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

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

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

In a previous program we discussed, or rather I talked about Africanisms, positive Africanisms, then negative Africanisms.

Finally, African history.

And in this program I'm going to discuss when teaching African history can be construed as a negative effort.

If a teacher teaches African history, the glory that was Africa, the pageantry, the beauty that was Africa, and leaves out the other side, that teacher is half arming that student.

So the student goes out into the world, encounters an opposition that is totally armed.

And when they have a confrontation, the student is wiped out.

The student then turns to feel that Africa has betrayed him.

When the fact of the matter is that the teacher has betrayed him.

It is that the teacher is the culprit in this case.

It is important that Black Americans understand today that we are not, we must not rather fall into that trap of being subhuman or superhuman, being either the Martin Luther King type or a thug in the street.

We are human beings.

We have human reactions.

We have been as good as any human being can be.

And we have been as bad as any human being can be.

And I leave that to you to decide upon what I mean by good and bad.

Mr. Sterling Brown, a great writer, fortunately who is still alive, wrote a poem that tells a story about our history.

The poem says: They dragged you from homeland.

They chained you in coffles.

They huddled you spoon fashion in filthy hatches.

They sold you to give a few gentlemen ease.

They broke you in like oxen.

They scourged you.

They branded you.

They made your women breeders.

They swelled your numbers with bastards.

They taught you the religion they disgraced.

You sang.

"Keep a-inchin' along like a poor inchworm."

You sang, "By and by, I'm gonna lay down this heavy load."

You sang, "Walk together, children, don't you get weary.

The strong men keep coming on.

The strong men get stronger."

They point with pride to the roads you built for them.

They ride in comfort over the rails you laid for them.

They put hammers in your hands and said, "Drive so much before sundown."

And you sang, (laughs) "Ain't no hammer in this land can ring like mine, baby, ring like mine."

They cooped you in their kitchens.

They pinned you in their factories.

They gave you the jobs that they were too good for.

They tried to guarantee happiness for themselves by shunting dirt and misery off on you.

And you sang, "Me and my baby gonna shine, shine.

Me and my baby gonna shine."

They bought off some of your leaders.

You stumbled as blind men will.

They coaxed you.

Unwontedly soft voiced.

You followed a way.

And then you laughed (laughs) as usual.

They heard the laugh and wondered, uncomfortable, unadmitting a deeper terror.

The strong men coming on, the strong men getting stronger.

What from the slums where they have penned you, what from the tiny huts they could not keep from you?

What reaches them?

Makes them ill at ease and fearful.

Today, they shout prohibition at you.

Thou shalt not this.

Thou shalt not that.

Reserved for whites only.

You laugh.

There's only one thing they cannot prohibit.

The strong men coming on, the strong men getting stronger.

Strong men.

Stronger, stronger, stronger.

That's the story.

That's your story.

It's my story.

I wonder, I would like very much to see that story told in pictures.

Let's see, it told in pictures.

(Mary humming) ♪ Yeah, freedom ♪ (Maya humming) ♪ Freedom ♪ (Maya humming) ♪ Freedom.

♪ (Maya humming) (Maya singing in foreign language) ♪ Yeah, oh, yeah freedom ♪ (Maya humming) ♪ Yeah, freedom ♪ (Maya humming) ♪ Yeah, freedom ♪ (Maya humming) Strong men!

(Maya humming) ♪ Yeah, freedom ♪ (Maya humming) Strong men.

(Maya speaking in foreign language) ♪ Yeah, yeah, freedom ♪ (Maya humming) Strong men getting stronger.

(Maya humming) (Maya continues humming) ♪ Yeah, freedom ♪ (Maya humming) ♪ Yeah, freedom ♪ (Maya humming) ♪ Yeah, freedom ♪ (Maya humming) ♪ Yeah, freedom ♪ (Maya humming) ♪ Yeah, freedom ♪ (Maya humming) They dragged you from your homeland.

(Maya vocalizing) They chained you in coffles.

(Maya humming) (Maya continues humming) (Maya continues humming) They huddled you in filthy hatches, spoon fashion.

(Maya humming) They sold you to give a few gentlemen ease.

(Maya humming) ♪ Before I be a slave ♪ (Maya humming) They broke you in like oxen.

(Maya humming) ♪ And go home to my God and be free ♪ (Maya humming) They made your women breeders.

(Maya humming) Branded you.

