- "There are words like liberty that almost make me cry.

If you had known what I know, you would know why."

- Well, until the black migration, which began in the end of the 19th century, Harlem was an aristocratic white neighborhood.

(upbeat percussion music) - And good evening to you.

Last week, we aired the first part of a two-part interview with actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.

In this final segment, they share their views on, among other things, the role black women should play in the women's rights movement.

And we also go back a little into part one of the interview for some poetry.

- Langston Hughes said, "Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly."

And... - And I like this... Maybe I'll talk to you... Are you gonna do your poem?

- Oh, no, I'm not gonna do that.

(laughs) - "Well, son, I tell you, life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

It's had tacks in it, and splitters, and boards torn up, and places with no carpet on the floor bare.

But all the time I's been-a turning corners and reaching landings.

And sometimes going in the dark where there ain't been no light.

So, boy, don't you turn back.

Don't you sit down on the steps because you finds it kind of hard.

Don't you fall, now.

'Cause I still climbing, honey.

I still going.

And life for me ain't been no crystal stair."

I just...

I love that.

(indistinct) - I can see you do love it.

(laughs) - "There are words like freedom, sweet, and wonderful to say.

On my heartstrings, freedom sings all day every day."

- Yeah.

"There are words like liberty that almost make me cry.

If you had known what I know, you would know why."

- [People] Langston Hughes.

- I always like to say, "If you had known what I know, and I'm sure you have."

(Ruby laughing) "You would know why."

- I'm tempted to ask you something, but I won't.

(laughs) I won't.

- Go ahead.

(laughs) - I won't.

I won't.

- Oh, go on, blab it out.

Blab it out.

- I'm curious.

(people laughing) - We had Judge Brush right here some time ago, and he's... (indistinct) Had made a comment, he said that he who stresses the syntax of things will never truly kiss you.

And I was about to ask you about those tears, but we gonna leave those tears right when they are, and go on and deal with something... (laughs) - Oh, but... Oh, talking about tears, you know, I think that's one of the, you know, politically informed, socially informed, the poem comes into focus.

You know, I used to say, "Well, you don't discuss things like that."

I think as I get... As you get older, you know, that you, you really have to break it down for yourself.

I really don't like to shed tears, I don't like to.

But we were just talking about things and recalling.

So the art is informed by the times.

- True.

And, see, one of the...

The prime function of the artist is to express that which is unexpressed.

It is not enough to say the poems because Langston wrote the words.

There are thousands of mothers, black mothers in particular, who have lived that experience, and nobody has ever listened to what they said.

Langston listened.

But you look at Langston, and you look through him, and you say to those mothers, "I have a chance, I have a voice to say what is in your heart."

And that's the profoundest responsibility of the artist.

- And when I think about- - Express the people.

- The foot on the neck of black men, I think... You know, I have a great thing about black women too, but I think such a job is being done and has been done on black men.

And so, it's so hard for them to hold on, and not go an obvious way that's, you know... Not go a way that seems to make better sense.

And so that...

The line, "Don't you fall now", you know, it's, like, it's not...

It's more than a line of poetry, it's a plea, I'd love to put it in banner headlines, like, "Don't fall now", you know?

Somehow, let us get together somehow.

Let us... Let our men come together and cushion you.

Let us join hands, let the community embrace that the tribe, you know?

Make the call.

So that...

So the line itself, just drives... "Don't fall now.

Don't fall."

- How has black poetry changed since the '60's?

- Well, I think in the most obvious fashion, it has drawn back from its extreme commitment to merely expressing black.

Black beauty, black power.

It had to come from such a long time of negative looks at what blackness was.

So it had to affirm black by just standing and saying, "Black, black, black, black, black.

I'm black, I'm black, I'm black, I'm black."

I think we have made the point now, the poets.

I think we know that we are black, we accept it, and the whole world knows now that we are black and it's acceptable.

So now the poems and the poets are consumed with, "Now that we are black, what do we do with our blackness?"

You know?

It's like a distinguished poet told us, the poet about, you know... Told us the poem about if you name, you know... "What's the point in naming your child an African name, if you leave himself unchanged again."

(people laughing) I think you know the poem I'm talking about, right?

(Listervelt laughing) - I think I know the poem.

- That poem, to me, was setting the context for the next step that we must take.

