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Welcome to another edition of black man in America presented by your city station in cooperation with the city's commission on human rights these programs are broadcast Tuesday afternoons at five on the UN Y.C. F.M. ninety three point nine make a cycle and Tuesday evenings at nine on W N Y C eight hundred thirty killer cycles here now to tell you more about this important series is our moderator Good evening this is William H. booth and I am here to bring you another in the series the black man in America devoted to the title states to examining the history and life of Afro Americans and the contributions they have made in our making to the material cultural and spiritual wealth of this country this includes all of living not simply the civil rights issues we see in the headlines tonight's guest is Mr Ernest Dunbar editor of The Black expatriates a study of American Negroes in exile and it's published by E.P. Dutton and company Mr Dunbar is a senior editor of Look magazine he is a graduate of Temple University where he received the Sigma Delta Chi journalism fraternity award he also was the recipient of a mass media fellowship by the fund for adult education and spent a year at Northwestern University on leave from work doing graduate work in African studies he traveled extensively throughout the United States and through the world on look assignments in one hundred sixty five he received the Overseas Press Club Award for his story on the difficulties African students encountered in the Soviet Union he also was presented with an achievement award by the Capitol Press Club of Washington D.C. That same year. Mr Dunbar certainly the title The black expatriate is interesting I had many times thought it would be wise to go over to very various foreign countries and see how negroes are doing in these foreign countries what are they doing what are they thinking how do they feel about the issues of the day is that what you've done that was done yes I'm not the same way because I travel around a great deal I see people in all kinds of countries from Holland to the Congo black Americans and I wondered how they were doing so this book was the result of the trip made to find out what your beat me to it because I was thinking of doing it doing it with a tape recorder and maybe a television crew and getting one of the big networks to to back it up and come back with a whole lot of information about what black men feel American black men feel in other countries I think it still can be done well what is there any difference in the way they feel difference that you see I think there is it depends on the kind of person who want to broad in the print prison where he lives for example there are some people who left this country was almost no knowledge of Africa who went to Africa who didn't know what to expect who know more perhaps and they a white person would have known and who were surprised when they got to of Ghana or to a Nigeria what they encountered and I think that there are others who went who had more could a little study back here in the states who had done little reading and therefore knew something about a society something about tribal customs something about family and kinship and therefore sort of fell into things the way people do when they read up on where they're going to go before they go this is what they should what the traveler should do in any event should yes and did the African accept the Afro American as a long lost brother to find out and I don't I think it depends on the African and that long lost brother or if a if a person comes in with a feeling that he has come from a highly developed society and therefore he in some way is a period to the individual he's going to be Africa that's the attitude of some of the people or do that some people do that. Yes some black people do that remember the little girl yes I think he's course I certainly do then he's I was right up against people the wrong way if he comes in and he's open minded and he's friendly and he makes an attempt to understand the kind of society that he's in and people love him and I mean if he's done his homework in advance Yes I think that helps yes initially you know there was there were people who travel Africa the number of years ago when Africans hadn't seen too many black Americans and African tended to take all black Americans then as a long lost brother but then as some of the people turned out to be various kinds of charlatans you know and quick quick deal are yet and they took advantage of their blackness to con some of the Africans and since that time Africans have become more scared about people more wary of that's right well just that they distinguish there are good and bad people who come of homo black and so they they now treat individuals I think pretty much as individuals do Africans make a distinction in general and I'm I know it's hard to generalize men in general do Africans make a distinction between black Americans and the policies of the United States government with which they may not agree I think they do. Except when the individual is working for the government in which case the African tends to be more wary of him because even if the individual disagrees with the policies the African feel feels he may be constrained to follow it whether he disagrees or not but I think that on a general as a general statement they do tend to disassociate the black American from what the American government may I mean I do it a given time for example the Franklin D. Roosevelt going into South Africa and certainly when I musta been a great deal of opposition to that the idea of the Franklin Roosevelt coming in and black the sailors would have to stay on board and couldn't go on very very deftly specially after all this time I mean this situation is not OUR has been well established for many years and that was just a stupid move is there a difference in the manner in which different countries in Africa treat black Americans I think there is I think in some countries for example countries like Guinea all. Tanzania where some of the people in government feel that there have been various schemes mounted against their government by the Central Intelligence Agency I say they think this whether it's true or not I don't know but there are very strong feelings about it and in this case some of the