Swelled your numbers with bastard.

(Maya humming) They point with pride to the roads you've built for them.

King cotton.

(Maya humming) They gave you the jobs that they were too good for.

(Maya humming) ♪ Oh, oh, freedom ♪ (Maya humming) ♪ Oh freedom.

♪ ♪ Oh, freedom ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, freedom over me ♪ ♪ And before ♪ (Maya humming) They ride in comfort over the rails you laid for them.

(Maya humming) (Maya continues humming) ♪ Oh, freedom, oh ♪ Today they shout "Prohibition" at you.

(Maya humming) Thou shalt not this.

(Maya humming) Thou shalt not that.

(Maya humming) ♪ I'll be buried in my grave and go home ♪ (Maya humming) ♪ No more chain gang ♪ ♪ No more chain gang ♪ ♪ No more chain gang over me ♪ ♪ And then before I'll be a slave ♪ ♪ I'll be buried in my grave ♪ ♪ And then I'll go home to my God and be free ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ (Maya humming) They tried to guarantee happiness to themselves.

(Maya humming) By shunting dirt and misery off on you.

♪ But before I be a slave ♪ ♪ I'll be buried in my grave ♪ ♪ And go home to my God and be free ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, freedom.

♪ ♪ Oh, freedom.

♪ ♪ Oh, freedom over me ♪ ♪ Say that before I'll be a slave ♪ ♪ I'll be buried in my grave ♪ ♪ And then I'll go home to my God and be free ♪ ♪ No more lynching ♪ ♪ No more crying ♪ ♪ No more moaning over me ♪ ♪ And before I be a slave ♪ ♪ I'll be buried in my grave ♪ ♪ And then I'll go home to my God and be free ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, freedom ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, freedom ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, freedom over me ♪ ♪ I said that before I'll be a slave ♪ ♪ I'll be buried in my grave ♪ ♪ I'll go home to my God and be free ♪ ♪ Oh, no more meanness.

♪ ♪ Oh, no more vileness ♪ ♪ Oh, no more anger over me ♪ ♪ That before I'll be a slave ♪ ♪ I'll be buried in my grave ♪ ♪ I'll go home to my God to be free ♪ ♪ Hm, oh, oh, freedom ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, freedom ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, freedom ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, freedom over me ♪ ♪ That before I'll be a slave ♪ ♪ I'll be buried in my grave ♪ ♪ And go home to my God and be free ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, freedom ♪ - The strong men keep coming on.

The strong men get stronger, all the time stronger.

Stronger not in spite of the history, but stronger because of the history, because of the negatives as well as the positives.

Imperative that you understand it.

Around the States now there are popping up dress shops, design shops, jewelry shops, art galleries with Black Americans finding some direct way back to the African heritage.

It's imperative that those people understand when they say this dress is an African design, they must be sure whether it is an African design or an African influence design.

Now both are good.

Neither is better than the other.

But if we are really going to teach African history, we must be able to say this dress is a traditional dress.

This earring is a traditional earring.

This is used by a chief.

This has been influenced.

It's imperative.

Now in San Francisco, we went to a shop, the Bayte Shop.

And we found not only in African influenced dresses, jewelry, objects of art, musical instruments, but we also found the traditional ones.

(people singing in foreign language) Al, you're really a survival.

You are not a revival if you can carve ivory and carry on like that.

I want to ask Pat, do you have a business arrangement with people in Africa or, I mean, were they your friends that- - From the beginning they our friends, yes.

- I see.

- And now we have more or less a business arrangement.

- We are in the Bayte Shop on Fillmore Street.

The shop is owned by Mr. And Mrs. Roberts.

Now this is Al Roberts.

- Hi.

- [Maya] And this is Pat Roberts.

- Hello there.

- We were wondering, we are dealing with African revivals in the United States and the wearing of cloth is this cultural revival.

So we were wondering how did you get into the business in the first place?

- Well, we saw the need to bring awareness to the young Black people of today.

There has been taught for many, many years the feeling that Black people had no culture, no heritage.

And as a matter of fact, that the continent of Africa itself was a continent of barbarian.

We are trying to dispel that image.

And one of the easiest ways that we've found to do it is to bring the art and the craft of Africa home to American Black people.

- Well, I'll say maybe about 1% of our customers have been to Africa.

- [Maya] Good, great.

- And they've just been influenced by coming into the shop and knowledge, you know, of Africa.

