The Urban Review
JOHN
HOPE
September 1971
FRANKLIN
INTERVIEWER: In the introduction to Color and Race, you spoke of color polarization on a world scale. How is this phenomenon now developing? For example, will color become a major factor in international relations, on a par with ideology? FRANKLIN: Color has long been a factor: the exploitation of the darker peoples of the world by Europe has been going on for several centuries. And the development of views of racial superiority rising out of that exploitation has certainly become widespread. What you have now is a resistance to the exploitation and a resistance to the doctrines of racial superiority. This is where you get the polarization, the strong and bitter resentment that the darker peoples of the world have against those who have exploited them and who have developed doctrines of white supremacy. I would think that the polarization may welt be as formidable a force in international relations as ideology. What is tragic is that this very polarization might be exploited by one group of nations to advance a certain ideology as opposed to another group. So you can have this thing compounded with explosive potentials of every conceivable kind. INTERVIEWER: In From Slavery to Freedom, you wrote that as an outcome of the forces that have operated on the Negro population during the last three centuries, there has developed a distinctly separate Negro world within the American community. Is that separate world the dominant force in American black-white relations today? Do you see any prospect of assimilation in the foreseeable future?
32
JOHN HOPE F R A N K L I N is the John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor of History and Chairman of the Department of History at the University of Chicago. He is a native of Oklahoma, where he attended the public schools of Tulsa. In 1935 he received his Bachelor of Arts (Magna cum Laude) from Fisk University. Pursuing graduate studies in history, he attended Harvard University where he received A.M. and Ph.D. degrees. He has taught at Fisk University, St. Augustine's College, North Carolina College at Durham, and Howard University. In 1956 he became Professor and Chairman of the Department of History at Brooklyn College. He has also served as visiting professor in several universities, among them Harvard, Wisconsin, Cornell, and Cambridge University in England. His books include From Slavery to Freedom: A History o f Negro Americans and The Militant South. Land o f the Free, written jointly with John Caughey and Ernest May, is widely used as a text in junior high school courses in U.S. history throughout the country. Dr. Franklin is general editor of the University of Chicago Press Series of Negro American Biographies and Autobiographies. This interview was conducted by the editor of The Urban Review.
FRANKLIN: It's very difficult to know whether the separatist movement is dominant or not. In the Negro community it is very vociferous. It's very active. Whether it constitutes a majority of the members of the Afro-American community is doubtful. The portions favoring assimilation are still very considerable, though tess loud in asserting their views and objectives. So that what we've got is the rise of a very strong and powerful, active, vocal group that expresses itself as being opposed to assimilation or integration. I think it's well to remember that such groups are not at all new in the United States. Don't forget that for more than 150 years, we've had Negroes concluding that, because of the way they were treated, there was no future for them in this country. As a result, they have taken several steps, all of which were separatist. Some have wanted to go back to Africa. Back in the early part of the 19th Century, Paul Cuffee led such a movement. More recently, of course,
John Hope Franklin
there was Marcus Garvey. The movement he led in the 1920s was very strong, very powerful; it probably attracted more adherents than any secular movement among Negroes in the history of this country. Some blacks have wanted to withdraw from the white community altogether and carve out for themselves, here in the United States, a place for Negroes only. After the Civil War there were a number of examples of that: some wanted to go out to western Kansas and Nebraska. Then, in the radical movement of the thirties, there were those who wanted to separate and organize what, at that time, would have been the 49th State-a black state in the United States. And-so the idea of separatism that we see being expressed today is not new. The form may be somewhat different. The effort to develop an entirely separate culture and to underscore the uniqueness of the culture, the effort to strengthen the economic as well as the social and cultural and political aspects of the black community-these seem to be more emphasized today than in some of the previous separatist movements. What's important to remember is (1) that it's extremely difficult to assess the comparative strengths of these two forces (separatism and assimilation), (2) that separatism is not unique in the sense of being absolutely new. It's been with us certainly for 150 years. INTERVIEWER: Dr. Franklin, what do you view as the impact of black consciousness on the role of religion in Negro life? FRANKLIN: What one has to remember here is that the Negro church, one of the oldest institutions in the Negro community, arose out of the consciousness of color that was manifested by white worshipers, white Christians. The black church came into existence in the first place because of the consciousness of color and race that was manifested back in the 1790s. The Methodists in Philadelphia did not want Negroes to worship in their church on the basis of equality. Only after they put the Negroes out did the Negroes set up their own church. From that point on it has been the focus of life in the Negro community-not only religious life, but social and other aspects as well. The role it has played until relatively recent times has been one of providing a place where'Negroes who found themselves buffeted and beaten could come for solace and fellowship and communion with each other. But in addition it was always a place where some of the most vigorous thrusts on behalf of equality were made. I think this is something not altogether remembered. The 19th century black minister was in many instances extremely active in the struggle for equality. Take, for example, Samuel Ringgold Ward or Henry M. Turner, both of them prominent religious leaders and, at the same time, radical and powerful advocates of equality. It was Turner
