Newspapers / North Carolina Central University … / Dec. 20, 1968, edition 1 / Page 2
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Page Two THE CAMPUS ECHO December 20, 1968 GiniP“5#Echo Member ASSOCIATED COLLEGIATE PRESS press Esther Silver Editor George Reid Business Manager William Hailey, Otis Jordan, Advertising Manager WiNFOHD Hooker News Editor William Hailey, Otis Jordan Advertising Managers Granger Martin, David White Circulation Managers Lestee Perry, Ronald Parker Sports Editors Hmma Walker, Melva Walker , Cartoonists Barbara Dorsey, Evelyn Willis, Talulla Reid Typists PROOF-READERS ' Evelyn Smith, Evelyn Willis, Larry Johnson, Michael Garrett, Alma Maxwell, Celia Sessoms, Rhonda Perry REPORTERS Charles Sanders, Granger Martin, Juanita Dorsey, Michael MoGriff, Celia Sessoms, Edgar Grier, Michael Garrett, Roseline McKinney, Otis Jordan, William Haley, Connie Morgan, Ronald Miller, Alma Maxwell, Francis Majette Mr. Robert Montgomery Business Advisor Mrss Jean Norris Advisor Songs Written For The Babe Many musicians have evoked Coleman Views Faculty As ‘Holy’ thoughts of Christmas, and this year as in years past amid the gaiety of the holiday, the mer riment of activities, and the hap piness of exchanging gifts, Christmas songs will bring again to mind an innocent baby bom to save the world. One may well remember the three wise men following the star that was to lead them to the manger. A full 19 centuries separate their iuest from ours yet we may still i;oday look forward to the holy star and say “star of wonder, star of night guide men to thy perfect light.” The wonder spoken of here is a wonder of divine things which are incom prehensible to man; the baby is .more than a light in the night of disbelief, unknowing, and the unfathomable. The baby is a ■“perfect” light, the incredible merging of the ethereal with the mundane — the Man-God. The night on which he was born has been called the “Holy Night.” Strange enough. He was born the prince of p>eace in a world of war, a world in “sin and error pining.” However, to this world he gave hope. He, “through all our trials, born to be our friend” was to be the ex piation of our sins.” A composer avowed that “Christ is the Lord, O Praise His name forever.” Since Christ’s birth some have proclaimed his glory, some have chosen to forget him all toge ther, some have developed an in difference or apathy. But some how the Christ-child, could never be resigned to a role of be ing ignored. Many tried numer ous and futile circumlocutory ways to avoid him. They gave him other names; they ques tioned his divinity as did Jeffer son and Franklin. Still, as all roads are said to lead to Rome, all roads appear to lead back to the manger on that “Silent Night.” That baby still asserts himself. “Why is the babe poor;” asked Dostoevski’s Dimitri Karamazou. Dimitri had been unjustly sen tenced to Siberia for the mur der of his father. Often people interpreted Dimitri’s question as being the rantings of a mad man. “It is because of that babe that I'm going to Siberia,” Dimi tri averred. It is only when we can fully probe our conscious ness that we come to under stand as did Dimitri’s lover Grushenka that Dimitri’s com ments are probably intelligent, but that we have inherent in ourselves a weakness of vision and comprehension. Dimitri exemplifies that the “babe” is still with mankind although it is a longtime since the angels sang the “First Noel.” Beyond the green of the Christmas trees, the pretty toys, and chic clothes, something else is visible if one looks carefully- something perceivable only to the mystics, mystics such as those who wrote and continue to write our Christmas songs. If one looks hard enough and be lieves deeply enough he might just see the “babe.” That “babe” may say like Handel “O thou that telleth good tidings to Zion, get thee up into the high moun tain. Perhap’s Handel’s Messiah stands out among the best of the Christmas songs because of its variable moods of joy and seri ousness. Through Handel and others we maintain the true Christmas spirit. The Christmas turkey, and the renewal of old acquaintances are important. However, looking beyond these we must think of the “babe” and Handel’s line often quoted by Saul Bellow in Henderson The Rain King: “Who shall abide the day of His coming and who shall stand when He appeareth.” German Novelist By RONALD E. MILLER Occasionally students may be seen scampering to class with the book Siddhartha under their arms, and one may stop to won der what there is about the Ger man novel that moves them. Perhaps it may be the fact that even at the sunset of life Hesse was still and artist who' ex pressed himself selflessly and passionately and who never lost his communication with youth because he never forgot how it was to be young. Hesse’s life it self is symbolic of human strug gle within man himself and of the transition