In Pursuit of Transformation

It has been said that leadership is essential to the ability of any group or organization to achieve its collective goals. In the case of African Americans, political leadership has been at the center of a centuries-long collective struggle to improve their status as a disadvantaged group in the United States. Although much of the scholarly attention regarding this subject has focused on studying leaders at the national level, social and economic conditions in our present time call for a greater examination of the workings of African American political leadership in community-based settings as well. Toward the above ends, In Pursuit of Transformation explores African American political leadership in Charleston, South Carolina, as a community wherein African Americans have played a prominent social and economic role since colonial times. Its primary goals are to examine various orientations and behavior patterns among the city's contemporary African American political leaders and assess their significance in improving social and economic conditions for the community they represent. Ultimately this study seeks to help foster a better understanding of how political leadership works under the unique set of socio-economic circumstances that African Americans have faced in these United States, and the role that it plays in the struggle to have a transformative effect on this society toward fully realizing the goals of equity and justice for all its citizens.