Dr. Charles Wright: "There is a new mood in the black communities, one of self-determination and self-expression and this mood must be heard and dealt with. This is what Congressman Powell meant when he said that the initiative should come from within the community and not from outside."

The subcommittee voted, on May 30, 1968, to report H.R. 12962 to the full committee, with the recommendations that the bill be approved by the full Committee on Education and Labor. The bill as amended was reported unanimously and with bipartisan support.

SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS

1(a) Establishes a Commission on Negro History and Culture, to be composed of 11 persons, appointed by the President from authorities on Negro history and culture.

1(b) The President is to designate a Chairman and Vice Chairman. Six Members may constitute a quorum of the Commission.

1(c) This section authorizes the customary per diem and travel reimbursement for members of the Commission, with per diem limited to $100 a day.

1(d) Authorizes the Chairman, or a majority of the members to call Commission meetings..

2. Standard provisions authorizing hiring of a staff, and of consultants on a per diem basis.

3. This section sets forth the duties of the Commission, which shall be to "study proposals to create a better understanding and knowledge of Negro history and culture," and to make legislative recommendations to the President and Congress with regard to this objective.

U.S. SENATE, Washington, D.C., July 3, 1968.

Mr. PETER MCCOLLOUGH,
President, Xerox Corp.,
Rochester, N.Y.

DEAR MR. MCCOLLOUGH: Last night I watched the first program (Black History-Lost, Stolen or Strayed) in the seven part series "Of Black America" sponsored by Xerox Corporation, and want you to know I am deeply impressed with the educational and cultural value of such a series. This first program was of good quality and content. It graphically points out the adverse psychological effects of a dominating white society on a black minority. This country is now seeking a remedy to the effects of a century of distortion and neglect of the black minority.

I would like to call your attention to a bill which I recently introduced to establish a Commission on Negro History and Culture. This Commission would study all proposals to research, document, compile, preserve, and disseminate data on Negro history and culture. It would recommend such legislative enactments as may be required to provide for the integration of such data into the mainstream of American education and life. Its recommendations may include the use of television as a broad method of dissemination of such data. I am gratified that television is already beginning to do this with the broadcast of your enlightened series.

I would very much like to have a copy of the transcript of yesterday's (Tuesday, July 2) program as well as those of the remaining six in the series for use in connection with my bill.

With my sincere commendation for the efforts of Xerox Corporation in this area of human relations, I am

Sincerely,

HUGH SCOTT,
U.S. Senator.

CBS NEWS SPECIAL, OF BLACK AMERICA-"BLACK HISTORY: LOST, STOLEN, OR STRAYED", AS BROADCAST OVER THE CBS TELEVISION NETWORK, TUESDAY, JULY 2, 1968, 10-11 P.M., E.D.T.-WITH BILL COSBY

(Produced by: Andrew A. Rooney and Vern Diamond. Written by: Perry Wolff and Andrew A. Rooney. Executive Producer: Perry Wolff)

ANNOUNCER. CBS News presents Of Black America: "Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed"

(Children singing "Charlie Brown")

Mrs. BILLUPS (teacher). Great! Very good. All right. We'll go to lunch now and this afternoon we'll continue.

BILL COSBY (trying child's chair). No, I could never fit in that-never get in that at all. This is more like it.

Now, what's the whitest thing you know? Whiter than the driven snow, whiter than the whites of your eyes? Sugar. Non-integrated, non-black, sweet sugar. But you see there is a black man in your sugar.

His name is Norbert Rillieux. Norbert Rillieux in 1846 invented a vacuum pan that revolutionized the sugar refining industry. You have to dig to find that fact. I mean, it's not much history, but it's still history.

Now what do you stand in? In your shoes. Now, there's just you in your shoes, isn't there? Nope. See there's a black man standing in your oxfords with you. Sharing your sole and your heel-is a man whose name is Jan Ernst Matzeliger. In 1863-this is a drawing by the kids-Matzeliger invented the machine that made mass-produced shoes possible. Now you have to dig around for that fact, too. And again, it's not much history, but it's history.

