use. That really is all that has to be done. Either pick texts that are already integrated, that have much of this material in them, or pick supplementary texts that can be used along with the regular texts. Enough materials are out now and these are on all levels, on elementary, junior high, senior high, and college levels. I think all it really takes is an interest on the part of the administrative powers in each of the educational institutions to make sure these are used. My "Teachers Guide to American Negro History" provides some methodology, bibliography, and helpful hints for teachers.

Senator PELL. If this curriculum enlargement process continues, would there be a need for the Commission to be permanent or could it be of a temporary nature?

Mr. KATZ. I would think that one of the areas that the Commission would want to operate in would not have too much to do with curriculum but would be the preservation of the basic manuscript and important materials about the Negro that are deteriorating now in various libraries. I know that the Shomburg Library in New York and the Negro collection at Howard University are in desperate need of funds to preserve materials that are deteriorating. They need staff people to manage the gigantic load of work that has accumulated. These libraries are understaffed and they do not have sufficient finances. And daily demands on them by students are increasing.

I think another thing that the Commission could do, to get specific again, is that it could make available and collect the main sources of manuscripts in the Negro area so that scholars might find out where certain materials are and therefore have ready access to them. I think these are all things that this Commission might do, that certainly would take some time and money to accomplish.

Senator PELL. As the proposed legislation is written, the Commission is self-liquidating and would not go on indefinitely. The collation of manuscripts is already one of the responsibilities of the National Historical Publications Commission, of which I am a member. It may be able to take a greater interest in this problem, as might the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Congressman Scheuer, do you have any questions for the witness? Mr. SCHEUER. No, I was very much interested in the testimony as regards the collation of these documents and their preservation. We are faced with a condition, I think, not a theory. The condition is that this work is not being done by the existing Government agencies, not being done by the existing private charity agencies. There is a desperate need for new resources, new leaders, and new direction in the preservation and dissemination of materials. I do not think we can rely on the present institutional network of agencies, both public and private. I believe that this is why we ought to get on with this Commission.

I invite the witness to give his opinion as to whether-I do not mean to put words in your mouth, but whether the existing agencies can do the job or are doing the job?

Mr. KATZ. In preparation for coming here, I spoke to Jean Blackwell Hutson, curator of the Shomburg collection, and Dorothy B. Porter, curator of the Negro collection at Howard University. Both expressed the great desire for me to project their thoughts also on this vital matter, that these materials are deteriorating at this moment,

that their libraries are understaffed, and that once lost, documents can never be regained. You simply cannot regain a manuscript letter that has crumbled in your hands.

Senator PELL. Thank you very much.

Are there any further thoughts you would like to advance, or if you like, you could submit them for the record.

Mr. KATZ. Fine. I would like to make one final comment.

Senator PELL. Please do.

Mr. KATZ. I believe that if we believe that the truth will make us free, this project is one very big step in preserving the truth. If you knew as I do, as a teacher for some 15 years, the effect that these materials can have on youngsters in a classroom, and I mean both black and white, you would know that this material should be preserved, even if it takes the Federal Government to do it.

This morning Senator Hugh Scott, of Pennsylvania, in his testimony before this committee and Senator Pell holding up the New York Times advertisement that included the picture of Deadwood Dick, pointed to the Arno Press reprint series "The American Negro: His History and Literature." As the general editor of that series I can tell you that the response to the 45 volumes has pleased Mr. Arnold Zohn, president of the Arno Press, myself and the members of our advisory board because so many orders are coming in from southern libraries and schools. It seems that both northerners and southerners are ready for this history now, ready for a fully dimensioned picture of our common heritage. It is certainly about time. If we can learn our history we will not be doomed to repeat it. I have, on the basis of my consultation work for North Carolina, much more faith in the willingness of southerners, black and white, to sit down and work out their problems, develop a meaningful school curriculum, move toward greater integration of their society. I would hope the Federal Government could play a part in preserving these vital materials, aid schools in appropriate ways and use its influence to demonstrate the centrality of this information for an understanding of our country's history. Thank you.