I don't know what it is now that's bringing this awareness other than what we are contributing and a few, along with a few other things, but only about 1% I would think.

- You yourself have never been, is it?

- I've never been to Africa.

- And neither has Al.

- No.

- Well, you'll be so welcome.

You'll walk down the street and people will never know.

They'll start speaking to you in Fante or Swahili or something and because you look a typical African lady.

- Oh, I've been told this by many, of course.

- Now Lula is wearing a dress here.

- It's Chicory cloth.

- Yes.

- It's Chicory cloth from the Chicory tribe in East Africa.

- That's a beautiful cloth.

And you too look like a typical African lady who's about to go shopping to the market.

Well, she might not walk quite that (laughs) commercially, but I think there's a natural grace that Africans and Black Americans have, or Africans at home and Africans abroad.

And we find that our models don't have to wear books on their heads for two years in order to walk comfortably.

And I believe that's because we have spent centuries with things on our heads.

We have a natural kind of grace.

And it's shown very much in Lula here.

- The people who come in to look out of curiosity and this sort of thing, try on something and immediately they change their bearing completely.

- [Maya] Really?

- They become quite regal and stately and they just feel kind of good wearing the clothes and they generally wind up walking out in something.

- [Maya] Now, Al, I'm interested in that figure on the very end of the second shelf.

Will you tell us about it?

- Yes.

That piece, Maya, is from Kenya.

It's a representation of a musician.

And the idea is that this fellow has become so involved in what he's doing, that he's become like a part of his instrument.

- [Maya] Oh, that's fantastic.

And what about this second piece?

- [Al] That's a stool or a bowl, a centerpiece.

It's hollow in the top and it can have food in it.

And it's from the Kahm tribe in West Cameroon.

That piece is quite, quite special.

It's a Haitian piece from Haiti.

And as you know, Haiti is a black country also.

And that is a very, very special carving in that it's used in rituals and this sort of thing.

I'm not familiar with that, but I've heard a lot about it.

- The African art has influenced the United States, South America, the Caribbean, to such an extent that it would be difficult to separate Black influence from the world stage.

We thank very much the proprietors of the Bayte Shop.

We are proud of the resurgence of interest in African affairs, in African cloth, in African jewelry, and mostly in African soul.

(vocalists singing in foreign language) Yes, we are, we are in new days.

We are in new times.

When we look at African history and understand that history is today.

Tomorrow, today will be history, not so?

Then we have to see it as one.

We must see what we did as what we do.

We should almost be able to speak in the present tense of 300 years ago, of 600 years ago, of 1,000 years ago, 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 years ago.

In Africa, slavery was an African institution before the coming of the white man.

We must understand that so that we don't go around romanticizing slavery.

Wherever it was, it wasn't right.

But let's look at what kind of slavery.

Slavery in Africa was a different being, but it was slavery.

A slave could inherit, a slave could marry into the family.

A slave could, in fact, become a part of the family.

And oftimes did.

A slave was often a slave because his family or he himself owed a debt.

Or maybe he was a prize of a war, but he was a slave no matter how nice it was.

That is to say how much more human, which is a fact it was than say what took place in America.

Still, when a man does not have total mobility, when the man cannot determine and direct his own destiny, that's slavery, Jack.

Anyway you look at it, anyway you cut it.

That's a fact.

It is a fact that from the time when Mpande with the Zulus betrayed his leader, we have seen down the line, Africans and Black Americans and West Indians and Haitians and South Americans who have betrayed each other.

These are facts.

Who have in fact either killed or allowed to be sent into exile like Dr. Du Bois, like Marcus Garvey, like Toussaint and Overture.

We've allowed our men to be sent into slavery and sat back and said, "Oh, well, everything's gonna come out all right."

Well, I think these are things we better look at very seriously.

When a person says he's made no mistakes, as I said before, he goes on to decide then he can make no mistakes.

And that's the end of growth.

That's the end of progress.

We must be able to take it all, the bitter and the sweet stirred all up and drink it, Jim.

I'm going to tell you a poem.

I quite often do on these programs, get a chance to say some of my own poetry.

This is a poem called "A Letter to an Aspiring Junkie."

Let me help you to the streets, Jim.

Ain't nothing happening.

Maybe some tomorrow's gone up in smoke.

Raggedy preachers telling a joke to a lonely, son-less old ladies' maids.

Nothing happening.

No haps, baby.

