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Donald Anderson
One is not born into leadership. Instead, leaders are often the products of injustice and adversity. By believing that change is possible, they are able to form a vision or plan for making that change a reality. Leaders are also teachers, and they help to create new leaders.
Donald Anderson, president of the National Community Development Organization (NCDO), certainly fits this description. Anderson is the great-grandson of slaves and was born 69 years ago in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In his youth, a segregated society still deeply mired in the ugly legacy of slavery limited the aspirations and achievements of most African-Americans. At home, Anderson's reality was much different, however. His father was a biologist, his mother a teacher, one aunt was a psychologist, another aunt would become the first black woman to attend the University of Maryland law school, and an uncle had an advanced degree in genetics. As a young boy Anderson was a voracious reader and a budding intellectual.
When Donald was fourteen, his father moved the family to Washington D.C. to begin a medical internship at Freedman's Hospital, now known as Howard University Hospital. Anderson attended Dunbar High School, and it was there that the seeds of leadership were planted. His teacher, Haley Douglass, grandson of legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass, would speak about his disappointment at the lack of African-American economic and social progress since slavery. Douglass was convinced that progress for African-Americans would only come through organization. Young Donald Anderson knew that he would someday help to organize his community, but the means and opportunity would not come for several more years.
After high school, Anderson attended the University of Michigan. Then, after a two-year stint in the military, he moved to London for a year of study at the London School of Economics (LSE). There, his vision of how to organize began to take shape. Anderson had studied many of the writings of America's founding fathers, and he particularly liked Thomas Jefferson's idea of "ward republics." While at LSE he spent some time at the British House of Commons, which was just across the street. He became fascinated by the British structure of government. He particularly liked the idea that power was concentrated in the cabinet.
After LSE, he returned to the University of Michigan to study law. Upon graduation, however, job offers were few, despite his stellar academic record and impressive degrees. Blue chip law firms of the day were not in the habit of hiring minorities. Anderson then learned of a job opening on the staff of Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and he was hired on the spot. It was 1962, and Powell was chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee. Anderson would eventually become General Counsel for the Education and Labor Subcommittee on the War on Poverty. In that capacity, he would draft anti-poverty legislation. Yet he would soon come to realize that such legislation and the programs it created were useless if the people in the targeted communities were not organized prior to the implementation of the program.
Dissatisfied with the federal government's ability to help the poor - the majority of whom were African-American - Anderson left Capitol Hill in 1968 and founded the Virginia Community Development Organization that later became the Association for the Southern Poor. Today, it is known as the National Community Development Organization (NCDO). Anderson's goal has always been to end the legacy of slavery. His plan was to create a structure through which African-Americans in rural southern communities could organize and regain the power co-opted since the time of the first slave ships by a white minority establishment.
In order to make his vision a reality, Anderson incorporated both Jefferson's idea of ward republics and the structure of the British House of Commons. Anyone over the age of 18 was invited to participate, and groups of 50 people were formed into "conferences." Each conference elected a representative who attended a monthly Assembly meeting. Representatives from each conference comprised the Assembly, which then identified the greatest needs of the community. This structure reflected Anderson's belief that it is critical to create a community-wide organization because it reduces factionalism and enhances sustainability.
Anderson began his organizing attempts in Surry County, Virginia, which was governed by a white minority. More than a decade after Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that integrated public schools, the school system in Surry was still effectively segregated. A private academy served the white students, and African-Americans attended a substandard public school. Test scores of children attending Surry's public schools were far below average, and few public school graduates went on to attend college. Anderson set out to change this.
An Assembly was formed, and a voter registration drive was started. African-Americans began winning political control. Today, they hold a majority on the school board and on the county commission that controls school funding. Because all citizens have become more empowered, and by utilizing community-wide participation, the Surry public school system has dramatically improved. The number of Surry students heading to college has more than tripled and test scores of students have increased significantly. Anderson still considers Surry County to be his greatest success. "The people in Surry might be able to think of improvements, but I sure don't know what they would be," he says.
Anderson is proud of what his organization has accomplished. "The greatest reward is that we have affected the lives of not thousands, but hundreds of thousands," he states. NCDO is currently organizing in 72 counties. According to the organization's Web site, NCDO has created 1.2 billion dollars of additional income for the rural south. Anderson can also be credited with creating leaders. Through the Assembly, many in the rural south have found their voice.
Nevertheless, Anderson wants to do more. His organization has targeted 252 counties where it wants to make a difference. In recent years, the organization has also broadened its work to include urban areas. Anderson is at the age when many individuals contemplate retirement, and he does have a successor. But he is not yet ready to quit. "My objective," he says "is to end the legacy of slavery." He has vowed to remain in his position until that objective is met. "Persistence" is the key to his longevity and to the success of his organization.
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