Mr. SCHEUER. A very brief question. You have dealt with educators. You have dealt with southern educators. Do you feel that if this national commission bill does pass and there is a commission and it comes out with a thoughtful and comprehensive set of recommendations that will command respect, that educators, the kind of educators you have dealt with in the South, would be amenable to deal creatively and constructively with the problem if they had some leadership and direction? Mr. KATZ. Yes, I think they would. My experience in North Carolina was unusual. I came expecting to find less integration and less willingness than I found in New York and I found more. I think that if the North Carolina Education Department is a valid example of southern wishes the southern authorities are willing to move on this and are anxious to move on it. They are seeking direction and I think some guidelines from the Federal Government might give it a push and a spurt that would be most helpful.

Mr. SCHEUER. Well, we know how they love Federal guidelines. Senator PELL. I thank you very much indeed. I congratulate you on your son, whom I see looking at you with great pride.

Mr. KATZ. Thank you.

Senator PELL. Our next witness is Mr. Julius Hobson, of Washington, D.C.

STATEMENT OF JULIUS HOBSON, COMMUNITY LEADER,

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mr. HOBSON. My name is Julius Hobson. I want to thank you very much for an opportunity to appear before this committee.

I also want to say in opening that I support the idea of a commission and it does not make any difference what you call it, as long as it is a commission to deal with what we have here to deal with. The vogue is black this year and preferably in the black community, we like to use the word "black." I am still not too unhappy with the word "Negro." We have even started among us to take some pride in the word "nigger," because it has a special meaning. So it does not matter what you call it, what does matter is what you are trying to do in this bill which I support 100 percent.

I would like to say, and I am sure you are all familiar with Alexander Pope's, "Essay on Man," which he says, know thyself, that the proper study of mankind is man. Among black men in the United States, we have in recent years particularly, attempted to know then ourselves. This whole thrust of the black power movement, this whole upspring of bookstores in the black community such as Drum & Speer on upper 14th Street, and the bookstore on the corner of 7th Avenue and 113th Street in Harlem and the bookstore in Chicago on South Parkway, all contain documents in an attempt on the part of the black community to familiarize themselves with black history. I graduated from Industrial High School in Birmingham, Ala., and my heroes: were Robert E. Lee and Booker T. Washington. I come to find that among the Negroes in Washington, Booker T. Washington was a prize Uncle Tom. Robert E. Lee was a general of the Confederacy. We were not even familiar with the white heroes of the North, let alone the black ones.

The question that looms is not whether you have a commission on Negro history and culture but a commission in which you take the history and textbooks which have been written in the United States and clean them up because they are a collection and a tissue of lies if they leave out black history. I think it is a greater question of whether or not we could not really have greater communication between us if we have history books which integrate what black Americans have done in the building of this country. I do not think there is any question about it. I certainly went almost through college before I became aware of and concerned about black history.

I remember when I went into the Air Force in World War II, I was very much ashamed of myself because I happened to come from Alabama and having been put in a class with a group of white men, I really had nothing to offer and I was ashamed of everything that I had been and everything I had done, because I had not been exposed to any black history. I did not think Negroes could do anything but cook. There were a few professors of the third grade among us and preachers. But there was nothing more. That is the story of our clinging to Joe Louis as a hero, for our clinging to Jackie Robinson. It was a search for identity.

I would like to say to you now I believe we have found part of that answer. I think the black power thrust is it. It is a pride in blackness, an attempt in the black community among those who have educated discipline and among those educating themselves to find out about Negro history. That is why I find in these bookstores documents such as "The American Negro Slave Revolts," a document of American Negro history in the United States by Herbert Aptheker, whom I consider one of the foremost authorities on black history in the United States, if not the foremost authority.

