One thing that really bothers me, that really
troubles me about is the way our young people
we think they're falling into something that's
un-African-American. I think that as I was raised,
and I'm sure that you were raised, to blend
with them, try to keep ourselves in order and
our clothes in order.
And looking respectful. It's very important to
us and to our mothers and fathers and grandmothers
The thing that disturbs me is when people,
they've been perfectly good-natured and they
have mothers and fathers
and so far have been true African-American
tradition and actually religion and put upon
themselves something
that they can't even spell and they certainly
can't pronounce. And another thing that
disturbs me is the way
our young men going out to play here and just
trying to throw the term. Just for this experience,
looking like Cowsies. Because I remember as a
kid, one of the worst things ever that you
could call was
looking like Cowsies. Some of the young people
don't look like Cowsies. What do Cowsies look like?
And now it's just very striking to me to think
of, particularly following the Black and Tumor period,
the same howling of the Black and Tumor. To
see, particularly our young men who are
supposed to be
different, our strength going around wearing
the hair of that woman's skin, which is the
weight of braided
hair. And I never saw in all of my health in
Africa any men walking around with their hair braided.
Maybe in another sense it indicates that we are
really truly liberated. We're not so concerned
about our hair.
I don't know why we're so concerned about our
hair. Sometimes I see man's face. So concerned
about hair,
we're not concerned about what's under the hair.
And I really think that what's under the hair
is very, very important.
We're concerned about wearing those crazy ways
out. This will show Mr. Bones' clothes.
They wear in Chicago and other places in South
Canada, the fact that our young men, I'm really
concerned about our young men because they are,
you know, our students.
When I was a kid, we felt sorry for anybody who
had to wear a sewing suit to go out like that.
So we felt very sorry for anybody.
It's kind of amazing how some things can be
programmed into certain things like that. Well,
I got to do that on my chip. I'm going to read
a poem. I brought 20 copies of this book still
to South.
And this is called What Shall I Tell My
Children? And it's an event. But it's done ten
years later.
And hopefully I have had some change in my
thinking. And both of you know that poem.
And I just want to read a poem to the poem. And
this is from a lady whom I do not know.
Margaret Burroughs, in a small moment, tell
your childhood black. The symbols of color are
in the mind and eyes of youth.
A white poster is empty of meanings, only the
color of a design and the lack of words gives
them meaning. White cigarettes, made by a white man.
White is the color of the paper that the white
man's bureaucracy uses to communicate endless
and slaving directions. White are the sands of
barren and productive deserts.
And the white of winter is cold and chilling.
The white tombstone appears unexpectedly,
repeatedly endlessly, reminding us of our own insignificance.
White is glaring, sometimes blinding. The black
of night brings us to sleep in the deepness of
the night. Blackness.
Newspapers, bibles, centuries of ideas gathered
for us in black burdens. Many black fried pans,
sizzle with cook as no right imitation can.
The doctor carries his weapons of healing in
small black bands. Black is the velvet gown a
state can make you wear standing in a crazy crowd.
Tell your childhood black that my childhood is
white. It's all too strong for man. Tell him
that some of us, how few, I do not know, have
suffered oppression and injustices
and then made ourselves multiplied by millions
of black children in our own lives that
Americans have inflicted on America.
Tell him that some of us take your distance,
loving your country as you love your children.
Never teaching, never learning, never looking
to correct mistakes, big enough to never pray
for their growth, right?
The American displacement of other Americans
burdened us with a sense that to never be
retaken, to somehow must be reduced.
Tell your childhood black that my childhood is
white. It's all too strong for man. Tell him
that I want to bring him to this country,
yes, a world where all the opportunities, the
rights, the privileges, and the
responsibilities are available to every man
that I wanted now. Tell him please that my, my education,
the hypocrisy of an unused willow price, the
constant flaunting of the American credo, gnaw
at my insides, drag me on a frightening search
for answers,
and deprive me of the dignity I want for all
men, since my son was born. This is my, ladies
and gentlemen, new article.
Original artist presentation. Okay? Debra?
Don't look at me. Come forward. Oh, yes. Oh, no.
I was just thinking I can't do anything. I was
thinking about doing something else, but I can't.
You understand after all, we do not speak for
money. We don't know about that, do we? So, I
know that Curtis is going to speak for me.
