Synopses & Reviews
Drawing on a wealth of oral interviews collected by activist and politician Julian Bond and historian Phyllis Leffler, Black Leaders on Leadership uses the lives of prominent African Americans from all sectors of society to trace the contours of Black leadership in America. Included here are fascinating accounts from a wide variety of figures such as John Lewis, Clarence Thomas, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Vernon Jordan, Angela Davis, Amiri Baraka, and many more. Stories of identity are foregrounded here - stories about the self, about group and community, about value and meaning. These individual and collective memories form a genealogy of social and cultural identity, demonstrating how leadership emerges from historical struggle rooted in the promise of a brighter future, and providing valuable insights into the intractable disparities of race in America.
A website -http://www.blackleadership.virginia.edu - hosts the complete interviews, is fully searchable by topic, and allows the voices and the faces of those interviewed to come alive on the pages of the book through the use of QR codes. Educators will also find seven leadership lessons for use in classrooms on the website and a full glossary of terms in both printed and electronic formats.
Synopsis
Drawing on a wealth of oral interviews, Conversations on Black Leadership uses the lives of prominent African Americans to trace the contours of Black leadership in America. Included here are fascinating accounts from a wide variety of figures such as John Lewis, Clarence Thomas, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Angela Davis, Amiri Baraka, and many more.
About the Author
Phyllis Leffler is the Director of the Institute for Public History and Professor at the University of Virginia. She is the co-author of
Public and Academic History: A Philosophy and Paradigm (1991) and
Public History Readings (1990) and has published award-winning articles in
The Public Historian and the
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. She is the co-director of the Explorations in Black Leadership project at UVA (www.blackleadership.virginia.edu).
Julian Bond is a prominent African American activist, politician, and teacher who served from 1998 to 2010 as the chairman of the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People and the co-director of the Explorations in Black Leadership project at UVA. He was also the first president of the Southern Poverty Law Center and served a combined twenty terms in both houses of the Georgia Legislature. Among his books are Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table: A Documentary History of the Civil Rights Movement (1995) and Lift Every Voice and Sing: A Celebration of the Negro National Anthem, 100 Years, 100 Voices (2000).
Table of Contents
Black Leaders on Leadership: Conversations with Julian Bond
Table of Contents
Foreward by Julian Bond
Black Leader Biographies
A Note About the Web and Use of QR Codes
Acknowledgements
Introduction - Black Leadership: A Collective Biography
1. Defining Self: Oral history, Story-Telling, and Leadership
2. Families: Extended and Fictive Kin, Racial Socialization, Diligence
3. Education: Caring Communities
4. Networks: Role Models, Mentors, Organizations
5. Law and Social Change: Catalyst for Leadership
6. The Civil Rights Movement: Grassroots Leadership
7. Leadership Lessons
Appendices
A - Leadership Questions
B - Glossary
Bibliography