as a reason to continue begging as an Africanism, and one that we must discard ruthlessly, immediately, unceremoniously.

We must do it as unceremonious as a doctor cuts out rotten tissue and throws it into an incinerator.

We have, in West Africa, in fact, on the African continent, one is cajoled, extolled to exercise patience.

If a wrong has been done to a person, he is told, "Oh, nevermind, exercise patience."

If a person is in hospital or in jail and is in dire need, either of a lawyer or a doctor, other patients or prisoners, other families or friends, complete strangers, and even people who are themselves undergoing the same torture, tell that person to exercise patience.

Now, I suggest that it might not be patience, indeed, that one should be exercising; it might be one's brain, it might be one's ears, it might in fact be one's muscles, or one's eyes.

Black Americans have sung from the time we got here, I suppose, all sorts of songs telling you to be quiet, and encouraging you to just wait.

We have sung, "We keep an inch and long like a pole interim."

Now, mind you, I think it's important here, before we actually look at the survivals, to realize they were functioning, they functioned, they were valid at a point.

So we mustn't look back at our history and say, "Oh, wasn't that a drag?"

Rather, understand, "I did this because it was necessary."

The American Indians, to whose continent we were brought, strangers in chains, slaves more so, are today less than 600,000 in the United States.

The black American is upward of 25 million.

And it is said that that's a conservative estimate.

So, obviously we did use those tactics and we survived, we in fact thrived.

So that was fine till now.

Now we look again, we reassess now.

Black Americans sang.

♪ By and by ♪ ♪ By and by ♪ ♪ I'm gon' lay down this heavy load ♪ ♪ I know my robe is gon' fit me well ♪ ♪ I'm goin' to lay down this heavy load ♪ ♪ I tried it on ♪ ♪ At the gates on hell ♪ ♪ I'm gon' lay down this heavy load ♪ Bishop Nero and the Nero Specials are going to sing for you exactly what we think about waiting.

(upbeat piano music) ♪ Oh, by and by ♪ ♪ When the morning comes ♪ ♪ All of the saints ♪ ♪ Of God are gathered at home ♪ ♪ We will tell the story ♪ ♪ How we've overcome ♪ ♪ We will understand it better by and by ♪ ♪ By and by ♪ ♪ When the morning comes ♪ ♪ All the saints ♪ ♪ Of God are gathered at home ♪ ♪ We will tell the story ♪ ♪ Of how we've overcome ♪ ♪ And we will understand it better by and by ♪ ♪ Oh, singing by and by ♪ ♪ When the morning comes ♪ ♪ All of the saints ♪ ♪ Of God are gathered at home ♪ ♪ We will tell the story ♪ ♪ How we've overcome ♪ ♪ And we will understand it better ♪ ♪ By and by ♪ (light piano music) ♪ We have come this far by faith ♪ ♪ Leaning on the Lord ♪ ♪ Trusting in his holy word ♪ ♪ He never fail me yet ♪ ♪ Oh, sing it ♪ (all singing) ♪ Can't turn around ♪ ♪ We've come this far by faith ♪ ♪ Don't be discouraged ♪ ♪ When there's trouble ♪ ♪ In your life ♪ ♪ He'll bear your burdens ♪ ♪ And he'll move all your misery and strife ♪ ♪ That's why we have come this far by faith ♪ ♪ Leaning on the Lord ♪ ♪ Everyday we'll trust him ♪ ♪ Trusting in his holy word ♪ ♪ He never fail me yet ♪ ♪ I'm singing ♪ (all singing) ♪ Can't turn around ♪ ♪ We've come this far by faith ♪ We came a long way.

We have a long road ahead of us.

In our agony, in our pain, we created great beauty.

That beauty, we are not saying now that we must rid ourselves of or deny, but rather to be grateful for it, and now it's time to create something new - also beautiful.

I am asking you, my people to put your minds now on today.

The close and closed relationships in Africa, of tribes, of families, of clans led to a kind of mistrust.

Now, we see in Africa, it's nothing to hear a Ghana person suggest that an Eve person is, oh, maybe a little too selfish.

An Asante may say that the the Fante's are proud.

The Baluba may say the Lingala's are stupid.

We here in the states, a black American says, "Oh, honey, he's from Portland."

