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The Drum, Winter 1977-78

Editorial. Circulation and Advertising Offices
Located at 426 New Africa l-louse,
University of l\/lassacliusetts
Amfierst, Mass. 01003
1-413-545-0768

Address

All Letters

Poems, Contributions

To Tfie Above Address.

Copyrigtit by Drum, 426 New Africa House
Printing: Hamilton I. Newell, Inc., Amfierst, Mass.

Cover: All FESTAC Pictures by Nelson Stevens, Lagos, Nigeria, January 1977.

Life

Vincent K. Washington

/ have lived,

so I think.

And when I ponder over

the riddle, the mystery, the game

called life,

I can find no answers.

But is there really any question,

for when one asl<s

"What is life?"

"What is the meaning?"

"What is it all for?"
it is the same as saying

"A is A".
For it is the very nature of life
or existence

to be a puzzle without solution.
Therefore the answer to life
is not to be found in the asking,
but in the living.

Deryl Marrow

Sherwin Moyston

Kim Hill

LaVerne D. Mitchell

Mathew McDonald

Ellen M. Ryner

Catherine Adamson

Margarita Vargas

Sterling L. Rex Sharleen Dickinson Professor Nelson Stevens

Staff Information

DERYL MARROW— Communication Studies— Class of 1980
Pliotograpliy

SHERWIN MOYSTON—C.A.S.I.A.C, Class of 1980
Layout

KIM HILL— Juvenile Justice Major— Class of 1978
Marcus Garvey Poem and Article
Richard Pry or Article

KATHLEEN A. ROSE— Communication Disorders Major— Class of 1979
Typist
Interviewed Cfiester Davis on National Council for Black Studies

LA VERNE D. MITCHELL— Cultural Antfiropology— Class of 1978
Interviewed Dovi Afesi/Layout

MATHEW MCDONALD-
ELLEN M. RYNER—Mass Communication Studies Major— Class of 1980
Interviewed LaVerne D. MitchelllDistribution Staff

PATRICIA SMITH— Pre-Education— Class of 1980
Stenographer

STANLEY KELLY— Communication Studies— Class of 1980
Circulation

Interviewed Andrew Salkey
Submitter of a few poems by Zakina and Starship

ROBERT BURTON— C.A.S.I.A.C— Class of 1980
Interview with Michael Jackson

CATHERINE ROSE ADAMSON— Environmental Design Major— Class of 1980
Photography/Layout
Article on Yvonne John
Painting of "A Poem on South Africa"
Aspiring Artist

MARGARITA VARGAS— Fine Arts Major— Class of 1978— Painter, Sculptor
Articles on The Doors of CCEBS

Interview with Johnnetta Cole and Norma Alvarez on Cuba
On the Air— Collage
Art Editor, Layout Staff

STERLING L REX— Black Studies— 1978— Poetry

SHARLEEN DICKINSON— Editor, articles, poetry. Sharleen Dickinson has done free-lance writing for Black
World, Sunday Digest, New Letters and Renassence 11. She has also studied under Dudley Randall of Broad-
side Press, Detroit, Michigan. Ms. Dickinson received her B.A. in Literature from Kirkland College, 1974.

PROFESSOR NELSON STEVENS— W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies and Art Depart-
ment-Faculty Advisor and Consultant for Drum Magazine, 1977 and 1978.

Table of Contents

Page

1 Life by Vincent K. Wasttington

2 Staff Pictures

3 Staff Information

4 Table of Contents

5 Dedication

6 Drums in Perspective by Gary Owens and Kevin Jones

7 Dear Ratisaan by f^icfiael L Jacl(son

8 "Entrance to Gus Jones' Bar" by Bernice Robinson/Frank Thornton

9 Che Lumumba School by Jose Tolson
10 Michael Jackson by Robert Burton

13 "I Am A Black Woman" by Nelson Stevens

16 "Icons of the Sun" by Pam Friday/Margarita Vargas

18 In Memory of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Raw Sun Roll On by Bill Hasson

19 Rahsaan Roland Kirk photo by Edward Cohen

20 Andrew Salkey— Thoughts on the Third World by Stan Kelly

25 Marcus Garvey by Kim Florence Hill

26 Yvonne John and the West Indian Cooking Guyana by Cathy Adamson

28 Murals of CCEBS by Margarita Vargas

29 Mural in Shirley Graham DuBois Lounge by John Kendrick

30 Poetry Explanation by Sharleen Dickinson

31 The Sun is my Lover by Sharleen Dickinson

32 "F EST AC 77 Women" by Nelson Stevens"

33 Climatic Verse, Rising Verse by Sterling L. Rex, Jr.

34 Party by Zakina— Illustration of Archie Shepp by Jimi Pickett

35 Marcus Garvey by Kim Florence Hill

36 Harbour View, Managing by Andrew Salkey

37 Old Man and the Last Day of March by Sharleen Dickinson

38 Drawing of The Uncle: "Reg of Hollywood" by Frieda Jones

39 409 Edgecombe Avenue by Frieda Jones

40 A Poem on South Africa by Bradley V. Scott

41 "Impressions of South Africa" by Catherine Adamson

42 Feather by Vincent K. Washington

43 On Five Compositions of Roscoe Mitchell by Thulani

44 "F EST AC 77" by Nelson Stevens

45 Last Revolutionary Poem by Thulani

46 To the Sisters and Brothers who have Supported Me

Poster by Assata Shakur

47 Cuba Yesterday and Today by Margarita Vargas

48 Interview with Johnnetta Cole by Margarita Vargas
55 Interview with Norma Alvarez by Margaritz Vargas
57 iOiganme Grito Courage! by Margarita Vargas

59 Collage— On the Air by Margarita Vargas

60 "Springfield Girls Club Mural" by Nelson Stevens

61 Africa on Acorn Street by Sharleen Dickinson

63 The National Council for Black Studies by Kathy Rose

65 "Fertility Pattern Mural" by Donna Jones

68 "Hoo-Doo Bone Series" by Nelson Stevens

69 Book Review of Nikki Giovanni by Sharleen Dickinson

71 This Nigger's Crazy— Richard Pryor by Kim Florence Hill

72 Marion Brown photo by Edward Cohen

Photo by C. Adamson

Drums, beside the human voice, is the oldest in-
strument l<nown to man. The first drum was probably
a hollow log drum which when beaten would invoke
the spirits of nature.* In Africa the spirits of nature
have been communicated with, through the drum for
milleniums of time. The drum has evolved from an
accident of nature to becoming a major symbol of
life-force and rhythm in the world today. At the
vanguard of the African cultural experience is the
drum— in a variety of sizes, shapes, tones and
methods of construction and playing techniques.
The history of the drum begins with the trunks of
trees and progresses to non-animal and plant made
drums, and further to synthetic drums made to im-
itate natural ones.

In the western culture, two forces have met and
clashed: The African concept and the European con-
cept of rhythm. Today, in the western hemisphere,
are numerous examples of these divergent con-

drum is still developing its potential as a creative, ex-
pressive instrument and not merely a time-keeper.

The African style hand drum has many distinc-
tions from its European relative, most formidably its
capacity of being a constant practical force in the
community. In many areas of Black America and
Latin America the hand drum has an extremely high
social purpose. This makes the drum very accessible
to the people it sustains and that is reflected by the
familiarity the people have of many rhythmic pat-
terns. The real beauty in this drum comes from the
actual performance situation. There are usually two
or three rhythms occurring simultaneously and
played by drums of different sizes. These
polyrhythms make the drums speak melodically and
rhythmically. As in the European side drum, blacks
are currently the masters of hand drums (Mongo San-
tamaria, Mtume, Armando Peraza, Kenneth Nash,
etc.). The hands on the drums has a very ancient con-

Drums In Perspective

Gary Owens and Kevin Jones

cepts. For example, take the African style of hand
drum and the European style side drum on which
these rhythms are played.

Particularly the power of the drum is manifested in
the Americas and the Caribbean. The European style
side drum, from a deep military tradition, has im-
planted itself deeply into the music consciousness
of many cultures. (A side drum has two heads and is
hit with wooden sticks). The snare drum, tomtom,
bass drum, and the drum set are standard items in
many American rhythm sections. Black Americans in
the United States particularly excel in playing these
types of drums. Excepting a few styles, e.g. Euro-
pean Classical, Country-Western, etc., black drum-
mers have a consensus of "terribly bad dudes!"
(from Baby Dodds to William "Sonny" Greer to Ken-
ny Clarke and Max Roach to Philly Joe Jones to Elvin
Jones and Tony Williams). This dominance of the
field makes it obvious that the European style side

'The spirits of nature were phenomena that caused superstition
and respect from the peoples they naturaliy encountered. E.g.,
sun. moon, stars, lire, thunder, etc.

notation in Africa and the Americas. "Skin on Skin"
has at its base a very historical reality and it is hard
to discount the spiritual power of a hand drummer
and his drum. Most African style hand drums have a
variable physical link to that hollowed out tree trunk
from the beginning.

Hand drumming in the United States did not come
about until the 1940's when Afro-Cuban musicians
such as Chano Pozo began coming into the country
working for bands on the Broadway night club cir-
cuit. It wasn't until the 1960's when black americans
advocated the use of hand drums. The sixties being
a time of cultural awareness and struggle for black
people, instituted the use of African and Neo-African
percussive instruments (along with African dress
and religion) as symbols of ethnic cultural identity.

When it became socially acceptable for black
americans to play these Afro-Latin and African
oriented instruments they involved themselves with
R&B, rock, disco and funk bands. Since there were
very few accessible hand drum teachers, brothers
began learning on their own by ear. Thus, each
developed a style all their own.

The drum can be heard as the heartbeat of almost

e^jery kind of music played today. The drum serves a
different purpose in the different types of black
music; a disco drummer makes you dance, parade
drummers make you want to march and sometimes
shout and holler, a black classical ("jazz") drummer
brings about thought, some hand drummers play for
the sake of rituals and religion. Drums are the fun-
damental movers of music heard all over the world.

These percussive instruments have a certain sen-
suality which attracts immediate response from the
listener. It's not just the drums themselves which
have such a magnetic attraction, but the African,
Afro-Latin and Afro-American people who contain a
certain force that makes the drum a symbol of life,
vitality and spirituality.

Dear Rahsaan,

Yours is a legend that has not been hailed enough. Yours was an uncommon adventure. I onl\; hope we can somehow
hue up to the ideals you preached about while using the wind to create time and space . . .

. . . We remember how \;ou pla{;ed three saxophones at once . . . and after \;our stroke [^ou came back to blow those notes
again . . . to platj those songs again . . . i^ou know, those songs that make \^ou feel like things are better.

You blew,

You chanted,

You waved {jour arms

and Lui/d/y ranted.

You documented the trails

of others . . . Trane,

Prez, Duke, and all the rest.

You pla\;ed the tunes for them . . .
For Charlie Parker and Lee Morgan . . .

. . . and Jimi Hendrix, the interstellar brother of the 'six-stringed laser', he learned to search for the notes and songs that would
make time stand still while he parachuted in the voodoo skies. He a/ujays studied from the Book of Rahsaan 'Roll-On' Kirk.

Your impact was much broader than you realized. The time you spent with us was . . . and the time you now have is . . .
and the time that has passed since others made the trek before you was . . . Your spirit shall remain with us forever. We shall
not forget. We shall not relent . . . "Blackness" and "Saltpeanuts" . . . and "Bright Moments".

. . . The Youngblood shall be exposed . . .
. . . The Youngblood shall be transposed . . .
into disciples of the next world . . .
the world that includes and never excludes.

Michael L. Jackson

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CHE LUMUMBA SCHOOL

. . . And always there are the children

THIS GENERATION, ESPECIALLY OF OUR PEO-
PLE, HAS A BURDEN, MORE SO THAN ANY OTHER
TIME IN HISTORY. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING
THA T WE CAN LEARN TO DO TOD A Y IS THINK FOR
OURSELVES.

Malcolm X

The Che Lumumba School is located in the New
Africa House of the University of Massachusetts. It
is situated on the fourth floor, with five rooms. It was
founded in 1972 by a group of students disen-
chanted with the public schools of Amherst as well
as with the effects of these schools on their
children. These students had been involved in major
political struggles in the University as well as out-
side of it. Since all the original people were
'teachers' our only recourse to the problem of Public
Education, as it related to third world children, was
the development of the Che Lumumba School.

Public education in the valley has reached an
amazing level of sophistication. With the use of
teaching machines, open classrooms, audio-visual
paraphernalia and social-psychological processes,
the business of education races forward. However,
as in all races, there are the winners and the losers.
In this case, as in many others, the losers happen to
be that great number who seem always to be in the
minority.

Minority. That vast pool of people who never seem
to quite make it, who cannot hold a job and who
everyone points to when welfare costs go up or ur-
ban conditions go down. Those minorities. People of
color who have no future, no present and had no
past. Those people whose ancestors, rescued from
their native land and were fortunate enough to sur-
vive a leisurely cruise across the Atlantic came to a
new world of milk, honey and cotton plantations. We
minorities who send our children to school only to
have them lose more and more of their identity.

Public education races on, never looking to either
side, into the future. Never seeing the racism, the
sexism, the class division, genocide or any of the
horrors which have become the backbone of this

country's greatness. Never acknowledging the
presence of civilization before the cross and the gun.
An almost total loss of history, a subsequent loss of
identity.

The School for Truth is an independent school
designed to effect an independent lifestyle for Third
World people — i.e. self-determination. The School
recognizes the objective condition of Third World
people in the World, that being politically factional-
ized, economically dependent, and socially victim-
ized. Similarly, the School realizes that American
education is part and parcel of the same system that
oppresses Third World people. The indications of in-
adequacy of American education are apparent in the
textbooks, inferior facilities, poor teaching, etc.,
while the indication of failure is most evident in the
few number of Third World people who possess the
skills, talents and values that are needed by our com-
munities to relieve us of our oppressed condition.
The intent for the creation of the School for Truth is
to focus upon an area where we can have maximum
effectiveness in reversing this situation — Third
World education. The School for Truth has defined
education in terms of the learning styles of our peo-
ple and what Third World peoples believe the aims
and ultimate goals of education must be. It is an
education for Third World interests designed to give
Third World children the knowledge, skills, and
values conducive to developing a commitment to the
liberation of Africans, Latins and Asians everywhere.

When the Che Lumumba School opened six years
ago, it was with one child and an idea. The child's

(Continued on page 1 7)

CCEBS

Interview with Michael JaCkSOPI by Robert Burton

Dr. Jackson, what is your position and iv/iat are
your duties in the CCEBS Dept?

My official position is Executive Director of the
Committee for the Collegiate Education of Black
Students. My duties entail the supervising of the ad-
ministrative functions of the program including:
supervising a staff of about sixteen full and half time
people and about fifty tutors and guiding these staff
members so that they can help approximately 550
students to achieve academic success at the Univer-
sity. So that involves a lot of different kinds of
things. It includes being aware of different kinds of
programs that are established on this campus and to
make sure that our students are aware of them and
take advantage of them; it includes being aware of
political situations on campus to make sure that our
students are not unfairly treated and are able to take
full advantage of academic resources and the dif-
ferent professors on campus. My duties also include
nominally supervising the Financial Aid portion of
the program. I work with Art Jackson in the Financial
Aid Office to make sure that our students get their
fair share of financial aid and my duties also include
working with Muriel Wiggins in the Admissions Of-
fice to insure that we get a full complement of
students each year — to make sure that we get
students who have the potential to succeed here at
the University. Basically, those are my duties.

When, why and by whom was the program estab-
lished?

CCEBS was formally established in 1968; it had its
initial beginning in 1966 when a group of faculty,
staff, and students got together and decided that
there wasn't enough minority representation on
campus, especially since this was the largest public
institution of higher education in the state and at
that time it was thought that there were only about

forty minority students on this campus, and that
there were more at a place like the University of
Alabama than there were here at the University. So,
they formulated what is now commonly called
CCEBS and decided that what they would do was
establish a program that would be designed to
recruit, financially support and academically support
minority and low income students who wouldn't
necessarily get into other institutions of higher
education. They came together at that time under
the leadership of Randolph Bromery and a few other
people to design and implement a program.

