Denzel Washington and Daniel Payne: Fighting the Good Fight, Living the Dream, and Saving Black Colleges

In the late 1800s, America's first college president of African descent, Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC), had a dream. Payne led the purchase of Wilberforce University (WU) on behalf of the AMEC from the white Methodists in 1863. Imagine the bold and audacious faith that it took for a black religious body to buy a university in 1863 When the deal was made, most blacks were still living in slavery in the south (the Emancipation Proclamation notwithstanding) and those that were free in the north had more important things to do with their money than to donate to a college. Yet, Payne dreamed of a day when blacks would be in a financial position to fund our own educational endeavors:

The unity and concentration of a poor people can build up schools of learning and perpetuate them for a thousand generations--yes to the very end of time.
Upon this principle the A.M.E. Church could build and endow a first-class college every five years. She boasts of numbering four hundred thousand. Let one-half of that number be discounted as old age and youth, unable to give anything, there would remain two hundred thousand who are able to give one dollar apiece for five successive years. Then we would be in possession of a million of dollars—a sum sufficient to build and to endow a strong and powerful college, commanding the respect and the confidence of the whole country. In like manner, a half century would put in the hands of the A.M.E. Church, ten strong and powerful Institutions, commanding the respect of the civilized world as well as the confidence and moral support of the Christian Church. She could then bide her time till millionaires could raise up themselves from her Alumni, who would take pleasure in developing her colleges into Universities. ("Thoughts about the past, present, and the future of the African Methodist Episcopal Church". The AME Church Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, p.8)

Well, a part of Payne's dream has come to pass. America now has black millionaires all over the place. Blacks have excelled in every discipline there is: arts, sports, business, education, religion, science, media, politics, and any other thing you can name. The calvary has arrived and we are now in position to lift our schools so that they may be on par with our white brothers and sisters by endowing our institutions through major gifts by a new crop of donors.

The problem is, however, that Payne's dream has been confronted by the modern, American nightmare: a self centered, materialistic, egocentric, self serving and ever growing black elite that has forgotten the bridge that brought us over. Simply put, we are the generation like those in the Biblical book of Judges, that "did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, forgetting the LORD their God" who brought them out.

An example of this forgetting and the selfish neglect on the part of those whom God has blessed the most with material means can be found by going back just 5 years to the Morris Brown College (MBC) crises and the National Basketball Association (NBA) all star game. Two seemingly unrelated events, but their relationship and timing paint a vivid picture about the priorities of those who have inherited a rich legacy. Both of these events, ironically, took place less than a mile apart from each other in Atlanta in the winter of 2003 (if you've ever been to Atlanta, the Hawks' arena looks down over MBC like the big house did over the slave quarters). MBC, like just about every other Historically Black College and University (HBCU), has struggled for years to keep the doors open. In fact, it is a miracle that so many HBCUs still exist, when most have received such little financial support. (I'm sure that black folk have given more to Nike than to HBCUs)

And so the irony did not escape me that as the NBA held their All Star Game in 2003 up the hill from MBC, AMEC officials and college administrators were feverishly trying to stop the bleeding. The AMEC raised a good deal of money in a short period of time, but it was not enough. That's when it occurred to me that if all of those who attended the all star game would have just "passed the plate," the shortfall would have been raised, an endowment would have been created, and the accreditation might have been saved.

In attendance that weekend was just about everybody that was somebody in the black community that had access to wealth. Yet, although the Atlanta newspapers that weekend were filled with the plight of MBC, no one that weekend (NO NOT ONE) stopped to ask: How can we help? How can we, who have been given so much, give something back? Maybe instead of $1000 bottles of champaign, should we can get the cheap stuff and send the balance of the money to MBC? What a scene it must have been, as celebrities threw lavish parties, spent thousands on wardrobes to impress others, and rode in $300,000 automobiles, with no thought of helping keep up the bridge that made their current lifestyles possible in the first place.

Make no mistake, before "ballers" could ball at Nebraska, UCLA, Georgia, and Duke, they were forced to ball at MBC, Clark, Morehouse, and Edward Waters. Before entertainers could hone their craft in Ivy League drama departments, Spelman was just fine. Before attorneys could learn to argue in the courtroom at Columbia and Univ. of Pennsylvania, they did so at Wiley and Tuskegee. That is the bridge that allowed us to cross over from the wilderness of slavery and Jim Crow into the promised land that now flows with milk and honey for some. How dare we forget where we came from and that we are only here because they were there for us.

That brings me to Denzel Washington. Thankfully, not everyone has forgotten where they've come from. Two weeks ago, Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions' studio released on DVD a must see movie entitled "The Great Debaters." The movie, which stars Denzel, is based on a 1930s debate team from HBCU, Wiley College in Texas. This movie is a something that all black people should have in their movie library and would make an excellent Father's Day gift (hint, hint).

The art of debate proved to be a pathway for many young college students to gain the confidence needed to make it in the world after college. However, through the years, the debate team at Wiley ceased to exist. But thanks to a 1 million dollar gift by Denzel and his family, the debate team is coming back to Wiley. Denzel is not alone. Oprah, Bill Cosby, Tom Joyner, and others have also shared the wealth and given back to places that they don't even call home.

Yet, those good examples have been too few and far between to make a real, lasting difference. If we are to stem the tide of black on black violence, if we are to get our boys off the streets selling drugs, robbing banks, and committing murder, if we are going to give our girls a reason to wait to become mothers because they have real hope beyond the age of 15, if we are to become as a people producers and not consumers, then we need MBC as best as she can be. We need the doors of every black college not only open, but so heavily endowed that our future generations will not have to worry about tuition because scholarships will be available for all who enter in. We, black America, need for everyone to give something back. But we desperately need those millionaires whom Payne dreamed of to help us by leading the way to excellence in giving.

To whom much is given, much is required.