We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

W.E.B. Du Bois vs Booker T. Washington - Then and Now

Click here if you wish to access the transcript of the interview with Anthony Monteiro provided by The Real News. He's a professor of African-American studies at Temple University in Philadelphia.

It's important to recover much of the history that has been removed from education by censors of the One Percent. My own experience of African-American history was very limited. I learned a lot about Booker T. Washington, but only a few references to W.E.B. Dubois in my education that included university history courses. This video and subsequent ones in the series should help me and you recover some of what our masters in the One Percent decided was not good for us to know. Monteiro makes us aware that attitudes expressed by Booker T. Washington are still evident today.