the project. so the common themes that emerge as people talk about their lives are the importance of families and of course within families there are all kinds of more narrowly defined assumptions and expectations that come out of family life. there's a chapter on education and the enormous value that the black community placed on education. we often talk about the failures of education for the black community. and somehow by extension, we come to assume that people value education enough where they would have succeeded. but that's just not true at all. and these interviews help us to understand the enormous importance that successful black leaders and their families put on education. third, there is a chapter on the ande of community networking. i think a concept that we often forget.

and then beyond that, there are themes that emerge about the importance of national causes that catalyze people to see themselves as leaders. catalysts like the brown decision itself, which black leaders were so heavily involved. and then of course the civil rights movement that generated grassroots leaders who came about and then became leaders for the rest of their lives. so the book has those major themes and i think that's exactly what emerges from the interviews and that's why i wrote the book, to call attention to these themes. but you can also just go to the website and find what you want in these interviews. >> phyllis leffler, thank you very much. >> it's a pleasure. i'd like to begin by asking you to recollect as best you can

what you think of as being the most important early influences on your own life. my father wasrse an educator and when i was born, he was president of ford valley state college in southern georgia. had been a classroom teacher and then went back to that and stopped again over the course of my early life. but they were the prime influences as parents are with all children. they set very high standards for their children but had a soft hand. thissn't that you must do but we expect you to do this. spent aather, who had great deal of his career researching the development of leadership figures, had always if you had an advantage over the massive black

people, if you had an education, if you had a good job, then you had some responsibility to use that education and that position to help those less fortunate than you. and mymy older sister younger brother and i all absorbed these messages from our parents. way.ever in a hectoring but always, this is your responsibility and you've got to do it. and i hope the three of us took these lessons to heart. >> in your growing up years, you lived for many years on the campus of lincoln university. >> yes. in a fairlyved isolated environment. in the biography that has been written of your family, roger williams quotes your sister as saying you lived in a very isolated community and it was a very isolated existence.

would you agree with that? >> yes. both of the places that we lived were rural, so isolated in that sense. they were sort of closed communities, college campus. isolated in that sense. and you are surrounded by a relatively small group of people who are your neighbors and your friends. so although at lincoln university i went to public school, and was educated with a wide variety of children from the surrounding community, in my nonschool life, i lived in this very small world populated by academics, their spouses and children, and in many ways it was a world cut off from the larger world. although the larger world was ever present and ever intruding and we went in and out of it.

but it really was a closed society. >> how was the larger world ever present? >> i remember once we were sitting on the front porch of our home, and anybody could drive by, and we were sitting on the porch and you heard this -- someone was shot at the house. it was a typical president's house with big columns. and we didn't realize at the time what it was. but that was the world into routing. we lived very close to the maryland border. and in rising sun, maryland was center and they burned crosses and held rallies and did all those things. lincolntime came when students went into the nearby town of oxford and a set in the downstairs part of the movie

theater, which was segregated by custom, not by law. and that caused a tremendous hubbub in the neighborhood. they had violated this racial code that student challenged for all these years. collegethey were students, they were young people, they were from philadelphia and washington and new york and they wouldn't tolerate this kind of attitude. tension,was always both normal town tension that you see in every academic community surrounded by a larger community, and a black-white tension. here's this overwhelmingly black male campus surrounded by this rural white countryside populated by these little towns. so there was always tension in the air. but it didn't come in all the time. most of the time, this was idyllic. imagine living in a place where you had your own gymnasium because the university gymnasium was open to all of us.

you had your own playing field, football field, baseball diamonds. in many ways it was an idyllic life. some point you were a student at the lincoln university public school. school? an integrated >> when we moved there in 1945, the schools were segregated. again by custom, not by law. to my father filed a lawsuit integrate these schools and before the suit could come to trial, the school board capitulated. close to the black school and the black children simply crossed the street and went to the white school. these are one room country schools with outdoor toilets. >> was the black school the tom thumb school? >> that was an earlier school. was oxford township whatever.

i remember the black school had one teacher named mrs. brown. and a smaller number of school students. and the white school had two rooms. and as you graduated in grades you moved upstairs. and so they fired mrs. brown. i don't know what happened to her. >> what do you remember about changing from one school to the other? went from one school to the other so i never experienced the change. my father sued so i didn't have to go to the black school. i don't think i had much consciousness at the time that a change had occurred. there was just this empty building across the street that i knew had been a school. it i didn't immediately understand that at one time black kids were here, white kids were here. and the white kids i went to school with were both the children of faculty members at lincoln and why children from the neighborhood. and as far as i know there was no disruption at all. the kids just took it as

something that happened. i'm sure the adults were ruffled by it. but none of that came into my life. >> i want to ask you about the brown decision. but before we do that, i just like to stay for a few minutes on your family background. you talked about your parents as significant mentors. who else do you remember from your earliest years? we lived at lincoln next door to the dean. a man named joseph hill. he was a man of enormous culture. he later left academia and went to cleveland where he helped celebratedheater, a special bitter which is going on celebrated theaterional

which is going on today. he wore three-piece suits. he looked very much the stereotypical academic. hill a great dean deal. so i'm living in a community where all the adults have a phd. and these are almost all men. some women. and all of the women have some professional training of some kind. they had been school teachers and so on. so you are living in the midst of this community of a competent. -- of accomplishment. and because my father was president, all these people who came to lincoln to make speeches came to our house. albert einstein. i have a picture of my father and albert einstein standing together. i have a picture of myself kneeng on paul robison's while he sings to me.

there is a picture of w.e.b. dubois and my father consecrating my sister and i. and of course at the time, you mean elbert einstein and you know he is a famous person. but if you are seven or eight years old you don't have any he is.preciation for who and i don't imagine it's any different from any other child growing up on any other small liberal arts college campuses anyplace else in the country except this was a special place. lincoln was thought of as the princeton. founded originally to train missionaries to go to africa and then became a regular liberal arts college of some great distinction. it really educated the cream of the crop. whoe were young people couldn't go to their state universities or private university, didn't want to go to

the state-supported black colleges. lincoln was a prestigious school. >> so you take that heritage and you go to the george school for your high school years. >> the local public high school -- the lower grade schools were one room school's. s. you are really getting educated or three times over.two and they really weren't adequate schools. sent my sister to private school in cambridge, massachusetts. and myself and my brother as well. i went to the george school in pennsylvania. and my preparation was so poor that i had to repeat my first year. so i was at this school five years.

because the work was just above me. i was smart. i could read and write. but i didn't have any kind of foundation to compete with these other kids who had had superior education all along. but that was a wonderful place. and ita quaker school began to a quite me with this philosophy. and i'm not at all religious. but the quakers believe there is some god and every person and their religious service doesn't have a minister. you could get up and speak. i can get up and speak. joe, mary, frank. if we think we have something to offer. and that kind of democratic thought i think had a great affect on me at an early age. and of course i was in processing it quite in this way. i began to realize it later on. but the quakers were wonderful people and this was a wonderful school. sense ofu feel any loneliness? >> oh yes.

