A.B. And All That Jazz

A.B. Spellman didn't fit in at Harvard. For one, A.B. (and everybody called him that, not Mr., or professor or sir) believes that there are other ways to teach students besides boring them with texts or testing them until the information, however unimportant, is understood.

In many ways the former Afro-American lecturer's classes reflected his personal involvement in the black arts movement during the last three decades.

After receiving a B.A. at Howard and attending law school there, the 42-year-old poet and jazz critic went to New York, where he lived, worked with, and wrote about black leaders in politics and the arts.

Spellman wrote best when he wrote about black music and the people who make it. His close association with the greatest black musicians, including pianist Cecil Taylor, and master saxophonists Jackie McLean, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, gave him an insight into what it means to be a black artist in America.

And it was this unusual background and Spellman's easy-going nature that made his courses so popular.

He told stories, read and played black poetry and music, and provided Harvard students with his views of a culture otherwise totally overlooked and at times discredited by the University.

Spellman said this week that he resigned last fall to work with the National Endowment because of the administration's "discriminatory policy" toward Afro, specifically its failure to recommend Ephraim Isaac, associate professor of Afro-American studies, for tenure.

"For me to try to have a career at Harvard would be about the same as submitting to a voluntary emasculation," Spellman wrote in his letter of resignation to then-Afro chairman Ewart Guinier '33.

Spellman may not have created a big wave here with his departure. But in the short time that he was here, Spellman exposed Harvard to an important part of American society; his departure means that this area will once again be ignored.