The late centenarian sisters Sadie and Bessie Delany are continuing to “have their say” and have helped create the opportunity to other elders to do likewise. “Having Our Say,” a top-ten rated television movie that premiered in l999, was rebroadcast on CBS on July 28. The film, produced by Camille O. Cosby and Judith Rutherford James was an outgrowth of the best-selling book by Amy Hill Hearth. It has become required reading in many schools (the book has sold more than 2 million copies).

Cosby and James also turned it into a critically-acclaimed Broadway play, which received three Tony nominations and set records as the most frequently produced work in local and regional U.S. theater. Cosby was inspired by the Delany sisters to form a new initiative with Emmy Award winning television journalist and former network anchor Renee Poussaint called the National Visionary Leadership Project (NVLP). This non-profit organization was created to produce, preserve and disseminate an extensive video archive of African-American leaders aged 70 and above from all walks of life.

The mission of the organization is to provide a pathway for the elders to inspire new generations of young people to learn about leadership and apply those lessons to their interaction with family, community, workplace and the world. In one year’s time, Cosby and Poussaint have completed extensive interviews with 30 national figures, including Andrew Young, Maya Angelou, Dick Gregory, Dorothy Height, Shirley Chisholm, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, David Dinkins, Constance Baker Motley, Edwin Brooke, Gordon Parks and many others.

Coretta Scott King will be interviewed later next month. College students in independent studies programs at ten participating universities around the country are interviewing “local visionaries” to add to the archives housed at the Washington DC headquarters.

“Sadie-and Bessie Delany, like the elders Renee and I have interviewed, have an extraordinarily valuable gift to give younger generations if only we are willing and open to listen,” stated Camille Cosby.