from tension and restlessness in the early years to an assiduously procured peace toward life’s end. Once Hesse the romantib, who almost endlessly pleaded for a return to nature, saw man as a “Steppenwolf,” a being torn asimder by his many facets of being, an entity part-man and part-animal composed of thou sands of selves which could never he reconciled. He hated the city. He loathed mechaniza tion with a passion equal to that of Thoreau. Once the only outlet he saw from the “mad crowd” was to' totally isolate his mind from a world that he did not wish to see. The only consola tion he saw for man was to enter the “mad theater,” to wholly re move himself from the earth as we know it, and to live like a Blake seeing on two levels but never completely at honije o« Letter To Editor Echo Appeals 21 November 1968 Dear Editor, I am a 1967 graduate of North Carolina College at Durham, my name is Franklyn L. J. Banks, Jr. , and I received your Oct. 31, ’68 edition of the Campus Echo from a friend of mine who is still there. I would like to com mend you on an excellent job. The Campus Echo is so appeal ing and most of all quite inter esting. I was extremely sur prised how some of your articles held my attention. While I was a student at NCC this paper never did appeal to me. In so many words it lacked depth and organization. But now I am really spellbound at the achieve ments and improvements the paper as a whole, has received under your leadership. Again, congratulations and continue to produce such interesting articles in your future papers. At present I am with the U.S. Army stationed in Augsburg, Germany. However, before com ing here I was stationed in Munchen, Germany. Since I majored in German at North Carolina College, I was excited knowing that I was coming to Germany instead of Viet Nam. Its quite an experience being here and most of all, I am really getting a chance to use what I have learned at NCC. There are really so many exciting things I could tell you about Germany that I don’t know where to start. However, if you would like some first hand information on fashions, sports, theater and any topics just let me know and I will be glad to relay the infor mation. Best of regards to all my fel- ow Eagles and as they say in Germany “Aufwiedersehen.” Sincerely yours, Franklyn L. J. Banks, Jr. P.S. I am typing this letter at work. Moves Students either. But Hesse himself underwent a transformation. In Journey To The East he would conclude that it was he, not the world, who had gone wrong and that he had landed in a blind alley only because he himself had lost clear vision. The caravan to the East was still proceeding, aijd Hesse had been left behind. Hesse viewed himself as he viewed many other men who as they grow up lose sight of Leo. lAnd symbolically Leo may be more than “Christ” whom he certainly resembles, and may be symbolic of all that is divine in the child and that is shaded by the blindness of years. How ever, it is worth saying that Hesse had to perceive the Step penwolf before he could evolve into the discerning artist seeing Eastward. Hesse would conclude like hero Siddhartha that “the most that you can gain from it all is some knowledge of yourself” Hesse knew that man himself is a strange creature of metamor phosis. But he knew also that inevitably man would have to come to terms with himself, his “daemon.” Hesse, an artist struggling within himself as vio lently as Kazanzakis, could pen for Siddhartha’s friend Gotama the line “I can see that you have found peace.” Perhaps this peace is also the peace that NCC stu dents hope to procure by experi- encinj; Herman Hacse’s art. By JAMES COLEMAN An individual in order to ar rive at a true appraisal of him self, must occasionally reflect upon what has occurred to him in his youth; it is in these soli tary moments of reflection that we arrive at our moral worth. However, sanity must be pre served in all people and herein is the reason why reality is very often distorted. If I arrive at a state of consciousness in which I view myself as being foolish or insignificant, then I must either make alterations in my self or my surroundings. This I firmly believe is the psychological dilemma of the majority of instructors on the campus of North Carolina Col lege. They have become so en veloped in the “University of “Whitey” that anything that discredits the educational philo sophy of their respective alma mater is an insult to higher education. They fail to realize this historical truism: the black man has been historically ex* eluded from textbooks, faculty, and. the student body of the vast majority of colleges and uni versities. The fact is that the black man was placed outside the educational philosophy of “White America” Why bring this philosophy back to a pre dominantly “Negro” college? They bombard us with quotes of Keats, Abe Lincoln, and many other of their