WEBVTT - The A Building: The Aftermath 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:08.400 Coming up on the A Building, HBCUs tended to focus 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:11.840 as much on moral uplifts. These schools were havens of 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.760 black political conservatism, even as there, of course was a 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:16.560 legacy of black radicalism. 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:19.040 And that was part of the reason that I got 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:22.759 expelled from school my junior year, because when we locked 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:24.440 up the board of trustees in that building. 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:36.479 Wait a minute, The A Building, Episode six, The Aftermath. 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:00.360 The Maroon Tiger is the official student newspaper Morehouse College, 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.640 an HBCU in Atlanta, Georgia. It has served as a 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:09.920 platform for student journalism, activism, and intellectual discourse for decades. 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:14.280 The publication dates back to the early twentieth century, evolving 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.640 over the years into a respected source of news, opinions, 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:21.039 and cultural commentary. It has played a key role in 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:25.040 shaping student perspectives on social justice, politics, and the black 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:29.400 experience in America. Many notable Morehouse alumni have contributed to 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:31.319 or been influenced by the paper. 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:35.480 Initially founded in eighteen ninety eight as The Athenium, the 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:39.679 publication served both Morehouse College and Spelman Seminary. By the 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:43.280 nineteen twenties, it was a joint venture edited by students 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:48.160 from both institutions. In nineteen twenty five, Morehouse students rebranded 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.920 the newspaper as The Maroon Tiger, focusing more closely on 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:56.200 the Moorhouse community. In nineteen forty seven, a young undergrad 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:58.680 Gate wrote a piece for The Maroon Tiger that would 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.240 go far beyond the walls Moorehouse College. The article was 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:08.000 called The Purpose of Education. The author Martin Luther King Jimior. 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.640 As I engage in the so called bull sessions around 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:15.120 and about the school, I too often find that most 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.440 college men have a misconception of the purpose of education. 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.799 Most of the brethren think that education should equip them 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.919 with the proper instruments of exploitation, so that they can 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:29.200 forever trample over the masses. Still others think that education 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.040 should furnish them with noble ends rather than means to 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:35.040 an end. It seems to me that education has a 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:37.880 twofold function to perform in the life of a man 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:42.160 and in society. One is utility and the other is culture. 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:46.360 Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve, 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:49.720 with increasing facility, the legitimate goals of his life. 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.720 Here, at only eighteen years old, doctor King speaks with 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:57.360 the wisdom of a man much older, he speaks about 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:01.560 the global advantage of education. He wanted Black Americas to 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.000 think about the college experience far beyond the benefits of 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:06.880 money or prestige. 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:11.440 Doctor King, even as a college freshman, understood the value 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:14.440 of knowledge. His article would continue. 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:19.560 Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:23.160 To think incisively and to think for oneself is very difficult. 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.000 We are prone to let our mental life become invaded 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:30.720 by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:34.240 I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.520 A great majority of the so called educated people do 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:41.920 not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:44.880 the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:49.000 give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:51.440 the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:54.880 the cheap aims of education. Education must enable one to 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.280 sift in weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.960 the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction. 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.600 The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:09.880 think intensively and to think critically. That education, which stops 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.320 with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.600 most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:18.320 but with no morals. 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.279 The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:25.200 reason but with no morals. We hear echoes of these 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.000 words in the letter from a Birmingham jail, and that 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:30.800 I have a dreamed speech at the March on Washington 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.800 just sixteen years later, Doctor King was speaking about the 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:40.119 power of education. Doctor King was a Morehouse man. Here's 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.679 more from doctor Lomax, president and CEO of the United 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:46.960 Ingo College Fund and former president of Dullard University. 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:52.479 I watched my grandson go from the sidelines of observer 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:57.240 in his early career at Morehouse to full embrace of 0:04:57.279 --> 0:04:59.520 the notion that he was on a journey to become 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:04.719 a more house man. And you know, when he had 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:08.520 that mantle placed on him, he was not going to 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.279 do anything, nor were his classmates going to do anything 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.720 to diminish the power and significance of that moment. One 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:17.640 of the things that I think is so powerful about 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:20.840 Black colleges is, yes, they are places where you get 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:24.760 certifications and credentials and you get a diploma, but what 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.640 you also do is you you begin to understand what 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:32.000 is your place in the world, and your place in 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.919 the world is in many ways defined by that institution 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.719 that is giving you those certifications and diplomas. So it's 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:43.520 a richer and fuller experience than I think some people 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:45.760 have who just think of college as a place where. 