CHURCHVILLE. Well, then you should never use-you should never make any statements that you don't know what they mean.

ERIC. I'm sorry, I don't know.

CHURCHVILLE. All right. How old are you, young man?

ERIC. I am four years old.

CHURCHVILLE. You're not four, Eric. Now you tell me your right age? How old are you? How old are you?

CHURCHVILLE. You're gonna let me turn you around and tell you you're some other age? You're six years old, Eric.

ERIC. NO.

CHURCHVILLE. I can't hear you, Eric.
ERIC. NO!

CHURCHVILLE. Are you being frightened by me?
ERIC. NO!

CHURCHVILLE. I'm a teacher. I said you're six.

ERIC. I am four years old.

CHURCHVILLE. All right, then, you stand up for it then. You shouldn't be weak. You stand up and say it. You ought to scream it in my face if I try to tell you different, right?

ERIC. Yes.

CHURCHVILLE. Have a seat. Stand up, young man. Are you a Negro, Travis?

CHURCHVILLE. What are you?

TRAVIS. No, I'm a man.

CHURCHVILLE. What kind of a man?

TRAVIS. A black and beautiful man.

CHURCHVILLE. But what kind-are you an old man or a young man?

TRAVIS. Young man.

CHURCHVILLE. Very good, very good. Are you just going to let somebody make you a boy?

TRAVIS. No.

CHURCHVILLE. All right. Suppose I tell you something wrong, Travis, are you going to do it?

TRAVIS. Yes.

CHURCHVILLE. You're going to do something if I tell when it's wrong?
TRAVIS. No.

CHURCHVILLE. Have a seat, young man. Eric, you're going to be reasonable, aren't you?

ERIC. NO.

CHURCHVILLE. Are you going to be scared of some-President of the United

States?

VOICE. NO.

CHURCHVILLE. Some Mayor?

VOICE. NO.

CHURCHVILLE. Some policeman?
VOICE. NO.

99-596-68- 3

...

CHURCHVILLE. All right. You're a Negro . . . You're a Negro, Eric.
ERIC. NO.

CHURCHVILLE. Somebody pass me my stick. I said you're a Negro, boy.

ERIC. NO.

CHURCHVILLE. You're getting mighty soft. You're a Negro !
ERIC. NO.

CHURCHVILLE. Very good, sit down. You, young man, come here. Your nationality is American Negro. Yes.

BOY. No.

CHURCHVILLE. Your nationality-look, don't play with me. You're a Negro, LEON. NO.

CHURCHVILLE. I am your teacher. You are a Negro.

LEON. NO.

CHURCHVILLE. Suppose I threaten to beat you, what would you say? Aren't you a Negro now?

LEON. NO.

CHURCHVILLE. What are you?

LEON. I'm black and beautiful.

CHURCHVILLE. What is your nationality?

LEON. My nationality is Afro-American.

CHURCHVILLE. Suppose I had some money in my pocket, suppose I gave you a dollar to say that you're an American Negro. This is money, now. Money talks, money talks. This dollar-and if you don't say it you don't get it. You're an American Negro, aren't you?

LEON. NO.

CHURCHVILLE. You won't have any money. You know you need money, don't you? LEON. Yes.

CHURCHVILLE. You need money to live, don't you?

LEON. Yes.

CHURCHVILLE. All right, all you have to say, Leon, is that you're an American Negro. Aren't you an American Negro? Are you an American Negro?

LEON. NO.

CHURCHVILLE. What are you?

LEON. I'm black and beautiful?

CHURCHVILLE. What's your nationality?

Mr. LEON. My nationality is Afro-American.

CHURCHVILLE. Very good, man, keep it up. Go sit down. You have to think about that a minute, didn't you?

LEON. Yes.

CHURCHVILLE. All right. All right everybody, what is your nationality?
CLASS. My nationality is Afro-American.