It's not enough to be African and wear a dashiki and have an African name.

There is a content involved.

And to get to that content, a whole revolution in our minds must take place.

So the young poets now, the new poets, are saying, "Okay, we got the name, but what is the game?

What are we gonna do with that name?

What will blackness mean now that we have defined it?"

Not enough... (indistinct) Defined it and be black and be like everything else.

Blackness has to take a tremendous responsibility to save not only itself, but dare to save the world.

That's what the poets are saying to us now.

- As you traveled across the country talking with, visiting with black people, what are some of the profiles that you see, that you see of us?

- Are you gonna speak to that, lady?

- Well, a searching.

But then all of America is searching.

A lostness.

I feel a kind of trying to stay on top of hope, you know?

To believe the myths, the American myths... - [Listervelt] Being myths...?

- Yeah, the myths, the myths of success, the myths of...

I guess that's the disturbing part of it, because, frankly, this develop...

I don't see our being in this society without doing as we've always done, being the instigators of change.

I think we really have to... And I don't see young people latching into this fact that we're living under political and economic system that has sort of run the gamut.

The chief relief recipient of the capitalist structures, you know, are the big oil... Are the big corporations, they receive the greatest... (indistinct) Then we have socialism, we have corporate socialism, which affects, in turn, all our lives.

And I think...

So the old dreams aren't the same.

I've gone around the bush, I haven't answered that quite neatly.

- [Listervelt] Lemme ask you, 'cause that's a good point, what do you think would happen if we stopped believing those myths?

- Well, I think to disabuse ourselves of a dream is a shocking thing, and sometimes it leads members of the groups to despair, and we indulge drugs in our veins, and much of it.

Sometimes it leads to an explosive anti-social attitude.

And the prisons are filled with examples of our young people who've come to that particular dead end.

Sometimes it leads to aimless, wandering around and standing on the corner recognizing that you are 40% to 60% unemployed, and there is no hope for you ever in this economy.

And sometimes it spurs and stimulates those who are thinking to think harder, to fight harder, to look harder, to go and get that education, and try and make it useful to the community.

Now, what we have found, as Ruby says, is a tremendous searching among young black people.

And I'm reminded of a fact that we don't pay too much attention to, black people are by and large the barometers of what happens in American society.

If you wanna know what America is gonna be doing 10 years from now, look at what black people are doing today.

We are lost.

The economy is going one way and leaving us behind.

We are disoriented.

Our folk ways are dying.

We are losing land, in this very community, black folks are no longer the farmers that they were.

And the things that are happening to us now are the things that are gonna be happening to America as a whole in 10 years.

We are the lost generation.

We are not yet prepared to assume the responsibility for the kind of changes that we need.

The revolution of the '60's and the '70's were great at cutting the chains, but they did not tell us what to do with our freedom once the chain has been cut.

- But honestly, I don't feel that we're lost, I feel kind of, like, you know, it's like that... (indistinct) On the violin, the hum is there, and we're getting the melody together, I, you know, I feel that we really are.

I mean, I don't like words lost and hopeless and, you know, I just don't like them, and so I really...

I feel that there are enough young people who are genuinely concerned, who are trying to get a new tune together.

- That gets to my other question.

How do you think black youths see the struggle for freedom?

And do they view it as a struggle?

- They view it as a struggle, but I think at the moment it's a struggle which they are trying to resolve on an individual level.

(indistinct) No, it cannot work.

But black youths, to back up just a moment, we, in our society, and particularly now, tend to separate and segregate certain categories.

We speak of youth as if it had no connection with any past, or as if it means if you turn to the youth of the country, you will be saved.

No.

The youth need what the old folks have learned.

You know, it is up to the old folks to set guidelines, to point the way, to say, "Look, young man, take your strength and move us from here to that hilltop there."

We can't depend on the youths to know the answers, they just got here.

So when I say that people are lost, I don't mean lost in a hopeless sense, I mean lost in the sense of not yet having found what it is that they need to do, and a part of not having found it means that we old heads haven't told them what it is that we should be about in this society.

And we have a responsibility.

- So are we as adults copping out?

- We are copping out, and often we look at the... We give up our hands like, "Well, you young folks..." "You won't listen to me, so y'all go on to do it."

We cannot afford to do that.

We are the ones who are supposed to have the vision.

