welcome to education in the community i am your host the reverend robert make night and we shall be discussing a journey through african american history  looking at the first as well as some of the most influential personalities in our history i have co hosting with me n been way years ago and you had written a poster call i am teachable and it was seven principles about i may not know the way now but i am teachable but when you got through all of them you had them to seven times i am teach we introduce in we're really introducing them and the line of products as way oh so be on the lookout for them hopefully we will have them available what was it or salt own a literacy or so own illiteracy that was headed up by a gentleman by the name of dr benjamin right out of new york and we were board members of that national organisation and were invited to that meeting then with the secretary of education william be t to discuss illiteracy particularly in our community and i think it was a productive meeting also it was the same week as the yeah dr wright you can no longer do that but he had frequent flyer coupon that he had to you within forty eight hours and when we were in that meeting he said could anyone use it so immediately i felt of my son and we flew him out to the sand was amazing and speaking of dr benjamin wright is very influential and bringing the problem of the literacy to a national stage and developing a national organization to help in the elimination of the i'm a producer mr broussard has shared with me several books and i want to share with you all right one by columbus sally and they have put together a list of the black one hundred a ranking of the most influential african americans past and present past and present wonderful and there are some names in here that i want to go over with you ok and then another one and he's made me a gift of this book and i haven't put it down and i haven't gotten through it it's black heroes by jesse carney smith and again from our audience an outstanding outstanding were and we want to look at some of the ones who have been trailblazers some of the ones who on prince street in berkeley they were a close friend and hopefully i can get some of his recordings of paul robeson while he was visiting with his family yes we did a concert with black aces called a tribute to paul robeson a black ahead of his time we did it here at berkeley high in the little theatre that because he worked as a supervisor of young people yes here alertly high school and i think some of them to junior high schools to at that time at king at king now the next one that he shared with a speech before we began to look at the list o one hundred most influential is the new jim crow by michelle alexander and you know she was here in berkeley i think it was last year at st paul a the book signing that she did years saw have to go back and look at her signature tell me what does she speak on she spoke on the new jim crow the book because one of the things that was so interesting in the book well that college and there was an altercation between him and a police officer year on the way he was coming back and forth from san jose i believe and she urged him not to file i think he wanted to protest or do something  instead no let's let's do another strategy yet he was able to keep them from getting into further difficulty with the police and as a result of that he wanted becoming a minister because he went on to school higher ed and got his i believe his moment ago about paul ropes and what i'm going to ask you to do for me i was going to do it giro noble who is a producer as a matter of fact he produced a documentary on malcolm x and he has an excerpt here on paul ropes and there's so many people who if they knew of him some way he's been put on the back burner of that and we hear the word or the term role model we need more role models we have always had role models and burning intellect and an exceptionally gifted man years who stood tallest among the tall year because of the effective way in which he used his g paul robeson had many gifts paul robeson a man of african descent and proud of it he was the first american artist who used his artistry as a political weapon for his for this he suffered greatly in america and that's probably why he was had to go out of the country yes well let's talk about fab number one you said he had many gifts yes what are some of the gives his language was just he spoke many languages and whenever he went to another country saying there folksongs this is one way to relate to people and he showed african americans here in this country how to value those songs because people all over the world love those songs and i think because they're you know the pentatonic scale that it blends if you want to say blend in the thing you pull all of those tones will blend  at any time they always harmonious and so they believe the slave ships that brought over the guy that was that guy that was this ship was called jesus i believe their hope jesus good hope jesus yes well anyway he heard the slaves using the pentatonic scale and i believe that's how he wound up writing that song trying to remember an amazing and raising yes exactly that's interesting not only that but he learned the languages himself and so when you travel or brod he could communicate with the people of that particular culture in their own language which immediately demanded respect yes and also a heart connection because when you reach people with their own language and also their songs are more than that that demands respect people love that that shows that you are respecting their humanity when you speak their language and sing their songs just a footnote own  that you are dispensable your whole race is dispensable your relatives your children none of you count it's similar to what was done in the it was in australia where the parents were their children were taken away from them and they were they had to which not allowing them to speak their language to sing their songs to play their music or to perform their dances to keep their family together or to dress in their native garb in garments all of this was a part of that the humanizing process in even today i would venture to say in maine in nine point nine percent of the institutions and public education from kindergarten through twelfth grade