CHURCHVILLE. Very good. All right, what I did is what people are going to do to you in different ways when you get out of this school. They're not going to just right up to you and give you a dollar or say if you say that you're an Afro-if you say you're an American Negro I'll give you a dollar. But they're going to be very nice to you some of them, and they're going to try to, you know, get you not to love black people. They're going to try to get you to, you know, be something other than you are. They're going to try to make you-make it seem as though you're different from the masses of black people. And they want you to be-"Go away, I'll tell you . . . I'll give you special things if you'll just come along with me and do what I say." But you must reject that. Now, do you know what that means? That means you're not going to have the money you'd like to have. The money is not important. We need money, you know, we have to buy things with it, but money is not the thing we're living for. The only thing that makes a person worth living is being a man and being a woman, being strong in character, seeing straight, telling the truth and living in the truth and doing the right thing. You understand that?

CLASS. Yes.

CHURCHVILLE. So no matter what happens, I want you all to always tell the

what?

CLASS. Truth.

CHURCHVILLE. You may not get the marks you're supposed to get in school. You may be doing the work, but because the teacher doesn't like your attitude and she'll always tell you, "I don't like your attitude" because you're independent. But you're not going to school for grades. You're going for what?

VOICE. Learn.

CHURCHVILLE. All right, and what kind of people is everybody in this room going to be? Tell me the kind of people you're going to be.

CLASS. Black and beautiful.

CHURCHVILLE. What else? You're already that. What are you going to be? You going to be stupid?

Boy. No.

CHURCHVILLE. What kind of people you going to be?

Boy. Excellent.

CHURCHVILLE. You're going to be excellent, and what else? Yes, ma'am?

GIRL. Strong.

CHURCHVILLE. And strong, what else?

VOICE. And good.

CHURCHVILE. And good. What else?

VOICE. And a genius.

CHURCHVILLE. And a genius, and what else? I'm looking for another word. All of you are geniuses right now, maybe better than that. What else? I'm looking for a word that begins with B-bri-brilliant.

VOICE. Brilliant.

CHURCHVILLE. Brilliant, and brilliant really means to shine, and all of you will shine. All of you are really going to be brilliant. Good enough. All right, how does everybody feel now?

CLASS. Fine!

CHURCHVILLE. Are you ready to get ready for lunch?

CLASS. Yes.

CHURCHVILLE. Who's hungry?

COSBY. It's kind of like brainwashing. Or is it? Can you blame us for overcompensating?

I mean when you take the way black history got lost, stolen or strayed, when you think about the kids drawing themselves without faces and when you remember the fine actors who had to play baboons to make a buck, I guess you've got to give us the sin of pride. Pride. "Hubris" in the original Greek.

Three hundred years we've been in this American melting pot and we haven't been able to melt in yet. That's a long wait. Listen, we've been trying all kinds of parts to make the American scene. We've been trying to play it straight and white, but it's been just bit parts. From now on, we're going to play it black and American. We're proud of both. Hubris.

I'm Bill Cosby. And you take care of yourself.

CBS NEWS SPECIAL, OF BLACK AMERICA-"THE BLACK SOLDIER" AS BROADCAST OVER THE CBS TELEVISION NETWORK, TUESDAY, JULY 9, 1968, 10-10:30 P.M. E.D.T. NARRATED BY BILL COSBY

(Produced by: Peter Poor, Written by: Thomas A. Johnson and Jon Wilkman, Executive Producer: Perry Wolff)

ANNOUNCER. CBS NEWS presents the second in its seven-part series, of Black America: "The Black Soldier."

[Announcement.]

[Battle Sounds.]

BILL COSBY. The United States Army in Vietnam. During the last two hundred years the American military has fought eight major wars around the world. The source of its strength remains the same men-young men.

American fighting men, 10,000 miles aways from New Haven-and Wattsfighting another war. White men. Black men. Today they fight as equals. Long before the violent birth of our Nation, black men died in American wars. They died as equals, but they were not always allowed to fighting-or live-as equals. In most history books the story of the black men in battle is usually ignored. The true history has many surprises.