who said there was no manhood future for Negroes in the Un{ted States; as a result of this conclusion, he advocated that Negroes leave this country. There were others as well. But in recent years the church has become a much more active proponent of radical change than it was earlier. In many instances it has become the focal point for advocating change. I think that as one views what has happened in the South in the last ten years, one must ascribe to Negro churches a prominent role in the struggle for change. Certainly, Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had a lot to do with reorienting the church's mission, as it were. What you have is a fanning out and an increase in the activity of churches. You see it here in Chicago where Reverend C.T. Vivian is a very important leader in the struggle for greater equality for Negro construction workers and where Reverend Jesse Jackson is the leader of the whole economic arm of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. INTERVIEWER: What are your thoughts, Dr. Franklin, on the problems created by desegregation? The contraction of employment opportunities, for example.
FRANKLIN: Well, of course, desegregation has created problems in the black community. As long as it was more or less of an island, with only the weakest possible links with the larger community, the black community tended to be self-sufficient so far as its institutional and organizational structure was concerned. It had its own teachers, its own physicians, its own small shops, its own undertaking establishments, and all the rest. The desegregation of schools and the opening of public accommodations to blacks as well as whites, means that the black boardinghouse and the small black restaurant experience great difficulty in competing with the more commodious and in many instances better managed establishments. That's understandable, for that is out in the arena of free competition; and without Negroes having a source of capital with which to compete, they would find themselves at a very serious disadvantage. Some of this might be overcome as they find opportunities to get capital to invest in their own businesses. The educational picture is rather bleak; it reflects the tact that while the law calls for desegregation, the white communities in the South and, indeed, in many parts of the North, have no intention of desegregating across the board. There are instances where Negro teachers have lost their jobs because, with the consolidation of schools, they find themselves expendable, because the white boards of education in many cases have not been able to bring themselves to employ Negro teachers to teach white children. The thrust of the more recent desegregation efforts has been not
33
INTERVIEW:
merely to desegregate the schools but the faculties as well. To date, there has not been very great success in this area. Another problem is that, where there has been a willingness to desegregate faculties, the best black teachers are often transferred to white schools, thereby leaving the schools where most of the Negro children go less adequately staffed than they had been before. There is sort of an irony about this: desegregation, which in theory should provide better educational opportunities for black children, in fact, does not do so. This has created strong resentment and has led the black community to question the wisdom, the efficacy, indeed, the justice of that kind of desegregation. INTERVIEWER: With some of the top Negro students and teachers moving to integrated colleges, what do you see as the future of the Negro college?
34
FRANKLIN: I have a close connection with one Negro college, my own alma mater, Fisk University, where I am now chairman of the Board of Trustees. This gives me a fairly good vantage point from which to view developments in the predominantly Negro college today. I think that it has almost always been assumed that if Negroes could go to white colleges, they wouldn't go to Negro colleges or that if they could teach in white colleges, they wouldn't teach in Negro colleges. I think that both of these assumptions are false. I remember so well when the Supreme Court decision on school desegregation was handed down in 1954, there were many who felt that the next thing for black schools and colleges and universities to do was close down, because they no longer had any reason for existence, since Negroes could theoretically go to white schools and colleges and universities. That was always a specious position, reached largely as a result of a kind of racist view of black institutions. The view was that they were really not good enough to exist and that the sole reason they did exist was that the people who attended them, couldn't go to white colleges. Also prevalent in the fifties and sixties was the view that in spite of a crying need for more colleges and universities (brought about by an increasing population and greater demands for education), these would not be the colleges to attend. Rather, create new ones. It's rather tragic that in parts of the South, states have founded new state colleges since 1954 in communities where there was a black state college already in existence, the feeling being that somehow whites wouldn't or shouldn't go to the state college already in that community, if it happened to be black. I see these views as arising out of some specious reasoning born of the very tragic racist orientation of so many people of this country.
