THE BETTER WE KNOW US ... The Navy announced that President Ford has nominated Rear Admiral Samuel L. Gravely, Jr., for promotion to Vice Admiral and assignment as Commander, U.S. THIRD Fleet. Admiral Gravely's present assign ment is Commandant of the 11th Naval District, San Diego. one of the Navy's four numbered fleets, the Third Fleet consists of •sortie hundered ships and about 60,000 Navy and Marine Corps people. As commander of that fleet. Admiral Gravely will be responsible lor guarding the western sea ap proaches to the U.S. and training the crew of ships deploying to the Western Pacific. In discussing the new assignment. Admiral James L. Holloway III, the Chief of Naval Operations, said, "Command at sea is not unusual for Admiral Gravely. His naval career in cludes command of four surface ships and a cruiser-destroyer group, as well as service in five other ships." He is also a graduate of the Naval War College and the U.S. Navy Post graduate School. Admiral Gravely saw action in World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. In Washington he served in the Defense Communications Agency and directed the Navy's Communica tion Command. Among his medals and awards for distinguished service are the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal and Meritorious Service Medal. Admiral Gravely will be the first black fleet commander for the Navy. But he has set the pace in other mile stones as well. He was the first black executive officer and commanding officer of a Navy warship, the first black line captain and admiral, and one of the first two blacks to attend the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. Born in Richmond, Virginia, Admiral Gravely is married to the former Alma Bernice Clark of Chris- tianburg, Virginia. They have two sons and a daughter. VOLUME IV, NO. 10 TRIBUNAL AID A VIABLE, VALID REQUIREMENT RESPONDING TO BLACK NORTH CAROLINA WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11,1976 *6.(H) PER \1:aR 2.^ CEMS North Carolina Press Association. Ini' The 1976 Eclitioiis of THE TRIBUNAL AO) wUI Ik‘ (ledicateci to America's bicentennial (Vle- bration. >\ith (‘niphasis on contributions our Race has made in the making of America, from birth to the present. In 1976 th(‘r‘ should not be a nt?eri to lift these (M)ntributi(ms I'roni isolat(‘d sources. Our past should ne interwo\en into tht* fabric of our ci vilization. because wv are. except for the Indian. America's ohiest ethnic minority. \X e have helped make America what it was. and what it is. sinct' th‘ founding of Virginia. We ha\e lu“en a factor in many major issues in our history. Ther‘ ha\e been many misd‘eds against us. yet we ha\e bet^n able to li\e through tlx'iii and fight back. This is li\ing proof of our hjstor\. Our role in th* making of Amt^rica is n‘ither w‘ll known or correctK known. Many positi\e c»ntril>utions ha\‘ ocaped historians and ha>‘ not tKiiid llu'ir wa> into tiu* naires of man\ liislor> lMM)k« W will stri\e to gi>(“ n'aders. Black and whit(‘. inan> liltle-knH\n fa'ts ab»ut our past and it Is hip‘! that a proper p‘rspective of our histor) will be of value to p'rsons who beli‘\e that as lilack pi'oph' we hlJ>e au uA \vortln past: and ht'nce. no strong clainfs to all rights of otluT .\niericans. Faye Ashe. Black History Edilor THE BLACK CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN LETTERS ART IN ITS BROAD SENSE IS THE EXPRESSION OF BEAUTY IN FORM, COLOR, SOUND, SPEECH, AND MOVEMENT. ART EM BRACES NOT ONLY DRAWING, painting, sculpture and ARCHITECTURE, BUT POETRY. PART MUSIC, DANCING AND DRAMA TICS. OUR CULTURE IS RICH IN ALL OF THESE ARTS FORMS, WE WOULD LIKE TO SHARE WITH YOU SOME EXAMPLES OF THIS PARTICULAR ART FORM. S'! I Though nothing more by her sur vives and no more is known of her interest in verse, LUCY TERRY may still have been alive in Massachusetts when PHYLLIS WHEATLEY was brought from Senegal in 1761. A POEM BY PHYLLIS, A NEGRO GIRL IN BOSTON, ON THE DEATH OF REVEREND FEORGE WHITEFIELD was published. On the whole poetry written in American colonies in 1773, including that of Phyllis and Jupiter Hammon is limited interest to poetry lovers in the twentieth century. Legal restrictions on the education of slaves were introduced in the American Colonies after the period of Phyllis Wheatly and Jupiter Hammon The purpose was to keep from the slave, news and propaganda likely to incite a lust for freedom. During the Frence revolution, and the Hiatian Insurrections there was regarded as a serious matter, and the slave uprising in Virginia, South Carolina, and else where added to the anxiety. Escaped slaves who later wrote autobio graphies have left records of the mental anguish this deprivation caused them. Slave poetry went underground, so to speak because the slave was denied the ABC's. Self-expression had to become oral, as it had been for so many of their ancestors in Africa. The suppression of book learning by slaves coincided with the earliest musical and lyrical expression in the form which became known later as Spirituals. The survival of "ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL", for example, among the slaves from the United States isolated on a Caribbean Island since 1824, would seem to place the beginning of these songs very early in the nineteenth century or late eigh teenth century, allowing for the time it usually took such song to develop and become generally known. The elegies, commemorations, and devotional poems of Phyllis Wheatley and Jupiter Hammon gave way to laments from slave quarters such as: Americans of African descent, still somewhat bewildered by the exper ience which had brought them into bondage in the New World, began to find a strangely satisfying expression for their thoughts and feelings in music. The songs which resulted, now known as Negro Spirituals, have not only been a powerful musical in fluence on the nation as a whole but these spirituals have been accepted with approval throughout most of the