Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Where have all the leaders gone? (To the tune of the Pete Seeger song, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?")

America has lots of highly visible politicians. We have lots of people who love to appear on camera. We have self-proclaimed religious leaders. But where are the real leaders? Where are the leaders who can identify and work to rectify problems, who can inspire and rally people?

I remember John Kennedy. I remember Martin Luther King, Jr. They were true leaders. Kennedy said "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." Now we have a president who cares only about praising himself and appearing before throngs of adoring supporters. He cares only about what he can do that will benefit him and his cronies.

King, with his peaceful protests and his soaring rhetoric, moved people to action. I don't see anybody filling the shoes of Dr. King, or of Malcom X. There is no Medgar Evers. There is no Rosa Parks. Instead of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, we have the very unremarkable Clarence Thomas. There is no national voice for the Black citizens of this country. There is no articulate, poetic Maya Angelou. We do have Oprah Winfrey, who tirelessly advocates for the Black community. But I don't see her as a national leader.

During this time of protest marches, hurt, anger and frustration, who is representing the African-American citizens of this country? There are some, including former President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama. But I don't see a single, powerful, compelling voice speaking on behalf of our Black citizens. Of course, this is only my opinion as a white woman of privilege. I cannot, and I will not , presume to speak on behalf of the Black community.

Major legislative advances such as the Voting RIghts Act (1965), the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Fair Housing Act (1968) all came about in part because Black community leaders brought attention to problems before they reached the level of crises. Black leaders back then were willing to put their freedom, and their lives, on the line. They didn't care if their calls for change upset the white establishment and white politicians. They were on a mission. If they ended up in jail, or being beaten during a march for equal rights, or even if they put their very lives at risk, they were willing to make those sacrifices. Those voices were proactive. They spoke out against inequality and lack of opportunity. Today's leaders seem only reactive, speaking out only when some egregious crime takes place.

Today's Black voices -- Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Kamala Harris and Rep. John Lewis, for example -- are part of the Democratic Party establishment. They aren't taking the chances -- with their freedom, with their lives, with their jobs -- that their predecessors took. Even Jesse Jackson, who never met a television camera he didn't like, has been remarkably quiet during the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd and the resulting protest marches. Black leaders of the 1960s were not beholden to a particular political party. They put everything they had on the line for their cause.

Our so-called leaders today are too busy obstructing legislation proposed by the other party. They are too busy pointing fingers and making unfounded accusations against their 'opponents'. Their focus is primarily on getting reelected. Sworn to protect and defend the Constitution, they too often act like spoiled children having a temper tantrum when they don't get their way.  

The current administration is 'led' (a term I use loosely) by a spoiled, self-obsessed man-child who lacks any semblance of leadership. His idea of leadership is being a bully, of bringing in the military to knock peaceful protesters out of the way so he can pose for a photo op with a Bible in front of a church he has never attended. His idea of leadership is threatening governors that if they don't "dominate" protesters, he will send in federal troops to take care of the situation. 

But with the acknowledgement that the president is incapable of leadership, where are other elected officials? Why are none of them stepping forward to start a conversation, to identify the problems and potential solutions? Where are the religious leaders and their moral indignation?

I have no answers to any of these questions. I am just an ordinary senior citizen who lived through the assassinations and race riots of the 1960s. I remember four Black girls who lived down the hall from my roommates and me in a dorm in 1968. We weren't close, but we were friendly, and we sometimes ate together in the dining hall. All of that changed with the assassination of Dr. King. My roommates and I were the same people we were before the assassination, but those Black girls shunned us after that. 

We, of course, had nothing to do with the assassination. But we were part of the white establishment. A wedge had been driven between us permanently. I didn't understand then, and I don't understand now, the impact that act had on them. 

I befriended a Black woman in my neighborhood in Houston during the three years I lived there in the late 1990s. We met as we were walking our dogs early each morning. Her husband was a physician at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. They had two elementary age boys. The mom and boys took me to visit the Houston Holocaust Museum one day. It didn't matter that they were Black and I was white. Race never came up. We had things in common, we enjoyed each other's company, and that was enough. And that was how it should be.

I still don't know what to do about the great divide, the racism, the unfairness, the hopelessness, the inequality and discrimination. I hope some leaders -- religious leaders, community leaders, government leaders -- step forward to represent all sides of this difficult issue and to start a conversation. I hope people will come together and collaborate to seek solutions to the racism and social injustice that continue to divide us. 

Isn't it time to move forward, some 157 years after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation?