Washington's Leaders; Dr. Sylvia Hill

Dr. Sylvia Hill is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of the District of Columbia. Hello I'm Roger Wilkins on today's program we will talk with Dr. Sylvia Hill Dr. Hill has long worked on behalf of third world issues. She is a board member of Friends Africa a member of the free self Africa steering committee and the co-chair person of the southern Africa Support Project. It's a pleasure to welcome Dr. Hilda Washington's leaders she's an old friend and a colleague in many struggles. Dr. Hill. Sylvia Well what's your definition of leadership. Well when I think about the definition of leadership I actually think about certain kind of characteristics and that's what I'd like to talk about. One is one has to have a vision. And along with that vision one has to have a certain kind of passion about that vision. I think of a leader also as having a methodology of work a kind of spy of I how one carries out their work. I think I would lead a very critically have in some understanding both about his or her culture within the group but also having a

strategic understanding about the contradictions within the outer culture that the dominant culture in that sense. I also think about a leader being compassionate and one who has a sense of his or her own weaknesses. And the sense of others weaknesses and strengths as well. But who is able to use those strategically and move around them in this series that is the most complex definition of leadership that I've heard. How did you how did that evolve how that idea evolved. Well as you know we had over time but I think of M. Cockerell. From Cape Verd getting to struggle. Who was a great There was a great African there. They were Titian about the nature of social movements and the nature of struggle and. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to him fairly early on in his writings and it shaped a lot of my view. Secondly being

involved in an organization that was grappling with the leadership and how to be responsible leaders of the southern Africa news collective that was preceding organization of the kind of the mother child of the southern Africa Support Project and we were a group of women who met every Saturday essentially for a matter of almost seven years. The baiting and studying about what we wanted to do against U.S. foreign policy and the third thing though is events. I was involved in organizing the southern half of the six Pan African Congress. A worlwide Congress following in the tradition of the boy and that. That set of events essentially gave me my opportunity to display leadership skills skills to be confronted with issues and struggle where you did not come into this world in

Jacksonville Florida with this whole agenda in my front yard and you didn't go oh 30 to a meeting with a group of women you didn't sit down and read a book. How did this all start with you. Well it started of course the civil rights movement particularly even before that even before then. I mean was there any you know you know I I think about those things and my little neighborhood friends say so you were always strange. What I mean is if you were always strange but one of the things I certainly remember that was unique to my experiences was I was always a reader and I had a little girl friend who won't read as much and we would compete with the reading and we went to the library the genetic code also went to was a challenge there was a librarian there who nurtured all of us in our reading. And so certainly my world view was beyond that circumstance. But. I think that I wanted to be a reader.

I always read. I don't even remember a time when I didn't read. I don't remember anybody teaching me to read I just remember reading and from around home from my mother and father my mother was an interesting woman in and of herself she was a mechanic and a pianist and she had a wide breadth of talent and read a lot. I was an educator. My father was a postman. And I grew up in a neighborhood where there were many mamas and bad days that you visited and you know went from house to house. But it was it was it was Florida and it was segregation. It was Florida and it was segregation. It was remembering it's six years old a neighborhood for in its father who was lynched in Valdosta Georgia a neighboring state city. It was remembering the grown folks not talking about it and reading it. It was remembering my own father being stopped by a white

policeman and my mother trying to shoot him up. And the tension in fear that I felt. But I must say a lot of those experiences you know being told You can't go toward a fountain being told You can't try a hat on. The students movement surface those to my consciousness in a way that they had not fully expressed themselves before. And that's one of the reasons why I think social movements and so and nurturing of people's energies are so key to building leadership. I could have just as well expressed. That pain that I felt by sitting on a barstool drinking you know and sort of partying and so forth. But it was certainly those early experiences of the sit ins that kind of gave me a context that there was something

else that these were real experiences and we didn't have to tolerate them that we had a right to try to. What did you regularly anticipate in the civil rights movement. Well I did as a participant in the sense of going to demonstrations. I didn't feel an empowerment of of. You know leading you. I was on the fringes in the sense of having a number of unique experiences and I tell you there was a there was a one person that we both know Courtney Cox was very much an instrumental person in me seeing a particular type of leadership that was a bit different than what was currently being displayed. Can you describe the interlocutors. Well because Cortland was a person who played in the background. He was a person for a home when discussions were polarize. He always had a methodology of analysis. He always played the role of the person who was give some nation

often. And. You know from my point of view I never saw him playing a role that meant ego ego driven role and so I married that very much and a lot of my style I think certainly influenced by him. Another person was Ed Brown for whom I also spent you know bit of time around. And then I did all that when I was a bit you encounter both me and on the court with Howard University and you watched and you learned you watched and learned. Never having a sense that I would play a leadership role not thinking of myself as a leader to some extent. I felt fairly invisible. My own sense and style is to be more introverted and more reticent. And I've often said to people that the historical forces have. Create a circumstance in which I have to go beyond what my inclination is because it does in fact require