countries some of the people in those countries may feel that the American government would use a black American as an intelligence agent or as an example to or whatever and therefore they would be more suspicious of him in that kind of country and say in a in a Nigeria or in a I recall store in Liberia I know that a very famous black American who had been working for the foreign service in Africa came back home to take a job here in the States and I know he was walking down a twenty fifth Street and he was called the CIA think when he wasn't connected with CIA at all yes well here in this country black Americans look upon a person working for the government with some kind of suspicion that's true on the other hand if one were going to employ an agent in black Africa obviously blag agent would be of some use at various points so that I think there's something to be said on the both sides I'm just saying that. In some countries where there's a lot of. It perhaps in the more radical countries there is some feeling that the government might attempt to use black people to subvert a particular African government therefore the some some sensitivity again it comes down to the individual establishing his own identity in a situation once people know you have a chance to talk to you and what your ideas are what your experience has been I think the tendency is to relate to you as an individual and not as a instrument of some governmental policy and this is true the world over the course it is yes people are people but people have to find that out and that takes a while sometime and you've got a job to communicate this to them yes and of course in a foreign country with a foreign language you've got a another barrier Yes and a great many things that go on that that individuals guy from outside the country may not be aware of I mean for example. Religion there are certain customs that are born out of tribal experience which are absolutely foreign to us to the black American as well as to the white American and that he would not know about that and that's operating all the time you know you know where it is like coming into up into some place where you have Mason you know your other kinds of paternal or social orders which are either secret of all these not public and this thing may be operating while you are or you are they are operating on one level and at the same time they may be a tribal kinship of some kind or some kind of society which has influence on the person to whom you're talking or with whom you're dealing about what you may know nothing at all you said before that there are some black Americans who went over and try to take advantage of African countries and of course that would be the black ugly American We've got some you lack of Americans as well as the white ugly Americans that's right but don't we have some business men who went over to African countries and were successful and also helpful to the country to yes quite definitely So I think Ghana was one of the outstanding examples of that there were a number of experienced and capable black professionals and skilled people who work in Ghana who work in Ghana today I'm thinking of people who work in electrics and yes and in other industries there who have their own businesses as one woman who has a large bakery there are people there in that country in other countries who have come to work and who have skills this is one of the big hang up in people who go there is a feeling on the part of some people that they want to leave this country but they have no particular skills to have no skills that we could use here and they go to Africa with the expectation that that skin color alone will get them by but they have no African They have no skill to use color doesn't bridge the gap No not myself the African countries want people to come but people with skills to contribute like Burton attending I think he organized a an insurance company that's right you had a falling JONES Yeah and Frank Williams was involved with you also they don't want people just come and become another drain on the society I note you have two persons from Tanzania. Gloria Lindsey and Bill Sutherland and you've got a Dr Robert E. Lee Yes who is in Ghana which is interesting I think but did you get a chance to talk to Calvin Cobb remember he is an expatriate Is he in Ghana and Tanzania in times and I did not know Calvin from Long Island that's why I asked about him and I was very much concerned about what he's doing there I also see that in Europe you've got matter will the dumbs in Stockholm you've got Dean Dixon in Frankfurt and so many other people who are well known to the American public can you tell us something about what being Dixon is said for example well he he is a man who has made it as a conductor of a symphony orchestra conductor Frankfurt Radio Symphony he was also by the way now also rather not resident conductor but the premier conductor of the Sydney Australia symphony between the two jobs and his main job is in Frankfurt he does he does very well there he's still somewhat bitter about his experience in United States by the fact that he has not been been asked for example to conduct. Guest conduct orchestras here although he conducted four major orchestras in Europe and in the command performances before the queen and is now the conductor for two other large orchestras and he thinks that they have some who do with the ability of whites to accept a black person in a role where he acts exercises which I say are Farsi He directs the symphony orchestra or some large number of musicians and he feel that in this field at least it is fond of music that the society is not yet ready to entertain at least wasn't what he would come to well it's true we had a complaint at our commission which we are investigating against one of the symphonies here in the UK and yet the irony grow conductor at the image of all the arts is that the arts are more open in the thing else to the black person maybe it's because they're more sensitive that they really are not so open Well I think the music police and fond of using classical music has not been open Yes Now your subjects came from specific countries from Germany France and Scandinavia and it. In addition to African countries. Is a reason you chose them or was that just where you happen to be you know I done a lot of travelling for magazine assignments