National Visionary Leadership Project

The National Visionary Leadership Project, a non-profit organization founded by Dr. Camille O. Cosby and Emmy Award-winning former network journalist Renee Poussaint, unites generations of African Americans, both elders and young people, in an exciting venture. They are working together to tell, preserve, and disseminate worldwide, the first-person stories of their past, while creating a strong educational foundation for the young vibrant leaders of the future.

The project, founded in late 2001, includes an annual intergenerational leadership training conference, state of the art website, creation of accredited independent study courses, (most at historically black colleges and universities), and the establishment of an unprecedented collection of extensive videotaped biographical interviews, with extraordinary African American elders.

Some of the Visionaries (all of them at least 70) are known nationwide. They are nominated by the public, chosen by the NVLP Board of Directors, and interviewed by one of NVLP’s two co-founders, Dr. Camille O. Cosby or Renee Poussaint. Other Visionaries are known primarily in their local communities, and are chosen and interviewed by African American college students from those communities, as part of our Visionary Heritage Fellowship Program (see separate section).

Video excerpts from interviews with both National and Local Visionaries are placed on the NVLP web site (www.visionaryproject.com). Each Visionary has his or her own separate page on the site, making their biographical information, pictures and excerpts available worldwide.

Efforts are underway to have segments of the material included in middle school and high school curricula across the country.