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
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1776 Honoring America's Bicentennial 1976