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NAACP newsletters, Fort Madison Branch, Fort Madison, Iowa, 1969
Page 005
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[Being transcribed by: McKenna Carson] -taken from, "The Black Challenge to Whites and Blacks", by C. Eric Lincoln Redbook - June 1969 ... "Social conflict can actually help a sciety (society) to evaluate itself, to redefine its goals and to modify its behavior. I believe it to be in the interest of our country that its black minority has learned finally to look to itself for its major strengths. People who value themselves and their kind, who find pride and reassurance in their own subculture, are more secure infinitely more stable than people who do not. To be black in the white-oriented is a phenomenal accomplishment. It requires a tremendous courage. But the dividends could be surprising. In this search for our own freedom and dignity, perhaps Blackamericans have uncovered for our country a rational exit from the embarrassing dilemma that is the constant reminder of this nation's adventure in human slavery. All of America could profit from the mood ebony, the black revolution. For a hundred years the country has spent its energies probing for a way out with an endless succession of unlikely programs and strategies. The programs were all wrong because none of the assumed the capacity of black people to be fully responsible. Blackamericans were encouraged in their dependency because their capacity for independence was never seriously considered. The black man's most degrading experience has been a succession of restricted "opportunities'" to prove himself to the white man's satisfaction. The moss ebony represents the black man's initiative to be himself. In a sense it turns the tables and asks the white man to "prove" his capacity to share America and live with diversity. Color should not make a difference but since it does, the obvious task is first to decide what kind of difference we can live with. If we permit it to make a difference at the polls or on the job, that is of a significantly different order from the difference it makes in how you wear your hair or who your heroes are. For longer than was good for anybody, Negroes addressed their efforts to the mystique of color rather than to the basic issues of human existence, which have nothing to do with color. It was commonly assumed (if not always said) that the white man ruled and prospered because he was white; so, it was reasoned, the Negro's salvation must lie in being "like white", a sort of ersatz Caucasian. Such a notion is repugnant to most contemporary Blackamericans as it must be to all but the most insecure and egomaniacal whites. A black pearl exists in its own right. Its value is in its genuiness - its integrity as a pearl - not color have something fundamental in common: they are both real. They both are stones. They both are precious. They have a common integrity of white men and black men. There is no magic whatever in being white. That is the first lesson. There is no magic whatever in being black. That is the rest of the book. Let the white establishment and the black revolution take due and respective notice."... Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, United Nations Undersecretary, on the trend towards greater polarization of the races in the U.S.: "This is unfortunate because the image of this country that this situation presents to the world is essentially an image of a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant nation with a minority of nonwhite subservient citizens." DO YOU KNOW? ? ? On May 18th 1863, the formal presentation of colors to the 54th Massachusetts Regiment was made by Governor John Andrews to Colonel Robert Gould Shaw in the presence of nearly 3,000 spectators. The "54th" was the first regiment of black men to be mustered into the army from a northern state and with official sanction. University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa Women's Archives
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[Being transcribed by: McKenna Carson] -taken from, "The Black Challenge to Whites and Blacks", by C. Eric Lincoln Redbook - June 1969 ... "Social conflict can actually help a sciety (society) to evaluate itself, to redefine its goals and to modify its behavior. I believe it to be in the interest of our country that its black minority has learned finally to look to itself for its major strengths. People who value themselves and their kind, who find pride and reassurance in their own subculture, are more secure infinitely more stable than people who do not. To be black in the white-oriented is a phenomenal accomplishment. It requires a tremendous courage. But the dividends could be surprising. In this search for our own freedom and dignity, perhaps Blackamericans have uncovered for our country a rational exit from the embarrassing dilemma that is the constant reminder of this nation's adventure in human slavery. All of America could profit from the mood ebony, the black revolution. For a hundred years the country has spent its energies probing for a way out with an endless succession of unlikely programs and strategies. The programs were all wrong because none of the assumed the capacity of black people to be fully responsible. Blackamericans were encouraged in their dependency because their capacity for independence was never seriously considered. The black man's most degrading experience has been a succession of restricted "opportunities'" to prove himself to the white man's satisfaction. The moss ebony represents the black man's initiative to be himself. In a sense it turns the tables and asks the white man to "prove" his capacity to share America and live with diversity. Color should not make a difference but since it does, the obvious task is first to decide what kind of difference we can live with. If we permit it to make a difference at the polls or on the job, that is of a significantly different order from the difference it makes in how you wear your hair or who your heroes are. For longer than was good for anybody, Negroes addressed their efforts to the mystique of color rather than to the basic issues of human existence, which have nothing to do with color. It was commonly assumed (if not always said) that the white man ruled and prospered because he was white; so, it was reasoned, the Negro's salvation must lie in being "like white", a sort of ersatz Caucasian. Such a notion is repugnant to most contemporary Blackamericans as it must be to all but the most insecure and egomaniacal whites. A black pearl exists in its own right. Its value is in its genuiness - its integrity as a pearl - not color have something fundamental in common: they are both real. They both are stones. They both are precious. They have a common integrity of white men and black men. There is no magic whatever in being white. That is the first lesson. There is no magic whatever in being black. That is the rest of the book. Let the white establishment and the black revolution take due and respective notice."... Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, United Nations Undersecretary, on the trend towards greater polarization of the races in the U.S.: "This is unfortunate because the image of this country that this situation presents to the world is essentially an image of a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant nation with a minority of nonwhite subservient citizens." DO YOU KNOW? ? ? On May 18th 1863, the formal presentation of colors to the 54th Massachusetts Regiment was made by Governor John Andrews to Colonel Robert Gould Shaw in the presence of nearly 3,000 spectators. The "54th" was the first regiment of black men to be mustered into the army from a northern state and with official sanction. University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa Women's Archives
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