Where, oh where, is black leadership

[Tigermike 3,023]

Where, oh where, is black leadership

Les Payne

August 20, 2006

Who indeed are the black leaders these days? Two pretenders to the throne were to enlighten the National Association of Black Journalists last week in Indianapolis. The Rev. Jesse Jackson thought better of his appearance and left the defense to his erstwhile protégé.

Proving that he is as immune to irony as he is to shame, the Rev. Al Sharpton strutted onto the stage as a panelist for the annual W.E.B. DuBois Lecture. That most vital American scholar of the last century would likely have viewed the Rev. Al Sharpton as a noisy answer for which there is no known question.

Luckily for the impressionable in the hall, a panel of journalists preceded Sharpton and broadened the beam of candidates. The clouds were salted with such names as Colin Powell, Harold Ford, Barak Obama, Corey Booker and even influential rappers. Rochelle Riley, a columnist for the Detroit Free Press, looked locally. She emphasized the need for daily leaders, especially among the young - and she dismissed the headline-grabbing methods of messieurs Jackson and Sharpton.

Sandwiched in-between a local Republican councilman and a Democratic Party operative, Sharpton said that the single black national leader, "a messiah," was an undesirable media concept that never has occurred in America. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he reminded quite accurately, had Malcolm X, Whitney Young, Fannie Lou Hamer and other national rivals, and DuBois in his day had Booker T. Washington.

No one disputes Sharpton's skills as a talker, and he was in fine form, even as his own qualities as a black leader stood wanting and in sharp relief to the occasion of the DuBois Lecture.

Sharpton took "the Jackson model of black politics to a new low," Juan Williams writes in his new book about "phony black leaders," titled "Enough." Williams' Sharpton indictment centers on his 2004 presidential run when, for some financial aid, the reverend reportedly leased some control of his Democratic campaign to Republican operative Roger Stone.

Sharpton's campaign double-dealing - the latest in a career peppered with such treachery - was first reported in the Village Voice and other places. Williams, a Washington broadcast pundit, recirculates the published findings that reveal Sharpton as a bought-and-paid-for GOP "mole inside the Democratic primary." In this, the stump preacher resembles Williams' D.C. buddy Armstrong Williams, who, despite his U.S. Department of Education kickback scandal, continues his deception as a black voice of reason in print, on stage and over the air waves.

Journalists entertained by the Sharpton sideshow left the hall needing to enlighten themselves elsewhere on the question of black leadership.

A good start would have been the 37-volume works of DuBois, edited by his friend and protégé Herbert Aptheker. Perhaps best known for his book "The Souls of Black Folks," DuBois was a prodigious scholar and social activist who even lapsed occasionally into journalism. His methodical research of urban racial conditions, published in the book "The Philadelphia Negro," was the first such scientific study and earned his reputation as one of the fathers of social science.

DuBois knew a thing or two about leadership, as his rival Booker T. Washington discovered. A founder of the NAACP, DuBois created and edited its Crisis magazine and was a visionary, pan-African activist against European colonialism. DuBois died in Accra, Ghana, on the very day of the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, D.C. However, his life's work did not escape the attention of King.

"History cannot ignore W.E.B. DuBois," King wrote, "because history has to reflect truth, and Dr. DuBois was a tireless explorer and a gifted discoverer of social truths. His singular greatness lay in his quest for truth about his own people."

It is not known what King would have made of Sharpton, but we know what the martyred civil rights leader thought of Sharpton's mentor, Jesse Jackson. Not much.

NEWSDAY

[TexasTiger 12,827]

Where, oh where, is black leadership

Les Payne

August 20, 2006

Who indeed are the black leaders these days? Two pretenders to the throne were to enlighten the National Association of Black Journalists last week in Indianapolis. The Rev. Jesse Jackson thought better of his appearance and left the defense to his erstwhile protégé.

Proving that he is as immune to irony as he is to shame, the Rev. Al Sharpton strutted onto the stage as a panelist for the annual W.E.B. DuBois Lecture. That most vital American scholar of the last century would likely have viewed the Rev. Al Sharpton as a noisy answer for which there is no known question.

Luckily for the impressionable in the hall, a panel of journalists preceded Sharpton and broadened the beam of candidates. The clouds were salted with such names as Colin Powell, Harold Ford, Barak Obama, Corey Booker and even influential rappers. Rochelle Riley, a columnist for the Detroit Free Press, looked locally. She emphasized the need for daily leaders, especially among the young - and she dismissed the headline-grabbing methods of messieurs Jackson and Sharpton.

Sandwiched in-between a local Republican councilman and a Democratic Party operative, Sharpton said that the single black national leader, "a messiah," was an undesirable media concept that never has occurred in America. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he reminded quite accurately, had Malcolm X, Whitney Young, Fannie Lou Hamer and other national rivals, and DuBois in his day had Booker T. Washington.

No one disputes Sharpton's skills as a talker, and he was in fine form, even as his own qualities as a black leader stood wanting and in sharp relief to the occasion of the DuBois Lecture.

Sharpton took "the Jackson model of black politics to a new low," Juan Williams writes in his new book about "phony black leaders," titled "Enough." Williams' Sharpton indictment centers on his 2004 presidential run when, for some financial aid, the reverend reportedly leased some control of his Democratic campaign to Republican operative Roger Stone.