"That person is from Seattle."

No good.

I was talking to a man the other day who told me, "Oh, yes, the Louisiana people," a very intelligent man said, "Louisiana people, you can't trust them.

They're evil."

We hear in New York, "Oh yes, honey, I live in Harlem.

No, they live in Brooklyn.

You know how Brooklyn Negroes are."

Hunter's Point people say, "What?"

In the Fillmore, nothing.

What does that mean?

What is that saying to us?

Now, we understand that we have instances in Africa where tribal wars have been upgraded always by the European.

But the pre-European slavery was a fact, is a fact of African history.

And the tribal wars were facts.

These antagonisms were there to be built upon by the European as soon as he found himself economically concerned with the Africans.

We open ourselves to the colonial idea of separate and rule, divide and conquer.

We just see a case here recently in a nearby town, a mayor has set a divisive force going between the black Americans in that town.

Fortunately, in this case, they all seemed aware of what was trying to be foisted onto them, and they didn't allow it to work.

In Nigeria today, the civil war that's taking place there is in fact a tribal war.

We see the Igbo, who are in the (indistinct) fighting the Hausas, or fighting against the Hausas, or defending themselves against the Hausas and the Yoruba.

The Hausas are Muslims.

The Igbo are Christian.

The Yoruba are Christian and Animists.

A couple of weeks ago in the local morning paper, there was a statement that the Igbo were starving and dying like flies.

The federal government, from whom they have seceded, has offered them thousands of tons of food.

They refuse the food because they are afraid that the Yoruba and the Hausas may poison the food before it gets to them.

Now, what does that tell us?

What does that tell us about a trust?

What does that tell us about our recognizing the unity?

It is important, it is imperative that we have unity, and unity at all costs.

That whatever the concession one has to make, one makes it to say, "Yes, brother, you are my brother."

I'm a Baptist, and you are a non-believer, fine.

That is a stage and I understand it.

I'm in a stage and I understand it.

When you get changed, you will be changed.

But until you are changed and after you are still my brother.

This is very important.

We mustn't get so sadiddy, as it were, that we look down on this man or that man.

We mustn't.

We must deal with the oneness.

And it is not just the oneness of being under the same oppression; we have a oneness that can be traced back to a culture that we have kept all these years.

As a West Indian friend of mine said in New York a few weeks ago, he said, "I may as well be a black American."

I said, "Why don't you tell people you're a West Indian?"

He said, "I may as well be a black American or an African or anything; I am that.

When I walk down the street, the people don't look at me and say, 'Oh, that's a West Indian,' or, 'Oh, that's an African.'

They say, 'Oh, he's black.'"

There's some truth in that.

When one of the African carryovers, one of the facts first is that the iron workers in Africa, hundreds of years ago, never taught their skill freely.

They apprenticed close relatives or slaves.

Now, of course we understand, I hope you understand that the slave pattern in Africa was totally different from the slave pattern as the Westerners practiced it.

But the slaves could inherit, they could marry into the family and so forth in Africa.

Well, an iron worker taught only those people close at home.

When the Europeans came to take slaves, of course they took the man who was skilled.

Understandably.

They took him and his apprentices.

Now today in Africa, you can see villages that look just as they looked 400 years ago because everyone was taken out that knew anything.

Because knowledge was not open and free.

Those people, those iron smelters, the gold workers, all the brick makers had great skills.

In New Orleans, the iron work that you see in New Orleans in the old quarter or the Latin Quarter, all that grill work not only was executed by Africans, it was designed by Africans.

Those men had great skills.

They worked with simple tools, and made things of beauty.

They fashioned pieces that were not only functional, but had an aesthetic value as well.

Knives are seldom called beautiful.

Roots, long as ancestral ties, has cert singular birth burning straight paths through the womb of the earth.

Scream now.

Burning pants off false guardian gods, like Mmamabula coal.

Black from the bowel of the earth.

Burning, red, unrelenting like the bitter smell of Sophia River.

(drum beating) You are the creator.

(indistinct) monument.

Palpable breath of the sun shining even at the midnight hour.

You create new gods.

You shatter yesterday's bleeding suffering.

The waters of your eternal spring drown today's dead breed, preparing for a naked future.

Give me your cosmic embrace.