Am I coming in clear to California? I mean is this TV signal driving through a pass in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and slipping into San Francisco? O.K. Well, I want to thank you, Jim Beckwourth. Jim Beckwourth, out of St. Louis, hunter, trapper, and honorary chief of the Crow tribe of Indians. We had trouble finding you, Jim. Though you helped open the West, you didn't make the books. Chicago-right here where the Wrigley Building is. Young fellow by the name of Jean Baptiste du Sable. Jean Baptiste. He founded you, Chicago, when he traded with the Indians. And of course, there it is right there. At that particular time it was called Eschikagon (or "stinking onion") by the Indians, and du Sable, he didn't even change the name at all.

Now you take the Lewis and Clark expedition here-right in there. You'll find a black man named York helping to open the West. Those men are trying to wash the black out of York. That's what you might call historically significant because a lot of people thing we ought to wash white-but we ain't gonna, you see.

Texas-coming to you, Texas. Right down the Chisholm Trail, right here. Right down there with 5,000 black cowboys who never made it to the Hollywood Western. Did you know that? In this same group, there was one black outlaw-his name was Deadwood Dick-who claimed his soul brothers were Bat Masterson, Billy the Kid and Jesse James. Deadwood Dick used to ride into the saloon, order two drinks-one for himself and one for his horse. And here's his horse, drinking a shot of red-eye with a straw.

And how about the 186,000 blacks who fought on the Union side during the Civil War? 38,000 died.

How about Teddy Roosevelt's charge up San Juan Hill? It wasn't just the Rough Riders who made it. Four black regiments went right up with Teddy. They didn't get lost going up the hill. They got lost in the history books.

How about the North Pole? Snow white? Well, the first man there was black. Matthew Henson. He spoke Eskimo, and he was Admiral Peary's navigator; and although he made it first to the pole, it never quite made it to the history books. And how about your heart? Can we get there? All right. Daniel Hale Williams first performed open-heart surgery successfully.

This list could go on forever. Blacks who made it, blacks who made history, but who didn't get into the history texts at all. And the strange thing is, how little there is about us in the textbooks. Napoleon once said, "History is a fable agreed upon." And the fable agreed upon up to now is that American history is white on white.

Sometimes we do get into history books. All wrong. Now you take this one: "The Growth of the American Republic," 1942 edition. Samuel Eliot Morison, Henry Steele Commager. Quote: "As for . . ." This has to do with slavery. "As for Sambo..." Sambo, Professor Morison. Sambo, Professor Commager?

As for Sambo, whose wrongs moved the abolitionists to wrath and tears, there is some reason to believe that he suffered less than any other class in the South from its 'peculiar institution.'" ("Peculiar institution" means slavery.)

Although brought to America by force, the incurably optimistic Negro soon became attached to the country and devoted to his white folks." Unquote. Those lines were written by two Pulitzer Prizewinning white Northern professors. (ANNOUNCEMENT.)

COSBY. Slavery. That's the place everybody likes to start Negro history. You have ignorant black men being brought over from Africa in chains. Terrible thing, slavery. But the way slavery is taught, it sort of takes the sting out of it. Because the way it's usually taught, people think we Afro-Americans started with nothing but little grass skirts, like the cats in the Tarzan movies. And though America gave us slavery, America kindly gave us religion and a lick or two of education, and when we get more jobs and more education-up from slavery!

But we had something before we left Africa-something more than rhythm. I mean, we had a high culture. Our culture was so high that great artists in the world are still borrowing from it.

Here's a sculpture by an unknown African artist-and here's what Paul Klee took from him.

Here's a work by an unknown black African-and Pablo Picasso liked what he saw.

Another African design-and Modigliani swiped it, or he was influenced by it, or whatever polite word you want to use.