Who makes up the CCEBS staff?

The staff is comprised of 8 full-time professionals
and eight half-time graduate students and about 50
tutors. The CCEBS staff used to be comprised of
primarily half time people but it was decided over
time and based upon experience that what the pro-
gram really needed was as much of a full time staff
as possible. So, since Carol Brooks and I have been
directly involved with the program we've moved from
having primarily part-time staff to primarily full-time
staff. You'll find that we have people who have either
their Bachelor's or Master's degrees in Education,
Psychology or in another related field. The staff
primarily consists of people who have had ex-
perience in counseling undergraduate students who
need academic support and who need guidance in
making decisions about school.

What types of students does the CCEBS program
cater to?

Well, the program is designed to work primarily
with students who wouldn't necessarily get into

other institutions of iiigtier education, as I men-
tioned before. So we fiave a number of students wfio
fiave gone to higfi scfiooi wliere tfiey really haven't
received the kind of attention that they really needed
but we've brought them here because we recognize
that they have the potential to succeed in college
and we've set up a system for them to worl< through
that will help them to academically achieve. We also
have a good group of academically stronger stu-
dents. We have some students who really don't need
that much help but who need more exposure to, I
think, minority concerns or the concerns of black
and third world people; the concerns of Asian peo-
ple. So we have students on both ends of the spec-
trum. We have students who are academically
prepared and we have students who are not
necessarily academically prepared but we try to
bring those two groups together and hope that
they'll influence each other very positively.

Are transfer students eligible for membership
in the program?

Yes. We have a number of transfer students this
year. This year we received our largest group of in-
coming transfer students and that's about 35. They
come from community colleges throughout the
Commonwealth and some from four-year institu-
tions. We'll be getting a large number of those stu-
dents especially with the rising costs of tuition
around the state and with the lowering of the number
of credits needed to apply. I think that a lot of these
students are finding that they can get more for their
money here at the University than they can at a lot of
other private institutions in the state.

What criteria is used in deciding the first year
student's acceptance into the CCEBS program?

Well, we look at some basic kinds of things; we
look at the student's high school grades and how
well the student does on the scholastic aptitude test
(the SAT), we look at recommendations from their
counselors, from their teachers or possibly from
civic leaders who may be their reverend or their
pastor or someone that they've worked with at a
special program like Education Opportunity Pro-
grams or Upward Bound— that kind of thing; and we
look at whether a student has been involved in extra-
curricular activities like the publication of a
newspaper or the publication of a year book or in-
volved in the various clubs that you find at high
schools. What we're looking for is students who

Michael Jackson

have tried to have some rather well-rounded ex-
periences while they're in high school. We also look
at whether or not they've had part time jobs. I think
that you'll find that a lot of our students, because of
the financial background of their families, had to
work while they were in school and that has probably
prevented them from being able to give all the time
necessary to doing a really good job in high school.
So we, in essence, take all these ingredients and we
try to come up with the composite picture of what
the student will be able to do once he/she comes to
the University. In some cases we interview the stu-
dent. Sometimes we get student profiles that we're
not really sure of after we review them on paper so
we invite the candidate to visit and talk with us so
that we can get a better feel for what they might be
able to do. We look at all of those things and try to
come up with a guideline or an indication of suc-
cess. We're looking for people who want to be suc-
cessful and that's really the major thing.

In what way would the Supreme Court decision
in favor of Baifke affect programs like CCEBS all
over the country?

That's a hard question to answer. I would say— I
can only answer in terms of the situation here at the
University and it's somewhat different than it would
be at a lot of other campuses because of the fact
that we do have a large number of minority students
on campus. If you look at the percentages and how
we fare in terms of the larger population on campus,
we're still small in number but, if you look at the
minority and some majority faculty and ad-
ministrators on campus and the kind of commitment
that they have demonstrated over the last few years I
doubt if a negative decision in the Bakke case will
have a totally detrimental effect on the CCEBS pro-
gram. I think there is commitment on this campus to
have a program like CCEBS that can bring realistic
numbers of black, hi span ic, asian, native americans
and low-income students on this campus. I think you
will find that we are committed to that and if you real-
ly analyze the Bakke case you'll find that when the
majority of the California Supreme Court initially
decided the case they said that they were in agree-
ment with programs like CCEBS. They felt that it was
fine to have programs like CCEBS as long as they
didn't "reverse discriminate" against other groups,
and I think that if you just take that as a face value
statement, you'll find that CCEBS doesn't do that.
We have white students in our program who are full-
fledged members and who take advantage of our
resources. But, no matter what happens, we will
carry on and we will be very forceful in making sure
that our students get served on this campus and that
they are able to take advantage of its resources
because this is something that's very necessary and
very vital.

What academic services are provided to the
students?

CCEBS is designed to provide academic services
in several areas. They basically include academic ad-
vising where we sit down with students and we help
them design their courses of study, select their ma-
jors, and figure out what teachers are the best
teachers for them to work with based upon how they
best learn. That is, some students are better in small
classes as opposed to large classes and we try to
help them figure that out. We provide tutorial sup-
port for students in any classes that they feel
necessary — unlimited tutorial support. We have

academic advisers who will sit down with the
students and help them work through any kinds of
problems that they're having in their classes. They
help them figure out a calendar of how their time
should be spent on campus. That's something that's
very important and something that we're very con-
cerned about. How do students monitor their time,
how can you be able to take advantage of the social
aspects of this campus as well as the academic
aspects. That's something the academic advisors
are very involved in. We also provide a study hall
which is housed in the Shirley Graham DuBois Study
Lounge and that's basically designed to give the
students a quiet place for study. We have a library
that we purchased books for; basically these are
books that are used in the primary courses, we have
books for core courses and some supplemental
courses. What we're trying to do there is give
students the opportunity to stretch their dollars for
buying books. They can buy some books and they
can come and use the books in our library and that
gives them the opportunity to be in New Africa
House a little bit more. This also gives them the op-
portunity to come and use the library and then be
able to walk into their advisor's office and ask ques-
tions on a more informal basis. They can also meet
with their tutors there. There's a lot of different
things that the academic service component pro-
vides. We work with CASIAC, we work with the
Registrar's Office to make sure that the students'
records are kept up-to-date. Briefly, that's it. We also
provide personal counseling and graduate school
and career development advising.

What is the general attitude of these students
towards the CCEBS Program?

You'll find student attitudes on several different
spectrums. I think you'll find some students who are
positive about the program who take advantage of it.
I think you'll find some students who aren't totally
aware of the services that the program provides and
there are various reasons for that. Students have to
get busy quickly; that would certainly be the case for
some of the transfer students or some of the first
year students who haven't had as much involvement
with us as those students who have been on campus
for a number of semesters. I think there are a number
of students who are somewhat negative about the
program and there are various reasons why. I think
(maybe I'm biased because I'm Director of the pro-
gram) but I think a lot of it has to do with either misin-
formation or lack of information. I think some

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students aren't really sure about what they want to
do with themselves so they don't really know how to
take advantage of services that the program offers.
I'm not trying to make excuses for them, but I think
that there are some students who, if they do have
some negative feelings about the program, it might
be because they haven't come to challenge us and
say, "Look I need some help, can you help me?" I
think that if you interviewed the students who we
have helped, you'll find that they are pretty positive
about us. I think those students who we really
haven't had a chance to get our hands on so that we
can ask what is it that they need, and what is it that
we can help them do, might be negative about the
program. There are some students who are in
academic jeopardy and they tend to be the ones who
we are in the closest contact with and some of them
are positive about it and negative at the same time. I
think they feel that they're growing up now and they
don't want to have a surrogate family here on cam-
pus but that's what we tend to try to want to do with
students. So I think the viewpoint the students have
about us is very broad. It can be negative, positive, in
between, it depends upon how well they're doing
sometimes, that kind of thing.

but the University of l\/lassachusetts has treated
them fairly well or has been able to, at least, provide
them with enough resources to take advantage of
and feel pretty prepared when they get out. I think
that there are a number of other students who have
come through CCEBS who haven't necessarily gone
on to law school or to different graduate schools or
to high paying jobs but I think that they've found that
their experience here has opened their eyes to the
point that they now realize how prepared they have
to be to be able to get out of life what they want to
get out of it. I would think that CCEBS is doing a
pretty good job of motivating students. But I also
know that we have much farther to go. I think that by
having more full time staff (this is the first year that
we will have had so many full time staff members)
we will be able to motivate students much more suc-
cessfully because we'll be working with them in a
more in-depth way than they've been worked with in
the past when we were relying on graduate students
and half-time people who were concerned with the
program but at the same time they were concerned
with getting their own business straight. I think
we've been pretty successful in the past and we'll be
pretty successful in the future.

According to the CCEBS students (past and
present academic achievement) how successful
has the program been in inspiring and motivating
them?

That's a good question. CCEBS has been very suc-
cessful. If you look at its record over the past ten
years, you'll find that we've graduated over 600
students, we're graduating students at a per cent
rate that is a little bit better than the University rate.
We've had students who have gone into different
kinds of professional fields. We've had students who
have gone into Engineering, Medicine, Law . . .
students who have gone on to earn toasters and
Ph.D.'s; students who have gone directly to profes-
sional business and other professional fields, like
dentistry; students who have gone into journalism,
that kind of thing. We have students who are now
principals of schools. I think you'll find that CCEBS,
by in large, has done very well. We, just a couple of
years ago, had to do a survey for the Provost's Of-
fice. In it we found that CCEBS, as I said before, is
the oldest academic support program for minority
students in New England and was the largest, the
most stable, in terms of staff, budget and financial
aid. So I think, if you talk to some of the alumni who
are off doing things, you'll find that not only CCEBS

What kinds of services are provided by CCEBS in
assisting the student's social adjustment in a pri-
marily white educational institution?

Well, that's something that CCEBS isn't totally
responsible for but something that we work on.
We're primarily an academic support service but you
cannot totally divorce that from the social aspects of
this campus. If students don't feel comfortable
socially and they can't relax, then they have a hard
time concentrating on their studies. We tend to work
hand-in-hand with the Afro-American Studies Depart-
ment, the Black Cultural Center, the (Malcolm X
Center, the Third World Affairs Office, and the
various programs our students have designed
themselves: the Black Scientist Society, Afro-Am
Society, Black l\/lass Communications Project,
Ahora, Asian Students Association, that kind of
thing. What we try to do is work with them to
sometimes co-sponsor events. We try to do in-depth
counseling with students to try to determine if they
are having problems adjusting to campus life. That's
a very important problem but that's something that's
very difficult to do. You don't want to totally engulf
the student with CCEBS. We want the students to be
independent of us and yet work with us at the same
time because we want them to get prepared for what

is ahead of them four years from now. That's kind of
tough, but like I said, it's something that we're not
totally responsible for but we primarily work with the
other groups that foster this.

What services does the CCEBS program provide
for its graduates in terms of graduate studies and
placement?

Well, we have a new component which is called
the Career Development Component and that com-
ponent is designed to not only provide information
on graduate schools and professional schools for
our undergraduate students but it also is there to
serve our alumni who come back, who are looking for
jobs, who are looking for information about different
kinds of opportunities that are available. Initially,
what we've found is that most of our alumni are able
to situate themselves. That is, they've been able to
go out and find their own jobs; they've been able to
make their applications on their own or they've been
able to make applications to professional schools in
conjunction with our academic advisors. This com-
ponent does keep information on all the graduate
schools in the country and all the different kinds of
organizations that are established to work with
minority and low-income students. We keep informa-
tion on financial aid, on fellowship opportunities
that are available for graduate school. This compo-
nent does a pretty good job of that but it's only been
in operation for a year and a half now. We'll see
where it goes from here. I think that its primary con-
cern will be to give exposure to our undergraduate
students and to help them develop and concep-
tualize what life is about after four years of
undergraduate school. So, it's really a career and life
development component for the students who are on
campus now and to help those students who come
back for help.

What are the CCEBS financial aid services pros-
pects for the future?

In terms of financial aid, our students can look for-
ward to getting their financial aid to maximum of
what their financial aid statement indicates. Primari-
ly, that includes the need expressed on the parent
confidential statement or your student financial aid
statement. Financial Aid has been able to provide a
combination of work/study, grants and low-interest
loans to our students so that they're able to meet
their minimum needs on campus. It looks very
positive in the future and I don't see any slackening
of support there as long as students get their forms
in on time and academically achieve.

What outside criticism has the CCEBS program
been the recipient of?

Well, I would say that initially CCEBS probably
received (I've only been here for the past couple of
years so I can only speak in terms of that and what
I've heard about the past) the kind of criticism that
would indicate that the program did not follow
through with students, sometimes there would not
be enough opportunity for students to get a chance
to know the staff and to learn about them so that
they can feel more comfortable with them. I think
we've been criticized for being too academically
oriented in the past and I think that's been because
people didn't really know that our mandate and our
function was— and still is— to help foster academic
achievement on campus. I think that CCEBS re-
ceived some criticism about its ability to motivate
students, but then again, I think that's also a func-
tion of the fact that CCEBS has really been inventing
the wheel on this campus in terms of how do you go
about providing academic support for students who
are in real need of academic support. It's pretty easy
to provide academic support for students who you
know are very well prepared, who have the ability to
be able to negotiate a system like the University of
Massachusetts by themselves. But, CCEBS has
been developing as well as operating the program at
the same time. That's been kind of hard and that's
really been because in the past the program has had
to go out and search for funds to run itself each year;
has had to operate the program with a half time staff;
and I think those criticisms were justified but I think
that now CCEBS has improved a great deal and has
made a lot of strides so that you don't find a lot of
those criticisms any more; given the fact that we do
have professional people who are interested in work-
ing with the students on a full time basis. So I think
you find a lot of those criticisms have pretty much
subsided, but that's not to say that we can't improve.
I think that we can.

As the Director of CCEBS, what (in your opinion)
is the future of the program? Where would you like
to see the program go and do?

I think the future is very bright. I think that we have
proven over the past few years, that you can make a
program like this very successful. I think our
students have proven that they can come here and
with a little extra help achieve as well as any other
student on this campus. I think that what I would like
to see CCEBS do is become an academy within the

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University. By this I mean ttiat i would like our
students to come through here and get very rigorous
training and get exposed to professors who can im-
part knowledge and really help them learn. I want
them to work with professors who can really stretch
them, and by stretch I mean really push them to try
to learn something they've never learned before and
to take risks academically. I think that I would like to
see CCEBS expand and be able to get more
students. Right now we have about 550 and I would
like to see us have about 650 to 700 students. I would
like to see CCEBS become more involved in helping
other institutions around New England tighten up
their programs and figure out strategies for them to
become more institutionalized. So I think that if you
look at CCEBS, if you look at the different people
that are supporting us, our Board of Directors with
Dean Darity, Fred Tillis, Fred Preston, Dovi Afesi,
Bob Suzuki, Julia Fata, Chester Davis, to name just a
few, I think you'll find that we have a good mix of
people behind the program as well as out front. We
have a lot of people behind us who are on the line
really trying to make the program reflect our motto of
"Excellence Through Involvement". You've got peo-
ple in Financial Aid; you've got Arthur Jackson, Ber-
nadine Edwards; you've got Muriel Wiggins in Ad-
missions; and Bob Daniels and Janice Wertz in the
Dean of Students' office; Jimm Simmons over in the
Student Development Center. There are a number of
people around campus that we work with that really
make this program what it is and they're going to be
here, hopefully, for a while. We've got a good group
of young students; they help to give us a very good
reputation, so we've got a good foundation to build
on. I think that the program will be very successful in
the future as long as we work at it and don't get com-
placent about what we've done in the past. We must
remain concerned about the future. If we do this,
we'll be okay.

Do you foresee a time when the CCEBS program
will not be needed?

Based upon the past history of this campus— no. I
think we'll always need a program like CCEBS to
keep people honest. You need a program like CCEBS
to give the kind of student that we're looking for the
kind of attention that they need. If we're committed
to getting students who wouldn't necessarily get in-
to other schools, but at the same time we feel that
we can bring them here and work with them, then I
think we will need a program like CCEBS here at the
University.

(Continued from page 9)

name was John, the idea was to preserve and
enhance his identity as a Third World child. As more
parents and children came into the school we
developed a philosophy of education which is the
foundation of the school today.

With our opening, many problems beset the Che
Lumumba school. Certification, space and funding
became priorities. As one obstacle was overcome,
another arose. The first year saw many long hours
with few rewards, but the dedication to our original
idea became the impetus which helped us to survive.

In the following years we expanded our staff and
enrollment as well as conceptualizing our idea of
theory and practice. Our curriculum also reflected
our ideas on education by incorporating the political
community, locally and nationally, into the
children's studies. It was our feeling then, as it is
now, that in order to survive we had to work with and
in the community around us. Thus developed a non-
sectarian relationship with political organizations in
Western tvlassachusetts, as well as other parts of the
country. Further, local and national radical leaders
have visited the children of Che Lumumba.

Political prisoner h/lartin Sostre, Big Black from At-
tica, Puerto Rican historian Loida Figueroa, and
Native American Yvonne Wanrow to name a few.

The identity of a race of people can be traced
through its culture; music, dance and poetry, all the
arts play a part in who we are and where we come
from. We feel that the children should be able to
relate to and identify with other cultures. It is for this
reason that the school places such emphasis on
sponsoring cultural activities. Not for the school
alone but for the greater community as well since
oppressive reality must be overcome with a new
reality of personal depth and international solidarity.

So we speak of identity and culture, but what does
this mean? First, these are not theoretical concepts
with no base in reality, nor are they words which we
speak of in idle talk. The search for identity occupied
an entire generation of people who had all of the
benefits that this country could offer The identity
crisis of the 60's is still fresh in our minds.

The Che Lumumba School is in existence so that
our children will know their history and live their
lives with a sense of that history, of pride, of
strength and of power

Jose Tolson

Che Lumumba School

New Africa House

UMass

Amherst, Mass. 01003

IN MEMORY OF RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK

RAW SUN ROLL ON

Prelude/Birth
Split glint miss stick in an unhollowed voice
Waiting for a date with time
He blew dust into soul sources
He was primitive paint
Leaf dye
A foot print
Bark mold
Dried blood
A holla
Holla bones
Be up front
Being all un-before notes

Chorus

The hawk is snow tears of strength

In an inverted triangle of thought

Chanting a date with festival, mystery and delight

He was chemist

Masl< maker

Galactic linguist

Family architect

Foetus struggler

Papyrus paddler

Reed guide

Homager

Coda
A voice unhollowed in time hollers
At the glint of a blown date in time

Resolve

Kirk, Kirklo, Kirkemble, Kirkette, Kirkestra

In a borderless island chain

Intoning celestial dreams, and the rest is dreams

He was terminal funk

Nebula crust

Monongehela healer

Infinite kin

Kindling finity

Ethno-nasalogist

Arch naturicitist

Blues guerilla

Space villager

Flash juba stomp swing strut cuss

And glide through creation

Bill Hasson
1977

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Rahsaan Roland Kirk by Edward Cohen

ANDREW SALKEY:

THOUGHTS
ON THE THIRD WORLD

by Stanley Kelley

Biographical Note

Professor Andrew Sa//cey was born of Jamaican
parents in Colon, Panama, in 1928. He was educated
at St. George's College and Munro College in
Jamaica, and at London University in England, where
he lived for twenty-four years.

He started teaching poetry and fiction at Hamp-
shire College in September 1976. Professor Salkey
takes a great interest in creative writing, generally,
and gives poetry readings and talks throughout the
Five College Area. He is a friend to all his students
whether they are white, black or Third World. He is
very close to Third World people in the Valley and at
Hampshire College where he actively participates in
the events of their campus association.

He enjoys teaching very much at Hampshire, and
says that he is picking up a lot of new learning ex-
periences from the students there whom he finds af-
fectionate and supportive.

Andrew's writing is addressed to all Third World
people. He writes clearly and sincerely because of
the example of their struggles. He takes writing
seriously and everything else he does, both educa-
tionally and politically, and considers these ac-
tivities in-puts into the continuing struggles of Third
World people. He has affirmed that he could never
be anywhere as near an anchored poet and novelist
as he tries to be, if he were not linked into Third
World concerns. He stresses the fact that a profound
anchorage of some sort is usually essential to the
serious pursuit of most human activity. He strongly
believes that it's up to all of us to search for and find
the anchorage that best suits our personality, ex-
perience and work.

Andrew has written five novels, eight children's
books, two volumes of poetry, one short story collec-
tion, and two non-fiction works. He has also edited
seven anthologies of Caribbean writing. His most re-
cent publications are Writing in Cuba since the

Revolution, an anthology of poetry, short stories
and essays, and Come Home, Malcolm Heartland, a

novel, which depicts life among the black revolu-
tionaries and intellectuals in London.

SK: Where is your original home?
AS: I was born in Colon, Panama, in 1928, but
Jamaica is home. Both my parents were Jamaican,
but, yes, I was born in Panama, near the end of the
boom-town years.

SK: I have heard of your deep interest in folklore.
What is the folklore like in Jamaica?
AS: Well, for one thing Jamaica has a very
vigorous folklore tradition, and practice. There is an
African, a West African basis to our culture. A strong
one, in fact. It's there in the way we speak English; in
the way we look at the world; in our songs, in our folk
stories. Our great folk story is the tale of A nancy,
half man, half spider. I seriously consider the Anancy
story to be Jamaica's first piece of literature,
Jamaica's primary oral literature. The whole idea of
the folk for me is the strength of our culture in
Jamaica and throughout our Caribbean. Some
misguided people rather like claiming that the
cultural vanguard in Jamaica is the middle class. I
claim no such thing. That's nonsense. Our folk,
which is peasant class, working class, is really our
people; I mean that that's the bulk of Jamaica,
Jamaica's true strength.

SK: What's your attitude to the political struggle
in Jamaica?

AS: In the 1930's, during the colonial struggle,
there was a definitive struggle against the British, an
anti-colonial struggle, clearly so. Today, we have a
very hard-edged confrontation against imperialism,
right across the spectrum of imperialism and its
myriad manifestations, against the way it sucks your
economy, your creativity as a people, your life's

SK: What's your attitude to the struggle in South
Africa?

AS: I can tell you that I am overjoyed, even though
I might be considered a cautious optimist about
nearly all the struggles throughout the Third World. I,
like a lot of my own contemporaries, always felt very,
very depressed about black liberation in South
Africa. When will it break through? Will it ever break
through? I am passionately interested in the lessons
that black South African politics and the liberation
movement can teach and guide us by, almost day by
day. My attitude is very positive, yes. I would use the
word happy; I really feel happy about the
breakthrough on the part of our black people in
South Africa. The most remarkable thing about that
breakthrough, and I haven't heard many people,
either in Britain or the United States, talk about this,
is the fact that it was the very young, really young
people, who broke through, at home in South Africa,

Andrew Salkey

blood, your wealth, and the way it leaves you dry and
hopelessly dependent as a client state. Today, there
is a government that is struggling, attempting to be a
socialist government and facing overwhelming, fear-
ful odds, at home and abroad; in fact, it's an experi-
ment in democratic socialism, unsure of itself, and
up against powerful opposition; it is still half-and-
half. It isn't socialism, just yet. It's a government that
is blocked in by terrible contradictions, a govern-
ment that is still a custodian of foreign and local
oligarchic capital, and yet it is a government that is
trying desperately to protect the larger interests of
the bulk of the nation. I am deeply interested in
what's going on back home; I am also interested,
very, very deeply interested, indeed, in the fact that
the working class is taking a greater interest in
government than it has ever taken before; and that,
to me, is extremely heartening, and also threatening
to the status quo. I like that!

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Stanley Kelley

at home, mind you, all elementary and secondary
school children, not college students or intellec-
tuals, or even the working class; it was the school
kids who broke this overwhelming silence; it was
and is their revolt and their power of revolution, en-
tirely theirs. I am so overjoyed about this, I tingle
with great expectations every time I think about it. I
am excited, and I think we will win. I am sure we will
win.

SK: When did you start teaching at Hampshire
College, and how do you feel about it, now?
AS: I started teaching, if teaching is the right
word, poetry and fiction, at Hampshire College, in
September 1976. At first, I really thought I would
have had a few Third World people in my classes.
Nobody told me this, but I just sort of hoped that that
would be so. Well, it turned out not to be so, largely
because our own Third World people are very busy in
other spheres, in other academic Schools, at Hamp-
shire. What I have managed to do, though, is to be a
friend of virtually all Third World and black students,
here, on campus, and off campus. I frankly think that
that's far better than merely being their class
teacher. By the way, I'm strongly inclined as an anti-
teacher teacher. I really can't stand teachers who are
willful teachers and teachers only. I'm sure that my
anti-teacher position makes it easy for me to keep on
learning and keep on keeping on in the world of my
students. Of course, I miss the Third World represen-
tation in my two Workshops. Mind you, they show
me their work, even though it's not within a course or
within a class. I like that. I see the poetry of a very
small number of black students, here. I am very
close to them, without intruding, and I belong to
their campus association which is also mine, actual-
ly. How do I like teaching, now, after a year in the
job? The short answer to that is: I'm learning a great
deal. This isn't a fancy way of a middle-aged person
saying that he's learning from the young. I really
mean to be sincere. I'm picking up a lot of things that
I didn't know before, about human relations, about
the pain and disillusionment of the young, about
cracked dreams at that level of development, about a
very small part of life in the United States. This coun-
try is brand new to me. I like the unconscious use of
the word "brand", there. Yes, you must remember
that I'm a Jamaican who has spent twenty-four to
twenty-five years away from home, and twenty-four
of them in England. So, culturally, I am at a distance
from the United States, but I'm not at a distance
culturally from a man such as yourself, because
you're black and we do share a common pain in be-
ing black. I couldn't be removed from you; I'm a part
of your whole thing, your world. With regard to the

population of this College, I am a bit of a stranger to
some of the wealthy, white students and their
cultural overview within the United States and
capitalism, and that takes a little bit of getting used
to, you know. There's a pushy exterior and a pie crust
of impoliteness and even arrogance that one meets
almost daily. I no longer meet it, though; some peo-
ple have heard that I won't put up with that kind of
nonsense. But I am learning a great deal; I am learn-
ing about, for instance, the reliance most American
students have on teachers. I didn't realize how
dependent most of you were, in that respect. Very
teacher and course dependent! Not much self-
reliance about! Not much, at all! There's something
in the United States, some sort of atavistic edict or
other, that seems to say that you need teachers for
every damn thing. Where I think you should be stan-
ding on your own two feet, I catch you leaning hard
on a teacher who must entertain you, at all cost.
Where I come from, in Jamaica, we had excellent
teachers, if I may say so, but we also believed in
fishing for ourselves in deep waters; we taught
ourselves by taking in massive doses of reading,
listening and exploring on our own. We had to find
out lots of things for ourselves. Some of us were very
independent intellectually at a very early age, and we
learned every difficult thing the hard way, and many
times without bothering to consult the teacher. But
over here, if a poem is to be written, the average
student-writer wants to chat about "the process"
before he or she writes the poem, and after the poem
is written, the poet wants feedback, almost im-
mediately, as though the life of the poem depended
on that, exclusively. I find that very bothersome and
tedious. At least, I found it so, at first, simply
because I myself as a kind of writer had and still have
no real recourse to that sort of thing, nor do I think it
wholly desirable for my own sense of initiative and
self-reliance. I was a little more independent than
some of my Hampshire writers and friends in the
Valley, I suspect. I really loved finding out things
behind my teacher's back; I loved finding out things
on my own, meaning that I would read and read and
read a lot of books. I notice that many of my students
are not much for reading, or self-improvement
through reading on their own. They're not good long-
distance readers and not good long-distance
information-gatherers. f[/lost of my students come to
me with fairly empty high school bags, which, I know
I have to top up, however best I can, and all in one
short unreal semester. I suppose I'm trying to give
them what little I picked up along the way, at home
and in England. I'm giving back to my writers in the
Workshops all the bits and pieces I picked up along

the way, in my time, as a poet, novelist and so on,
and as a student myself. I picked up a great deal
from sources other than the teacher and the
classroom. A tough way, but a very rewarding one,
the business of helping yourself! Now, this is bound
to sound startlingly eccentric, but instead of
students leaning so pathetically on teachers for
feed-back, self-regard props and other spurious aids,
I would like them to start making teachers run after
them for their inventiveness and self-reliance
genius, especially at a place like Hampshire. It can
be done. But quite large numbers of bright students
deny their native intelligence, inventiveness and
self-reliance genius by chasing after teachers as
feed-back props. At times, I wonder if it isn't an exer-
cise in vanity and bucking egotism on the part of one
or two students. Just a thought, yes! But, you see,
students, on the whole, insist on making doubtful
gurus of their teachers. I don't like that. I fight it,
nearly every day. Indeed, teachers hold quite an in-
tellectual and creative hegemony over some of their
students, which I deplore. I mean, just as a person,
myself, I deplore that state of affairs; really and truly
I do. Yet, are those teachers wholly to be blamed,
d'you think? I certainly think not. I fancy, though,
that not a few of the High School teachers should
take the heavier part of the blame, and also those
families who by favourable and fortunate cir-
cumstances are blameworthy.
SK: What is the relationship between poets and
the political struggle in Jamaica?
AS: In the 1930's, all of us saw quite clearly that
the poet was not an outsider to the political struggle,
simply because he or she was a citizen, first of all.
We have a marvellous gift of beautiful poetry from
those poets in the Thirties. They gave us back quite
clear and profound images of what our struggle
against the British was like. In fact, there was a very
vigorous kind of political and artistic fusion surroun-
ding the poets and painters in Jamaica, at that time.
They wrote and painted as they lived, socially and
politically. I consider politics a human activity in the
same way I consider writing a poem a human activi-
ty. The artist is not a stranger to political struggle,
especially if the artist also happens to be poor and
living in a society up for grabs by large economic
forces. That speaks directly to the artist, I think, and
it is bound to find its way into his or her creative
work, somehow, however implicit, however fully
stated. Wherever there's exercise or show of power,
for good or for ill, the truly creative artist is sensitive
to it, as citizen and as artist. And power and relation-
ships of power are always outside one's front door,
somehow.

SK: What are the differences between contem-
porary modern African poets and traditional African
poets, and how has the poetic tradition changed?
AS: My reading and my London conversations
with many African writers, people like Chinua
Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Cyprian Ekwensi, have led
me to believe that the traditional African poet saw
himself or herself as part of the spiritual and total
civilizational basis of African culture. You see, the
first African poets were not speakers of words.
Sometimes they were remarkable drummers and
their drumming was their poetry and the drum-skin
the source-words of their poems; and sometimes a
singer and a dancer made their poems out of the
movement of their limbs. I would guess that routine,
rhythm and ritual were, for a very long time, the tradi-
tional African poet's materials. The gods were never
up in the sky somewhere but down on and in the
ground, aiding and abetting the production of poetry,
from time to time; and, by the way, African gods are
always at man-level, woman-level, not supremely
removed, faraway in the sky. In short, the traditional
poets always saw themselves as a part of the prac-
tice of religion in African society. Contemporary
modern African poets have going for them the
printed word. They also have the microphone and the
radio. They have lecture halls and auditoriums,
where they stand and read their poems. Now, I have a
very funny view of this, especially about the printed
word; I believe that modern African poets might not
be so very popular as the traditional poets, because
the modern poets have moved slightly away from a
mass audience. First of all, in order to get to the
poem on the page, to Chinua' s, Wole's, mine, on the
page, you have to know how to read, so automatical-
ly that bars the so-called "illiterate" African lover of
poetry; whereas the song or the drum or the
religious-poetic festival didn't, in the sound-shape of
poetry. Then, of course, quite a lot of modern African
poets are writing in English; and that's another has-
sle for the poetry-lover who hasn't got English. Yes,
the printed page has been a bit of a bastard. It bars
the transmission someone like Chinua cherishes.
The drum music didn't, in the shape and sound of
the drums. You could pick this up; you didn't need to
be educated and literate, according to some other
set of rules. I have no doubt that as soon as you put
your poems in book form, you put a distance bet-
ween yourself as a poet and the rest of your non-
reading people. There are very, very many of us who
are disadvantaged, because we have been on the im-
mediate receiving-end of imperialist policies,
because we have been ruthlessly exploited for cen-
turies; I would like you to read "Letter from a Con-

tract Worker", a political love poem by Antonio
Jacinto, an excoriating indictment of Portuguese im-
perial rule in Africa, which tells us about African il-
literacy and its seed-bed, imperialism. You see, com-
ing back to your question, just a small elite can cope
with the books, pamphlets, broadsides and so on.
So, I imagine that the modern poets aren't getting
their poems as far and wide as say the traditional
poets, who were able to get their work right across
the country. Of course, because it's now in book
form and in English and in translation, too, a great
number of outsiders and a lot of students and
teachers and critics are picking up on African poetry,
where they didn't before. When the poet was ex-
clusively a religious person, a drummer, a dancer,
poetry was rather locked inside Africa, then. But
there's a sad irony about it all. It is very curious that
as soon as poetry hit the books, it hit the outside
world. Now, very many people know the work of
African poets, yet it is very interesting that the book
has taken the poetry far outside Africa and not nearly
far enough inside Africa. I am looking to African
education to put that right.

