M:
We really are looking at a shared history between black people and white people, and in some places where Native American people intersect there as well. But really looking at a political history, a social history, and a cultural history, that begins to explain some of the America that we live in today.

Holloway:
Is there a way to explain the American culture that we live in today, especially when we enter into issues of race and color? The PBS series "African in America" confronts this issue, and we'll talk about it next on Black Issues Forum. Stay tuned. [MUSIC]

Holloway:
Good evening and welcome to Black Issues Forum. I'm Jay Holloway, your guest, and you've just seen some of the very thought-provoking statements from historians featured in the six-hour PBS documentary, "Africans in America," which aired this past week on UNC-TV. Tonight, though, begins a new season of Black Issues Forum, and we're here talking about race relations across North Carolina. And tonight we're going to open up this season by discussing and taking on and looking back as we discuss the PBS series "Africans in America." In the studio with me are three distinguished guests. First, Alice Eli Jones, she's no stranger to Black Issues Forum; she's a scholar on North Carolina History. Also, Dr. Peter Wood, a professor in the Department of History at Duke University; he also appeared in the series "Africans in America." And Stedman Graham, who you'll see also later this season on Black Issues Forum; he's author of the book You Can Make It Happen. And I'd also like to welcome to the program our in-studio audience, visitors from UNC-TV, including math & science precollege class from Leesville Road Middle School in Raleigh--thank you all for coming. And we're glad to have each of you. We'll be taking comments and questions from our audience throughout this program this evening, but first let's begin to talk about what we heard earlier. Slavery was a tragic event in African history and American history, really. But it's in our past. Why do we need to understand the details in order to talk about race relations today? Let's start with our historians. Why is that relevant as we talk about that today? I have to tell you, 25 years ago when "Roots" came on, I was the same age as these students. And I came to school the next day with some rage. I felt like I hated whites. You know, I don't know, why is it relevant to bring it up again?

M:
Well my guess is it was probably useful for you to see that, to experience that rage, which was completely appropriate, and I think a new generation of Americans is going back, visiting slavery because we can't move ahead if we don't know where we came from. And all Americans need to understand that piece of our shared past.

Holloway:
Do you agree with that, Alice?

Jones:
I agree with that, and I would like to add, we have to keep revisiting the issue of slavery because although we've had slavery discussed in the school systems--certainly in the state of North Carolina school systems--it is rare that you get the issue of slavery discussed--view, preview, discuss--from the black perspective. You've always had it, since time immemorial, discussed from the white perspective. As we visit it now--and it makes a big difference because it is discussed from the African-American perspective, because when it was discussed from the other perspective, it was considered to be a mild form of this, or it really didn't bother them that much. When you get it from the black perspective, you get the harsh reality--it was a harsh, cruel practice, and it was something that blacks survived and came out of--and it is now our turn to tell our own story of our own history.

Holloway:
You said something to me earlier about this series, how it made you feel as a historian. And Peter, you're a part of that, and we're going to talk about how that relates today, and I want Stedman to comment on that--but what do you feel this series has done, and what is it going to do to encourage this kind of discussion? And how should it make people feel?

Jones:
Well firstly, I have to smile and echo Peter's comments on an earlier program: I was shocked that the program was coming out in October. Usually, African-American history is relegated to February, and that's one of the problems with "Africans in America," it's relegated to special events. I was proud to be here tonight because this is an ongoing program in dealing with racial issues in the state; it is not just a special event. If we are going to become better people towards one another, it needs not to be relegated to a special event but it needs to be in our schools, in our discussions, it's part of who we are. And that is how we'll overcome it, because what racism meant to me as a child who grew up in the segregated North Carolina, it means absolutely nothing to these young people who are sitting here today. So if I try to brow-beat it into them or make them see it--they can't see it; it's not part of who they are. But yet racism touches their lives differently than it touched my life.

Holloway:
Speaking of that happening today--and I want to say to the young folks and the older folks in the audience, come right up to the microphone when you think you have a comment or a question and we'll be glad to recognize you. But let's talk about that relevance today. Stedman Graham, you have a book out and a program on You Can Make It Happen. And when I was watching the series, actually the third part of that series, Richard Allen said--who was the founder of the AME Church--said, "I offer myself as an example of what blacks can do," and he was implying, given the same playing field, level playing field--can succeed and do well. And the principles that you talk about in You Can Make It Happen, basically 200 years later, you're saying the same thing. You can make it happen, and those--can you share with our audience?

