Explorations in Black Leadership

Co-Directed by Phyllis Leffler & Julian Bond

The Black poet's audience

BOND: Do you think you have an obligation to connect with black readers particularly, or black people generally, or not?

DOVE: I don't think I have an obligation to connect with them, but I hope that they connect. I have an obligation to tell the whole story. If something intrigues me, attracts me, if I think it's important, I have the obligation to use my gifts to tell that story as vibrantly and exactly as possible to draw others in and then I hope fervently that black audiences will also connect with that, but I don't feel that I have an obligation to court them. I will court them the same as I court everybody else.