gods. ' If by chance one happened to mention names like DuBois, Malcolm X, Carmichael, Rap Brown, Nat Turner, or Black Power, these instructors imme diately, if they are conscien tious, consult Encyclopedia Britannica in order to determine its historical importance. Their world cannot be threatened at any cost by students who only a few years ago were sucking on the breast of their mother; (however, they fail to realize that they are still sucking on breast, not for nourishment, but as an expression of love.) The give vent to students' comments only to fit them into a mold already marked “ap proved by the Good Housekeep ing Associates of America,” which is merely an euphemism for “yea Boss, you sho’s right.” They always feel important when they learn that one of their former students is making $10,000 a year and head of some department. Yet, how many of the approximately 460 that punched out last semester wUl they credit to themselves? They are religious to a degree beyond that of Christ, Ghandi, and Elijah Muhammed. The ritualistic pageantry they per form inside their temples, form erly known as classrooms, lift them to new spiritual heights where only the Holy Spirit can communicate any useful in formation. For once in the holy lives, they have a domain where they can be both judge and jury without question or any chal lenge. The most comical thing that occurs to me when one speaks to them out in the secular world is the way their eyes sadden and glisten when they tell you that they have awarded you the grade of F or D if you are in a state of their grace. If they see you reading the works of El- ridge Cleaver or Fran Fanon, they brand you a "Black mili tant,” when your only concern is for beautiful and relevant literature, which automatically excludes their literary criticism. Tet we students are guilty, for we sit afraid and silent hoping we will be lucky enough to ’’get by.” We should, in the final analy sis, accept all the guilt for we have voiced our concern by keeping silent. Maybe one day— this year—we will get ourselves together and do what we must to make this institution a place for growth and a home for the minds and hearts of black peo ple—past, present, and future. In order to be fair, I know there are Instructors who are very dedicated and need to be hon ored; I can count them all on one foot, but I am glad they are here and vocal. Let me end this essay by quoting a great black man who looked upon the same scene and yelled, “GkK>d God,I can’t stand it.” NCC VIEWED AS NEGRO UNC By ALVIN RUSH Hey Niggers, Did you ever stop and think why the administration treats you the way it does. Well here are a few possibilities. Why do they have dress codes? One reason may be that the administration feels that since the majority of students come from the backwoods, they probably don’t know how to put on clothes, let alone dress ap propriately for the white people. Then this philosophy would re late to the image which the the school is attempting to por tray. Now if you haven’t quite caught on to what that is I’ll tell you. NCC is supposed to be the Negro U.N.C. In fact the administration has succeeded so well in this endeavor, with student help, that the school might just have that title legal ly next year. Another question is why does the administration feel that it must treat the student body like three-year-olds? One reason may be that the administration feels that you cannot function properly outside of your home environment. Now let’s break this down a little bit further for those of you who still don’t un derstand. The niggeraligist say that the majority of blacks come from matriarchal societies. So the college is trying to keep this going. You will notice that Chidley Hall has a house mother who comes by once a week to see that you keep your rooms tidy, and if they are messed up she punishes you. You wiU also notice how the matrons in the women’s dorms treat the men when they come over there. The matrons or “mother images” try to regulate your speech, dress and other habits while you are over visiting the women. I think you can dig what I’m put ting across. Show me one man on this campus that takes it upon himself to regulate the habits of the women. Another question is why do students have to take speech before they can graduate, don’t you speak English already? “Yes, Baby, you can talk, just don’t sound like dem white folks.” The administration feels that in order to b/e really edu cated you have to soimd like them as well as look, act, smell, and eat like them. In general, the administration is telling you that you have to learn the white man’s culture. Now why do you have to learn, their culture when eren tke (See Ncffto UNC Page 4)
North Carolina Central University Student Newspaper
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Dec. 20, 1968, edition 1
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