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:49.360 You get the approval that will get you a job someplace. 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:53.400 This is this is really education for life and for 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.640 how you live your life, and not just education for 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:57.160 a career. 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:00.960 However, after the locke in the punishments came down hard 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:04.599 and swift. Several students were expelled or placed on probation. 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.159 Many of the seniors who participated that day were not 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:12.840 allowed to participate in commencement ceremonies. The idea of resistance 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:16.240 that was so important to being a morehouseman was suddenly 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:18.480 weaponized against the students. 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:21.560 To be young, gifted, and black in the late sixties 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:25.640 carried a certain responsibility. If you were fortunate enough to 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:29.800 go to a school at Morehouse, expectations were high, and 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:34.240 the expectations were high from your family, The expectations were 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:38.760 high from your community. Therefore, the idea of using an 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:43.240 opportunity for resistance was downright and practical. So the irony 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:47.120 of receiving an education of resistance while being taught to 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:50.679 conform at the same time was truly at the heart 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:55.000 of this lock in. Two worlds, A generation and pedagogy 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:55.839 were colliding. 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:58.520 Leading up to the lock in in nineteen sixty eight, 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:03.320 the articles of the Maroon's Tiger grew angrier and more militant. 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:06.120 For lack of a better word, the student population was 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:08.760 frustrated with the middle of the world political stance of 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:11.720 Morehouse College. They want to be at the center of 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:15.720 the black intellectual landscape. This was the perfect opportunity for 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:20.400 morehousemen to step forward. They did so and were punished 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:20.840 for it. 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:25.800 King's words on education connecting multi generation on diaspora through 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:31.360 the Black experience in America. Education historically has been directly 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:36.960 connected to the most brutal forms of institutionalized racism. During slavery, 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:40.440 it was a capital offense for a slave to know 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:41.440 how to read. 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.880 The gift of reading was far too powerful for anyone 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:50.440 whose sole purpose was servitude. Abolitionist Frederick Douglas connected his 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:55.120 freedom to his mental liberation far before his physical liberation. 0:07:56.160 --> 0:08:00.680 Douglas writes in his groundbreaking autobiography narrative of the life 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:05.280 of Frederick Douglas, an American slave, written by himself. It 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:09.440 was critical for the publisher to highlight that Douglas wrote 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:14.000 the book himself, as most slave narratives were dictated to 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:15.080 white authors. 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:16.640 The more I. 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:19.679 Read, the more I was led to abhor and detest 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.480 my enslavers. I could regard them and no other life 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:25.160 than a band of successful robbers who left their homes 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:27.760 and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.560 and in a strange land, reduced us to slavery. I 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:34.200 loathed them as being the meanest as well as the 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:37.600 most wicked of men. That this very discontentment which Master 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.080 Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read, had 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:44.160 already come to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:47.000 As I writhed under it, I would at times feel 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:49.240 that learning to read had been a curse rather than 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.600 a blessing. It had given me a view of my 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.160 wretched condition without the remedy. It opened my eyes to 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:57.839 the horrible pit, but to no latter upon which to 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:01.360 get out. In moments of agony, I envied my fellow 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:05.800 slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.000 I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:11.680 own anything, no matter what, to get rid of thinking. 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:15.240 It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:17.880 There was no getting rid of it. It was pressed 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:21.240 upon me by every object within sight or hearing, animate 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.600 or inanimate. The silver trump of freedom had roused my 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:28.920 soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared to disappear no 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.600 more forever. It was heard in every sound and seen 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:34.320 in everything. It was ever present to torment me with 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:37.800 a sense of wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.680 I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.120 feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:49.599 every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm. 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.080 For Frederick Douglas, reading would provide him with the tools 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:57.200 to understand the true evil of slavery. An effective slave 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:01.760 has no critical thinking skills, no basis to understand the 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:06.040 depth of the evil. King starts on education echo this idea. 