I had some notion the weather people were I had some notion also that I wanted to go to countries where you know we've been on the on the on the sort of the bad end of the stick so long in this society and if you conditions are that it may make it I want to see how people acted when they were in the country for example like Germany where where they were not the person or the group it was because we wanted it again with another group was yes always maybe in some other situation like the Algerians in France where the embassy or discrimination was not directed at the black American but rather at the Algerian and see what the reaction was of people how did the black man in Algeria feel about that discrimination being practiced against Algerian or or did he have any part of the stay away from one of these little of the people like that I met were conscious of it and. I felt very badly about it recognize the fact that the Algerian was a somewhat important the nigger of France and on the other hand. From their standpoint the French to discourage any political activity on the part of expatriates or people in their countries so what they could do about that was very limited all that you do is talk about it in Apollo and be aware of it here where the fact that for example one fellow Bill Smith William Gardner Smith rather well known novelist told me one incident in which he got into an argument and they and they were a fight with an Algerian they were taken to the police station and the police magistrate asked him his nationality and he told them and he asked the Algerian and they released him and kept the Algerian and later on he saw that Algerian on the street and got into the discussion this time not fight and the Algerians said You see now we are then you go to France they kept they kept him and I know that Bill Smith Bill Smith felt very bad about that how do foreigners that you talk with the Americans race problem do they see it as a part of a worldwide problem or do they see it specifically and uniquely American you mean black Americans overseas or foreigners or both or how the black Americans feel and then how do they foreigners full of foreigners do not see racism as being a part of their particular society I think short sightedly in many cases but they don't see they don't see it that way. The black Americans of course see it those who've been around a good deal see some of the universal aspects of what's going on for example some of the people in Paris which has long been renowned for as being open to being a liberal society are aware of things that are happening in Paris and do happen and even to to black Americans in certain situations so that. Is not a bias free society for the Algerian and it's not a bias free society for the black American in certain circumstances he can still encounter discrimination in running an apartment even Paris and the same thing is true for example would be true in London there's no question about that. There are other kinds of minor discrimination to other societies like even such societies of Scandinavia as the numbers of blacks increase the tendencies or the incidence of discrimination although very small tend also to increase and so you find oftentimes that the the amount of this woman has a great deal to do with the numbers of blacks who are there and there are very many that it can be much as you mentioned there are two well known exiles and I think that one of them Josephine Baker seems to have changed her mind and decided she would come back to our country the other Paul Robeson of course was well known for his exile in the reasons for it and the political reasons for it did you uncover anything new as to the reasons why Josephine Baker a change of mind or what happened with Paul ROBSON I didn't know I can only say that. As the numbers of blacks built up in France and as the numbers of people came back for example from Algeria where there was a definite anti black feeling associate with the anti and Algerian feeling perhaps you got more and more incidents in France between people and that may have helped change your mind I think it may have I think when you're the first one when you're the early one as she was one of the early ones every comes of it was difficult to see the thing because people are responding to you as a unique rare kind of individual and they pay all kind of tribute to that and it when you talk about Dame Dixon I call them. I mind the fact that James James Reese Europe and what's a fella Wooding I think Sam wordings band who works at it in Europe along years ago forty years ago fifty years ago yes and made a great deal of money and in European countries as Duke Ellington has in recent years and it does seem to be a haven for people to become successful monetary At any rate and in a music field I think it's more than that it's more than money it's also a matter of being able to express yourself be able to pursue whatever talents you have without the handicaps impediment that one encounters here while I've spoken of some incidents of discrimination in France or England I'm not. Well let's leave in the side as a special case where I wouldn't I wouldn't equate any of the other countries with what black people experience here I think there's a very special case where you do what you can The point is that where you can find where you can find where the tickets were not only find it but I think is widely evident yet is a serious problem there is no question about it I think England is following a lot of English like America fifteen twenty years ago and following the same path without being able to learn anything from the American experience but I think in most of the other countries that the black expatriates have far more opportunity in far more. Of our bigger chance to develop whatever talent they have without having the constant or awareness of problems and without having to deal with was an extremely sting namely the color of one's skin would want to try to advance in one's career We're talking with Mr Ernest Dunbar editor of The Black expatriates a study of American Negroes in exile published by Dutton and Company in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight and certainly I think it's important to note that that is one nine hundred sixty eight because things change so fast things do change yes and this is a recent book yes that will bring up to date