>> in madison park, a place of hope, former special assistant to george w. bush eric molly retraces his journey from madison park, alabama to the white house. this is 40 minutes. >> good evening everyone. welcome to our bookstore. we are delighted to be hosting eric molly this evening as he shares a story with us in madison park, a place of hope. before we get started if everyone would silence their cell phones. we are very glad that c-span book tv is here to film this event and i will introduce eric this evening is donna and phil,

they were instrumental in setting up this event and are tireless advocates for getting eric's story out there. we will give them a warm welcome please come back. >> thank you also much for coming at our invitation tonight. we are thrilled to have eric visit with us and we are calling it his first visit. i think she said useful, is that better? okay. well, as i said were thrilled to have eric here visiting with us and i hope this is his first visit. bill and i are lucky enough to be board members at the aspen institute and that's how we got

to know eric and his leadership there. he is -- would you call him the number two person? really the number one person. >> i would say that. i've had the privilege of knowing eric for about two years. we were henry brown fellows at the aspen institute and it recently has gone through a transition in leadership with walter isaacson who is probably the premier biographer of our time just stepped down as president at the institute and eric shepherded that process with the wisdom and policy that would just make, you know, make you shake your head. it was a very desired position and no one could have handled it as well. many of us think eric should have been the president. >> he will be next. >> we expect them to be there at some point but were proud to have him here on this day with a fellow southerner and tells an amazing story in his book. >> it is so compelling we would

let him tell it himself. thank you, eric. [applause] >> i thought you would do a dual there for a second. what a real pleasure what a pleasure being here. this independent bookstore is one of the greatest bookstores in the country and a wonderful reminder from its latin origins of the importance of ideas and how ideas bring us together and shape community. i want to thank the barksdale's and hope and bill for your hospitality. an incredible day here in jackson. i see some of you who've been tagging along and i was at [inaudible] then i was at bailey

this morning and was most incredible experience with the most interested in interesting of students. you should feel proud about the investment you are making in education here in the city. they were wonderful gems and bright lights. to be here to celebrate this evening with you is absolutely incredible. i had a mentor who once said to me in a very nice note was that of his life that if you are fortunate that the sum total in culmination of life is rem and you are probably thinking of rapid eye movement or you're thinking of a group but it's relationships, experiences and memories. i've had the most good fortune of having wonderful relationships with people like the barksdale's and hope and fill in the experiences they've afforded me on this journey has been unforgettable. i have a book to sell and i have a book for you to read and it is called madison park. there are two stories.

it's a memoir and you think a memoir but what do you want to tells what your life because you're only 40 something years old but it's a memoir about place in the intersection of my life, my own odyssey of grace and gratitude with a very special place. i will tell you two stories briefly. the first is a place called madison park and how it came into being and in 1880 a group of freed slaves with nothing except the shirts on the back and a little money they had saved in hopes and aspirations of what it could be for them to create community and to realize the jeffersonian ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. they were led by eli who could read and write and he invited seven other friends to join him in this great venture. my grandfather's grandfather was one of those. they purchased a plantation in 1888 called the mays plantation and the first two structures they developed on that plantation was a church to express their gratitude to god that deliver them to this new promise land and a school

because he felt that true liberation was realized with the opportunity that only in education could afford. that was true liberty. in that place and evidence of god's grace those individuals put all their hearts and minds and all their efforts together to create a community. martin luther king wrote the were and inexplicable commitmene garment of destiny. what impacts you come in packs me. that is the story of a group of people who have the highest ideals and wanted to live in the american lexi. the second story involves an individual named george washington molly who was the grandson of the founder, john wesley motley. he remembers two things about visiting his grandfather is a little boy but in the shotgun

house on this plantation over the front door which he had developed with his own hands just a simple wooden cross and a reminder that it is coming he was greeted by something much larger than self but over the back door was a picture of abraham lincoln that his great-grandfather had extracted from a newspaper to remind him of where was going to god uses individuals to bring about change and transformation and my story, my story intersects with the interesting place because in the 1960s a little girl was adopted by george and amy motley, one of 14 kids in the

