When Leadership Rings
Black Male Leadership Society Banquet - Keynote
If you would please indulge me for a minute. Take out your phones and scroll through your call log. Shoutout or let me know how may calls you have received this weekend, Friday to now. We are about to find out who the popular ones in the room are.
Now, tell me of those calls, how many are missed calls? Why is that?... You see we live in a world where everything is on demand and we can pick and choose who we want to speak to, by simply answering or declining a call without any real leg work. But when you decline, do you always know what they are calling about? Now hold that thought.
I want to take a moment and acknowledge President Jalen Polk, who so valiantly has carried the torch this past year and represented himself exceptionally well across the entire UGA campus. (Applause). I would like to recognize the BMLS executive board who has answered the call to lead, and while the work is often thankless, it has not gone unnoticed. (Applause) Lastly, but oh most certainly not least, all of the beautiful, Black with a capital B, and excellence presenting faces across the room.
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I don’t know about any of you, but I consider myself quite the nerd. And habitually (SAT word) my inner virtuosity (c’mon somebody) sets in and I endeavor (Wait a minute now) to peruse (A word!) the Merriam-Webster dictionary. By way of the dictionary, to lead means to guide on a way or in a direction, especially by going in advance. To guide on a way or in.a direction, especially by going in advance. Most importantly in that definition is not so much what is stated, but what is purposely not stated. Nowhere in that definition does it discuss what types of positions you must hold to be a leader, nor does it dictate what type of platform and audience you must have. It does not say whether it is a constant in your life or if it was something only a select few were born to do. It simply says to GUIDE on a WAY or in a direction, especially by going in ADVANCE.
If you were to look around the room what you would see is a room full of leaders. All of you chose to make the decision to join this organization and come here today in celebration of the work you all have and will continue to do to lift up the Black men on this campus in hopes that they will leave this place and do great things. That is leadership. For all of you who have joined other organizations in search of a better campus for the next iteration of students, that is leadership. And even for those who have convinced your friends to go to downtown on a Tuesday night when you all were supposed to be studying for finals, believe it or not, that is leadership.
But what this shows you is that leadership comes in all shapes and sizes. Particularly in our generation’s world which is dominated by technology and the ability to at any given moment have a platform to address the world, we all have the responsibility of choosing the right way to lead others. From the amazing call to actions so many of you participated in last summer in the protests in response to the killing of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, you all demonstrated your capacity to lead. So, when leadership rings, answer the call.
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We have a myriad of great black leaders that we could talk about, but let’s talk about a few that hopefully will reach everyone in this room for the kind that you all aspire to. And as I speak on these few, I want you to look at them from the context of these categories: guidance on a way, did they motivate others to action; … and advance, did they lead by example. For starters there is my girl Rosa Parks. Parks was a civil rights activist whose flat-out refusal to give up her seat on a public bus ignited the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott often listed as the moment that sparked the civil rights movement in the United States. She stood by her principles in believing that a segregated bus was a burden on Black people and let me tell you if her actions happened in today’s world, she would have said to that bus driver, I have time today. Her actions sparked an entire movement that led us to this very place today. She guided civil rights activists on a way toward equality and gave them a blueprint of what a movement could look like by leading in advance. Imagine, if she declined the call.
(Voice) Then there’s a personal favorite of Michelle’s, Malia’s, and Sasha’s, and that’s President Barack Obama. President Obama, born on the south side of Chicago, spent his young life in community organizing to solve everyday problems for neighbors in his hometown and went on to become the first Black president of the United States by channeling a movement of millennials who were eager for change. Even with his Ivy League education, and law degree that could’ve led to a wealthy lifestyle he chose to dedicate his life to public service to improve the lives of people like you and me. His choices guided a wave of young people on the way toward political activism and he showed them what a world could like where anything is truly possible, in advance. Imagine, if he declined the call.
Then there’s everyone’s spirit animal, Serena Williams. Williams a professional tennis player and half of the Williams Sisters dynamic duo, who torched the world of tennis by rising to become the No. 1 ranked tennis player in the past, winning 23 grand slam titles which is the most in the open era. She inspired millions of Black girls and boys in the world to pick up a tennis racket and ignore the naysayers. She guided an entire generation of tennis players on the way to be true to themselves and she taught them how by being unapologetically herself and the best tennis player at the same time, in advance. Imagine if she hung up the phone.