being a spokes person. It requires you know stepping outside of oneself. It requires differing with people and being willing to say I differ. And I was not quite socialized that way. So I've had to depart from that. As a woman you came out of your childhood and your student experiences. Cerebral a reader. Yes I mean wiser in the style of leadership that you saw was also pretty surreal and not just out front. Charismatic. And cerebral what not necessarily competent but certainly cerebral. A lot of my activities were fairly internal and quiet. Well then you know started to to to tell how you began to apply that in

the predecessor of the southern Africa Support Project is that is that your first mature activity of yes. Yes I actually had a sixth grade African Congress. How did you get involved. I got involved in that sort of being asked to participate in a small meeting with sailors doing so. And I was it's pretty bad for me to go because and he also was a great example of a leader in many ways. And. I was very much caught up. With the notion of the role of the African-American in being able to help transform. Africa and the Caribbean which essentially without purpose and we wanted to use we want to put technology on the agenda. And one of the first lessons I learned from that great experience was that you cannot impose on other people's histories though. Your own analysis may say to you

that it is time to look at the role of the transfer of technology and the role of building an African infrastructure. Indigenous people felt our priority is colonialism and hope priority is a part. And I was very moved by that experience. I was a very you know caught up in the strife and. Underhanded politics. But at the same time the ideological debate. I was. Very much moved. Once I got to Tanzania I mean once I was there with folks from the National Liberation Movement along with other people had successfully gotten them there because there was so much political intrigue around getting some 200 people to Tanzania. That's a story book and the movie itself. But I was I

knew that this was we are supposed to be. I felt real. And I. I felt genuinely that I had my mission and I knew it was a like a certain kind of finding of oneself. And I along with the several other people made a commitment that we would turn return to Washington D.C.. By that time I lived in Minnesota and that we would spend our time trying to raise political consciousness around US foreign policy in southern Africa will move could come but because it surely knew a lot of what you've done a million but I want to move to gender for a second. I have seen you. In a leadership role in a movement that was both male and female and. But you started in a when you came back. Apparently you know all woman's movements

and all women and one male with me feeling well heart of no tell me about that and why did that develop and tell me the role that gender has played in you or in shaping your leadership style and shaping your activities. Well I basically gender in that like community here. I think that you know I'm right now in the midst of some research looking at the role of gender and movements in particularly Southern Africa movements so I'm just ferreting this out myself and them. But I try to share with you where I am on it. We merged as a group of women and I think primarily because we had a kind of bonding around this organizing at the infrastructure level of the six Pan African Congress. So we had that level of commonality. You made it happen. Yeah we made it happen. Secondly though I think that the man who perhaps would have

placed themselves in this position had about options. And they had other contexts in which they perhaps played leadership roles or at least became part of you know an ongoing movement for example Cortland certainly became part of the local government structure as such. So I think that was key. The one I've seen in terms of my own experiences as the one from that was greatly displayed one time on Capitol Hill. There was a panel in the first part of the panel built with kind of conceptual issues that would be a logical issues policy issues. And it was almost entirely men and the second panel dealt with strategically organizing issues and tactical issues. It was almost entirely women. I mean panels were put together by the staff committee. And so to some extent though that spin kind of the the real

history of how work gets done in our community in the church and the church. But you know every place. Unfortunately I've been I have questions that I'm trying to ask of myself but I know that Abbott as a leader is strategic for you to understand when you have a constituency and what your constituency is about. And is strategic to understand when there is movement and motion for you to be out front. And one is more strategic for you to be a nurturer to make things happen to make sure people get along together to make sure that that they are focused on the agenda and the strategic decisions that that have to be made. A lot of keeping your ego in check. Yes it does. It means well we have a saying in southern Africa support project we're working for the people

not for ourselves and not for the leadership that can essentially not give us alkaloids. And what you really wanted to do that. But I don't right now I want to be free before you go. Yeah with that I have work with you and I work with you in a lot of things. And I have seen your capacity to contribute steadily day after day after day in massive ways while other people are out front and getting the credit of tasing has been me has been up front now saying well we have a saying that we're working for the people. That's kind of glib I mean I'd really like to know how you handle the emotional. Turmoil that some of these situations must

make arise in you. Well a lot of me is very internal though. And I don't say that in any kind of evaluative way but that's very true of what I mean when I say that is that. I really don't judge my qualities based on a lot of external people and I can sort out who the people are who would evaluate me and you know where I feel proud that they admire me but there are some folks I really don't care in their specific sense of the way Word. I do have moments of you know you know this is just the way they treat women. For example when the New York Times didn't bother to see who I was because I was standing next to just CNN somebody else I don't remember who but they said essentially this is an unidentified woman and. You know I was. Like Pat I mean this is over with or.