Graham:
Well I think that, first of all, there's nothing wrong with struggle. And during the times of slavery, people struggled. What we have to realize is we have to learn from our struggles, and we become better people because of our struggles. And the process of success is the same no matter what. It's all about, when you come down to it, control and influence and who has the power. And the way you get that influence and the way you get the power is through knowledge and education, and that allows you to dictate how the standards are and how things should be done. So I think that throughout our history, not only by slavery but every immigrant that's come over to this country has had all kinds of struggles and had to prove themselves. It is no different than African-Americans in this country, and so what we have to do--we have to realize that African-American history and slavery is a part of American history. It's not relegated to one small box and put into a closet somewhere. It is a part of our history; it is what makes this country great. And we have to also understand that it identifies, you know, and we have to learn about it because we have to understand who we are, and realize that we come from good stock, and that we have the potential to be anything we want to be if we understand how the American freedom process works, how that applies to our life--and that's why education is so important.

Holloway:
Let's go to our first comment or question. Go right ahead, sir.

Q:
My name is John Conski. And I'd like to direct my question to either panelist. What do you think America would be like today if Africans had not been racially separated?

Holloway:
Good question. What would it be like today.... in other words, are you implying without slavery? You mean separated as families or separated from the continent of Africa? Or both?

Q:
Both.

Holloway:
Okay.

Jones:
Well in terms of personal experience, having been one of the first generation since the end of the civil rights movement of being an adult who's mainstream, into the mainline culture, it is different. These young people are a product of what is different. As a child growing up, who was a Girl Scout, a good student, good church member--good child--I did not feel entitled to all things that were in this country. These people feel entitled, these students feel entitled. One of the marked differences I find when I teach students from this generation on the college level: these young people feel entitled. One of the remarks that Peter made earlier on in this series was about feeling entitled, a feeling of citizenship, and all the things that go along with being a good citizen such as good character--had blacks been mainstreamed earlier, the entitlement, the good citizenship, the benefits, would have happened much earlier. I'm not saying it would not have been without problems, but I'm saying the process would have happened much sooner in the lives of our republic.

Holloway:
Peter. You want to address that?

Wood:
I agree with Alice. We'd be 200 years further ahead. This is an amazing culture as it is. When you visit other countries you realize how lucky we are to be as diverse as we are, but we're only just finding out about that and starting to take shared pride. If we had started that process earlier, we'd be even further ahead.

Holloway:
You want to comment?

Graham:
Well I would say that first of all, we'd have a stronger economic base. We'd also be politically stronger. You know, do we even know, the Reconstruction time, there was a whole movement to eliminate African-Americans in the whole political system. So there would have been a lot more benefits, our young people would have been far more educated, and I think that we wouldn't have grown up--we have a 57% dropout rate in Chicago public schools, 50% dropout rates throughout the country. We would have understood more about how the American free enterprise system worked as opposed to holding ourselves back because of the color of our skin. So our self-esteem would have been raised, our confidence level would have been raised, and as a result of that, our children would be far more educated today than they've ever been in their life.

Holloway:
Sir, go right ahead. We have another comment or question from the audience.

Q:
My name is Dr. Fred Mohammed Hall from St. Augustine's College, where I'm an Associate Professor of Sociology. Ms. Jones, you mentioned earlier your involvement in religion as a child. I thought that the series didn't adequately address the issue of religion and the role of religion in African-American life. Particularly glaring was the omission to Islam, and I wondered if any one of you would comment on that, please.

Jones:
I.... Well, let Peter go since he was in the series.

Wood:
Well I'd say, Amen. I think that's true. I think one wishes that it had gone deeper, been broader. There's actually very little on Roman Catholicism and the Spanish and the French world in which many African-Americans lived and grew up. So I'm just hoping this is the opening of the door. The next series should come down hard on the role of Islam.

Holloway:
One of the things I'd like to say, the person that you heard earlier, Nolan Walker, one of the producers of the episode, made the point that broadcast television, we only had six hours to do this, and it's impossible to take all these hundreds of years and adequately go through everything. But I want to say to the young people and to our viewers that this just gives you the opportunity to know that the information is there, it's always been available in our history to research and find that out. So we want you to go to our website, go to the library, get on the Internet, and find out more about this. Great question, sir.

Jones:
And additionally, with regards to not only religion--since I'm working on an architecture project, I didn't have a particular notice of architecture in the series, but it didn't dismay me. It only points out there are so many topics to be discussed in African-American history. You can sit here all day long and get graduate students working and run into the archives for years. So perhaps one of these people sitting in the audience today, by the time they get to undergraduate and graduate school, they'll be on it. I mean, because the research is just so wonderful and it's just so new with regards to our times. So that's a challenge that we should give to our young people, to keep on doing research to what we already have.

Holloway:
We have another comment or question. Go right ahead, sir.

Q:
My name is Amarr Shapiro, and either panelist may respond to my question. What do you think America would be like today if Africans had remained in slavery? Would we be stronger or weaker, better or worse, or would be even exist as a nation at all?

Holloway:
Okay, there's the other side of the question. First it didn't happen, you know, but now we stayed in slavery.