it was terrible. first, i was the shortest person in the school. and we had dances. and of course i have never danced with a girl before but i learned how. but i'm having to dance like this instead of like this. so that was a little offputting. i was the only black boarding student. there was another black a student but i was -- day student. , but i was the only black board of student. there was a black couple on the faculty and there were black people working in the kitchen. that was the black presence at the george school. and you are unintentionally made to feel unwelcome. the big deal was to get a package from home with cookies and cakes and stuff like that because we didn't have a store where you could buy that and you .ould pass it around i asomeone would say, am

nigger, why aren't you giving it to me? and then they would say oh, julian, we don't mean you. >> so you felt the sense of a color line? >> yes, and initially, this enormous loneliness. i have never been away from home, living in a dormitory room with a stranger until then. someone who remained a close friend for many years, but your parents have left you there. you have your clothes. it was awful. >> were there people at the george school who sought you out? who served as mentors? >> a couple of people. tch.was john stre

stand inns a barbecue oakland, california. got out of teaching. >> what did he teach? >> i don't know. i never had him. but he was a presence. some of the teachers lived in the dormitories and had apartments in the dormitories and he lived in the dormitory i lived in as a freshman. julius laramore, who was the latin teacher. he was a georgian. i had this idea of white southerners and thought, i don't want to be around this guy. warm and friendly, a bachelor who had devoted his life to this kind of teaching at the school. probably making less than he could have made it at public schools taught latin? many public schools taught latin? and he smoked. nobody else at the school

smoked. you could smell the smoke coming out of his apartment and to us, that was high drama. the headmaster of the school was a man named richard mcfeely. he was paralyzed from the waist down. and somehow to me he was a rooseveltian character. and he looks like him. he had a big chest. ping-pong wizard. so held lock his braces could stand upright and with one crutch under one arm, he could eat anybody. and he was a constant friendly welcoming presence. not just for myself but for other kids who were lonely and frightened. he made us all feel at home. so after an initial period of real loneliness and feeling like i don't belong here, i felt at home. >> what values did you learn from the george school?

>> they made us work. not to pay her tuition, you just had to work. for example one year you might work in the kitchen where you would serve the food. and you could work before the meal, during, or after. during was the best time because you served and you got to eat as much as you want. after was awful because you got to -- you had to clean up. or you were cleaning in office. everybody had to do work. it didn't matter who you were. the jobs rotated and it was luck of the draw. and i think it showed me that nobody is too good to work. and i went to school with some rich kids who had never done anything, never worked in the kitchen before. and it was experience for them and it was at experience for me. but this kind of east coast of quakerism that -- this kind of

ethos of quakerism that everybody is somebody made a big impression on me. you mentioned the egalitarianism that came out of that quaker experience. i have also heard you say that you were influenced by the quaker adage, speaking truth to power. >> oh yes. george fox, one of the founders used this phrase. i don't think he originated it but the quakers were persecuted in england. and if weis the king can speak to the king, we can say anything we want to to the king. and here in the united states, the same tradition -- the combination of nonviolent that we are going to

resist if we see something we don't like. we're going to do something about it. we are not going to shoot or maim or burn or kill. we are going to do it peacefully and we're going to do it. and it doesn't matter what you do to us. we will be back. effect onad an arm's me and it wasn't until the civil rights movement came along that i really put this together. -- at this time you meet these people who were tax resisters. wouldn't pay their income tax because the money was used for war. and i thought, how can you not pay your income tax? everybody pays. and they go to jail. i thought, you go to jail voluntarily? of course i later did it myself. so i learned a lot of lessons there. >> this concept, did you learn this more from the quaker school and from your parents? >> oh yes.

>> there are some people who have written that your parents felt very strongly that you had to always be the best you could be, that you couldn't make excuses for yourself. that you had this individual responsibility to excel. >> but what i learned at george school is something different than that. it encourage you to be a best. -- be your best. but i also encouraged you to speak out, to resist. not that my parents excepted things. my father helped do the research for the brown versus board of education lawsuit. he brought a lawsuit himself. he was a fighter in his own way. but at george school, you kept meeting people. we would have assembly and people would come and speak to us about working in a work camp in germany or in japan trying to

rebuild after the war. and to think we were fighting these people not long ago and here they are spending their summers or their lives trying to rebuild the societies that we were at war with just a few short years ago. and the example was impressive to me. >> it sounds as if perhaps the difference is in the george school this was a kind of global philosophy. wasin your parents case it individual incidents. >> exactly so. and the other difference is that while the quakers had a good position against racism, they had a universal concern. and my parents although they had a good position on universal concerns, were focused on race. so it was the mix of these two things that i absorbed. and when you are learning these lessons, a light doesn't go on ha, but sometime later you begin to process and it comes out.

>> in 1957 you graduate and move to atlanta with your family when your father becomes the dean of atlantic university. was it that you're that you started at morehouse? we moved in the summertime and in the fall of 1957i entered morehouse. frankly i was a frightened about going back south. we had left the south when i was five. the pittsburgh courier, the baltimore afro-american, the black papers of the time. and these papers are filled with atrocities from the south. lynchings, murders. and you think these are common everyday occurrences. and they are not that common but you would think they are and you think it's going to happen to me. my mother wanted me to buy a suit to go to college with. i said, you go. they won't hurt a woman. i'm at risk. but i went to morehouse and

settled in very quickly. it was a different experience for me. i had never been to an all-black school until i entered college. from the time i was five until i entered college, i had never gone to an all-black institution. >> let's go back for a minute. theuse this is probably reverse of the experience of many of your contemporaries. who would have gone to all black schools until college or beyond. so what was the impact of the brown decision on you? >> i remember it being discussed at the table. i don't remember my father's role. but i was 14 years old when this happened. i remember talking about it and i remember this feeling my parents had of great joy and optimism about it. had foolishk they

optimism, i don't think they thought things would change overnight. but they thought this was a sign of change, things were looking better. remember it in that context but i don't remember my father saying, i had something to do with that. so you remember the discussions but clearly it didn't have any direct impact on you. so you couldn't really have thought about what it meant for them or the future. i just read this feeling that good things were in store. but what those things were weren't specified or detailed but good things were happening. >> so it was a time of general optimism. 1957en we will go back to and you entered morehouse. introducedy you are to a -- you say it is the first all-black educational experience you had. and no doubt you would have been introduced to a broader cross

spectrum of people. who perhaps came from much poorer backgrounds than your own. >> yes and no. having gone to school at lincoln village, there were children mhose parents were far mor workers and children whose parents were university professors and this was true of white and black kids so there was an economic mix in these schools in this little town. but at george school, almost all the children were from the upper middle-class and some were from families of great wealth. and celebrated people. the movie critic of the new york son., bosley crowder's heather holliday whose mother was mary martin. danny selznick, whose father was david o selznick and whose

