University of Virginia Library

Lecture Commences Festival;
Davis Emphasizes Black Unity

By MARGARET ALFORD

Photo By Charley Sands

Ossie Davis, Coauthor And Director Of "Cotton Comes To Harlem"

Speaks To Enthusiastic Audience In Cabell Hall About Black Communications

"Black people are looking for some
means of getting themselves together.
When we came to America, we lost our
main link and means of communication.

"We're still searching for it, and when
we find it, unity will be restored,"
playwright Ossie Davis said Sunday night.

Speaking to a receptive and
enthusiastic Cabell Hall audience, Mr.
Davis discussed the black situation in
relation to the media with force and wit.
His speech was the first of a series of
events during the University's annual
Black Culture Festival.

'Interior Aspects'

Mr. Davis traced the history of black
communications, virtually disregarding
modern television and motion pictures,
and concentrating on "interior aspects"
of communication and resulting
relationships.

The author of three plays, a former
Broadway performer, and co-author and
director of the film, "Cotton Comes to
Harlem", Mr. Davis thinks of himself
more as a writer than an actor.

He is a Black Nationalist and advocate
of racial equality, and believes that
humor is the most effective means of
change.

The binding tie and means of
communication which blacks have lost,
both literally and symbolically, he said, is
the drum.

"Africa was inhabited by many
separate tribes with different languages
and dialects," Mr. Davis stated, "and so a
means of communication without talking
was needed."

Black Unity

Mr. Davis continued, citing examples
of lack of black unity, such as Nat
Turner's rebellion, and then began to
criticize current fallacies and
misconceptions of Black communication,
in history books and in English language,
where "60 unfavorable synonyms for
black exist."

"Maybe the university can save
America," he remarked. "We need
socio-economic facts and communication
to break down walls between men, to
change the black man's image, to help
blacks become true men and to give the
white a chance for understanding. We
must realize that it is better and nobler to
have relationships between men than to
live in worlds of our own.

"Black arts and artists are of essential
value in the change needed. Black art is
revolutionary, in a sense profound,
because it changes and set of values by
which men judge themselves, their others,
and the world.

"Blacks must be taught to think,
reason, be logical, to find the truth and to
have the courage to live by it. We must
dare to build a new society with an image
of humanized man. This society will be
like a rainbow-with all different colors,
but still a whole, consisting of man
unified, one Humanity."