SK: How are your poems, novels, non-fiction and
your anthologies associated with the liberation of
black people and Third World people?
AS: If there weren't a struggle, struggles for
liberation, I don't think I could begin to be the sort of
poet I want to be, to tell you the truth. I'd be some
other kind of poet whom I might not want to be. So,
what I'm saying in a sort of back-handed way is that I
am attempting to write in a certain way because
there is this struggle, this widespread struggle in our
time. I have the chance of becoming a poet of a cer-
tain kind of seriousness because there is this enor-
mously serious struggle going on in our world. Yes, I
consider everything I do as an in-put into the strug-
gle. I take writing seriously, and it is an intensely
painful process for me, incidentally; I find it extreme-
ly difficult to do, and often I just give up and wait and
wait and wait for the right words to come with the
right dream hovering over them. When I tell some of
my Hampshire College writers how difficult I find
writing, they smile as if to say, "Ah, he's putting us
on!" If only they knew! At times, I dislike the whole
business of writing, and want to chuck it for good.
So, it's true to say that I'm attempting to take writing
seriously: I believe it is a part of the struggle, and not
only In our Caribbean or in our Africa, including Afro-
America, but throughout the Third World. It anchors
me nicely. Moreover, I would not want to be that
other kind of poet: the rather private, personal,
hermetic, introverted, aimless, pretty wordsmithing
poet. The struggle does give you anchorage. You

know you've got to make up your mind; you've got to
extend one commitment two ways: your love of
poetry and its demands, which are struggle enough, I
can tell you, and your sheer humanity to liberation
struggle; and then you've got to say to yourself, "I
want to write as clearly and sincerely and poetically
as I possibly can, because of the struggle. " Please, I
want you to know that I'm only hitting and missing in
my own work, at the moment. I'm nowhere near
where I'd like to be. I'm doing it my way, and it's
tough. I live with a mountain of failed poems.
SK: If there are a hundred men and women like
you with your commitment, what changes would you
foresee?

AS: Let's say that we could humanly estimate the
energy that has gone into the momentous social and
political changes in my own lifetime; just one of
those changes would call for the energy of millions
of people. The changes in my life have been pretty
large, yes. Now, there are things I no longer want.
There are things I no longer dream about. There are
certain things no longer necessary for me, no longer
necessary to make me function as a man and as a
writer, no longer necessary to make me hold on and
see the night through to morning. Other things have
become very essential, crucially essential, like the
meaning of my writing, for instance. The view I now
have of my writing is not the same view I had of it
when I first started out, years ago. I now think, quite
honestly, that my writing belongs to others and that
what I write is the patrimony of others to come, the
possession by right of others. I can't imagine a
substantial change, coming back to your question,
with only a hundred people doing it my way. We
would need more than just a hundred; we would
need a vast number. Let's forget me. I know I'm not
really ready in any significant way, in any way to be a
model or anything like that. Let's, instead, talk about
all of us as models. Well, we would have to get
turned on by an educational system that would try to
turn out new men and women in the hundreds of
thousands, and then in the millions. And you know
what we're talking about when we say that? Right!
We need a great agent of change, a massive social
change from the roots over, an up-ending that would
really convert that hundred into millions. I think what
we feed ourselves with educationally, politically, will
determine who we are, later on. Education is
seepage. The same for the politics of change. We
will need millions of new men and women, much bet-
ter prepared than me, differently educated, different-
ly turned on, differently disposed in ego and dream
and intention, to make the revolution and to secure it
meaningfully.

MARCUS GARVEY

By Kim Hill

Marcus Garvey's day of Triumph was imposed by
an intolerable reality. Right before the startled eyes
of thousands of spectators, a mighty new black na-
tion was unfolding itself marching down Lenox
Avenue in Harlem. The line of the march seemed
endless and meant the emerging of a new world
spirit.

Who was behind it? Marcus Garvey the leader, the
creator. He was not a man to hide his light under a
bushel. Never one to give an advantage, or let the at-
tention of his audience wander. Garvey followed up
this master stroke with a series of dazzling moves
that changed the tone and texture of race relations in
America. Garveyism meant black militancy and was
only calling for the liberation of Africa and the migra-
tion of some African-Americans.

Marcus Garvey was a man of great determination.
He wanted to know where the Black man's govern-
ment is? Where is his king and his kingdom? Where
is his President, his ambassador? Without wasting
any time, his brain was afire with the possibility of
writing all the Black peoples of the world into one
great body to establish a country and a government
absolutely their own.

He formed and organized the Universal Negro Im-
provement Association (UNIA), an organization
designed to establish a Universal confraternity
among the race. Racial tension had reached the
crisis point in Black America and Harlem. A lot of
people were migrating to the North from the South
and the West Indies. These migrants brought new

hopes and new fears, and they were threatened by
new forces.

The first great war to make the world safe for
democracy had disillusioned and radicalized black
soldiers and large segments of the black population.
There was, at the same time, a sharp white backlash
in the white community, which was demoralized by
the war and terrified by the new forces unleashed by
the war One result of all this was a nationwide
resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. Another was the
development of a national mood of nativism and
racism. From the time of Garvey's arrival to his
movement of triumph, America was wracked by a ris-
ing tide of lynching, racial confrontations and riots.
This gave more energy to Garvey's goal.

Garvey told his story wherever he could find a
listener He preached a new doctrine of black
regeneration and black renaissance to anyone who
could listen. Garvey was contemptuous of tradi-
tional black organization. He insisted that other
blacks accept their skin color and their destiny. He
believed that "Black" was not only beautiful but
redemptive. Believing so, he gave a positive value to
everything black and tried to give his listeners a new
sense of their potentialities.

As a result, the organization he formed was more
than an organization. It was a revival, a way of life. It
had life in it and thus, it united the black race, there
was a flag, red (for the blood shed by the race), black
(for the color of the race), and green (for the land of
the race).

YVONNE JOHN

and the WEST INDIAN COOKING

OF GUYANA

by Catherine Adamson

As a part of Guyanan culture, children are taught
to cook at about age five. By the time a child reaches
eight or nine years old, cooking is like second
nature. So it was with Yvonne John. She has very
much liked to cook since the age of eight. At age
twelve, she helped her father with the business he
owned, and by the time she reached fifteen she
could manage it.

After finishing high school she took Home
Economics courses and began exploring and writing
recipes. After marriage, she and her husband catered
together, Yvonne doing all the cooking. Folks en-
joyed the food which is mainly fresh vegetables,
chicken and fish. Because her philosophy on food is
"the fresher, the healthier," she uses no canned
foods (beef and pork are also generally eliminated).

She attended a technical college in Los Angeles,
while catering in Santa Maria Boulevard as well as in

Beverly Hills. She then came to the Pioneer Valley.
Her first jobs were in the Campus Center. She went
on to set up a non-profit organization in New Africa
House at U. Mass. She became well known in the
area. Because people liked the West Indian food so
much more than the American food, she cooks only
in the West Indian style.

Shortly thereafter, some (white) wonan in the
Valley heard that she was a "famous cook" and of-
fered her two dollars a recipe for two hundred
recipes. After having talked this over with a number
of friends, she realized how potentially exploitative
this offer was. This incident was one of the major
motivating factors in Yvonne's decision to write a
cook book of her own. Also, since her graduation
from high school, she has collected numerous
recipes and kept them on file, having the desire to
expose American black people to Guyanan food.

Yvonne John by Edward Cohen
26

One of the book's goals would be to display the
economical and exotic elements of Guyanan cook-
ing.

Next we talked about the educational system in
Guyana. She prefers the Guyanan over the U.S.
system. One difference is that in Guyana children
start school once they are able to talk, whereas in
the United States a child must wait until he or she is
at least five years old. As a result, one may graduate
from high school as young as fourteen. Yvonne
believes there is too much emphasis on sports in
education here, whereas in Guyana, the concentra-
tion is on the education and sports are on the side.

Yvonne asserts that there is no real racial tension
in Guyana, although a few years back. Prime Minister
Chedy Chagan agitated racial tensions between the
East Indians (i.e., Portuguese, Chinese, Aborigine)
and the Blacks. The Indians were led to believe that
they were better than the Blacks. At present, with
Prime Minister Burnham, there is peace and unity.

Everyone has their own culture, but all denomina-
tions participate equally.

She noted that people in Guyana are in general
much friendlier than those in the United States.
Much to her discouragement, while visiting in
Springfield, she encountered a few exemplary in-
cidents. Passing another black woman on the street
she asked, "Excuse me, sister, can you tell me
where the Office of Discrimination is?" The woman
turned and caustically replied, "I ain't your g..d...
sister; you have an accent!"

For a while she was hurt and disappointed with
American black people and could not relate to their
separatism. But while going to school at the Univer-
sity of Massachusetts, Amherst, she discovered a
different and better attitude. The people seem more
receptive and open to her, "although there are a few
bad ones in between," she says. So for now the
Pioneer Valley is blessed with having Yvonne John
and her fine West Indian cooking.

Photo by Edward Cohen
27

THE MURALS OF CCEBS

By Margarita Vargas

During the summer of 1977, three student artists
were commissioned by CCEBS to express their ar-
tistic views on walls and doors of the New Africa
House at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst.
Nelson Stevens, professor of Art and Afro-American
studies at the University directed the students'
labor

CCEBS is the Committee for the Collegiate Educa-
tion of Black Students. CCEBS offices and student
facilities are located on the second floor of the New
Africa House.

There, at the New Africa House, Puerto Rican stu-
dent Margarita Vargus painted murals on seven of-
fice doors including those of the career library and
the Upward Bound project. These door paintings
vary in content, style and use of color. The colors
brighten up the halls and atmosphere of this working
office area.

For the benefit of all, CCEBS also has a large room
which is a comfortable study lounge, library, and a
place where small meetings are held. In this room,
two 8' by 10' murals were painted each by John
Kendrick and Frank Thornton. Both artists are
graduate students graduating in 1978. John is from
New York and Frank, from Washington, D.C.

Frank Thornton's mural is an underwater scene. A
symbol of life. The amoeba is centered among
various schools of fish, swimming about the depths
of the sea. The combination of tropical warm colors,
cool colors and overlapping shapes give an at-
mosphere of both tranquility and gaiety.

John Kendrick's painting expresses the "spiritual
development and aspirations of man and woman."

The figures sway in rhythmic motion across the sur-
face of the wall. The colors used are basically cool
purples, blues and greyed tonations. Both murals are
done in an overlapping technique. This adds more in-
terest and depth to the walls.

With these murals, the lounge and the hall attract
the students and others to feel more comfortable in
the New Africa House.

The CCEBS program funded the project, paid the
students on an hourly wage during six weeks, and
bought the materials. Its director, Michael Jackson,
was interested in refurbishing the building through
use of cultural works of art related to the students'
cultural heritage. He was successful and very
pleased with the results.

Margarita Vargas was again employed to paint
three more office doors during the fall semester
Some other artists also received three credits as an
independent study through the University's Art
Department.

During the past three summers professor Nelson
Stevens directed Mural Programs in Springfield,
Massachusetts. A total of 29 murals have been
painted by various student artists of U.Mass. and
Nelson Stevens, himself. These murals are gifts for
the people and stand as monuments of part of the
progressive mural movement of the 70's.

As student artists, we are looking forward to the
organization and approval of federal funds for the
Summer Mural Program of 1978. This will enable us
to continue to educate our people through cultural
gifts, by means of our artistic expressions, and serve
as an incentive for the communities.

DD
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POETRY EXPLANATION

by Sharleen Dickinson

To bring truth where there are half
truths. To make peace where there is
turmoil. To give beauty where there is
nothirig but ugliness.

As a writer, each individual has the
opportunity as well as the obligation
to look at life the way he or she
wishes to see it.

A journalist is dominated by some
restrictions. The journalist tells the
news. He or she delivers facts and
through the development of their own
expertise, the journalist may be able
to slip in his or her personal state-
ment. But their primary job is to relate
the event as it is.

The creative writer, specifically the
poet, is obligated to follow the
demands of self expression. The poet
takes his or her feelings about a
situation and expresses them on
paper to suit themselves. In the pro-
cess of this written self expression,
those of us who read the finished
work may be able to relate to the feel-
ings expressed but the factor that
keeps the writer apart from the reader
is that he or she has interpreted their
feelings in a way that is truly their

own and then, had nerve enough to
put those feelings on paper.

The factor that makes the poet uni-
que is that he or she tells the com-
plete story with a minimum amount
of words. He or she presents a mental
picture and leaves much of the inter-
pretation to the reader or the listener.
The poet's message is in two parts:
his or her message comes in what is
said and the rest comes in what is not
said, just, perhaps, implied.

Poetry is comparable to looking at
a photograph in the negative and see-
ing just as much or more as when you
look at the same picture in the
positive.

Poetry is the laughter down the
hall. Poetry is a scream of despera-
tion. Poetry is the secret you hide
reluctantly from the rest of us. Poetry
is the self contentment when you
have no secrets to hide.

Finally, poetry is what is written by
a poet. And a poet is a man, woman or
child. A poetess is similar to the
unicorn: a part of some one's im-
agination, but nothing you or I will
ever get to meet.

THE SUN IS MY LOVER

Silentl\;, with amber touch

He rouses me from sleep.

The very warmth of his nearness

gently eases me awake.

Anxiously, I throw back the sheets

and beckon Him to share with me

the last of the fleeing night.

Sensuously, He stretches himself

before me,

and smiles that dazzling smile.

Such a restless and demanding partner.

How the growing morning brilliance

becomes Him.

Luxuriating in the glowing radiance,

I am sure His hue will last.

by Sharleen Dickinson

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RISING VERSE

an egg

hatching from

a sinner's womb

learning to function

educational tasks

in a pressurized time span

to delay me from questioning <

the need to die in man's world of words

without ever seeking GOD's universe . .

Graduates by Edward Cohen

CLIMATIC VERSE

yes

I said i loved you

i said we would be as one

but time made us like oil and water

close but always separate

so did i love you?

by Sterling Rex

PARTY

Surrounded by cool black breezes

thru silent playgrounds

But yet contained within artificial

dim light and air hot and heavy

Heavy tho not still

1 hear-steady hum and babble of voices

I see many colors; yellow, tan, beige,

brown, and black

But yet all one color, one people

It seems the place will burst

flinging laughter and loud music

into the cool black breeze.

Fire, Life, Blood, Heritage all contained

Feel of excitement, of elegance, of friends

A feel of innerjoy, I belong

Feel of sadness over all my people

Feel of indignation angry energy

Feel of weariness for all the struggle

one color, one people all contained.

by Zakina

"Archie Shepp" by jimi pickett

MARCUS GARVEY

Harlem was used to spectacles

Harlem was used to dreams and dreamers.

Harlem had seen everything, and heard

everything.

What was the meaning of this?
Who was behind it?
Who was this man?

Marcus Garvey —

One of the dreamers.

One of the shooting stars that streak across

the Harlem sky from tune to time.

Marcus Garvey —

The one never to give up an advantage

and courage.

