Explorations in Black Leadership

Co-Directed by Phyllis Leffler & Julian Bond

Role of Major Events in Shaping Leadership Agenda

BOND: Let me ask you a question. Some people categorize the making of leaders in three ways — A, great people cause great events, or B, movements make leaders, or C, the confluence of unpredictable events creates leaders appropriate for the times. Which of these fits you?

SELLERS: C.

BOND: C. The confluence of unpredictable events creates leaders appropriate for the times. And what unpredictable events — ?

SELLERS: I don’t know if they were necessarily unpredictable events, but I think C is a better answer than A and B, because there’s been a confluence of events that have, like I said, in the Reagan administration, I think that we saw the shift from it being a solely race issue to an issue of the haves versus have-nots. I think that the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act — and then you talk about my generation growing up now being a generation that is a lot like that that had to go to Vietnam. I mean, it’s a generation that had to go Iraq and a lot of my classmates — I’ve had three classmates or three persons I went to high school with to die in the Iraq war and so that’s very real to me, so it’s been a confluence of events that I think have prepared me for the time.