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:11.160 For racism to truly take an effective shape, the disenfranchised 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.800 must feel like they deserve it. These ideas were beaten 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:16.080 into American slaves. 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:23.000 Education is the first step in any resistance movement. Douglas continues, I. 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:25.720 Have often been utterly astonished since I came to the 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:28.240 North to find persons who could speak of singing among 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:32.480 slaves as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:36.280 impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:39.240 when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.720 represent the sorrows of his heart, and he is relieved 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.760 by them only as an aching heart is relieved by 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:49.960 its tears. At least, such as my experience, I have 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.520 often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:57.160 my happiness. Crying for joy and singing for joy were 0:10:57.200 --> 0:10:59.640 alike uncommon to me. While in the jaws of slavery, 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:02.360 the singing of a man cast away upon a desolate 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:05.480 island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.760 and happiness as the singing of a slave. The songs 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.559 of the one and of the other are prompted by 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:13.000 the same emotion. 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:21.880 Welcome back to the a building. 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:27.600 The oral tradition of education of blackness runs a generational 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:33.200 line of progress. This progress requires forward motion and history. 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:38.320 Lessons on inside the Actors Studio. Morehouse alum Samuel L. 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:41.719 Jackson talks about his educational path to Morehouse. 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:46.240 What high school did you go to? Riverside High? 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:48.640 It was a very nurturing kind of school. 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:50.880 We had minor violence. Where did you decide to go 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:53.760 to college? I ended up at Morehouse College. What was 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:54.280 your major? 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:56.839 I went to school as a marine biology major. 0:11:57.720 --> 0:11:59.360 And did you change your major? 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:05.480 I was taking a public speaking class and Mr Guthrie 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:08.040 or Doctor Guthrie, was doing a production of Three Penny 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:12.240 Opera and didn't have enough guys the audition, and he 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:17.240 offered us extra credit for doing the play. And I 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.880 went to the audition that night and they were doing 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:23.080 a photo session that night and all these girls sitting 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:28.600 around in like garter belts and and bustier's and I 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:30.800 was like, this is not gonna this is all right. 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:36.160 Yeah. During this conversation, he speaks about the disconnect between 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:39.079 the educated classes was in the black community in a 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:41.720 way that only Sam Jackson can well. 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:47.920 Morehouses sort of an elitist school in a way. The 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:50.079 first thing I did when I got there, as soon 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:52.200 as my mom dropped me off and left, I saw 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:54.120 a basketball court. When I was on my way down 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:56.840 to the campus. I actually went up the street and 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:59.520 used my fake ID. I bought a quarter beer. I 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:02.040 went over to the basketball court and I started playing 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.320 ball with these guys. And I played ball with him, 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:08.960 and I hung out with him and robbed Morehouse students 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:14.440 with him for about two semesters. And that was part 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:16.520 of the reason that I got expelled from school my 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:19.800 junior year, because when we locked up the board of 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:24.199 trustees in that building, wait a minute. 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:29.480 Like many African Americans with the opportunity to attend college, 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:34.800 Sam felt conflicted or perhaps isolated by the large institutional 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.480 walls of higher education. As a young man, he felt 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.360 more comfortable in the local barbershops than the Atlanta projects. 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:47.160 This was an easier transition than the educational expectations of Morehouse. 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:50.280 The tension can be traced to the growing educated class 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.400 in the black community and the enhanced poverty in urban 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:57.120 centers around the country. These cities would burn to the 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:00.360 ground after the death of Martin Luther King junior. We 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.600 would see similar unrest after the murder of George Floyd 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:04.880 in twenty twenty. 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.120 Before writing his best selling book How to Be an 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:13.280 Anti Racist Doctor, Ebram x Kindy spoke about campus activism 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:15.960 on black campuses in the nineteen sixties. 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.040 At historically white colleges before the Black Campus movement, practically 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.680 all of the professors, administrators, and staff were white. The 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:27.920 coursework covered Europeans and white Americans, and racist traditions were 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:32.680 innumerable across the nation. At black colleges or HBCUs, even 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:35.840 though practically all of the students were black, these schools 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:40.440 encouraged their students through their curricula, policies, and programs to 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:44.960 assimilate or accommodate to the politics, culture, and values of 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:48.880 white America. Until the nineteen twenties, most of the HBCU 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:52.800 presidents were white. Until the nineteen sixties, most of the 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:57.440 trustees at black colleges were white. Black cultural and political 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:02.160 nationalism was usually sunned and habitually dumped on the edges 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.960 of these campuses. They were rarely courses on the black experience. 