Tavis
Smiley
Tavis Smiley has been
on the cover of Jet, inside the cover of Black Enterprise, Ebony
and many other publications. Many know him as the anchorperson of BET
With Travis Smiley, a nightly talk show on cable's BET Network. But
in Oakland Saturday, he appeared as an unassuming, self-effacing person
who was promoting and presiding over and hosting his Youth to Leaders
Conference.
Hear this interview
Click here.
Tavis Smiley:
An Exclusive Interview with Gibbs
The
Tavis Smiley Foundation's Youth To Leaders conference took place
at Laney College in Oakland, CA., last Saturday. It was a two-day,
weekend conference that develops leadership among the young Black hip-hop
generation. Gibbs covered this conference and conducted an exclusive interview
with Travis Smiley at one of the conference's breaks.
In
the Plenary Session Smiley talked to about 50 parents and youths: "There
is something about Black love. Our children need love, but beyond love,
they need attention, support, and they need to be pushed in the right
direction." Smiley said that he's concerned about Black leadership
among young Blacks of this hip-hop generation because they have no sense
of connection between now and the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement.
He asked: "What type
of Black leaders would we have if our leaders have no knowledge of this
struggle?"
In
helping this generation of young leaders to develop into leadership roles,
we help America, he said. "Where
would America be without jazz, peanut butter, stop lights, and where would
we be without Madame C. J. Walker," Smiley asked, as he jokingly
indicated a few of the many contributions of African Americans to America.
But
Black youths cannot assume the leadership role unless they have a knowledge
of their past, Smiley indicated, and parents must help our youths to assume
that leadership role. "Parents, not athletes, are the most significant
role models for their children." Smiley paused and gave a personal
example of a tragedy and success in his life. "A few weeks ago, I
was at a family gathering. I was signing autographs and doing photo shots,
but I got away in a camper, and my mother came into the camper and we
started talking. Then my father came in also. We sat and talked for a
long time, and I cried like a baby. It had been 20 years since I talked
to both of my parents together." His parents have been divorced for
years. "One can make it with one parent, but it would be so much
easier if both were there together, pushing and supporting the child.
My father is one of the hardest working men I know--I got that principle
from him. My mother taught me the belief in God and spirituality."
The
Youth To Leaders program was started by the Tavis Smiley Foundation
two years ago. It is a nationwide program that takes youths between the
ages of 13-18 years old and have them engage in certain activities as
it nurtures leadership in them. Smiley said that he saw a gap in the knowledge
of the hip-hop generation that frightened him about the future leadership
of the Black community.
As
he prefaced the conditions and the subject area of this exclusive interview
with gibbsmagazine.com,
Smiley put any discussion of his controversy with BET off limits because,
he said, "Intense negotiations are going on with them."
As you may know, Tavis Smiley was fired a month ago by BET, and many across
this nation feel that his firing was the first step in a series of actions
to take place at BET that will change its face to a whiter face. Three
months ago, BET TV was sold by its owner, Robert Johnson, to Viacom.
Tavis
Smiley is an unpretentious person; he was dressed casually and without
TV make-up. He is average in appearance, although, as he spoke in the
Plenary Session, a number of adoring females looked and smiled attentively
to every word spoken. For this interview, we sat in the Tower Building,
Laney College's administration. He came closer to the tape I was
holding, as he waited for his book signing to start, and the interview
began:
Gibbs:
What motivated you to develop the Youth To Leaders program?
TS:
Primarily because there is a cataclysmic shift that is about to take
place in Black leadership. We have arrived at a crossroads in our history
that this hip hop generation will be the first generation of Black leaders
to assume positions of leadership without a firsthand perspective on the
struggle that was the defining moment in Black life in America. These
young people cannot compare the before and after picture in America because
all they know is the after picture. The reality of this first generation
to not know both of these pictures opens up a Pandora's box for us. The
consequences of which, we as a community, have yet to begin considering.
What do you think it will look like 40 or 50 years down the road with
this hip hop generation trying to lead the way without this important
knowledge? That absence of knowledge underscores the need for us to do
everything we can to prepare these young leaders to find this Talented
Tenth in the hip hop generation for leadership.
Gibbs:
When did you come to this realization that the hip hop generation has
no knowledge of the past?
TS:
It is a chronological issue. This generation was born in the '70s
and '80s; the Civil Rights Movement had its heyday in the '60s.
I was born at the tail end of the Civil Rights Movement, and it is obvious
that they were not around during the Civil Rights Movement. The question
is, what are we willing to do about that? What are we willing to do to
prepare these young people for the leadership we are going to need in
the future? While the struggles
have changed, we work on the same page to do away with discrimination.
Today, the issues are more diverse and complex; racial profiling, of course,
impacts these young people. We are trying to prepare them for the kinds
of leadership our community will need in the coming years.
Gibbs:
What, precisely, is this conference doing to prepare young people?
TS:
The first thing we are doing is identifying people who want to provide
leadership. We have a competitive selection process. You have to be nominated,
you have to fill out a number of forms, there is an essay, and a number
of components that go along with being accepted into the program. We are
not talking necessarily about straight A students; if that were the case,
I couldn't get in. We are looking for those with the ambition, talent,
interest, and skills to be leaders. So we are identifying potential
leaders. It is significant that we identify who these young people
are who want to become leaders. Once we identify, we take current issues,
six or seven issues--and these are challenging, social, and economic questions--divide
them into seven groups and over the course of the weekend, they wrestle
with these issues in each of these seven groups. At the end of the conference,
each group presents to the body what they have learned about the issue
and suggests a course of action that young people in their communities
can take.
Gibbs:
What are the ages of these youth, and after the weekends, what happens
to these young people?
TS:
The ages are 13-18. We have a number of partners in each city--NAACP,
Urban League, and a number of local organizations in the city we are in.
But we have national and local organizations that partnered with us. We
don't drop these youths; we have a number of after-care programs that
run throughout the year to stay in touch with the young leaders throughout
the country. The big picture, or the long-term, is we are going to have
a national summit where we bring these thousands of young people to one
city, for one convention/conference. And we are going to start from 13-18
years old and start the network that these youths will need later on at
this early age. Some 20-30
years down the road, when they are providing leadership in America, they
will have had these long standing relationships with each other.
Gibbs:
When was the program started and how many youths do you have in each citywide
conference?
TS:
The program started two years ago, and we only do 100-200 youths by
design because we cannot accommodate more than that, if we are trying
to spend quality time with them. We don't want to be like the public schools,
getting more students than they can give attention to. We are taking the
cream of the crop into our program, and we have from 100 to 200
youths per city; we do about ten cities a year.
Gibbs:
Thank you, Mr. Tavis Smiley, for this interview
by Frank A. Jones
Republished 4/17/06
