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Dr. Ron Carter, president of Johnson C. Smith University, believes leaders must constantly read: “Leaders have the responsibility to inspire others to see what can be. But to do that, you have to speak the language of experience.”
One of the latest additions to his 4,000-volume collection was recommended to Carter by his barber, Damian Johnson, a JCSU graduate and co-founder of No Grease Inc. It’s “Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success,” by Napoleon Hill.
Hill engages in a conversation with the devil about what scares us the most: poverty, criticism, ill health, loss of love and death.
“We will slip fear into everything we do. This conversation … is to really outwit the devil in his effort to use fear and use education and use religion,” Carter said.
A longtime favorite of Carter’s is “The Inward Journey” by theologian Howard Thurman, comprised of meditations taking a mystical, philosophical and metaphysical approach to life.
“This has been with me for well over 40 years,” said Carter, whose own copy is missing the front cover. “In difficult times, I could just sit and read and come back alive around his works.” Celeste Smith
