>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. [ Silence ] [ Inaudible background discussion ] >> Mary-Jane Deeb: Good morning. Good morning everybody. >> [group response] Good morning. >> Mary-Jane Deeb: On, on behalf of the Librarian of Congress who could not be with us today I would like to welcome you all to the Library of Congress. I'm Mary-Jane Deeb, Chief of the African and Middle Eastern Division and I'm delighted to see so many of you who have worked with us over the years and who are here tonight, today. So, we are here in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the program of African studies at Howard University. The first institution in the United States to offer a doctorate degree in the field of African studies. Historical ties and cooperative undertakings between African scholars and researchers at Howard University and the Library of Congress have a long-standing tradition. For decades Howard University Africanist scholars and researchers have acknowledged the Library of Congress as one of the major and richest depositories for the study of Africa. It is not worthy that in 1958 E. Franklin Frazier, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Program of African Studies at Howard and Doctor Dorothy West, reporter Eminent Curator and Supervisor of the University's prestigious Moorland Spingarn Collection were instrumental in advocacy efforts and planning for [inaudible] a national center to acquire catalog and preserve library and research materials documenting the history and cultures of the African continent. In 1960 the African Section was formally established here at the Library of Congress. The section continues to play a vital role in the Library's acquisition program, offers expert reference in bibliographic services to Congress and to an international community of researchers and maintains liaison with professional associations and research and teaching institutions all over the United States and around the world as well. The section is well known for its bibliographic program, which includes more than 40 bibliographic guides designed to help researchers access the library of Africana Collections more effectively. A further step in augmenting the growth of the Library's Africana Collections was the establishment in Nairobi, Kenya in 1966 of a regional center with responsibility for acquiring current publications in Eastern and Southern Africa. Cultural and scholarly programs and other outreach activities have long been part of the African Section's agenda. In 2008, for example, both the Department of African Studies and the Ralph Bench International Affairs Center at Howard University partnered with the Library's African Section in sponsoring a symposium commemorating the 50th anniversary of things [inaudible]. One of the most important literary works to come of Africa by the great literary scholar Chinua Achebe. And we currently have an ongoing program called Conversations with African Poets and Writers that is entering its third year. We're working with the Africa Society on the National Summit of Africa and with the Poetry Center here. And we have six speakers, three in the fall and three in the spring that I'd like to invite you to come and attend those, those-- there are readings, interviews and they go all over the sweep of African literature. The Library's Africana Collections provides an extraordinarily intellectual record for the study of both the historical and contemporary present day African nations. Holdings cover virtually ever major field of study in the social sciences and the humanities and include an invaluable body of primary source materials in many diverse formats and languages, including materials in African vernacular languages. We have-- it's a very significant collection in the vernacular. It is important to note that Howard University Africanist scholars have extended invaluable assistance to specialists in the African Section facilitating a number of professional networks with government officials, librarians and publishers in the Africa region to support the Library's acquisition program. Additionally Howard scholars have provided expertise to improve the bureaugraphic control of many of our African language resources. At the initiative of Dr. Robert Edgar new graduate students in Howard's African Studies Program have met with African Section specialists each semester for more than a decade for briefings on library research on Africa related topics. From these briefings the African section has benefited greatly from the support of a number of student volunteer, volunteers and interns who have witnessed the work of the African Section specialist in efforts to promote the bureaugraphic control preservation and accessibility of the treasures and resources of the Library's Africana Collections. Today the African Section salutes Howard University's Department of African Studies and its six decades of scholarly achievements. We actually representative samples of these works from Howard University scholars by Howard University scholars while there for you to look at later if you wish. We also take this opportunity to say thank you for the continuing institutional support and cooperation that you have provided to advance the Library of Congress African Section and its programs and to promote scholarly research on Africa. Now the next speaker is Mbye Cham and before I introduce him I'd like to make, to thank him and Dr. Angel Batiste, a Howard graduate and a pillar of African studies here at the Library. Together Dr. Cham and Dr. Batiste organized and made possible the event today. And now let me introduce very briefly, Dr. Cham. He is a professor and chair of the Department of African Studies at Howard University. Dr. Cham has received numerous awards from Howard University including the Howard University Fund for Academic Excellence Travel Award. He has also served as a jury member for prestigious review panels and awards both within and outside Howard University. These include the Paul Robeson Film Awards, Prize Pieces Film and Video Competition and the Annual ROSEBUD Awards and competition. Dr. Cham has also presided on the jury on Short Film Competition of the 16th FESPACO, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in 1999 and the Feature Films and Video Features Jury in Southern Africa Film Festival Harare, Zimbabwe, 1998. And he has served as a consultant to UNESCO and the World Bank. So, Dr. Cham. I pass out the baton to you. >> Dr. Mbye Cham: Thank you. [applause] Good Morning. >> [group response] Good morning. >> Dr. Mbye Cham: Thank you for those kind words Dr. Deeb. I bring you greetings from Howard University, especially from our Dean, Dean Gbadegesin, Interim Dean, College of Arts and Sciences and Dean Gary Harris who is also the Interim Dean of the Guidance School who are not able to be here with us today, but they do send their warm greetings to all of you. Thank you Dr. Deeb for hosting this particular event here. We're very honored and thank you very much Angel for taking the initiative actually to propose that in support of the series of events that we've been putting up the whole year that we also have a session here at the Library of Congress given the important role historically that as Dr. Deeb has just pointed out Howard scholars have played in enabling, developing the collection here at the Library of Congress. Actually I was browsing through Rayford Logan's prestigious history of Howard just recently and he relates some kind of an inside joke or inside anecdote at Howard at the time where Howard scholars had such a massive thick and influential presence in one of the Federal Government agencies. I mean Howard scholars were going there constantly. They are being called upon constantly to go and give lectures related to Africa, to the Diaspora and all of those other issues there that Logan says that you know Howard scholars started calling that particular department of the U.S. Government and extension department of Howard University. Now, I think it would hyperbolic or an exaggeration to say that you know the Africa Section here is an extension of Howard University. But I think that metaphor really captures the sort of umbilical ties you know that have brought together Howard University and the African Section here. And as Dr. Deeb has also pointed out we are very proud that some of our alumni have been very much a presence in the Africa Section of the Africa and Middle Eastern Division here at the Library of Congress. I can go through the names. There is Angel Batiste, [inaudible] is not here, is he? >> [inaudible background comments] >> Dr. Mbye Cham: Yeah he is probably on his way here. I think Laverne also, so. >> [inaudible background comments] >> Dr. Mbye Cham: So you know well, I guess for our purpose today we can say that it's an extension of, an extension department of Howard University. This is a very exciting moment for us celebrating 60 years of the Guided Program of African Studies at Howard University. But I think if you take a long view you'll see that the formal establishment of the guided program in 1953 was really a step to institutionalize, to formalize what has always been a pact. In fact, the DNA of Howard University since its inception, the study of Africa and people of African descent throughout the world. So, excuse me. We are glad that we are able to be here today to celebrate this moment here and to also take pride in the fact that if you look institutions all around the world I think one can, I mean Howard stands out. Not just in terms of being a pioneer in the field, but also in terms of institutionalizing and consistently over the years supporting the study of Africa and the African Diaspora institutionally. And it is one of those institutions that don't depend on outside funding grants to maintain these programs as is the case in many other universities but these are hard institutional monies that have been invested in the study and promotion of this particular area of study of discipline and we are very proud to be here to celebrate that particular moment, 60 years of this institution. So, I want to thank all of you for coming and supporting us and also to thank my colleagues who responded enthusiastically when we reached out to them to be part of this moment here and Dr. Batiste will be introducing them in more detail in a moment. So I want to thank all of you again and welcome you on behalf of all the authorities at Howard University. And again, thank you Dr. Deeb for hosting us here. We are very delighted. Thank you. [applause] >> Angel Batiste: I too welcome all of you to the Library of Congress. As an alumni of the Howard University Department of African studies I am extremely pleased to salute the department in celebrating a momentous milestone. Six decades of training African specialists and elevating African study scholarship. My sincere appreciation goes to our distinguished faculty, Dr. Nyang, Dr. Carr, Dr. Dodson and Dr. Edgar. I'd like to note that this program is being webcast and it will be accessible to an international audience on the African and Middle Eastern Division website. It will also be preserved in the Library's digital Africana Collections. We will be having a break at about 11:15 at this point and I urge all of you to take a look at the scholarship that has been produced by the faculty of Howard University, the African faculty and we will take that time to have coffee and tea. African studies at Howard is rooted in the Pan African consciousness of an impressive list of prominent Howard University faculty, including Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, Dr. Carter G. Woodson and Dr. Charles Wesley. They acknowledge architect of the field of African studies. Adding to this list we include Professors Ralph Bunche, E. Franklin Frazier, Alain Locke, Kelly Miller, Rayford Logan, Frank Snowden, John Hope Franklin, Chancellor Williams, Lorenzo Turner Dow, Joseph Harris, Joseph Applegate and importantly, the renowned bibliographer Dr. Dorothy Wesley Porter. The establishment of the African Studies and Research Program at Howard in 1953 and the launching of the nation's first doctorial program in African Studies in 1969 symbolically represents division and the relentless efforts of these pioneer Africanist scholars. Today, the Howard University Department of African Studies offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees and African courses are disbursed throughout the curriculum of the university's discipline based and professional degree programs. Before we lead into our discussion I would like to introduce our guest panelists who will provide a broader insight into the intellectual tradition of African studies at Howard University. Dr. Greg Carr is the Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Chair of Afro-American Studies at Howard University and adjunct faculty at the Howard University School of Law. The School District of Philadelphia's first resident scholar on race and culture, Dr. Carr led a team of academics and educators in the design of the curriculum for Philadelphia's mandatory high school African-American history course. Dr. Carr is the first Vice-President of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilization. He is co-editor of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations, multivolume African world history project. Dr. Carr here. [ Applause ] Dr. Dodson to my right is the Director of the Moorland Spingarn Research Center in Howard University's libraries. A national leader in the movement to preserve African-American history he was formally Chief of the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the world's leading repository for materials on black cultural life. Dr. Dodson served as Chair of the Federal Steering Committee for the African Burial ground and was a member of the President's Commission on the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. He also serves on the scientific and technical committee of the UNESCO Slave Root Project. And Dr. Robert Edgar. [ Applause ] Dr. Robert Edgar is the professor of African Studies, is a Professor of African Studies at Howard University. His areas of teaching and research include African history, Southern African history, African religions and political movements and Social Science research methods. He has served as visiting faculty at universities in the United States and in [inaudible] and has received numerous awards including the Howard University Faculty Research Award and a three year grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission for a documentary editing project on African American Historical Linkages with South Africa from 1890 to 1965. [ Silence ] [ Applause ] And last but not least Dr. Sulayman Nyang is Professor of African Studies at Howard University. From 1986 through 1993 Dr. Nyang served as the Chair of the Department of African Studies. He has served as Deputy Ambassador of the Republic of Gambia to Saudi Arabia and seven other North African and Middle Eastern countries. Dr. Nyang