University of Virginia Library

Drama Highlights Black Culture Program

By Rob Pritchard

The University Union and the Black
Students for Freedom will present a
varied program of films, a lecture and
slides, and a drama, "In White America,"
today as part of Black Culture Week.

Two films dealing with the American
Negro, "Some of My Best Friends Are
White" and "Black Muslims Speak From
America" will be shown in the Newcomb Hall
Ballroom today at 3, 5, and 7 p.m.

Rega Perry, Chairman of the Virginia
Commonwealth University Art Department,
will show slides and give a lecture on
Afro-American Art at 4 p.m. in the South
Meeting Room, Newcomb Hall.

One of the highlights of Black Culture Week
will be the presentation of Martin Duberman's
play, "In White America," at 8 p.m. in Cabell
Hall Auditorium. The drama, presented by The
Western High School Drama Group of Washington
D.C., has been acclaimed by Time as "a
poignant chronicle of the Negro's centuries-old
legacy of pain . . . the word intolerance becomes
flesh, tortured, torturing and unanswerable."

In the preface of his play, Martin Duberman,
one of America's foremost historians, explains
why he chose to turn documented history into
dramatic form. "I wanted to combine the
evocative power of the spoken word with the
confirming power of historical fact to describe
what it has been like to be a Negro in this
country (to the extent that a white man can
describe it.)"

Photo By Stu Kator

James Brewer Lectures On Afro-American History.

We Must Make An Attempt At Digesting America's Undigested Past.

All events are free and open to the public.

Also, in conjunction with Black Culture
Week, James Brewer, of North Carolina Central
University, gave a lecture on "Slavery History"
yesterday. Mr. Brewer introduced his talk with
his view that slavery was "diabolically cruel"
and the "roots of the racist nature" of modern
society. Slavery was depicted as depriving
blacks of the institutions of whites such as
education. Mr. Brewer emphasised the way
modern historians had white washed American
history and black history had been "blacked
out."