Servants of the People

Apparently aimed at the classroom, this book is a useful, if dutiful, set of sketches of six civil rights-era leaders layered with reflections on their leadership qualities. Williams, a special assistant to the president at Bennett College (Greensboro, N.C.), bases her book on biographies and autobiographies of A. Philip Randolph, Frederick D. Patterson, Thurgood Marshall, Whitney M. Young, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Fannie Lou Hamer. The author deems labor leader Randolph and Patterson, the president of Tuskegee Institute and founder of the United Negro College Fund in 1944, as ""forerunners."" Marshall, who argued against school segregation before the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, and Young, executive director of the National Urban League, were ""negotiators,"" though Williams acknowledges that Young strayed from the grassroots. Finally, he dubs the charismatic, though morally suspect, Powell, a congressman from Harlem, and Mississippi protest leader Hamer ""provocateurs""; Williams notes that Hamer's crusading ""servant leadership"" is rare. The author's conclusions, and reflections on current black leadership, are mostly unexceptional. Most interesting are her acknowledgment of the tension between the leaders' democratic ideals and less democratic means they sometimes employed, and her critique of the ""patrimonial paradigm"" that excluded women. The book includes a supplement for teachers. (Jan.)