mother was jennifer jones. they were classmates. so i had this array of upper middle-class and upper-class people i went to high school with. when i went to college, the mix economicgeographic and because i'm going to college with boys -- this is an all-male school -- from detroit, chicago, new york, all over the country. and from the small town south. and many of the boys from the small town south weren't just from poor backgrounds. they were smarter than i was. and that was an adjustment. because they went to awful schools. they had been admitted to morehouse as high school juniors. morehouse took you early if you were smart enough. so i'm going to school with kids who didn't have the same educational background i did. i had a superior education and a high school background. who had an inferior but who

triumphed above it and went past me like nobody's business. that was a shock. >> what did you learn from your morehouse years? a combination of a couple of professors who didn't influence me so much in the subjects they taught but in the personalities they had. the guy who taught me math was professor dansby. he had a masters degree. one of the rare morehouse teachers without a doctorate. english,in near broken but taught me math better than anybody has ever taught me math. for the first time in my life i understood it. he made it clear to me. he was a consultant at what was then cape canaveral and he used to say to us, boys, i won't tell you i'm important. but you know they don't shoot out one of those rockets until i go down there. and it was true.

he would go down there and they would shoot off a rocket. he it just impressed me that would be on the surface and unlettered person but in reality they manage and norman's competence and the ability to communicate -- indoor miss mathematical competence and the what i to communicate had never been able to learn before. another guy, gladstone chandler. what a name. i took a speech class from him and i never thought i would make speeches. but we had to give speeches in class and i learned how to make a speech and i'm forever grateful to him. >> you've given a few since then. >> i've given many since then. the idea at morehouse is that every educated man would sometime have to speak to an audience. youe're going to teach

had to do it. those had a big influence on me. >> and you are right on the cusp of one the civil rights movement is heating up. i have heard you tell the story about lonnie bunch. and meeting him. if i were really to push you on this, would you really say -- were there not other things besides lonnie bunch -- i'm sorry, lonnie king that pulled --?into > life until then had pulled me in. everything i learned from my parents, everything i learned from the quakers about speaking truth to power, everything i learned about saying no to people whatever the consequences, all of that came up when lonnie king asked me to join.

and i imagine that had he not spoken to me, i would have gravitated toward it anyway. but maybe not. but he did. and it was all this combination of things that sort of pushed me when he asked, i was pushed to say yes. yes,d when you said describe the very beginnings of that. >> i was in this cafe and he came up to me with a newspaper it-insk about the s in greensboro. he said don't you think we ought to make it happen here and i said, what do you mean we? and he said you take the side of the cafe and i'll take the other. age. pretty shy at that i was not too shy to say we're having a meeting. noe said yes and some said

and that was the beginning of the atlanta sit-in movement. >> were you nervous? >> i was leading the group at city hallated cafeteria. i had to talk to the women behind the steam counter who were terrified. and then i had to talk to the white woman who was the cashier at the end of the line and she was very nice but i was frightened to death. and then she called the police and of course the police came and i was terrified of them. i had these images of clubs. but this was atlanta after all. this was not birmingham. and atlanta police had relatively good relationships with black atlantans and so they treated us in a decent way. just arrested us, put us in a paddy wagon, took us away. no maltreatment at all. so all my fears were dissipated. we got to jail. and we were in these cells with

other men who had gone to jail for who knows what. 's heou wondered, what cd in for? that we were only there for a couple of hours. but yes i was tremendously frightened. >> did your fear lessened after you did it once or twice? >> yes. on that occasion and in others, because i was in charge, i had to not show fear because the other people would be fearful. so i had to put on a brave front. a facade of fearlessness. to maintain some spirit among the people i was waiting. because you can't lead others and be fearful. you have to be brave. >> is that the point at which you might have started to think of yourself as a leader? >> i don't know. adreew there was a small c

at the top of our organization, which was called the committee on appeal for human rights. and we knew we were the leaders. lonnie king was the leader. but we knew we were leaders, too. i was thinking of myself as a leader of this group i was the leader of the atlanta sit-in's. stage of yourthat life had any concept of of how you would lead? >> not initially. we were focused on atlanta restaurants primarily. integrating these restaurants. within a few months, the vision began to broaden. we thought, we can take care of these things and then we can go back to what we were before. became short while, it clear that these things were going to be taken care of right away and there was more to do outside of lunch counters.

there were movie theaters, bus stations, the world out there was segregated. we hadcould use what done in this instance to attack it in these instances too. so this was going to be a longer struggle than we thought and i knew i was going to play a role in it. i wasn't sure what that role be.d >> who organized the game plan? >> lonnie king is most responsible for organizing it but it really was a collective. even though we had a hierarchical organization in atlanta, later when the sncc was founded, it became a community when everyone involved is making the decisions.

there is an executive director who wields day-to-day power but they decisions are always made collectively. and that model in some respects comes from the quaker meeting of all these people sitting in a room and everybody knowing that each person has the right to stand up and speak truth to power. >> was that a concept you brought to sncc? >> some of it came from a remarkable woman named ellen baker who had a long career as an organizer of protest and who had worked in the budding cooperative movement during the depression in harlem forming economic co-ops to buy milk and groceries and snow on and these co-ops developed the notion that there is one vote per person to no. our votes are equal because each of us is a person. and she bought that to us.

people andrust older miss baker was in her late 50's and very much the distinguished lady but we trusted her and always called her miss baker. some of the women called her ella. but she was always miss baker to me. >> did you stay in touch with lonnie king beyond those early years? >> yes. he graduated and came to howard law school. never finished, but lived in the d.c. area. were out ofle, we touch while i was in atlanta and he was in washington. but since i moved to washington about 15 years ago we have been back in touch. >> did he stay deeply involved in the civil rights movement? >> no he didn't. he became disaffected he said.

i was never sure why or if that was a real reason why. who started the sit in 1960 didn't stick with it. get more to specifically into the different stages of your leadership career starting with sncc. but isn't it interesting that the people you would have thought of as leaders of this movement didn't continue as leaders but you did? >> if you look at almost all of these towns and cities where the sit-in's breakout, two or three people start, it becomes a larger group, victory is achieved, the larger group contracts, and a small cadre goes on.

and some of the people in the larger group join the inner cadre. that's the way it happens. >> what you think it is about yourself that caused you to stay so intensely involved all these years even in many different capacities? about ae often wondered different aspect of the question. why on a college campus of 1000 200le did roughly only say, participate fairly regularly, and out of that 200, only about 20 consistently? this?y did i carry on in and i think those of us who carried on some early on victory. we integrated the lunch counters in atlanta. we won.