Another black African artist-and Piscasso didn't change it very much. I mean, when you look at this copying, you've got to give us a little more than rhythm. You've got to give us style.

Now if you tell the history of slavery right, you've got a big problem on your hands. The slave trader didn't take some savage out of Africa. He took a human being, sold him like an animal and separated him from his family. America invented the cruelest slavery in the history of the world, because it broke up black families. After slavery was over, America kept breaking up the black man's family.

And that's some awful history to teach. Now if you want to look history right straight in the eye, you're going to get a black eye. Because it isn't important whether a few black heroes got lost or stolen or strayed in America's history textbooks. What's important is why they got left out. Now this country has got

a psychological history: there was a master race and there was a slave race, and though there isn't any political slavery any more, those same old attitudes have hung around. I mean the burning part of “Burn, baby, burn" is right here in this classroom.

We want to thank Mrs. Lovely Billups and the whole gang here at the fourth grade for the brilliant and intelligent art work that they've done here to make this whole broadcast sing. I want you guys to keep pretending that I'm not here. You're doing a great job, and just keep on drawing and reading and writing and doing what you have to do 'cause I'm going to talk about some other kids. Not you, Mary, John and Bobby. These are kids from other schools.

Did you know in some states it used to be against the law to teach blacks to read and write? Nowadays we're getting these integrated schoolrooms, and most people think that if we get enough teaching and enough jobs everything is going to take care of itself.

But there is the scar of history running right through kids as young as these. It tears you up, if you know how to look at drawings kids make, because kids shouldn't know much about history and anything about discrimination. I mean, nobody hates little black kids-but why do some of them cause so much trouble? If you ask black and white children to draw themselves, or trees, or houses, some strange things happen. We asked some ordinary white kids from ordinary families to make some drawings for us. Like-well, let's call him John. John's white, and we asked him to draw himself. This is John. This is his house. This is his tree.

Then we asked a black kid—let's call him Ralph—to do the same thing. This is Ralph's drawing of himself. This is his tree. Now why should two kids of the same age draw so differently? Enter the expert. This is Dr. Emmanuel Hammer, psychiatrist specializing in children's therapy.

Dr. HAMMER. Let me illustrate it for you. Let's take these drawings. No matter what a child draws, he's really picturing himself. Ask a secure child to draw a tree, and he's likely to draw a bountiful, spreading tree. A black child drew this tree. Cut off in its growth. Stark, bare, ungratified.

It works the same way with drawings of people. Normal children, average drawings. The mood is happy. The child feels capable. The drawings are complete. The arms are developed to emphasize strength.

These children were old enough to draw complete figures. The significant fact is what they left out. Arms. Hands. A child may sense that his situation in life is so powerless that he himself is equivalent to an armless man. My own study reveals that armless people appear three times more frequently in the drawings by black children than in those by white.

The faceless being suggests that these youngsters not only feel themselves to be less than they might be they don't even feel themselves to be. The black child who is forced to live in a hostile world may disappear in self-defense. He drifts through life feeling like a shadow. He stops caring and he stops trying.

(Drawing of man hanging) A child who has this on his mind cannot be a child. A child who has this on his mind could want to burn down cities when he gets older.

COSBY. The whole confusion was summed up by a black nine-year-old in these two paintings. This is how a nine-year-old boy draws a white man-Robin Hood, maybe. And this is how the same boy draws himself. This is the consequence of deformed history.

Mrs. BILLUPS. Linda, close the curtains. Brian, lower the screen. Bonnie, lights, please.

COSBY. In the past fifty years 33,000 feature films have been made in the United States, and about 6,000 of them have had parts for black actors. For the most part, the black portraits have been drawn by white writers, white producers and white directors for a white audience.

Most black parts were the way white Americans wanted them to be. The black male was consistently shown as nobody, nothing. He had no qualities that could be admired by any man, or, more particularly, any woman.

[Song: "Mississippi Mud."]

