Father was an educator and when i was born, he was president of ford Valley State College in southern georgia. My mother had been a classroom teacher and then went back to that and stopped again over the course of my early life. But they were the prime influences as parents are with all children. They set very high standards for their children but had a soft hand. It wasnt that you must do this but we expect you to do this. And my father, who had spent a great deal of his career researching the development of leadership figures, had always argued that, if you had an advantage over the massive black people, if you had an education, if you had a good job, then you had some responsibility to use that education and that position to help those less fortunate than you. And so my older sister and my younger brother and i all absorbed these messages from our parents. And never in a hectoring way. But always, this is your responsibility and youve got to do it. And i hope the three of us took th
And then beyond that, there are themes that emerge about the importance of National Causes that catalyze people to see themselves as leaders. Catalysts like the brown decision itself, which black leaders were so heavily involved. And then of course the Civil Rights Movement that generated grassroots leaders who came about and then became leaders for the rest of their lives. So the book has those major themes and i think thats exactly what emerges from the interviews and thats why i wrote the book, to call attention to these themes. But you can also just go to the website and find what you want in these interviews. Phyllis leffler, thank you very much. Its a pleasure. Id like to begin by asking you to recollect as best you can what you think of as being the most important early influences on your own life. My father wasrse an educator and when i was born, he was president of ford Valley State College in southern georgia. Had been a classroom teacher and then went back to that and stoppe