It meant black pride, black power and black

self-reliance.

To some men then, and to some men today,

it meant ''Back to Africa. "

Talk was cheap,

Substance and shadow were so inextricably

intertwined.

Marcus Garvey

A man with a destiny to the Promised Land,
Left behind a legacy of exploded hopes and
mammoth accomplishments.

by Kim Hill

Marc Fairfax Stevens by Edward Cohen

MANAGING

A woman with manacles on her hands!
Turned away, like an untouchable,
in the market, wrenched wide for profit,
humiliated, where it burned, like despair,
nightmare loss after nightmare loss,
she counted the knots in the ribbon
of the years of happiness she had had,
when her dreams were young and hers
and spread out round her on the ground,
clusters of hand-cupped roses in her care.

And then, she walked out, alone,
into the blaze of the backyard sun,
pretending, as she stumbled along,
that, in fact, she had left the dark room
and all the skewering hurt behind:
her small daily triumph, her ritual
of get-up-and-leave-regret-to-history,
for yet another night, yet another year;
her own lonely way of lasting out,
her only way into the sun, her way.

Light and shadow, surely rituals change?
Shadows don't persist. They, too, disperse.
Rituals change. They usually do. They will.

by Andrew Salkey

HARBOUR VIEW

If he kills himself, suddenly, tomorrow,
by hanging her land on the north claw,
she and her children will be left alone,
pincering deep into the wise, open sea.

If he kicks over the philosophy of waste,
and opens all the broad harbour windows,
she and her children will look at the land
and the sea, clearly, as their patrimony.

If he does neither but merely waits around
and stares into salt space philosophically,
then nothing at all will be done either way,
and living and dying will become an evasion.

If that's the case, she'll certainly know
he's not to be trusted, and then, finally,
she'll mould her children into closed petals,
and break through the serrated pain herself.

OLD MAN AND THE LAST DAY OF MARCH

People walking quickly past the grey
air and cool winded afternoon,
going to and coming from where
they have been and got to go.

One old man in dark brown skin

and light brown threadbare staggers by,

cane extended

from hand to ground.

Moving slowly through the middle

of swift people, all

looking busy and important and

almostoutoftime.

The old man stands in

front of me and

tap, tap, taps, his cane

wringing up his face

to a frightening black and

pink, putty mass of indignation.

I'm not the unfaithful wife

who left you and the rice

to burn as she swayed

down the road to where the men

were working.

The old man still stands
tapping and looking more
evil and making me feel
sweat under my arms.

Move on old man.

On down the street,

into your own world,

your own time.

Tap your cane to the beat

of your own pulse.

Give me back my public privacy

and let your business

be your own. u ou i ^^• i ■

by Sharieen Dickmson

it\

The Uncle: "Reg of Hollywood" by Frieda Jones
38

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A POEM ON SOUTH AFRICA

THEY SHALL LONG FOR THE ICY COMFORT OF DEATH
AS THEY CRINGE FROM THE PLACE OF
OUR HATE-PATH'S DESTRUCTION

GOD FROM HEAVEN SHALL SEND FIRE TO THE SKY
THAT SHALL SHED NO WARMTH AND NO LIGHT
UPON THE FRIGID, STINGING EMBERS THAT SHALL
RELENTLESSLY, RELENTLESSLY, RELENTLESSLY,
RIP, AND RAPE, AND TEAR AT THEIR SOULS

THE EARTH SHALL OPEN AND SEIZE THEM AS HER PRISONER

FOREVER—

AS HELL, AND ALL THOSE WHO PAY HOMAGE TO ITS

GOLDEN, AUTOMATED IDOLS MOCK THEM

AS I DESTROY THEM

AS WE DESTROY THEM

SENSUOUSLY SAVORING THE COOLING WARMTH OF THEIR

EBBING LIFE'S BLOOD

REJOICING AS OUR ANCESTORS RETURN TO LIFE THROUGH

OUR DESCENDANTS

WHO SHALL KNOW THE SUN AS IT RISES AGAIN.

by Bradley V. Scott

"Impressions of South Africa" by Catfierine Adamson

FEATHER

I am as a feather.

The louder you speak to me

the further removed I

become.

Approach me calmly and

carefullly and I may

light upon your hand.

by Vincent K. ^

Washington

Diana Ramos by Edward Cohei

on 5 compositions of Roscoe l\/litcliell

they always play it different in new yorklfast city

nothin clean about the place

no such thing as one hand clappin

or like the purity of only one horn & the hall

you can hear it talkin

like hard times & bent slugs

fast city in ya music

hear it cry fast moanful cries

violins step in I i hear ya fast city

music of the way back/ way out ahead

of the knife-fendered traffic

of the lowceing 5 flights blues

in peeling browns & rust-edged dangers

i hear ya fast city

burstin all through the pure

with the lost gone gangster tones

blast me back through the scag & jump of it

the rob & steal of it

to the stomp joy and sweet completion of it

in remembrance of the brightness

the sound of one sound slappin snappin & grabbing

the round of it/ the lost the found/ the hollow of it

i hear ya fast city

long gone bipblap kick rumble

kicks & rumbles back again

loose hairs of discontent

fall like lint upon the players coats

one eats oranges and shoots the seeds down the slide

one leans big boy falls against the chest

he lets his feet fly and march

one says he has true dreads

plays stripper funk in the spaces

sweet intensity/ i hear ya/ fast city

pluggin on the deaf insistence of blind horsemen

stompin dumas' clouds

out from under/ in sky/ stomping

the music/ splattered with spit & sweat

the gone ones' blood

2/8/76 — studio rivbea, nyc. — players: roscoe mitchell; Julius hemphill; phillip wilson; Joseph bowie; muhal
richard abrams; leroy Jenkins; george lewis.

Part I: tahquemenon; tecumseh; olobo; eckter five. Part II: nonaah

by Thulani

"FESTAC 77" by Nelson Stevens

last revolutionary poem

those of us who are left

are ganging for one last fight

ganging arms & fears

almost paralyzed in hope

anxious wait

stashing our last poems

our last bloody epitaphs

eulogies & dying scenes

for one last fight

those of us who are left

are choking on the desertions

the bliss of riches run to

by dancers from depression's discos

until the day I until the day

when we sit together

on the edge of our chairs/

our seats in carriers

our knees aimed to the ground

our prayers pouring hushed

from the store chests of our long slept hearts

our jujus clustered on our necks

our logics sworn

a token slit is made on wrists for the blood/shed

the blood shed with fear

shed with the final chains/the diamond fetters

& rust broken cells as we are our own

it will be the last time we say the last of the past.

by Thulani

TO THE SISTERS AND BROTHERS
WHO HAVE SUPPORTED ME

I first wanted to thank you for all the support that
you have given me and secondly to say right on to
the stand that you have taken against the govern-
ment's persecution program against Black revolu-
tionaries. By supporting me and other revolu-
tionaries you have taken a stand against racism,
against sexism, against oppression, against
capitalism, against imperialism and against the
genocidal war being waged against Third World peo-
ple. By supporting me you are supporting Black
people's right to national self-determination and the
struggle to acquire that right.

From the beginning, we knew that it was highly
unlikely, if not impossible for me to get a fair trial in
Middlesex County, N.J.

One— because of the constant co-optation by rul-
ing classes of the masses of working peoples, cou-
pled with their complete control of technology and
information, makes the so-called democratic pro-
cess null and void and thus created the hysterical,
slanderous and racist press coverage that surroun-
ded this case.

Two — because of the press coverage, over 70 per-
cent of the people in racist Middlesex County were
already convinced of my guilt.

Three — because the judge was racist and blatant-
ly prejudiced in favor of the prosecution.

Fourthly — and most importantly, because there is
no such thing as justice in amerika, especially for
Black and poor people. History clearly shows that in
the course of the development of modern western
society, the code of law is the code of the dominant
and most powerful class, made into laws for
everyone. Law is never impartial, never divorced
from the economical relationships that brought it
about.

So, this is not the time to feel depressed or
defeated. This is not the time to forget about struggl-
ing, or to forget about all the Sisters and Brothers
who have been railroaded into these dungeons.
Rather, it is the time to feel outraged, to feel deter-
mined, to fight against this government tooth and
nail, not for what it is doing to me, but for what it is
doing to us all.

This railroading and legal lynching of me is but
one drop of blood in the ocean of blood and suffer-
ing that the amerikan government is responsible for.
As i am writing this now someone else is being
railroaded or shot in the back. We, the people, have
lost this battle, but we will and we must win the war;
the war for liberation, for justice and for freedom.
The war for our children and for the future of the
world. I have no faith, nor have i ever had faith in this
government or in this system of injustice. Black peo-
ple must learn to no longer have a psychological
dependence on racist "legalities". It is the people
who will set us free.

In struggle,

Assata

(Joanne Chesimard)

To visit Assata Shakur write:
Martha Pitts
20 Ave. A 20
New York City, N.Y. 212-674-0949

You can write Assata Shakur to:
Jo Anne Chesinnard
600-77-402
1515 Hazen Street
E. Elmhurst, N.Y. 11370

For further information, contributions, etc.: Contact
Assata Defense West, P.O. Box 40614— Station C,
San Francisco, CA 94110

CUBA

YESTERDAY & TODAY

Cuba is a long and narrow Island, 780 miles in
length from east to west, and some 25 to 125 miles in
width, with an area about the same as that of Ohio. It
is 50 miles west of Haiti, 85 miles north of Jamaica,
and 92 miles south of Florida U.S.A.

Although Cuba is the largest Island in the West In-
dies with a total area of 44,218 square miles, it is still
a small country, yet its history has a significance out
of proportion to its size.

It is impossible to understand the Cuban revolu-
tion and the revolutionary regime which came to
power on January 1, 1959, without understanding the
historical development which long preceded it. The
revolution in Cuba today has its roots deep in the
past. The story of Cuba's struggle for liberation from
four hundred years of Spanish domination is one of
the great epics in history. The story of its struggle for
over a half century to change its status from a
theoretically, independent state, dominated by
American imperialism, into a truly independent
country is equally inspiring.

The histories of Cuba and the U.S. had been inter-
twined almost from the inception of American in-
dependence in 1783. Early American solicitude for
Cuba stressed strategic factors. Cuba must remain
in friendly hands. While a weak Spain posed no
threat, French or British control endangered
American interests.

Because Cuban insurgents refused to accept
Spanish rule the bloody ten years' war, the first of the
struggle against the mother country, Spain, erupted
in 1868. The rebels sought aid abroad, especially in
the U.S. Americans smuggled arms to Cuba for the
insurgents, congress men and President Grant
voiced their support. American involvement in the
Island's affairs continued.

The conflict ended in 1878. Spain emancipated the
slaves but little was done to quiet local demands for
self-government, and the bickering between Spain
and the U.S. dragged on until fighting broke out
again in 1898.

No single motive explains the participation of the
U.S. in the Spanish American War. Popular sympathy
for the rebels, Spanish "atrocities," Americans'

by Margarita Vargas

dreams of world prominence, the need to protect the
projected canal across Central America, American
interest in Cuba, and the sinking of the battle ship
Maine — all encouraged American intervention. Of
the wars waged by the U.S. the Spanish American
proved least costly in lives. In return for an empire
that embraced the Philippines, mid-Pacific Islands,
Puerto Rico, and Cuba.

With Cuba free from Spain, the Americans turned
their attention to the job of formulating diplomatic
ties with the Island and preparing the Cubans for self
government. The U.S. and Cuba were not ready for
this task.

At no time was the intensity of Cuban resentment
of American diplomacy exhibited more fully than
during the Constitutional Convention of 1901, which
debated whether to include the Piatt Amendment in
the national charter. Cubans ratified the Piatt
Amendment to their constitution because no alter-
native existed.

No Cuban nationalist has ever forgotten that
humiliation. On the eve of independence, the Cuban
nationalist attitudes toward the U.S. evolved. This
amendment imposed on Cuba in 1902 permitted
Washington to intervene in local affairs, curtailing
the Island's political and economic independence.

The Cubans had to live with the Piatt Amendment
for three decades. The debate over the Piatt Amend-
ment plagued politics until 1933, for all political par-
ties took a stand on the doctrine.

Whether by accident or design, during the Piatt
era Cuba fell into the hands of politicans friendly to
America. For example Estrada Palma, the first presi-
dent of Cuba and a long time resident of the U.S., ac-
quiesced to Americans demands for naval and coali-
tion stations thus granting the U.S. what is known as
Guantanamo base (1934). That base alone, never-
theless, kept alive friction between the two coun-
tries.

In the three decades of American political domina-
tion of Cuba, businessmen and capital from the U.S.
won virtual control of the Cuban economy. Spain had
supplied the basic ingredient, but Americans
mechanized the sugar economy and transformed the

Island into the "sugar plantation of the world. "A fun-
damental incompatibility existed between the col-
onial sugar industry and the dream of independence.
The patrons of nationalism had frowned on the
"parasitical industry." The evil of the sugar industry
together with the social, economic and political
forces of the development of Cuba made the revolu-
tion of 1959 inevitable. Nationalism offered Castro
the means by which to win popular backing, en-
dorsement of his drastic reforms, and support in his
battle against the allies of the U.S. on the Island.
Anti-American nationalism thrived especially among
intellectuals who were convinced that to achieve
true freedom— an increasingly popular aspira-
tion—Cuba must drastically modify or sever its tradi-
tional relations with the U.S.

Finally in Castro the Cubans discovered an ex-
traordinarily gifted political prophet and leader who,
with his bold challenge to Batista, not only captured
the imagination and loyalty of the young but in the
process managed to clothe himself with the mantle
of Jose Marti first of the great Cuban revolutionary
figures. Undoubtedly the political and economic
conditions in Cuba paved the way for Castro's sur-
prising success.

Does not the fact that Cuba had a one-crop
economy, dependent upon and completely subor-
dinated to the economy of the U.S. help to explain
the revolution? Or that the political policy of the U.S.
in Cuba for 60 years was to support any government,
however tyrannical and reactionary which gave nor-
mal protection to the U.S. interests? Or that Cuba's
average yearly per capita income for the period
1950-1957 was around $213, as compared with $829
for Mississippi, the poorest state in the U.S.? Or that

before the Revolution, the Cuban unemployment
rate normally stood at 25%? Or that Cuban land
ownership was concentrated in so few hands that
8% of Cuban farms accounted for 71% of the total
arable land? In other words Cuba's economic
domination by American big business resulted in the
imploitation of the Cuban people.

As a result of the Cuban revolution, socialism is
being established in one of the smallest countries of
the world. Efforts by the U.S. to destroy it— the
unilateral ending by the Cubans sugar-quota system,
the severing of diplomatic relations with the Cuban
government, the sponsoring of the C.I.A.-organized
invasion of Cuba, etc.— have failed. Today in the year
1977 the U.S. has a new approach towards Cuba. It is
trying to renew diplomatic relations. Hopefully, the
results will be positive for both countries, but ex-
treme precaution will prevail at all times.

A result of the Cuban experience, millions of
Latin-American common people have been impelled
to examine the basis of contemporary society. A
growing number of them are beginning to find, as did
the Cuban people, that their lives cannot yield them
an adequate degree either of physical or mental
satisfaction as long as their countries remain depen-
dent upon and completely subordinated to the
economy and politics of the U.S.

Source of information:

A History of Cuba and Its Relations with the United

States by Philip S. Foner
Cuba The Making of a Revolution by Ramon Edwar-

do Ruiz
Revolution and Reaction in Cuba 1933-1960 by

Samuel Farber

CUBA

Interview with

JOHNNETTA COLE

by Margarita Vargas

Vargas— Have you been to Cuba?
Cole— My first trip was in 1972 and since then I
have been to Cuba 8 times.
Vargas— Why did you go to Cuba?
Cole— I would say there were 2 things that at-
tracted me to Cuba and those 2 things keep my in-
terest in Cuba. One is academic and the other is
political. As an anthropologist I am particularly in-
terested in what some people call the Pan African
world. Better put, in all the cultures in the Western

Hemisphere that have a close relationship culturally
and historically with Africa. But I am also interested
in how all these countries, P.R., Haiti, the U.S., Brazil
and Cuba, all of these countries are tied to Africa not
only by culture and by history but because they
share the same kind of experiences particularly the
experience of exploitation, that is, it's a Western
Hemisphere country who has a definite tie to Africa.
But I have also developed an interest in Cuba
because of what Cuba stands for. Because my opin-

Johnnetta Cole

ion, in a very genuine sense Cuba has developed a
very different way of life tfiat in fact represents a free
territory in the Americas.