Oh, there's a slew of young cats riding that cold white horse.

A gray old monkey on their back, of course, does rodeo tricks.

No haps, baby, no haps.

There's a old time pimp with a space age conk, setting up some food for a game of tonk or poker or get 'em dead and alive.

The streets, climbing the streets like you're climbing the rear end of a lion.

Then it's fine.

It's a bug-a-loo and it's a shing-a-ling.

It's African dreams on a buck and a wing and a prayer.

That's the streets, Jim.

Nothing happening.

Can you dig it?

- My brothers and sisters were bid off first and one by one, while my mother, paralyzed by grief, held me by the hand.

Her turn came and she was bought by Isaac Riley of Montgomery County.

Then I was offered to the assembled purchases.

My mother, half distracted with the thought of parting forever from all her children, pushed through the crowd while the bidding for me was going on, to the spot where Riley was standing.

She fell at his feet and clung to his knees, entreating him in tone that only a mother could command to buy her baby as well as herself and spare her one, at least, of her little ones.

Will it?

Can it be believed that this man thus appealed to was capable not merely of turning a deaf ear to her supplication, but of disengaging himself from her with such violent blows and kicks as to reduce her to the necessity of creeping out of his reach and mingling the groan of bodily suffering with the sob of a breaking heart.

As she crawled away from the brutal man, I heard her sob out- - [Mother] Lord.

How long?

How long?

How long, Lord?

- I must have been between five and six years old.

I seem to see and hear my poor mother weeping now.

This was one of my earliest observations of men, an experience which I only shared with thousands of my race.

The bitterness of which to an individual who suffers, it cannot be diminished by their frequency of its recurrence while it is dark enough to overshadow the whole afterlife with something blacker than a funeral parlor.

- That was an excerpt from a book written by Josiah Henson around 1840.

Josiah Henson is credited with having been the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous, some people feel infamous, "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

Mr. Lothario Lotho read that excerpt.

We have some friends in the studio this evening.

I'd like to introduce them to you.

First, Mr. Glen Battle, an actor and a dancer.

Next we have Mr. James Burcher quite a famous Bay Area painter and a writer, but a silent one for himself.

Next we have Mr. Willie Kgositsile whom you met before, who is a very well known and a very great South African poet.

And here we have Little Ms. Pamela Johnson, who you may have seen on one of the other programs, who's very bright, articulate, and is a little princess.

And next we have a great beauty, Ms. Karen Richardson, who is a daughter of Mr. Julian and Mrs. Ray Richardson of the Success Bookstore in San Francisco.

And there again is Lothario Lotho on the end.

Now gentlemen and ladies, you've watched the programs so far and especially the ones dealing with African history.

I'd like to ask you first, nobody in particular, just talk.

What do you think is the importance of Black Americans dealing with African history?

Karen?

- Well, isn't the, I believe the whole reason that history is taught in the schools where or American history is taught to us is so that the children will be able to relate to the country or relate to something that first of all they are told is great or is beautiful and in a relationship with their ancestors or with their forefathers, they can therefore participate in its founding.

Whereas a Black student who is only taught European history and has no knowledge of African history cannot relate to that country.

- Yes, I agree.

Tell me, Lothario, when did you start learning anything about African history?

- Well, I studied a little history while I was going to high school, but I first actually started learning about African history at Mary College where the program that's now going on throughout the country was first initiated.

And I was particularly interested in the culture of Africa because I related to it, even though there had been a void.

By that I mean that the student in my time when I was coming up, he didn't relate to Africa.

He said, "Oh man, what you talking about?

I'm an African or I'm Black.

You know, I'm not no African, you know, I'm a negro where he didn't relate to Africa because he wasn't, actually, he was not aware of the greatness of Africa.

All he had seen through the movies and projected through books and Tarzan and this type of super image was just the tribal brother running around with a spear, you know, through the jungle climbing trees, you know.

So this let me see a little more of Africa and understand that we had great civilizations and that Africa also was where life began, where man originated, helped me a lot.

- Tell me something, Mr. Battle, what do you think can happen to a people if they have no understanding of their past?

- Well, there is no motivation for future successes.

I was listening to Lothario, I was thinking, I was at Howard in 1952 or three, and I was fortunate enough to be living with Dr. John Hope Franklin when he was writing "From Slavery," "Negro Travels in the North" and "From Slavery To Freedom."

