Soulcatcher: And other stories

Начало книги

IN 1969, THE YEAR the first large lecture classes in Black Studies premiered at the Illinois college I attended, African American faculty were so scarce on campus that black graduate students from different fields volunteered to teach these courses, with undergraduates assisting them as leaders for small, weekly discussion groups. I was one of the latter. Reaching back, I recall cutting most of my own classes spring term in order to prepare for my discussion group by reading for eight hours a day John Hope Franklin's massive masterpiece, From Slavery to Freedom, and dozens of other texts (by black authors) on sociology, history, and literature. In the late 1960s, these works were no where to be found in the canon or curriculum at integrated colleges, secondary or elementary schools. In the universe of academia, they were "dark matter," invisible to the eye. And, yes, I was sometimes tempted to condemn the white teachers and professors I had had since the 1950s for not placing this history before me, but I realize now that they had not been taught this material — they never knew what they didn't know, and thus had nothing to transmit to the children of color who filled their classes when Brown v Board of Education went into effect after 1954 and who hungered for knowledge about themselves.

Читать дальше →