Give me the essence of this moment, eternal like the sky's horizon.

You are the creator of new gods.

Let me bask in the rhythm of your smile.

Tropical as Tom Tom ecstasy.

The spearhead strides across your backbone, and on the splintered ice, on this debris, from here to there and my song begins.

History is still a hair-raising, slippery.

Though her skull be split, don't slip.

At the hair-splitting time, hair-splitting tip of time, you stumble, macheting your path from here.

And though you heard the Mumba, and them are dead, solid shadows loom in the clouds where the spearhead wind strides across your bare backbone.

And on this splintered ice, on this debris, from here to there, and my song begins.

(drum beating continues) There are excellent pieces of work that we are very proud of.

I must tell you that this is probably the most painful of the 10 programs for me.

I know it's painful to watch.

I hope it is.

I threatened the other day to a group of black Americans, it was my intention to pull the blankets off.

That's true.

We can't begin to create unless we see where we've been.

Those positives and those negatives.

We've got to be ruthless with ourselves.

Apathy is a fact.

In the black American life, there's an attitude of indifference.

That's also so in West Africa.

One may go to a bank or to a restaurant, or those who go to bars, like me to a bar; and the attitude of the serving person is almost, I'm doing you a favor.

Now, I know we've all seen the next scene in any black area in the United States.

Apathy, pride distorted, pride gone wrong, misdirected, indifference.

Have you ever gone into a restaurant and wanted to apologize for being there?

Or just for being, period?

Godfrey Cambridge took me to a restaurant some years ago, and the waitress was so haughty and indifferent that he told her, "Miss, I don't mean any harm, I just want ham and eggs.

But if you show me where they are, I'll fix them myself and eat them myself and take care of you too."

I want you to watch this scene and see if you recognize anything in it.

See which one of the characters you identify with.

(man singing) - Good morning.

Miss- - Yeah, what you want?

- I'd like two hamburgers to go, please, and two chickens, to go.

- Two hamburgers and two chickens?

How you want those chickens?

- I want the chickens fried.

Oh, and with the hamburgers: one with onions and one without onions, please.

Oh, and two orders of fries, please.

- Well, now how you want those hamburgers?

- Well, naturally, I want my meat cooked, I want it well done.

And one with onions and one without onions.

Two orders of fries and two fried chickens to go.

- Naturally, huh?

- Yes, please.

Could you hurry, please?

- Now don't rush me, now.

Now let me get to you.

- I'm double parked outside.

You see that car out there?

- Yeah, well, you see that sign up there?

- I don't want get a ticket.

Yes, I read the sign when I came in.

- We reserve the right to refuse.

- Yes, I understand that, lady.

- Well, that you, daddy.

Keep your shirt on.

- Yes, I understand this, I'm double parked.

- Yeah, well, I'm trying to get the order.

You won't nothing- - Can you place the order?

- Well, I don't have the order now.

You tell me what you want.

- Yes.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, well, okay.

Well, I'll tell you all over again.

I want a hamburger, two hamburgers; one with onions, one without onions.

I want my meat well cooked.

I'd like two orders of fries to go, and I would like two fried chickens to go, please.

Thank you.

Could you place my order?

'Cause I'm double parked.

- Yeah, but don't rush me now.

I'm rushing as fast as I can rush.

Two fried chickens to go.

- To go.

- Two hamburgers.

- Two hamburgers to go.

- To go.

- One with onions, one without onions.

- Yeah, well, I got all that.

The fries.

- Two orders of fries.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Please put a rush on that, miss.

- Jim.

Would you give me two orders of fried chicken, two hamburgers; one without onions, one with, well done, and two orders of fries, to go.

Whenever you get time, no rush about it.

(man sighs) That'll be $4.50.

- $4.50.

One, two, three, and four makes four, and here is 50 cents.

Thank you very much.

- Wait a minute, no tip?!

That's what I say about those kind of people.

Don't never give tips.

Do your best.

(woman sighs) - Sad?

Funny?

Funny, sad?

True.

Painfully true.

We've got to cut it loose.

There's a statement in the black American world these days, it's very, very popular.

It is said that the black man has been castrated by whitey and by the black woman.

I'll repeat a statistic that I gave you earlier in this program.

The black Americans are upwards of 25 million today.