Now as I look at the picture today, it is true that universities like my own, the University of Chicago, and others in the North are actively recruiting both Negro teachers and Negro students. It is equally true that they are not altogether successful on either of these scores. There's a great deal of talk about black brain-drain today, but I think there's more talk than actual occurrence. It's interesting to observe that Negro colleges can still find and employ, say, Negro physicists and Negro professors of English and history. Many of them remain in the institutions of their choice and many of them find that their own opportunities are better in such institutions. Others do not find that and seek employment elsewhere. It's interesting too that the enrollment in Negro colleges is not down. If ani, thing, it's up. And while, of course, the very powerful financial and other attractions at the major white universities in this country might draw some of the Negro students to them, they don't draw all of them. Nor can it be argued that the attractive great universities are exclusively getting the cream of the Negro high school graduates. They are recruiting all the way down the line. I know of some of these institutions that are taking borderline black students, for good or bad reasonsbut they're taking them. So it cannot be said that Negro colleges are in a very bad way because they lack faculty ot students. I think that one of the problems today is that white benefactors, under the illusion that Negro colleges are no longer necessary, are not as generous in contributing to them as they once were. As a result, these colleges are having serious financial difficulties. Even the black public institutions are having difficulty competing with the predominantly white public institutions in the same states. For example, Negro institutions, whether public or private, find themselves at a very serious disadvantage in competing for funds in Washington. The guidelines and the criteria by which federal grants are made are all too frequently drawn in terms of the big multiversities; a small college simply finds itself unable to qualify or to compete for some of these rather limited federal funds. Another point that ought to be made: It doesn't follow that black students will go to white universities merely because they can. Particularly at a time where consciousness of color is so very strong, there are those who believe that their place is with their own, at their own institutions. They speak a great deal now of making these institutions black universities, black colleges. Their chances of making one of the larger northern universities over in their image are not nearly as good from their point of view. I know of instances where black students have actually left northern universities and gone to southern Negro colleges because they felt that they could fulfill themselves and would have greater fellowship with their own people at such institutions. This, too, has to be considered in trying
John Hope Franklin
to assess the drawing power of large white northern universities. INTERVIEWER: Dr. Franklin, what are your views on black studies programs? FRANKLIN: I have been quoted as saying that I didn't know what black studies was. First of all, let me say that we've had black studies for years and years. Surely we've had it since Carter Woodson organized the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History back in 1915 and through the succeeding years when a remarkable increase in the number of books written about Negroes and, in large part, by Negroes began to appear in substantial numbers, say from World War I to the present. And we've had courses being taught in Negro colleges and universities for 50 years. Today, when we talk about black studies, we're talking about two things. O n e - a corrective or revisionist program of education that will project the Negro into the educational and intellectual world in a way that he's not been projected before. This can be seen in the introduction of all kinds of courses and various types of apparatus for the promotion of these courses of study. But I think we are also talking about something else: namely, a movement that will enhance the pride and sense of dignity and self-respect, that will bolster and strengthen the whole movement for recognition and the whole effort to secure equal rights here in the United States. And so one form of black studies is largely an educational thrust, while the other is more of an ideological or political or social thrust. Of course, they complement each other. I have the impression that when people talk about black studies, some are talking about one thing, some another, and some are talking about both things. At a college or university, I think we're talking about those areas of intellectual activity in which there can be developed a body of knowledge that will enhance our understanding of the black segment of the American community. And this body of knowledge can be history or literature or economics or education or sociology, or it can be interdisciplinary. From my point of view, it is a body of knowledge, that can and must stand on its own two intellectual feet. It must command respect because it has integrity, it has truth, it has a defensible position in the curriculum, and can commend itself to all people. There's another facet which, from my point of view, is not so much academic as it is social or cultural or ideological. Although in my opinion it's not scholarship, it does have its place in imbuing a person with a sense of identity, pride, and self-respect-a sense of worth. One of the reasons I write extensively and speak to adult and community groups is because I regard this as an important area that needs strengthening. One other thing: I think the tendency in recent years has been to enlarge the focus of black studies into areas