Jones:
Well I would probably be cleaning the building and serving drinks to other people!

M:
I think he's hit it; I mean, we wouldn't even be here as a nation. Because there's no way that the lid could have been kept on any longer than it was. 200 years was an amazingly long time, and there was no way that it was going to continue. So... We wouldn't have held together, I'm sure.

Holloway:
You know, that brings to comment the central paradox of this whole series. What is the solution to this paradox of a country that was founded on liberty, but yet at the same time justified slavery, which meant rape and murder. It's just a complete paradox, and they talked about that in the series. I mean, and that's probably I would think at the root of his question.

Wood:
Yeah, I think this goes back to Alice's point about seeing it from the black point of view in this series, finally, because when you see it that way, you see it not so much as the oppression but as the struggle for freedom, as you were saying. I mean, and what could be a more American story? I mean, this is a story of enor--for me a sort of enormous pride. I mean, the struggles that these people are engaged in, the successes that they're winning against enormous odds make it a very troubling story but a very positive story.

Graham:
I think in addition to that, is that it's important to tell the story from a humanitarian point of view, where you realize that African-Americans in this country are human, that they're not just some statistic or some... they're relegated just to act a certain way, that they're just as human as anybody else. And Oprah, who I know very well, made a movie called "Beloved," and the important point of that movie is that it's a movie about people living in an era during the period of slavery who loved, who cared, who cried, just like anyone else would do. And so to bring out the humanity of people and to show that we have feelings as a race just like anybody else, I think is necessary before you can have empathy for anyone. Otherwise, you don't see them as a real person.

Holloway:
Well I want to talk about that because that's a lot of.... In the movie world, that's _____ and Oprah did, we're talking about this series now. There's been discussion over the last few years about reparations and an apology to Africans. Think about that; I'd like us to address that. But let's hear another comment or question. Go right ahead, sir.

Q:
My name is Keenan Low and I have one question. How did the Europeans who invaded Africa go about capturing the Africans? What techniques and tactics did they use? For example, did they build traps and set them in forests? Did they use large nets? Did they sneak into the villages and surprise them and take them away?

Holloway:
That's for our historians.

Jones:
Well I smile because--and in fact, I am glad he asked that question. Over the last year, a lot of people have begun to come forth and say, "It is not the Europeans' fault that Africans were enslaved. It is because Africans enslaved one another." And I always have two points to make about that. Number one: when we discuss African slavery and other slavery in the world, there's a very distinct difference between the chattel slavery that was practiced in the United States of America and the American South versus the slavery that you have with Europeans--I mean Germans have enslaved Germans, French have enslaved French. So slavery is a very ancient form of human condition. However, the thing that makes the American or the Southern practice of slavery, that chattel slavery, is a reduction of that human being, the loss of the humanity to a chair, a rug, a cow, a dog or whatever. And number two: in the process of normal warring against one another, group against group, you get captured. Initially, these people were made members of the community and could become members of the community. After the slave trade became very prominent, people began to say, "Oh, these people go on raiding parties, capturing people and selling black people into slavery." And then you have people say, "Well, gosh, how could you sell black people into slavery?" You have the French who fought the English for 100 years; you know, white people fought white people, so it was a thing of war. But the thing that I always point out is that slavery was not invented by the Europeans against the Africans. Chattel slavery is very different from the other types of slavery practiced around the world where you had a human being reduced to property or real estate, and that was very aptly pointed out by Peter in the first or the second segment.

Holloway:
Speaking of that, Peter, you also have another book out to help younger folks understand this, and Alice, you have a character. And Peter, could you talk to that and tell us about your book briefly too?

Wood:
I wrote a book called Strange New Land that is specifically for high school students and that focuses on the early African-American experience. We know a lot about the civil rights movement, we know a lot about the Civil War, but the colonial period is usually still taught as a lily-white subject. And the fact is that there was a big black population in America at that time, and I called one chapter "The Terrible Transformation," and I was pleased that this series took that title and used it for their first show, calling it "The Terrible Transformation." Slavery wasn't something that just happened out of nowhere; it was a long, slippery slope as the colonial culture slid into a system of race slavery.

Holloway:
So the short answer to his question, it wasn't as simple as just going over there and capturing people and walking out.

Wood:
I think the short answer would be money and profit. You know, it's amazing how many people became very rich through this--many of whom were never directly involved in it; they were indirectly involved. They were funding it, supporting it, profiting from it.

Holloway:
Another comment or question, sir. Go right ahead.

Q:
Okay. My name is Douglas Townsend, I have a question. I've heard that there were great, highly-advanced civilizations in West Africa, the place in Africa where most of the ancestors of today's African-Americans came from. On the other hand, I have heard that Africa was a primitive and uncivilized place prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Which is fact and which is myth?