was the founding editor of the "American Journal of Islamic Studies", now known as the "American Journal of Islamic Studies." He was also the President of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists. Dr. Nyang has served as consultant to several national and international agencies and on the boards of the African Studies Association, the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies and the American Islamic Heritage Museum. He was an advising scholar for the award winning PBS broadcast documentaries "Mohammad: Legacy of a Prophet" and "Prince Among Slaves" produced by Unity Productions Foundation. Our discussion format today will, sorry, I'm sorry. [ Applause ] I'm anxious to get to our speakers. Our discussion format today will include two sessions. Our first session will be approximately an hour and I'll be asking our guest panelists to try to limit their presentations to 20 minutes. As a Howardite I know that can be a bit difficult, but if we could try to limit the discussions to 20 minutes and following each session we will have a Q&A. For those who participate in our question and answer I'd like to note that today's program is being webcast and by submitting a question you are agreeing to be a part of our webcast production. After our first hour we'll be breaking up. Let's see we're running into 10:30 now. About 11:30 we'll break up for a brief coffee and tea break and a view of some of our exhibit items. And I'd like to ask that for those with coffee and tea if you can stay away [laughter] from the Africana Treasures. So, our first panel session will include Dr. Dodson and Dr. Edgar. And Dr. Dodson will be our first speaker. I turn the podium over to Dr. Dodson. [ Applause ] >> Dr. Howard Dodson, Jr.: Well, thank you very much. And let me also on behalf of Howard University libraries and Moorland Spingarn Research Center staff congratulate the African Studies Department on its 60th anniversary. We share a lot of history together and look forward to sharing more. I had, when I was asked to do this, I had a lot of, some level of severe intrepidation being asked to talk about this topic because I don't claim to be a historian of Howard University and I don't claim to be an Africanist, though I study African and African Diaspora experience as a central part of my own academic and intellectual interests. I've been at Howard now for a little more than about a year and a half and in my efforts to develop a rational 21st century library program that is aligned with Howard's teaching research and learning mission I've been obliged to delve into its history. Some of the impetus of this particular line inquiry has been in search of insights into contemporary policies, programs and academic practices. Most intriguing for me has been questions related to the origin and development of Howard's Moorland Spingarn and Research Center. There are a few I guess official histories that have been written, but I've found a lot of questions unanswered in them and so I've been probing around trying to get some sense of that. The reason for this in part is because Moorland Spingarn will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year. And so [applause] and behind these questions have been what appears to me to have been Howard's seemingly at times ambivalent relationship to the study of the black experience. And I say that knowing that Dr. Cham has already said that it's been there for all of this history. But I'm going to raise some questions about that, I suspect. This ambivalence is seemingly been a part of Howard's founding creed. And while Howard has been a national leader in the study of the black experience, especially since the 1920s, and while Howard boasted one of the largest and most distinguished faculty specializing in the study of the black experience in any American university. Institutionally as I look at it Howard is then seemingly more committed to advancing its role as a center for educating and training black leadership then it has been committed to the establishment of itself in an organic way, an institutional way as the leading intellectual authority on the study of the global black experience. This is not to suggest that individual faculty members and indeed some department schools and colleges have not played such leadership roles in the past and nor do I mean to say that individual faculty members and departments and schools are not playing such intellectual leadership roles today or that they are not engaged in the struggle for intellectual hegemony in these fields. What I do want to suggest is that while Howard pioneered in the development of many of the disciplines and subfields of African and African Diaspora experience. Howard as an institution has not maintained that leadership position in many of these areas. And I would like to suggest that ironically institutionally Howard's ambivalence about placing teaching and research on the black experience at the core of its mission is one of the sources of that. There's also institutional ambivalence about the values of study and research, but I'm getting ahead of myself. [laughter] The Charter of Howard University establishes Howard as a university for the education of youth and liberal arts and sciences and that's in quotes. The education of youth in the liberal arts and sciences. Now General Oliver O. Howard and founder of the school was committed to making Howard an integrated institution. So, the charter language avoided specifying a mission that was singularly focused on black people. The project was funded by the Freedman's Bureau and whose express purpose was to prepare the formally enslaved black population for citizenship and productive economic and political and socializes great people. Actually Howard wasn't the only one of the schools that was funded by the Freedman's Bureau. Indeed some 21, including Howard received funding to support the educational development of black folk. For reasons that are not altogether clear to me Howard left the door open to non-blacks, especially non-black women. The first students enrolled at Howard were not black. They were four white women, daughters of the founders, who ultimately aspired to legal careers. And if you know anything about that period of time women were not admitted to law schools in the country. And so as we cut through chase, and I'm afraid to get into this because it's not, anyway [laughter] as you cut to the chase the school was actually founded to fund both of those. And it's the way the language was written was to make sure that second option could, in fact, be carried out. Now, what is significant for our purposes today is that while the mission, and I should say and this is all of them, the women actually did matriculate into law school and well into the 1990s were still matriculating. But they made a decision that they needed to get away from men and so they moved and set up their own independent women's law school and no blacks were admitted. But that's another story. What is significant for our purpose today is that while the mission of the university was to educate black folk, there were no provisions for teaching them about themselves, about their African origin and cultures, about their experiences as enslaved Africans in the United States or throughout the Americas. There are likely at least two reasons for this oversight. The first one the reigning unwisdom of the 19th century and before was that black people had no history and culture. And this myth was part of the ideological justification for slavery and for colonialism. And in the minds of most Europeans at least the Africans were Pagans, savages devoid of civilization or any history. Hence, there was nothing really to teach them about themselves. Ironically, and there was this notion too that the history of black folk you couldn't teach it because there wasn't any, enough information to say anything about them anyway. Now ironically as late as the 1960s and early 70s variations on this theme were being raised to question the intellectual viability of establishing black studies programs. It's almost 100 years after Howard is around they're still raising questions about whether or not there's this field and study of black folk is-- has intellectual viability. The congressional missionaries who founded Howard, likely [inaudible] brothers and sisters were opposed to slavery and to racial oppression. They did not, however, embrace the notion that Africans or the formally enslaved Freedman were or ever could become equal to whites and racial and intellectual terms. Moreover, the concept of education that the founders brought to their missionary enterprise also precluded any serious intellectual engagement with the histories and cultures of the human beings they proposed to educate. And so, as it's been the case in missionary and enterprises on the African continent and in Asia and in other parts of the world, the educational function in missionary enterprises was, in fact, to civilize the natives to pass on the knowledge and civilizations that Europeans had to them rather than to try to tell them anything themselves or have to learn anything themselves. So, that's a kind of context in which we ask ourselves and have to ask ourselves where do we begin to find some space at Howard for teaching and studying and researching the histories and heritage of people of African descent. Now, since the first decade of the 20th century Howard has been pridefully referred to as the capstone of negro education. This reference derived from Howard's status as the largest and most comprehensive of the colleges and universities that primarily served African-Americans and other people of African descent, established as I said before an education for youth in the liberal arts and sciences. Howard successfully defended and affirmed the value of liberal arts education for blacks and fended off efforts to displace them with industrial education. The struggle between the two education philosophies was carried out in many tangible ways on Howard's campus itself. And I'll just mention this very briefly; Booker T. Washington was invited to serve on the Board of Howard University in 1907 and he joined the board in 1907 along with a gentleman by the name of Jesse Moorland. Booker T. and Mooreland's appointment to the board signaled to some people that this was a, a move to start to transition Howard to the industrial model of education. And the President at the time, President Durkee was rightly trying to find some way of balancing but in all honesty the reason why he was inviting the two of them onto the board was he was trying to figure out how to get some of the wife philanthropy money, okay. And so he ends up catching a lot of heat quite frankly because of that. But, that-- as they moved on to the board there were discussions about strengthening the industrial program. Howard had an industrial program in the curriculum but it was not at the core of the curriculum. At the core of it was this classical education. Anyway for much of the 19th and early 20th century the struggle to determine the best or most appropriate educational philosophy of blacks as well as in the United States as well as Africa and the Caribbean shaped African-American and African political discourse and educational philosophy. It also in my judgment delimited it for largely unasked and unanswered was what was the place of the study of the history and culture of people of African descent in the classical or the industrial curriculum. Howard's classical liberal arts curriculum have been modeled on that of schools where its founders graduated Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Bowdoin, etc. Well into the first decade of the 20th century the classics including Latin, Greek and mathematic dominated, really shaped the curriculum at Howard. I firmly believe that the study of the classics had a civilizing impact on black students. The mastery of these subjects by blacks, mastery of math, mastery of Greek, mastery of Latin was also viewed as evidence that black folk quite frankly could be, could learn as well as white folk could. To those who doubted the viability or utility of teaching blacks the classics, the quality of our university graduates was proof positive that classical education itself was and could be transformative at an evolving intellectual center like Howard whose mission was to produce leaders of the race. There was little or no place for industrial education and even though as I mentioned there was an industrial department. And the myth of black racial inferiority and white superiority have been carried over from the slavery era. Saw it as public intellectual assaults on the identity and character and humanity of black people. The black press, which had been founded to defend blacks against these racy kind of assaults in 1821 had found a redoubled effort in the reconstruction and post reconstruction period in northern and southern newspapers. These assaults on both the dignity and humanity of black folk were buttressed by Darwinian social thought and a new bread of pseudoscientific apologists for racial supremacy in the academy. It was also buttressed by what we saw on the Broadway stage and in advertisement and public media and the film medium. White and academic and indeed some black academic authorities on the quotes "negro problem" end quotes populated scholarly and public journals and periodicals with new so called scholarship proving, that the myth of black social inferiority and racial inferiority was true. While some black colleges including Hampton and [inaudible] and Atlanta University started to engage intellectually in trying to defend or use scholarship to advance the condition of the race. Howard did not provide a comparable platform for black intellectuals to apply the intellectual balance to the study and solution of problems affecting the future development of black folk. This did not begin to happen in an institutional sense quite frankly until after 1926 when Mordecai Johnson became the first African-American President of Howard University. But prior to 1926 there was a gentleman by the name of Kelly Miller who was the leading proponent of a significant black intellectual leadership position and agenda at Howard. Significantly Kelly Miller began positioning himself for this role in 1897 saying here that DuBois had actually assumed the directorship of the Atlanta University Studies Project in Atlanta. Miller was a native of Winnsboro, South Carolina. Am I running tight on time? I may have to skip a little bit of this. I'll skip a little bit of his background. But Miller enrolled at Howard in, at the age of 15, no he was awarded a scholarship at Howard at the age of 15, in 1880. He completed his three year program in two years and earned a BA in liberal studies from Howard in 1886. That same year her purchased a 200 acre farm for his family as a graduation gift to them. We don't get that anymore. [laughter] A year later he enrolled at Johns Hopkins University, the first African-American to enroll in a