that are difficult to defend on intellectual grounds. I refer to certain new courses-courses dealing with black mathematics, black psychology, and the like. I'm not rejecting these out of hand. I am suggesting that, in areas like these what you need is not concoction but some very serious study and examination to test the viability and, indeed, the integrity of such efforts. But there isn't much thought being given these things today. What you get is a great deal of activity, tots of writing, a great number of courses being introduced, a flood of syllabi coming out, and lots of people rushing into former vacuums and occupying them, but with what success and with what efficacy, I simply do not know. On the one hand, you have the legitimate and praiseworthy efforts of many peoples to broaden, to increase the knowledge of all people about black people. But you've also got a politicized situation where black studies is being used by students to beat the administrators over the head; and administrators, frightened of students and the community, adopt plans for black studies that they don't know how to implement. And this confuses the picture and makes it more of a political venture than anything else. I think that in time, after some years experience, the thing will settle down. We will have, as indeed we should have, very important areas of AfroAmerican studies that will be as much a part of the curriculum or of higher education as anything else; but at the moment there's great excitement and some considerable confusion as well. INTERVIEWER: There's considerable interest throughout the nation in the University of Chicago. Of course, people know of it as an eminent seat of learning; but they also know of it because of its location in a section of the city that has undertaken a much heralded experiment in integrated, middle income housing, and also because of its proximity to a lower income black neighborhood widely publicized as the home of the Blackstone Rangers. So on the subject of the University of Chicago, perhaps you will comment not only in its Black Studies program, but also on your perspective as an academic in general, and as a black academic, in particular, on this particular university's role in the community. FRANKLIN: First let me talk very briefly about our academic activities here. Since the beginning of this university which is now more than 75 years old, there has been some considerable leeway in developing new academic activities and exploring new academic frontiers. I believe that what William Rainey Harper, our first president didn't achieve in this area, Robert Maynard Hutchins did go far toward achieving in his long years as head of this university. There is a fairly good climate for experimentation and of adventure, and perhaps that is the reason why over the last
35
INTERVIEW:
36
15 or 20 years, long before I arrived here, one could find various courses about Negro life. For example, there were courses in the political science department several years ago on the Negro and the Constitution, and for a number of years there have been courses in the School of Education on the teaching of Negro history, and kindred courses in the School of Social Work, and so forth. tn more recent years, there has been an acceleration of interest and an increase in the number of such courses-Negro literature for instance-although I don't think the number has increased significantly in the last two or three years. Still, it adds up to more courses than most institutions have. We have somewhere between 35 and 40 courses in departments as widely separate as history, anthropology, economics, the School of Business, the School of Divinity, the Law School, the School of Education, and the School of Social Service Administration. What we do not have is an umbrella under which these various offerings are centered, which would perhaps give them greater visibility, and which would justify an entity called a program or institute or department. I happen to be chairman of the committee that is examining this question now. t think it will recommend some greater degree of visibility, but how much I don't know. It is interested in encouraging departments to offer additional courses in areas where there seem to be some gaps, and it is interested in encouraging students to take advantage of the offerings in the general area of African and Afro-American Studies. The University of Chicago has had tenured Negro professors since 1941. And I suppose that one might say that the perspective of the Negro faculty member here is affected by the sense of freedom and equality that one gets at this university, as a part of the older tradition to which I referred. But while I think this tends to give him the sense of being a part of an integrated, middle class community, at the same time, he is made aware of conditions and problems that abut on the campus that are experienced by low income or 'disadvantaged' groups, who out of their frustration have acted in ways to attract national attention. What a Negro professor at this university feels or thinks is that the university does have a role in trying to participate in the improvement of the community around it. A person like myself would do everything to encourage the university not merely to take the initiative, but to join in the efforts that are being made by members of the community itself to improve itself. To that end, the university has done a number of things. It recently leased for 99 years-or some period of time-a large area of land for housing development and has loaned the community organization a half million dollars to begin the plans for developing the housing program. The university has a young Negro Vice President for Planning, and this helps in these areas. As a matter of fact, there are two Negro vice
