AM New York 7/27

amNY.com

The evolution of black leadership

By Emily Ngo

emily.ngo@am-ny.com

3:30 PM EDT, July 27, 2008

Outside the South Beach Cafe in Harlem, a mural emblazoned "Great African Americans" features the Rev. Jesse Jackson alongside Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass and other groundbreakers.

Inside the neighborhood eatery, however, a hostess readily slams Jackson for accusing Barack Obama of "talking down to black people" and expressing his desire to castrate the presidential nominee.

"It seems petty, but Jesse Jackson wants to be Barack Obama," said Fatou Sarr, 35. "It's just jealousy, because Jesse Jackson used to be relevant."

Jackson has apologized to the Democratic senator from Illinois, but his aren't the only inflammatory remarks to pockmark Obama's historic rise. Just months ago, Obama parted ways with longtime pastor Jeremiah Wright after a very public clash about race in America.

Jackson and Wright, both 66, are black leaders of a different era than 46-year-old Obama. Having experienced Jim Crow firsthand, their heated rhetoric and angry resentments are almost understandable, experts said.

"The older black generation of the civil rights era was defined by one important issue," said Keli Goff, author of "Party Crashing: How the Hip-Hop Generation Declared Political Independence." "If you have to go to the back of the bus, if you have to use a different water fountain, it defines your whole life."

Obama – in the company of Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker, 39; former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., 38; and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, 51 – may appear to Jackson to be part of a new African-American political guard that "has it so easy and just coasted right in," Goff said.

"It's like you're so sad that that could never be you," Goff said. "You think, if only I had been born 20 years later."

Jackson has refuted claims he is resentful. "Why would I be jealous? I'm part of a winning team."

Black leadership in transition

"Jesse Jackson had his time, and his time is now over," said "Baby Face" Nelson, a 41-year-old card designer in Harlem. "I don't see him as a spokesperson – not at all – and certainly not a positive spokesperson."

African-American leadership is in transition. The Rev. Al Sharpton admitted to Newsweek: "There's definitely a generational divide going on in the black community, and it's been happening for a while. People who deny it aren't seeing clearly."

At 35, Benjamin Jealous is set to become the youngest leader of the NAACP, the nation's oldest civil rights organization. Jealous will replace 62-year-old Bruce S. Gordon and share power with 68-year-old chairman Julian Bond.

In Brooklyn, community activist and former reality TV star Kevin Powell is running against Congressman Edolphus Towns, who at 74, is 32 years Powell's senior.

"The prior generation was trailblazers who were the first to serve from their particular race; that's no longer the case," said Brooklyn Assemb. Hakeem Jeffries, 37. "Our generation represents increasingly diverse communities and therefore, different challenges."

Jackson's presidential push was based on African-American empowerment, Jeffries said. "Obama's campaign has been based on the notion of bringing all Americans together."

Political issues transcend race

Political success for Obama and other young black leaders is measured in large part by their appeal across racial divides.

"The civil rights agenda is still a relevant political issue, but it's now one among many," Goff said. "They talk about inequality but not along racial lines, because the issues are no longer falling strictly along racial lines."

The economy, as an example, affects Americans of all ethnicities, she said.

"In many places, not everywhere, voters are not seeing color anymore," said David Bositis, of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank on African-American issues. "To go further now means getting white voters to vote for you."

Civil rights-era politicians found victory in majority black constituencies, Bositis said. Similarly, they came through segregated schools and historically black colleges and are more closely tied to the church, he noted.

Obama attended Columbia and Harvard universities; Jackson's alma mater is North Carolina A&T University.

"The younger generation has the same ambitions and same backgrounds as typical elite white politicians," Bositis said. "If you didn't know they were African American, based on their backgrounds, you might think they were white."

Bridging the gap

Elaine Brown led the Black Panther Party until it disbanded in 1977. Just as Harlem's Nelson, and 72 percent of young blacks polled by Goff, do not believe Jackson speaks for them, Brown does not consider Obama a representative black voice.

"He's a black man who doesn't have history in the black experience," Brown, 65, said from her Savannah, Ga., home. "He's just a black face running for president."

Ideology more than age alienates younger black politicians from their predecessors, Brown said. For instance, Obama pressing African-American fathers to accept more personal responsibility fuels racial stereotypes, she said.

"When you have Bill Clinton saying the same things as to the dysfunction of black men, I don't see that there is a generational difference. … there is an ideological difference," Brown noted.

When there are ideological similarities, generations can be bridged. Manhattan Democrat Charles Rangel, 78 and the city's longest-serving U.S. congressman, acts as a mentor to some younger black lawmakers.

"He shows them that a path through longevity, seniority and accomplishment can lead to real success in politics," said Rangel spokesman Kevin Wardally.

Rangel had already been shattering race barriers for two years in the state Assembly when Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in 1968. Some leaders of the new political generation weren't yet born; others are too young to remember the tragedy.

"Nobody younger than 44 years old has a consciousness of the life of Martin Luther King," Bositis said. "To them, Martin Luther King is like George Washington."

This isn't to say the politicians of "Generation Obama" – "the post-racial period" and "the hip-hop generation" – do not understand the impact of their predecessors.

"The younger generation should be grateful to the older generation," said Sarr, glancing around the Harlem restaurant, "but the older generation should be proud of them, too."