This monument on the Boston Common honors the first martyrs in America's struggle for freedom. Since the founding of American colonies tensions between colonists and British troops had been building. On March 5, 1770, these tensions exploded into violence. British troops opened fire on an angry Boston crowd. A drawing by Paul Revere records this pivotal instant în American history-the Boston Massacre. The first to fall was Crispus Attucks, an escaped slave-a black man. This was the beginning. Revolution became inevitable.

The Colonial Army needed men, but General George Washington did not want black men. Despite Washington's official policy, Negroes willingly fought against the British. The British officer who ordered the "shot heard 'round the world" at Lexington, Major Pitcairn, was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill by a colonial sharpshooter. His name-Peter Salem. He was a black man.

While General Washington discouraged Negro enlistments, the British promised freedom to any slave who would join the Loyalist cause. This was the first of many attempts to undermine Negro support in American wars. Although the British had only limited success. General Washington was alarmed and he called for an active recruitment of black freemen. When Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas Day, 1776, two Negroes were with him, Oliver Cromwell and Prince Whipple. Nearly 5,000 black men fought in the American Revolution.

In 1813, the young America was at war again. Captain Oliver Hazard Perry didn't want Negro sailors but the Battle of Lake Erie changed his mind. He later said, "They seemed absolutely insensible to danger." An act of Congress had restricted the Navy to "able-bodied white males," but black sailors fought and died aboard American warships.

In 1814 General Andrew Jackson actively recruited black soldiers for the defense of New Orleans. Until then, fear of slave revolts in the South had restricted black participation in the war. More than 600 free Negroes helped hold strategic positions against the British assault. Jackson's appeal had been to black men who were free. Most Negroes were still slaves.

By 1860, growing pains had begun to split the nation. Slavery was a public symbol for the deep problems that let to the Civil War. At first it was a white man's war. Eleven days after Confederate troops opened fire on Fort Sumter, a free Negro volunteered to fight for the Union and was refused. The official policy in the North said that Negro slaves were contraband-captured property, not potential fighting men. President Lincoln feared the loss of border state support if he used black troops in the war. Meanwhile, from all over the North came offers of black regiments.

From the South came escaped slaves who were willing to join the fight for freedom. Bearing the scars of slavery, a few were allowed to serve. They became symbols of new hope for black men, both slave and free. After months of costly and indecisive fighting the North began to recruit Negro troops. It was an all-out war and military necessity overruled racial politics. By June 1862, the first Negro combat unit called the "Corps d'Afrique"-the African Corps-was organized. Black sailors were mixed with white seamen aboard fighting ships on both sides. The Union's Mississippi Squadron reported more than 800 black sailors. Negro sailors were aboard the iron-clad Monitor when it fought the Merrimac. One black river pilot, Robert Smalls, became a Union hero when he delivered his Confederate gunboat and its slave crew to the Union fleet.

On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The United States Armed Forces were officially opened to all Negroes. Freedom, however, did not bring equality. The Civil War ended slavery but marked the beginning of a segregated American military. Segregated Negro units were called "United States Colored Troops."

Former slaves clashed with slave owners. At Milliken's Bend, Louisiana, 1,000 black soldiers fought 2,000 white Texans in fierce hand-to-hand combat, but were finally overrun. Most black troops were noncombatants. They were laborers, cooks and teamsters. They were also spies, couriers and scouts. By the end of the war, 186,000 Negroes had joined the Union Army. Even the South had passed a Negro Enlistment Bill in 1864, but it was too late.

More than 500,000 Americans died in the Civil War; 38,000 of them were black. After the war, four all-Negro regiments were organized and sent to frontier forts on the Western Plains. Their officers, of course, were all white. Saturday afternoon at the local movie house most Americans learned that the taming of the Wild West was a matter of the white man versus the redskin. Few history books record the fact that when the cavalry rode to the rescue troopers were often black. Black troopers died with General Custer at the Little Big Horn. They helped run Sitting Bull into Canada, chased desperadoes like Billy the Kid and captured the Apache Chief, Geronimo. These were some of the real troopers who fought the Indians on the Western Plains. Fourteen of them won the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Havana Harbor-February 15, 1898. Thirty Negroes were aboard the battleship Maine that night. Twenty lost their lives. When the Spanish-American war broke out, black troops were called from the frontier and shipped to Cuba. Within

months, the all-Negro 10th Cavalry had saved Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders at Las Guasimas. Black soldiers played their most important role to date in the Spanish-American war. Black troopers fought at El Caney and joined the Rough Riders in the charge up San Juan Hill.