And he at the time was living in, doctor who wrote "Black Bourgeoisie."

- [Maya] Dr. E. Franklin Frazier.

- Dr. E. Franklin Frazier's house.

And Mrs. Frazier had collected all these African artifacts, although of course I was young and from the South and I saw these things and they meant nothing really to me, I mean artistically.

But as I grew older, I got to see the significance and understand the significance from "Negro Travelers In the North," from "Slavery to Freedom," and the various other books that were written by Woodson and the various other authors.

I was quite fortunate in having this background.

And that Howard and Lincoln and the Negro schools on the East Coast.

- [Maya] Fisk.

- Have this, Fisk.

- Very good.

Well, let me just skip Mr. Burcher for a minute and ask Willie Kgositsile, who is from South Africa, to show us the parallel in the South African school system and the American school system as far as Blacks are concerned.

- Yes, what I said, as far as Black people are concerned, the educational systems in various countries or nations where European refugees, say, had either taken over the country or taken the African out of the continent to another country, that the educational system was designed to cut the African off from the past.

And those few things that they considered African history that they would teach us in South Africa were such that we would immediately develop feelings of inferiority and insecurity and despise ourselves.

And if they could do this, as they did in America, and almost very successfully did in Africa, is that the Black man ends up cut off from his spiritual roots, from whatever powerful forces of continuity would enable him to see his future with any clarity.

- That's true.

I also remember a South African friend telling me that he learned to sing a song called, ♪ Piccadilly, that's my home ♪ ♪ Piccadilly, that's my home ♪ And he said he sang it for years.

- [Willie] That's right.

He did.

- Years later, this man became quite a well-known lawyer, and he traveled to England and spent some time in London and he saw Piccadilly Square.

(laughs) He thought all these years he'd been singing, Piccadilly, that's his home.

Let me ask Mr. Burcher, who is an artist, have you been influenced particularly by what you've learned of African art in the recent years?

- Yeah, I would say greatly so.

I would say to the extent that the majority of my work is involved around Black people, Black subject matter, you know, life of Black Americans and the things which I feel are relevant to us as a people that could be portrayed through art.

The beautiful symmetry in African sculpture, the rhythm that our people have is carried throughout our art.

And, you know, in some manner I try to portray this in my work.

- I see.

I want to come back and talk more about that.

But let's ask little Miss Pamela.

The other day when I was talking with her, she explained to me how peoples came about and she said something about certain people in Africa had started off eating as they traveled.

The foods they had had more melanin and less keratin and so forth.

Will you explain that to me?

- Well, the people began in one particular spot and they spread all over Africa in different directions.

Some people went this way, others went another.

And as they moved, the foods became different because they grew in different climates and so they make good of what they had there and what they ate contained more melanin in some parts and more- - Keratin.

- Keratin in others.

And this is the melanin made their skin darker and the keratin made their skin lighter.

And in different places their skin was lighter and in others it was darker.

And others, they had different shades of all kinds of colors.

- I see.

Well, thank you very much.

That's probably our only scientific explanation of the day.

(all laughing) Now tell me something else while we're talking to you, Karen, your parents I know have taught you these facts.

Do in the schools where you, the school you go to, do you find many Black American children who know anything of their past?

- Most of them I've run into, they don't know anything and they aren't really concerned about anything.

- You think they aren't concerned or is it made to seem kind of dull.

- More or less, I think they just don't know that it's there.

- I see.

Well, are you doing anything personally?

I mean, do you try to explain to your friends something about African history?

- No, not really.

- Not really.

No, 'cause you don't want to be put down probably.

Your mother's doing a good work though.

That's all right.

Please, let's go back to Karen Richardson.

Karen, you started off by explaining to us why history is taught.

Will you just enlarge on that a bit?

What, I mean, in this way, when white students consider European history, they can enclose into their own achievement, a total identification with whether it was Galileo or whether it was a French inventor or writer or philosopher.

They can do this.

Who do you know in French?

Or do you know anyone in the French history that was African that we can identify with?

- No, because not, as on a fault of that I hadn't been taught French history because I had been taught European history.

And as a matter of fact, in high school, one of my majors was history.

But I did not like history because it was just a confrontation with historical dates that in no way related to me.

At the time, of course, I didn't use this as an excuse to get the bad grades in it that I did, but it had no interest.

It had no color.

- Yes.

- Literally, - Literally and figuratively.