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:10.280 As I stated earlier, the administrative paternalism toward the students 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:16.520 was overwhelming and intoxicating. Non academic rules were innumerable. Hpcus 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:20.360 tended to focus as much on moral uplifts due to 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:24.040 the perceived low moral acumen of blacks, as they did 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:29.200 on intellectual development. These schools were havens of black political conservatism, 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:32.840 even as there, of course was a legacy of black radicalism. 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.240 At the beginning of the twentieth century, WB the Boys, 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:41.040 the nation's leading black academic, called on college educlated blacks, 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:44.800 whom he called the talent attempt to lead Black America. 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:49.080 It was a daunting charge for people rising out of 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:51.960 one of the most politically and culturally conformist meleeus in 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.280 American society at the time. Before du Bois passed away 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:58.080 on the eve of the March from Washington in nineteen 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:02.480 sixty three, multiple decades of studying these college students had 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.720 caused him to note that they were simply only interested 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:09.880 in leading themselves. He said, and I quote, they proposed 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:12.560 to make money and spend it as they please. 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:17.520 This last comment is critical to this discussion. W. E. B. 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.120 Du Bois, whom may be considered to be the godfather 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:24.400 of Black American academics, was disappointed with the educated African 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.400 American class at the end of his life. In his mind, 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:30.280 they pursued education only for commerce. 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.920 We speak to professor of philosophy at Morehouse College, doctor 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:35.400 Elia Davis, just. 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.440 The year of nineteen sixty nine articles from the Maroon Tiger. 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:43.479 Their critiques, more often than not, are about the administration 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.800 and how they believe the administration to be culpable in 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:51.240 creating a certain type of morehouse graduate buying into the system, 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:53.680 quailing certain radical views. 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.000 And this is represented by a Gloucester Yes. 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:00.720 Because he's president. Yeah, he's president. Yeah, time he's president. 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:03.680 So in nineteen sixty nine is directly at him. He's 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.520 the president. And some deans, you know, dean of students 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:08.600 here and their academic dean they bring up every now 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:13.000 and again, but he's the administration. Article after article they're 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:16.080 constantly saying, like I told you before. One article, the 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.679 guy says, I don't know who I am. You know, 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:20.719 I wake him in the morning, I look in the mirror, 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.399 or he'll talk about his classes. He says, I go 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.840 to class. Some of these professors are so idealistic. They're 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:32.000 trying to make us idealistic, but they fail to understand 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:33.480 the radical nature of. 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:34.120 Being in the US. 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:36.720 They go on and on about being radical. You're not 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:41.440 radical enough. You're trying to make me complacent. YadA, YadA, YadA. 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:42.280 It's interesting. 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:44.720 At the end of the article, He then says, well, 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:46.720 I'm not trying to indict more House. It's still a 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:49.679 good education, but these other things are problematic. 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:55.280 This idea makes King's purpose of education article even more impactful. 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.520 Doctor King was no stranger to higher education. He was 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:03.840 a third generation Morehouse man. His father and grandfather had 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:08.439 both been educated on the legendary campus. Despite that, Doctor 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:12.800 King had a populous attitude towards education. He wanted the 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:17.640 space of HBCUs to nurture the minds of the educated class, 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:19.280 and not just the wallets. 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:23.240 These ideas came to a collision in the nineteen sixties at. 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:32.159 Morehouse Welcome Back to the A Building. 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:36.080 The primary tension between doctor King and Malcolm X was 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:39.560 based on class. Malcolm was also the son of a preacher, 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:42.800 but his father was murdered when he was a child 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:45.960 and his mother was committed to a state on mental institution. 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.240 He grew up on the streets and ended up in prison. 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.360 The Nation of Islam helped him try his life around. 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:56.919 He was an autodidactic student who read hundreds of books 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:00.680 behind bars. Once he left prison, he worked for the 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:04.800 Nation in grassroots recruitment efforts for young men on the streets. 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:05.480 Of Harlem. 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:09.280 By contrast, doctor King, also the son of a preacher, 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:13.080 was a gifted orator. An educated man, he grew up 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:16.720 in a stable home and family. His middle class values 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.119 were evident in his preaching and his approach to civil rights. 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.040 In a cruel irony, both men would end up giving 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:27.120 up their lives to the civil rights movement at thirty 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:28.040 nine years old. 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.399 For the lock in. The students wanted to find ways 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:35.680 to remove the arbitrary barriers of education. One Spelman educator 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.240 played a key role in the locke in at Morehouse. 