In October 1947, President Truman released “To Secure These Rights” reporting how America’s color line at mid-century negatively impacted all phases of life from housing and education to voting and international relations. The report appealed to a wide audience and finally brought the problem of the Negro and other minority groups into the public eye sparking a massive national discussion of civil rights. Truman promised a government-led campaign to wipe out segregation and even listed civil rights as the “top item on his domestic agenda for 1948” (353). I often tend to think that Presidential actions of this sort are simply appeasement in efforts to get re-elected. But after his continual attempt to address messages to Congress and even the NAACP and his efforts to pass bills, I started to genuinely believe him. Did you? I seemed to wonder that after the disappointment of FDR’s efforts, how could the African American community (especially the NAACP which seemed to support him wholeheartedly) trust Truman to actually enact the program? Did they have a choice? How can our electoral system ever change in the sense that politicians continually promise certain programs, but fail to actually make such changes? Or do we expect this failure to actually do as they said accepting it as an inherent characteristic of campaigning? If the answer this last question is yes, then this is a major problem that our system should be challenging more closely. I also found it interesting that despite his long standing commitment to racial equality and justice that the NAACP wasn’t really backing the Henry Wallace campaign. Sullivan notes how essential it was that “public displays of loyalty [to Truman] by the association’s top leadership were especially meaningful during a closely contested election” (360). Interestingly, Wallace’s candidacy effectively pressured Truman and the Democrats to move quicker towards action on civil rights (361). If it weren’t for Wallace, might Truman have never moved along with the programs? I was also pretty surprised that Truman still succeeded despite his avoidance of the South during the presidential race.
It’s important to note also how the NAACP effectively formed what I would call a “spirit of collective identity” and continued to be a source of hope and leadership for Negroes who believed that securing these rights would be impossible against such strong opposition and violence. As Palmer Weber wrote Marshall “I find the Negro leadership everywhere fighting for the ballot as ever before” (362). The NAACP, especially with the help of Marshall, Baker, Houston and other field workers, helped Negroes gain confidence through education that their voices could be heard if they worked hard enough. These leaders valued spending time in the communities most affected and effectively using their personalities to learn more about them. Such practice was similar to those mentioned with Brownie Lee Jones and the Southern School for Workers in Virginia throughout the 1940s where Jones was “the driving energy of the organization” despite the financial hardships faced by the organization. Similarly, Jones believed that “increasing citizenship responsibility as a fundamental part of any educational program” was essential to success (110). As a result, Jones’ helped strengthened political activism in black communities through interracial, working-class coalitions to challenge the power of the southern democrats and the whole American racial caste system. Another idea which is really interesting to me both by the NAACP and The Southern School is the notion that leaders can be trained. What do we think about this?
Another thing I also found interesting was the drama that arose after White divorced his wife for a white woman where people questioned his racial allegiance. This begs the question, how can a leader’s personal life affect the organization or the movement as a whole? Or does it not affect it at all?
I definitely think you can teach leadership and train people to be good leaders. Obviously, the Leadership school here doesn’t always produce leaders who are going to run the nation or a big company etc. However, we are given the traits that great leaders encompass. I think that in a time like this the main way a person could have been trained to be a leader, would be instilling them with the confidence that can allow them to make a difference as well as empower them to take certain tasks into their own hands. By delegating tasks to followers, you deliver this message of faith and trust to them. In doing so they feel more a part of the group and this ownership allows them to develop there own sort of leadership. By empowering at the grass roots you have a better chance of making a difference because the movement and its ideals are more widespread.
This idea you bring up about the personal life of a leader affecting their organization, is a very interesting one. I definitely think that a leader needs to be careful about the way they deal with their social life. In Walter White’s example I don’t necessarily think that should have been a problem. However I do think that leaders need to conduct their personal life in a way that they wish their followers lives to be like. They need to practice what they preach. They can’t act immorally and treat people with respect when they are demanding it. But in terms of who they marry I am not sure if I believe that should be considered. I think you should be able to marry who you love. You should never feel you have to marry for political purposes. And if people read too much into it then you can’t really do too much about it.
