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November, 1975 - SPELMAN SPOTLIGHT - Page 7
HISTORY SPEAKS....
Dr. de Pagnier holds a B.A. from
Canasius University, an M. A.
from the Pontifical Gregorian
University, and a Ph.D. from
Tulane. His research is in the
field of Church History, and in
this endeamor he hopes to have a
book out in the Spring.
The archaeologists, with their
probing shovels, • have perhaps
contributed more in recent times
to the enlargement of our
knowledge of history than all the
historians put together. In Egypt
and Mesopotamia, in particular,
they have pushed back the story
of civilization a thousand years
and then some. It is not my idea
by any means to put down the
historian. I became interested in
history because I saw in the
teaching and writing of it, a
perspective in time and space,
and the opportunity to convey this
to my fellow men. History is all
that happened in the past, but in
practice “history” is what we
know and think about what has
happened in the past.
Early archaeology was an un
scientific form of looting. Botta
robbed Niveneh of its sculptures
and Lord Elgin despoiled the
Parthenon, each for the greater
kingdom. Schileman who came
later, was no looter but he made a
mess of Troy and his conclusions
were unsound.
The Crusades might well be
described as a series of incursions
from an almost barbaric Europe
against a more advanced peoples
of the East, both Moslem and
Byzantine. Peter the Hermit’s
rabble army, surged aimlessly
eastward towards Con
stantinople, at the opening of the
first crusade. Although
nominally an ally, the “high
civilization” of Christian
Byzantium had little interest to
the religious purpose of the
Crusades and, in all probability
suffered as much from the
rapacious cruelty of the
Europeans as did the Infidel. In
1204 during the Fourth Crusade,
Constantinople was sacked with
unparalled ferocity. The
Japanese are now indispensable
to us. We must understand them,
as we never understood them
when they were our enemies. Yet
it is hard to understand a people
who can bayonet women and
children on the streets pf Manila
and then return home to a
cultivated art of flower-arranging.
Medieval drama started on the
altar, moved thence to the steps
of the church and finally to the
marketplace, where it began to
speak in the vernacular and lost
much of its sacred character.
Joan was a peasant girl, with no
education, she fed the chickens,
slopped the hogs, and did odd
jobs around the farm. Yet this
same girl fought for the Dauphin
of France and her Armagnac
supporters against the English
and their allies in France, the
Bergundians. Strangely enough
she won against tremendous
Odds.
If I have not by these few ex
cerpts from history whetted your
appetite, I shall continue in
another vein. I am trying to sell
history to students, but I tell you,
an historian must never cease to
read, a student who does not is
worse than a dead one, and takes
up twice as much room. Books
have changed the world: “The
Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli-
“Common Sense” by Thomas
Paine, “Civil Disobedience” by
Henry David Thoreau-“Uncle
Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher
Stowe-“Das Kapital” by Karl
Marx-“Mein Kampf” by Adolph
Hitler-“The Celestial
Revolution” by Nicolaus
Copemicus-“The Origin of
Species” by Charles Darwin-
“The Republic” by Plato-“The
Divine Comedy” by Dante, and of
course the “Bible”.
Books have wielded an immense
power for good and evil
throughout the history of the
human race. The dictators of
egery era in history have seen the
potentialities of books.
Whenever and wherever tyrants
and authoritarian regimes wanted
to supress opposition and kill
ideas, their first move has been to
destroy books of contrary view,
and many times their authors.
They have also been used to
bolster their ideas such as in the
cases of “Mein Kampf” and
“Das Kapital”.
No one realizes the value of a
book more than does the student
of history. History in itself is
interdisciplinary, because while a
historian teaches history, at the
same time he may be teaching
sociology, biology, psychology,
English, mathematics, and
religion.
The most upsetting rumor that
has been circulated over the
years, is that the only thing that
the student of history is qualified
for, is teaching. Nothing is
farther from the truth. A student
of history is prepared for politics
and journalism, governmental
agencies, archival and
manuscript work, historical
societies, libraries and archives,
governmental offices, large
magazines, and even movie
studios.