100 years ago, we were around 3 million.

Castrated men do not father children.

So we accept that as a lie.

However, there is some truth in that lie.

And the truth is, the African slaves who were brought here came from systems where the matrilineal descent, patrilineal control was the custom.

African women today choose or choose not to carry their husband's names.

If they do, it's usually a westernism.

When the slave owners became aware that there was a maternal kind of control inherent in the slaves, he developed it.

Of course, this is a part of an intent to break up a family, the family unit, the structure, that is really the backbone of not only the nation, but all mankind.

The post-slavery, the reconstruction period, and that period after that for some 50, 60 years, the black man was not allowed to even get a job.

He worked as a sharecropper or in the most menial, usually agricultural conditions.

The black woman, however, became stronger.

She sat down in that role that history had cast her in, and that slavery had caricatured her in.

So she began to believe, that yes, it's true, I'm so strong.

And he also began to believe, they both bought this lie.

Now, when we see ourselves today, our young men in the street, sometimes it's not this external pressure; it's simply that these young men will no longer be held in by mother saying, "I told you to do it."

That's the reason you should do it.

Nor can we assuage our men's pain and agony anymore by trying to bring home an extra ham bone from the kitchen we've just left.

These are new times.

We have to reassess that male-female relationship.

It's very important.

We are not, in fact the men of the family.

We are still, yes, in an economic bind.

That is true.

Our men still do not have the freedom to win the bacon and bring it home.

We do not have the open avenues.

But we must prepare ourselves for the time when we do.

While our men are opening the avenues.

I'm talking particularly to the women now.

I want you to see this next scene.

It's unfortunate that this scene is repeated in thousands, maybe millions of black American homes on Friday nights or on the pay night.

See it, read it, understand it and weep.

Weep, dry your eyes and change.

Hey, how you doing?

I see you ain't cooked.

And the house is just as dirty as it was when I left this morning.

It's filthy as a pig pen.

I hope you don't think I'm supposed to come home, work hard all day and come home and cook and clean up too.

You can't say anything to me?

You can't even pass the time of day?

I've been working hard all day.

I'm not playing.

When I leave here, baby, I go out there and I haul, baby.

You can't even pass the time of day, huh?

Sit up there reading the paper.

Play like you looking for a job.

If you looking for a job, you get a job, baby.

'Cause jobs don't get you.

You go out and get a job, for real.

Don't you feel good?

Ain't nothing wrong with you, is there?

Look here, I got paid today.

I got some money for you.

Well, ain't no point in acting so sadiddy, baby.

I mean, I'm the only one that's making any money, I'm the only one that's bringing any money in this house.

So don't act like you're on your high horse with me.

What you think I am, a machine?

You think I'm a horse?

You want me to be mama and papa too, is that it?

That's it, huh?

Well, you got another thought coming.

I'm getting sick of it, for my part.

I just don't know if I can take it any longer.

It's a drag, every time I come in, there's no food cooked, the place is filthy, you can't even say anything.

Now, where you going now?

Out in the street, huh?

Can't you even pass the time a day with me?

Baby, what you doing with your suitcase?

Baby, where you going?

Baby, you're not getting ready to leave me, are you?

Baby, don't leave me!

(Maya crying) You gonna leave me here with all these kids and all these bills?

Well, go on!

I don't care!

You ain't no good, no how, I always knew it!

You was no good, you ain't no good.

You black men ain't no good!

Leave me here.

Just leave me.

I don't care.

I question a people's sincerity; my own peoples in this case.

For freedom, in their quest for freedom.

When they religiously hold on to the superstitions that helped to break a race's back.

We say don't count anybody.

In an age when computers are daily counting the numbers of babies born every minute.

How can being counted affect you negatively?

When people are sending monkeys to the moon, how can a rabbit's foot, or any talisman like that particular, the thing itself, how can that affect you negatively or positively?

The spirit of the thing is another thing.

I don't put that down.

But I think we've got to break history's half Nelson on us.

The African slaves that were brought here came from systems, religious systems where Shango, Odum, Nyankopon, and various other names for God, for the one God, were worshiped.

When they arrived in the United States or in the Caribbean or in South America, they were like empty vessels, ready to have Christianity poured into them, because they understood the concept of the one God.