Holloway:
Alice, I know you need to answer that because you thought that this series did a wonderful job in distinguishing myth between fact.

Jones:
Absolutely.

Holloway:
Let's do that.

Jones:
I won't even go back as far as saying--because I'm going to Wilmington when I leave here... The thing that I always like to impress upon young people is, the myth is--and to have to justify the enslavement of Africans--that you had these people running around swinging from trees who were not highly civilized and in order to justify slavery, you have a whole language that historians invented to talk about the African experience and the African-American experience, such as tribe, primitive, hut, native. All those words are used when we are taught African history. And I made a point of, when I'm in the classroom I don't use those words to describe African people. You have to really look around and describe words that keep Africans humans with regards to dehumanizing them, because when you dehumanize a person, it justifies any abuse you heap on them forever and ever. So even when we look at the language that historians use to describe not only Africans but people of color, there's a difference. So I like to make my students aware of the different language that people use when they write history. So in terms of the myth of the noble savage, it was a thriving continent, a thriving community. So many of the cultural things that we celebrate as North Carolinians today of African descent come to us directly from our African heritage. The problem is, we don't get taught that, we don't know that, and we don't respect that and we can't appreciate that. One of the reasons I'm so terribly grateful for a project such as this one, it gets people focused on who we are, where we came from, and what is left within us as African-Americans that we celebrate because we descended from people from the African continent, specifically from West Africa.

Holloway:
We only have a few minutes left. Let's try to get some comments in real quickly, please.

Q:
I don't have a question as much as I do an observation or a comment that I would like to share, and then from that a question. I'm John Little, I teach history at St. Augustine's College. And one of my colleagues mentioned to his class that black people can reach back and touch slavery. And when I heard about that, I was deeply moved by it as I was by this whole series on slavery, "Africans in America." But my question is, do you all agree with that?

Holloway:
Let's get these comments in. We have just less than three minutes. Let's get the next one in, and we're going to .... Africans reaching back and touching history. You have a comment or question, quickly.

Q:
Yes, I have a question. Thomas Robinson, graduate assistant, North Carolina Central University, Department of History. This question is addressed to my two colleagues. What can we as historians do to distinguish scholarship from rhetoric?

Holloway:
Okay. And the last comment. Scholarship from rhetoric. All right.

Q:
Quickly, Paul Benning, NC State University. You mentioned, Mr. Holloway, your response to "Roots," and one of the possible responses to this series is one of hopelessness and despair. It would be easy for us to look at this and many reach the conclusion that all is hopeless. And I was just wondering, Mr. Graham, what the real moral of your work might be as it relates to young people who might look at something like this and walk away with a sense of despair and hopelessness.

Holloway:
Let's do this: we have two minutes. Alice, could you take the question about reaching back and touching slavery? And we ask Peter to talk about scholarship versus rhetoric, and close with your response.

Jones:
I end with an anecdote: I was in the archives and this white lady said to me, "We're going to have this--polite lady--this black fellow to come, and his grandfather was a slave." And I said, "You can't throw a stick at a black person in most of the South whose ancestor, grandfather, grandmother, wasn't a slave." I mean, that doesn't make him special because he had an ancestor who was a slave. But because she was white, it had escaped her. I have very definite memories of my great, great grandfather on my mother's side, parents being in slavery, and the great, great-grandfather on my father's side. It did not oppress me, did not make me angry, I just knew as a child coming up that slaves are in my past and out of that servitude, the farm came and all the other stuff came. So it is definitely a part of who I am.

Holloway:
Peter. Scholarship or rhetoric?

Wood:
One of the things that's happening at the moment in scholarship is that more Southern whites are also exploring, they're reaching back and touching slavery. Finding out they have relatives, connections, links. So exploring our past is something for everybody, and I think the scholars are coming together with the public through programs like this.

Holloway:
Thirty seconds, Stedman. Is it hopelessness now after this?

Graham:
Well I think that the most important thing--and I try to talk about this in my book --is to be free in your mind and to know that you are as good as anybody else and you have the ability to do anything you want to do if you're willing to work hard and if you understand how. Because you can be enslaved, you don't have to be enslaved in chains to be a slave. You know, what you have to do is free this and then to be able to realize that you're as good as anybody else, move to action, do whatever you want to do and you set the standards and you develop your own legacy based on your own excellence.

Holloway:
Thank you so much. I want to thank each of you for participating. And I want to thank you for watching this edition of Black Issues Forum. For more information please contact us at our web site, www.unctv.org/bif. We'll send you and show you how to get these study guides, more information on "Africans in America." Call us at the number on your screen as well. And join us on UNC-TV next Friday night at 11:00 for the first in a series of town hall meetings on race relations in Robeson County at UNC-Pembroke. Until then, I'm your host Jay Holloway. You have a blessed evening and a good night.