Some students remark that
history is dead-let’s bury it. A
student who thinks such does not
concern himself much with
anything beyond his own im
mediate environment. Although
he arrogates for himself
citizenship in the busy
progressing world of the twen
tieth century, he lives in the
present moment, not in the
present age. It is not a mere
coincidence that the student who
reads the front pages of the
newspaper fairly regularly is
usually the one who secures the
best mark in history.
Good history is as varied as life
itself. Its scope extends from
football to the Roman Empire;
from the works as broad as
Spengler’s intrepretation of all
civilization to studies as local as
the Lost cities of the Incas. All that
we need ask of history is that it be
true, and that it be alive. If it is
that, whether the history be as old
as Herodotus or Xerxes, or as new
Winston Churchill or John F.
Kennedy, as big as Canon Stokes’
.3,000 pages on “Church and
State in the United States” or as
Nancy Hite
Feature Editor
A black woman’s search for her
identity in the hussle and bussle
of New York’s Harlem in the
1920’s is demonstrated in the
novel, “Quicksand,” by Nella
Larsen.
Miss Larsen is a product of the
Harlem renaissance. Like many
other black women novelists Miss
Larsen is also an educator. She
educates society about the
emotions, goals and problems of
black women.
Through the eyes of Helga
crane one can see the life of a
black woman who cannot find
complete happiness anywhere
she lives. Many say that Helga’s
proglems are due to the fact that
she had a white mother and a
black father. This is indeed a
problem for Helga, but it tends to
become quite insignificant as you
get deeper into the novel.
The time in which Helga lives is
a time when women are made to
feel guilty if they try to assert
themselves. Physical and mental
needs are not to be asserted.
Helga wants and needs to assert
these needs, but trying to do so
means rejection from the small
society in which she lives.
slender as Turner’s essay on the
frontier, it will be amusing, in
formative and exciting. For
History is more than a record of
affairs, a picture of people in
action. It is fundamentally an
account of the success or failure
of men and societies in the great,
turbulent, confused experiment
of living.
It shows us struggle and ad
venture; the strugglers built the
world we live in; and to un
derstand this world we have to
read history. It also gives great
pleasure; the best historians are
admirable storytellers. Nor can
we ever underscore its im
portance and power. Again and
again written history has changed
the destiny of nations, and
without it there can be neither
true liberty nor true patriotism.
“History is above all else, the
creation and recording of the
heritage of the past; progress is
its increasing abundance,
preservation, transmission and
use. To those of us who study
history not merely as a warning
reminder of man’s follies and
crimes, but also as an en
couraging remembrance of
generative souls, the past ceases
to be a depressing chamber of
horrors, it becomes a celestial
city, a spacious country of the
mind, wherein a thousand saints,
statesmen, inventors, scientists,
poets, artists, musicians, lovers,
and philosophres still live and
speak, teach, and carve and sing.
TTie historian will not mourn
because he can see no meaning in
human existence except that
which man puts into it; let it be
our pride that we ourselves may
put meaning into our lives; and
sometimes a significance that
transcends death. If a man is
fortunate he will, before he dies,
gather up as much as he can of
civilized heritage and transmit it
to his children. And to his final
breath he will be grateful for this
inexhaustible legacy, knowing
that it is our nourishing mother
and our lasting life.”......
Will and Ariel Durant, “The
Lessons of History”
Helga Crane is indeed a victim.
She is a victim of both racism and
sexism. She is a well-educated
black woman unable to use her
education. She is a woman
restricted by the silent rules that
govern the behavior of all women
of that time.
Many say that “Quicksand” is
autobiographical. It is indeed an
autobiography of one black
woman’s experience in America.
This black woman’s experience
in America is riddled by two inner
battles-sexism and racism.
Read “Quicksand”; perhaps the
experience of Helga is not as
isolated as she often believes.
Support Your
Student
Government
Association
Diet In Transition
Lei Charlton
Feature Writer
Can you imagine being inside of a mind that is telling its body not to
throw some food in the garbage can because it will smell to high
heavens but instead to eat it, eat something you wouldn’t throw in the,
garbage can...?