We are the ones who are the seers.

And if the vision fails in the people, it is not the young folks' fault, it is the old folks' fault.

- Yes.

I think we've yet to... We were on the verge of something that we grew up with and I just... We as a people.

And that's a spiritual strength, and a reaching out.

We must find that the problems are too complex.

I don't think we can handle them on an individual basis.

- Our time is running out.

I got one question I have to get in here.

There's been a lot of talk about the role black women should play in the women's rights movement.

Some people say that there should be a sisterhood between black women and white women.

How do you see this?

- I think that there should be an alliance between black women and all other women.

But I think at this stage of the game, that I would suggest that black women keep being black first until such time as they can put down the burden of blackness and take up the burden of sisterhood if those two things are not entwined.

But I reiterate, to me, I think black women have to be black first.

- Yes.

I think it's almost too late for... You know, women's liberation, black liberation, Puerto Rican liberation, I know those things are essential, but we have to get on with the job of it very quickly.

I believe that if white...

If the white community has to prove itself to black people, we have been bowing down and being accommodating for so long.

And there has been so little of honesty, of a really... A beautiful and a faith inducing relationship, you know?

When I think of white women, I think of...

When I think of the white community, I think, "Well, how will they take advantage of us if we embrace this time?

If we..." You know what I mean?

Because we've been faithful servants, loyal slaves, you know, great Americans, so forth, you know?

And always we find ourselves, when the prizes get handed, you can join the war, but when the peace comes, get back.

- [Listervelt] You're gonna have to.

- I don't know.

I hope this isn't so with the liberation... - No, no.

I think, very quickly, no institution has arisen in this country that was free of racism.

I'm not sure that the white women's liberation movement is yet that free.

- And we've got such a job.

(indistinct) - You got away without reading your poem too.

(people laughing) - Maybe another time, when I come on your show.

- We're gonna get people to write in and insist.

- Oh, yes, we're gonna have a show too, you know, in February.

We air in February.

Guess what's gonna be called?

- We'll be plugging it.

(people laughing) Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, two beautiful human beings.

She's called the capital of Black America because she was home to many of America's greatest writers, poets, musicians, and social and political leaders.

During a recent trip to Harlem, New York, we visited one of the persons who has made Harlem the cultural capital of Black America, historian Dr. John Henrik Clarke.

Clarke is editor of Harlem, USA, and author of "Malcolm X: The Man and His Times."

Director of the Department of African and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York, Professor Clarke talked initially about the reason that Harlem is important to America.

- Harlem was, and may still be, a kind of cultural capital for Black America.

There was a time it was the meeting place and the proving ground for the major black organizations in this country.

And the idealists and the organizational builders that helped to call attention to the plight of black Americans all over the world generally used Harlem as their headquarters.

Father Divine's movement had its greatest flowering in Harlem.

Elijah Muhammad's movement had its greatest flowering in Harlem, and Malcolm X, as the representative of the honorable Elijah Muhammad, had his greatest public appearance and attention in Harlem, and Marcus Garvey from Jamaica built the largest black movement before or since from a base in Harlem.

It was, and still is, though somewhat deteriorating now, one of the most unique black communities in all the world, and one of the most famous black communities in all the world.

- While Harlem is mostly black today, it has not always been that way.

Tell us something about Harlem before the black migration.

- Well, until the black migration, which began in the end of the 19th century, Harlem was an aristocratic, white neighborhood, and they was playing polo at the polo grounds, and having opera at the Harlem Opera House.

Blacks who came to New York City in the 1620's did not move to Harlem in any large numbers until the 1890's.

Harlem was a Dutch farm named after the city of Haarlem, in Holland.

And it was a place where the Dutch, rich farmers had their farms, and in their homes.

And the uniqueness about Harlem as a black community is that it is not on the other side of anything.

It is geographically in the heart of Manhattan Island, which tells you that the community was not originally built for blacks.

It was overbuilt in the 1890's, and after being overbuilt, there were a lot of houses unsold, and apartments emptied.

(John sniffling) Whites then, who controlled the real estate of the community, were advertising that, from your home in Harlem to Wall Street, 27 minutes.

So from a point-of-view of transportation, Harlem was then, and still is, the best-located community on Manhattan Island, with schools within walking distance, major universities within walking distance of the community itself.