PhD program there. He spent two years there studying mathematics and physics, but ran out of money and in 1889 left the university to pursue employment. He spent a year at DC's elite black M Street Dunbar High School and at the conclusion of which she was appointed the first alumni professor of mathematics of Howard University in 1890. Now that title is important because the alumni actually raised the money to fund the position which they weren't able to continue to sustain and the university took it on as a part of its payroll. But that they took that initiative and raised the money to do that is something quite extraordinary. Miller never returned to Johns Hopkins, but he did earn an AAM degree from Howard in 1891 and an LLD in 1903. Now Miller was of humble background. As I mentioned he was from South Carolina. He just decided he needed to get some edumacation. [laughter] And significantly in the context of Howard Kelly Miller was black man, a dark skinned black man. He was not your typical Howard University faculty member in the late 19th century. The majority of both black faculty members and members with Howard's administration and board of trustees have been drawn from the black community's Mulatto elite group. And Miller's intellectual brilliance and his aggressive commitment to defending and advancing the interests of black people endeared him to America's black intellectual elite as well as to the black masses as a whole. A powerful lecturer and prolific writer and journalist he was much of a sought after speaker and activist for the race. He was in the language of the 19th century a race man par excellence. He was an invited speaker just by way of example at one of DuBois' Atlanta University's studies conferences. And he regularly published articles on issues affecting black people and black newspapers, etc. Certainly the strongest testimony of his intellectual gravitas is that he was one of the two young intellectuals selected as the dean of 19th century black intellectuals. Alexander Crummell to plan and found the American Negro Academy, the first major black American learning society in 1897. Equal and significant is the fact that his solid critique of Edward, I'm sorry Frederick Hoffman's pernicious book, "Race, Traits and Tendencies of the American Negroes", was the first critical scholarly paper published by the academy. And keep in mind that the meeting where he presented his paper W. B. DuBois, Francis Grimke and Crummell all presented, and his was chosen as the first one to be published. So, this is a man of a giant intellect and incredible commitment and passion who had been schooled and had been actually working actively through the American Negro Academy to start to challenge the myths of black racial inferiority, etc. in the academy. Miller though saw this kind of activity as things that should be going on at Howard University. And so he started to try to bring quite frankly the academy into Howard. He made proposals to the board and to the president to have the academy meet, establish Howard as its regular meeting place. He tried to get the-- the academy was trying to set up a library and he tried to get the university to establish the library there at Howard. And he tried on numerous occasions to have the academy become a formal part of Howard University and the board of trustees rejected it over all three of those initiatives. And anyway he didn't stop and during the first two decades of the 20th century Miller either initiated or was centrally involved in virtually every initiative to promote the study of the black experience at Howard. And Jesse Moorland, a Howard alumnist who was elected to the board of trustees along with Washington as I mentioned, Miller found a powerful and resourceful collaborator. Both Washington and Moorland hand been viewed with suspicion when appointed because of their relationship to each other and the world of white philanthropy. Moorland was believed to have been recruited to help Washington turn Howard into an industrial school. But a brief review of Moorland's background would have made it clear where is intellectual allegiances lay. Moorland graduated from the Theological Department of Howard as the salutatorian in 1891. He was ordained a congressional, congregational minister and combined the careers congregational minister and secretary of the colored YMCA of Washington, D.C. for several years and eventually rose to become the national secretary of the colored YMCA organization. And this is important; the 12th Street YMCA building that's at the 12th I think at R or thereabouts. That building was built by or the funds were raised and the building was built by Moorland. Not only that he raised the money and built similar buildings for the colored YMCAs in 19 different cities across the country and over that period of time that he was working actually raised over two million dollars, which each of those building cost about 100,000 dollars. And he raised the money and got the buildings built all over the country. That's Jesse Moorland. Moorland was widely read in English and American literature and history and geography and social and political affairs. He was also a passionate bibliophile with a [inaudible] large collection on the black experience. A liberation theologian before his time, Moorland's concept of proper ministerial work was that one should be working to help the parishioners own their own homes, take proper care of their children and become community leaders capable of lifting the burden of the poor. He pursued this kind of practical ministry until 1898 before he became the head of the Colored Men's Department. Unlike his trustee peers, and I'm almost there, unlike his trustee peers Moorland believed that Howard had a distinctive intellectual role to play in African and African-American studies, especially in the fields of history and sociology. And early in his tenure he supported Kelly Miller's efforts to house the ANA on campus and publish its research findings. He also supported Alain Locke's proposal to offer a course on race relations, believing like Miller and Locke that instruction and research on the African and African-Americans should be encouraged by the board. When those efforts failed to jump start the university's formal entry into these fields more than 40 years after its founding, Moorland decided to take the next step, which was to donate his extensive collection on the black experiences to Howard in 1914. Kelly Miller had been encouraging him to do so for a long time and it was part of his larger vision for, for Howard. Miller's own vision was that Howard should establish a National Negro Library and Museum on the campus. And that that should be the foundation on which the whole global study of the African, African Diaspora experience should take place. Miller campaigned with the institution off and on to get this kind of institution on campus. But when Moorland donated his collection to the university he said and I quote, "He did so because Howard is the one place in America where the largest and best library on the subject of black history and culture should be constructively established." That was in quotes. His gift established the Moorland Foundation, the first research library in an American university devoted exclusively to documenting the black experience. He continued to donate materials to the collection and support it financially. And in many respects the acquisition of the Moorland collection was the first substantive commitment by the university to the study of the black experience. Moorland also supported the development of forces and research in Howard's History Department. He was responsible for the edition of Carter G. Woodson to the staff in 1919 and William Leo Hansberry in 1922. Though Woodson would only stay for a year, he managed to plan and launch a graduate program in history and supervise the department's first Master's degree. Hansberry on the other hand would establish the African Civilization Section of the History Department in 1922. And within two years he was offering three courses to more than 800 students on an elective basis, annually. A year later in 1925 Hansberry's section sponsored a symposium on the cultures and civilizations of negro peoples in Africa that featured 28 scholarly papers by his students. His research and teaching activities at Howard would establish him as the real father of African studies in the United States. And it was Moorland's hope that the research and structural programs in Howard's History Department would take advantage of the resources of his collection and make Howard the national center for the study of the global black experience. [ Applause ] >> Angel Batiste: Thank you Dr. Dodson. As you can see our time format is not working for us. But again, I'm from Howard University and I know, I will have to say this. We are a bit off schedule. I only have this room until one o'clock so we must keep that as our deadline. At this point, Dr. Edgar. [ Applause ] [ Adjusting mic ] >> Robert R. Edgar: Well thank you Angel. I'll try to keep my comments succinct. First, I'd like to acknowledge the presence of so many of our former students and present students in African Studies at Howard University. The Library of Congress has been a real treasure for many of them over the years. I think it was about 20 years ago that we actually started bringing our graduate students to the Library of Congress for orientations on the enormous resources that this Library has on Africa. And so your Africa Section has graciously hosted our students. Dr. Tom Mann in the Reference Section has also done orientations and so this has really become a second home for many of our students. They spend many hours here. So we appreciate that on this occasion for hosting this event. Today I'd like to focus my remarks on one of the early Africanists at Howard University. We talk about 60 years that we're celebrating of our African Studies program. But the study of Africa at Howard goes back, of course, many decades before that. Africa really is part of Howard's DNA. But as Dr. Dodson pointed out, it hasn't always been received that way at Howard. And so it's been a struggle over the decades to establish Africa on the campus and it was not only a struggle on the campus, but it was also a struggle in dealing with the larger society of-- and in particular foundations, the various gatekeepers of African studies around the United States. And so if one was at Howard and you wanted to work on Africa, you had to navigate a very tricky field in terms of establishing yourself and getting access to the continent. So, I'm going to be focusing on Ralph Bunche. He's a person that I've long had an interest in and partly because we shared a lot of similarities. We're both graduates of UCLA. Our first faculty positions were at Howard University. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950. I received the-- they told me it's in the mail. [ Laughter ] At any rate, Bunche is someone whose fascinated me for a long time and I produced a book about him and segment of his journey at Howard in which he was able to travel around the world. And I'll talk about that a bit, a bit later. Now first, a little bit of background on Bunche and then I want to talk about his transition into becoming an expert on international affairs and his baptism really into African affairs. Bunche was born in 1904 in Detroit. He eventually spends most of his youth growing up in Los Angeles. He goes to UCLA in the early 1920s. He's a star athlete, but he's also a star student and he graduates the top of his class. After he leaves UCLA he goes to Harvard University for an MA degree. And there he produces an MA thesis on a 17th century English political philosopher, Robert Filmer. Now I stress this because none of us know who Robert Filmer was, but the point is Bunche was off in a very different direction, political philosophy. But in 1928 he's invited by Mordecai Johnson, the first black president of Howard who had come down to Howard in 1926 to become the chair and really the founder of the Political Science Department at Howard. So in 1928 Bunche arrives at Howard University and as Dr. Dodson used this term, Bunche saw himself very much as a race man, someone who was going to actively work for the race and for the betterment of the race. And so, always as part of Bunche's agenda he was dealing with not only doing academic work, but also political activism. Those two components were always part of his life. So, he spent about three years at Howard University starting the Political Science Department also working considerably working for Mordecai Johnson in the President's office and for those of us who have been at Howard for a long time, we know the administrative duties that we're called upon to do, take up a considerable amount of time and that's going to become a source of concern for Bunche over the years. But among his colleagues during that time were people like Abram Harris, E. Franklin Frazier, Alain Locke, Doxey Wilkerson, Emma Dorsey, Dorothy Porter, Alphaeus Hunton, Rayford Logan, Leo Hansberry, Charles Wesley, you can go on and on. And some of these folk had an interest in Africa but the key thing about them was all of them had an interest in national affairs and there was a real tradition at Howard of people traveling to Europe, especially to do further studies either advancing their degrees or doing research on various issues related to the black world. And so during his first stint at Howard, Bunche was very much exposed to international ideas, international studies. And so in the early 30s when he decides to go back to Harvard for a PhD, he's very keen on doing a topic that is going to have international issues in it and he especially wants to deal with Africa. Now, of course, his idea of doing something about Africa is not well received. It's not well received by the funders of his fellowship at Harvard, the Rosenwald Foundation. Dr. Embry, who was the head of the foundation advised Bunche and said to do a study on West Virginia politics. And it's interesting how Bunche responded to that, and here's a quote from Bunche in a letter he sent back to, back to Embry. He said, "I'm fully persuaded that the negro of all scholars must first develop a first develop a broad international background if his contribution to the solution of our own domestic problems is to make much impress." So, he very much sees becoming well versed in international issues, an important component of his education and for the advancement of black people. Now Bunche also found resistance to his idea of studying Africa from President Mordecai Johnson at Howard. At one faculty meeting of all the Howard faculty President Johnson got up and said Bunch is going all the way to Africa to find the problem. [laughter] Now President Johnson could be quite sarcastic. I think he was very sincere in his sarcasm, but he was certainly sympathetic to what Bunche was doing. Now it's interesting about that same time in 1932 when Bunche was contemplating doing