and i don't think we realized how tough the rest of it would be. one, weaid, we won this can win the next one. i don't think we understood how large the problem really was. but having won once, we knew we could win again. >> so there was a kind of empowerment. >> absolutely. when you got arrested the very first time, everybody describes it as a feeling of release. describes it as feeling more powerful than he had ever felt in life when he gets arrested. of course that's the time when you are powerless. elsee and everybody who talks about it says this is the best feeling have ever had in my life. and it was a wonderful feeling. >> so let's go on to those years in sncc.

a few years when you become the communications director. and sncc is obviously just making headlines all over the place and accomplishing so much in terms of voter registration political activism and empowerment. why did you end of communications director? >> because i had a facility for writing. i had always been a quick greater and a good writer. but i could very quickly write something that explained whatever this thing was. and we had a need for somebody to write press releases. and we had a newsletter called the student voice and we needed someone. it was essentially a newspaper of the civil rights movement and we did somebody who could read that very quickly. i could type. and i could do it. and i think in sncc, you did what you could do and if you were good at this, you did this.

if you are good at that, you did that. and i like doing it. -- i liked doing it. i had envisioned for a while being a journalist and this was like being a journalist. sncc did something, i took notes, i interviewed people, and i wrote it up. and i could do it just like that. i was quick. in a book onne iy civil rights leaders calls you the odd man out. which is hard for me to understand. >> me, too. years he says about those that basically you stayed out of harms way and that you didn't really believe in physical bravado. >> that was true then and it is true now. if you look at sncc organizationally, i was a bureaucrat. i worked in the central office. i went out in the field where danger was, but it was in and

out. i would visit a project here to research and write about it. sometimes of a photography who would take pictures of it. photographerwith a who would take pictures of it. so i wasn't in harms way in the normal course of things. i certainly didn't seek out harm because i didn't want harm to come to me and had a great deal of respect and admiration for people who did who were brave and could face this kind of thing. and went i went to these places -- mississippi, rural georgia, alabama -- i was terrified that something was going to happen. luckily for me it never did but i knew people to whom things did happened and i didn't want that to happen to me. >> so you think your role as communications director came as a result of your writing ability, not -- did it have anything to do with this desire to stay in the background and not be on the front lines? >> both had that and i was

married, and didn't want to leave a new family. the hard work was being done in these places where you had to live. and i was living in atlanta and didn't want to move family to rural mississippi or rural alabama. so it was probably a combination of just plain ordinary fear and circumstance. and those kept me in the safe and secure bosom of atlanta. >> and you said in those years that your experience at sncc -- you have used words and interviews like "fantastic." you have even said there has never been anything like it. been anythingever like it and i have had wonderful experiences doing other things. but this was the most intense in my life. first of all, i'm surrounded by other people my age.

we are running this thing. we are in charge. and that's awful heady. to be 22, 23, 25 and running this thing. and we were in charge. no older people saying do this. we did it ourselves. we raise the money. we did the work. we did a fabulous job. and the people with whom i'm working and who became closer friends than my high school classmates or my college classmates. these people are my closest friends today. we just shared this intense experience likened to soldiers in a foxhole. in ae not really soldiers foxhole because i'm living in atlanta and going out -- and some of these people are being shot at and beaten and some of them killed. but for most of us, it is a rough life and a life way down on the income scale, living in communal houses, 10 guys living

in a house sleeping in bunkbeds and so on. so it's not an easy life but it's not like being at war. but it's intense. and you >> looking at those years and thinking more globally about the rest of your life and career, what influence do you think those influences have had on the rest of your career? you feel like there was an intensity to that time. perhaps you never had anything quite like that. what influence did it have beyond the intensity of friendship? >> it convinced me of the necessity for involving everyone in making a decision. depending on what the group is that you are in. we are all in groups. groups make decisions about things they are going to do. tostruck me that you have

involve as many people as you can in making a decision. the decision you made will be agreed to by everyone, or by most people, at any rate. rather than my making a decision or you making a decision for all the rest of us. for me, comes, out of my experience. we made decisions this way. we thought we would have a reunion. the people are saying who made that decision? a repetition of what we were doing 40 years ago. we are still the same way. more than anything else, came out of that experience. also, the feeling that something is wrong, you can say this is wrong. we are not having this. we are not putting up with this. being a -- willing to do something about it. >> who were the leaders at that time, aside from your own group that you looked up to? >> james forman, the executive secretary. he always had a phrase. he used to say write it down. haven'td me -- i

learned this lesson well -- he said you have to document everything. something happens, write it down. take notes. that had a big impression on me. i haven't absorbed it as well as i could, but that made a big impression on me. i have records of things i have done. if i didn't write it down, somebody else did. i got back, i kept it. i know what happened. , who just had enormous courage and bravery, it was almost indescribable. he would go anywhere or do anything. he was always nonviolent. he was inviting the worst kind of punishment. selma,a concussion at beaten many other times at the riots. rides -- a brave soul. actually fearless. -- absolutely fearless. deeply committed to nonviolence. it was tactical for me. used on the picket line. don't use it someplace else. he was committed to it. in a deep way that most people

in the movement never had. 1962. are quoted in it is always dangerous to speak to the press is that it is in our information. in 1962, saying you were disappointed in martin luther king. the men that everyone talked about. >> everyone revered him. >> why were you disappointed? >> i can't remember the specifics, but something we thought was important he wasn't paying as much attention to as we thought. we thought he wasn't as militant as we were. wasn't as willing to risk as we were. i said that, i remember thinking that we wouldn't hear much more of this guy. some of the us would come on. >> i think you said he would become just another preacher. he would be a leader. >> where -- boy was i wrong? that was the feeling.

andscale of militants aggressive behavior -- we are talking about it in a nonviolent context. on a scale of aggressive behavior, we were first, he was second, more cautious. you couldn't to do this by caution. you had to be bold. we were bold and he was not. >> what causes you to choose to run for the georgia legislature? reapportionlature's of these seats was created with no incumbents. whoever ran would be running for an open seat. -- a friend, ben brown in adjacent district running for the state house. he said you need to run for this. you live in this open district. he urgently and urgently and urged me. finally, i agreed to do it. i have to tell you, i wasn't sure if i was a democrat or

republican. i think he said would you rather that lyndone party johnson heads? i aligned myself with the democrats. i had voted for kennedy in 1960. in georgia, you could vote at 18. no other state in the union you could vote at 18. i cast my vote for john f. kennedy. democrats, republicans, it wasn't a begin with me then. >> you didn't have any models of politicians, people who had selected -- served selected office? , two ormclane powell three other block numbers of congress. most of them were machine people. dawson from chicago, nick from thought of you. these are machine politicians. won't say they were useless, because that is not true. they were preachers of machines. they went independent actors or thinkers. was, but he had this