family and the mother discovers she's dying of cancer and asks a neighbor if they would consider adopting one of her 14 and how you choose to select one of 14 i have the slightest idea but they chose her. she had promised angry potentiality and thought that perhaps if nurtured and trained along with things eternal she might realize her own aspiration. little barbara and perry becomes barbara and motley. she was nine years old and age 19 she gave birth to a bundle of unformed possibility. that is me. george and amy motley decided to not only embrace her all the more but embrace the child. in the hopes and aspirations of all these people in this community became manifested in their dreams and hope for the little baby. they had three great desires one that this little child could realize he was no less a tree in the stars but had a right to be here and created by a god who superintended all things in nature here on earth did the second desire is i would realize that i was a part of the

community and something much larger than the motley household but i was a member of the madison park community and with that came rights and response abilities but i was also a citizen of the great country and the last great desire was that i might have the opportunity of enlightenment that only education could provide. everywhere they went they knew that no two neighbors and friends we have a little boy that we want to get a good education. we want to go to college. my grandmother could meet a guy in the grocery store looking at tomatoes and he could have the university of wisconsin's restaurant and she would go over did you go over to the university of wisconsin? i want my grandchildren to go to college. could you talk to him. i'm never been to wisconsin and i'm not the slightest idea of where it is. yes, just talk to them. their inflection points in our life and we remember and we remember them all the more when we look to the rearview mere of life. in madison park hotel a couple of stories about individuals who were there and every chest in

turn along the way. in first grade the teachers in a note home to grandparents informing them of my academic failure. and madison park i was knows as a precocious, interesting, interesting kid they had designated me as the university kid. everywhere i went people called me little einstein and i'm not sure how many people knew einstein but it sounded pretty good. then i go off to first grade and the teacher writes a note home to my grandmother informing her that i had been demoted from the rabbits to the turtles. my grandmother is not one to discriminate but she learned the difference between rabbits and turtles. she phones one individual in our town that she thought could help remedy the situation. she called emma madison bell, the great granddaughter of eli madison, the founder of madison park. we called her and shine because

everywhere she went light followed. she was a muscular lady both in the secant intervals and came over to her house, a retired teacher already some 45 years in her early '80s and talk to note and all i could hear her say from the kitchen was we believe in resurrection. she accused m excuse me from the room and she my grandmother started to talk. they invited me back in after a few moments and she looked at me and said we believe in resurrection. you will be a rabbit again. i promise. a couple of days later in church the minister recognized and it was a public service announcement and she stood up for the entire congregation and said brothers and sisters, little eric motley over here with his grandma, one of the bright stars is growing dim and he was a rabbit but now he's a turtle but we believe in resurrection. amen, sister, we believe in resurrection. we will restore him to have it status.

i tell you the story because it's a story about community. and shine did two things that changed my life. looking across the congregation she said i will be at the motley's house this afternoon and i commit to build him a library to help him with his reading and whatever reading matter you have i want you to bring it by the motley household this afternoon and for two hours aunt shine and my grandparents and i sat on the back porch and you would've thought that a paper tribe was taking place at her house. someone brought by a 1945 almanac to see whether for that year. a 1972 life magazine and jet magazine volume l of insider pdf britannica. only volume l but everything you want to know about al, i am your guy. [laughter] someone else about by a wonderful volume of english verse mine is its table of

contents or index but richly sown with the verse of shakespeare and tennyson and keats and yates and the first poem on the first flyleaf was a poem that i committed to memory. there was a time when meadow grows in a streams in every common site to me it seems apparel to the precious of a dream, as it were it was no more and this i know where air i go there is passed away a glory from the earth. aunt shine and her sisters are retired in their 70s and kbyte the motley house every day for two years to tutor a little turtle back into rabbit hood. every session began with four basic precepts. this is the house that your grandfather's grandfather built. he was a slave who believed in the american dream. you have to memorize the

american constitution and the declaration of independence. the thing? we will start with the preamble. every day at the beginning of every tutorial session i had to stand and recite from memory and heart the preamble to the declaration of independence. we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. it is your precept, it's your country, is yours, you own it. then i would recite the apostles creed because we were methodist and then james johnson lift every voice and said as a reminder of where i came from. for two years these retired teachers who had nothing except love in their hearts and beauty in their minds imparted wisdom,

