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watched him, and began to use him as a model, it became clear even to me that brashness and assertiveness and, you know, arguments, were not enough, that you had to have some substance behind you, and I told my mother that I was going to major in psychology.

She said, “OK. What are you going to do with it?”

I didn't know. I just wanted to be like Dr. Sumner.

By the way, there's a new book out, by a black psychologist, published by Harper and Rowe, entitled, EVEN THE RATS ARE WHITE. Dr. Guthrie has a chapter on Francis Cecil Sumner, entitled, “The Father of Black Psychologists.” I don't know how literally true that is, but he certainly was my father. He was my intellectual father. He changed my life, and I think somewhat changed my personality, skillfully.

When I got interested in psychology, I went overboard, in terms of taking all the courses in philosophy, courses in English. Oddly enough, I didn't take any courses in sociology. I think I took may be a course or so in economics. No, I didn't. That's right, I didn't. I got to know the economics professor, Abe Harris, and learned a lot from him outside of the classroom, got to know Ralph Bunche very well, learned a great deal from him, as a person, teacher, professor. E. Franklin Frazier in sociology, although I didn't take a course from him until I was a graduate student; Alain Locke, a brilliant man. I took every course that Alain Locke taught in the philosophy department.

What was happening at Howard, from my junior year on, or the latter part of my sophomore year, was that I was being integrated