On becoming better people in order to become better leaders
Eddie S. Glaude Jr.’s “We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For” is a book that looks both backward and forward. At its core are the three talks Glaude delivered at Harvard as the 2011 W.E.B. Du Bois lectures, but these — focusing on Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Ella Baker — fit between essays of introduction and conclusion penned much more recently. And the question they pose — how to fight for justice in a post-civil rights era, when we face challenges unforeseen in the 1960s — now reaches readers poised to face tomorrow’s political landscape.
“At the heart of the book is a simple formulation, almost cliche — if we are going to be the leaders that we’re looking for, we’re going to have to become better people,” says Glaude, a professor of African American studies at Princeton. “To understand the challenges of our moment, understand the tradition out of which we come, but we’re not simply imitating the ’60s.”
For Glaude, who grew up in coastal Mississippi with working-class roots, finding his own voice was a journey that began with reading everything from scholarly texts to essays by thinkers such as Emerson and Baldwin to the literary gems of Morrison, Ellison, and Trethewey. Even though he’s written books for both academic and broader audiences, he’s still learning “how to straddle these worlds,” he says, adding that his goal is to “think together in public” with others from all kinds of backgrounds. Reckoning with the ideas and legacies of three crucial civil rights figures opens a conversation about how to carry on the work, Glaude says. “We fight for a world that allows for the revolutionary possibility of each and every one of us. At the end of the day it’s always in our hands. It’s up to you and me. It’s up to us,” he says. “We have to be honest with ourselves, draw on the resources that our traditions offer us, and fight like hell for a conception of democracy that affirms the dignity and standing of every human being. And do so with love.”
Eddie S. Glaude Jr. will be in conversation with Imani Perry at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 18, at the Brattle Theatre.
Kate Tuttle is a freelance writer and editor.