Activism Revisited

By Vincent F.A. Golphin and Cynthia L. Ingraham

Something strange happened to many young black people a few weeks ago. They were chilled, literally run through with what some described as an icy, sinking feeling after four New York City police officers accused in the murder of Amadou Diallo, an Ethiopian immigrant, were found not guilty. The emotions came out largely as a mixture of fear and anger at a perceived travesty of justice. Then it settled into rage at what many youth accepted as a statement from the U.S. government on the value of black life.

One college student in Upstate New York said it felt like the stiff breeze off Lake Ontario on a deep winter's day just touched him to the bone. The chill quakes you, wakes you. As many people, the young man reflected on the murdered Diallo -- hit 19 times in a hale of 41 bullets while standing unarmed in the doorway of his home. "It could'a been me," he said. "It could'a been me."

Sober moments like that have stirred a new sense of outrage among black youth. Young men and women, who only a few years ago walked around with headphones blasting music to shield their ears and minds from unpleasant realities, are on the march. They are showing up at rallies and beginning to express a sense of commonality, if not unity, as they confront the realities of American injustice. Also, among them have emerged new leaders.

Most African Americans under 40 know little or nothing about old-line civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and Urban League. Ron Walters, Distinguished Leadership Scholar in the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland College Park, says economic advancements and other changes in opportunities for African Americans have also brought about a changing of the guard. Because of economic necessity, more leaders are coming from the ranks of the poor and working class.

"Many people who would have been our leadership are [no longer] fighting to stay alive," he said. "Instead, they are fighting crab grass on the weekend."

Walters provides a comprehensive and scholarly treatment of black leadership to date in a book co-authored with Robert C. Smith, professor of political science at San Francisco State University, entitled African American Leadership. This work, published by the State University of New York Press in 1999, provides important strategy and policy recommendations for black leaders.

The sociologist who is a frequent guest and analyst on the U.S. government's international broadcast channel, Voice of America, and programs such as BET's Lead Story, CNBC's The Jesse Jackson Show and ABC News Nightline, says in the last century the black middle class were always the ones out in the street marching with the NAACP. In the early part of the century, the college-educated race men and women filled those ranks. They were inspired by W.E.B. DoBois' Talented Tenth notion of a moral obligation to work for racial uplift. By mid-century, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., son of a minister and scion of a tradition of clergy-led church activism, became the most visible figure in a successful bid to break racial segregation.

"They were the protectors of the race and operated with a race-invested notion," Walters summarizes. "But now, our middle class is losing a lot of that race expectation of leadership and race protection."

The Rev. Al Sharpton echoes that notion in his 1996 autobiography, Go and Tell Pharaoh. The book, co-written by journalist and scholar Anthony Walton, chronicles the controversial preacher's emergence as today's premiere religious activist. Those who learn his story will find Sharpton's appearance at the Albany trial as spiritual counselor for the Diallo family, and his prominence in the rallies outside the courthouse, unremarkable. He casts himself as "a preacher boy" from Bedford Stuyvesant doing the Lord's bidding. The new breed of black activists calls the pompadour-coiffed, Pentecostal minister a leader.

"We have various leaders saying various things," Sharpton writes, "but what it all boils down to for me is that we need a generation of sacrifice. I think we had a generation of social sacrifice in the fifties and sixties, but we need another one, maybe more than one, and this time it has to be about personal and economic sacrifice." The message is for black baby boomers.

Sharpton says most African Americans born in the post-World War II era had parents who worked jobs they hated or made other accommodations to buy their children a better future. "My mother said, 'I couldn't vote until I was a middle-aged woman, but I want to make sure by sewing people's clothes and cleaning their houses, that my son can be in a place where he can run for the U.S. Senate.'

"My generation has not made those kind of definitive commitments to those following us. We have not said we were going to accept some deprivation to ensure that our children go further. We have accepted a generation of decadence and no goals, and we have not planned for our children, and therefore our children have no direction, no plans of their own," he states.

Many who look at today's youth say they need mentors. "Too many of your children in inner-city, suburban and rural areas, in Ivy League, black and other institutions of higher education, do not know about the movement that crumbled America's racial Berlin Wall," Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman writes in the recently published Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors. The veteran of 1960s protests writes, "Too few whites and blacks alike remember beyond a Martin Luther King holiday celebration or reading Dr. King's still unrealized great dream of an America that judges children by the 'content of their character rather than by the color of their skin,' and enables all children to achieve their God-given potential."

