In 2001 Camille Cosby and Renee Pouissant founded the National Visionary Leadership Project (NVLP) to document the work and lives of African Americans in the United States as a way to preserve and disseminate their knowledge and insights. The NVLP was headquartered in Washington, D.C., and conducted educational programs and outreach, oral history projects and intergenerational events. This collection is comprised of full-length interviews made for the NVLP of prominent or influential African Americans. The interviews were conducted by Camille O. Cosby, Renee Poussaint or a Visionary Heritage Fellow. Some interviews are disseminated via online streaming at the NVLP website: http://www.visionaryproject.org.

The NVLP created the Visionary Heritage Fellowship Program to promote education in African American history and the participation of college students in the preservation of this history. It was a competitive one-year fellowship, open to all students in the United States. Each fellow attended a conference the summer before the start of their academic fellow year where they learned interview techniques and basic video production, among other topics. In order to apply for the program, the fellowship candidate had to chose a person who they believed was a visionary. This visionary had to be at least 70 years old and have made a “significant contribution in their field and in the African American community.” These fellowship interviews were then deposited with NVLP, where they became a permanent part of the Visionary collection. Additional information on the NVLP, or the Visionary Heritage Fellowship Program, can be found at http://www.visionaryproject.org.

The NVLP also promoted grass-roots production of African American oral history through its Legacy Guide. This publication encourages the creation of oral histories with the intent that they be donated to libraries and museums. These interviews are not included in this collection.

NVLP has hosted the Summit on the State of Black America four times at the Library of Congress. The Summits engaged an audience of college and high school students in problem-solving discussions with a panel comprised of nationally-known visionary elders and college students, participants in NVLP’s Visionary Heritage Fellows Program. Together they developed solutions to contemporary issues in the African American community. NVLP has also hosted other panel discussions called “A Legacy of Change,” and sponsored the Wisdom Awards Ceremonies to honor visionaries.