On my radio program recently, I played an episode of the Amos ‘n’ Andy radio series. I wanted my audience to remember – or, for some, to be exposed to – how the descendents of ancient Africans were portrayed and demonized by two Caucasian men for fun and profit.
Amos ‘n’ Andy was the story of two black characters created by two white actors, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. They presented the characters as fools, womanizers, crooks and buffoons who were senile, docile, lazy and unintelligent morons. The show became a national phenomenon with nearly 40 million listeners.
For the program’s entire run as a nightly serial, Gosden and Correll portrayed all the male roles, performing over 170 distinct voice characterizations in the show’s first decade. It was the first radio program to be distributed by syndication in the United States.
The image these performers delivered was devastating to black people. We all should be appalled at the crudeness and discriminatory words used in the Amos ‘n’ Andy series but it was so popular among whites that the program was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1988.
After playing only a portion of the racist, bigoted Amos ‘n’ Andy program, I enlightened my audience with a taped interview I did with writer and historian Yosef Ben-Jochannan, the author of several volumes including The Need for A Black Bible, The Myth of Exodus and Genesis and the Exclusion of Their African Origins, African Origins of Major Western Religions, St. Augustine: African Influence in Christianity, Moses: African Influence on Judaism, Bilal: African Influence on Islam and Dr. Ben’s best-known work, Black Man of the Nile and His Family that was first published in 1972.
The publication has been described as “capturing much of the substance of his early research on ancient Africa. In a masterful and unique manner, Dr. Ben uses Black Man of the Nile to challenge and expose ‘Europeanized’ African history. He points up the distortion after distortion made in the long record of African contributions to world civilization.”
I also treated my listeners to part of a lecture by John Henrik Clarke, educator, lecturer, professor, humanitarian and scholar. Clarke lectured and held professorships at universities worldwide. His longer and most influential tenures were at the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and in African and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York City. He received honorary degrees from numerous institutions and served as consultant and advisor to African and Caribbean heads of state. In 1997 he was the subject of a major documentary directed by the noted filmmaker Saint Claire Bourne and underwritten by the Hollywood star Wesley Snipes.
“I saw no African people in the printed and illustrated Sunday school lessons. I began to suspect at this early age that someone had distorted the image of my people. My long search for the true history of African people the world over began,” Clarke said.
“My main point here is that if you are the child of God and God is a part of you, then in your imagination God is supposed to look like you. And when you accept a picture of the deity assigned to you by another people, you become the spiritual prisoners of that other people.”
He said, “Religion is the organization of spirituality into something that became the handmaiden of conquerors. Nearly all religions were brought to people and imposed on people by conquerors, and used as the framework to control their minds. Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress, because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it.”
These two gentlemen are only two of the thousands of our leaders, scholars and elders. They played a crucial role in bringing about the ending of the racist system that held our minds hostage. They preserved our dignity and refused to submit, psychologically, to the definition that the oppressors attempted to force upon us. Both Ben-Jochannan and Clarke fashioned a link between generations and regenerated our belief in the morality, respectability, strength and the wisdom of our ancestors.
President Barack Obama said, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.”
Goodbye, Amos and Andy, and hello Mr. President.
Please listen the Bernie Hayes radio program Monday through Friday at 7 a.m. on WGNU-920 AM, and watch the Bernie Hayes TV program Saturday night at 10 p.m. and Friday Morning at 9 a.m. on KNLC-TV Ch. 24. I can be reached by e-mail at: berhay@swbell.net.