Explorations in Black Leadership

Co-Directed by Phyllis Leffler & Julian Bond

Leading and Following

BOND: Now is this a life-long characteristic – both leading and following? That is, following the demand from the larger society, either black or black and white, that here is a problem, something has got to be done about it. And then you're leading toward a solution as you did at the LDF, as you did in the Swann case? Is that a life-long characteristic, both following and leading? And following is a bad...

CHAMBERS: No, following is fine. It's a good description. And I think that that's true of all "leaders." I remember back in the early stages of the civil rights movement when we lawyers were trying to advise students about what they should do, and students said if we were lawyers then we would provide protection as they led. And they led. And we followed. And so I think that's been true in many other areas that we have a movement out that sort of directs the course for others to follow. And most "leaders" have followed in that respect. There are roles I think that leaders can play in helping to determine the best approach for addressing the causes that people have identified. But I'm trying to think back historically at periods when a "leader" decided what ought to be done and then got everybody to follow. And I am somewhat at a loss right now to...

BOND: It's easy to think of the opposite. You know the famous quote by Gandhi: "There go my people, I have to catch up with them, because I'm their leader." So, it's easy to think of the opposite where the people pull the leader along. But I guess there are occasions where the leader pulls the people along. I'm thinking about Martin Luther King and opposition to the war in Vietnam, which surely wasn't popular when he began to articulate it. But in time, about half of the public begins to adopt this view. Never much more than half, but about half the public.