flamboyance. it was offputting for us in the south. he was grasping for a place in the movement that had passed him by. he became a less and less appealing figure. i had these remote models of people who ran for office. in atlanta, there was a guy on the city council, qb williamson, real estate guy, celebrated as he was the first black person elected to the school board in atlanta many years before the 1960's. he was austere, a remote figure. i had no models anywhere close to my age, our ages. ben and i are the same age, 25 years old at the time. i didn't know any black person

anywhere, or white person for that matter, who had been elected to public office at 25. i didn't know any. >> where you are, you have a young family. you had given up your job at the atlanta inquirer? accounts, a logical direction for you to take because you are good with language, you like to write, a good writer. you gave all that up. this seems to me to be at the time and in numerous risk in terms of the resources you would have to come up with to run. the likelihood of success. what made you take that kind of risk? >> the resources required, at least in today's terms, are relatively minimal. i don't think i spend more than a few hundred dollars on this. which i borrowed from my father. arnold means he gave it to me. -- a couplemeans

thousand dollars to run. now, people spend $100,000 to run for the georgia state house. papero the writing, the -- i wrote everything. i wrote advice, i wrote the letters and answers. abby, my boyfriend doesn't like me and so forth. i would write dear barry. king.eedom ring by lonnie every new stories, too. i give that up. i didn't think it was a risk. i thought we could win. .e were superb organizers all political campaigns are our organizing efforts. that is what we did. that is what we did to demonstrate, to get the people, find out who can do it, who will do it, say something to them. there we are. we knew we could do that. i knew i could call on this country -- on this cadre of

workers. when people came to atlanta for the weekend, they would spend the day with me. i don't think anyone had ever run a campaign in atlanta of the kind that is standard all over the country. doorknocking, precincts, walking, doorbell ringing the way we did. we won. >> your father is on record as saying he wants all of his children to be college presidents. he said that in an interview. , age 25 or so, dropped out of college, gone into political organizing, now running for political office. was this something he supported when you do this? >> he was disappointed at it, but supported it. he wished i had gone another way. didn't want me to drop out of school. my parents were always very supportive. he gave me the money to qualify for office. did some lightweight campaign

for me. he rallied his friends and others who lived in the district to vote for me. he was always supportive, but i'm sure he was disappointed. >> you never felt this was a path you dare not go down? >> not at all. all possibilities were open. >> i think that is unusual. >> i am sure there are things i could have done that he would have said no. i wasn't going to do those things. i wasn't interested in those things. >> once you get elected to an absoluteecome named commodity across america. because of the inability to be seated, the refusal of the legislature to see you, three times, in fact, and you take it to the supreme court. as i look at that stage of your career, it seems to me that must have been really extraordinary to be 25, 26 years old, fighting

this, being in all of the national newspapers, not knowing how it would come out, probably being rushed i don't need to put words in your mouth, but probably being furious by the actions. >> i was so angry. i knew how it would come out. i knew i was right. lawyer, but i had the advice of excellent lawyers who assured me that we were right, that we would prevail in the end. t about that. i was fearful about what would happen once i got in, but i knew i was getting in. everything was on my side. >> how could you have no doubt that you would win when you had watched the courts completely disregard the law and so many other ways? >> we knew the supreme court then as a poster now. -- as opposed to now. it would do the right thing. i knew it.

we knew they would do the right thing. i had excellent lawyers. not only the man who became my brother-in-law, but leonard putin and victor rabinowitz, they had one a series of supreme court cases, serious attorneys, expert in the first amendment. they are presented communists. they are great lawyers. we couldn't lose. i don't mean we were foolishly optimistic about it. >> they also have the reputation of being very radical people, strongly affiliated with the communist party. >> i didn't think the court would mind. in fact, because they had been to the court before and one. that was good enough for me. i knew they could prevail. i knew they were superior to the attorney general of georgia. i was surprised when we lost on the lower court level, when the two entity appointees voted against me. >> how were you so able to keep your cool? >> when they threw me out of the legislature, there was a period

onee hours one day between on we appear before the body. there was a three-hour delay. i went to the basement of the capitol and i broke out in hives all over my face. terrible. just nerves, nervousness. everybody was looking at me, everybody was staring at me. people taking pictures of me. sticking microphones and my face. nerve-racking. i always knew we would win. >> you clearly always had the ability to hold onto your temper enough to not get yourself -- >> when i was growing up in lincoln, i was playing with younger kids. i picked this child up and threw him down. we were in a sandbox, a pit that high jumpers use, it was soft. i threw him down. i thought i had killed him.

i thought, this is what happens when you kill your -- lose your temper. he was vertically fine. geewhiz., i resolved i would let this happen to me ever again. i wouldn't lose control again. next that is quite an object lesson. let's talk a little bit about your years as a georgia politician, first in the house of representatives, and then in the georgia senate. that takes 21 years of your career. what points do you most remember? do you feel where most distant wishing for you and most difficult? >> the house years were not happy years. it was in the house that i was expelled from. my limits, sloppy floyd -- nemesis -- was still there. whenever we would get sworn in, he would walk out of the chamber. he wouldn't get sworn in with

me. he had a small cadre of friends who were always hostile people. that was not a happy time. i moved across the building to the senate. that was a much better time. i became chairman of a committee. i passed a lot of bills. i enjoyed -- there are 56 of us. if i get 28 people to agree with me and i'm the 29th, i have one. i can carry the day. . love to that idea you always knew this people would vote, no matter what it was, they would vote with me. they didn't care. these people might, if you expand it to them, these people are tougher because you had to explain it to them. these people you could trade with. i will vote for you on this if you vote for me on this. i liked putting all of that together. i very much enjoyed that. i liked the kind of formality of

the place where you would be the -- it is and woman enforced formality which keeps civility in the place. i would never call anybody a name, never make any reference to you accept in the nicest kind of way even though i am attacking you and what you are saying. i enjoyed that. questions,sking taking speeches -- making speeches. i enjoyed that a great deal. >> do you feel that in the georgia house that you were never given a chance? >> i wouldn't say i was never given a chance. it is just that the people who were opposed to me were among the most powerful. committee chairs, the speaker was always very firmly towards me. aen i came, it was -- he was fair guy. he treated me as early as you can imagine -- as fairly as you

can imagine. i always felt as if there were hostile forces a foot. probably was inhibited by trying as hard as i might because of the fear that no matter how hard i tried, nothing would happen. it wasn't so much people said no as an implied no. when i got to the senate, i knew i didn't like people, they didn't like me. generally speaking, that didn't make difference. we could work together on something of mutual interest. we would be back together the next day. all of these people are politicians. politicians know you are nothing but a vote. you can be a vote for or against. they want you to be a vote for. it is in their interest to be from the and nice to you. john -- tomse and inenia in an article 1972 claim that you were viewed in 1972, before the senate years, as an enigma in a family