no african language is taught at one time berkeley high and it remains swahili was the all newly high school that t three years of an african language and it was a scepter ball in the university of california system so consequently it is a septa ball throughout how our education and they are struggling today to maintain that language and it appears to be that would be the third choice of all students of african inherited but it is not encouraged that they take it yes when i had the boys glee club many years ago i had seventh eighth and ninth graders and one of the ninth graders was from kenya we have started out a higher grade in ninety three but then he wound up being in the ninth grade but he taught us that song and we saying it all the time just wonderful experience now before we move on one of the thing about brother paul robes it says he was the first american artist and i life is i perked up when i read it because it is not preference by the first african american but he was the first that of the sport the soul of a situation does mr doesn't have to be your own song but the songs from the spirituals those speak to the hearts of people they love the spirituals and they want you to sing one for them when you're in other countries i have that experience with they want you to sing something but often i was not willing to do so but that's what they wanted they respect the music they love that so i think he used it as a political tool it was a way of getting people to pay attention because he was very much motivated to make a difference in the world he wasn't there just because he wanted to be there necessarily he was there because he had to leave this country yet and so he knew that music could speak to the people now what does this suggests for our artist today in the use of their gifts well only in music is it a political weapon i believe it might be but it's the way that helpless been transported around the world it's been insidious that it has been misused to stere stereotypical yearning that stereotypes are being promoted and the messages are not as political as you would like yeah because in the people are using singing these songs and some of them are not very the  words are not very tasteful yet they can be very disk heartening yeah take away your feeling of value yeah the humanity so i think they rappers and so forth even though that catches on very easily the wording sometimes needs to be looked at you're so p c and yes i learned that from you because you told me once that people are locked up behind open doors they don't know they can go out the door confine our community today to keep them in a state of psychological bun which results in economic bundy which the music the music all really negative context and placed it into a positive context to say that i'm not ashamed of who i am i'm not a shane or were i am from i value what i am today yes and see i think that's what it means to be a human being is to value who you are and everyone is unique and special and then if you're in a group and then the labeling implies that th whole group is nothing then that begins that's very that's a that's a way of destroying the humanity so i really think that james bond was amazing that he did that and he had it inside of him and he brought it out and made everybody sing that song they loved it and also he was able to stop the riot when they had this but when dr king was assassinated in washington d c a year by just coming there to perform he had that magic ability to get people to come down  well as our aspirations very political yes but let me move on very quickly number one it says here because we were talking about the sixty's and first in this list of one hundred most influential is reverend dr martin luther king jr and here is an excerpt quote by the great historian in franklin frazier if you were really that i do not oppose the efforts of those who endeavor to instill into the negro a genuine belief in the brotherhood of man and the superiority of moral force but suppose there should arise a gandhi to lead negroes without hate in their hearts to stop killing the fields of the south under the  to cease paying taxes to states that keep their children in ignorance mamma and to ignore the end quitt quitt in quite this in french this enfranchise minute yeah and jim crow law i thir we would witness an unprecedented massacre of defenders defenseless black men and women in the name of law and order and there would scarcely be enough christian sentiment in america to stave the flood of blood while franklin frazier  hero simply because for most students today in public school and at the university level in some adult out of the system all they know about dr king is that he gave a speech i have a dream and there's so much more to dr martin luther king jr then i have a dream and one of the things that he points out here and i know that we are approaching the end of the program but dr king was so instrumental in showing us that there is another way and we talked a moment ago about the assault own illiteracy dr king suggested that african americans all people should to stop the tilling the fields of the south under the pianist system to seize paying taxes to states that keep their children in ignorance i'm glad you repeated that because there is power in repetition and i discover that as a music teacher and music and still just playing an instrument you need to plant this you need to hear it more than once and go over things and we need to get exactly he certainly did and one of the things that the chancellor william states in his book the destruction of black civilization is that in the education in this country that thinking is neither required nor is it expected and so we graduate students having never developed the ability of critical and nalla says now that it can and it appears as though it is time to wrap this up and let me remind the audience of the black one hundred by columbus sally a ranking of the most influential african americans past and present as well as black heroes by jesse smith and of course it's a must reading the new jim crow by m alexander put these old your lists of books to purchase and to read before the in of two thousand and thirteen so i am reverend robert mcknight in own behalf while my co host barbara tended and education in the community say fair wail until next time