Of Black America (TV Mini Series)

Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed (1968)

Bill Cosby: Narrator

Quotes 

• Narrator : [after listing many Black historical achievements]  Now, this list could go on forever. Blacks who made it, Blacks who made history, but who didn't get into the history texts at all. And the strange thing is how little there is about us in the textbooks. Napoleon once said "History is a fable agreed upon", and the fable agreed upon up to now is that American history is White On White.

• Narrator : Now, if you tell the history of slavery right, you got a big problem on your hands. The slave trader didn't take some savage out of Africa. He took a human being, sold him like an animal and separated him from his family. America invented the cruelest slavery in the history of the world because it broke up Black families. After slavery was over, America kept breaking up the Black man's family, and that's some awful history to teach. Now if you want to look history right straight in the eye, you're gonna get a black eye. Because it isn't important whether a few Black heroes got lost or stolen or strayed in America's history textbooks. What's important is *why* they got left out. Now, this country has got a psychological history. There was a master race, and there was a slave race. And though there isn't any political slavery *anymore*, those same ol' attitudes have hung around.

• Narrator : Did you know that in some states, it used to be against the law to teach Blacks to read or write?

• Narrator : In the past 50 years, 33,000 feature films have been made in the United States, and about 6000 of them have had parts for Black actors. For the most part, the Black portraits have been drawn by White writers, White producers and White directors for a White audience. Most Black parts were the way White Americans wanted them to be. The Black male was consistently shown as nobody... nothing. He had no qualities that could be admired by any man or , more particularly, any woman.

• Narrator : When you look back on these old films, the patterns keep jumping out at you. The most consistent thing about them was the attack on the Black man. He was never even given the privilege of being a *man*; he was a *boy*. As in, you know, "Here, boy".

• Narrator : [in reference to a scene with Shirley Temple and Willie Best in "The Littlest Rebel"]  The cute little White girl was brave & strong in the face of danger, and the big Black man was stupid & cowardly.

• Narrator : Newsreels that were shown along with feature films knew a good thing when they saw one. They helped keep all the Black cats in their place. Nobody Black ever did anything very newsy in a newsreel.

• Narrator : [last lines; shot of Black kids in an intense Black Power indoctrination session]  Now, that's kinda like brainwashing. Or is it? I mean, can you blame us for overcompensating? I mean... when you take the way Black history got lost, stolen or strayed? I mean, you think about the kids drawing themselves without faces, and when you remember the fine actors who had to play baboons to make a buck, I guess you gotta give us the sin of pride. Pride. Hubris in the original Greek. 'Cause 300 years we've been in this American melting pot and we haven't been able to melt in yet, and that's a long wait. Listen, we've been trying all kinds of parts to make the American scene. We've been trying to play it straight and White, but it's been just bit parts. Now, from now on we're gonna play it Black and American, 'cause we're proud of both. Hubris. I'm Bill Cosby, and you take care of yourself.