of strivers and doers. the suggestion would be that somehow you want striving in your years in the legislature. how do you respond to that? >> i don't know what that means. today me my own family? my sister and my brother? >> i think the suggestion is you came from a family of people who are strivers and doers. the suggestion was you are not living up to that. >> i was striving and doing. i was getting reelected at the legislature, one measure of success. i was building seniority that would pay off eventually with more years than i care to put into it. i was passing the occasional bill. i was extremely active in georgia, like most places, has a local courtesy role where you legislate your city without any interference from the rest of the state. i did a lot of that, helping

atlanta pass bills. they wanted to this, that, the other. i was striving. i don't know how to put that. i have always had the feeling that people had great expectations for me. it is flattering. i don't think their expectation and my expectation are always the same thing. when i haven't met their expectation, somehow, i have failed. in my life, i have been successful. >> one real measure of that success was in 1968 when you were nominated for vice president. you can't accept it because you are too young. in 1976, you float a bid for the presidency. i know you withdrew from early on. those are enormous measures of esteem, it seems to me, to be in that league. obviously, at this point you are

in the 70's, at the height of your political career, height of your political recognition. you talk about the years in the georgia senate as really important and positive years for you. it seems to me one of your choices was where to go from there. you decide to run for the congressional district, fifth congressional district? you lose to your friend, john lewis. i would like to talk a little bit about what it was like. >> i do the district -- drew that district. i drew those lines. >> what was it like to run a campaign against your good friend? >> i would like to think my good friend ran against me. i was the first one. all of the other people who ran ran against me. it caused a serious break in a relationship which so far as i can's -- was concerned had been

as close as it possibly could be. i can honestly say that john was my best friend. we went places together, our families vacationed together. we did everything together. we gave each other christmas presents, so on. me, theran against nature of the criticism he issued against me was a surprise. i had run against people and people had run against me before in the house and senate races. always, the level of dialogue was on a high plane. i have done these things. people would say i can do them better. i would always rebel. in this race, he began to talk as a different kind of personality than i was. i was a slacker, lazy, not successful. he was brave, courageous,

strong, true. -- and i'm he set up one point that you were a taillight rather than a headlight. >> he said the julia bond worked for me. nobody works for anybody. we were all equal. we worked together. no one works for anybody else. there were no buses. ses.osd that was painful for me. it was a break in the relationship that never healed. we see each other from time to time and i would like to think we're cordial, but it has never healed. works you said you were the first in and he ran against you. this is about you, not him, but do you have any understanding of why he would do that? >> i don't. he had just gotten reelected the year before to his city council seat with the implied promise he would serve four years. why, after one year, would you

give that up to run -- everyone is ambitious. everyone wants to improve themselves. this was the opportunity to do this. the person who wanted this seat would be there for a time immemorial as long as he or she wanted to be. andess he saw the chance took it. >> clearly, this had to be very hurtful to you. your best friend does this to you. he wins. had a7, you are really very difficult part of your -- really low point in terms of your personal life, in terms of your career options. was 1987 a turning point? .> tremendously so and running for a house for congress, i had to give up the senate seat. when it is over, not only do i not win this job, i and unemployed. i have no job. i have no prospects for a job. my marriage is ending, falling

apart. all of these things at the same -- i don'tremendous want to say burden -- whatever it was, it was tremendous. >> you are 47 years old in your world is clearly falling apart. one thing i would really like to hear you reflect on his how you saw the way out of that? where did the strength come from? what kind of strength did it take to be able to figure out a new path, a new way from there? was a circumstance that led you to where you got? >> a combination of circumstance and my seeing a chance and going for the chance. when you get in a situation like that, what can you do? you can go up, you can go down. you're going to go one way or the other. no matter what happens, msu take hold.

-- unless you take hold. i decided i had to take hold and find something else to do. i had no prospects. no one was saying you can work for me, i have a job, you can do this. i didn't think i have the kind of skills i could turn into a job. was not inteaching my mind. i didn't think about it. circumstance, i fell into that through circumstance. i fell into the circumstance through effort. i knew i had to do something. i began looking for something. it wasn't so much i was considering maybe i will do this, maybe i will do that. i knew i was going to do something. i had response abilities, i had bills to pay. alimony not the least of them. i had to live, myself. 1987, did it effectively and any prospect for a further political career for you? >> i don't think so. in politics, there is always a

second act. look at richard nixon. it doesn't matter. i think had i stayed in atlanta, runuld have been at, y, z, for another office, i may have been successful at it. .t ended it for me there is nothing else i wanted to do. i think i could have done some thing else had i wanted to. county commission -- none of those were appealing. atlanta had become -- it was not a happy place for me. it was a place i did not want to live anymore. the newspapers were so hostile to me, incredibly so. i couldn't live in a situation like that. i had to get away. >> is that the point to which you moved to washington? >> yes, i moved to washington. >> what caused you to move to washington? why washington? .> i knew someone here i moved to be with her. we got married. meave to say, she has helped

achieve a new life in ways that were unimaginable to me in so many different ways. it has been a godsend. i can't tell you how great a godsend. she may become to washington. -- made me come to washington. ask after that, you begin to get requests to teach for a term at different universities? drexel, pennsylvania, harvard, virginia before you take on a full-time position. how did that come about? >> i will say you how the first one came about. all during this time i had been hosting a television show in washington. i would come to washington every third week and we would do three shows in one night, three half-hour shows. a constant guest was the president of american university. he was articulate, bright, the

perfect tv guest. he could talk about anything. one day, we are doing a show during a commercial break, and he said, have you ever thought about teaching? he said would you like to teach at american university? he was the president, he fixed it up. i began to do it. i enjoyed it. it is something i would not thought i would enjoy. my father had done it before he became an administrator. it looked to me like an awful lot of work. it is an awful lot of work. it looked to me like an awful lot of work. thousandsly spoke to and thousands of people, but you can give the same speech every night. you can't give the same talk in the classroom everyday. you have to have a long narrative of notes and back it up with something. american and then drexel,rd, penn,

williams, i began to put together and i'm still putting together, but i began to put together a course on civil rights. it was at american where i really started out. >> that opened up the possibility. >> it made me see that i can do this. >> that was just chance? >> absolute chance. >> not something you went out and actively sought. >> i would value something else. drexel, i was driving from western pennsylvania back to d.c. off in lancaster, pennsylvania. a friend of mine was having a party. one of the guests was the dean of the business school at penn, anyway, wharton. i didn't know they had an undergraduate college. he said, how would you like to teach at penn?

ok, i can do that. we drove on to philadelphia to see the flower show your photo here has a great flower show. i called a friend of mine and said i want to be teaching at penn. he said how would you like to teach at drexel? i taught at drexel at night -- drexel in the afternoon and penn at night. >> you begin to become known as someone who was available. >> for a while, it was have syllabus, will travel. the more i did it, the more understood -- i understood i could do it and i could do it well. i think i do it better every semester. >> the last aspect of your career that i would like to talk about would be your involvement and now,national naacp of course, your national leadership once again as national chair of the naacp.

