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U n iv e r s it y o f Oregon L ib r a r y
..ugcne, Oregon 97403
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A Man of Excellence
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Part I of a T w o -P art A rticle
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by Nyewusi Askari
When I sat down to interview Professor McKinley Burt, I knew that I
was in the company of an extraordinary man. His inner vision, his com
passion, his passion, his love for children, his hopes for tomorrow for us
all, his wisdom and knowledge overwhelmed the space we occupied. I
couldn't hide my excitement. The only other time I could remember exper
iencing that kind of feeling was when I found myself in the same space with
African-American poet Maya Angelou. It was a feeling of total honor.
Professor Burt invited me deep into his world: Professor, Writer,
Historian, Inventor, Researcher, Father, Computer Pioneer, a lover of life.
Hearing him talk was like listening to the sound of clear flowing rivers on the
way to forever.
"I was born and raised in the middle south, coming out here as a late
teenager. When I first arrived in Portland, many locals would say, 'A south
erner and from St. Louis? — Where are your scars?' This indicated that
they thought I had to be culturally deprived. I loved to startle them by
showing a copy of our Sumner High School curriculum - the prerequisite
for graduation: Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry I, Geometry II; and on the
science side: General Science I and II, and Biology I and II; and if there
was a chance that you might go to college, you could get advanced math
courses. Oh, I omitted the two sequences of Physics and Chemistry. Also,
a foreign language was mandatory — a choice of Latin or French. This has
shaken a lot of people up, not only my students at Portland State Univer
sity, but many teachers in the workshops I have conducted. Compared to
Portland Public Schools of yesterday and today, there was and is NO CON
TEST."
As Professor Burt recalled the memories from that era, his eyes
gleamed with pride, while his hands gently conducted the direction of the
conversation. "M ind you, this was a 'ghetto' school, the student body
and teachers being 100% Black. We are talking fifty years ago, and the
curriculum was the same for my father and mother, as it also was for all my
grandparents "Though it is no laughing matter, I do have to laugh (or
grimace) when I hear many contemporary educators defining a curriculum
of ignorance and 'Special Ed' for our children. They would not have made
the first pay day in that St. Louis system."
"In this same vein I'll remark that I came here to work as a welder in a
World War II shipyard managed by the Kaiser Company, and I also
attended business classes sponsored by the same company. When the war
ended in 1945, I opened as accounting office on Williams Avenue near Tilla
mook Street, which placed me in the heart of the Black community of the
time. Wishing to achieve a high degree of professionalism, I took the en
trance examination of Northwestern Law School (now Lewis & Clark) and,
to the consternation of the 'powers that be', made one of the highest marks
in the state."
"I never did convince those folks that I had not attended a university
at that period, and that I was a high school dropout . . . for how could they
understand that at the end of the third year in the school I've described,
you had read most of the English classics in literature and history — all
interspersed with Anglo-Saxon law and custom. This is why I say it is a
horror story not to prepare high school students with an academic base
that will permit them to function whether they go to college or not — or
whenever they go. Near the end of my second year at law school, I was
certified to practice in Federal Tax Court.”
Professor Burt hesitated. I sensed his pain about an ugly state of
affairs for our Black youth. I offered him a fresh cup of coffee and said,
"Continue. I can hear you from the kitchen."
When I returned he continued: "The students from our high schools
were highly motivated by their teachers and by a constant input of Black
:
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Photo by Richard J. Brown
history and stories of our many accomplishments in every field of endeavor
We knew WHO WE WERE; no group can make it without that. I'll name
several of my high school classmates who made it to the too of their pro
fessions: Dr. Charles Proctor, former head of toxicology for the city of
Chicago, who later became professor and department head of psycho
pharmacy at several Black southern universities — a master chemist and
biologist; Dr. William Wilson who became head of a sociology department
at the University of Chicago; Dr. Oral McClellan, for years a senior design
engineer for General Dynamics Corporation; Robert McFerrin, Sr. best in
languages, who became a leading tenor at the Metropolitan Opera - his
son, Jr., appeared here in a Portland concert a few months ago.
