Actor Canada Lee Claims Education Is Best Antidote For Color Prejudice

"Education--that's the whole damn thing," urged Canada Lee, heavy set negro lead in Richard Wright and Paul Green's "Native Son," as he walked down Tremont Street toward the Majestic Theatre stage door. "When I was a little kid I can remember white kids in the neighborhood would shout 'nigger' as I walked down the Pavement. Hello Miss Mahoney, I hear you're the belle of Boston--" he stopped to talk for a moment with a lean, grey haired old lady who passed him walking toward Boylston. "Today when I go 'Long the street I know that a colored man is free--'cause those same kids that used to shout 'nigger' are now the mothers and fathers who tell their own kids that it's not right. An' in the future it will be even more than 'not done'--it will be almost a crime."

The war and the labor movement, continued the former welterweight boxing champ--now proprietor of a Harlem night club and greatest negro actor--, will undoubtedly have great effect in breaking down racial discrimination; but education is the best and most lasting means.

"I got my son at a small school in New Jersey now--for the discipline an' rules," explained the talented negro who will give a benefit performance for Spanish aid today. "But when he gets older I'll send him to one of the famous colleges like Harvard or Yale . . . for the contacts."

By now he had reached the side alley that went down to the stage door, where he was assaulted by a host of theatre friends and colored shoe-shine boys. Passing through them with hurried, friendly greetings, he answered one more question before going up to his dressingroom in time for the half-hour curtain call. When asked whether or not he considered Harvard tolerant to the colored race, he insisted:

"'Tolerant' is the wrong word. I don' know jest how to put it. Let's say Harvard is better to us than mos' colleges. I don' like that word 'tolerant'."