A teacher at Boston Latin High School gave seventh-grade students an article saying German composer Ludwig van Beethoven was black. "The physical traits of Ludwig van Beethoven leave little doubt as to his racial identity. He was a black man, with nappy hair, flat nose and thick lips," writes University of Southern Colorado Professor Elmer Wells in a paper titled "Beethoven—His Negroid Characteristics." The mother of one seventh-grade girl says the paper was presented as true. "My daughter came home with the belief that Beethoven is black." But music teacher Roseanne Fernandes said she presented the paper as just "another perspective" even though she said she considered it to be true. She claimed the paper helped students learn to question all their assumptions.

The same question sparked an enormous controversy at Stanford University in 1988. At the university's Ujamaa ("cooperative living") theme dormitory, a black student, B.J. Kerr, was having a discussion primarily with two white students, Gus Heldt and Ben Dugan, about black influence on music. Kerr concluded that "all music is black" and that "all music listened to today in America has African origins—beats, drums, and so forth." A white bystander asked, "What about classical music? Beethoven?" Kerr replied that Beethoven had been black—he had read so in a book in the Ujamaa library. Heldt and Dugan were incredulous, leading Kerr to express disappointment that the idea that Beethoven had been black "was so far from their own truth."

The following evening, Heldt and Dugan noticed a Stanford Symphony recruiting poster that featured a picture of Beethoven, representing him in the familiar manner as white. Inebriated, the two young men used crayons to color the composer's face brown and apply stereotypical features such as kinky hair and big lips. They then posted the now-satirical flyer on a "food for thought" bulletin board next to Kerr's door.

Kerr was incensed: "I couldn't believe anybody would do that. You see things like that in the movies or on TV. It's the kind of thing someone would do in their room and joke about but it didn't seem like anyone would be bold enough to put it on a door." One of Ujamaa's black residential assistants added that the flyer was "hateful, shocking. I was outraged and sickened." Heldt confessed posting the flyer after an Ujamaa teaching assistant warned him that "people are really angry," "people are really suspicious of you," and there are people planning "to beat the hell out of you."

At an emergency house meeting to grapple with the incident, Heldt tried to explain his motivations: that he was disturbed by the high, counterproductive level of race-consciousness the claim about Beethoven represented, and that the poster was thus attempted as educational, "avant-garde" art. A resident interrupted Heldt's speech: "You arrogant bastard, how dare you come here and not even apologize. I want an apology." Heldt's dismissive reply indicated that he remained unrepentant: "one, two, three, we're sorry."

Some residents then demanded that Heldt and Dugan be removed from the Stanford dorm system, while a dean of student affairs suggested that it might be preferable to keep the pair in the dorms so that they could receive a better multicultural education, a suggestion the victimized Kerr labeled as silly. Kerr became so worked up over the incident, in fact, that in the course of his emotional speech he started to gesticulate wildly, lunged violently at the two, and then collapsed on the floor. According to the residence staff, Kerr "was groaning and flailing his arms"; it "seemed as if B.J. had lost his mind"; he was "not in control of his actions" and was carried out of the room "crying, screaming, and having a fit." The university's final report on the incident described the ensuing mayhem:

As many as sixty students were crying with various degrees of hysteria. At least one student hyperventilated and had to be assisted in breathing. According to R/F Brooks there was "utter chaos." People were "crying, screaming," "hysterical" and "distraught." R/F Weiss said that there was "mass chaos," "people were holding hands and crying, tears were running down," the "staff was running around trying to collect people." She compared the scene to the mass hysteria that occurred when the [space] shuttle exploded or the U.S. exhibition air show in Germany where a group of planes simultaneously crashed. R/F Brooks told the staff "to make sure no one was alone." R/A Johnson reported that "one woman was jumping up and down saying this is not fair." She "herded" crying persons into her room which was a "wreck," "bodies everywhere."

Stanford punished Heldt and Dugan for the distasteful flyer by removing them from university housing for the remainder of the year.

[Ed.: The rumor that Beethoven was black probably originated from scholarly debate that occurred at the time of Adolf Hitler's ascendency, when elaborate racial theories held many German academics in thrall. Contrary to the assertion that all great Germans had certain features thought of as 'Aryan' (that is blond, blue-eyed, and with straight hair), skeptics argued that Beethoven—certainly one of Germany's greatest artistic geniuses—had curly, dark hair and also a somewhat dark complexion. In fact, his friends nicknamed him 'the Moor.']

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