Vargas — Why did you become interested in the
Cuban issue?

Cole— It could fall into three categories. I've been
to Cuba on delegations for example for an MP LA
conference, that is MPLA of Angola. The second
kind of category would be going to Cuba in connec-
tion with the Venceremos Brigade. Every spring we
send a group of northamericans to Cuba to work, to
live, and to see the Revolution for themselves. I've
had other kinds of trips to Cuba which are oriented
towards my ongoing research on that whole ques-
tion of racism in Cuba.

Vargas — Did you have a free choice to go to other
parts of the island?

Cole— Certainly there are places where you can not
go. For example, I have never attempted to go to the
middle of a military installation, I have never gone to
the door of a prison and knocked and said let me in;
but I wouldn't do that in this country either With
those exceptions I've been where I wanted to go, and
obviously as my Spanish has gotten better that has
meant that I can talk with lots of people. So I have
the feeling that in eight trips to Cuba I've been able
to get a real sense of what that Revolution is.
Vargas— How were the means of transportation for
yourself and the Cubans?

Cole — / think your question is really about fun-
damental social services and whether they are
available to the Cuban people. The answer is yes.
Early in the morning and in the evening are of course
the times of heavy traffic and all those times taking a
bus is an experience in Cuba, unlike rush hour in a

big U.S. city, but what one pays to get on that bus is
equivalent maybe to 5 cents in this country. For
many Cuban workers transportation is free. It's free
in the sense that a bus comes and picks up workers
going to a construction. Compare that 5 to 50 to get
on a New York City subway. What is more important
than the cost is what the conditions are. Nobody is
going to attack you in a bus in Cuba, you are not go-
ing to fear that your pocketbook is going to be
stolen. A woman is not going to fear that if she takes
a bus at 3 a.m. she'll be sexually assaulted. In that
sense transportation really represents not only the
providing of a social service at a cost that people can
easily afford, but it symbolizes what the quality of
life is in Cuba.

Vargas — How did people respond to you being an
Afro American interested in their lives?
Cole— Cubans that I've been in contact with have a
real sense of what the struggle of third world people
is in this country; it's on that basis of struggle, not
on the basis of skin color or language but on the
basis of the correctness of our struggle. People in
Cuba want to know what's happening, for example
on the Charlotte three case; what is the latest situa-
tion on the Wilmington ten; what is unemployment
like in the barrios and ghetto; what's happening in
Congress with the Black Caucus? There is this
tremendous interest and association and identifica-
tion with our struggle as third world people.
Vargas— How do the people of Cuba get all this in-
formation?

Cole— I have had some really shocking experiences
in Cuba that relate to this. I mean for example walk-
ing down the street and having a little kid, I mean a
muchacho, come up to me and asked me the most

detailed question about some political happening in
the U.S. My experience is that Cubans and I am
generalizing now but I mean from the little kid all the
way up are incredibly well informed and you don't
just breathe it out of the air, you get it first of all by a
free newspaper called the Gramma which has as
much news internationally as it has national news.
This is why Cubans who work in construction,
Cubans who are young people in schools, old people
would be able to tell you what is SWA PC, they will be
able to tell you what's going on. They can run down
to you the current legislative bills that are important
in the U.S. Congress, they can tell you these things
because of that source. Secondly Cubans are in-
volved in mass organizations and through these
mass organizations there engage in study circles.
For example through the Federation of Cuban
Women engaged in political discussions, through
the committees for the defense for the Revolution
where 80 somewhat percent of all Cuban adults are
members, there are study circles in every organiza-
tion, not just the Communist Party, and the Union of
Young Communists, but every mass organization is
billed with that kind of information. Plus the very
nature of Cuban internationalism is such that there
is a constant focus on what's happening in the
world. I mean not a week passes without some
leader of liberation movement, a head of state, being
in Cuba and Cubans prepare for that. They don't just
go out and wave a flag and say We Welcome Seku
Toure from Guinea, or We Welcome Juan Marl Bras,
No! you are informed on why you should welcome
this person. So I must say that the difficult thing
would be for a Cubano to escape information.
Vargas— Were the communities organized?
Cole— Let me share with you the sense in which
Cuban communities are organized but provide the
flexibility for individual expression. The reason I feel
the need to explain this is really because of my own
stereotypes, some of the ideas I had before going to
Cuba where I had read and theoretically understood
socialism. But you know the press in this country
can do a heavy trip on you, so I am thinking okay
Cuba is going to be great. A place where everybody
has enough to eat and free health care, but it's gonna
be a drag, it's gona be boring because it's gonna be
so regimented and there will be no individual expres-
sion. On the contrary, I think there is the best form of
individual expression because it's that individual ex-
pression which allows one's own ability, creativities
to come out, but never at the expense of the collec-
tive. So yes, Cuban communities are organized. A
typical expression is a young woman who is a
member of the Young Communists because a

member of the Federation of Cuban Women, a
member of a Committee for the Defense of the
Revolution, her neighborhood organization, perhaps
association with a trade union in her workplace, go-
ing to school and therefore perhaps a member of the
Federation of University Students. I've just named 6
major mass organizations and in that sense a per-
son's life is expressed in a series of collective situa-
tions and yet that woman will certainly express
herself individually. I mean maybe she likes ballet,
so she goes off to see Alicia Alonso. But maybe she
doesn't dig the ballet and so therefore she would
rather go listen to Los Rapines a percussionist
group. I mean she's going to wear whatever she
wants to wear. She is going to fix her hair the way
she wants to fix her hair. She will study what she
wants to study but she will understand that although
she will study what she wants to study the collective
whole, the good of that whole society may suggest
in fact that she study that out of interest but that she
work in another field.

Vargas— Did you notice any distinction of social
classes?

Cole — At the same time I would say that there is no
such thing as a social class In Cuba. We should think
that communism has arrived in Cuba. The Cubans
would be the first to say that it is not yet there. A
revolution is a process as Fidel said on the first of
January of 1959: Cubans won on that day the right to
make the Revolution. Cuba has certainly trans-
formed itself. It's no longer a society of a small
group of people with a whole lot and the rest of the
people with nothing. There is no longer a class of
people in Cuba who owns things, huge mansions,
great big sections of beaches, large sugar cane plan-
tations. That does not exist any longer. But one can-
not say that there is absolute equality in Cuba. In the
sense for example that everyone gets the same in-
come. That everyone at this point in time has exactly
the same material resources, but Cuba is moving in
that direction. For example there are differences in
income levels but there is nothing in Cuba that
would represent discrepancy that you can see in this
country. Let me be concrete. In Cuba the income
would range 100 and 450 pesos. First of all we have
to know that that is not much of a range. There are
here in the U.S. who are rich and there are who can
barely stay alive in terms of what their income is. But
what is more significant to know is that in Cuba an
individual with 100 to 450 pesos a month is not pay-
ing to see a doctor, not paying to get his teeth fixed,
not paying even if they have to see a psychiatrist, go-
ing to school totally free including tuition and books,
living in housing, which by law can not cost more

than 10% of his income. Actually for some Cubans
it's almost a problem of what to do with money. Okay
I'll go to the movies, but the movies cost so little.
Okay I'll go to Lenin Park and I'll take my kids, but my
kids can ride all day for 35 cents. I am not saying that
Cubans do not know what to do with their money but
I am saying that there is not the problem that we face
of how are we going to get enough. The problem in
Cuba is on the contrary especially given the dif-
ficulties of underdevelopment. Given the blockade
and therefore given the scarcity of certain luxury
goods. What am I going to spend my money on? I
need to add one more thing to that in terms of the no-
tion of differences among people. I am saying that,
yes, there are differences in income. But I'm also
saying that there has been an overall leveling in
Cuba. I mean that this after all is what Che meant
when he talked about the new man and the new
woman, the new society. It meant that all of those
old differences, for example between people who
will work with their hands and people who will work
with their heads would no longer exist. University
professors get up and go to the cane fields if they
have any political consciousness. They too have to
cut cane as Fidel cuts cane. So that even if you work
with your head you must also work with your hands.
People who are fundamentally manual laborers must
also study and therefore work with their heads.
Before the Revolution there were tremendous dif-
ference between the city and the country so that the
campesinos never saw a movie, didn't know what a
museum was. The Revolution made a conscious
decision not to continue to build up Havana but in
fact to make sure that the country side was built up.
The difference between men and women which I
think is the way in which Cubans will struggle on the
longest nevertheless shows progress. Differences
between blacks and whites no longer exist in the in-
stitutional ways. So I think once you begin to do
those things you can't in any genuine sense talk
about social classes. You can only talk about
workers who do this, some who do that, but they are
workers.

Vargas — How do schools respond to the island's
government interests?

Cole— I can say that I think that the overall interest
of the government and the people of Cuba are the
same. The government should be different. These
should be the vanguard workers, those with the
highest political consciousness, those people who
through the process of emulation have set the pace.
They should not have an interest which makes a
"cheque" with the people. Therefore I would say that
what happens in the schools is not in conflict with

what the government wants but that there are certain
points where in fact what an individual wants must
be secondary to the needs of the Cuban people.
Fidel talked about this in the speech of 1976 about
the fact that the Cubans have exploded over educa-
tion. There are very very few people in Cuba who are
not involved in some sort of education. People want
to study. But everybody can't be an engineer, or a
doctor. I mean what kind of society would exist with
only doctors and engineers. And in that sense the
government has the responsibility to indicate to the
schools what Cubans need. You cannot force
somebody into something she might not have the
ability simply because she has had the training. You
must make known to the schools what it is that the
government, that is the governing of the people,
needs.

Vargas— Besides Spanish, what other languages
are taught in schools?

Cole — One of the best ways to answer that is to
share with you something I was reading the other
day in an old Gramma. Michael Manley, the Prime
Minister of Jamaica, was in Cuba last year. He said
to Fidel, speaking with great warmth and obvious af-
fection, but to Fidel as representative of the Cuban
people. You know one of the things that the im-
perialists have done to divide us and to continue and
to encourage the differences in language. But I want
you to know that throughout the island of Jamaica a
great effort is being made to teach the Spanish
language. Fidel in responding to Michael Manley
said. We must make a greater effort with English
because not only is there an English speaking
government 90 miles to the north of us, a govern-
ment which is hostile to us but also 90 miles away
from us Jamaica, an English speaking people who
are our friends so we must make a greater effort with
English. Of course languages are taught in schools
but because of their emphasis on Internationalism
Cubans also put an emphasis on language. I
remember for example on my first trip to Cuba with
the Black Organization Seminar we went to a place
called Ospaal, Organization in Solidarity with the
People of Asia, Africa and Latin America. There we
were a group of northamerican blacks attempting to
speak with a companero N. Vietnam. How are we go-
ing to talk to him? So the Companero of N. Vietnam
speaks, that is then translated into Spanish, and the
Spanish is then translated into English. We asked
question, the question is in English, it is translated
into Spanish and the Spanish into Vietnamese.
Cubans go through that all the time.
Vargas— What students are entitled to a college
level education?

Cole — Since the Revolution all education in Cuba
is free and incredibly provided for. I think whenever
we talk about Cuba's accomplishments we must
also talk about its problems. It is a country that only
has had 18 years of making the Revolution. A country
that inherited tremendous underdevelopment. An
economy dependent on U.S. imperialism. There is a
problem in Cuba in the area of education simply to
have enough books but the answer to your question
directly is that every Cuban has the right to a Univer-
sity education. And that education is totally free in-
cluding books and tuition. There is however in Cuba
what is called simply education but we call it
workstudy. A number of years ago Fidel spoke of an
idea of the need to practice an idea of Jose Marti, the
great apostle of the Americans. The idea in fact if
one is going to really create that new kind of women
and men that education must simultaneously be
about study in the strict sense, and work in the real
sense. And so beginning in what are the schools in
the countryside, the junior high school level Cubans
work for part of the day and study for part of the day.
It's that which makes them understand that there is
nothing superior to be an intellectual. It is also what
makes them understand that if that country is ever to
get out of underdevelopment it's going to take the
effort of everybody.

Vargas— Speaking of the development change,
which activities struck you the most?
Cole — What really struck me the most in Cuba was
the sense of equality. First of all when you've lived in
this country for this number of years you should
almost begin to think, even if you know better, that
there really is a gene for racism. That it is inevitable,
that white folks got this special gene that makes
them racist. I had never in my life lived in someplace
for a few weeks, or a few months without being con-
stantly conscious of racism. I mean that is what im-
presses me a lot about Cuba. In addition to that
sense of equality there is a sense of vibrancy, of
warmth. I mean Cuba is incredibly Latino, it's in-
credibly African in the sense that people get down,
people party, people enjoy life, they work hard but
they party hard. So those two things, the sense of
equality and the sense of the quality and the vibran-
cy of the life.

Vargas — To what kind of economical level could
you compare it to? Use the American standard.
Cole— Comparing it with the U.S. one would have to
say that clearly in all senses Cuba has less, it is a
poor underdeveloped country of 9,000,000 people.
The U.S. is the richest, most technologically
developed country in the world. It's on the second
level of comparison, which I think is the crucial level,

that is how are goods and services distributed, that
the superiority of Cuba is clear. Cuba has less but
distributed equally. What one sees in Cuba is a level-
ing off in the sense of a healthy population,
everybody is healthy. Sure you can find healthy peo-
ple in this country. I am positive that the
Rockefellers are not in poor health. I can go right
now not just to N.Y. but within Amherst, l^ass., and
talk about people in a state of poor health, who are
not eating well, who are not receiving medical atten-
tion as they should so that the sense that you get in
Cuba is the sense of an absence of all the material
things that are necessary, but you also have the
sense that what there is is being shared in such a
way that the level of development of the human be-
ing is incredibly high. We must not paint a picture of
a paradise— no! There are still incredible problems
in Cuba. For example, housing. There are still people
in Cuba today living in huts, what are called
"bohios". But before the Revolution 80% of the peo-
ple lived in bohios and l\/lr. Dupont lived in a house
with 125 servants, three months of a year I visited
that house that no longer exists in Cuba. First of all
t\/lr. Dupont had to leave. And the Batistas and his
type had to leave. But you cannot in 18 years wipe
away that kind of a problem. Cuba is working at it by
microbrigades, where people leave their jobs. Those
who remain have to catch the slack. They form these
little construction brigades to build housing. It will
be into the 1980's before Cuba can say that the entire
population is adequately housed.
Vargas— How would you compare it to the standard
of a Latin American country?
Cole— If you put Cuba within the context of Latin
America I cannot think of any index on which Cuba
will look badly. If it's on infant mortality, if it is in
terms of the illiteracy rate, if it is in terms of percen-
tage of students involved in school, if it is in terms of
unemployment there is none in Cuba, if it is in terms
of percent of women who are checked every year for
uterine cancer: Cuba is going to look good. We also
have to put that within the context that Cuba may not
have been as badly off, at the time of the triumph of
the Revolution, as many Latin American and Carib-
bean countries. What can you say when there is a
country where there is no unemployment, where
there are free health services and education.
Vargas— Why do you think it is at that level?
Cole— It's at that level because there was a
socialist Revolution. It is not clear to me how you
can do what Cuba has done short of a Revolution.
That one can make certain reforms, that one can
make certain improvements in the quality of life for
some people, yes; but to totally transform a society

