Explorations in Black Leadership

Co-Directed by Phyllis Leffler & Julian Bond

Future Leadership Challenges

BOND: Now, what kind of leaders does contemporary society, right now, 21st century, demand and what kind of problems or how will future problems demand different styles? What’s the difference between now and, say, ten, twenty years from now?

BERRY: Now we have just the beginning and this is going to go on for another ten, twenty years, different leadership styles. We’ve got a bunch of young mayors, black mayors in different cities with different styles. The mantra is we’re going to get it done. We don’t have the baggage of the past. We’ve got a bunch of young people around us and we’re all going to get all these great things done. They may get some things done but if they don’t listen to people who have experience, I think that some of them aren’t going to find it as easy as they think. Right now, it’s insipient, but there is a need for a leadership style that tries to combine old ways of doing things. When I say old, I don’t mean just for civil rights movement, for any movement, a direct action is a tried and true strategy for movements in general. New ways of doing things. Trying to find ways to do what you want to do and get it financed to help people without abandoning what you need to do and there’re all these educated black folk who the civil rights movement made it possible for them to go to the universities and get degrees and there’re all kinds of fields and they’re doing all kinds of things in the corporate world and everywhere else so they ought to be able to put their heads together and come up with some strategies. That’s not the problem. The problem is inspiring people to believe that they need to put their heads together to come up with some strategies and I don’t know who or what will make that happen.