some of the thoughts that black Americans have in foreign countries one of the interesting things is that people do tend to get a little bit out of touch with some of the things that are happening here. Which is a gap which they feel very very much that the good many things going on within the black community in America about which people are somewhat out of touch well do they feel differently toward America now that they're away do they feel maybe that they were wrong about their criticism of America or do they feel they were completely right about it how do they feel well again it varies some people feel that well now I've been here in the society of live here for a long while I feel that some of the things I thought were you need to America are actually universal kinds of qualities to others who feel confirmed in their feelings about America that they've gotten out of that situation and what they are and now where they happen to be true they were right in the first instance so it varies do an ingrown as in foreign countries form their own communities or are there not enough of them to form a community I would say my life they don't form their own communities because there aren't enough but there's something that I think has to be understood about that when you say community I had a big hassle with Joseph in Baker once over that on the radio television program I said something must be the black community in Paris and he told me there's no such thing as a black community in Paris I think this is perhaps when Josephine Baker was in his earliest days to talk about yes the fact is that although black people in Paris do not live in the same place physically I found when I interviewed people that people were aware of each other if I want to know where what were just a Heinz was and I as when God in the smithy could tell me if I want to know where both are Delaney was who had many years lived in Harlem is now paying for and lived in Paris for many years someone else could tell me the people knew where each other was and they could they could tell you where it was and if you got into trouble and you were black you lived in Paris you can always go to another black expatriate and get help or advice or whatever so that there was a community in the sense of the awareness of the other person where he was in fact he was there undergoing somewhat the same experience as you were going undergoing somewhat as we were beginning to realize in America that all black people are tied together that's right and no matter what their condition the economic condition the matter what their social condition they're all the same box that comes much more becomes much more apparent much quicker in a place where you're a distinct minority even you say in your book that the black American in exile is in a contradictory position what you mean by that. Well he. He he has gone abroad and he's trying to he's trying to establish himself there and the point is whether or not he wants to is to acknowledge his unity with other people and a sense for example they had a exhibition of thirteen black artists in Copenhagen several years ago and in the introduction to the cap the catalog the person who put it the other another catalog that's in this case you said we have you know we are thirteen black artists here in Europe and beyond that he didn't know much what he could say about the. Team like God is in Europe and the paintings remains ness God just reigns over all kinds of styles of expression and yes there was much more you say about that than the fact that there was well black art and yet they had had certain experiences in common so it's kind of it's contradictory there as is contradictory here in many ways have any of the black Americans you've met in exile expressed a twinge of conscience that they feel that they run away from something they ought not of the Yes that's a very definite feeling good many people I think probably probably majority of people will deny that in the first instance but after a long evenings talk to Do they have any solutions for the race problem here in America not really I mean they don't they don't have any solutions for it up the same solutions we all have about what ought to be done The point is that they don't go to Europe to resolve the problems here I think that for many of those people they thought. A way of resolving their own future in a way of developing their own abilities their own talents they knew they couldn't solve it from abroad so so it's a matter of of a feeling both that for example metal dogs and she's a singer a very fine thing at the time there weren't as many opportunities for her here as there are now and was she to stay here and wait for that time perhaps when the opportunities might develop or she'd go abroad in the flush of her creativity and a fine voice and sing now I just saw her very recently and she performed down at the Atlanta opera house and land is her hometown and she and there's a new opera company and she she was there for the premier of. Performance Now she was one of the main principles in a production of a labile him and I was sitting there in Atlanta watching because one of the principals in the and the opera and but this is fifteen or whatever years low some fifteen years since you left this country things have changed if he had stayed around she may never have gotten through to the out in an opera Stockholm via Paris the all the other places the United States of America and particularly in New York City is considered to be a melting pot if I can use that bad expression and a few lumps here and inaccurate expression to it like a salad bowl rather than a melting pot but we have prided ourselves on being a haven for people coming expatriates coming from other countries here do other countries open their doors as much do they have jobs available today but bars on people to get jobs and other housing now they don't that's one of the big anomalies of this whole situation I'm struck by that as I go around the department stores in America as you as you know well you're going to publish the New York City seeing some time every other person is a fine person yes the great many foreigners working in New York in all kinds of capacities in other countries that isn't the case you have a difficult time getting a labor permit in most countries I mean in France certainly certainly in England with many