Leaders of the New School: America's Young Civil Rights Heroes
By Monét Cooper, Special for AOL BlackVoices


Many of the surviving leaders of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement have turned to careers in public service, pursued other professions, retired or become ad hoc activists (as in Jesse Jackson’s case). Now, a new generation of black young people is rising to the challenges of our time, sharing a deep commitment and desire to improve the quality of life in their neighborhoods, communities and cities.

Here are 10 young, up-and-coming black leaders who, through their vocation and avocation, are positively impacting the economic, social and political life of African Americans.

Moya Bailey
Moya Bailey, a senior at Spelman College, is an advocate for eliminating inequality of any kind, but especially the discriminatory treatment of black women. She’s passionate about ending the war in Iraq and politics, especially as it relates to women and people of color. Last spring, as chair of Spelman’s Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, Bailey spearheaded a protest against Nelly’s “Tip Drill” video, in which a credit card is swiped between a woman’s butt cheeks, when the rapper came to campus. Bailey is still working to make sure that people understand what the protest was really about: connecting struggles, in this case, the depictions of black women in the media."Black women have been talking about representations of themselves for a long time and it really just brought it to the nation’s attention. Money isn’t the answer," explains Bailey. "Just because Nelly’s getting paid or women are getting paid, it’s not the answer. What kind of damage is it doing to the community? What is it doing to the young women who are coming after us?"

Radcliffe Bailey
Artist Radcliffe Bailey calls his art "a quest to find out who I am." Certainly, Bailey’s work is a portrait of his life as much as that of his ancestors whose photos he uses as focal points in his mixed media pieces. The Atlanta resident plies his trade on building works of art out of canvas, paint, photos and the things he says reflect life as a black citizen of the world. Bailey uses the concept of remembrance to tell his stories:. An anatomical drawing of a red heart, the aorta dripping blood, is his own broken heart. The steady gaze of a young man, looking at those who look at the painting, is the shape of his past. An ancestor whose stare he has scanned and blown up to the size of life. Bailey, an assistant professor of art at the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga., paints his civil disobedience one stroke at a time, telling his autobiography with a brush, some paint, objects and a photo.

Toni Blackman
When Toni Blackman was 8 years old, she wasn’t playing with dolls. She was writing poems—about striking garbage worker and their trucks. Today, as a hip-hop laureate, Blackman uses her rhyme scheme to help others figure out their place in the world. She co-founded Free Style Union in 1994, a New York-based nonprofit that organizes rappers, musicians and others involved in hip-hop culture to create work that raises awareness of different cultures and backgrounds while inspiring activism. Blackman has even gotten the U.S. government into the groove. The U.S. Department of State appointed her American Cultural Specialist and Hip-Hop ambassador. She is also a 1999 fellow of Echoing Green, an organization that guides emerging leaders as they shape their organizations.

Jamal-Harrison Bryant
In many ways, African-American houses of worship were the bedrock of the Civil Rights Movement. And the Rev. Jamal-Harrison Bryant wants to return the movement to where it began. As the pastor of Empowerment Temple in Baltimore, Bryant has mobilized churchgoers to be mentors in their neighborhoods and the prisons. In its first 14 months, the church has reportedly grown from 43 members to 2,300. He’s in the process of building an elementary school and adult learning facility that will open next fall and focusing his congregation on building wealth, by giving them the tools and advice they need through workshops and credit seminars. Some would say his message—part spiritual, part activist—is a nod to his previous job as the director of the NAACP’s Youth and College Division where he made stopping the high rate of black-on-black violence at the top of his agenda. His pop culture sensibility and love of music (he is a member of the national board for the R&B Hall of Fame) pepper his talks with a message listeners of all ages are able to can relate to and understand.

jessica Care moore

Never one to relegate her trade of writing, acting, publishing and poetically prophesying to folk who prefer their rhymes while quaffing coffee in austere galleries, jessica Care moore has plied her trade of word play to the tough crowds of Harlem’s Apollo and international audiences in France, Berlin and London to return performances on "Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam" and with platinum-selling rapper Nas. The former journalist made a name for herself after winning "It’s Showtime At the Apollo" five times back-to-back. She discusses everything from feminism, and hip-hop culture to humanism and the lives and souls of black folk. She’s written two original one-woman shows and launched her own imprint, moore Black Press, in 1997, which has published books by herself and other writers. In 2003, moore started the Literacy Through Hip Hop Campaign, which uses rap lyrics as a way to push the importance of reading and the power of words.



About the Author
Monet Cooper is a writer living in Atlanta. READ MORE!!

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Radcliffe Bailey
Artist Radcliffe Bailey calls his art "a quest to find out who I am."

Bailey already has quite an impressive list of exhibits! It looks like purchasing a Bailey piece will not only be a good investment but also a way to support an activist! I'm an art lover and contemporary art is my fav.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 151 Third Street
San Francisco , CA 94103 415-357-4000
Denver Art Museum 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway
Denver , CO 80204 720-865-5000
The Columbus Museum 1251 Wynnton Road
Columbus , GA 31906 706-649-0713
Tubman African-American Museum 340 Walnut StreetPO Box 6671
Macon , GA 31208 478-743-8544
The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art University Of Oklahoma410 West Boyd Street
Norman , OK 73019 405-325-3272




I'm going to get some more info on Jamal-Harrison Bryant for my son and see if I can find some of his speeches for him to listen to. My son is 13 years old, African American.

Thanks for posting this!