When people forget you. They sincerely. As it will do. But some of this you just can't take seriously. You know when you go into a room with with people and they are worried about who was sitting where in those kinds of things you just can't get caught up in that. So I try to keep focus on that as well and I try to but I tell you one thing one one question I do have and I'm exploring this now. And I got this from a mutual friend of ours who I admire a great deal as you do. Mary Frances Berry and the thing I love about Mary Frances Berry is she's never caught up in pomp and circumstance. But Mary is sht. There has a presence that will not permit her to be ignored. And she also has a certain kind of track record too that I don't think I certainly am not equal to a track record and I would try to balance it that way. But I admire their Then I wonder if there

are not styles if I had not had similar to hers with it that would have been different. Now what's the importance of that. The Importance of It might have been that I might have been a model for other women who were both with me and watching me. For different kind of leadership and so perhaps in the next 20 years I'll manage to do that it will be fun. As we move to the final segment of this this conversation I just want to put a pin in so that what you said that was really important that is normally important. That a lot of your rewards and judgments about your contributions are internal and you make a judgment on what people's judgments are important to you in the judgments of the entire world are not what you see. You know it's I think it's enormously important for people who are caught up in a lot of hoopla to remember that internal gyroscopes like to move to kind of a who from what you do to to what you see now

about our developing new leaders are we doing it effectively. No I'm really worried about that. And in fact trying to reorganize my own life so that I don't do the same things that I'm concerned about. Well let me just say briefly I'm concerned that first of all we're not making room. We're not making rumen. And I know people have lots of reasons. They know more or they are more strategic at this moment. You know. They are the people who get the respect. But we see very little mentoring. I don't know of any meetings that I go in where there are young people who are anybody's counterpart. To participate in that discussion and know what's going on. So I except you know as staff or. Service in some form or another in there. And that's key because. One of the things I hope I pointed out in my in

terms of my own sense of the development of leadership. It came about because I was in a set of experiences. You know I got nurtured I mean there were many I participated in the organizing of the governess campaign FoFA Pearl out in Oregon. I mean I spoke to all kinds of people all over the state of Oregon and that was an enormously you know nurturing experience for leadership. So if we don't do that. I think we are perhaps missing a lot of people who are potentially leaders but who may have. Who may miss that opportunity because the timing activities aren't there. Secondly. I really think organizing in leadership for science there's no reason for anybody in this day in time at the end of this century to kind of bumble along and do it by trial and error. We have lots of literature now. You know the media certainly we can debate it and we can talk about it but we need to be in

discussion about it is one of the reasons why I think this program is wonderful too because that's a contribution. Well do you think that. I'm sure that the management of the debate mam thinks that is a great company. Do you think it's time to think about the development for instance of A. Black Leadership Academy. Let me say it's a science we know a lot of things. Do you think that. Oh I think so I think that we have enough history and body of knowledge actually we need to think about looking at our as our activities as a science I mean what have we learned in this century. This is an enormously important century actually. And as we go into the next century what are we leaving our young people do we have different paradigms or you know kind of frameworks of thought. And if so what do different people feel about them in terms of organizing and strategic for the mystical organizing versus international

when they simulate. Lots of questions and we do have a rich history. While there's another problem that I'd like you to think about for a minute. You mentioned the civil rights movement and a number of the people whom I have interviewed on this program are like you and like me people who were born in segregation came up in segregation understood what a Clampett was exulted in participating in breaking it open. And have come through on the other side to see a whole other range of issues both here broad and was a unique generation in that it's a transitional generation. Do you think we're doing a good enough job in transmitting our life knowledge to younger people and I think that that's what we're

missing. And I guess that's what I'm talking about when I say a science and I think that's really missing. And that doesn't happen in terms of formal lectures or the written page because one of the reasons why we have this is that we have is it the passion developed out of experience. And our test now is to create a set of experiences that develop that passion. The nature of the social reality is different enough now. That the same kinds of passions may not emerge. You know racism and economic exploitation. Gender exploitation many of those experiences are not necessarily concrete except in different phases of life or for some people and certainly for many of those people or students that we.

Well let me let me ask you. This is you and I. Share the role we're both passionate about the you know every day level students at the University of the District of Columbia as a professor you know I as a trustee. We're both very passionate about that institution and we both see it as a part of the struggle here. And a part of the social reality in it every bit as much of the struggle as the sit ins in the 60s. Do you have any clues on how. We can transform. We can we can communicate our passion about this institution or similar institutions because one of the social realities is our community needs institutions. Carter who trains Well the truth I'm not sure. You know I started smiling because I'm really grappling with that myself.

As you know I have many different kinds of contradictions with what happens there and I have you know much support from many other aspects of that. But strategically one of the things I know about leadership you have to decide where you can be strategically useful and where you don't burn yourself out for no gain. And you have to understand where you have a constituency that is prepared to work. You may have many potential constituencies but they may enjoy the suffering I mean even for the boy. Does that bother them and I'm. So in the context of UDC my own sense now is to spend more time with my students. I'm spending time with them socially I'm spending time with them with organizing and other kinds of political activities. And of course I've always spent time in the classroom activities but I'm trying to extend that. Because I think that that is where I can be the most useful. At this point in time they were clearly I could spend my time with the faculty senate. I could spend my time in the

context of the Union. But I don't feel that that's going to my individual time will not be enough to make a transform nation. So what's with the students in it was passing on below one to several. The lessons if you like to write well. So unfortunately that's as much time as we have all I can say is the lessons of your life telling. Your students are lucky you are truly a wonderful leader and it's been a pleasure Dr. Hill to have you and brings another program to a close. Please join us again when we talk with another of Washington's leaders. I'm Roger Wilkins. I am. I am. I am. I am.