I took part in a fascinating live debate on last nights’ Dotun Adebayo BBC London show on the subject of leadership.
I was joined by Runnymede Trust’s Dr Rob Berkeley, Labour councillor Claudia Webbe and Simon Woolley of Operation Black Vote, who is bringing the iconic US civil rights leader Rev’d Jesse Jackson to Britain this week. We were joined on the phone by Shaun Bailey, an advisor to David Cameron in Number 10.
The debate about leadership comes in the wake of the 50th anniversary of Dr Rev’d Martin Luther King’s famous I Have A Dream speech, which Rev’d Jackson is coming here to mark.
There was a measure of agreement amongst the studio guests that we need a national movement for race equality and justice more than a ‘leader’.
We certainly cannot afford to sit around waiting for him or her to emerge. However, I believe it helps to have leadership that understands the struggle and is able to awaken the people from denial about their own suffering.
Someone who understands where we come from in order to create a vision of where we are going, who is able to keep their ego in check while inspire a generation, to be a great speaker while being able to listen and ask questions, and to build a movement in the face of criticism from those who (wittingly or unwittingly) are the defenders of the status quo of inequality.
I always look forward to Rev’d Jackson’s visits, not because we need an American coming over here telling us what to do, but because sometimes we need an inspirational catalyst – whether that be Jackson, Rev’d Al Sharpton or Cornel West – to come over and give us a few things to think about. To encourage the community think strategically about how we are organising, or whether we are organising at all, for a better future.
At a time when many prominent figures talk of the destination of equality and the obstacles in the road to that destination, Rev’d Jackson illuminates a clear path to that destination, one where we can see not obstacles but steps. And from a psychological perspective that is extremely valuable.
However, as I also said on the show, it is vital that Britain develops a younger generation of leaders with the energy and vision to lead the drive for equality forward in the decades to come. This is where leadership comes in, not merely to articulate the pain but to plot the way ahead. To have this international perspective, an historical perspective, and to be morally and spiritually upstanding.
I believe charismatic leadership is important as the focal point of a grassroots movement for justice. The current generation of anti-racist activists have fought brave battles over the past three decades but have failed to nurture a new younger generation of leaders.
Yet the state of race inequality is such that there is a pressing need for a movement to make demands for change. The inexorable growth of the black population and the largely unchanged state of race inequality is completely unsustainable and something has got to give.
I believe leadership will eventually emerge even if the current generation of ‘elders’ don’t develop it, however if they don’t they risk being cut out of a youth-based movement who do not identify with them. Where this leadership arises from, and how radical it is, is an open question. This leadership could be the black church or it could be the prisons. Whether people of my generation will even ‘recognise’ this leadership is another question.
In some ways Rev’d Jackson’s visit this week gives us food for thought about issues such as coalition-building, analysis of economic power of the Black Pound, and steps we can take to not just to demand change so that we get a fair share of the pie but what actions we can take collectively to harness our economic and political power.
So we are not merely making demands but there is a level of organisation to back that up, whether that is boycotts of companies or whatever.
By Lester Holloway @brolezholloway
