Fruit of the Learning Tree

Black Issues Book Review, Nov, 2000 by Taiia Smart-Young, Cassandra Lane, Kelly Ellis

Black writers talks about how historically black colleges and universities particularly cultivated their talents

Ethnic News Watch reported that more than half of all African American students earn bachelor's degrees in journalism and communications at HBCUs.

"The blacker the college, the sweeter the knowledge."

Students and alumni of historically black colleges and universities have recited this motto with pride, and the shout remains important from a writer's perspective.

The role of traditionally black colleges is to prepare students to survive publishers and editors who have frequently ignored or misunderstood black authors. Creative writing can be deeply personal, as though exposing a chunk of your soul for judgment or praise. An HBCU can provide an amiable setting for folks who are eager to study black literature, and create memorable work in the tradition of Richard Wright (Lincoln University), Zora Neal Hurston (Morgan State), Ralph Ellison (Tuskegee University), Toni Morrison (Howard University), Iyanla Vanzant (Medgar Evers College), James Baldwin (Lincoln University), Spike Lee (Morehouse University) and Earl Greaves (Morgan State University). Most notably the person with perhaps the most profound recent impact on books and reading--Oprah Winfrey--attended, Tennessee State University, also an HBCU.

David J. Dent, a Morehouse alum and journalism professor at New York University, says HBCUs are valuable for aspiring writers on many levels. "A lot can be said for learning in a comfortable environment, not comfortable in a lethargic way, but to learn, grow and develop intellectually free of racial hostilities and tensions."

Says Dent, author of In Search of Black America: Discovering the African-American Dream, "For students of HBCUs race doesn't impose itself in terms of relationships and social factors. You get to know and understand people and that is a very important dynamic for being a writer." Despite obtaining a graduate degree in journalism from Columbia University, Dent credits his experiences at Morehouse--including a gig at the campus radio station and some expository writing classes--for laying the foundation for his career.

In 1984, poet and English professor Toi Derricotte had a rude awakening while pursuing a master's of fine arts degree at New York University. She asked her instructor why black writers were not included in the curriculum, and his response was, "We don't go down that low." Luckily, Derricotte channeled her frustration into forming a haven for black poets, known as the Cave Canem workshop, but comments like those made by her former professor's can crush vulnerable minds.

Last year, as an endowed chair at Xavier University, Derricotte informed her students that because during slavery black people were not allowed to read or write, many of their descendants still have an inferiority complex about writing. "When I was in graduate school, I was the only black person in my writing classes," she told her students. "I thought, `I'm not going to be as smart as these other people. I'm not going to write as well.'"

Poet and Dillard University English professor Mona Lisa Saloy, who launched the creative writing program at Dillard, grew up in New Orleans in the 1960s. She says that today many black children are still, unaware of the town's historical and cultural importance and black Americans' literary and artistic contributions.

"The first time I heard the work of Alice Walker, it blew me away that we black people had our own literature" Saloy says. Now, in addition to pursuing her own studies and work, she spends her time teaching and counseling students. She also exposes the students to other nationally known black writers, such as Pearl Cleage, Brenda Marie Osbey (a Dillard alum), Gwendolyn Brooks and Amiri Baraka.

Yona Harvey, who earned her bachelor's in English from Howard University and is currently completing a MFA at Ohio State University, contrasts her experiences at the two schools.

At Ohio State, she says, `I knew it was all white there (only three black students are in her MFA program), but I was looking for that same kind of mentorship that I had had at Howard. I didn't get it. I think the people are very nice, but I wasn't close to anyone. As for writing, there was no one exploring their identity in their work. Obviously, we didn't look at a lot of poets of color. We didn't have any black poets or writers visit the school."

But at Howard, E. Ethelbert Miller, renowned writer and director of Howard's African American Resource Center, was Harvey's mentor. "You just kind of pop in his office," she explains. "He's just sitting back there behind his desk. There's always a zillion people trying to talk to him, but everyone tells you that if you're a young writer, you need to go see Ethelbert." And despite his own literary work, "he always takes time to get back to you as a student. I think he's such a good mentor because he understands the importance of mentoring. Steven Henderson was his mentor."