That shows just the depth of consideration with which we treat our
bodies when we’ve become the Human Garbage cans that so many of
us are. Omnivores eat everything from apples to escargots, hardly
ever stopping to think about what they’re eating. In the classification
of various diet types, most people belong to this group (see Dick
Gregory’s Natural Diet For Folks Who Eat: Cookin’ With Mother
Nature).
This typical unconscious attitude to things we eat isn’t so far-fetched
when you consider that eating habits become instilled, starting at
birth. We eat, most of the time, because something tastes good. We
should eat to maintain or obtain a healthy body state; to restore cells
and tissues which have been damaged.
Unless one is ill, little or no thought is given to eating as it affects
health. Moreover, this concern would be decreased if we practiced
more preventive medicine; if we ate in order to prevent sickness.
Some folks are concerned about their health and they are making
conscious efforts to improve their diets.
“I’ve begun to investigate different foods and their values”, said
one sister. “I want to eat foods I need, regardless of desire”.
Forget selfish satisfaction of the stomach!
People generally have become more aware of natural foods (i.e.,
foods unbastardized by deceptive tricks played by processing which
distorts food to the extent that the end product is often in
distinguishable from the original substrate-either in appearance or
nutritional value).
A vegetarian brother described the results of his gradual change in
diet.
“That first big step was dropping meat from my diet. First I cut out
pork. I have more energy now, I’m more mentally alert and just feel
generally good.”
Meats are, in fact, only secondary protein sources. The bodies of
animals are built from the raw fruit and vegetation which they
consume. Raw fruits and vegetables provide live organic substances
which aid in protein-building. When a person eats meat, he must
break down the protein and reconstruct it before it can be utilized. If
the person had ingested the protein from an original source, the
protein-breakdown, build-up process would not be so taxing on the
body.
Vitamins and minerals are important substances for health main
tenance and fruits and vegetables are good sources of these
nutrients. They don’t contain the high fat content of carbohydrates
and starches. However, if you find eating fruits and vegetables alone
dull or uncreative, invent fruit and vegetable salads. Don’t go wild
with yoyr combinations as you could do more harm than good.
People usually pay little attention to beverages they drink. It is
recommended by many doctors that a person should drink an average
of eight glasses of water daily in addition to other beverages. Water
helps to wash away fat and other wastes (the fat and wastes that
account not only for that bloated feeling but also that bloated look).
Fruit and vegetable juices are relatively cheap but high in nutritional
value (invest in a juice squeezer and get down). If your diet includes
milk, you should drink skim milk or buttermilk. Yogurt is a good
substitute. None of these can compare to the value of that life-giving
substance-water-which flushes the system of wastes.
In considering optimum growth conditions for most organisms,
wastes and methods of ridding the body of wastes is of great im
portance. (I’ve found that fasting a couple of days a week is helpful in
passing off accumulated wastes and toxins. The enema is another
method of eliminating the body of toxins. This process simply in
volves flushing the colon which may be clogged by fecal matter
impacted against the colon wall over a period of years. Therefore, a
lot of wastes can’t pass out and toxic poisons travel throughout the
body system. It is good to consult your doctor about both methods in
order to be safe.
If you’re contemplating even a subtle change in diet, remember your
diet habits have formed over a lifetime and your body has become
conditioned to many of these habits. Changes should be gradual
because you still want to satisfy your nutritional needs.
In the scope of this article, I haven’t begun to present the picture of
massive dietary change. I hope to have inspired some inquisitive soul
to find out in greater detail ways in which to imporve health and
thereby enhance her total being. I strongly suggest Dick Gregory’s
Natural Diet For Folks Who Eat: Cookin’ With Mother Nature. Read
it in Its entirety, plowthrougn, and pick out what you need.
Also check out some health food stores and inquire about the foods:
the Golden Pyramid, 19 Ashby Street, S. W., Sevananda Natural
Foods Cooperative Food Buying Program, 431 Moreland Avenue, N.
E., Van Luden Food, 829 York Avenue, S. W.
A Black Woman's Search..