social security, mathematics, history and the basic precepts of american hood did i tell you that story because it underscores the basic essence of this memoir that we are all a part of that inescapable network of mutuality. in madison park we were tied with a single garment of destiny and a place that was inspired by those with dreams and aspirations to make america work and to believe that making individual sacrifices one sacrifice at a time for the good of it and our committee was far better than individualism. i tell you the story because there are a lot of eric motley's in the world. little eric motley's desiring to grow into their own person to realize their own aspirations and it's only through community that we can experience the fullness of who we are collectively. we live in a politically polarized culturally confusing and fragmented society. we are told daily what is wrong

with america and what does not work but madison park reminds us that at best there are things that work and that community is one of those beautiful institutions that bind us together. it reminds us that there are principles and values and precepts that undergird our own sense of community. it reminds us that each of us have a part in being the bears in light including community wherever we go. i tell you one last story. my grandfather had a great desire that i be exposed to books and at the very place for me to be speaking to you and after the books that were delivered at 34 motley drive i had an appetite for anything that had a page to be turned. he organized all of our neighbors to weekly take me to the montgomery public library some minutes outside of where we

lived in the country so that i could experience the joy of being surrounded by books and all of its truths envelope in its pages. i grandfather would go incident parking lot for two hours and he would wait. emotionally, psychologically unable to go into a place that he had been for me to go into for so long. he would not turn on his radio fearing that it would run down the battery. we had no air-conditioning for the chevrolet and policy he would sit, scribbling in his notebook and i would go in like i was going into the great library at alexandria and i was from myself with books, although librarians knew me but on this one occasion. from the pyramid of books that surrounded me i looked up and saw a very elderly white man in a wheelchair that was a black belly standing at his side in attendance turning pages for him and i would look up and he would look down and i looked out and

you look up a record includes case one or two times and at the end of the day vote librarian said to me okay little motley boy, it's time to go. i gathered my books and got my satchel and looked up in the elderly gentleman was staring at me. with a long pause he nodded as if affirming something. as i raced out of the library too eager to tell my grandfather who i had met i said daddy, daddy, you will never guess who i just met in the library. wanting to intrigue me to the guessing game he said who, tell me who. george wallace himself. history has a long arc. my grandmother wanted me to live in the realm of hope.

an understanding of history for sure, and understanding of the complexities of history for sure, but to live in the promise of things that could be in that library experience in 1982 while sitting there i realized that history does have a long arch. the great social philosopher said nothing that is worth doing could be accomplished in a lifetime therefore we are saved by hope. nothing that is good or beautiful makes complete sense in its immediate context of history therefore we are saved by faith. nothing, no matter how beautiful and good and virtuous, could be accomplished alone. therefore we are saved by love. we are saved by community. life is filled with incidents, accidents and providence. all along the way into returning

i have been fortunate enough to be teachers in pictures and local philanthropists and people who cared and teachers who stayed after school to help me realize my own potential wanted to nurture as wagner said the human material of life to see it through to its execution. ... yes, sir.

[inaudible] i knew very little about george wallace but you can't grow up in montgomery without knowing something. very iconic. i know that he and bodies everything that defended me from going into the library. my grandfather, in a very thoughtful and measured way, my grandfather i tried to capture here in this memoir was an individual whose sensibilities were just remarkable. his sense of decorum inspires the way that i engage with people today. and my grandfather not wanting to invite anger but always wanting to create a frame around every photograph of hope began to explain to me the complexities of history around george wallace and told me who he was and helped me to understand what had occurred and he framed it in such a way that i could appreciate in 1880, these individuals nothing but

these dreams and hopes and created this place, their descendents were living through the challenges of history, the formation of who we are as a people, as a country, and i grandfather wanted me to realize that much had changed. progress had been made and that was worthy of acknowledgment and he also wanted me to see myself beyond that particular moment in the library, all that the althod for me in the future and for that i will always be grateful to. [inaudible] >> my grandmother was a housekeeper, and the family happened to live right next door to the fitzgerald. one of the daughters of this

family went to washington, d.c. on a trip and brought my grand bareback a gift. my grandmother kept on her night table, she would dress up before weddings and funerals and there were no bar mitzvahs come comest is the principal occasion for us and i would always stand at her side and fumbled this little snow globe and she would say to me one day you can be in that snow globe. my first day of going into the white house every now and then it meets reality. all i could think about was going into the white house and standing at my grandmother's side holding the snow globe.

