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Black leaders divided even on need for unity
Coalition building works, said Mr. Mosley
It takes unity, she said at Freedom Corner in the Hill District where civil rights protests in the city historically have taken place, to address the rampant unemployment, low achievement and violence that have frayed the fabric of black life.
The two-hour rally, one of Ms. Moss' first public forays, wasn't a notable display of numbers or unity, however.
It drew about 100 people -- a disparate assembly of housing advocates, clergy and war veterans. Conspicuously absent were officials from the Urban League and the Black Political Empowerment Project, known as B-PEP, which is headed by Tim Stevens, the former leader of the NAACP, who lost reelection to Ms. Moss.
For decades, common issues of racial justice have yoked dozens of Pittsburgh groups fighting to improve the quality of black life.
But in the past few months, public divisions have cropped up. Black leaders are even divided over whether there is a need for them to speak with a unified voice.
Drifting
The Pittsburgh public schools reorganization plan proposed by Mark Roosevelt, the new superintendent, revealed some sharp differences among three of the city's arguably most influential black organizations.
The NAACP called the plan racist, while, to varying degrees, B-PEP and the Urban League urged passage, and the groups that once worked in concert on many issues seem estranged.
The electoral defeat of Mr. Stevens -- the charismatic longtime head of the Pittsburgh NAACP who never hesitated to speak out on a variety of issues in frequent press conferences -- and also of Sala Udin, the former City Councilman, have also contributed to a sense of disarray.
Mr. Udin did not appear at the NAACP rally at Freedom Corner, at Center and Crawford avenues, and has kept a low profile for the past several months.
But he said the VIPs of civil rights do seem "adrift." Mr. Udin has been a political figure in the past who has been able to draw different groups to the table and get them to talk to each other.
After practically growing up in the NAACP, Mr. Stevens said his defeat, in 2004, "broke my heart."
He said his duties as volunteer coordinator at Mayview State Hospital prevented him from attending the NAACP rally, but he remains faithful to the group. Also, he admitted, it has been awkward for him to show up at NAACP events and not be there as president.
But he and some other leaders say there is room for different viewpoints within the African-American community, and say that the black community need not march in lockstep on every issue.
"Black people are not a monolith. We don't exactly have to be on the same page at the same time."
Focusing efforts
Too much was made of the rally no-shows, said Esther Bush, head of the Pittsburgh Urban League. Ms. Bush said her staff, with the approval of supervisors, was free to attend the rally, as they have with rallies organized by Mr. Stevens.
In the past, she said, she has not attended NAACP public rallies unless specifically asked to collaborate. Ms. Bush said she got no direct invitation from Ms. Moss, so she followed what she considered to be established protocol.
"Gayle is my friend. She is president of the NAACP and I give her every respect and I'm supportive," said Ms. Bush. "But I will not collaborate when not appropriate."
Ms. Moss works more quietly behind the scenes than did Mr. Stevens in the NAACP, which has struggled with membership and civic apathy.
"As new people come and go," she said, "we have to continue to embrace each other and continue to march. Our battles must not be personal, we must focus on the people and their needs."
Mr. Stevens now gives much of his energy to B-PEP, which was born 17 years ago to boost black voting strength. At a reactivation rally three years ago, B-PEP pledged to work with the NAACP. But the two groups have not worked closely on projects recently.
Differences in approach or stands on issues don't create a void in leadership, said Ms. Bush, head of the Urban League for 12 years. Rather, "I think it creates an opportunity" for more leadership.
The reality is that black social, business and political leaders have always collaborated and will continue to do so, she said. To find solution to problems in the black community, "all of us are working through this."
Pittsburgh's black leadership and its multitude of agendas is "too fragmented," said Khari Mosley, 29, of the Mexican War Streets, director of the Pittsburgh League of Young Voters, to address unemployment, public schools, the lack of civic engagement and the HIV rate, which he called a public health crisis.
How to unify
Public differences over how blacks should deal with problems they confront is not new. A century ago, Booker T. Washington, a black conservative, wrestled with how to move the race forward with W.E.B. DuBois, who had his elitist notions of a "talented tenth" -- an educated 10 percent of the black community that would lead.
In the 1960s, the rise of the modern civil rights movement seemed to unite black groups under a common cause: end segregation. Not everyone agreed with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., but his nonviolent agenda to defeat racism became a clarion call for unity.
Soon after Dr. King's assassination, black leadership splintered into a thousand different voices.
Some politically active young people say today's issues are just as critical as the push to end segregation 40 years ago. They say that, in the absence of one unifying leader, the situation demands social and political leaders cross class, political and economic philosophies to forge a consensus of how to address them.
"I think we need another human rights movement," said Mr. Mosley. "We need a unified voice to improve conditions of the community."
Coalition building works, said Mr. Mosley, pointing out how state and local groups worked to open a Shop 'n Save grocery in September in Spring Garden, a mostly white, distressed community whose troubles mirror those in low-income black neighborhoods.
Leaders, said Mr. Udin, must be mission-oriented and tough, people with "long teeth and gray hair." Just being elected does not enable someone to effectively serve, he said.
It's critical, added Mr. Udin, that blacks in leadership roles stay connected and educated. He's working toward a project that would do both by hoping to convene a roundtable of black leaders to examine the implications of suburban sprawl, which "starves the inner city," he said.
To be effective, black leaders, he said, must move beyond the single-minded focus on racial discrimination.
A case in point: Many of the groups address joblessness among black males, but first you must first address job preparedness and training.
"Most black males are turned away not for being black, but for being untrained and undereducated," said Mr. Udin. "How do you respond to that?"
For Sala Udin, for Pittsburgh black leadership in the 21st century, the old adage "united we stand" gets tweaked a little.
"United and informed we stand," he said. "Divided we fall, and uninformed, we do the same thing."