a dissertation on an African topic Leo Hansberry was also wanting to go to Egypt. And Hansberry wanted to become a part of an archeological team, a British archeological team back in Egypt and he sent a letter to an official at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts inquiring about whether he would be well received by this archeological team. And this is the letter that he received back from this official at the Boston Museum. He said, "To be perfectly frank with you, if I were in charge of such an expedition, I should hesitate long before taking an American negro on my staff. I should fear that the mere fact of your being a member of the staff would seriously affect the prestige of the other members and the respect which the native employees would have for them." Now you can see, there's a bit of an obstacle here. And by the way, I see Professor Hansberry's daughter in the audience and she knows very much this kind, this kind of history. So in other words there was a real resistance to African-Americans doing work on Africa. And the foundations generally would not fund any African-American going to Africa until the 1950s and that's when Professor Hansberry was able to get a Fulbright to go to Africa, am I correct? Yeah, good. >> [inaudible audience comment] >> Robert R. Edgar: Okay. [ Moving around ] Now Bunche's idea of working on Africa also was not well received by-- generally by the Harvard faculty. There was an expert on Colonial Africa, Raymond Buell that became one of his sponsors, patrons. And it's interesting Bunche learned that game early on. And I'm looking at my students now. This is something that you should be learning as well and that is in negotiating your way through academic life, you've got to find patrons who are going to support you and help you navigate the road of getting funding and so forth for your projects. But eventually Bunche prevailed. He was very hard-headed on this and he eventually produced a dissertation on the French colonies studying the comparison between a former league of nations, well a league of nations mandate that was run by the French in Togaland and it was actually a brilliant dissertation. If one reads it now it still holds great value. Now the thing that distinguished Bunche about this research on Africa was that he was able to get the funding not only to go to Europe for his research but he also was able to spend three months in the territories that he was studying. And so this was very important for him in terms of opening up his outlook, his exposure to Africa, because most Americans who worked on Africa, who wrote on Africa never went to Africa. And so Bunche was very distinct among all that American academics and actually going to the continent for a period of time to do his research. And they really established three hallmarks of his approach to research and his research on Africa; first of all, creating knowledge through empirical data. Secondly studying race as a global problem and finally the critical importance of field work for validating knowledge about Africa. So he's very much concerned about having on the ground experiences on the continent. So, eventually he produced his dissertation in 1934 as a very quick write up. It took him about a year to produce and he was the first African-American to be awarded a PhD in political science. So he returns to Howard after finishing his dissertation, once again resumes his work in the Political Science Department and his work for President Johnson. But he still has his fascination of going to Africa again. So, he begins plotting out a way of getting the funding so he can go back and do research. And what he wants to do this time is to do a study on Africa from the ground out. He had done is dissertation on Africa from the top down, from the colonial policies and what their effect was on Africans. But this time he wanted to do a study on Africa from the ground up. He became very active on the Howard campus in organizing conferences on African affairs or international affairs. There was a notable conference in the mid 1930s on world imperialism dealing with Africa and Asia that was hosted by Bunche and others in the social sciences at Howard. I've often wondered where those papers are in the [inaudible] room but I haven't been able to find them yet. But there's, they're there, okay. Well good. The keeper of the papers. But Bunche was also growing weary of his administrative duties at Howard and he longed for a way of escaping them. And so in the mid 1930s he makes a proposal to the Social Science Research Council and it is along the lines he is of-- that he would like to do the study of Africa from the ground up. And he receives a negative response from the foundation. They are not really interested in doing that, but Bunche has a patron and a very important patron, Melville Herskovits. Now Herskovits had spent a year at Howard in the mid 1920s and he had become quite a notable anthropologist in the time, that time and afterwards. But he had a strong affinity for people working at Howard. And so he came to Bunche's rescue and proposed to the SSRC that Bunche be given a fellowship to study anthropological field methods in various parts of the world. Now, this is something that floors me, it floored me when I was doing my research; it floored me even now. They gave Bunche two years of support and told him that you could take a round the world trip and you know you can sort of decide where you would go and what you would study. And so Bunche like any of us academics jumped at that opportunity to do that. And so in 1936 he sets off, actually 1937 he sets off in this round the world trip and part of it is to study anthropology with the [inaudible] of anthropology at Northwestern, Herskovits, Malinowski at the London School of Economics and Isaac Schapera at the University of Cape Town. And on that trip he is able to go to London for a period of time. His Swahili teacher there is Jomo Kenyatta. He goes to South Africa for three months; that's what my book is based on, his research note from that. And without going into the details of that, I'll leave you the book to introduce you to that. He has a really extraordinary time traveling around the country. People are not quite sure what to make of him because he's a very light skinned black person. They don't know if he's Filipino, if he's Egyptian. They don't know quite how to regard him or define him, but his research notes that he kept on that trip are just fascinating reading about South Africa in 1937. He then goes on to East Africa for five months and spends that time studying African societies, especially the Kacou in Kenya. Eventually it comes back to Howard and I think many of you are probably familiar with the story after that and I think one of the fascinating things about Bunche is that even though he gets pulled into other activities, the Myrdal report is one of his key researchers. Then into the United Nations and the Trusteeship Council, a mediator in the Middle East for which he wins the Nobel Prize. He still maintains his interest in Africa. It's a shame that he was never able to write the book that he was planning to write on his travels in African in the late 1930s. But I hope what my comments today have signified is that in order to become an Africanist at Howard or in the United States, especially an African-American Africanist one had to jump through a lot of hurdles, a lot of obstacles to do that. And so as we look back upon African studies at Howard today we should be very cognizant of the fact of all the struggles that have gone on before and actually go on now in terms of making sure that the field is sustained on our campus. Thank you very much. [ Applause ] >> Angel Batiste: Unfortunately Dr. Edgar had to leave us for an appointment this afternoon. But we'll continue into our second session with our speakers and starting up this session will be Dr. Carr. Dr. Carr is [applause] Dr. Carr chairs the Afro-American Studies or the African-American Studies Department at Howard University. >> Gregory E. Carr: Thank you Dr. Batiste. And I want to thank the organizers and thank you Dr. Cham for the invitation. And thank the Department of African Studies and also I'm grateful to be in this conversation with my friend Dr. Dodson and Dr. Cham who's going to clean up all the unanswered questions when I get finished stumbling through this and adding a little bit more chaos to the conversation. It's always nice to be in what began as Mr. Jefferson's Library. Always nice to be here, because it reinforces the idea that the negro is not part of this conversation. I like to sit in the room, the reading room and look up in the air and see the Egyptians is white and all the beautiful, I guess the apotheosis of George Washington's across the street in the Capital Rotunda. But when you look up in the Rotunda at the Library of Congress it reinforces, it's almost the Catholic or even the Anglican tradition of Christianity. It reinforces your worthlessness and so the aspiration is to become part of this conversation. And in many ways I think this conversation about African Studies at Howard, which is really the insurgent movement in the field is a conversation about not particularly wanting to be in the conversation. But the conversation that-- and the ambivalence about even that position and that's something that Dr. Dodson has laid out, so I don't have to plow that field. You already plowed it up real good. Now that's important because Howard politics are no different than the university politics anywhere else, which means that they are as small bore and as petty as any other institution. And in some ways I think my remarks, which I have titled African Studies, Afro-American Studies in the Study of the African Diaspora at Howard University on translation recovery and disciplinarity I could perhaps throw that title out and perhaps call this the Evasion of William Leo Hansberry. Because the way I understand it, Dr. Franklin good to see you brother. When the Ford Foundation decided to give some money to African studies they didn't give Howard anything and they didn't give Roosevelt anything because St. Clair Drake and them was there by the time I think Lorenzo Dow Turner was there with him. But William Leo Hansberry was cut out of that conversation. E. Franklin Frazier was seen as a more dependable kind of negro to keep Howard in line in what was emerging as a Cold War discourse. African Studies being hatched as an idea where white folks kind of keep an eye on these negroes. I hope they didn't run off to the Russians or the Chinese. And Howard to convince philanthropy that they would not be insurgents. Now that's important to understand. I think it's important to understand particularly given the context of the mid 1950s because what you begin to see is what Gerald Horn calls a truce in some ways. What is the truce? The truce is the ruling elite in this country, political elite and economic elite, particularly political elite trying to make a truce with an emerging black middle class that in exchange for some concessions on kind of social dalliances, you know not dalliances social accommodations. You know you need to turn away from linking internationally in any way that can unsettle the existing political dynamic in the world, certainly the post World War II dynamic. China's got it's own problems you know Mao Tse-tung is winning the Civil War and then he's going to go through ten years of reconstruction [inaudible] but what you don't want the American negro to do is continue to look beyond these shores for help. Certain people you know Gerald Torres talks about this a lot. Some people were sacrificed W.B. DuBois, Shirley Graham DuBois, Paul Robeson, that's not the good Robeson. Take their passports, lock up old man DuBois kind of thing. But you know Walter White and these cats are more than happy to kind of accommodate. Well that doesn't, you know that win doesn't ignore Howard. Howard is struggling with those internal tensions and what I'd like to talk about for a few minutes this morning is how African Studies at Howard represented those tensions, survived those tensions, emptied forward out of those tensions and forged a space where it protected and protects inquiry that is designed to transform these conversations. So there's a kind of uncertaincy involved. As I came in and saw the books here, and it's funny I think I have all but maybe three or four of those over there. And two of them in particular, Dr. Nyang your book on Islam that, one of your books, the smaller one there and the one just beyond it, [inaudible] on Pan Africanism. When I got my copy of the language book it was on the 100th anniversary of the first Pan African Conference, Henry Sylvester Williams conference in London. And that book has been out in print so long that you know it's one of those things that tempts you to kind of liberate books from the library. And I know that's a Federal crime in this, so I'm not about to-- but when I saw one for sale, Red Line Square, the book table, the bookseller and said this is where C.L.R. Jane and Marcus Garvey used to speak. Oh man, is that-- I bought it. It was maybe 20 pounds, which is a lot of money for a graduate student in 2000. But when I came to Howard and had my job talk I came down the hill to the Howard Center looking for Sulayman Nyang; I never seen him with my eyes before. And I went up there knocking on doors and there was only one door open that afternoon. I mean you know by that time I didn't realize many of Howard faculty carried banker's hours. So, but this was in the afternoon, like 5:30 in the afternoon and that didn't apply to the folks generally in African Studies, but I saw an open door. I knocked on the door and it said A. Langley. So I opened the door and there's this older cat sitting in there. I said, "I'm looking for Sulayman Nyang." And he said he's not here right now. And I said, "Okay. Well I'll"-- I said, "You're not, you're not [inaudible] Langley, are you?" He said, yes, yes I am. I said, "What, I said you're alive." That's the first thing I said. I was so embarrassed, no because they always tell you when people pass, right. I mean seriously. I anybody can confirm and I'm going to finish because I'm mindful of the time. I've been talk about five minutes, six so I'm going to be very mindful of this. But if anybody can tell me, for example, where and when J.C. DeGraft-Johnson passed, because I can't find his obituary. And did he pass? >> Sulayman S. Nyang: Yes he passed away. >> Gregory E. Carr: See, I think. It's purpose right, because I went through all the newspapers. Because 19, I mean let me put this in parentheses, because 1954 is a very important moment, because you see three books emerge, right. [inaudible comments] you see "Stolen Legacy", which is of course George G.M. James' attempt to puddle through some of this thing, but he's at University of Arkansas, I think Pine Bluff at the time. So you know you like Oliver Cox who was at Lankford. They're writing in very limited circumstances at these