I FELL OFF THE ROOF ONE DAY

(A view of the Black University)

Nikki Giovanni (1943- )

It’s obvious that we need a Black university. Someone asked a Cornell student why the Black women wanted to live apart from the white girls. She answered that one night a sister was straightening her hair and a white girl reported the sister for smoking pot. The straightening comb is a drug but not marijuana. We need to get away from them. It would appear to some that a Black university is already in existence. Wherever Black people gather, feeling and information are being transmitted. That’s all a school does. What some are asking for is a way to certify that feeling and knowledge. It’s for us to follow our traditions. Ever try to organize in a Black neighborhood? The first thing that must be done is that you must live there, as the residents live there. You must know the language and life style of the people. you must, if you are to be successful, be the people. Walking into a strange neighborhood is like applying for a job. The first thing the residents want to know is how long you've been here; how long you gonna stay? That's asking you for certification. When you want to join church they ask, when did you find Jesus? They ask you to certify yourself. When you join the Nation you must learn lesson which if successfully completed will certify you to become a member, no one asks the mayor, the governor, or the local presiding Mafia official for permission to take care of this level of business. Yet we somehow assume that we aren’t qualified to run our schools, own and operate our own apartment buildings, run our health and educational programs. It is for us to certify ourselves. Course it’s no big thing. Logically speaking we are the only people who want it done correctly for us anyway. It’s bound to be better if it’s Black. Maybe we’ll put a big poster up in Harlem and train lights on it a thousand times brighter than those advertising HAIR saying IT’S BOUND TO BE BETTER - IF IT'S BLACK. That should be the first lesson taught at any Black institute.

The questions raised about the Black university center around things like should we try to build buildings or should we function in any way we can. In Harlem, I'm told there are five hundred churches and three hundred bars. To me that makes eight hundred school buildings-to be used as we see fit.. It would be a beautiful sight to see a sign hanging from Small’s Paradise Lounge, AFRO-AMERICAN HISTORY FROM 1664-1886 8 A.M. TO 4 P.M. DAILY. PROFESSOR LERONE BENNET GUEST LECTURER THIS WEEK. Or to pass Abbyssinia Baptist Church’s sign: 11:50-3:35 DR. MATTHEW WALKER LECTURING ON THE ALIMENTARY CANAL AS IT RESPONDS TO THE LIVER DURING EMOTIONAL CRISIS. Or Andre’s, where we learn that FRIDAY AND SATURDAY ONLY LEWIS ALCINDOR WILL GIVE DEMONSTRATIONS OF DEFENSIVE PLAYING DURING THE LAST THREE MINUTES OF A TIGHT GAME. Or at the Apollo. REVEREND JAMES CLEVELAND IN DEMONSTRATION LECTURE OF WHAT MUSIC HAS MEANT TO HIM. There will be three classes daily. Register now. Yeah, that’s the Black University, and we ought to be putting it in motion. We can do it all over the nation; we can move people around that need to be moved around and have the people in local position who can function. We can set out standards and give our own degrees-if we want to deal with that kind of thing. A piece of sheepskin is no more and quite a bit less than lambswool. A few words written in a dead language, either English or Latin, never said that you know only what someone tried to teach you. Qualification is based on action and functioning - nothing else. We need and will continue to need a strong apprentice program. We will have to take our pupils with us teaching as well as learning. The people will always decide the relevancy of what we're doing. When we hear complaints we will listen and update. When there is no response we will replace. And we will have our university. Which will be a total involvement with a total community - wherever these communities are found. There’s no need to worry that we haven’t invented a bomb; we will learn that we must control the mentalities that do. It doesn't matter that we aren’t transplanting hearts; our medicine will bring babies into the world, keep them well, and let the sick and dying die in dignity. It certainly doesn’t matter that we don’t own IBM or something that inane; our computations will come back to earth for earth people and earth people will be able to compute. The Black university already exists; it’s for us to recognize it, not create it. And this is good. Our work is crystal-clear. The question is, are we teachers ready to learn- are we leaders ready to follow?