and bring about a quality of iife for an entire popula-
tion I :hink it is impossible sfiort of changing ttie fun-
damental economy and political system.
Vargas— What has been the effect of the American
and the Latin American embargo?
Cole— It has hurt. It has been a severe experience
on Cuba. When you think about the early 1960's
when Cuba could not get a single nail from the U.S.,
a bolt or a screw; and almost every machine was a
U.S. machine, when Cuba had no paper, after all
there were no trees because the imperialist cut
down all the trees to plant sugar cane. What was
Cuba to know? Those were severe times. What hap-
pened of course was that the Soviet Union in par-
ticular and other countries practiced their interna-
tionalism. Without that Cuba would not have sur-
vived. Yes there is a kind of contradiction there
because if that embargo had not taken place it may
well be that Cuba would not have reached the point it
has reached, because it required the kind of
discipline, and extra work and creativity to keep that
machine going even though you didn't have the
parts. I'm not saying blockades are great for coun-
tries and every country should have a blockade, of
course not. No people should ever have to suffer the
way the Cubans suffered because of the U.S. em-
bargo. I am saying that the U.S. imposed blockade
against Cuba brought out the real strength; the real
stuff of the Cuban people. Obviously 18 years later
we're able to say that despite that suffering the
original attempt of that embargo, that is to crush the
Cuban Revolution, did not succeed. That Revolution
is now more consolidated than it has ever been.
Vargas — Between the U.S. and Cuba, who wanted
to renew diplomatic relations and for what reasons?
Cole— That's really complex because it seems to
me that on certain levels it is in the interest of both
Cuba and the U.S. to renew relations, diplomatic
relations, economic relations, the real question is
the nature of that interest. What are the necessary
conditions for improved relations? Cuba has been
very clear: genuine relations with the U.S. will not
take place until the U.S. unilaterally lifts the same
blockade that the U.S. unilaterally imposed on Cuba.
Cuba has been concerned about the presence of an
entire U.S. military installation on Cuban soil, Guan-
tanamo. The U.S. says that it is concerned about all
the money that is owed to the N. American com-
panies, that Cuba nationalized. Cuba says nationaliz-
ed! Those people were robbing us. So there are
definite differences. The U.S. says Cuba has to stop
all this business about independence for Puerto
Rico and calling international congresses and bring-
ing up resolutions in the U.N. and that Cuba must

stop supporting Angola as when Cuba responded to
the request of the MPLA by sending troops to help
Angola crush the S. African racists. Cuba says: "Our
principles, our revolution will not be negotiated".
There are some severe differences. I think there will
be years before we see total relations reestablished
between the U.S. and Cuba. Why it is in Cuba's in-
terest to do that. One, because as we have said the
blockade has hurt Cuba. There are many things that
would be easier for Cuba to get from the U.S. than
going thousands of miles around to the Soviet
Union. Secondly, because relations with the U.S.
might decrease some of the more obvious expres-
sions of aggression that the U.S. has had against
Cuba. All the way from attempts to assassinate
Fidel, to invading that island at the Bay of Pigs. Why
does the U.S. want those relations? I think first of all
because the policy of no relation has backfired. It's
not Cuba that is isolated it's the U.S. that is isolated.
This will host at the 11th world festival of youth and
students 15,000 young people from all over the
world. Cuba is the next site of the conference of non-
aligned nations. Cuba is involved in economical con-
ferences and relations with the Caribbean, with the
nations of Asia, with the Soviet Union and socialist
countries. Cuba is not isolated, it's the U.S. im-
perialists that are increasingly isolated from world
respect, so it has not worked. Now what do you do if
you are Jimmy Carter? Now what do you do? I think
he'll say: Well actually we can get us some good
business deals. There is a strong business interest
in Cuba, Coca-Cola, General Motors, General Foods,
are just lickin' their chops thinking about the profit
that they are going to get. They better rethink it
because they are not going to go back to Cuba under
terms they were once there. I think the Carter ad-
ministration assumes that if relations are more nor-
mal Cuba will no longer be such a cause "celebre, " it
will no longer be such an obviously outdated ques-
tion within U.S. foreign policy. At the same time
there must be incredible fear. The greatest fear be-
ing: What happens when the people in this country
really come face to face with a country that has no
unemployment. What happens when people of this
country see that racism is not inevitable. What hap-
pens when the U.S. people see that sports is the
right of the people, it's not a privilege. My feeling is
that at the same time the Carter administration
begins to make these overtures towards Cuba, lifting
the travel ban for example, that we are going to see a
severe ideological campaign against Cuba. The anti-
Cuba propaganda will be severe. We can see it
already. Why? Because the ultimate thing that the
Carter administration wants to trade with Cuba and

have some relations with Cuba but the U.S.
"Democracy" beats Cuban socialism any day. On
the other hand we'll see Carter with one hand ex-
tended to the Cubans, pacifying the liberals and the
progressives in this country. But is steady stroking
with the other hand soothing the conservatives, tell-
ing them not to worry, people in the U.S. won't go for
Cuba because they have political prisoners and no
human rights and the people are standing in ration
lines.

Vargas— If Americans can travel to Cuba how do
you think this could affect the Cubans' social
philosophy?

Cole — That is a serious question because Cubans
more than myself must know what it's like to have
your island invaded by the U.S. cultural as well as
economic imperialism. Cubans after all went
through a number of years where the only good thing
was the in quotes "American thing," whether it was
a car or your clothes or your food. That a whole
revolutionary process was necessary to get rid of
that idea. Now what would it mean if N. Americans in
large numbers start coming back to Cuba. Are they
going to bring back prostitution, are they going to
bring back gambling? There must always be that
concern, but the difference is not only has there
been a Revolution, but the Revolution continues. It's
the Cubans who grant visas. You don't just walk into
Cuba. It's a sovereign state. Despite the U.S. ban on
travel to Cuba thousands of U.S. citizens visited the
island. For example, through the Venceremos
Brigade over 2,500 N.Americans have traveled to
Cuba since 1969. But as of March 18th last year
Carter lifted the travel ban. I think we soon have
direct airflights from the U.S. to Cuba. In terms of
Cuban exiles, people in Cuba have very strong con-
cern about these folks. All you have to do is turn the
television and catch Little Havana in f^iami to know
why the Cuban community in this country, certain
sectors of it, has been incredibly terroristic. It has
been violent not only against Cubans in Cuba but
against themselves, Cuban exiles or terrorists kill
each other. All you have to do is pick up any Miami
newspaper on any day to get that evidence. In addi-
tion there is their political goals which are to kill
Fidel Castro and to take Cuba back. Would you
welcome folk like that to your house? You would be
a fool. On the other hand there are in this country
Cubanos who do not have those attitudes. In any
case they had no choice but to leave Cuba after the
Revolution. They were young kids who knew nothing
other than that they would rather be with mommy
and daddy than anywhere else in the world. For ex-
ample for those Cubanos it is very difficult. I per-

sonally know a few Cubanos who are not in this
country who have returned to Cuba, they do no con-
stitute large numbers.

Vargas — How can I get information to be able to
travel to Cuba?

Cole — There are three obvious means. Right here in
Amherst you could check with the Amherst regional
of the Venceremos Brigade. The second would be to
call a travel agent in N.Y. City, for example Anniver-
sary Tours publicly, openly and legally advertises ar-
ranging tours to Cuba. And third of course would be
to make a more direct contact for example through
the Cuban interest section in Washington, D.C.
Vargas — Being an Anthropologist professor how
do you evaluate the general process of the Cuban
people and their government?
Cole— It is very very clear from all I've said so far
that I am impressed by both the progress of the
Cuban revolution and aware that problems still exist.
What strikes me very deeply is that Cubans are in the
process of creating what I would call a Revolutionary
culture. What I see as an Anthropologist, is a radical-
ly different way of life. That is what I mean by a
revolutionary culture. Much of what is happening in
Cuba is predictable because we know certain
elements, we know the African base, we know the
Spanish input, we know the whole historical process
of domination by the U.S. and we know what
socialism means in terms of how a society is
oriented and organized economically and politically.
But I also maintain that we can not predict it all and
that's a tremendous amount of the excitement of
Cuba. In fact we had never before seen in the
Western Hemisphere, in the Americas, in a Carib-
bean island, a revolutionary society. I am incredibly
excited to see what it means. What does it mean to
have a government which is explicitly anti-racist?
What does it mean, in every day terms, that Cuba
defines herself as a Latino-African People? What
does this socialist revolution mean in terms of how
men and women relate to each other? What does it
do when you have a men both work than they must
share the house hold tasks equally? What are kids
going to be like when they see that their fathers and
their mothers working equally in the household?
What does it mean to produce a generation of
children whose sense of geography is far beyond
Cuba? What does it mean in terms of how people
relate to each other when kids are familiar with
Angola? When kids know that there are issues at
stake in Puerto Rico. And I am excited by it in
political terms, but the best sense of the word, in
academic terms. What does it mean to be part of a
revolutionary culture?

CUBA

Interview with NORMA A L VA HEZ. by IVIargarita Vargas
Place: Union City, New Jersey Translation by Haydee Feliciano

Norma Alvarez

Vargas: What is your name?

Alvarez: My name is Norma Alvarez.

Vargas: Where were you born?

Alvarez: In the Province of Las Villas Cienfuegos.

Vargas: How old are you?

Alvarez: I am 31 years old.

Vargas: What year did you arrive in the U.S.A.?

Alvarez: I arrived on October 8, 1970 to Miami Air-
port. There I lived for two years. Then I moved to

Elizabeth, New Jersey and since then I remained in
the area of a Cuban Hispanic Community.
Vargas: Where do you work?
Alvarez: I work at Vernon Royal, a factory in
Elizabeth, N.J. It is a printing company where I
operate a machine that binds notebooks and school
books.

Vargas: What was the main reason that made you
come to the U.S.?

Alvarez: Well, until 1969 I never had the desire to
come to this country. Because I felt happy in Cuba.
The reason that motivated me to come here was that
the communist government did not allow me to con-
tinue studying at the Students Center simply
because I was not an advocate to their regime.
Vargas: At that time what grade level had you ac-
complished?

Alvarez: I was in my third year of business school
studying to be an accountant.
Vargas: What was the reason why the government
discontinued your studies?

Alvarez: The reason why this happened was
because I was a Catholic and would go to church. I
taught Catholicism and the government would keep
track of all this since I was not integrated to the ac-
tivities of the "Union of Young Communists." They
used this excuse to "purarme" meaning to exclude
me from the Students Centers.
Vargas: What were their means to have knowledge
of your daily activities?

Alvarez: Very simple, the Union of Young Com-
munists, the Committee for the Defense of the
Revolution (CDR) follow up people's activities. They
do this by investigating or calling your neighbors.
The CDR is in every block of your neighborhood.
Vargas: What did you do when the government
denied you a diploma?

Alvarez: My dreams had been to finish my career as
an accountant and be able to work as one among my

people. Not having this opportunity I found myself in
the position to file papers to leave Cuba.
Vargas: How long did you have to wait before leav-
ing Cuba?

Alvarez: A little less than two years.
Vargas: What did you do in the meantime?
Alvarez: In Cuba as soon as you express your desire
to leave the country, if you are within the age of
1 7-53, you must work in the agricultural fields, before
leaving Cuba you are required to complete laboral
time in the fields. The waiting time is unlimited.
Vargas: What type of work did you do in the fields?
Alvarez: I worked doing various things. I planted the
sugar cane. Fertilized the fields and all kinds of
agricultural labor. This was done manually and it was
strenuous work.

Vargas: During that time did you study?
Alvarez: No, from the moment I did not accept to re-
nounce my religious belief my opportunities to
study, a career in Cuba ceased.
Vargas: What was your daily working schedule?
Alvarez: We would leave Cienfuegos at 7 A.M. from
sunrise to sunset.

Vargas: What were the means of transportation?
Alvarez: By trucks. These trucks were used to
transport cattle to the slaughter house and was the
only means of transportation. For us sometimes they
had been cleaned of the cattle excretion and we had
to ride on it.

Vargas: What other kinds of brigade existed?
Alvarez: There is the brigade of the farmers, the
brigade of the federalist women (las federadas), the
brigade of the communist youth and the brigade of
the farmers workers would do volunteer work on
Saturdays and Sundays.

Vargas: How many people were in your group?
Alvarez: First of all our group was called immigra-
tion brigade, composed exclusively of those leaving
Cuba. We were approximately 95 to 112 women from
ages 18-55 years of age.

Vargas: What was the difference in treatment
within the various brigades?

Alvarez: The difference existed towards our im-
migration brigade, the reason being that we were
leaving Cuba. When working at the fields we would
be the last to be fed, depending on whatever food
there was left. The trucks in which Las Federadas
traveled were trucks with roof and benches. We had
to travel standing one next to another holding on to
whatever pole you could reach.
Vargas: What kind of food were you fed?
Alvarez: Well, whatever they gave us, many times
corn meal with sugar, other times we had a woman in
charge of the brigade who recognized our hard labor

in the fields. So we were given good food, but most
of the time we ate what there was. I remember once
we had rice with mashed potatoes. This must have
been quite an experience for you Norma? Yes.
Vargas: Did you have freedom to go to any part of
the Island?

Alvarez: Yes only if you had received permission
from the superior brigade because I could not be ab-
sent from work.

Vargas: What do you know about the "Venceremos
Brigade"?

Alvarez: To my knowledge the Venceremos Brigade
are visiting Americans who sympathized with the
Cuban Government and go to Cuba to identify
themselves with the revolution. This Brigade is very
fortunate. By this I mean that they have all the
privileges that native Cubans would not have. For ex-
ample, transportation on air conditioned Leilan
buses made in England. Excellent housing accom-
modations and they are also served very good food.
All this is prepared in advance by the Cuban govern-
ment, therefore these people would not lack what
they normally have in the U.S.A.
Vargas: Would the Venceremos Brigade relate to
the Cuban people?
Alvarez: No.

Vargas: Does the V.B. have the liberty to purchase
goods anywhere?

Alvarez: The V.B. foreign tourist, and specifically
technicians have special stores to purchase
souvenirs only. There is no need to buy food
because the Cuban government supplies it to them.
In the hotel Havana Libre they sell articles of high
quality only to the tourist as contrast to if a native
Cuban needs a pair of working shoes he would have
to wait for his ration allotment.
Vargas: Who do you refer when you say techni-
cians?

Alvarez: I am referring to Russian technicians who
go to Cuba to instruct the Cubans of how to work
agricultural and factory equipment. Also British who
have brought plans Cubans have bought from them.
Vargas: Is there freedom of the press?
Alvarez: No, there is only one newspaper called the
Gramma, the official paper of the government, and
Castro himself in his famous interview with Barbara
Walters stated he would not allow anyone to speak
freely against him or the government.
Vargas: Norma, are there different social classes?
Alvarez: Yes, it exists between the people and the
government. There are the government workers who
are given the best houses and if you are in the
military service you are entitled to 15 days at the
beach in a good hotel with expenses paid. Mean-

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while a factory worker who does not partake in the
miiitary service does not have these privileges.
Vargas: IHow do the schools respond to the interest
of the government?

Alvarez: First of all, the schools belong to the
government, there are no private schools. Therefore,
education is free once a university level is achieved,
you can choose whatever career you have in mind.
But, once you achieve that goal if the government
needs in another area you have to do as you are told.
For example, if you have studied Cardiology and the
Revolution needs you as a pediatrician, then you
would have no choice but to study pediatrics, if not
you lose privileges of continuing your studies.
Vargas: What students are entitled to a college
education?

Alvarez: The privilege of a college education does
not always depend upon one's grade but mostly on
how politically active you've been.
Vargas: What progress has there been in the sugar
industry and other products?
Alvarez: In comparison to the era prior to Castro's
regime the production of sugar has decreased great-
ly. Before the revolution the farmers were the ones
working the sugar cane fields but today is complete-
ly different. People of all occupations work in the
sugar cane plantations. So what happens is that
these people do not have any experience in farming,
therefore many of the agricultural procedures are
mishandled and much is wasted. For example, in the
year 1969 Fidel set the goal of 10 million tons of
sugar to be produced for that year. When the harvest
ended not even 7 million tons of sugar was pro-
duced. On Jan. 1 when Fidel Castro speaks to the
people he said that the goal of ten million tons had
not been reached, stating that the reasons were
because of the environmental conditions but the
underlying reason be that of the unexperienced
workers.

Vargas: How does the government motivate the
sugar plantation workers?

Alvarez: if the plantation workers have a gross pro-
duction of sugar cane are awarded with 15 days at a
Varadero beach resort with paid expenses. Plus the
opportunities to purchase any electrical appliance
with their own earnings. These appliances are
scarce and expensive, so usually workers can't af-
ford to buy them.