Eliza McLean
I definitely think that the personal life of a leader can effect a leader and the way they are perceived but that it does not necessarily need to make such a large impact. For Walter White, he was already a man that people questioned due to his racial ambiguity but I do not believe that he was trying to change his racial allegiance or anything like that by marrying another woman. For example, MLK did not have the best personal track record with women, yet this is forgotten while writing history, to recount another blog post, but that there is definitely some need to have a leaders personal life be taken into account. Can such a large contribution as MLK’s to the Civil Rights movement be enough to forgive one’s personal life whether or not it matches the morals and what they preached in their public life?
The question you raise in your comment in addition to the question Brittney raised in her blog post speak to a tension discussed in my Ethics class last semester – public vs. private morality and the question of effectiveness. Can or should one’s private morality be separate from his/her public morality?
In relation to King, I think the reason so many forget about certain aspects of his private morality is because of the carefully constructed narrative of him as a Civil Rights preacher-leader, a messiah. This narrative was constructed while he was alive and was heightened in his death.
I think ideally, leaders would like their personal life to remain personal, and their public life to be totally separate from that. However, the reality of the situation is that as soon as you become famous in any regard people start watching you, and looking at you as a sort of role model. Then there’s also the factor that no matter what a famous person does in his or her personal (or public) life, someone is going to find a fault with it, and we tend to only hear about the bad stuff in peoples’ personal lives. So with Walter White, his decision is his decision, but I don’t think that we could say that he didn’t know the repercussion that his divorce and remarrying would have. So pretty much at that point, you have no private life. Either people are trying to emulate you and be like you, or their trying to find fault with you. Either way, someone is always watching (ominous music plays).
You asked how could the NAACP and the African American community at large in America continue to trust Truman to enact the program and whether they had a choice. I think the reason that they put trust into Truman was part of what you termed later on as the “spirit of collective identity”. Trusting in Truman may have provided a sense of hope in their actions and in the potential for future change just as other leaders provided a sense of hope.
Even though the system may be flawed, it can still be helpful to work within that system in order to bring about some type of change.
In response to your question of whether leaders can be trained or not, I think that there are certain qualities that many leaders must have that are impossible to be taught, while other aspects of leadership may be easier to teach. I think that charisma is one important characteristic that would be impossible to teach someone else. Especially in the civil rights movement, a strong determination and drive to continue the fight is also something that a leader must naturally have. I think that the majority of characteristics that leaders need are inherent, but a few skills can be taught (or at lease improved upon). For example, public speaking is an important skill that can be improved with help from others.
Another idea which is really interesting to me both by the NAACP and The Southern School is the notion that leaders can be trained. What do we think about this?
When i look at this question, I think about what it means to be a leader and what it takes to influence others. I agree with the NAACP that they could teach leadership in the South. For example, Charles Houston was training African American men to become influential leaders and lawyers in the South, so that they could represent the African American population that was struggling. The men that Charles Houston was educating could have a serious influence on others by simply helping them understand their rights and what is necessary to overcome segregation. On the other hand, I believe that true leadership is something that an individual is born with. Charles Houston was not taught to be a leader. He took the initiative to help others because he realized what was necessary to change the mindsets of African Americans.
In regards to White and his white wife, I found it a bit hypocritical that blacks got so upset about this. The NAACP was fighting for desegregation and equality, and I don’t see how marrying a white women was in any way a contradiction to this cause. In fact, marrying a white woman almost embodies the idea that blacks and whites are equals and can coexist peacefully. That being said, I think the general question of how can a leader’s personal life affect his or her cause is a really interesting one. By now we have all heard about the leader of KONY’s public mishap, and it will be interesting to see how that incident affects the cause. Personally, I believe that as long as a leader’s public life is not unethical and does not interfere with the work that he or she is doing it should be disregarded, but we will see if the general public shares this view.
In the end, it doesn’t much matter what people should consider in their estimation of a leader, but what they do. The hyper-analysis of leaders means that good leadership requires so much of a total sacrifice. If you accept the mantle of leadership for a cause, everything you are and do becomes fair game. Any perceived/created/actual inconsistencies hurt you and the cause.
Assuming that public opinion is shaped that way, which it appears to be, it makes it nearly impossible to find a person willing to be exposed that way, and without skeletons, so that they’ll survive the exposure. This sends good leaders into roles less invasive to their private lives, like business leadership.
Which to me, means the problem lies with us and the media. We need to change the way we think about leadership (perhaps not as Leader——> Followers, but another model) in order to lessen the blow to the individual taking on the role. Or, as occupy suggested this fall, work in leaderless organizations. Then we really couldn’t use a Jepson degree, though.