Are there any drum majors and torch bearers coming?

This year has had tremendous loss for me, my father, my best friend, my colleague, and public figures who have given me, an ownership piece of my history. I grieve the death of Dr. Benjamin Hooks. I am deeply saddened by the loss of Dorothy Height, an icon of a movement, but even more importantly, a woman of her times. You see, Dorothy Height embodied the spirit of the civil rights movement in a delicate balance with social grace and political civility. In a time when upheaval, turmoil, strife and aggression were undercurrents of the movement, Dorothy Height brought a certain grace and decorum to the movement that enabled many an angered brow to smooth and roaring voice to undulate into tones where men who were not receptive, otherwise, might now hear. She like Dr. Benjamin Hooks, represented the brilliant and the brightest, those to whom much was given, and much was expected in return (Luke 12:48). If you stop and think about it, we are watching the end of an era, civil rights leaders who answered the call of W. E. B. Du Bois' "Talented Tenth". Men and women who became drum majors in the civil rights movement, whose concerns were not with their own elevation, but the elevation of an entire race of people, of a national human condition, and of the masses who lacked the training and education to challenge the status quo. Dorothy Height, like so many of the the torch bearers of the civil rights movement, worked for the betterment of the race, with the same kind of understanding of history and faith that ignited a flame across the nation. Mary McCleod Bethune understood the role of the woman in the stuggle for civil rights. She said: "Whatever glory belongs to the race for a development unprecedented in history for the given length of time, a full share belongs to the womanhood of the race." While it has not been the women alone, we must acknowledge the role of women in the civil rights movement. The civil rights era or movement was support by the blood, sweat, and tears of many men and women, who shored it up, who pushed through when pushing wasn't popular, who took a stance when it was dangerous to stand. And I am not talking about the ones that readily come to mind, I am talking about the foot soldiers and torch bearers, the Bayard Rustin, Barbara Jordan, Cornell West, Henry Louis Gates, Shirley Chisolm, Thurgood Marshall, Benjamin Hooks, Stokely Carmichael, Phillip Randolph, Richard Wright, Nina Simone, James Baldwin, and Gwendolyn Brooks, of the movement who channeled the underlying understanding of the "Talented Tenth". These are not all of them, these are some of the ones that come to mind, that we don't think of as drum majors or torch bearers. These torch bearers shaped the minds of young African American men and women, through literature, music, art, and political thought. These fine Americans, spoke out, inspired a leader, challenged thinking, and changed the landscape without leading the charge. These drum majors and torch bearers are part of the fabric of a nation that came together to elect an African American as President of the United States. So, where are the foot soldiers to take up the call? Where are the "Talented Tenth" who serve, not for fame but for the pursuit of justice and righteousness? Where are the new torch bearers who are ready to receive the torched passed to them, so that we might continue the causes, to elevate the masses, and seek the betterment of the entire nation from less than desirable human conditions? Have we no young and fresh drum majors, willing to learn and who are willing to take the baton? Have we no torch bearers, who are not so caught up in the game of the day, the pursuit of riches, fame, and infamy as to be willing to carry the flame that was lite in this nation? Do you or I have that which it takes to carry the torch, even for a short distance for the betterment of our race and the nation? Or are we prepared to bury the last of the drum majors and torch bearers, in my lifetime..................