during the 1990's, there was a lot of tension, struggle within the naacp. for a number of years, you were on the board there. you are not reelected to the board. you say at that point that you essentially got a limited from the board. -- eliminated from the board. i would like for you to talk about your personal feelings through all of that turbulence. strategyou develop the for helping to move the organization forward. >> let me start earlier than that. snick, we were content to us of the naacp. it was slow-moving, it appeared to us to be overly dependent exclusionism to the of more activist things. it was not for us. that is why we formed the new

organization. when i got into my late 80's and was gone,lanta, snick the naacp was there. atlanta had an excellent range with a -- branc with a paid staff. h i got on the board of the local naacp and i got elected president. from that, i got elected to the board and served on the board for about 16 years. then, this dispute arose with the then chairman, william gibson, who just passed away. and ined him retaliation, he targeted me for defeat. i have a newspaper cooking, he says don't vote for bond. i lost my seat on the board. the organization is mired in scandal. this came to a head, he was defeated by one vote by renee ellmers.

by this time i am back on the board. we hire a new executive director. he brings a fresh air -- a breath of fresh air to the organization. miss everest decides she won't run for reelection after 31-year terms. board members approach me and ask if i would run? -- three one year terms. i agree to do so and campaign and got elected in a contested election. four other candidates were running. in a runoff election, i won. i was reelected four times unanimously without dissent. i saw this organization has a little backward, a little ,ld-fashioned, terribly slow ridden by internal disagreements. not over policy, not are we for affirmative action or against? nothing like that.

personal disagreement spirit fights among numbers of the board. the board is described as a circular firing squad. pointed at each other. i thought i had to overcome this, somehow or the other. i have to make these people work together. both building on something everest had done, forming a relationship with a harvard business school where we spent a weekend a year for the last four years and where they have helped us enormously with these issues of self governance and how it board behaves which has been magical for us. then, working with the ceo. we had to fire or lay off 75% of our staff because we were 4.5 billion dollars in debt. working to help rebuild the staff and bring it up to strength once again. i was lucky enough to work with donors who gave us large conservations in the millions. -- $4.5 million in debt.

that helps us out a great deal. the big challenge has been to keep moving forward area to keep improving. not to get to a place to say where we are ok now, but to keep pushing and pushing. it is not easy to do. the board is so large, the organization is so large. the organization is so itocratic, people have said suffers from an access of democracy. at every step, the leadership is elected. the local president is elected, the state president is elected, regional president, the board is elected, we are consumed all the time with these election battles and disputes. you lose, you challenge me, etc. it is the toughest job i have ever had. it is not a paying job. to you speak about this, just as you spoke about the georgia legislature, you talk in terms

of others approaching you to run. as a reduction on your leadership, it is very interesting -- as a reflection on your leadership. it is consistent. it is not you deciding you wanted this. just as lonnie king did, people approached you, you decided to step up to the plate. it happens. >> i decided myself to run for congress. maybe it is a lesson. way for somebody to ask. at the naacp, bishop graves, a member of the board asked me to run. he said something clever. he said i want to ask you to run for chair. he said don't say no. don't say anything, but don't say no. then he got other people to call me and ask me. when two or three called me, i thought maybe i have a shot at this. >> what would you say have been the in doing principles -- in enduring principles by which you lead and live?

>> by which i lead, it is the idea that everybody has something to say. ,n the naacp board, 63 people everyone has to have their say. even some people who may not contribute much, they have to have their say, or the chance at a say. that there has to be transparency, the modern word for openness. there has to be openness. organizations that depend on public support have to be transparent. the public has to see that you are spending your money wisely, safely, nobody is enriching themselves, everything is on the up and up. you adhere to the groups principles. you have to have that. if you lose that, you lose everything. that is part of it. people have to see you, the leader, as someone who adheres to principal. i do the best i can. at peoplei get angry

raising their hands and wanting to talk with the 15th time on something. usually, i say go ahead. themave to give -- i want to do it for me when i raise my hand. i want to be treated -- i want to treat people the way i want them to treat me. the old golden rule. i really believe in that. treat me the way you want me to treat you. if you do that, we can get along, we will be ok. >> would you call your vision? >> i guess so. i believe in fairness. i don't mean in a big racial terms. in personal terms, i believe in fairness. let's refer to each other. you give me something, i give you some thing. u.s. for something, i will ask for something. we are even. it may even be that you have a million dollars and i have a thousand dollars, but we are even. we are each do the same level of respect. >> how would you just in which

-- how would you distinguish between your vision, philosophy, and style? are they one in the same? >> i think they are probably the same. my philosophy -- i am not sure i can sum it up the way i would .ike to, i want to go here there may be several different ways to go, all of them equally good, none of them bad ways. i will take whichever way will get me there. it may not always be the fastest, but hopefully, it will be the one that gets me there in the best shape. none of these are bad choices. these are all decent ways to do this. i want the one that will get me there, everybody feels good about it, everyone is happy at the result -- most people are, anyway. ultimately, you are returning to the concept of a consensual model. >> i believe in that. that leaders say

are made because they are just great people, therefore they become leaders. some would say that movements make leaders. some would simply say it is a confluence of unpredictable events that create leaders. for their times. which is the case for you? of course, i'm a great person. >> sure you can, we'll do that. >> i think it is a combination of circumstances and seeing an opportunity, being able to put them together. being ready at the moment, being prepared at the moment. i was someplace and a fire engine came by and i thought -- a construction site at the library. i thought, what if something has

fallen on somebody and someone is hurt. is there something i can do? luckily, there was nothing i could do. i felt as if i could do something, whatever it was, i could do it. i would like to think that i'm ready to do it. always the ready to do this thing, but i'm always ready to do something. >> do you think of being the issue where and in the place you in the earlyu were 60's had something to do with your future leadership? would you say the circumstances -- >> absolutely. if i was born 10 years earlier or 10 years later, we can't say. having been born when i was an being where i was when i was had everything to do with it. young people are doing this all over the south. they are popping up every day sitting in some place new. people very much just like me, black college students in the south doing something i know i can do.

