Leading While Black

This book is intended to highlight a phenomenon that occurs daily in the lives of Black leaders who serve in leadership positions in predominantly White organizations. Those individuals are evaluated and critiqued with the normal metrics of leadership, but they are also subjected to an additional set of expectations and challenges that do not apply to their White counterparts.

The challenges highlighted in this book – regardless of industry or whether in the public or private sector – are the result of systemic racism that commenced in 1619 and remains alive today. The historical and on-going dehumanization of Black people, and the public policies and laws that have sustained it, have been responsible for the creation and maintenance of contemporary racism and its many manifestations.



About the Author



Dr. Anthony J. Harris is an author, lecturer, and college professor. His previous 11 books include both fiction and non-fiction. His Podcast, Looking Back/Moving Forward, focuses on issues of race, racism, and social justice.

Dr. Harris received his bachelor’ degree in Spanish (1974) and master’s degree (1976) in the University of Southern Mississippi. He received his doctorate (1982) in Counseling from Texas A&M University-Commerce.

Harris was an active participant in the local civil rights movement in Hattiesburg in the 1960s. He participated in numerous marches and protests, attended the Mt. Zion Freedom School in 1964, and desegregated W.I. Thames Junior High School in 1966.

He founded Project Keep Hope Alive, an after-school mentoring program for African American boys in Commerce, Texas, and appeared in the PBS Documentary – Freedom Summer, which originally aired June 24, 2014 on American Experience.