hassles about fine American actor is going to England and not be able to get on on. On stage or make a movie where is the only American theater an American movie industry has many many English people acting in it certainly and the same thing is true and affects the black expatriate he has difficulty getting a permit to work and he has difficulty getting into into the labor market and it's a striking ironic contrast between the reception of the foreigner gets here does he have any more this black American in exile does he have any more trouble than the white American in exile I would say probably not except in this again we go back to England where there's a tremendous sensitivity to black people negative sensitivity these days I think he would have a greater difficulty and I know he would have a great difficulty there than would a white American but I'd say in some other countries in Scandinavia and perhaps in France he would have less problem probably done than a white American would have do foreigners in general have a same attitude about black people Americans black Americans or do they differ in their views do they know really what's going on in this country they know a great deal more than we might think because even the fact that they're so far away and yet there are certain stereotype notions that they have based on what they are tales not not so much that it's just that people have read a great deal about the oppression of black people in this country and the television clips of Little Rock and Selma etc The tendency is to regard the black American as as almost what I say an illiterate uncultured person and some among a certain kind of European for example and not be aware of the fact that he that he has the same skills as other people that he may be a senior editor at looked magazine exactly like they wouldn't be difficult for them to sometimes you can see the same thing is true for example sometimes in some African countries where the Africans have read a great deal about. Poor schools about oppression of various kinds and I'm not aware of the people with you know all of the computer people and all the other tremendous Banco skills. Just by black people in this country which would have to be a tremendous help to them but they're not so much aware that if they weren't aware of until very recently then I would assume that in these foreign countries also they have a notion about interracial marriages that has been distorted Well not so much as the American B. has been distorted because you see there was tremendous commerce between Europe and Africa a great many Africans are married to not a great many but among the intelligentsia among those people with money and literacy a number on married to whites this is often the case between people who came from Ghana Nigeria Sierra Leone to England to go to school at Cambridge or Oxford now you've gone around the world for Look magazine and you must have had some notions some preconceived notions yourself about various countries can you tell us some of them and whether or not there were any disappointments or surprises you found in those notions Well I'm being increasingly disappointed by by England because I would hope that England would avoid some of the pitfalls that have occurred here they don't seem to have learned very much and I think situation in England will be very bad in not too long a time I mean worse than it is now I'm disappointed in France in the sense that. That the Algerian problem has not been resolved to a greater degree than it has and the other people seem to be filtering into the place where the Algerians were namely the Senegalese on the other hand I'm tremendously impressed by for example the Dutch I think the Dutch have done a very fine job in integrating a nonwhite minority in Holland people came from the former Dutch colonies in the East Indies and they're aware of what's going on they worked in sitting down seriously without not panicking and working out how they're going to integrate those people into society why didn't you become an expatriate Well I may yet. But there's time there's time but I think I feel somewhat like James Baldwin feels I get a great deal out of going abroad or seeing other people live and what goes on other places but knowing you can come home knowing I can come home knowing that for the time being at least this is the place for me because. This is where the action is on the other hand who knows what the future holds if you become senior editor look the senior editor look I suppose you wouldn't go off oh I don't see how much you're sure maybe I'll start my own magazine or. Another all without either and I suppose that is the reason so many of them went not because they couldn't achieve here but because they could achieve more in another place that's why there were other dimensions which they wanted to do more about perhaps and they found they could explore all the aspects of their talents in other kinds of society one final quick question question what is the foreigners do you Americans as Americans participation in the Vietnam War Well I think it's pretty critical in most places and that's pretty widespread I think we have a few allies very few and those are usually people who are nations which are in a sort of client patron relationship it's a very negative that's both black Americans in exile and also. Residents of the foreign countries yes it's pretty universal it's pretty We have very few allies who go along with that position have you had any reaction to Nixon. I haven't been there since he's been in power OK Well thank you very much Ernest Dunbar for being with us on the black man in America please be with us again next week when we will have another distinguished guest with us this is Bill booth wishing you good night we welcome your comments on these programs send your cards and letters to a black man in America W N Y C E New York one hundred zero seven and join us again next Tuesday afternoon at five on W N Y C F.M. or next Tuesday evening at nine and W N Y C black man of America has a feature presentation of your city station broadcast in cooperation with the New York City Commission human rights do not five on W. N.Y.C. F.M. or next Tuesday evening at nine on W. N.Y.C. black man in America is a feature presentation of your city station broadcast in cooperation with the New York City Commission human rights.