But when blacks began to move in, in the 1890's, then early in the 20th century, whites began to panic.

They protested it at first, then gradually, they began to move out of the neighborhood, and gradually, blacks began to move into the neighborhood.

They were moving from the fourth Harlem, or the fourth black community in the '50's, kind of in midtown New York, on the west side.

There was a lot of difference of opinion between blacks and other immigrant groups, especially the Irish and some of the other immigrant groups who were late in arriving.

So in this competition for space, pressure was put on the blacks to search for new space.

And with the opening-up of Harlem to blacks, and the panic and the flight of whites from Harlem, gradually, it became a black community.

- What did Harlem offer black people from the South that no other area of New York offered?

- The great attraction that it was a well-built, clean community, clean streets, lined with trees.

It was a community that was well-located and balanced between great facilities.

It had good schools, and it had the beginning of a political organization that would look out for the interest of its people.

The Republicans were then vying for their favor, the black vote, then the Democrats did the same, and an enterprising black politician named Ed Lee, really a bellhop, built an organization called the United Color Democracy.

And by bringing pressure on the Republicans through Ed Lee's organization, and... (indistinct) Would head it later, and Charles Anderson, a black Republican, who was a master collector of taxes.

The main thing I'm trying to get across is that we had a caliber of political leadership that began to get, from downtown organizations, especially the political structure, the things that were essential to the maintenance of a good community.

And many of the black organizations, and churches, and institutions that had their beginning downtown, begin to move uptown.

Abyssinian Church, the most famous Baptist church in the world, I think, once headed by the late A. Clayton Powell, was downtown, and it moved uptown.

Mother Zion AME church, moved to uptown.

And so, now that the institutions that the blacks had, the social institutions, began to move uptown, so the population began to follow the movement of these institutions.

Now, you had a class of responsible blacks, mostly middle-class, who made sure that things were done, who would not tolerate an unclean street, and who used their political clout to get things done in a hurry, so the elements that people identify as a ghetto could not take shape and form during that period.

So Harlem, while it was, in the main, a black community, physically, it was not a ghetto.

It was a well-kept community during this initial period, and it...

Besides, it became the meeting place of men-of-letters, of early writers, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, the great W.E.B.

Du Bois, Walter White from the head of the NACP, for a number of years, most of our writers lived in Harlem then.

Some of our musicians lived in Harlem.

When he wasn't on the road, most of the time, Duke Ellington lived in Harlem, and most of our major entertainers, we had three vaudeville houses going concurrently in Harlem once, so therefore, there was a lot of entertainers attracted to Harlem, then a lot of whites attracted to Harlem to see these entertainers.

A lot of white musicians, like Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw and others, would come to the old Savoy Ballroom to watch and to learn from the great black musicians.

Later, they would make a fortune over and above of that of the blacks that they learned from.

But they studied the style, and they studied the local dancers, and they studied the tone, and many times, hired black arrangers to really get their organizations, their orchestras off of the ground, so Harlem was an attraction for more than just blacks.

- I wanna get to some of those personalities later on.

But first, when did whites leave Harlem?

- Whites began to leave Harlem in the 1890's, but they lingered on in certain big houses in Harlem, and there was some palatial mansions there in Harlem, and on the fringes of Harlem, they stayed...

In fact, I came to New York in 1933, and I came back from the army the last month of 1945.

There were still whites living in some of the homes in Harlem as late as 1945, but after the war, the recession that was really a depression, and the anger of unemployed blacks, and after several riots, whites no longer felt safe in the Harlem community.

Now, except for a few, and some mixed couples, Harlem is generally a black community.

- Describe black life in Harlem before she began to fall.

- Now, black life before the beginning of the decline of the Harlem community... Now, I pegged this decline almost from the end of Second World War.

Most of our institutions were intact, the church institutions, and our organizational institutions were intact, and Harlem was the... A cultural center.

We had a small symphony orchestra, the Harlem... (indistinct) With concerts in the community... We had the things in the community then that we now go outside of the community for.

Excellent theater groups, putting on, sometime, original plays, and sometime, productions of formerly white plays, but a very active intellectual life during that period.

Then, there were people in the community who patronized the arts with a Harlem Base.

(upbeat percussive music) (upbeat percussive music continues) (upbeat percussive music continues)