(laughs) - And not only was I not made aware of my own participation in this country's heritage because the history of Black people is the history of America.

But in studying world history, it was only Europe and England.

And everything was taught through the eyes of the English world.

And even in this, there was a hypocrisy of actual facts because there we couldn't even see the impression that black people had made upon European history.

So we were even wiped out of there.

- [Maya] Yeah.

- So I couldn't relate at all.

- Well, let me just give you a couple of names of people who were of African descent, Dumas, Both father and son, obviously were, Alexander Dumas who wrote "The Three Musketeers," was of African descent and so was Colette of African descent.

And you can check it in any library.

So that's sort of nice to know when you hear about French literature.

And these people have influenced French literature.

Pushkin, of course, you know.

You know that?

That Pushkin was an African descent in Russia.

It is said, I wasn't able to find the particular volume that documents this, that it is said that Sappho, one of the greatest poets, female poets of Greek history was of African descent.

Now, the only thing I can find in the libraries here, out here on the West Coast are statements that her brother, Charaxus, married an African.

But it doesn't say that she was.

But she was a very great poet.

She developed the Sapphic verse, which is a particular kind of rhythm.

And I tend to think it's so, it said of her that the coins that were minted of her head, that were struck, they showed the African features and the big wooly hair.

I don't know many Europeans who have that big wooly hair if they haven't got African blood.

Let me go back then and ask Mr. Burcher to talk to us some more about African art and Black American art.

Are many Black American artists today, graphic artists, being influenced directly by African art, would you say?

- Well, I would say more so by Black consciousness.

You know, events that are happening now, you know that are definitely bad in the country cause a lot of people to want to depict it, I suppose, you know.

But I think one historical thing that you can't get away from in our people is the fact that we've been able to live throughout the slave system and some of the, you know, the bad systems that are imposed upon us now because we're balanced people.

We are able to withstand a lot of conditions that other races or people, say the Indians, weren't able to withstand.

So I mean that balance, that sense of rhythm that has been carried throughout the years, it also belongs to the artists, the Black artists of this time.

And I find in studying African art that the rhythmic progression, you know, the fact that an African carving, let's say carve a piece of sculpture with both his hands and have it come out perfect and symmetrical.

By symmetrical, I mean, you know, even on both sides, right?

It's kind of relates to a balance, a sense of balance.

And I find that many Black artists in this way relate to African art through their balance, through their wanting to depict situations as they are, you know.

- Do you know the work of Bailey, the Black American painter?

He did most recently, his most famous piece of work is a poster that was done for Reverend Martin Luther King's, SCLC, that poster with Reverend King in the center and all those black faces around him.

- Right.

- That was done by a painter named Bailey who's quite young.

- I see.

- He's teaching down South in some black school now.

And he was in Ghana for a number of years, so, and he's a student of Charles White.

- Oh, is he?

- Yes.

You know, but I'm sure we all know his work.

- Right.

- Now let me go back to Lothario, who's an actor as everyone can determine and tell us something about your understanding of African art forms and drama.

Have you been introduced to African drama?

- Well, most of, I've taken drama.

I had a Black drama course at Murray College where we performed "Saga Of a Black Man," which was written by Ms. Sarah Fabio, who was an instructor there.

However, in formal education, I haven't been introduced to African art at all.

I attended University of California and take drama there.

But it's dealing more with that European tradition.

Shakespeare, Shakespearean type theories are evolved in this theater.

And also I go to ACT now in the summertime, they have a training program there at the Congress.

And it too, it deals with technique and method.

But as far as actually seeing African techniques or even studying fables, I've read these things on my own, tales and things of this nature.

I have never actually been exposed to it.

- Well, I think that little as we know, we are exposed to it.

When we go to Black churches, we are exposed to Black drama.

- Right.

- That's it.

In West Africa, all art, all forms of art are participation forms.

In the churches, as we know, as soon as the minister starts, he says, "Now brothers and sisters," everybody say, "Yeah, amen, that's right.

Go now."

You can hear the kind of the, the rhythmic pushing him on, get onto it and so forth.

Well, in Ghana where I live, if I have friends over, I invite a storyteller, the best in the neighborhood, and he comes with his drummers.

All my friends sit, all the old people, young, the children from around, we sit in my compound.

And then the storyteller starts to tell a story that everyone knows, like a Br'er Rabbit story or an Anancy story.

But first he says, "This part of the yard, these are the old people.