Countless potential mentors have taken flight to manicured lawns, bridge tournaments and soccer games. Others who formerly served as key strategists during the Civil Rights Movement have gone on to hold top political positions. However, Edelman continues the good fight. Best known in recent years for her crusade on behalf of poor and abused children, her book chronicles her own progression to leadership and discloses the vast array of mentors who helped shape her life.

"My parents expected their two daughters -- my big sister Olive and me -- to achieve and contribute as much as their three sons," Edelman states. "My belief that I and others could do more than complain, wring our hands or give in to despair at the wrongs rife in the world stems from my parents' example."

Edelman urges faith communities, schools and other community institutions to connect children and youths to useful, purposeful, interesting service and action opportunities. In that way, she writes, "another generation of disengaged cynical citizens will not spell the death knell of American civic and spiritual life."

Radio and TV commentator Tavis Smiley is one of the most unusual leadership figures to accept that challenge. As host of BET Tonight with Tavis Smiley on cable and a tough, twice-weekly editorial voice on The Tom Joyner Morning Show, he has turned normally uninvolved teens and college-aged youths into change agents.

One of the most successful campaigns was against the computer-store giant CompUSA. A secret CompUSA interoffice memo urged ad salespeople not to buy time on black or Hispanic radio stations. The note said the company wanted to draw "prospects, and not suspects."

Smiley asked the listening audience to bombard the switchboard, faxes and email of CompUSA president and CEO Jim Halpin. After a relentless ten-week campaign, the computer conglomerate apologized. Halpin appeared on the Joyner show and pledged respect for non-white customers. The settlement even included CompUSA's hiring of an Hispanic advertising firm. Smiley proved that black dollars matter and that advocacy is in again.

"Advocacy in this country has always been cyclical," he says. "Now, man, young black folk are getting motivated by a lot of issues."

Over the past three years, he has used the seven-million listeners of Joyner's Dallas-based program, heard in more than 100 radio markets, to stir grassroots advocacy. Technology has made the amassing of support for issues of concern as easy as a point and click for many African Americans.

The program has been instrumental in persuading Fox Television Network to bring back two popular black programs, Living Single and New York Undercover. Christies' auction house reversed a decision to sell some rare slave auction posters and pledged never to broker items tied to that historical experience. The show's listeners have also pushed Congress to consider and deal with issues of interest to Black America including the awarding of a Congressional Gold Medal to Rosa Parks.

"I believe that service is the price we pay for the space we occupy," Smiley states. "We need people who care about our community, who can share [critical] information so folk can make informed decisions. That's my role as an advocate."

Smiley further explains his views in a recent bestseller, Doing What's Right: How to Fight for What You Believe and Make a Difference. He also publishes a quarterly newsletter called The Smiley Report.

Sharpton calls for efforts to gain control over the billions of dollars blacks spend. Bishop T.D. Jakes' latest work, Maximize the Moment, does the same and offers remedies for economic, relational and spiritual hunger in the African-American community. At first it seems a strange subject for social advocacy, but the focus on money taps into one of the key interests of African-American youths.

"We are born and shortly thereafter we die, and all that lies between is a test that requires each of us to fill in the blank," says Jakes. "Some fill in [the blank] with stellar accomplishments, others with the broadening of the intellect. Some fill it in with assisting the downtrodden and some are determined to help only themselves."

Jakes admonishes the reader to consider his/her gifts and purpose for life, and to use those gifts to build economic freedom and wealth. He urges that African Americans expand their interests to include entrepreneurship, voting, political leadership and a commitment to race protection that will make the African-American agenda inclusive of all segments of the community.

As Walters, Sharpton, Edelman and Smiley, Jakes also acknowledges the need for balance and respect for the wisdom and experience of those who have gone before. "Sometimes all you have to go on is a very poor description of how to proceed," writes Jakes. "It feels like life hands you a warrant for the arrest of the place called 'there.' You are trying to apprehend this villain without an adequate description of who or where he is."

Contrary to the Talented Tenth of which W.E.B. DuBois spoke, Smiley, Edelman, Walters and Jakes are laying the charge of race protection and leadership at the feet of everyone who has been fortunate enough to witness the dawning of a new millennium. Regardless of socioeconomic status, opportunities to mentor, to lead, to fight, to speak out, to be empowered and to make a difference have never been more accessible or convenient.

Technological advancements have opened a world of new possibilities for African Americans to get out, get involved and get their piece of the American Dream. The African-American voice has never been more diverse or persuasive, yet every writer says protecting the race demands unity.