LIVING FOR CHANGE

REVISITING AFRICAN AMERICAN LEADERSHIP

By Stephen Ward

Michigan Citizen, Aug. 26-Sep. 1, 2007

In last week's column Grace Lee Boggs challenged us to revisit Black leadership. We can start by recognizing that old models of leadership will not work today.

Our thinking about Black leadership for the 21st century must move beyond 20th century models. When African Americans were barely a generation removed from slavery, the "talented tenth" constituted the most visible layer of leadership. These members of the middle and upper classes were the few Blacks who had attained education, skills, and access to financial and social resources in a segregated and violently white supremacist society. Their mission was to instruct and aid the masses, and they sought the betterment of the race by uplifting "the least of these."

Another model of Black leadership in the first half of the twentieth century was the "race man/woman," often a civic, religious, or successful business leader who was committed to the Black community. A picture of quiet strength, he/she stood firm against the dehumanization of a Jim Crow world, an image of Black dignity and pride.

With the rise of the Civil Rights movement another model emerged, the charismatic leader, voicing our deepest yearnings to be full human beings and our strivings for citizenship and full participation in society.

Each of these models served an essential historical function, but none will meet the needs of our time.

21st century Black leadership must see its purpose as not only "uplifting" Black people, projecting Black dignity, defending Black humanity, exposing and countering racist assaults, or even fighting for the rights of Black people. Black leaders today must see the Black struggle as fundamentally connected to a broad range of progressive struggles and movements to build a better world.

In the recent debate around Congressman [John] Conyers' refusal to initiate impeachment hearings we can see such leadership emerging from the so-called hip hop generation.

The hip hop generation is frequently misunderstood, so it is necessary to be precise. I refer to African Americans born after the 1960s, for whom hip hop has been an ever-present, even a dominant part of their consciousness. But what makes this generation so unique, and what makes its approach to political struggle so different from those who lived through the struggles of the 1960s is not just hip hop culture. Rather, it is that they have come of age in a rapidly changing world, giving them a far different worldview and challenges. While they can be inspired by previous struggles, they cannot repeat them. Their's is a new struggle, requiring a new vision and leadership.

What makes their struggle so different? Racism undoubtedly still exists, but its primary forms are no longer segregation and institutional exclusion. They have grown up in a world of Black millionaires and Black mayors. They have seen Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice on TV. For them the promise of "Black faces in high places" rings hollow; the call for "Black Unity," a progressive idea in the late 1960s, makes little sense in majority Black cities and a nation where Black athletes, celebrities, and politicians can be seen everywhere. They face new demons: the ravages of AIDS and crack, escalating gun violence, and devastated, de-industrialized central cities. They face completely new political questions: The war doctrine of George Bush and deepening environmental and ecological crises, threatening the very existence of the planet.

The Black leadership we now need faces new challenges and must develop new ideas to meet them. Like a generation ago, when the Black struggle catalyzed the anti-war movement, the women's liberation and other movements, Black leadership today has an important role to play in shaping the radical revolution in values (such as Dr. King called for) we need to transform our world. Black leaders today cannot fight racism separate from the other struggles that confront us. They must project a vision of a transformed world and work with others to create that world, a world in which we all, every last one of us, can live to realize our full human potential. This requires breaking out of old patterns of thought and action so that we can create new ones. As Jimmy Boggs often said, "We must go where we have never been."

Stephen Ward teaches at the University of Michigan and is a member of the Boggs Center board.

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