"I want no better men beside me in battle than these colored troopers," said Colonel Roosevelt. But seven years later, as President, Roosevelt court-martialed three companies of the all-Negro 25th Infantry when there was violence in Brownsville, Texas, due to discrimination against black troops. Tough and independent black soldiers refused to conform to servile white stereotypes. White hostility in Houston, Texas, 11 years later, provoked an even bloodier clash. Black soldiers of the 24th Regiment shot up the town, killing 17 whites. The result was a mass murder trial. Thirteen Negro soldiers were hanged and 41 sentenced to life imprisonment.

When the United States entered World War I, Americans said they would "make the world safe for democracy." The country mobilized, but Negro enlistments were restricted. Once again, however, manpower needs overruled racial prejudice.

The Army's highest ranking Negro officer, Colonel Charles Young, was retired as "physically unfit for duty," even though he rode horseback from Ohio to Washington, D.C. to prove his fitness. The American military remains segregated and most black troops were commanded by whites.

General John J. Pershing, Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, earned his nickname, "Black Jack," as a commander of Negro troops before World War I. Pershing had no objection to black combat troops, but many high ranking officers and government officials publicly questioned the black man's ability to fight. During the war more than 370,000 Negroes were in uniform— 40,000 on the front lines. Most black soldiers were relegated to service units. They were laborers, ditchdiggers and stevedores.

The first Negro combat division overseas, the 93rd, went into battle in April 1918, fighting under French command. Home-grown discrimination followed black soldiers into the trenches. One document, widely circulated in France, openly declared that Negroes were inferior to whites. Despite this discrimination, black combat units fought well. The 369th Regiment saw 191 straight days of front-line action and never lost a foot of ground.

Black troops won many combat awards, and they were the first to win the highest French military honor, the Croix de Guerre. For most Americans, however, the black combat record was obscured by controversy. One black regiment, under American command, was accused of "sneaking to the rear." A government investigation found no basis for widespread criticism of Negro troops, but within four months after the Armistice, all black troops were shipped home. Negro troops had been well-received by the French, but exaggerated reports of black soldiers raping French women prompted American officials to get black troops out of Europe. In New York, Negro veterans were marched up Fifth Avenue through cheering crowds-back home-back home to Harlem.

During the years between the two wars, Negro troops were reduced to less than three per cent of the Armed Forces. After World War II broke out in Europe, America began a new mobilization. The 1940 Selective Service Act said there would be "no racial discrimination in the selection and training of America's Armed Forces," but the military maintained its tradition of segregation.

Public figures like Joe Louis became symbols for the recruitment of a black American Army, Military thinking still relegated most Negroes to labor battalions, but some were trained for combat duties, even elite units.

Elite, but separate. The pattern was clear: There was going to be two Armies, two Navies and two Air Forces-one white, the other black. The military reflected a racially divided America. The Armed Forces felt that their job was to fight, not to lead social reform.

Black America's Air Force began training on the Alabama campus of Tuskegee Institute.

The 99th Pursuit Squadron was activated in 1941 under the first Negro West Point graduate since 1889, Lt. Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr.

One of the first American heroes of World War II was Dorie Miller, a Navy mess steward at Pearl Harbor. Dorie shot down four attacking Japanese planes and won the Navy Cross. Three years later, Dorie Miller was killed in action. He was still a mess steward. Most Negroes in the Navy were messmen and change came slowly.

The black American Navy, in February 1944, included two anti-submarine vessels with all-Negro crews. Their officers, with one exception, were white. The