Speech Gordon will speak at noon Thursday, Oct. 26, about his book "Black Leadership for Social Change" during the 15th annual symposium for black leadership at KU in the Kansas Union ballroom. Related topics KU students join black leadership program Subscribe now to receive KU News by email

Contact: Mary Jane Dunlap, University Relations, (785) 864-8853.

New book focuses on need to study black leadership

LAWRENCE -- African-American leaders have existed from slave times through contemporary times, but little theoretical research on black leadership exists, says Jacob U. Gordon, University of Kansas associate professor of African and African-American studies and author of a new book on black leadership.

Gordon, who teaches courses on black leadership at KU and directs KU's Center for Multicultural Leadership, says higher education should play a more definitive role in developing leadership among today's black students and that, historically, black leadership has been the conscience of American society.

Gordon will speak at noon Thursday, Oct. 26, about his book "Black Leadership for Social Change" during the 15th annual symposium for black leadership at KU in the Kansas Union ballroom.

Black leadership is unique in U.S. history, Gordon says. "Black leadership in American society is the reaction to the oppression by the dominant society right from the time when they were on the boat, through the trans-Atlantic slave trade."

When he began teaching courses on black leadership 10 years ago, Gordon realized little theoretical research had been done on black leadership. The dominant culture has always ignored the concepts of black leadership, Gordon says.

"So if you put black leadership in American context, you begin to see then that blacks were actually trying to overcome the problems which had been imposed on them. They were trying to change society by raising the consciousness level of the society as a whole to begin to do some thinking about 'Where are we going as a nation?'"

Stressing the need for black leadership in the future, Gordon says the role of black leaders in the 21st century "is to bring about some desirable changes in our society for the good for the American community overall."

Gordon says he encourages students to research black leaders, particularly in areas where little study has been done, such as studies of black women leaders or black leadership in the westward movement of this nation.

He also is working with KU administrators to develop a new interdisciplinary minor in leadership studies in the Department of Communication Studies.

Traditionally, university administrators have assumed that "if we teach history, if we teach geography if we teach literature, if we teach political science that we will automatically have students who become leaders," Gordon says.

But leadership is an interactive process of making goals and achieving the goals and concurrently keeping the people together, Gordon says.