your little boy he needs to learn to read, send them "the new york times." but on one occasion she sent home a crate of album and my grandmother telling me mrs. peabody said take these records from a. and i chose an album because the woman in the photograph on the front page of the album was in this glorious costume of color.

it was just the norm and see the last three stones of strauss. absolutely divine. it was my first introduction to opera and i turned up the volume so loudly so that the kids next door is that most singing at one or two high octave is nothing like this gets across the street and ran over asking what are you listening to. kerry is to ridicule it was one of those moments that it's

beyond your comprehension that changes your life forever. she's heard mshe has hurt me tef these stories. i had teachers all along the way and i went to birmingham alabama because they had a high school teacher tha that believed they d great potential to study literature and she stayed after school everyday to help me with my applications. i got a scholarship and the university president took me under his arm and a short my asy grandparents and announced to me that he would take care of me during my time. to go anywhere in the world to study i choose scotland. one i was always mistaken for. i show up on an ambassadorial scholarship. they pulled me aside towards the end of the first year and he

challenges me. we developed a beautiful relationship and they said to me what are you going to do once you leave? they haven't decided just yet and he looked at me amazed. knowing my story into the sacrifice and commitment of all these people and the places that believed in me he said this is the first time that i have encountered do not going what is next. why don't you think about it and meet me for tea. i returned and he said if you're serious about your future then i will provide you a full scholarship because i want you to go back and not accept an opportunity to fill in the quota but to feel that you are just as

capable of everyone else applyinalso playingfor the oppo you. i stayed in saint andrews another three years until i can get my degree. wonderful experiences. on one occasion a classmate asked me if i would go home and spend the weekend because he thought i wanted to experience another part of the countryside in scotland. teddy with smoked three cigarettes every minute and i thought this would be a nightmare going on. i knew very little about his parents except his parents worked in london but have a house in scotland and every three weeks they would come back to the family home.

you would have thought that handel composed into the past by this castle and then we go around a great band and i say where i'm from it's against the law to trespass. they looked at me and said no this is my home. he said that is the ground keepers cottage so then we go down for another ten or 15 minutes everything that they informed to do believe that it should look like a comedy get out of the car and run in and

help me with my luggage and try to maintain a sense of composure and dignity. that is what patrick. >> you mean patty? and the other, that is his office in his office being don't you know that he's the lord chamberlain to the queen and his mother, yes, yes, the lady in waiting. and so about three or four weeks later because when they are not at the castle in buckingham,

they invite me to be their guest annual garden party. so we ar are there and it is a white tie affair and there are men with arrows and swords. i'm standing in line, british decorum at its best and the trumpets sounded and all of a sudden everyone starts to sing what i think it's m is my counto succeed but it is god save the queen and she comes out with her ladies in waiting and they draw near me and patrick comes over and says a couple of words and i'm told that the protocol is when an introduction is about to be made and with a sense of decorum i stand and i take it all and end this woman standing to the side was most curious as

to who i was. at the very end of the ceremony after the greeting had been made and i've been given an introduction, following the castle she stops and says to me why don't you come in for a cup of tea and the lady standing to the side turn and after having too much to drink says who is he and my date having had too much to drink system to know the ambassador of nigeria when you see him? i remember them saying that evening drexel lindsey. i met incredible people who were committed to public service. president bush on one occasion while sitting in the oval office turned to me and said i know

your story, i know the place you come from and your grandparents gave up everything they had. it is honored to have you here. i know that you have heard it before but to whom much is given, much is required and throughout my life, the profits mantle has been a constant refrain to whom much is given much is required. on one occasion i was sitting in the oval office and i was transfixed looking at a painting on the wall and president bush as only president bush could say, hey, what are you looking at, why are you looking at abraham lincoln? all i could think was to tell him a story my grandfather had told me about his early visits to his great grandfather's house and that over the front door was a cross and with a backdoor a

