Barack Obama, Condoleezza Rice,
General Colin Powell, the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Who speaks for black
As the nation observes a federal
holiday in King's honor on Monday, several questions remain. Does black
Sen. Barack Obama,
D-Ill.
"We
have the tendency to look for a single messiah -- the next Martin [Luther King
Jr.] and the next Malcolm [X]. We need collective leadership. We need to develop
a broad base of political leaders that is able to put together a positive and
practical agenda that we can see over a long period of time. Our biggest
challenge is to strengthen leadership in different
arenas."
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/sobapart6
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Oprah
Winfrey
"I
personally believe that I would not be standing here today, with my own
television show, if Dr. King had not fought the battles he fought. I
am who I am because of the struggles of Dr. King."
http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/tows_2002/tows_past_20020121.jhtml
For more on the controversy
surrounding Oprah's school for girls in
Marc Morial, president of the
National Urban League.
"I don't think there is a
void of leadership. But I think sometimes there is a void of action. We need to
get to know each other better. There is an emerging cadre of fresh faces in the
civil-rights community and high-ranking African American leaders in corporate
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/sobapart6
Kenneth Chenault, chairman and CEO
of American Express, No. 30 on The 2006 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for
Diversity® list.
"It requires courage to offer a different
perspective and challenge current or popular views. It requires courage to speak
out, especially when one doesn't personally benefit from it. To build
'followship,' one has to be courageous and orient always from the core value of
integrity."
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1179&;CFID=3601422&CFTOKEN=29516188
Juan Williams, author of "Enough: The Phony Leaders,
Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black
"That [leadership] tradition has
been abandoned by people who say, 'What if we portray people as victims? If we
have a larger pool of poor people, then we are eligible for a bigger government
grant. [Black leaders] maintain their positions of power by mismanaging people.
They say that the way we get power is by pretending to be so weak and impotent
that we have to say, 'It's the result of what the government is doing, and we
have to wait for the government to help us.' I just think it's criminal to tell
people that kind of sad message."
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/7/27/90631.shtml
Earl
Ofari Hutchinson, columnist for BlackNews.com
"[Dr.]
King's style of leadership was egalitarian, hands-on, and in the trenches, and
he always kept a careful eye on the needs of needs of poor and working class
blacks. He was a selfless leader who never made a nickel from his civil rights
activism. He would be appalled at the cash, glitter, and bling fetish of
prominent blacks. He would have been aghast at the money squabble within his own
family over the
To see an exclusive series on Dr. King's private thoughts, click here
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When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America Author, Ira Katznelson, demonstrates that all the key programs passed during the New Deal and Fair Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s were created in a deeply discriminatory manner. This was no accident.For More Information |
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