I am glad we are going to have a possibility of getting such legislation. I hope that the less popular or the less palatable members of the black community, the black power advocates like Stokeley Carmichael and myself, will have an opportunity to participate in this. Believe it or not, we do have some ideas. I think that the Urban League, the NAACP approach is very good, but I think there is another approach now which pervades the community and which is expressive of the attitude of black people in the United States. I think in the setting up of this kind of commission, these people should be included, because there is no question about it, they do have influence in the community and they do have something to contribute.

If there is anything at all that we can do in our meager way, we will be very glad to do it and more speed to this. We support it 100 percent and we think that there is room in the United States for everybody to do everything.

I do not recognize indigenous black men over indigenous white men. I think everybody is indigenous and you do not have to speak Swahili and have right rhythm in order to appreciate what is going on in the United States among black people or white people. I think that we formalize, some of us, on the basis of our common interest and struggle and not on the basis of the way we look. So that if we have some white professors among us, some white congressmen, white senators, or white anything that want to jump into the mainstream and help to clean up what we know has been an inadequate history of the United States because it has left out black people, then I think the more the merrier. Thank you.

Senator PELL. Thank you very much for a good and strong

statement.

A couple of specific questions:

One, as far as cleaning up the history books goes, I was struck with the task of Mr. Katz in trying to analyze the history books, find the errors and inadequacies and correct them. Do you think this procedure will do the job or do you think textbooks have to be completely rewritten?

Mr. HOBSON. I think I have read some history. I am not an authority on history, not even Negro history. But I certainly was forced to read history, as we all were. That bit that I was forced to read was completely void of any contribution by black people at all. I think now that I have gone out after school and read some books and studied, I know that this history was incomplete. And I think in the interest of truth, which is a larger question, and in the interest of better communications for black as well as white children in the United States, it is incumbent for us to include in all the history books the true history

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of the United States, in chronological or historical or any other order. Any history book that does not put that down does not communicate and is not the complete truth. I think this commission could serve to do that.

I think the bottom part of your paragraph, which says to move such data into the mainstream of American life, is the main objective, not necessarily to set up over here on the side of collection of black history per se, but an attempt to put that black history in perspective. Because over on the side, it is really in a vacuum. I think it has to be put in perspective, as the professor did. I learned something here today that I did not know before. Cowboys happen to be some of my heros. I enjoy the blood and thunder of Westerns. I am glad to know that some of the black men contributed to this. I think it should be integrated into American history. I do not think it should be a separate collection.

Senator PELL. As I stated earlier the National Historical Publications Commission could do some work in this field. Indeed they agree with you that it is all American history and would not wish to segregate our heritage.

The fact that you are here indicates that all opinions are honored. Of this I am pleased and would hope that if we are successful in establishing this commission we will retain the interest of the militant, who believe as you do, in the importance of rectification of injustice.

Do you have any views as to whether this task could be made the responsibility of the National Endowment for the Humanities after the commission has finished its study?

Mr. HOBSON. I believe this is such a tremendous task at this point in time that it is necessary that it be kicked off by someone with resources who can afford to do it. I do not know how long it will take before it can be on its way and taken over by private groups. There are a number of private groups engaged in efforts to do this, but it is not coordinated effort. I think with leadership coming from the Federal Government, the rest might fall in and take heed and there may be some coordination of it. But I am not sure. I do not know enough about it to be absolutely certain. But I do know there are pitiful attempts all over the United States at this time for black people to make history and to make such collections as you are talking about.

Senator PELL. The Endowment has already done a fine job in this regard and I look to them as conceivably being the permanent governmental vehicle to do this.

If you had to make a choice between a Commission on Negro History and Culture or a Commission on Black History and Culture, which would you choose?

Mr. HOBSON. I would choose black history and culture.

Senator PELL. Mr. Scheuer?

Mr. SCHEUER. Mr. Hobson, I think you have told us how it really is and I welcome your testimony. I welcome the support, and I hope you won't consider this a pejorative phrase, of responsible militants like yourself.

Mr. HOBSON. I think that is damaging.

Thank you.

Mr. SCHEUER. I suppose the characterization, responsible militant, could be used against you in some circles. Mr. HOBSON. Some circles, yes.