Black Philosopher, White Academy: The Career of William Fontaine

Chapter Seven: Social Philosophy and Civil Rights

  Social Philosophy and Civil Rights Teacher of Philosophy A  P  , Fontaine oversaw instruction in the beginning course in philosophy. His ability became more apparent when his health improved. ‘‘Fontaine and staff’’ stamped this first course, Philosophy , ‘‘Intro to Phil,’’ with his own wide-ranging and learned vision of the history of ideas in the West from the time of the Greeks. He made this initial experience famous at Pennsylvania among undergraduates. Quiet and softspoken , Fontaine had yet a personal magnetism and a sense of his office at Penn. Elegantly dressed by Belle, he would arrive slightly late for the first class of a new semester, just when the (white) students were getting restless and complaining. He would enjoy their being taken aback as he walked in and introduced himself, in a perfect transatlantic accent, as their teacher, Dr. Fontaine. Alternatively, he would arrive early and seat himself to one side of the room and listen to the students complain and make snide remarks about the supposed tardiness of the professor. Then he would stand up and introduce himself as that professor.1 The students seldom left after the first meeting, for Fontaine taught effectively and instructed with dedication. He ‘‘receive[d] raves,’’ said the Penn Guide to Courses.2 ‘‘Phil ’’ had a thematic organization. Although Fontaine lectured on metaphysics and the philosophy of religion, he emphasized epistemology and the various luminaries who exemplified certain theories of truth. Fontaine would make his points with maximum gesticulation, long bony fingers grasping for the correct formulations. He might sometimes    cough slightly, bringing his hand quickly to his mouth; or throat clearing would interrupt his speech. In carefully enunciating his words he would smack his lips as if making a tiny effort at breathing.3 Later, many of the undergraduates repeatedly remembered him as ‘‘kindly,’’ ‘‘gentle.’’ He might shame them into working. Those who were unprepared were never humiliated with words—he would merely shake his head and suck his teeth.4 Perhaps Fontaine had his greatest influence on the more reflective of his pupils. He jolted these well brought up young people into a realization of the derogatory racial categories that defined their world. A man who represented for them a debased race first guided them to the highest ideas of (white) civilization . At the same time students could not get their minds around the fact that he was an ‘‘American’’ Negro. In  MGM released the film King Solomon’s Mines, which was based on H. Rider Haggard’s book of the same title. In this popular movie fantasy, a great white hunter, Allan Quartermaine, acted by Stewart Granger, led an intrepid band across the wilds of Africa. Umbopa, the king of the Watusi, a handsome black race said to have originated in Egypt, joined the group. The Watusi actor Siriaque, who was thin and almost seven feet tall, played the king. At Penn the undergraduates who had studied with Fontaine and knew him to be tall and thin told one another of his background as a Watusi. Or, because they did not know the difference, a Zulu or a Ubangi.5 In his more advanced teaching Fontaine cautiously concentrated on social issues in the mid- to late s. One can easily attribute this shift to renewed health, growing confidence, and the prominence of a national political struggle for civil rights. Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights, the Fair Employment Practices Commission, and the  Democratic convention had made segregation and rights for African Americans hot topics in national politics even before the Supreme Court delivered its famous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education in , which outlawed segregation in public schools. Fontaine returned at last to full-time work in , after meditating about these issues on the sidelines for several years. His signature course, Philosophy , and its graduate equivalent also took many of his scholarly concerns into his lecturing. He titled the courses ‘‘Philosophy of the Social Sciences’’ and refused the name that others favored, ‘‘Problems in Social and Political Philosophy .’’6 He still thought within the parameters of pragmatic analytic philosophy , but he now did so with his own accent. Philosophy majors took Philosophy , but the class also courted campus intellectuals. ‘‘Phil ,’’ Social Philosophy and Civil Rights  many students recalled, introduced them to otherwise marginalized thought, ‘‘whole areas that were otherwise left out of our curriculum.’’ As one student wrote, the class read authors and took up topics that ‘‘I...