And even Shawn Corey Carter, or otherwise known as Jay-Z. Jay-Z is a rapper, songwriter, record executive, businessman, and producer. He makes almost $14,000 a day for those that want to hear about the bag, arguably the luckiest man in the world for Beyonce gifting him her presence, and he has 99 problems but…BEING a leader isn’t one of them. And notably recently while almost deemed a sell out for partnering with the NFL, regardless of how you feel about it, he has struck multi-million dollar deals to have the league participate in social justice programs and initiatives and has opened lines of communications directly to one of the most powerful men in sports. He guided so many on the way to understanding that a rags-to-riches story is possible and that we are not just a product of our circumstances but also a product of our decisions. Imagine, if he pressed decline.
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When leadership rings, we must answer the call. We must answer because (1) it can meet us where we are. Everyone say, I may – not be – where I can be – but thank God – I’m not – where I should be. We say that because we have all come from different backgrounds, places, lifestyles, and families, but we are all capable of meeting the moment. Just as we talked about the limitless ways you can lead you have no excuse for failing to meet a moment. (2) Leadership looks different for everyone but sometimes uniquely meant for you. Think of your friends and family and what you have done for them. All the times you guided them to new heights and new successes. You were uniquely positioned to serve them in those moments more than anyone else. And (3) simply, if not us then who, if not now, then when. Every time we pass up an opportunity to lead, and lead the right way, we leave open the door for someone else. And we all know that that can result in bad actors and ill-intentioned persons having the opportunity to influence others. Our decisions have consequences and our ability to meet or ignorance of the moment will have lasting effects on those that come behind us.
I’ll leave you with this. (Can substitute for me). There’s a story of a young boy who was born in Nebraska, raised poor in Michigan, his father believed to be the victim of a racially charged murder, and his mother admitted to an insane asylum all before the age of ten. He was in and out of foster homes, lost interest in his education and succumbed to a lifestyle of drug dealing and street hustling. But wait, there’s more. He was also sentenced to prison in 1946 for robbery. But just when you think that it was over, leadership rang. Malcom Little or as you might know by now, Malcom X, converted to Islam, came into himself, and led masses of people alongside other activists in the civil rights movement to bring about change in this country. Even when he could have allowed circumstances of his life be a reason for ignoring the call he showed up where it mattered. The connection between leaders and perseverance is not coincidental. For even someone like myself, I don’t often like to talk about my upbringing because too often I find others using theirs as a crutch for their inability to meet moments. I was raised in an nine child household, and when the housing market crashed in 2008, my dad an immigrant carpenter, and my mother a disabled police officer, struggled to make ends meet. We went through dark periods of poverty. You can’t tell me what’s it like to be broke until you’ve eaten rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner on days. Or until you’ve had to boil water to take a bath when the electricity was turned off. Until you’ve had to rotate clothes among brothers in hopes that your outfit might look different at the start of a school year. Until a field trip payment might have been the difference between food on the table for the week. From brothers and sisters spending time in the criminal justice system, to early pregnancies, I had no shortage of tough times and no mountain of great influences before me. But I answered the call and took it upon myself to be better. To dig deeper to grind it out no matter the situation and go on to be a scholar, working on my fourth degree, all while grazing the halls of Congress on the very stones laid by my ancestors. It does not matter where you came from, or where you are, but where you are going. Imagine if he failed to answer the call.
Think about all the greats, and imagine where we would be if they didn’t want to be bothered. From MLK to Malcom X, Rosa Parks to Shirley Chisholm, Adam Clayton Powell to Barack Obama, Ida B Wells, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Harriett Tubman, Jackie Robinson, Soujourner Truth, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Arthur Ashe, Mary McLeod Bethune, Fannie Lou Hamer, Muhammad Ali, Nat Turner, Madam C.J Walker…Jalen Polk, Quin Thomas, Claudia Wooten, and you and you and you. What could have been, if they had simply pressed decline. Our ancestors paid it forward with a down payment on our life’s opportunities. And we must take the down payment and pay the mortgage on our moments of privilege and success, in hopes that those that follow in our foot steps will one day own a piece of property in a place called history with a market value of justice, equality, and prosperity. Don’t shut the door that was left cracked just for you. “Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flow charts. It is about one life influencing another to go where they have not been.” You already have it in you, you can be the next great leader. But when leadership rings, we must first answer the call.