Because I'm such a ditty. My name is Debra
Gottfried, and I happen to be a member of the
judge who is keeping on the song. If me and
Curtis can't talk about it sometimes,
that's not something I'm, because as far as you
can hear, everybody said, yeah, but I'm going
to call on somebody, and I'm a ditty, and I
don't want to be a member of my family.
So, we watch you, we believe you, come up here,
and we are currently rehearsing what we're
going to do tomorrow night for the festival,
which is going to do an original play by
Barbara Alexander,
who's already been entitled Time to Deal. So,
I'd like to do something I feel comfortable
with, and this is the thing that we did this morning,
and I won't put you on this hot chair, because
you are going to be the other one, but anyway,
if I want to flop, I'm going to flop with
somebody else.
So, the scene is a recurring theme. Debra
Gottfried is a little queasy, but she's going
to be tomorrow night. The two captains, Mary
Allison and Josephine,
did two domestic scenes, and I liked the way
the music is played. We thought it might be a
great chorus, or this play, we happened to be busy.
I had to be in the chorus. We kind of carried
this historical aspect of the play along, but
this particular scene comes by midway through
the play.
It comes by midway through the play, and the
play is about civil rights movement, and this
is a movement that exists about midway through
the play,
when they have the problem, or when the troops
go down, and the Alabama is...
I can't take off my glasses, and I don't want
to see the cracks.
I'm going to get up.
Honey, Honey, did you see television today?
Mary Allison, you know I didn't see no television.
Don't you want to ride a movement from her feet
up like Miss Ann? Why, well, Miss Ann was just
scared to stay up. Honey, you should have seen
it. It was a long afternoon, honey.
Even after it was night off. And you know I was
mad to see what was going on. Honey, it was
live television coverage.
The children tried to get in school in Alabama.
What school? The university where George
Wallace went to school.
Yeah, honey, but no one can tell. Honey,
they're trying to have fun down in Mississippi.
You remember Rockpa there, don't you?
Yeah, Honey, trying to win that game. That was
last year.
Girl, but didn't Kennedy's brother show up to
see that I was getting showed up? Mary Allison,
didn't you tell him?
Well, Honey, I told you never ask. But you see,
Wallace was standing in the door, honey, and
all these old no good people were standing
right there in the hall.
You know how it is, honey. And now this
incredible man, this Kennedy, said Johnny, I
was trying to be nice to Wallace and tell him
to get his husband, but I told your girl to go
get you.
Yeah, honey, he still stood there, and he
called in his old troops and everything. Girl,
this old Bobby Kennedy, that child is cute.
Daddy, look at your baby.
But you know what they say? Mr. Wallace, you
bad, but you ain't bad enough.
That old Bobby Kennedy is so cute. You
understand that, girl?
I'm not gonna be able to see that, but little
Bobby got his big brother John to nationalize
the Alabama troops.
Honey, nationalize the Alabama troops. Honey,
you're a sugar-themed, honey.
And they went on up to Wallace and they said,
man, you ain't got no troops, because Bobby
ain't working for the president of the United States.
That old big nose woman, I work with her. She
come in there and see when we turn that TV.
You look at that TV and you know she turned
those big nose up, honey. But you know me. I
said you know me.
When she turned her big nose up, I'm gonna do this.
You play a wolf. You play a wolf? Well, nah,
those things was going on. Play a wolf, Honey.
Anyway, you know what they did, honey.
They put on the wife and they told me to either
move or they was gonna redo it, honey.
What did he do, girl? The wife got that old
long black car and drove it mad?
It was me that matched the beat.
Like girl, that one took it out of me
and you know how I do.
Girl, girl, I could give you something better.
You know what I mean, girl?
You know what I mean?
You know what, girl?
I should have asked that.
No, no, I mean, girl, I was proud of everything
you do.
You know I was proud of my little boy, Mike.
That boy just came man to man.
Honey, but you know who I was most proud of?
I was proud of that pretty little colored dad.
Honey, that's nice of you.
Walk right over here.
Walk right over here now.
Girl, sometimes I'm hoping for a little kid
and I know that they're going to have a little kid.
Sure would make a nice little kid, yes. (applause)
Now everybody on the floor. (applause)
When I come to the States, I really don't come
to the States,
I really come to the White House because I miss
my people.
And I'm still in my family home.
You get a small injection of like...
