owing passage on page 311. "Today there is no general Black leadership and the Black political body is fragmented isolated, individualistic, fanciful, delusional, susceptible to posturing, and has no real sense of engaging with Black politics that are designed to help Black people in America, specifically those millions still ‘stuck at the bottom.’ What could interrupt this situation and force Blacks back to a general leadership and to a consciousness of Black politics would be the emergence of new and differently oriented local Black leaders. This would include some individuals drawn from those ‘stuck at the bottom.’ There are enough Black local leaders, community organizers, and activists who could initiate this new and different leadership across the country and who could consciously and actively seek to recruit and train individuals ‘up from varied misery’ for local leadership."There is a group of such leaders coming together at the Bring Black Back conference in Atlanta, GA on April 20-21. The group wants to develop and implement a more effective leadership model that better addresses the needs of African Americans who are disconnected from the mainstream in the USA and across the African Diaspora. This leadership model will address the need for more effective political action, and grassroots economic development that benefits African American communities – primarily in urban areas. They seek to address the "authentic needs" of African American communities, and place a high priority on Africentric education as a foundation for our children.
The Bring Back Black gathering comprises Black folks who have been working for decades empowering our people. They do their work quietly and without fanfare. They work by building their own businesses, opening their own schools, and being serious about their political involvement. They do their work by meeting payrolls from which their Black employees take care of their families. They do it by standing up and speaking out against injustice and inequity. They do it by sacrificing their time and their resources for the collective cause of Black people.
It turns out that one of the first gatherings of this group occurred in Cincinnati, OH. The next gathering is later this month at the Bring Back Black conference in Atlanta, GA. Care to share your comments on this grassroots effort?
