Albert Einstein: racism is an American disease

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.theeinsteinfile.com/excerpts.htm

Einstein at Lincoln University

During the last twenty years of his life, Einstein almost never spoke at
universities. He considered the honorary-degree ceremonies to which he was
frequently invited to be "ostentatious." Moreover, the abdominal aneurysm
that would eventually take his life caused him increasing pain and made it
difficult to travel. Given the constant stream of university invitations,
he found it easiest to adopt a just-say-no rule. In May 1946, he broke that
rule to speak at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Both the year and the
choice of school are significant. 

About 60 miles from Princeton, Lincoln University was chartered in 1854 as,
in the words of its eighth president Horace Mann Bond, "the first
institution found anywhere in the world to provide a higher education in
the arts and sciences for male youth of African descent." In 1946, When Dr.
Bond invited Einstein to Lincoln, the student body consisted of 265 men.
"It was still a small school," Mrs. Julie Bond, Dr. Bond?s widow, recalls.
"But of course, everyone came to hear Einstein. We didn?t have a hall big
enough, so we held the ceremony outdoors in the grove." 

"On Friday, May 3rd, a very simple man came to Lincoln University," one
student wrote a few days later in the school newspaper:

His emaciated face and simplicity made him appear as a biblical character.
Quietly he stood with an expression of questioning wonder upon his face
as?President Horace Mann Bond conferred a degree. Then this man with the
long hair and deep eyes spoke into a microphone of the disease [racism]
that humanity had. In the deep accents of his native Germany he said he
could not be silent. And then he finished and the room was still. Later he
lectured on the theory of relativity to the Lincoln students.
 
That night, Albert Einstein went back to Princeton?

Dr. Bond?s son chuckles today when he looks at an old photo of Lincoln
faculty members? children with the famous scientist: "Family lore has
Einstein telling me ?Don?t remember anything that is already written down.?
And although I do not recall this exchange" ? he was barely four years old
at the time ? "I have followed this advice ever since." (Whether Einstein?s
advice helped or not, Julian Bond grew up to become a civil rights
activist, State Assemblyman, TV talk-show host and Chairman of the NAACP.)

In accepting the invitation, Einstein clearly intended to send a message to
a wider audience. But the media then ? like the media since then ? had
different news priorities. While almost all of Einstein?s public speeches
and interviews were widely covered by the major media, in this case, most
of the press treated the address by the world?s most famous scientist at
the world?s oldest black university as a non-event. 


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org



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