| The Quest for a Black Humanism
Early, Gerald
Daedalus, Spring 2006, v135, #2; pp91-108
“What does a familiarity with the cultural monuments of the West, from the plays of Shakespeare to the Empire State Building, have to offer an American of African descent? What, if anything, does an American of African descent have to offer a cultural tradition that for centuries was exclusively defined by white men of European descent? Should Americans of African descent - and especially educators - situate themselves as Negro or black, and establish programs in Negro studies and black studies? Or are such programs a form of intellectual apartheid?” Based on the contrasting perspectives about liberal arts from the former U.S. President Booker T. Washington and the sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois, the author asserts that as even the short history suggests, African Americans have long debated the importance of the humanities in ways that echo the debate in the dominant culture, but also in ways that reflect their situation as a uniquely persecuted minority. Gerald Early, a Fellow of the American Academy since 1997, is Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters at Washington University in St. Louis.
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