negro colleges and Cox is doing world theories 20 years before the Emanuel Wallace thing and they're writing at these black colleges and they're teaching. And the third book, of course, was J.C. Degraft-Johnson's, Jonah Coleman, Degraft-Johnson's "African Glory." But that's 1954 and these far beyond the scope of what's being generally accepted as academic scholarship that you know is accepted by the white academy. Now, 1954, of course, is important because [inaudible] Board of Education, but what we're talking about to kind of tie this together and then emptying into the frame that I had written down, we're talking about a moment now in 2013 of anniversaries, celebrations, commemorations and what do these things do? Anniversaries are narrations. There are attempts to narrate the past in a way that makes the present make sense. It justifies the present, explains the present, complicates the present so that we can move forward. There's no other reason to talk about a 50th anniversary march on Washington. There's no other reason to talk about a 50th anniversary of the Birmingham bombings or in the next two weeks you'll see the whole country come to a stop in a way that didn't for those first two for the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John Kennedy. But, the, which will remind us again as Fred Douglas said. You know with these days of national ritual you find out you're not part of this conversation. But the celebration of the 60th anniversary of African Studies at Howard gives us an opportunity to think about not only what happened 60 years ago, but what has happened since and what needs to happen going forward. So what we see then is the reinscription of a liberal consensus in some ways in the mid 50s. African Study is emerging as a kind of spy network and folks who don't want to be part of the spy network trying to figure out as Dr. Edgar said, how can we maybe you know cut out a little space to operate and get a few pennies to do what we going to do, because we're going to do it anyway. I mean as you say you know Ralph Bunche writes and I forget how many pages he wrote that summer that he ended up emptying into what becomes Gunnar Myrdal's, "An American Dilemma." But a lot of his memos that don't find it into that manuscript extol the fact that what he says is the American negro is a special ward to the Supreme Court. And so [inaudible] Board of Education in many ways is concession to Cold War politics. You can't just keep beating these negroes up while the world is looking because the world is changing. We can't keep doing that so we have to give Howard a few pennies in African Studies, even though they don't necessarily want to. But they leave it to Howard to figure out how to frame that appeal. And the negro that gives it up out is Hansberry. Why? Because Hansberry doesn't fit. You see if you yank on William Leo Hansberry, DuBois falls out. And then you got a real problem, because it was DuBois when Hansberry was working in Mississippi and help me Ms. Hansberry if I get this wrong, because I know this from years of listening to John Henry Clark and then reading people like Kwame Wes Alford and listening. But Hansberry leaves Mississippi and goes to Atlanta. Well he's got a few other places he ends up, but he ends up in Atlanta. He reads "The Negro" by DuBois 1915, and wants to read all the books in that bibliography because DuBois has finally given him what he was looking for, which is a global framework of dealing with Africa. And once he's dealing with Africa he said I got to go, now he ends up at Harvard. He ends up not with a PhD because there's nobody there that can really train him and plus they're looking at him suspiciously anyway because he's making connections that nobody else has tried to make, not from the academic community. And so Hansberry when he ends up at Howard has been laboring like this from the 20s. I mean [inaudible] came, stayed for a minute and left because he said I'm not going to let these negro administration kill me. Moves down to 9th street and keeps going with his work, Hansberry comes in for the long haul. But the time this appeal is made what you see is that Hansberry has demarginalized in part because you know his approach is just too problematic. But what Hansberry's approach was attempting to do, African Studies at Howard continue to do anyway in collaboration with its kind of partnerships with other folks around the campus and with the study of the African Diaspora. And what it did was survive through several subsequent iterations of struggle. And what do I mean by that? It survives the Cold War era, and that's important to understand because black institutions doing work like this were not in a position to be able to do very much. You know I mean the foundations would basically tell a lie. You know they told St. Clair Drake and them that we don't give money to undergraduate programs. Well that's not true. You gave money to other programs that were here doing undergraduate work. They, and of course St. Clair Drake is problematic because he can't prove that he's not a communist or communist affiliated. And, of course, he's fortunate because who is with him by the time that Roosevelt dealing with [inaudible] on an undergraduate level who but, of course, the Howard affiliated and one time employee Lorenzo Dow Turner whose work on language ironically you can compare to what Howard has. The [inaudible] to do which is deal with language study and African Studies which gives him the unique lens which makes it a little bit more difficult to dismiss Howard's African Studies program because language is really part of the key. Language study is not as well developed when Hansberry starts looking for classical Africa. He's got to go as DuBois did to the secondary sources. But by the time you get to the 1960s [inaudible] has begun to emerge again on the periphery of these white conversations, not in African Studies, still being kind of marginalized. But Howard eventually is going to provide a space where some of these things can be brought back into the conversation. But at first it has to survive the Cold War era and it did. Now the 1960s come and now you have a problem. Why? You got another problem. You got negroes coming to school who were never supposed to be educated in the first place. And you have the long retreat from the Cold War dodge that Brown kind of gestures towards. Brown is like well let's desegregate, but they never desegregated. Ten years later they're like man your school desegregated. So then you see another swell unrest. That's the 50th anniversary stuff that's going on now, the Birmingham stuff that happened in the spring of 1963. The March on Washington, which was kind of a negotiated settlement between Kennedy and his forces and the elite leadership of the Civil Rights movement which kind of made [inaudible] kind of made. But you know John Lewis is going to go along to get along because in part his southern grounding and his ability to kind of negotiate the tensions between the older elite and the Civil Rights movement and the kind of shock troops of the movement, which was the students gave him space to negotiate. But then you empty that out and the response to the march on Washington in many ways is the bombing of Birmingham. You know when you know only have Carole L. Robertson and Addie Mae Collins and who are the other two young ladies? Carole L. Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Denise McNair. Not only those four girls but you have James Robinson and another young brother Virgil Ware who were killed the same day. One of the police shot in the back and the other on the handlebar of his bicycle in a rock fight with the white boy gangs that have gathered around the 16th Street Baptist Church. There is a war going on in Birmingham. Of course Kennedy dies at the end of the year and you've got turmoil. But that becomes the impetus to let Lyndon Johnson ram through what ends up being the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the [inaudible] Act of 1965. That's it. What else do you negroes want? Over the next ten years, however, that's when you see the long retreat, the long retreat from the idea that you all are going to have political equality in this country. But by then many students are on black college campuses who were never supposed to be in school. And those negroes aren't satisfied. That's where my department came from. From many people in this room understand that that student movement that emptied into the torrid of that university conference in 1968 and then the founding of African-American Studies in the department in 1969 of which I'm so glad to hear Dr. Batiste is a proud graduate among the Vanguard of that undergraduate group that came through, established that department to do something different. At the same time African Studies at Howard continued to do something different, with freed up, a little bit of space to operate they're actually able to capture some of that momentum from the late 60s because in that same year of 1969 that's when negroes walk out of the African Studies Association and form the African Heritage Studies Association and say no. We're going to negotiate with you all but it will be from a position of strength. Now you have people who have real problems with that. Why? Because we love you negroes as long as you all are our pets. They never heard of this in East Africa, but black [inaudible] are no longer inclined to be pets, no longer inclined to be the favorites of certain foundations in the sprinkling of a nickel here when we going to give everybody else 100 dollars. No, we are going to try to establish the independent beachhead out of which to operate. And AHSA, AHSA ends up meeting at Howard subsequently to kind of put that together. African studies at Howard is at the center of that conversation. Now, I'm going to make a turn to conclude, because I'm very mindful. I have about five minutes I think. >> Um huh. >> I just want to make sure. No, no, no, I want to make sure that-- >> [inaudible comments] >> No, no, no ma'am, no ma'am, because really the important thing I think about these moments is however short we have, is the question and answering conversation, because I take notes our whole time. I'm learning about that, because you know we teach and I'm in the classroom. And I think our undergraduate students particularly need to know this material. Hansberry is still-- you know passed away in 1965, but his presence is still felt at Howard, but it's marginal the way Dr. Dodson said. It's not institutionalized. It's very important to understand that, because had it been institutionalized we would have been light years ahead in every academic field, in every academic field, you know. And let's not even get to the small bore academic politics. I mean does a Alaine Locke support Hansberry's Fulbright so you can get him out of the country, because they're about to make this pitch for African studies and they don't want the negro even around on the soil. Frazier who has done so much important work, he, Ralph Bunche, Abram Harris and these guys, and insurgents kind of saying that the voice isn't radical enough. But yet-- and still in the mid-50s will dare to tell the foundation that you know you don't worry about Hansberry. I got that. >> [inaudible comments] >> Yeah. But, African studies still provides a core out of which emerges scholarship that transforms the way we think about so many different approaches to the study of Africa. At the same time in 1970s as the students unceremoniously kind of dumped well led to the dumping of James Neybert [assumed spelling] which is kind of sad. I mean it's intergeneration you know. But then, James Shee [assumed spelling] shows up hires Andrew Billingsley and then you see Ron Walters come here, George Ladner come here, Robert Hill come here. There's going to be another wave in the 1970s and African Studies rides that wave as well and then you see some of the folks who are sitting in this room who were recruited into that same conversation. That becomes the bridge now and where is now. In 2013 I know from where we are now in African American Studies several years ago we went through this whole program review thing. You know the first thing that everybody always wants to do is say black. Okay, so let's put all the black together. That usually means they're white HWCUs, the white college and universities. If you got an African Studies Department and an African American Studies Department you just say black and then stick afro diaspora world studies of the whole black thing together and say okay, that's beautiful. University of Texas-Austin, Michigan State, I mean you know this is what they do. But, what do you do with it at a black school and not just a black-- any black school, the school that has led this conversation. Well, the way we think about it is in Afro-American studies we're the unit that doesn't have to be big, because our whole reason for existence is to theorize the possibility of reconstructing discipline so that we can think differently. And-- but that's for two reasons, number one to have our own academic discipline with methodology, inquiry techniques and deal with that. So, we don't-- we just-- and that in itself is step eventually to getting rid of all the disciplines. But, you got to have that first step, which means language training. We're the only university, HBCU in the country, probably university where you can study ancient Egyptian language. Hansberry would of had a ball on that. We got the only Egyptologists of African descent training the United States and the world on our faculty and he's one of two. So, now you can take all the forms that are classical language. But, the second reason as I conclude, I think is very much important for African studies at Howard and history at Howard and economics at Howard and all the other academic fields. Every one of those fields must mount, continue to mount an insurgent campaign to destroy those disciplines as we stand here in Mr. Jefferson's library and everything that has been added since. Just like this library has as its founding template places that I've stood in many times and I'm so glad you're here from Kemet, from Egypt. Those first libraries that they call [foreign language spoken] in the ancient Egyptian language, this is not the first library. It's an important library. It's an extension of a literary tradition, but what the academic fields at Howard must do is reclaim human knowledge in all of those disciplines. And there is no place, no more important place to do that than the place that is marked by its study literally of the African continent and the extension of Africa throughout the diaspora and that is the department of African studies. I'm going to stop with that and maybe we have some more questions. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Sulayman Nyang: Thank you very much and you and [inaudible] These are two people I know, I know Jane, because we have been working on Middle Eastern issues with her husband, we are in Middle East studies for years. And I'm very happy that we have you here. Now, what he is saying now, this was unthinkable that you have Jane and her under one intellectual roof. There are powerful forces who don't want that to happen you see, because of their own interests. I am now going to use the metaphor of putting you on my mental highway, so on an HOV lane. You'll be moving very fast. We don't have time. I'm going to move very fast, because you see what Dr. Carr was saying for you the audience and for all of you listening to internet and the media I want you to be on the same frame with me. So, I'll be moving now to tell you Howard University, the Library of Congress and Africa, how do you look at these three? I went to the University of Virginia. I was a Jefferson fellow. We were the first blacks to go UVA. Ronald Robinson was shocked when Bob Cummings who used to be the head of our department, that this guy got his degree from UVA [inaudible] because they were not allowed to go to UVA, blacks. They were right up there for them to go to Yale and study there-- >> Angel Batiste: Right. >> Sulayman Nyang: To get their degree, than to get their degrees at the University of Virginia. So, when we tell the world Mr. Jefferson, he's now gone, but that's a legacy we cannot deny that. But, in his note on Virginia he doesn't think that black and white people will ever be equal. He would be shocked to know that there is Obama in the White House. I'm very serious. I'm a Jefferson scholar. What I'm trying to tell you is when we talk about the Library of Congress, African studies and Howard you are dealing with three concepts and three ideas. Please follow me as I move very fast. What you have to recognize is that Howard University is named after General Howard. When we talk about the Freedman Bureau and Howard University, that's the origin, because after the end of slavery you have a large number of African Americans. There were 400,000 blacks in the United States. If you go back to one of our professors at Howard University, Andrew Billingsley. Andrew Billingsley wrote a book, " Climbing Jacob's Ladder," which is a biblical metaphor. And there he tries to talk about black families in white America. Now, that book is a very interesting metaphor as an entry point to understand Howard University, the Library of Congress and Africa, because if you really go back you will see that after the end of the Civil War the black identity was still problematic, because African Americans one out of every 16 African American was called a free black. And they were the ones who founded these black churches with Richard Allen called African Methodist Church Zion. And if you look at the history of the religions in this city you get that story. That's number one. So, there was tension about with Africa or not with Africa. That was a big debate nationally. Some of the people who established the American Colonization Society were interested in taking all these free blacks and put them in Liberia. That's why you have Monrovia named after President Monroe. Now, move fast way with me and you come back to our first presentation where you are now trying to look at Africa at Howard. Mordecai Johnson was the first African-American to be Head of Howard University. Now, you have to go back to the founding fathers who came to Howard. This was why the first hospital we have before [inaudible] was called the Freedman Hospital. Today if you come to Howard University we have a radio station. We have the credit union and we have the School of Communication and then you have the graduate school. That is a chicken metaphor. It is part of the evolution of Howard University. When Mordecai Johnson came to town they were able to negotiate a deal, which gave Howard University one position. Howard University and Lincoln University in Nebraska were among the-- and this other one is right here. It is named after the university for the handicap and the blind, Gallaudet. These were the three ever given money by the Congress of the United States and yet they're in that legacy as a university. So, that's one of the reasons why Howard president must always have their feet on the fire every year with the Congress to get money. And that is one of our legacies. So, if you are talking about African studies at Howard you have to recognize that. The reason why Hansberry, Rayford Logan were in a problematic relationship you see and Ralph Bunche and all of those people you are dealing with they were the victims of academic politics in American society. You have the big people who have money like the Rockefellers. The Rockefellers were the ones who financed the International Africa Institute, which would bring all the anthropological work out of London University. Malinowski, Hansberry was dealing [inaudible]. Now, that was one-- you-- Hansberry was not going to be given any kind of break by those people. No, the Rockefellers didn't want the black people to go to Africa. That was Garry. They're not going to allow Garry to go. He was in jail in 1924. They're not going to allow that to happen. So, when you look at this story you understand the story how if you look at the Presbyterian Church was very active in trying to train many of these Africans to go back to Liberia. That's just one of the reasons why if you look at Lincoln University and you can see how Lincoln University holiest man Born. The father of-- >> Julian. >> Sulayman Nyang: Julian Born [assumed spelling]. He had a difficult time. He and Hansberry were trying to promote African studies at Howard and they wanted to get the cooperation of E. Franklin Frazier. Hell no, you're not going to get any money from foundation. And that's one of the reasons why Rayford Logan who wrote his book, "The Betrayal of the Negro" talks about how black people were, that we'll crash after the Civil War by President Rutheford. Remember Rutherford who made the deal they move all the Federal troops out of the south to the north. That is what changed the history of the African American so that Africa wouldn't become Africa. We have Monrovia. We put all those free blacks down there. That's why Booker T. Washington when he gave that famous speech [inaudible] in Atlanta, which was a turning point. He knew that many of the black people were called African [inaudible]. The white people were invading Africa. Africa is being invaded. They call them savages and some of the intellectual came with [inaudible] cannibals. It became the dominant [inaudible]. Who-- if I'm black why would I call myself African? [inaudible comments] so Booker T., Booker T. knew Spanish 101. Let's call ourselves negroes and all African American women Negroess like tiger, tigress. [ Laughter ] We move away from that narrative. Now, you see that was why the war is who-- like one thing we have lost at Howard. Most of the black intellectuals at Howard like you were saying they will all go to Europe. You go to Oxford. That's why we have who? We have the whole name after him, Locke Hall. He became the first African American to go to Oxford and they gave him what-- >> Hell. >> Sulayman Nyang: [Inaudible] the imperialist. He went to Oxford. He was allowed to go there. So, he came back. He became one of the intellectuals from your area there, another black Spanish. Well, he was in Harlem. What do you call that? >> [inaudible] >> Sulayman Nyang: [inaudible]. He was a black Puerto Rican. There was some Spanish Jews [inaudible] out here. We have a school named after him now. Here we have Spanish Jews who are blacks. Yeah, some of the black leaders sit here. Lorenzo and other black American who became famous and you know him. He's, he's the big singer, Robeson, Paul Robeson. Paul Robeson marry this black Jewish slave ancestry, Hansberry. So, that's one of the, I don't understand that narrative. You see, [inaudible] that is the narrative. Paul Robeson, remember Paul Robeson, well know Paul Robeson. I'm going to read a narrative that will talk to you about something that's very interesting in the interest of time. You see so when you come to talk about how when Hansberry wanted to get money, when this man wanted money the said he won't have any money. That's why Dr. Edgar revealed to you. They will give money to Ralph Bunche. They gave him money. They're not-- they don't money to Hansberry. They will not give money to holiest man born. In the end they made out a deal. Rayford Logan who was the Secretary of the [inaudible] when they went to World War I to postpone Africanism, Rayford Logan had to make a deal. They say okay, we'll give you some money. Rayford Logan, you have to understand how politics, at that time at Howard you have Hansberry, you have many of the African Americans were interested in Africa. They were still not going to be allowed, because the British and the French will never allow them to do research. And the Rockefellers were not going to allow them to go there. They have all the anthropologists to do work. That's the narrative. So, this is one of the reasons why, why we have at Howard University, African studies and African American studies. It was the revolution of the students. These students in 1968, this is where all of you are at work now. All of you here, your stories are at work. In 1968 the people who controlled the academic were the Rockefellers, the Ford and the Carnegie people. They give you money or they don't give you any money. In Chicago they have all those Jewish intellectuals who are fleeing from the Nazis. They became the Chicago School and these are the people who are the children of Norman Padelford at Harvard. All these scholars did it after and all of them were taught at Harvard by Norman Padelford who are writing about cell determination. So, James Coleman, all of the people that you read as graduates of the graduate school, these were the students. They're the intellectual grandchildren. Most of you are the great, great grandchildren of Norman Padelford. And what is really interesting for us to understand if you talk about Howard University and African studies-- let me move quickly. In the next five, six minutes to get out of here. What I want to make very clear to you is that you see in 1958 people like Adam Clayton Powell among the four blacks who are on the Congress here. Adam Clayton Powell was very powerful, because he was able to-- I'll tell you, because the blacks in Harlem were keeping in office over and over again. So, he survived and he became the Chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor. That was why he was very important. That was why people like me, a man from Africa came here and I ended in Mississippi in 1965. I would have been, I would have been a [inaudible] in Mississippi, but he didn't have one. I was sent to Hampton University. Adam Clayton Powell's secretary was the head administrative assistant. His father in law was always-- >> [Inaudible audience comments] >> Sulayman Nyang: Yeah, oh yeah Hampton, the registrar. You see and his brother Davis, Horace Davis, his brother was at Howard University in English department. David-- >> [Inaudible audience comments] >> Sulayman Nyang: Yes. That's why I came to Howard, you see. So, what I'm trying to tell you your stories are linked together, all of you in the room here. In 68 the students had a coup d'etat. You have a coup d'etat, they get the president out and they brought [inaudible] with his dashiki. And the African studies is implicated here and the Afro-American studies implicated here. You have Russell Adams was at Chicago. They were able to get him like Russell-- just like Edgar was talking about our brother at the-- now we have an institution named after Ralph Bunche. You see Russell was one of the African-Americans who went to Chicago and they get their degree thanks to [inaudible]. My brother is here. His father was-- he is [inaudible] stand up John. John, his father, his father was the fellow who wrote the story of the African-American history. He was at Howard. He went-- that was the first time they get all our black intellectuals to Chicago. And when they went to Chicago people like Russell Adams were students there. There were trained. Russell became acceptable black [inaudible] got to pay you for [inaudible]. Yeah you're from Chicago. His father was there. He trained them. They came back. That's why Hansberry's idea is now beginning to take root. When the kids have the coup d'etat at Harvard; I remember this. You have James Chick [assumed spelling] from North Carolina then you have [inaudible] from Nigeria who was teaching at Fiske. And there is a story, because we said he was invited by one of guest speakers at Howard. [inaudible] from Nigeria they [inaudible] tell me Stokley Carmichael. And Stokley Michael and no less we're a part of the narrative. They graduated already. When Adam Clayton Powell gave that commencement address at Howard he used the word black power. That was the first time Stokley Carmichael a student at Howard had black power from [inaudible]. He went to Mississippi. He said black power and you know the rest of that is heating up. So, the Howard students booted out their president and when it happened now people like Joseph Applegate was recruited from UCLA to come and deal-- this is how the connection. Now, we have Middle East studies and African studies coming together here. When Joseph Applegate came to Howard he was a linguist. He knew Badaga and he was linking North African and sub-Saharan Africa. This is how Hansberry's narrative now get fulfilled, you see. So, when Joe Applegate came and Rigsby [assumed spelling] they became actively involved at Howard. When James Chick came out with his dashiki all the young people say we want to have an Afro-American studies. And Q.T. Jackson was the Head of the African studies department at that time. He invited all the black student leaders. We came to Howard and unfortunately February, April King was killed. This is why sometimes I tell it to people, there's a God. [inaudible] a seven year old boy. King was killed. King went to Memphis and he was speaking like Moses. I have been to the mountain top. I may not get there with you. Lo and behold just like Joshua, Obama will be the Joshua and Caleb is not mentioned all the time. They reap the Promised Land. They got to the White House. To be biblical again, when Obama got to the White House he became the only one who went and took the oath of office and said, I Barack, the Chief Justice push him back. Then he has to come back, who's he. [inaudible] opened up. [inaudible] the think is Obama, you see. There is history again. It goes back to, because you see in the Afro-American studies, African studies all your stories are coming up. All of what you are doing comes together. From King at Memphis, Barack Hussein Obama, seven year old boy, becoming president 40 years later and he happens to have something that-- who can write the video. Only God can do that. He has a Muslim name. The only American President who ever had a Muslim name was Teddy Roosevelt. The Jews and Arabs got along before Israel. They were peddlers. The Jews and Arabs in New