Vargas: What is your opinion on Demographic
Growth in Cuba?

Alvarez: Birth control pills are sold but Cuban
women would rather have kids. It is convenient for
them because for each child born the ration quota is
increased. Also since the health care is free, they do

not have to worry about pregnancy fees, etc. This
will gradually create a problem because the
availability of basic every day needs and food supply
decreases with the increasing of population.
Vargas: How does Castro control the crime level
and delinquency acts?

Alvarez: There is a low crime rate. The penalty
would be severe. For example, if you are caught
stealing or in a delinquent act you could easily be ex-
ecuted or work in farms doing forced labor without
any family visiting privileges.
Vargas: In the American society many crimes and
sexual assaults we attribute to mental disorders.
How does Cuba deal with this?
Alvarez: In Cuba this would never happen. I believe
if there are 5 cases throughout the island this would
be far too many. If you assume thai claiming to be
mentally incapable can get away with murder, rape
or any social disorder in Cuba they would deal with
your madness by putting a bullet right between your
eyes. In this case I admire Castro's effective pro-
cedures so in this sense the Cubans feel at peace.
Vargas: Between Cuba and the U.S.A. who would
benefit best from the renewal of diplomatic rela-
tions?

Alvarez: Because of the blockade Cuba would be
benefiting the most. Cuba has to trade with the Euro-
peans since the Cuban currency has no value. Cuba
is forced to trade with its agricultural products. With
these it obtains whatever machinery, weapons,
prime materials and other basic necessities that nor-
mally would not be available. For example, in Spain
you can find many Cuban products labeled "surplus
of the Agrarian Reform." This is misleading because
while you find an abundance of these Cuban pro-
ducts in many European countries, in Cuba there is
rationing of these products.

Vargas: What would be U.S.S.R. reactions towards
the renewed relations between the U.S. and Cuba?
Alvarez: I think they would be very pleased. It would
be a relief on the U.S.S.R. since Fidel will not change
his political philosophy, Russia will not have to
worry about spending millions of dollars to support
Cuba in its basic needs.

Vargas: If Americans can travel to Cuba, how will
this affect the Cubans?

Alvarez: The Cuban people would be delighted to
have relations with the U.S.A. because they feel this
could be the only solution to free themselves of their
misery. Castro's vain promises to eliminate the ra-
tion cards has made the people fear American Im-
perialism. But, on the other hand, he tours them
about the island and Cubans would not be shocked if
Cuba renews relations.

Photos by Ana Andrew

Collage by Margarita Vargas

AFRICA ON ACORN STREET

SPRINGFIELD GIRLS CLUB

by Sharleen Dickinson

Children run back and forth, to the store, to "my
house," to "your house" and stopping at the Club.
Young men lean on parked cars as the day sways in-
to night.

"Hey boy, you better look out before you cross

that street next time."

"No, the battery's gone or the starter's messed

up, one."

"Yeah, I'm looking for some herb ..."
"Damn, later for this car!"

All the while, up above, the past watches the pre-
sent become the past. Africa in acrylics. Time held
tight to a brick wall, looking down on mornings and
nights.

Acorn Street cried out and wanted to be heard. So
in 1975, Ray Horner, Clyde San tana and Nelson
Stevens gave her a trumpet and taught her to sing. In
1976, Carl Yates joined the brothers to add his
talents to the song.

The mural is composed of a variety of images, col-
ors and moods reflecting the attitudes of the artists
as well as Africa's Acorn Street. The first section, by
Ray Horner, reveals a brother watching Black folks
boogie-ing above young brown babies, sitting quietly
and always waiting, always watching.

Pictures flow into pictures as time turns into time,
but all speak of life, as in the Ahnk—the Egyptian
symbol of eternal life. The corner turns and Horner
shows the brother as an Egyptian, the face of a
Pharoh, watching young Egypt dance between
pyramids, and again there is life as the Ahnk stands
out in green against the brown, black, orange and
blue.

The next section, by Carl Yates, presents West
Africa in gradations in brown of large profiles, and
green Ghanain symbols of unity. The border is
another design from Ghana, but the most dominant

feature in this section is a green and brown mask
figure.

The fourth section, by Nelson Stevens, is larger
and very commanding with a variety of symbols and
images. Three faces come at you; a woman, a man
and a child. These faces are multicolored and are
surrounded with explosions of images, upon colors,
upon images. To the right of these faces is the pro-
file of a woman and what appears to be a picture of
her mind. Her face has an attitude of determination.
Her mind presents the mystery of a chess game. The
pieces are red, white and blue against the red, black
and green and the brothers and sisters are winning
this game. Again, Ghanain symbols, profiles, free
forms as well as the map of Africa complete this sec-
tion.

The fifth section is the same as the third, but this
time Carl Yates uses gradations in night colors of in-
digo, brown and black.

The last two sections of the mural, by Clyde San-
tana, project us into the technology of new Africa
with sharp angles and objects in reds, purples, pinks
and blues. The sections are outlined in black, pro-
ducing a kind of stained glass effect.

Children and adults are quiet now on Acorn Street.
Lighted windows reveal that most activity is going
on inside. t\Aeanwhile, Africa smiles down on Africa
from the view of an exciting mural on top of a Girls
Club on Acorn Street in Springfield.

ARTISTS:

1975 Ray Horner — Graduate Student
Clyde Santana— Graduate Student
Nelson Stevens — Professor

1976 Carl Yates — Freshman Year

THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR
BLACK STUDIES

by Kathy Rose

In the 1960's the Black revolution emerged to con-
front the status quo in America. Part of this revolu-
tion was the Black student movement, which directly
challenged the American educational system and
the racial attitudes and practices it fostered. Out of
this confrontation emerged contemporary Black
Studies programs. This revolution was broad and
deep. Black students and educators demanded an
education that was relevant, Black oriented and
Black controlled.

The period 1969-1972 was a high point for Black
Studies. Almost 500 programs were established and
at least 1,300 colleges and universities offered a
minimum of one course on the Black experience.
The rapid expansion was short-lived. By 1972, the
outline of the counterattack emerged. The earliest
attacks were in the form of financial cutbacks. This
first affected programs that were started with "soft"
funding or insufficient support. By 1975, there were
only 200 Black Studies programs. Where some pro-
gams failed, others succeeded, and many grew and
became permanent parts of universities. Never-
theless, this attack has put Black Studies into a
period of reassessment. The most direct attack
forced reductions in program budgets, reduced stu-
dent aid, and reduced faculty size. These cutbacks
were justified by those who claimed that Black
Studies was too politicized, that academic standards
were low, and that "reverse racism" was being prac-
ticed.

On March 18-21, 1975, a Black Studies National
Conference was held at and sponsored by the
University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The Con-
ference attempted to stimulate thought on four
basic questions concerning Black Studies: Where?
Who? Why? and How? Participating were Federal Ci-
ty College, University of Pittsburgh, University of
Massachusetts, New York University and others.

On July 16-18, 1975, a meeting was held at Educa-
tional Testing Service, Princeton, NJ. The Princeton
Conference was the follow-up action initiated by Dr.

William Harris. The format of the Princeton Con-
ference was of an informal structure due to the small
group of participants. Joe Williams of ETS brought
greetings to the group and gave a brief overview of
ETS's role as host. The informal sessions were
facilitated by Bertha L Maxwell. Concepts were ex-
pressed in terms of needs, goals, objectives, and ac-
tivities to meet such needs. This meeting provided
an opportunity to structure the concepts as they
would relate to a national organization whose priori-
ty would be voluntary cooperative coordinated effort
with national organizations and institutions who
might offer support for Black Studies programs.

Dr. William King, Vice Chairperson and Assistant
Professor of Black Studies and Dr. William Pitts,
Director of Black Education Programs at the Univer-
sity of Colorado, convened a Black Studies con-
ference on November 13-15 at the University of Col-
orado, Boulder, Colorado, in order to facilitate
Regional interest in the National Council of Black
Studies.

Participants in the Conference were primarily from
such areas as California, Oregon, Washington, Tex-
as, Arizona, Indiana, Montana, and Michigan.

Dr. Herman Hudson, Vice Chancellor of Afro-
American Affairs at Indiana University also attended
this meeting. Dr. Hudson offered the facilities of In-
diana University for NCBS' national office and
agreed to host a constitutional convention to draft
some guidelines for the functioning of the organiza-
tion.

Another planning conference meeting was held on
April 11-13, 1976 at the University of Indiana. The se-
cond annual planning conference for the Executive
Board of NCBS was again held in Princeton, New
Jersey on July 7-9, 1976. It was hosted by the Educa-
tional Testing Service. The focus of this meeting was
the revision of the NCBS constitution drafted during
the conference at Indiana University and to plan for
the first annual convention to be hosted by Dr.
William Nelson of Ohio State University in February

Chester Davis

1977. After two and a half days of debate and discus-
sion a Constitution for NCBS was approved by the
Board, an eleven region structure was established,
and a convention format was adopted— Black
Studies, Mobilization for Survival: Development,
Substantiation, Standardization, Accreditation,
Evaluation, and Careers. At last NCBS was more
than the dream that had begun in Charlotte less than
two years before. The National Council for Black
Studies had become a reality!

The first annual meeting was held and sponsored
by Ohio State University on February 16, 1977 and
over 500 people attended. The theme of the Ohio
State conference was Mobilization for Survival. This
conference was attempting to find solutions to the
problems that are now confronting Black Studies.
These problems include the fiscal crisis, the ques-
tion of standards and legitimacy, the roles of tenure
and publications in Black Studies, the need for
evaluation and accreditation, the development of a
student constituency and Black Studies careers.
Most important, scholars from across the country
came together in Columbus, Ohio to mobilize a na-
tional effort to build sufficient support for Black
Studies to guarantee its perpetuation for genera-
tions to come.

On June 16-17, 1977, The National Council for
Black Studies Representatives, Dr. Bertha Maxwell,
Chairperson, Dr. Beverly Ford, Secretary, Dr. Joseph
J. Russell, Executive Director, and Dr. William

Nelson and Ms. Yolanda Robinson, 1977 Convention
Chairperson met with Professor Chester Davis, Na-
tional Council for Black Studies Regional I
Representative to plan for the 1978 second annual
convention.

The meeting was convened at New Africa House
at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst and an
all day discussion on budget and other topics com-
prised the agenda. UMass participants were L. Van
Jackson, Director, Black Cultural Center, Bill Owens,
Massachusetts State Senator, John Bracey Jr.,
Chairperson W.E.B. Dubois Department of Afro-
American Studies, Dr. Mere Chappell representing
Dr. Paul Puryear, Vice Chancellor for Academic Af-
fairs and Provost.

On June 17th, the National Council for Black
Studies group, along with Senator Owens met with
Dr. Ernest Lyton, Vice President for Academic Af-
fairs, representing Dr. Robert Wood, President of
UMass, to discuss sources of funding for the Con-
vention and particularly support from UMass.

The second annual meeting will be held April
15-18, 1978 at University of Massachusetts/Amherst.
It is expected that the participation will be around
700 people and a lot more student participation. The
date of April will also contribute to a greater registra-
tion concerning weather conditions and also the
location being on the eastern seaboard.

The theme for the UMass conference will be
beyond survival: Where do we go from here to make

Kathy Rose

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Black Studies a national force with the American
academic community? There is a desire for the
students to become involved and to stress their con-
cern or provide some input. The students have an en-
tire day to run their own work shops, organized and
run by students, with help from professors by stu-
dent request.

The basic format has not been worked out as yet.
The conference will last three and a half days. The

first day will be registration and organization of three
workshops running concurrently. The last day will be
on wrap up and conclusion. There will also be a ban-
quet and entertainment. The ultimate objective is to
address itself to concerns to develop Black Studies
as a national force in higher education utilizing
lessons learned over 10 years of Black Studies.
Significant progress was made toward planning for
an exciting, productive convention for 1978.

Photo by Edward Cohen

'Hoo-Doo Bone Series" by Nelson Stevens

BOOK REVIEW

THE WOMEN AND THE MEN
by NIKKI GIOVANNI

William Morrow & Co., N.Y., 1957

We Black people have a habit of crowning the
Kings and Queens of our culture and then push them
to the back of our minds because some one new has
caught our attention. But our royal brothers and
sisters are still here, producing more masterpieces
for education and entertainment. This is the case
with Nikki.

Her latest book is a collection of poetry she wrote
from 1970 to 1975. The forty-two poems in this
volume are grouped into three sections: "The
Women, The Men And Some Places."

Nikki's style is basically the same; small case let-
ters and lines running into lines, freeing punctua-
tions so that the reader may make their own choice
as they read.

But the difference is in Nikki's tone. Over the five
year span of this book, the reader will find that her
tone is subdued and somewhat reflective. Her poetry
speaks of loneliness, and the need to be alone. She
talks about youth and the self-contentment of grow-
ing old. But her genius is most vividly displayed
when she writes about places. These places in-
cluded not only Swaziland, Alabama and a park, but
the places in Nikki's mind and yours. Places like the
night, the solitude of writing poetry, and the future of
our children.

The Women and The Men is a book that many of
us will pass by but won't buy now, but most of us will

find it later. Later, when we've found the "other
things" we're looking for now. Nikki's found those
"other Things" as she demonstrates in her poem
from this volume,

"Revolutionary Dreams"

i used to dream militant

dreams of taking

over america to show

these white folks how it should be

done

i used to dream radical dreams

of blowing everyone away with my
perceptive powers

of correct analysis

i even used to think I'd be the one

to stop the riot and negotiate the
peace

then i awoke and dug

that if i dreamed natural

dreams of being a natural

woman doing what a woman

does when she's natural

i would have a revolution
Nikki Giovanni was born in Tennessee and raised
in Ohio. She lives in New York City with her son Tom-
my. Among her previous books are Black Feeling,
Black Talk/Black Judgement; Gemini and My
House.

Sharleen Dickinson

Photo by Edward Cohen

THIS NIGGER'S CRAZY

RICHARD PRYOR

by Kim Hill

Richard Pryor, a scintillating black man bom and
raised an urbane man is today industry's top come-
dian. Pryor is known for his mockspastic movements
as well as performing a one man free-form theatre.
Armed chiefly with his wit, he talks about racism in a
way that he pokes fun at whites and blacks alike.
Pryor mirrors the black condition without exploiting
it. He transcends the stereotypical situations in
which blacks are labeled and he becomes the pro-
totype with which all black people are familiar. Wat-
ching and listening to Pryor is like watching
yourself. He marks all victims of society on stage, it
can be hilarious or it can be painful.

In the sixties Pryor experienced his first national
exposure. As his success mounted Pryor had
restraints imposed on his unique style of comedy.
The white show-business establishment admon-
ished Pryor to stay within the framework of what
white America's ethics would stand for. After being
told what and what was not appropriate for Pryor's
television debut, as well as having and experiencing
personal problems, Pryor had a downfall, he had a
nervous breakdown right on stage in Las Vegas. He
then withdrew himself from the national scene. Dur-
ing this period of depression he became heavily in-
volved in drugs (cocaine).

By the early seventies Pryor got his shit back

together. Once again he drew national attention for
his role as pianoman in the hit movie Lady Sings the
Blues. Also he coscripted Blazing Saddles with fJlei
Brooks, and received an American Academy of
Humor Award. Some of his LP's were Gold and
Platinum sellers and he also received a Grammy.

More important is the fact that Pryor re-emerged
from his state of depression. He once again told
jokes about "the people that society would rather
forget." His black militants, junkies, winos, whores,
and hustlers still were a part of his scripts. He re-
belled against the white showbusiness establish-
ment.

Donald Bagle of Ebony magazine seems to feel
that "Pryor's comedy was used to uncover shared
hidden terrors, to let us know not only what others
thought of these downtrodden characters, but what
they thought of themselves." Other people feel that
Richard Pryor's criticism and jokes about his people
go too far. These people are the ones who are embar-
rassed by Pryor. They feel the need to make the
public realize that there are other positive images in
the black community. I used to feel the same way as
these people, but as you can see now I realize what
Pryor has gone through and tried to do for his people
and now I appreciate him and his talent more than
ever before.

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