picture of abraham lincoln. for a moment, i realized how are you come from madison park. i was packing my suitcase knowing that perhaps this opportunity as great as it was wouldn't allow me the opportunity to see my grandparents lived out their lives but one of them would die while i was away. could i abandon this couple that meant so much to me and has made such a sacrifice for my own developed into growth. facing those thought, my grandmother came in and said to me you need to come out, there is a lot of noise outside. i went to the back porch and all of madison park was there and

people were giving me a little joblittlejobson decides to helpe money for college. the retired teachers tutored me every day after school, the minister of the baptist church and my own methodist church where there and my minister came up and gave me an envelope, a very thick envelope i later learned was about $150 to the congregation had collected in a special offering to support me as i went away to school. he gave me the envelope and another lady as if she were making a sacrificial claim to god gave me a cool with container of collard greens just in case they didn't have them in scotland. [laughter] someone started to sing, the minister said a prayer command after the prayer was said, they took out a map and went to the side of the car and said show me

scotland and proudly i approached the car ready to show her scotland. i looked at the map and it was with montgomery alabama. she'd never been outside of montgomery alabama, let alone alabama, let alone the united states. and it dawned on me that my going to scotland was like sending an astronaut to outer space and with me were going not only their prayers, but their hopes and aspirations of and dreams but imagining the unknown in the world but for me, and yet again i was reminded that to whom much is given, much is required. a friend recently found himself at a conference and in the

company of a very successful attorney from montgomery alabama. my friend attempted to play the name and place game. do you know eric motley? no, i don't know him and where is madison park? my friend was taken aback because after he heard me talk abouhad heard metalk about it se last decade, everyone in alabama, lebanon montgomery knew of madison park. telling me the story, he added he looked at me as if it not exist, as if it were invisible. i guess in many ways it doesn't exist on the radar in many system or maps except for those that work in the government of public schools or people that know the story of the community.

madison park about them is invisible. it's an incredible idea for me because for those who help from the place, madison park is as much an idea as it is a living breathing organism. to those that have ever heard of ounever heardof our little commy not exist but to the founders who bought the land and leave the cornerstones into this debate a for the descendents of care for it whether they live there or not, it is as large. they were planted and nurtured over 135 years ago and people have been trying ever since to make america work for them, the same way they do wear a light shines bright and all of the roads are paved. the vision of a self-reliant community where people could come and work to improve their state of life remains a vision

of its inhabitants today. over the last decade as i shared the story of madison park in washington dinner parties and meetings and church, work and friends, others affirmed they once lived in a similar place, so in many ways it's become a metaphor of places that can seem invisible. they still exist, but are their days numbered? are they at risk of becoming extinct? i can only hope not. despite the changing landscape the same applied to the committee for the people of madison park planted deep in the earth cultivated by my great, great grandfather and the slaves that began the community and gave it its name. the history is tied to the

senses of who i am and this ritual locus that continues to offer refuge, instruction and meaning in their daily existen existence. when i reflect on the roadblocks faced i feel grateful for the community they sent me on a different path, my race, relative, southern roots and the absence of biological parents seem to predict the people bestowed their gifts which i can never repay. life is like that and blessings come at us where we are forever in a deficit position. they never get all the things he was ordered by his properly said which leads us living with a

burden of gratitude. for as long as i can remember, it's been a prism to which my life experience has been filtered and awareness served to keep my sanity at a and my concern for others is the first day i was taught to count my blessings of the total run so high i can no longer name among my one the sense of having been blessed with my most cherished possession. the abundance i found in life thanks to the everyday mentors, circumstances and providence far outweighs what i might have earned or deserved. thank you very much. [applause]

[inaudible conversations]

new york review of books editor recounts his time living in japan. he spoke about it during an interview that the mcnally jackson bookstore in new york city. this is 50 minutes. hello, everyone. welcome to mcnally jackson. it's nice to see you coming and we are being filmed for c-span.