Christianity didn't phase them.

That is to say, it wasn't difficult for them to believe in an immaculate conception.

Because after all, Shango and Odum were sufficient unto themselves.

They created, according to their belief, the lesser gods.

Nyankopon, there's a legend among the Asante, Nyankopon, which is the name of God with the Asante, that he was living very near man.

But there was a woman who was beating a mortar, breaking meal, breaking corn into meal, and as she beat, the stick was so high, he kept moving away from her.

He kept moving up.

And so he went way up into the sky, she then took all the mortar sticks and placed them one on top of the other, like that, until she almost reached him.

And at the last moment, she saw that she hadn't reached him, so she took the bottom stick to put it on the top and they all fell down.

And for that reason, God is way up in the sky, and human beings are down here.

That is an African tradition.

It wasn't difficult for the black American or the slave to accept the statement that Ezekiel went to heaven on a chariot wheel.

Didn't Anansi, the spider in West Africa, travel up to heaven on his web whenever he wanted to, and speak to Nyankopon?

So, what we see here?

Is that we had a tendency, we leaned in, we give up, we surrender to a belief, oftentimes without really examining the belief.

I don't intend, it is not my intention to turn you against religion.

I'm a very religious person.

I'm asking you only to turn to face it.

Look at it, examine it.

Not because someone else told you to do so, or because it's nice to do so, but because you want to know where you're going.

If you believe in God, then you are God's child too.

Are you going to do harm to any child of God?

Charity and every other virtue begins at home.

So then, you begin there, and you be good to God's child.

No raggedier people in history have ever stood up and sang, "I got a robe."

You got a robe.

All God's children got robes."

When people from miles around didn't even have a shirt on their back.

(upbeat piano music) ♪ I've got a robe ♪ ♪ You've got a robe ♪ ♪ All of God's children got a robe ♪ ♪ When I get to heaven ♪ ♪ Gonna to put on my robe ♪ ♪ I'm gonna shout all over God's heaven ♪ ♪ Talking about heaven ♪ ♪ Heaven ♪ ♪ Everybody talking about heaven ♪ ♪ Ain't goin' there; heaven ♪ ♪ Heaven ♪ ♪ Gonna shout all over God's heaven ♪ ♪ I've got shoes ♪ ♪ You've got shoes ♪ ♪ All of God's children got shoes ♪ ♪ When I get to heaven gonna put on my shoes ♪ ♪ I'm gonna walk all over God's heave ♪ ♪ Oh, heaven ♪ ♪ Oh, heaven ♪ ♪ Everybody talking about heaven ♪ ♪ Ain't goin' there; heaven.

♪ ♪ Heaven ♪ ♪ I'm gonna walk all over God's heaven ♪ ♪ Everybody's talking about heaven; ain't going there ♪ ♪ Everybody's talking about heaven; ain't going there ♪ ♪ Everybody's talking about heaven; ain't going there ♪ ♪ Heaven ♪ ♪ Heaven ♪ ♪ I'm gonna shout it all over God's heaven ♪ ♪ Everybody's talking about heaven; ain't going there ♪ ♪ Everybody's talking about heaven; ain't going there ♪ ♪ Everybody's talking about heaven; ain't going there ♪ ♪ Heaven ♪ ♪ Heaven ♪ The late Sam Cooke wrote a song called, "I Know a Change is Gonna Come."

I said, the late Sam Cooke.

A change came for him.

The late Otis Redding recorded that song too.

I'm sorry to say he is also the late Otis Redding.

I suggest that neither of them anticipated the kind of change that did take place.

A change from life to death.

That waiting until my change comes is a very dangerous practice.

They both sang fervently, and black Americans say fervently, "I know a change is going to come."

