Finally, an anti-war leader I can follow

For as long as I can remember, I have looked at the leaders of the civil rights movement -at Martin Luther King, Jr., at Rosa Parks, at the Greensboro Four - and I have wondered: Who can I follow toward justice? Whose vision of America can my generation rally behind to further push our country toward the ideals our Constitution outlined?

I was sitting in a steamy auditorium at Bennett College last week when my question was finally answered by a reverend who began his speech by saying, “I love Greensboro, North Carolina, because this is where the lunch counter moment took place.”

Distracted by budgetary mishaps and accusations of mismanagement, those of us who live in this revolutionary city seem to forget that the former Woolworth’s, a shell of a building on Elm Street, was once at the epicenter of one of the most important moments in American history. The Greensboro Four compelled our country into action but it seems that we need an outsider - a man who, as far as I know, has never lived in Greensboro - to remind us of that gilded feather in our cap.

This man is Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Jr., CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus, a nonprofit, non-partisan coalition meant to inspire and motivate those of us born after the ‘60s civil rights movement. “This is our lunch counter moment of the 21^st Century,” said the Rev, as he is known in the antiwar movement. “It’s not a question of equality but a question of humanity.”

The power of the Rev’s leadership lies between the lines of his speech at Bennett and the more than two dozen speeches posted on YouTube. It is the missing element that makes him so compelling: his refreshing lack of dogmatic rhetoric.

I have heard many who attended the Greensboro antiwar rally in April complain of being distracted, and sometimes even repelled, by the fringe politics that rode piggyback on the antiwar message. As a person who fully believes that democracy carries the power to mend itself, I, too, have been turned off by those who would reject the foundations that make our country great. I have gone so far as to wonder if there is a place for me in such a movement, regardless of my antiwar convictions.

The Rev offered me that place last week. “I would like to see more people of faith [in the antiwar movement] but I am glad to stand with agnostics, atheists or anyone on the side of right,” he said, adding that people of all ethnicities and socioeconomic situations must unite if any movement is to be effective.

He stressed the need to put egos and sideline agendas away in order to focus on bringing our troops home and righting our country, and in that I heard my own concerns reflected: that many of the 70 percent of Americans who reportedly oppose the war remain on their couches because they perceive that antiwar forces want to change America rather than repair it.

In Rev. Yearwood, I see Dr. King and their shared gift for being able to motivate people through hope and empowerment and inclusion. When the Rev says “Power to the People”, he does not mean to the poor people or the rich ones, to the people of color or the Democrats or those who share his Christian faith; he means power to all compassionate Americans, all those who are guided by humanity and the belief that together, we can affect change in the best possible way.