By RODNEY HO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 10/26/07
For his current tour of historically black colleges, TV and radio host Tavis Smiley has been using the theme of the "talented tenth," the 10 percent of the African-American population that could lead the the rest.
At Morehouse College Friday night, the phrase was plastered on a huge banner at the Executive Conference Center auditorium crediting civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois. But someone at the college informed him earlier in the day that "talented tenth" was coined by Henry Morehouse, the namesake of the college, in the mid-1890s.
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"Du Bois actually borrowed that phrase," Smiley said, sheepishly.
Whatever its source, Smiley used that term to anchor an hour-long speech filled with references to his hero, "the greatest American," Martin Luther King Jr., and challenges to the up-and-coming generation of Morehouse students to take the reins and define themselves by not just success but "greatness."
"We're not loving and serving," he said, the two tenets he feels make for a great leader. "We're mostly chasing success... You can be successful without being great. You can't be great without being successful."
He cited Donald Trump. "I'm not casting hate but even his success is suspect. Only in America can a white boy file bankruptcy two or three times and end up with a show called 'The Apprentice.' " [Actually, Trump has never filed for personal bankruptcy. Several of his casinos, though, have filed for bankruptcy.]
Smiley ended his speech with a well-known quote about how short life can be from a former Morehouse president, Benjamin E. Mays, and many in the overflowing crowd of 400-plus recited along with him.
I have only just a minute, only 60 seconds in it,
Forced upon me, can't refuse it.
Didn't seek it, didn't choose it,
But it's up to me to use it.
I must suffer if I lose it,
Give account if I abuse it.
Just a tiny little minute,
But eternity is in it.
What are you going to do with your minute?
During the Q&A session, someone asked him why the goal for great leaders shouldn't be 25 percent as opposed to 10 percent. Smiley related a story he heard from the late Coretta Scott King, that people would constantly tell her they had "marched with Martin." "If I had a dime every time someone said that," she told Smiley a few years ago, "I'd be independently wealthy." Folks may have seen Martin march by, but most people simply aren't equipped, he said, "to be servant leaders."
After the speech, Morehouse junior and business major Nicholas Parrilla said he appreciated Smiley's precept that would-be leaders need to look internally at "who" they want to be as opposed to "what" they want to be.
"He gave me a little more purpose in what I should do with my life," said Parrilla, who heads the campus gay support and advocacy group Save Space.
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