When a man is educated, he can think for himself and defend himself and speak for himself. But this twentieth century Uncle Tom Negro never opens up his mouth in defense of a black man. He opens up his mouth in defense of the white man, in defense of America, in defense of the American government. He doesn’t even know where his government is, because he doesn’t know that he ever had one. He doesn’t know where his country is, because he doesn’t know that he ever had one.
He believes in exactly what he was taught in school. That when he was kidnapped by the white man, he was a savage in the jungle someplace eating people and throwing spears and with a bone in his nose. And the average American Negro has that concept of the African continent. It is not his fault. This is what has been given to him by the American educational system.
He knows nothing about the ancient Egyptian civilization on the African continent, or the ancient Carthaginian civilization on the African continent, or the ancient civilizations of Mali on the African continent, civilizations that were highly developed and produced scientists. Timbuktu, the center of the Mali Empire, was the center of learning at a time when the people up in Europe didn’t even know what a book was. He doesn’t know this, because he hasn’t been taught. And because he doesn’t know this, when you mention Africa to him, why he thinks you’re talking about a jungle. And I went to Africa in 1959 and didn’t see any jungle. And I didn’t see any mud huts until I got back to Harlem in New York City.
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