presidents here. The university is trying in various ways, to be a good citizen in the community and to improve its image over what it was in earlier times when the strain between it and the rest of the community was fairly obvious. INTERVIEWER: From your contact with students, what is your impression of the returning black G.I.s-the black veterans of Vietnam in particular? What do they want in the way of education and occupation-and what are they going to get? FRANKLIN: To begin with, let me say that I think the Negro G.I.s are having experiences abroad that are most unfortunate. If I understand some of tile things that come out of the Pentagon, and if I understand what the returning G.I.s have said to me, their experiences have embittered them. The racial tensions among American G.I.s in Vietnam are such that one veteran told me that he sometimes wondered whether he was fighting a war against the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong or against the white G.I.s and white officers. He said that there were times when he felt he was fighting on two fronts. And from what l've seen, these tensions in our military are not confined to Vietnam, but exist also in other parts of the world, such as Germany. Now, young men coming back with an embittered attitude are certainly going to step up the demands that are being made by blacks on the homefront. They're going to want education, yes-education to prepare them to live in today's world. I'm not sure whether they will be terribly interested in what we call 'separate living', but I don't think they're going to be terribly patient about any delays in improving conditions. I suspect they are going to be generally more militant than their predecessors from Korea and from World War II; and the values they are going to seek to realize will be those of equality and justice. It seems to me that it would be the better part of wisdom for a very extensive program to be launched, ensuring that their re-entry into American life is made as easy as possible. And it can be made easy if we make certain that the life that they come back to is really worth living. INTERVIEWER: What do you think of the Nixon Administration's desegregation policies, and its attitude toward welfare? FRANKLIN: As far as desegregation is concerned, 1 don't think there's any question but that the President has sought to slow it down through the actions of the Justice Department and by delaying the enforcement of the guidelines in Mississippi and elsewhere. This came as a great disappointment to those of us who had hoped that after 15 or more years, some significant steps would be made-or, at
John Hope Franklin
least that no backward steps would be taken. In that connection the very serious rupture within the civil rights section of the Justice Department would seem to underscore the internal disagreements over what the policies ought to be: those responsible for seeing that the law was enforced have found it impossible to carry out their own work. I think that another indication of the lack of forward looking efforts on the part of the people in Washington has been the cutting back of federal construction some 75 percent which means, of course, the unemployment of large numbers of people who would otherwise be working. At a time when you're seeking particularly to improve the lot of the more disadvantaged segments of the population, welfare programs are being modified and construction programs are being sliced. I have not seen in this administration any positive or forthright statements of commitment to raise the level of the disinherited in terms of their place in American life. Surely they haven't gotten much encouragement from Washington in recent months. INTERVIEWER: A study conducted by Educational Testing Service concludes that duriiig the past decade curriculum innovations have had a telling effect on the teaching of mathematics, science, and modern foreign languages, but have had much less impact on the teaching of history and social studies. How do you, as a historian respond to that? FRANKLIN: I think it's quite true that the innovations in social studies have not been nearly as extensive as in science and mathematics and foreign languages and the like. For one thing, social studies don't lend themselves to significant modifications as much as, say, mathematics or a foreign language, or other subjects where a laboratory plays an important role. In addition, I think a social science teacher tends to be less innovative, less experimental, less prone to gadgetry and other apparatus that might be introduced into the classroom. I think that is because he regards the nature of the subject matter with a kind of grim determination: he
sees it as just about the same now as it has been in previous years, and so there's no way of trying to change the approach because, after all, it's the same material. Let me add that I am one who advocates innovation and experimentation. We need to see more of that. The world is different and the pace of life is different. The means by which we communicate are different, and we simply have to adapt to those changes. INTERVIEWER: Finally, Dr. Franklin, let me inquire about a junior high school textbook you co-authored entitled Land o f the Free. Have you anything to say to budding authors based on the book's reception and the use to which it's been put? FRANKLIN: If authors of U.S. history texts are themselves trying to be innovative, I would advise them to be prepared for attacks from all sides. That's what my colleagues and I got when we wrote Land of the Free. But it was worth writing, because there we sought to introduce into the general stream of American history some new ideas and some new materials, telling more about various minority groups and looking at the whole development of American history from a different vantage point. And the result was, I think, an exciting book, one that challenged both students and teachers and came closer to pointing out and putting in focus the main currents of American history. I realize this sounds immodest, but then let me add that my colleagues may have had more to do with it than I. Nevertheless, the book was experimental and innovative; and I think that it really cut a new path. You now can introduce into the main text of American history many things about Negroes, about Mexican Americans, about Japanese and all that without people raising their eyebrows as high as they did when we ventured out with Land of the Free. I hope, therefore, that this book will make it a little easier for its successors. If it will do that, its authors will be very pleased. []
37