i never try to do it, but i knew i could do it. i was frightened by a, scared about it. i knew i could do it. i think that was a common feeling among all of us. we knew we could do this. >> there was something about that historical moment that created a whole generation of leaders. when you talk about where this leadership comes from, there was something about that moment i gave people the opportunity to find out that they could do it. >> nine times out of 10, movement throws out leadership. the 10th >> what are those issues of today that will throw up leaders? >> take the administration's the mastic prosecution on the wo -- domestic recitation of the

people without charges. already, people have sprung up old and new, old like the aclu who traditionally worry about these issues and new like people are age enraged by this, or take the campaign against sweatshops. manufacturer university shop clothing like uva t-shirts. previously had not been engaged at all and anything suddenly become engaged in this. this strikes them for one reason or another, we don't know why, they are outraged by this. they rallied together, form a group, create a new group, join an existing group. take some action. toething commands people these things. >> there are these very important issues, i don't doubt that, but there is really -- is there anything of the magnitude

of their? is, but i think there don't think most people do. race is as big an issue now as it is then. it has certainly been ameliorated a great deal then to now. this is a better world now than when i was a college student. i can't understand why more people are compelled by this. it compels me. i have got to do something about it. i have found a way to do something about it. it is not the same thing everybody does. other people do in their own way. i am compelled to do it. i have to do this. >> would you define yourself as a race conscious leader? x i would say i am a race man. my grandfather was a race man. somebody who put race above all. i don't mean that he thought his race was superior to other races, but that concern for the race was above all. i am a race man. >> would you say then that

working on issues of race doesn't just improve things for the black man? >> absolutely. that is the whole point of things. i am fond of saying i am doing america's work. >> are you a race transcending leader? >> i don't know. i don't think i am seen that way. i think i am, but i don't think i am perceived to be that way. i think i am seen as someone who is overly race conscious and can therefore not transcend race. i am race fixated. i am fixed on it. i think i am conscious of a large world, a complex world we all live in made of many different people. what helps one else all. -- helps all. >> do you have a different leadership style when you deal with all black audiences or mixed audiences were all white audiences? >> i know i have a different rhetorical style.

it is not radically different, but it is different. >> how is it different? >> if i am speaking to an all-black audience, i tend to speak more in the cadences of call and response that are familiar to ministers, not just black ministers but white ministers. it is more associated with black ministers. repetition of phrases, repeating of rhetorical questions. i do that deliver late because i know i am getting a different response. this -- deliberately because i know -- they expect that. they are disappointed if they don't get that. i am delete really different in that way -- deliberately different in that way. i will give the same basic speech to a black audience tonight and a white audience tomorrow and get a good response from each audience. my delivery is different. >> so many african-american leaders have come out of a

religious background. ofunded in being a member some black church somewhere. fundamental in so many ways to the civil rights movement. has that been a problem for you? >> i don't think so. i am not religious in any regard. i have never attended church. except when i was right young. my parents took me. i'm not a religious person at all. i imagine there are people who are saying he is not a christian, he doesn't go to church. every known and people say what church do you belong to? >> they are so taken aback because it is expected that you do. the -- at the recent and a lazy p convection, everyone who -- naacp convention said firstir mark honor to god. i never said that. it is not a part of me. for some people, that is

something lacking in the. it is perfectly fine with me. i am want to keep on doing it. >> this call and response that you're talking about is such a traditional religious -- >> it is both religiously waste -- independent of religiously based and independent of religion. it is a rhetorical style. it is great. are issueshink there for black americans that are unique to the black community that you would define as different than national issues? you said you are a race man and you see those issues as good for all america. way, take it a different are there issues that are unique to black americans? >> there are. you ask like western, i was thinking this is, this is, this is. nothing comes to mind right

away. there are things that are unique to black americans that aren't bad for nonblack americans. issuesre peculiar use of -- pecurliarities. every group has a set of issues that are theirs. somehow or another, it doesn't touch the larger world in the same way. what they are i cannot articulate right now. i think there are such issues. there are these issue differences that make this group distinct, this group distinct. up,erhaps a way to sum this could you articulate what you attributeshe major or characteristics that are either common characteristics for black leaders, or that you

think are actually essential for a leadership? >> let me talk about all leadership. i think coming occasion skills. by that, i don't need being a or thepolished speaker best writer in the world, but the ability to tell others what what you expect of them, what your vision is good you don't have to be the most polished person. in articulate people can do this. i have seen them do it. it is not smooth and sophistication i'm talking out. just the ability to get something across. this guy talk to me. he was inarticulate. i learned math. that is one important thing. you have to have a vision, some idea, some notion of what it is you want done. whether it is a canadian --

education, economics, what ever it is. have an idea of what you think needs to be done, what the larger world needs to do. what your audience -- you have to have some idea. here is my plan. you put it out there. you have to be willing to help other people say that is not right. try this. or that. modify that in some way. even a dent in that and accept this. you have to be open to new ideas -- abandoned that -- you have to be open to challenge is to your ideas. you have to be willing to look over the long-term, years and years and years and years. while you hope to achieve little victories that make you have another one and so forth, if you can get them, that is great. you have to have a long vision of where things are going to go 10, 15, 30 years from now. >> do you have to be tough? >> yes. you have to be able to take defeat and get up and do it again and try again. >> do you have to have the

ability to somehow distinguish your private life from your public life? is that something that is a learned skill? >> i think it is a learned skill. you can't always do it, but you have to try to do it. you have to have privacy of some kind. you can't live your life in public, under the public glare. sometimes, because of what you do or other people do, all of a sudden, there you are. you have to try to not have that if you can. >> are these different for black leaders and white leaders? >> i don't think so. black americans, and this is a generalization, are generally more forgiving of flaws in leadership figures than white americans are. this is a big generalization. when a leadership -- a leadership figure stumbles, the black americans are more willing to forgive, forget, move on.

we have seen this happen time and time again. there are probably other differences, as well. >> are white americans much less forgiving of black leaders? lee understanding of forgiveness. some of it is religious. religiously based. as controversy in the catholic church, we are hearing about forgiveness as a tentative catholicism. the pre-sous stumbles should be forgiven. we ought not have an ironclad policy, one mistake and you're out. i think it is the non-catholics -- it is hard to understand. what do you mean? aspects ofho admire the catholic faith, it is perfectly understand what. they do believe in forgiveness. it is possible for the sinner to saved. that is true about this and methodists and all caps of other people. there are things that are peculiar to african-americans that aren't understandable to

white americans and vice versa. >> you know the subject of leadership and least as well as i do. is anything else you would like to add to this discussion that we have had today? >> just one thing. it strikes me from a conversation i had recently, people keep saying where are our leaders? >> i think they are coming. to name the me leaders of tomorrow, i know a couple of students who are bright, young people. we are going to hear from them. i think there are hundreds of thousands of such people scattered throughout the country and the world, in fact, who we are going to hear from. some of them we will never hear from, but they will be leading in one way or another in their communities or some place else. they are coming, they are out there. leadership one go away. >> you are not worried about leaders of the future? >> no. i will tell you that i am suspicious of people who say let's pass the torch. i am 62.

time for him to pass the torch. i am not passing the torch. i think if you want the torch, you have to take the torch out of my stiff fingers and peel them away one by one. that is the way i got it. nobody gave it to me. if you want it, you have to come get it. >> good for you, and on that note, i'm going to say thank you very much. >> this is quite unusual for me, but i want to thank all of you for your friendship and your loyal support and for planning this wonderful evening. i shelter member it always. thanks to the young people for this great welcome. >> pat nixon was the first republican first lady to address a national convention. she travel m