"In a similar vein, let me cite Dr. Lafayette Fredericks, whose son is
Lou Fredericks, a local Black newscaster on Channel 8. His father and I
worked in the same shipyard here during World War II and were good
friends. This graduate of a Black high school and college (Tuskegee) went
on to chair a school of science at Howard University and to publish inter
nationally acclaimed papers in the field of biology. What else can I say for
decent schools and for motivated teachers who KNOW THEIR SUBJECT
MATTER!"
I then asked Professor Burt about his own many contributions to the
educational process. He mentioned his book "Black Inventors of Ame
rica," distributed not only in this country, but overseas as well. I was
shown many letters of appreciation for this great motivational tool from
students, teachers, educational organizations, and the public. Now, the
on
a picture of Professor Burt conducting
a class
[ reader
U d U C I will
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room demonstration of computer technology. This occurred — are you
ready for this? - back in 1966 in Dalles, Oregon . . . AND WON A
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION AWARD. I will let him carry it on
from here.
"W ell, twenty-two years ago my job in the accounting department
of the Harvey Aluminum Company (now Martin Marietta) included retrieval
of labor time and other costs, summarizing the data, and then transmitting
it by special wire to our main computer in Torrance, California. I became
acquainted with Mr. Frank Ward, the fellow you see with me in the picture.
He was chairman of the mathematics department of the Dalles school sys
tem. He often spoke of the difficulty of getting students to relate 'the rather
dry curriculum of mathematics and language' to their career goals and the
'real world'. I came up with the then-unheard-of idea of putting an on-line
computer and/or terminal right in the classroom — both actually perform
ing, as well as simulating, all of the activities carried on by this method in
the 'Real W orld'."
"M y system was interactive, meaning that the students could partici
pate using the terminal to communicate with the chief engineer of Pacific
Northwest Bell. He would send them greetings from Portland, answer their
questions, and, in the 'teletype mode', send them printouts describing the
nature of the communications network which subtended all of our commer
cial and scientific intercourse. Other entities I put on my network of voice-
grade and data lines were Tektronix Corporation, Bonneville Power, and
Con’to n Page 3
Form er US Senator ! peaks O ut Against M iddle East Policy
by Avel Gordly
Former U.S. Senator James Abourezk spoke on "U.S. Policy in the
idle East" on Friday, October 23, 1987, at the Portland Building. Abou-
k is founder and National Chairman of the American-Arab Anit-Discrimi-
ion Committee. He said he would have voted against the current Navy
isence in the Persian Gult if he were still in the Senate and stated further
it he sees a rapid escalation of the situation because Reagan and the
lians are "spoiling for a fig h t." And he also pointed out that "neither
agan or Khomeni are going to get hurt; it'll be the kids who get hurt."
Abourezk does not feel we need a watchdog in the gulf and believes
□ be "tragic that the war has been allowed to go on this long with people
jpily selling arms to both sides. A lot of money has been made," he
Abourezk said, "the real battleground over the middle east is in Wash-
ton," where U.S. foreign policy is being weakly debated in the face of
at he continually referred to as a powerful Israeli lobby. "In fact," he
1, "the most powerful country in the world acts like a banana republic in
face of the Israeli Lobby.” He was harsh in his judgement that while
lators Packwood, Cranston, Kennedy and others would vote to save
ales, they would not do the same for Palestinians, whom Abourezk feels
living under apartheid conditions like Black South Africans, but said
y just don't get the publicity.
He was just as frank in his assessment that "most congressmen or
ators could care less about either side; it's who bids the highest" (cam-
gn contributions) that dictates where congressmen fall out on these
icy issues. Abourezk is concerned that the American people do not get
tated unless the press tells them to, and one of the consequences is that
American people do not understand the Middle East issue.
Abourezk's talk was sponsored by several groups including Women's
jrnational League for Peace and Freedom, American-Arab Anti-Discrimi-
ion Committee, Jewish Committee for Israeli Palestinian Peace, National
vyers Guild, Democratic Socialists of America, Rainbow Coalition,
neral Union of Palestinian Students, November 29 Committee, American
?nds Service Committee, and Friends of Reconciliation.
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