White people didn't like to think much about them. Sort of like a relative you've got in a rest home. Happy darkies dancing and singing was all they wanted to hear about. Being good Christians, the whites out front liked to think the blacks out back were kind of happy.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was one of the first movies made that tried to say anything about black people. Uncle Tom was changed a little each time it was put on the stage and all the parts were played by white actors and by the time they

made a movie of it in 1903, Uncle Tom was just the white man's idea of "a good nigger." You might say he was what H. Rap Brown ain't.

They made this picture five times. By the time they finished with it, Mickey Rooney could have played Uncle Tom.

Minstrel shows started as the black man's entertainment for himself and the plantation owners. When they were filmed though, they were done by a white cast. Figure that out. They were done as a sort of a joke and the black entertainer couldn't even get a job making fun of himself.

The first really vicious anti-Negro film was called "The Birth of a Nation." And it was a honey. The second worst thing about it was that technically, in 1918, it was the best movie that had ever been made. A cat named D. W. Griffith produced it and he know how. See?

"The Birth of a Nation" pretended to tell the story of the Civil War and what happened afterwards when the slaves were freed. A white woman couldn't walk on her own sidewalk if you believed the picture.

In the South Negroes got the right to vote and the movie showed black vote collectors refusing to accept white votes. And black people sneaking in extra votes. And if these black bad guys don't look very bad to you, it's probably because they were white actors wearing burnt cork.

Negro legislators took over in the South and in the film they were made to look like apes. This was the movie version of how it looked in the Southern State Legislature. They drank whisky. They ate chicken with their hands in the State House. And they put their feet up on the table with their shoes off. And of course, they passed all sorts of crazy laws, according to the film. Like anybody could marry anybody they wanted to. It was obvious to anyone who saw this picture that Negroes weren't fit to govern themselves or anyone else, because they really weren't people.

This film is fifty years old and it may look silly and out of date now but it didn't look silly when it was made and seen. Several million Americans who saw it were propagandized to believe that this is the way things would be if they weren't careful. So they've been pretty careful.

Colonel Cameron, a former officer in the Confederate Army, is all upset over the way the Northerners and the freed slaves are changing his South. Taking the mint julep right out of his mouth. So he takes a walk one day while he's worrying about it, and he sees two white kids playing. (Children hide under sheet.) Then four black kids come along. Being hardly human and naturally afraid of ghosts, the black kids run. Colonel Cameron sees the whole scene and gets his great idea! And with this, that great, white all-American organization, the KKK, was born. Cavalry in a bedsheet has come to the rescue. The South is saved!

In this picture the Ku Klux Klan was the good boy who saved the South. Most Hollywood films though, even the early ones, weren't really nasty. Nobody was sitting around saying, "Hey, let's take care of the niggers." What producers were doing was making money. And to make money they made pictures that white ticket-buyers would enjoy. They showed Negroes the way most Americans like to think of them. To blame Hollywood is like throwing a rock at the mirror because you don't like what you see in it.

Bert Williams was one of the great vaudeville performers. He couldn't get parts in white pictures so he made a lot of short comedies. He played the part most Americans considered "typical" Negro. He wasn't bad really, just lazy, stupid and happy the way he was. And his feet hurt.

He was afraid of most everything. And when he was scared he shook, and his teeth chattered. Unlike a scared white man, the black man's eyes could pop out of his head. When he was scared he was so scared he couldn't talk. He was also so scared he couldn't run.

Black women, on the other hand, were steady and imperturbable. They stood like a rock in the face of things that scared black men.

Another strange physical characteristic was when they were really very scared, the guys turned white!

When you look back on these old films, the patterns come jumping out at you. The most consistent thing about them was the attack on the black man. He was never even given the privilege of being a "man." He was a "boy," as in, you know, "Here, boy!"

They had a lot of other great qualities besides being cowardly. For instance, they stole chickens.

MAN. Who's in there? Who's in there?

VOICE. Ain't nobody in here but us chickens!