Explorations in Black Leadership

Co-Directed by Phyllis Leffler & Julian Bond

The Impact of Neighborhoods and Schools

BOND: It seems to me that looking back on you when you were five years old, that you had a sense then, or you found out since then, that this move from one neighborhood to another neighborhood offered you an opportunity that you wouldn't have had, had you stayed where you were. Have you ever thought about what you were giving up? You left this place where people were not likely to throw bottles at you and call you names, and went to this neighborhood where people were likely to do that. Did you ever consider that a trade -- and not necessarily a good trade?

HALL: Only in retrospect. You know, when you're five, you just miss the people that you grow up with. I mean, keep in mind that my grandmother still lived in the downtown Memphis area…

BOND: So you would go back and see her…

HALL: Oh definitely, like, you know, on the weekends. So in a way, I kind of grew up one foot here and one foot there, straddling a fence constantly. You know, I was very cognizant of, you know, what was being left behind and it being a place of poverty, but also a place of community, a place of home, a place where big momma took care of all the kids and it was like a daycare center, but then, if I would've stayed where big momma stayed, I wouldn't have been able to be in an optional program, have AP classes, and be really enriched artistically and academically. But there is a kind of trade and I don't that it's a kind of identity thing. I think I still kept my sense of being an African American, a sense of [quote-unquote] "blackness," but there is a sense of always being the only one in the room and having that huge responsibility to defend your race…

BOND: Or to represent…

HALL: Or to represent your race, and to work harder than your other white counterparts because you have to prove to them that you deserve to be there, that you should be there. That is a lot of emotional weight.

BOND: It's a lot of weight for anyone, but particularly a young person.