York City gave him a Muslim name when he was the Chief of Police. They call him Harron Rasheed Roosevelt [assumed spelling]. And what is very interesting for us here who are studying Africa is that when you go back to Teddy Roosevelt having a Muslim name, the only American President ever to have a Muslim nickname. And when he went on Safari in Kenya Obama's grandfather was alive. Neither Roosevelt nor Obama's grandfather knew that one day a young man from Kenya will be in the White House, because what is very pronounced for us studying here about Africa the American Colonization Society and what is happening in Arabs in American society, Muslims in American society is this story. And that is-- not only was Obama seven, when King was killed 40 years later he became President of the United States and he has a Muslin name. But, most importantly for all of us who are studying about Africa, blacks and the American civilization took footnotes for all of you here. That is when Teddy Roosevelt was the President of the United States, he wanted to invite Booker T. Washington, the most powerful black man in America to the White House. Hell no, a nigger in the White House, no way. Guess who is coming to dinner now? That is one of the reasons why the Obama people are very much aware of this and they awarded Kalik [assumed spelling] from Bahamas, Sidney Poitier the Medal of Freedom during the Obama first term. So, history is being made by all of you here in Africa Middle East studies. All of us who are studying Moorland Spingarn, if you go back to Moorland Spingarn, where he is now dealing with reality. It deals with the history of the NAACP. The young Turks, because Booker T. say we are negroes, most of the educated blacks know that negro means black. But, the black were not educated. If you say Negro they will accept it. That was why DuBois say we are coloreds. They use the word colored. That's why we have negro and colored interchangeably. This was DuBois. DuBois was being political. He knew that the Asians, the Arabs, the Jews, the Italians could all be called. They were not accepted as white. That's why you have books how did you became white, how the Irish became white, how the Italian became white. This is America and I will stop here. I can speak for days. Thank you very much. [ Applause ] >> Angel Batiste: Thank you very much Dr. Nyang, to all of our-- all of the guest panelists. I'd like to thank all of you for a very, very interesting and stimulating conversation. We do see the uniqueness of the intellectual traditions of African studies at Howard. At this point we'll take questions for a good 15, 20 minutes. The first question, my boss, Dr. Mary-Jane Deeb. >> Mary-Jane Deeb: Well, I want to thank you all for a really exciting and stimulating-- I mean it really is. And I'm going to repeat the question I asked Dr. Dodson a bit earlier. Perhaps phrase it in a different way. You mentioned being out of the conversation. Now, in-- [ Inaudible background question ] When you get the beginning of [inaudible] okay the first churches, early churches okay [inaudible]. They're in the conversations. When you look into [inaudible] from Timbuktu to the other parts of Africa they are in the conversation. So, what I'm seeing here is when, why do they fall out of the conversation? And the second part is, is Howard University, since we're talking about Howard University bringing the conversation back, putting it back on the table. The students, the professors putting the conversation back on the table. That's my question for whoever wants to answer it. >> Gregory E. Carr: Let me just take a quick stab at it. Thank-- first of all thank you for that. That question is really the question. We, we-- African people were pushed out of that narrative probably around between the time of the enlightenment and Renaissance. Now, we know you know Martin Bernal who recently passed away did a lot of work in that regard with, "Black Athena" particularly volume one. The falsification of the ancient model, his white-- he proposed his revised ancient model. So, it wasn't the Greeks. It wasn't the Romans. It was in fact a medieval moment at the same time you know Europe began to expand. So, we know that. That's what-- we know it was passed-- pushed out. Is Howard tempting to come-- to bring it back in? I don't know. I think the shadow of Booker T. Washington still falls on black colleges, because the United States seems to be a convicted Washingtonian when it comes to vocational education. And I think Howard is so fascinated with the possibilities of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the STEM fields that even those who have proposed steam adding the arts to that equation are marginalized. So, I don't know. And the last thing I'll say is that it's very interesting, because there's always been that strain of folks who have preserved that narrative. When you mention Hans-- Hansberry read DuBois 1915, "The Negro" and it set him into his intellectual orbit. But, that 1915 book DuBois rewrote it twice, once as, "The World and Africa" kind of extended in 1945 and the other one was his volume, "Black Folk: Then and Now." That becomes the kind of discursive frame for what St. Clair Drake does with, "Black Folk Here and There" putting us back in the narrative. And Drake kind of deals with Bernal in that book, but then you have Joseph Harris. Now, we bring it home to Howard, "Global Dimensions of the Diaspora" both editions, volumes. The challenge for Howard is not convene this conversation, but to finally empty away from those academic disciplines, because you can never get where we need to go by reinscribing the power relations and the traditional disciplines. That's what makes Afro-American Studies important and that why we-- you know proposing the name change to Africana Studies, because Africana isn't really a description that should be an umbrella term for everything, we don't think. It becomes a marker for theoretical enterprise and the other academic disciplines have to stay in place, because the work in there has to rise to an institutional level and become the beachhead to deconstruct those disciplines at the other universities. We think Howard is the only place that has a shot at it. And so, because we have everything here in one place, but the thing I'll say is the undiscovered country, the last frontier in that conversation is the will. And that's not an intellectual project. That's not an ideological project. That is pure political economy, because academic degrees are about licensure. And people are terrified if they take that step they will not be able to work. So, that's-- I think that's what we are. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: And I would answer the second part of your question thusly. At-- I'll go so far as to say that if Howard does not ultimately have the courage to pursue this leadership role over the intellectual hegemony of knowledge about the black experience. If Howard doesn't have the courage to do it quite frankly it calls into existence, calls into question its rationale for existence. >> Right. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: The traditional rationale has been to train black leaders, okay. A whole bunch of people are doing that now. A whole bunch of people are doing that. A whole bunch of colleges, universities and all the rest of that are doing that now and the one thing that Howard-- I need to go back. We start off-- Howard was a missionary school, a missionary school. They actually had been a black who was president before Mordecai Johnson. >> That's right. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: John Mercer Langston. >> That's right. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: They would not make him permanent president. And at the base of it was that the missionaries were not prepared to follow the lead of a black person leading a black school, okay. And that was, that was in the 1860s, 1860s or early 70 and it went to 1926 before-- and the debate over the intellectual leadership of the institution at the level of Board of Trustees, at the level of faculty, all of that, that was ongoing struggle. But, behind that debate was this question of you know black leadership intellectually in defining the character of the institution and what its unique role was going to be. That-- a truce was I guess declared with Mordecai Johnson's appointment. But quite frankly, the war for intellectual hegemony has continued right down to the present time. And the-- what was the-- and it's fascinating. What was the industrial school conversation, industrial versus classical conversation in the 19th or early 20th century is now the STEM versus liberal arts-- >> That's right. That's-- >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: Conversation. And I guess my final comment is that basically you know doing three things. One, if you-- when you lose the intellectual argument in defining the meaning of your life-- >> Right. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: You simply end up loving somebody else's notion of your life. >> That's right. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: Okay. So, so the struggle intellectually is not, is not simply some, some intellectual gameplay. This is life and death stuff-- >> Yes. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: In a most fundamental way. But, beyond that because we start out as a colonial institution and quite frankly we're still colonized, Howard University-- >> [inaudible audience comment] >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: Help me. >> [inaudible audience comment] >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: We're still colonized and we're not conscious of the fact that we are so we continue to live the damn colonized life. Huh? And if we can't-- and if the intellectual community that's at Howard can't figure out how to make the breakthroughs-- >> That's right. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: Then we're in deep you know deep mess. But, but beyond that ultimately human beings with their lives when they take ownership of it. >> Um huh. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: Huh. When they take ownership and define what the hell they are going to do and you run up against all kinds of obstacles. But ultimately, you have to envision and struggle to create your world and live in your world. And again, if you don't have the courage to do that you don't live your life. You live somebody else's life that something-- somebody else has defined for you. And so I say to say that Howard is at in my judgment at one of those critical moments-- >> Yes. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: In its history. And we don't need to engage other people's test scores. We need to be fashioning one of our own, huh. >> Yeah. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: And the work of doing that needs to be at the center of what Howard is doing intellectually today. And I-- you know I'll stop there, but I'm like-- I'm very, very, very, very upset and very concerned, because again our intellectual leadership has been kind of following the tail of the dog of American intellectual leadership. And we have a different intellectual agenda and a different set of intellectual responsibilities and if we don't take responsibility for it who's going to do it. >> That's right. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: And I'll stop. >> Angel Batiste: Thank you. >> I just wanted to say I'm a proud Howard alum, Howard undergrad and grad and although I never majored in African studies, African studies was a part of every class that I took as a communications major with an English minor. >> You're question. >> Yeah, [inaudible comments] Julia Mayfield was there. >> Gregory E. Carr: Oh yeah. >> I was an art history Master's degree with African history, [inaudible] was there. There is a difference in the undergrad of Howard University now than there was at the time I was there. And it's not because of the faculty. I'm wondering how faculty then can help to put that fire back into the undergrad, because as Dr. Nyang said it was the students who caused the movement. And I don't see that happening in Howard's undergrad right now especially looking at what just happened a couple of weeks ago at homecoming. Priorities have changed. What is it that we as alum can do and the faculty can do to help put the fire back into the undergrads so that they can then move onto graduate studies and bring Howard back to what it used to be? >> Gregory E. Carr: I would say this as somebody who deals with a lot of undergrads. They come to us with a different literacy. Electronic technology has literally reconfigured the way that we deal with information obviously. The national trend is to entertain students on the way-- in a reward structure that empties into kind of-- and Howard talked about this, this kind of indeterminate space as it relates to the labor force. In other words, our young people don't have a destination right now. They had a destination during the Booker T. Washington era. I mean there was jobs for them. With no job except perhaps the value of their, literally of their bodies, which is why the prison industrial complex is so-- it's grown. The leadership class that Howard spoke of being trained by Howard and other places really doesn't require content mastery as much as it requires a kind of Voc-Ed kind of orientation that allows you to manage technology. What we've done in conclusion of that, because I know we get a lot-- as much conversation as we can. We can talk more about this afterwards. What we've attempted to do is integrate some structural steps, particularly like college of arts and sciences we do a freshman seminar. >> Yes. >> And it's very deeply ingrained in kind of African knowledge systems. We had [foreign language spoken] last year, Willisa Inca [assumed spelling] was here earlier this week. Putting it where students can get it. Last thing I'll say, those freshman then coming into that curriculum that you mentioned African studies, Afro-American studies, English, philosophy, political science, economics in the general education curriculum then are reintroduced to those concepts they get as freshman. And we-- now the proof will be in the pudding. We got to trace-- we track those students. We-- this reconfigured freshman seminar is only three years old. We will see as they come forward what it's going to produce, but we are as Dr. Dodson said fighting. The recently retired president was very clear about this. And in the process of econo-- academic renewal he was hardwired into the structure of where we would go. I have no faith whatsoever that that plan, which took over three years to develop will go forward in the future, because I'm not sure that the leadership of the institution and I mean the Board of Trustees ever got it. And I'm talking about every-- not everybody, but [inaudible] ever got it and I think that what it will take now we will have to revisit that process, but we're not far, we're not far. It is-- it's there to be actualized if we can just make this last push. >> And you were talking about the students-- >> Gregory E. Carr: Oh, let me say right quick that's what got him out of retirement at [inaudible]. That was part of the [inaudible]. We went, we went-- we put a hit squad on Howard Dodson and drug him out of New York City. No literally that was part of the process. That was-- >> [Inaudible comments] >> Gregory E. Carr: No question. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: No. I was going to say with regard to students-- >> Angel Batiste: Excuse me. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: Sure. I'm sorry. Go ahead. >> Angel Batiste: No you finish. I'm sorry. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: Okay. With-- >> Angel Batiste: You continue. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: With regard to students one of the concerns I have and that's part of what's informing the work we're doing at the library is that the-- if you will the intellectual culture of the school needs to be fixed. And what you, what you saw at the art fest quite frankly in some respects reflects the misplaced priorities of the institution in relationship to the students. I'll say it, I'll say it another way. Freshman arrive and the first thing they do the first week that they are on the campus they climb doing rock climbing and other kinds of crap. I'm sorry. You know and they're being oriented to Howard and the orientation is a whole bunch of damn play, huh. And what we've found-- I've had the conversation with the president and with some other folk about this. And so it's not-- I'm not talking out of school. And we hope to change that in some meaningful ways. But, the other piece is that the mission of the institution is teaching, learning and research. And that needs to be the dominant discourse that's going on on campus damn near 24/7. The way we're redoing the library is to facilitate that kind of intellectual discourse. And hoping to through that begin to change, serve as a kind of catalyst for changing the, if you will the intellectual culture of the institution. At the time when the kids were in the 60s and early 70s out beyond their classes they were intellectually engaged, okay, okay. >> Um huh. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: And that's where we need to return in order to you know recreate this kind of intellectual vitality that's purposeful intellectual activity rather than this kind of play stuff that's going on right now. >> Okay. One more question and-- oh I'm sorry. You had the question, next question. >> This is very refreshing. Angela and I we're contemporaries in the [inaudible] department. >> Um huh. >> I think I-- [ Inaudible background question ] >> When you pass the torch and then the person who you taught becomes the one who you have to be beholden to is great. Now, [inaudible] in terms of [inaudible]. You have a great legacy, but I'm wondering where that legacy went. I was taught better [inaudible]. I was taught by [inaudible] so was Angel. [ Inaudible background question ] But where is the legacy of intellectual curiosity? Where is the legacy of excellence? I was told once that these students pay a lot to take your class that they have to pass. I use to have to do three, four jobs just to pay for my schooling, because I didn't have the right [inaudible] to get a real job. [ Inaudible background question ] So, what I'm saying is we need to stop all that B you know what, because it's not [inaudible]. Okay, now let's go back. The [inaudible] research center, my students if they're studying Spanish they have to do a paper on something to do with the Afro-Hispanic writers or something. But, when I ask them how many people have to been to the Moorland Singnar Research Center they look at me like what's that? [ Inaudible audience comments ] Thank you guys. >> Sulayman Nyang: Thank you very much, because you see if you look at human beings and the money in which we have made progress we have to have legacies. We are prisoners of letters and numbers. The whole history of human beings is letters and numbers. We speak English that's why we alphabet. You can be Chinese, Arabic speaker, you have your letters. You see what she is saying and those people are gone, what they remember. Hansberry is gone, but he's still alive not only because of biological livelihood, because some of us still remember him as memories when he is speaking [inaudible] in African studies with a great intellect. We have Elliott Skinner who is at Columbia University, was a visiting professor at African studies then Leon Thomas [assumed spelling] one of the [inaudible] of the narrative movement, you see. So, there are great scholars at Howard, but what we are told about Hansberry, [inaudible], Rayford Logan and all of them that they are victims of circumstances beyond their control. You can have great intellect, but you don't have the funds supporting us. You see the greatest people in human history, if you look at Jesus Christ he was only 33 years old. There are now billions of human beings who are still remembering him. But, he couldn't have done it without those apostles and disciples. You can look at Mohammed, look at [inaudible] Buddha. Even more recently look at Gandhi and the Indian narrative today. You see you have to have people who [inaudible]. That's what she's saying to us. We're here, here now at Library of Congress. All of you in the room here, all of you with your modern technology what we are doing here each one of you can be blogging or tweeting and posing ideas to millions of people. That's the capabilities we have now. We didn't have that before. So, if I go back to her question in 68 those students at Howard changed history. Today we have a whole department of Afro-American studies and I support the idea. Why would you be studying black when you are an African American at Hampton? Actually what is very ironic in terms of our intellectual history you can find any African American studies program in the ABCU with an Afro-American studies program, none. >> That's right. >> Sulayman Nyang: None, they don't have an African studies program, none. What happened is those are captured in the history departments. >> Right. >> Sulayman Nyang: Left to some elements in the old order. There'll be no Afro-American studies. The kids say we are not going to accept that. We don't want to be colonized intellectually. That was why when we were students [inaudible] black skin, white mask was really popular with the kids. The problems she's asking now, do we have students today who are like them. When they were students they were reading books. Do we have books for these modern kids? These kids are now prisoners. I tell them-- I was just talking to this undergraduate. I said, "You are the prisoners of the electron." Once upon a time-- no because they don't talk to each other. How are you going to learn if you don't talk to one another? You see once upon time you're walking down the street and you're talking yourself man or woman say they say that guy's crazy. Now, they don't say anything. I tell them the line between insanity and sanity is very thin, because of the electron. And that's what she's complaining. You cannot organize if you don't talk to other people. You are next to me you're talking to somebody 500 miles away. You say hello, I'm wondering where you talk to me. I stop there until you understand our problem. We have to deal with it all at once. It's not me or all of us. >> Gregory E. Carr: But, I just want to add to that and say that I think when you know it's a question of how we construct the past again. I don't think Howard was ever that place. I think that we are at a different time to be sure. But-- and I mentioned the freshman seminar and I say this, because there a lot of hard working faculty in this room right now. When you see that bridge the reality is that there are a number of faculty departments all over Howard's campus that are doing that work. There are faculty that send their undergraduate students even more at Spingarn have never stopped doing that. And the Department of African studies we fought during the PCAR process, this is academic renewal to make sure that African studies kept its undergraduate program, because it's very important to have undergraduate and graduate students in close proximity. They were going to try to shut that program. We said hell no. You're not going to shut, because y'all understand what Howard is. Finally, there are a number of students. There are study groups that take place after five o'clock on my campus every night, [inaudible] society, Students Against Mass Incarceration, even the fraternities and sororities. The alphas had their three. I spent two hours with them last night with 100 kids in a room talking about Jim Crow and legal segregation from 1852 to present. They are doing it all the time. Often what I find is that folks who are the most critical of what's going on at Howard who are on Howard's campus are the ones with the least amount of contact with the students. It's very easy to launch criticism from an administrative conversation. What I find is that criticism evaporates in the heat of actually doing the work, which is why I say African studies as far as I'm concerned, the models of [foreign language spoken], the models of [foreign language spoken] the models of the faculty, the models of Bob Cummings. >> Yes, Bob Cummings, yes. >> And whose wife is still teaching by the way at Howard is a model of producing scholarship while they go meet their classes every day. And that is rarely done at schools where research is emphasized and they have very little contact with African-American, which is why all these Negro's writing about Africa and Afro-American Diaspora stuff I invite them to come here for lectures, because my first questions is do you teach. If it is no then just give me the book then. I don't need to hear you anymore, because see at Howard we work for a living. That's a very different conversation [inaudible comments]. >> Angel Batiste: At this point one last question, because you have been holding your hand up quite a while. And this will be our last question. >> My name is [inaudible] and I am a graduate student of the African studies. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you. Just my comment and question to Dr. Dodson. I do agree with you about Howard campus is colonized and I have an example of this. With my first year when I came to Howard I used to use Starbucks and I would sit there and study. And over the last year I noticed that since the beginning of this year there was so many pictures, hanging over the walls at Starbucks, Dr. King and [inaudible] Tutu and they are no longer there. >> Dr. Howard Dodson, Jr.: That's right. >> They are no longer there. And when I asked they were, they were saying people complained about taking them down. And then they did it. They are not taking them-- they're not putting them back. And this is one of the things I'm-- it's a nice addition. Can we in an attempt to decolonize our campus, acknowledge it's a tradition for Dr. Tom to acknowledge Leo Hansberry participation and his great contribution to the African Studies to name our-- [ Inaudible audience comments ] [ Applause ] >> Gregory E. Carr: Well let me-- those pictures came down in part that's one of the reasons why if you watched baseball at all last month and you say Magic Johnson sitting up in the-- you know the owner of the L.A. Dodgers. Magic Johnson sold all his stakes in Starbucks around the country in order to leverage the money to become a minority partner of the L.A. Dodgers. When he sold the Starbucks that's when the black pictures came down, yeah. I might as well let you know. But, that doesn't mean it can't go back up though. I think they should, yeah. That's very good, yeah. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: That's one of those examples of basically you defining yourself and your space. >> Yes. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: I mean basically if you're going to do business in here this is what has to be in here. It's a very-- you remember the Spike Lee film. >> Gregory E. Carr: That's right, "Do the Right Thing." >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: "Do the Right Thing." >> Gregory E. Carr: Burn us down. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: Same mess. It's not funny. I did want to say this, which is something that I've been kind of noodling with since I've been at Howard. There is a constant kind of almost reification of the notion of Howard's extraordinary legacy. And we do need to you know recognize that legacy. But, more important in my judgment is what do we do with the tradition? >> Um huh. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: And the two are not synonymous. >> Mmm. >> That's right. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: And the tradition piece is how do you, how do you live it and create it and promote it? The best of-- that comes out of that past, that comes out of that legacy how do you center that in the day to day life and work of the institution. And people in my judgment end up-- see claiming the legacy doesn't take very much. You claim the legacy and you say oh they were great, but what the hell are you going to be. >> That's right. >> Howard Dodson, Jr.: And what are you doing? And if what they did was so great why aren't we emulating it? And you emulate it by keeping that tradition of excellence and critical thinking and taking charge of black peoples' lives and all. You do it by practicing that. Not by simply holding up some pictures of people and saying oh he was great. And he was a great sociologist. That don't do it. I'll stop. >> Angel Batiste: Yes, thank you. Thank you. In closing once again I would like to thank all of the guest panelists. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Angel Batiste: The four individuals, when I asked the four individuals I was asking those professors who I knew could give me a real analysis of the intellectual tradition of African studies at Howard. So, we're very happy to document that and have that as part of our Africana collections here at the library. Additionally I would like to say particularly to the students who are in the audience, everything that you heard here today, the names that you heard, Leo Hansberry, Kelly Miller, we talked about the African Colonization Society. The papers of the African Colonization Society are here in the Library of Congress. And the entire journal of the colonization society, the African repository is here in the library. For the African section we are collecting volumes of data on Africa on a day to day basis. These collections need to be used. They need to be interpreted. There's tremendous research to do here at the Library of Congress as well as in the Moorland Spingarn collection. So, we invite you to take advantage of those collections. Thank you all for coming. [applause] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.