Sharpton's campaign double-dealing - the latest in a career peppered with such treachery - was first reported in the Village Voice and other places. Williams, a Washington broadcast pundit, recirculates the published findings that reveal Sharpton as a bought-and-paid-for GOP "mole inside the Democratic primary." In this, the stump preacher resembles Williams' D.C. buddy Armstrong Williams, who, despite his U.S. Department of Education kickback scandal, continues his deception as a black voice of reason in print, on stage and over the air waves.

Journalists entertained by the Sharpton sideshow left the hall needing to enlighten themselves elsewhere on the question of black leadership.

A good start would have been the 37-volume works of DuBois, edited by his friend and protégé Herbert Aptheker. Perhaps best known for his book "The Souls of Black Folks," DuBois was a prodigious scholar and social activist who even lapsed occasionally into journalism. His methodical research of urban racial conditions, published in the book "The Philadelphia Negro," was the first such scientific study and earned his reputation as one of the fathers of social science.

DuBois knew a thing or two about leadership, as his rival Booker T. Washington discovered. A founder of the NAACP, DuBois created and edited its Crisis magazine and was a visionary, pan-African activist against European colonialism. DuBois died in Accra, Ghana, on the very day of the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, D.C. However, his life's work did not escape the attention of King.

"History cannot ignore W.E.B. DuBois," King wrote, "because history has to reflect truth, and Dr. DuBois was a tireless explorer and a gifted discoverer of social truths. His singular greatness lay in his quest for truth about his own people."

It is not known what King would have made of Sharpton, but we know what the martyred civil rights leader thought of Sharpton's mentor, Jesse Jackson. Not much.

NEWSDAY

Maybe they're hanging out with all the other "leaders". Let me know when you find some leaders of any race.

[Tigermike 3,023]

Where, oh where, is black leadership

Les Payne

August 20, 2006

Who indeed are the black leaders these days? Two pretenders to the throne were to enlighten the National Association of Black Journalists last week in Indianapolis. The Rev. Jesse Jackson thought better of his appearance and left the defense to his erstwhile protégé.

Proving that he is as immune to irony as he is to shame, the Rev. Al Sharpton strutted onto the stage as a panelist for the annual W.E.B. DuBois Lecture. That most vital American scholar of the last century would likely have viewed the Rev. Al Sharpton as a noisy answer for which there is no known question.

Luckily for the impressionable in the hall, a panel of journalists preceded Sharpton and broadened the beam of candidates. The clouds were salted with such names as Colin Powell, Harold Ford, Barak Obama, Corey Booker and even influential rappers. Rochelle Riley, a columnist for the Detroit Free Press, looked locally. She emphasized the need for daily leaders, especially among the young - and she dismissed the headline-grabbing methods of messieurs Jackson and Sharpton.

Sandwiched in-between a local Republican councilman and a Democratic Party operative, Sharpton said that the single black national leader, "a messiah," was an undesirable media concept that never has occurred in America. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he reminded quite accurately, had Malcolm X, Whitney Young, Fannie Lou Hamer and other national rivals, and DuBois in his day had Booker T. Washington.

No one disputes Sharpton's skills as a talker, and he was in fine form, even as his own qualities as a black leader stood wanting and in sharp relief to the occasion of the DuBois Lecture.

Sharpton took "the Jackson model of black politics to a new low," Juan Williams writes in his new book about "phony black leaders," titled "Enough." Williams' Sharpton indictment centers on his 2004 presidential run when, for some financial aid, the reverend reportedly leased some control of his Democratic campaign to Republican operative Roger Stone.

Sharpton's campaign double-dealing - the latest in a career peppered with such treachery - was first reported in the Village Voice and other places. Williams, a Washington broadcast pundit, recirculates the published findings that reveal Sharpton as a bought-and-paid-for GOP "mole inside the Democratic primary." In this, the stump preacher resembles Williams' D.C. buddy Armstrong Williams, who, despite his U.S. Department of Education kickback scandal, continues his deception as a black voice of reason in print, on stage and over the air waves.

Journalists entertained by the Sharpton sideshow left the hall needing to enlighten themselves elsewhere on the question of black leadership.

A good start would have been the 37-volume works of DuBois, edited by his friend and protégé Herbert Aptheker. Perhaps best known for his book "The Souls of Black Folks," DuBois was a prodigious scholar and social activist who even lapsed occasionally into journalism. His methodical research of urban racial conditions, published in the book "The Philadelphia Negro," was the first such scientific study and earned his reputation as one of the fathers of social science.

DuBois knew a thing or two about leadership, as his rival Booker T. Washington discovered. A founder of the NAACP, DuBois created and edited its Crisis magazine and was a visionary, pan-African activist against European colonialism. DuBois died in Accra, Ghana, on the very day of the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, D.C. However, his life's work did not escape the attention of King.

"History cannot ignore W.E.B. DuBois," King wrote, "because history has to reflect truth, and Dr. DuBois was a tireless explorer and a gifted discoverer of social truths. His singular greatness lay in his quest for truth about his own people."

It is not known what King would have made of Sharpton, but we know what the martyred civil rights leader thought of Sharpton's mentor, Jesse Jackson. Not much.

NEWSDAY

Maybe they're hanging out with all the other "leaders". Let me know when you find some leaders of any race.

Here is the NASCAR points "leaders".

1--Kurt Busch6506Leader36131021$4,200,330

2--Jimmie Johnson6498-836182023$5,692,620

3--Jeff Gordon6490-1636651625$6,437,660

4+1Mark Martin6399-10736011015$3,948,500

5-1Dale Earnhardt Jr.6368-13836061621$7,201,380