I can't tell you how pleased I am
how emotional I feel to see not only my old friends,
my old friends and me,
but new friends, people that I have admired for
a long time
and that I know they're great.
And more than ever,
I think young people who are creative
and who are working at it and who are producing,
I can't quite make the right touch
because I get very emotional.
But I'm expecting a few very rewarding days
and I want to thank you and your friends. (applause)
I think that's like intermission time.
So now, when you're not here,
you did not envision tonight,
you did not know what the stars would be.
But sometimes when you hear other people
saying that excites me,
I can't use the word excited.
It's too much excitement.
I'm excited, I'm charmed up.
But sometimes you see people at distance
and you do not get the real flavoring
of what they're about.
What you have done for us
is allow us to become something that is really
kind of
in a poetic way.
We step out and become like real life.
Sometimes when you see things at a distance,
you are surprised.
And you begin to be so human.
For you to be so believable,
for you to be here,
for you to be here.
I'm expecting great things from you.
And I'm sure you are expecting great things
from us.
And what kind of things are you looking for?
Is this a space or a space?
We don't want to stop here.
The water is straight to the quiet.
Name this water?
Straight to the quiet.
I don't want to follow that job.
That would be death.
The water is straight to the quiet.
Because I would say it's you, Kim.
Remember one cold night,
one cold night,
one cold night.
That's the foundation of a fountain meeting.
The National Negro Conference.
There is nothing to be ashamed of in the world
of Negroes
than we in our limited gift of life and gifts.
Leave it to Joy.
That's what we want to do,
not somebody else's life and gift.
It's irrigation.
It's an entire language of people.
If you think them,
it's probably,
probably you,
it would be the king.
But this meeting is so different.
We have such a relatively short time in the
historic community.
It's like sitting in a room with a playwright
and in the 30 feet you're playing
something more than you think. Tonight,
everybody here is saying you're goddamn right,
I'm coming.
Thank you. So,
listen to the point here.
The reason he's so eloquent,
so willing to give his story,
but I remember many times Langston would arrive
at his annual portrait reading at Book Selling
in Colorado,
bringing two suitcases,
one with his long Johns and socks and a couple
of shirtcases,
and the other one loaded with other people's manuscripts.
Langston traveled all over the country.
He was primarily the black assertive.
And as part of gatherings just like this,
people would get in the trance
and to a hundred and twenty seven streets off
Lenox and New York would go,
with fledgling cabins of young blacks, male and female,
trying to say something about
their attempt to evolve a view of themselves
and to say something about their condition and
their future.
They came in long hands, printed,
casually typed on all kinds of paper and never
with return postings.
And Langston would bring these manuscripts to Chicago
and he'd sit up at Parkway Center
where he'd have his party take things to Howard
and Ike's company
and come back down to David Heber Heber Lincoln Center.
By the way, they were the only center in
Chicago long before Lincoln Center in New York City.
And he'd sit down and go through the manuscripts
with suggestions from people that he wanted to study
what to do about mastering the English language
so that when you abused it consciously
because of the dramatic intellectual or
political or social effect
you wanted to use that you could write for the
O.K. English language.
And he'd list the places where there might be
the possibility of publication.
Pretoria A's, Citrin Law of John Gray's,
a video of a bodyguard with a broken eye from
being replied and he'd focus on it.
I don't know who sitting in this audience
probably got a reply from him,
but I'll bet you there isn't a black eye in a
United States surgeon today.
He was 30 years old, hasn't been given a coach,
a hat on the head and a black shoe and to keep
on at it, a microphone.
I hope that the stage will be a wonderful place.
Choose what you would, just throw the clothes
on, and there's no turning back. (applause)
Video is ready to do.
Can you hear me? Turn it on. (laughter)
Speaking of Langston Hughes, my first book,
Young Blood, was published.
Most of the writers in the O.K. English got uptight.
Langston Hughes whom I had met as a lot of Africans
who committed to supporting Africa many times
in the adventure of my home
invited me to come over to his house
and we sat up in his committee on the third
floor drinking wine and Coca-Cola.
That was his style in those days.
And Langston had already told me that one thing
was sure,
I admit the friendliest book that a Negro ever wrote.
He also said, he said, and in all the words,
and these white folks were published books and
they were promoted.
So he gave me the very generous...
Video is ready to do.