THE GLOBAL AFRICAN COMMUNITY
H I S T O R Y N O T E S
WILLIAM LEO HANSBERRY, TEACHER: AS SEEN BY A FORMER STUDENT*
By CHANCELLOR JAMES WILLIAMS
Posted by RUNOKO RASHIDI
I think of Professor Hansberry as a personal friend first, and as a master teacher second. That he was a distinguished scholar even when we were his students was well established. Bur for many of us who studied with him (he would never say "under" him) the atmosphere of that at-ease, friendly classroom created the primary condition for both teaching and learning. For what happened was that his almost passionate love for the race included its sons and daughters--a fact never spoken and indeed, did not need to be spoken. It was reflected in his attitude. We returned it in full, and our affection continued during all the passing years since we left his classroom.
Reference to "we" here is to a core group of us who were deeply interested in learning about our own history as well as the history of the whites. This meant that we were all a small minority, for at that time the attitude of the great majority of both faculty and students was one of contempt even for the term "Africa," or cold indifference. This means that William Leo Hansberry, with his non-prestigious African history courses, calmly endured the belittling remarks and supercilious smiles of many of his colleagues throughout the many years as he stood courageously and almost alone as a teacher of Black history in the United States. And the same academic attitudes that caused his work to be regarded as just so much "wishful thinking" or Romantic fiction, also held him firmly in the lower ranks until near the end of his career. In short, throughout his career he paid dearly for teaching Black history.
But one of the tragic consequences of all this--and the only reason I am discussing it all--was that he would not publish a single volume from what was doubtless the most detailed and massive body of research on the Black race that had ever been assembled by one man. We knew that, had he wished to do so, at least one volume could have been published over twenty years ago. We knew this because, since there were no adequate textbooks on African history available (and still are not), he prepared for the class scores of documents from his research, with sources listed. And while these were directly relevant to the courses, these alone were enough for a book. When some of us who were closest to him urged publication, we always received the same friendly smile, but with the firm reply: "I am not ready yet." Even when we asked about publication we not only knew what the answer would be, but we knew the reason for it, because we ourselves were a part of his ordeal.
The life and work of this remarkable man influenced mine directly. For while I resolved to take up the work where he left off, I took it up defiantly and with the high resolve that, having slowly and painstakingly carried on the research on the highest level of scholarship as he did, I would not care a snap about what either white or Negro critics think or say about my works.
The final and lasting Hansberry influence was how to proceed without any show of bitterness and even act as though you were totally unaware of the covert criticisms of "friends." It was as though he foresaw the Black youth revolution that was to justify and honor his pioneering labors. And I like to think that if from afar he is looking on the Department of History he loved to the end, he will say "Well done!"
Chancellor Williams Senior Professor of African History Department of History Howard University
SOURCE:
* Published in A Tribute to the Memory of Professor William Leo Hansberry. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Department of History, 1972: 17-18.
Also see:WILLIAM LEO HANSBERRY: PIONEER AFRICANIST SCHOLAR (1894-1965)
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Revised: July 04, 2001.
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