Beyond the Melting Pot.

Overview & Synopsis

This speech, given at the commencement convocation at Bishop's College concerns black institutions and the black renaissance in America. Following brief opening remarks the author elaborates on the black experience in America, and the attempts of higher education institutions to assimilate blacks into the "white" society in the past. Minority education repudiates this attempted assimilation and strives to preserve the richness, pride, inventiveness, joy, and intensity of feeling of the black race. The author touches on Title III of the Higher Education Act of 1965, Aid to Developing Colleges, and its importance in helping build black institutions into the fine institutions they represent today. The author then concludes with a plea for the graduates to choose education as a career, especially career education, special education, and preschool education, where the country needs able specialists. (PG)