Every Black child needs to see and understand the profound message behind this picture. Albert Einstein teaching a physics class at Lincoln University (HBCU in Pennsylvania) in 1946. The Nobel prize winning scientist said: The separation of the races is not a disease of colored people. It is a disease of white people. I do not intend to be quiet about it. Einstein’s statements at Lincoln were by no means an isolated case. Einstein, who was Jewish, was sensitized to racism by the years of Nazi-inspired threats and harassment he suffered during his tenure at the University of Berlin. Einstein was in the United States when the Nazis came to power in 1933, and, fearful that a return to Germany would place him in mortal danger, he decided to stay, accepting a position at the recently founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. He became an American citizen in 1940. But while Einstein may have been grateful to have found a safe haven, his gratitude did not prevent him from criticizing the ethical shortcomings of his new home. Einstein realized that African Americans in Princeton were treated like Jews in Germany. The town was strictly segregated. There was no high school that blacks could go to until the 1940s. Also Einstein’s response to the racism and segregation he found in Princeton (Paul Robeson, who was born in Princeton, called it the northernmost town in the South) was to cultivate relationships in the towns African-American community. Members of that community who still remember the white-haired, disheveled figure of Einstein strolling through their streets, stopping to chat with the inhabitants, and handing out candy to local children. One woman remembered that Einstein paid the college tuition of a young man from the community. Another said that he invited Marian Anderson to stay at his home when the singer was refused a room at the Nassau Inn.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 17:59:12 +0000