WITH 'COVENANT,' TAVIS SMILEY HAS A CALL TO ACTION

"The Covenant with Black America" is not a fun read. Not unless
you're the wonky type who likes to snuggle up with a good policy proposal.

One would assume there aren't nearly enough wonks in the world to put
a book like that within shouting distance of the New York Times
best-seller list, much less at the top. Yet, "The Covenant" went to
No. 1 on the paper's nonfiction paperback list April 23. It is,
according to its editor, Tavis Smiley, the first black book to
achieve that distinction.

All of which makes Smiley, the multi-hyphenate media figure (radio
commentator-TV talk show host-activist-author) understandably proud.
None of which is why I bring it to your attention today.

Here's what impressed me about "The Covenant": It is not just another
book about problems. It is also, and perhaps primarily, a book about solutions.

The workability of those solutions can and will be furiously debated.
I don't propose to enter that debate here. For me, for now, it's
enough that the book exists, that it lays out the emotional and
statistical dimensions of 10 areas of critical concern for the black
community, including health, justice, education and the digital
divide. Each chapter begins with an essay by an expert in the field
and includes proposed remedies: not simply suggestions for what the
muckety-mucks in office can do, but specific, pragmatic things you
and I can do.

You know why that's noteworthy? Because when talk turns to the
seemingly intractable ills that beset black folk, so many of us are
of the curse-the-darkness camp. We can outline the problems all day.
We are less voluble about solutions.

Full disclosure: I was once a guest on Smiley's TV talk show. I am
scheduled to be one again in June. But if you think that's why I
dialed him up after reading "The Covenant," well, as Bugs Bunny used
to say, you don't know me too good.

I called the guy because his book, wonky and unlovely as it is,
ignited my imagination. Made me think maybe we the people are no
longer content to be content. Made me hope folks are coming to
understand, as they did in the '60s, that the power to shake up the
status quo, the power to make true, lasting and revolutionary change,
resides not with politicians or pundits, but ultimately with the
people, assuming they have the will to use it.

As Smiley sees it, the inequities laid bare by Hurricane Katrina have
taught every American, "regardless of race, color, creed, party
affiliation, ideology ... that we do not yet live in a nation that is
as good as its promise."

The lesson and legacy of that ordeal, he says, is a realization that
people need to command their own destiny. "You see it now with regard
to immigration and workers' rights in the Spanish community. Advocacy
is cyclical. There's something happening in America now. I can feel it."

Smiley believes -- and I agree -- that black America has spent the
last 38 years waiting for another Martin Luther King. "There are a
lot of us," he says, "who believe that a piece of black America died
on that balcony at the Lorraine Motel with Dr. King. And since that
time, what folk have been looking for is a blueprint, a game plan, a
guidebook. The problem is, they have been looking for it in the form
of some charismatic leader."

But the capacity for leadership, if only in our individual spheres,
lies within each of us. "The Covenant" proposes to tap that capacity,
to inspire folks to stop waiting for Dr. King to get back.

So Smiley has been hosting town hall meetings nationwide, encouraging
people to discuss, debate and take action. He's also gotten the
Democratic and Republican parties to promise that candidates in the
next presidential campaign will address the issues the book raises.
(For details: www.covenantwithblackamerica.com)

As my mother used to say, I glory in his spunk.

See, I'm tired of waiting. Apparently I'm not the only one.