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:42.600 He heard his name before, doctor Abdul Kalimat when our 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:45.080 research began. I saw a picture of him during the 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:48.119 locke in standing on a balcony holding a megaphone, and 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:51.040 I thought to myself, we have to speak to this man. 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:55.080 Here is social activist doctor Abdul Kalamat talking to Hans 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:58.000 and myself about his role as a negotiator between the 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:02.000 board and the students, along with Warmer Spellman, educator Ab Spellman. 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:07.080 I remember that Ab and I were in constant communication. 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.880 He was in the room as well, and tea boy 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:14.560 Arthur Ross, Diana Ross's brother was there. 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.240 Was he a student and more rest of the time. Okay, okay, 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:20.520 and was involved in the lock in. 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:25.400 Yeah, he was an activist, but he didn't he wasn't 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:29.159 really militant until he had visited a relative in I 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.320 think it was Birmingham. He had a confrontation and the 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:34.920 police knocked her down or something, but he came back 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:38.800 you know, black power, you know, that was on his lips. 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:45.040 There was this transformation. The board meeting was in Hardness Hall, 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:48.600 in this conference room, they were feeling very superior. Well, 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:50.920 what is it that you all have to say? And 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:54.399 that's when we started talking about our view that the 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:59.800 university should be consolidated as a university and developed, and 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:04.520 that the black community should have more assertive control over 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:07.480 what was happening there. So there were really two points. 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:10.720 The lack of empathy with what we were trying to do. 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:14.119 We were really feeling our energy, you know, and so 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:19.680 we were very assertive about our views. The Morehouse students 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:23.399 were gathering outside that moment, that picture that was in 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:26.720 Ebony I think or wherever it was. When I was 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:30.600 speaking to the Morehouse students that had gathered, basically the 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.359 orientation was they had to liberate their president. Marrill Merrill 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:37.679 Lynch was there, and of course we took that as 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:40.639 an opportunity to confront power, you know, and you know, 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:42.520 what right do you have to be here, you know 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:47.600 over us. We were confronting him with what we thought 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:52.320 was the alternative future, alternative beyond him, you know, and 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:55.159 that has, you know, its strengths and its weaknesses, and 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:59.560 it's gains and its losses. So there was a social 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:03.000 gathering of the sort of black middle class and I 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:06.800 was invited, and they had arranged at this social occasion 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:09.200 for me to have a sit down with Gloucester. 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:12.480 This is before or after the after after, okay. 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:15.399 So we sat down and had a conversation that was 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:20.280 closer to this understanding that what his position was, what 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:23.719 my position was, in a non confrontational way, and we 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:26.119 were both sitting down having a cocktail, you know, and 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:27.800 having a just sitting off to the side. 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:28.639 They had arranged it. 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:31.639 In other words, a black middle class had that double position. 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:33.919 On the one hand, they went along with power to 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:36.800 put them out, but at night they wanted to embrace 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:39.520 these young people and protect them. You fight your battles 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:42.400 under you know, the conditions that where you find yourself. 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:44.960 So did you find that to be a productive conversation 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:45.720 with Gloucester. 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:47.920 Yes, and I felt I could use it as evidence 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:52.639 against him. 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:53.960 Same lore, Same lore. 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:54.280 Yeah. 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:56.720 What do you mean by that, Well, I mean, in 0:22:56.760 --> 0:23:01.159 other words, the the the accommodation people were willing to 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:05.400 make for the reforms they could get was too high 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:07.840 a price that I was willing to pay at that moment. 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:10.440 It's a choice you have to make in the context 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:14.360 of the struggle. Yes, sir, because I mean, you look, 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:17.160 my biggest concern at this moment of the Palestinians, why 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:20.080 did they agree? Why did hamosen them agree with the 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:22.800 twenty point plan. Well, first of all, they didn't agree 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:25.240 with the twenty point plan. They agreed with the first 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:29.280 part of it. Why because genocide was happening. Yeah, just 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:31.239 like Black lives matter. I mean, how many times can 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:33.200 you just be in the street, you know, getting into 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:36.240 police's face. You better start talking to your mama and 0:23:36.280 --> 0:23:38.800 your grandmama, your auntie and the bus driver and who's 0:23:38.840 --> 0:23:41.199 ever delivering the mail, And you know, those are the 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:44.159 people that are going to make change. It's everybody. We 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:48.520 can't just act like young people or ideological people or 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:52.000 the political activists. We are the helpers. We are the 0:23:52.040 --> 0:23:55.000