This part of the yard, these are the children.

This part are the singers and this part are the dancers."

So then he starts to tell his story, and as he gets into it, he says, "And then the dancers came forward."

And it doesn't matter whether it's old people, young, whatever.

All those people he has designated as dancers have to come forward and they do their dance and they move back.

And the singers and everyone knows the story.

He's called upon to tell the story only because he has more punch to it.

Like some of our good Baptist ministers who can really turn you around.

I think that the importance of teaching African history, I'm coming back to you, Pamela, you've been particularly lucky since, and blessed, let me say, because in the system, the school system, there've been no arrangements made for you to get some backbone, put some starch in your backbone for your future.

Fortunately, I say you've been blessed by your mother and father and your environment, you know, which feeds you.

But can you imagine, can you try to make up for me a story of what would happen to you if you didn't know who you were?

If you looked in the mirror every morning and you saw this little brown face and everybody thought it was so ugly, what do you think would happen to you?

- Well, you wouldn't think very much of yourself and you think, you know, you were nothing and nobody cared for you or anything.

You didn't have any history, no backgrounds.

You couldn't go forward because you didn't really know what had happened to you before, before the time, well, in history, before even that century or what your people had done.

So you could be there that day or whenever it was.

- Aha!

I think she has put her finger on something very important.

You are a love.

Yes, when when you can identify with history, you are there that day.

That is true.

That is very true.

Now, before we just move into a sort of close, I'm concerned with our people learning African history.

I do not simply mean the glorious past, I don't just mean that.

I mean also the inglorious past.

Now that is to say, if a people believe they have made no mistakes, then they go on to say they can never make any mistakes.

And that means that rules out the chance of growth.

We have got to be able to deal with a truth in our history, whether it's painful or pleasant.

We have, for instance, there it is a fact that is documented not only by European history, but by the African oral history that there were chiefs who sold people.

That the economy was based for quite a long time on the slave trade itself.

Now these are painful facts for us to deal with, but they're necessary.

We've got to be brutally honest.

What do you think about that, Karen Richardson?

- I know that that's true and that actually slavery was already in Europe, was already in Africa when the Europeans got there.

But can I make a point about, you never refer to it as Negro history, and this is because there is no history of Negroes.

Negro was the race given these people when they stepped into the United States.

Therefore you could not go back to Africa for it.

- Ah, I think that's a very good point.

Now, usually I use the word Black or African or Afro-American.

Negro, I don't find it personally an insult.

I think I've moved beyond that.

I'd like to think so.

I don't like the word, that is to say, I don't use it often, but when we find out people do use it, let's not put them down for it.

You know, realize that's a stage, that's cool.

It's just a matter of time before they will drop that too.

But we have a great Black American history that started in, from 1619.

Some fantastic achievements, beautiful achievements, and some painful achievements.

Some betrayals, Nat Turner, Gabriel Prosser, all the leaders of the slave revolts were, in fact, betrayed by Black men.

That's painful.

It's necessary to look at Malcolm X's death.

It's necessary to look at Paul Robeson's exile.

It's necessary to look at Dr. Du Bois's exile and subsequent death to see that these are people who were exiled by the whites, but we never moved behind them to support them.

This is important and it's painful, but we've got to look at it.

At the same time, balancing it.

We must look at the positives.

We must look at these people, a Gabriel Prosser, who led one of the greatest slavery revolts in the United States was, when he was caught, the whites from miles around said he couldn't have done it.

He was so nice.

Well, he was just a nice nigga.

He couldn't have done anything like that.

When the truth of the matter is he had been planning it for four years.

We have his diary, we have the diary of Denmark Vesey.

And Vesey, even his owner said, "That's impossible.

Couldn't be Vesey."

But a Black man is the one who turned him in.

The Africans in Ghana, there's a statement, it's also said in Yoruba, but I don't speak Yoruba.

They say, "The trouble for the thief is not how to steal the bugle, but where to blow it."

That's pretty heavy.

And the Black Americans say, "Remember, no matter what your history has been, there's a tomorrow."

They say, "Tired don't mean lazy and every goodbye ain't gone."

And if that's not tough enough, I don't know what.

I think that on that positive note, I'd like to say thank you very much to Pamela Johnson, to Karen Richardson, to Lothario Lotho, to Glenn Battle, to James Burcher and to Willie Kgositsile.

Thank you very much and thank you very much.

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

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