Explorations in Black Leadership

Co-Directed by Phyllis Leffler & Julian Bond

Influence of Social Networking

BOND: And this circumstance, while rare — this tight network which is quite small at the time, and that's why so many people knew other people because the network was small. [It's] very, very different today I would think. The networks exist, but the population has grown so large.

LEFTWICH: That's true. I think as a general rule the kind of defensiveness that that fed to that network is not as important, is not as needed today as it was then.

BOND: Indeed.

LEFTWICH: By and large, if you go into a strange city, some single individual, if you're not in the deep South — Mississippi I don't include in this statement — but if you're in a city where civil rights and civil liberties generally are respected, if something untoward happens it's usually an individual rather than an institution. Unless it's the police, there are ways of — very well accepted ways of —

BOND: Where you can navigate.

LEFTWICH: — to navigate that.

BOND: You don't need someone to intercede.

LEFTWICH: Yeah, you don't need —

BOND: An intercessor.

LEFTWICH: An intercessor. But we did need them in those days. And especially women needed them. To the extent that your family could provide that, to that extent were you well protected and given opportunities that you wouldn't have otherwise.