(string music begins) ♪ I was born by the river ♪ ♪ In a little tent ♪ ♪ Oh, and just like the river, I've been running ♪ ♪ Ever since ♪ ♪ It's been a long ♪ ♪ A long time coming, but I know ♪ ♪ A change gon' come ♪ ♪ Oh, yes, it will ♪ ♪ It's been too hard living ♪ ♪ But I'm afraid to die ♪ ♪ 'Cause I don't know what's up there ♪ ♪ Beyond the sky ♪ ♪ It's been a long ♪ ♪ A long time coming, but I know ♪ ♪ A change gon' come ♪ ♪ Oh, yes, it will ♪ ♪ Then I go to my brother ♪ ♪ And I say, "Brother, help me, please" ♪ ♪ But he winds up ♪ ♪ Knockin' me ♪ ♪ Back down on my knees ♪ ♪ Oh, there been times that I thought ♪ ♪ I couldn't last for long ♪ ♪ But now, I think I'm able to carry on ♪ ♪ It's been a long ♪ ♪ A long time coming, but I know ♪ ♪ A change gon' come ♪ ♪ Oh, yes, it will ♪ (string music continues) Africans who were brought to the states, for the most part came from what was then called the Gold Coast, the Slave Coast, and the Ivory Coast.

Those names have changed.

The Gold Coast is currently Ghana.

The Slave Coast includes the home, some of Nigeria.

The Ivory Coast, of course is still called by its commercial Appalachian, it's still called Côte d'Ivoire.

The slaves came from established governmental institutions.

That is to say, there was a paramount chief in a pyramidic structure.

There was a paramount chief, there was his (indistinct) or linguist, his speaker, there were the elders, there was a very firm governmental establishment, a structure.

The slave could understand the concept of authority from above.

Those slaves, who gave the slave owners the greatest trouble in being brought to the states were for the most part from the Kru people, or people who had autonomy within a clan or within even a family.

So they rebelled against the idea of some great unknown power being able to tell them what to do.

They didn't make good slaves.

In fact, most of them died by their own hand, or were killed immediately.

Our ancestors though understood the concept of big man, big boss, master, somebody overhead telling them what to do.

Now, as I said earlier, this is the most painful subject for me because I am a black American.

I have lived in Africa.

I live there now, I really shouldn't use the past tense.

But the fact is, I am a black American.

And all the follies, all the foibles, all the failures are mine.

All the achievements too, all the beauty, all the art is mine.

I am asking you now to help me to painfully examine these follies and fables and follies and ways in which we have helped ourselves to sort of sink down further and further, and keep sinking our children down, which is even more important.

Now, laws are made by men.

It is not the other way around.

They are made by men, for men.

If a law is made by amoral people, or if it is made for the wrong reason, then it must be remade.

That makes sense.

I don't ask or suggest to you to blatantly, or without thinking, rebel against authority.

I ask you, rather first, examine the authority.

Is it fair?

Law is supposed to be fair?

Is it fair?

If your answer is no, then you must deliberately make steps to change those laws.

Not live under them, because after all, that's what the white man said, you dig?

That's not where it's at.

The woods are on fire, Jim.

Now, when we opened this program, I used a poem and told you who had written it.

In the iron smelting part of the program, I used three segments from poems by Mr. Willy Kgositsile, a South African.

Keorapetse Kgositsile.

A great poet whose work is often found in the "Negro Digest" and other good journals.

I'm going to close this program with another poem from Mr. Kgositsile But first, I shall do a small poem about me and you.

See if you can dig it.

I wrote this one.

He went to being called a colored man after answering to, "Hey, nigga."

Now that's a big joke anyway you figure.

Hey baby, watch my smoke.

From colored man, to negro, with the N in caps, was like saying Japanese instead of saying Japs, I mean during the war.

His next big move was a change for true.

From Negro in caps, to being a Jew.

Now seeing Yiddish, your mama.

Light, yellow, brown and dark brown skin, they were okay colors to describe him then; he was a bouquet of roses.

But if you wanna drag him, I'm telling you, Jack, just make the mistake of calling him black.

Honey, I don't play that.

Now get to that.

Don't get caught.

Searching past what we see and hear.

Seeing past the pretensions of knowledge, we move to the meeting place; the pulse of the beginning, the end and the beginning.

In the stillness of the night, in the stillness of the night, informed by the rhythm of your spirit, we hear the Song of Warriors and rejoice to find fire in our hands.

Ain't no mountain high enough.

Can you dig it?

The silences of the wind, I know it too, ain't no valley low enough.

Freedom, how do you do?

Thank you very much.

(man singing in foreign language) - [Announcer] The proceeding program, "Blacks, Blues, Black!"

was made possible by a public service grant from the Olympia Brewing Company.