world. Spirituals owe as much to their words as to their music. They mark a beginning of poetic expression as influential on subsequent poets as the music has been on later com posers. The lyrics of songs like "ROLL, JORDAN ROLL" and "SWING LOW SWEET CHARIOT" were not the first attempts or verse by Blacks in the United States. An Indian raid on the little town of Deerfield, Massachu setts in 1746 is commemorated in a couplet by a semiliterate slave girl named LUCY TERRY. She called her account: I know moonlight. I know starlight I lay this body down I walk in the graveyard I walk through the graveyard To lay this body down. I lay in the graveyard and stretch out my arms. I lay this body down, I go to the judgement in the evening of the day When I lay this body down. And my soul and your soul will meet the day I lay this body down. Bright sparkles in the churchyard Give light unto the tomb: Bright summer, spring 's lover Sweet Jlowere in their bloom. My mother once, my mother twice, my mother, she 'II rejoice. In the heaven once, in the heaven twice, she 'II rejoice. May the lord, he will be glad j'or me In the heaven, he 'II rejoice. BARS FIGHT August 'twas the twenty-Jifth Seventeen hundred forty-six The Indians did in ambush lay Some very valient men did slay Twas nigh unto Sam Dickinson 's mill. The Indians there jive men did kill The names of whom I 11 not leave out Samuel Allen like a hero jbut And though he was so brave and bold His j'ave no more shall we behold EleazerHawks was killed outright Before he had time to jight Before he did the Indians see Was shot and killed immediately Oliver Amsden he was slain Which caused his j'riends much grief and pain Simeon Amsden they j'ound dead Not many rods ojfjrom his head. Adonijah Gillet, we do hear Did lose his lije which was so dear John Saddler fled across the water And so escaped the dreadj'ul slaughter Eunice Allen see the Indians comeing And hoped to save herself by running And had not her petticoats stopt her The awful creatures had not cotched her And tommyhawked her on the hear And lej't her on the ground j'or dead. Young Samuel Allen, Oh! Lack-a-day Was taken and carried to Canada. This was the kind of oral expression that replaced written poetry by Black Americans during the Abolitionist Campaign, the Civil War and the Re construction after the war. There were, of course some expec- tions. Among the free men of color, as they were called in Louisiana, a strong French influence persisted and stimulated many broad cultural in terests. Young Colored men of talent were sent to Paris to be educated. Among them were poets like Lanusse, Pierre Dalcour and most important, Victor Sejour who later became a successful French dramatist and moved in literary cirles in which Alexander Dumas was prominent. In their youth in New Orleans these three Louisiana poets with a group of their associates produced a collection called LES CENELLES, published in 1845, the first anthology of American Negro Poetry. Included was "EPIGRAM" by Lanussee which, as translated by LANGSTON HUGHES, show how far the LES CENELLES poets and the free men of color of Louisiana were, culturally, from the slaves who created spirituals. EXAMPLE: "Doyou not wish to renounce the devil! Adked a good priest of a woman of evil Who had so many sins that every year They cost her endless remorse and fear. "I wish to renounce him j'orever. " she said. "But that I may lose every urge to be bad. Before pure grace takes me in hand. Shouldn 't I show my daughter how to get a man?" GEORGE MOSES HORTON, a slave, had become known to the editor of the RALEIGH REGISTER in North Carolina, published in 1829 a slender volume of verse under the title HOPE OF LIBERTY. Horton was judged to about thirty-two at the time. He had become a well-known figure among the college students at Chapel Hill, where he may have been employed, and found it possible to realise a bit of income from his verses. The nature of this writing can only be guessed, since none of it appears to have survived, but circum stances would not lead one to think that it was passionate anti-slavery propaganda. Many of the students for who Horton wrote and who evi dently paid him were children of slave holding families. He restrained in later life a nolicable capacity for humor, and it has been surmised that the peoms with which he entertained the students at the University of North Carolina may have been in this vein. As the title of his first collection indicates, Horton hoped to earn from the sale of his poetry enough money to buy his freedom, however he did not succeed and his attitude changed, as seen in this poem: Alas! and am I bornjor this. To wear this slavish chain? Deprived of all created Bliss, Through hardship, toil, and pain? How long have I in bondage lain. And languished to be free? Alas! and must I still complain. Deprived oj Liberty?. In 1865, after the Union Armies had won for him the emancipation his poems had failed to achieve, a second volume of Horton's verses was pub lished in Raleigh under the title NAKED GENIUS. His second and last book contain stanzas which throw a ccrtain light on his reputation at Chapel Hill: My duck hill bools would liik as bright. Had you injustice served me right: Like you. I then could step as light. Before a flaunting maid. As nicely could I clear my throat. And to my lights my eyes devote: But I 'd leave you bare, without the coat For which you have not paid. Then boast and hear the crack. With the sheriff at your back. Huzzah jor Dandy Jack. My Jolly Fop. My Jo! REFERENCES: Negro Heritage Library-Voluin II Da\is. John P. ED., The American N«‘gTo Ref«*rence Book Educational Heritage. Inc. \onkers. c. 1966 Katz, ^ illiam Loren Eyewitness: The Negro in American History, Pitman, New ^ork. c. 1967. W(KKlson, Carter G. The Negro In Our History, Associated Pub. Washington, D.C. c. 1922 lonnnnnnnni^onogt^t^rrjrunoonnnnonnnntDOQOPOooooo□□oonnnnnnnnnnnnn*innn"*~* —I 1776 Honoring America's Bicentennial 1976