Contemporary Authors

• Madison Park: A Place of Hope - 2017 Zondervan , Grand Rapids, MI

• Amazon -

  Eric L. Motley, Ph.D., is an executive vice president at the Aspen Institute, responsible for Institutional Advancement and governance. He previously served as Vice President and Executive Director of National Programs and prior to that he served as Vice President and Managing Director of the Henry Crown Fellowship Program. In addition to managing the Henry Crown Fellowship Program, he served as the Executive Director of the Aspen Institute-Rockefeller Foundation’s Commission to Reform the Federal Appointments Process, an independent, nonpartisan effort to evaluate the Federal government’s vetting and clearance procedures. Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, he served as the Director of the U.S. Department of State’s Office of International Visitors within the bureau of Public Diplomacy. In 2003, he became Special Assistant to President George W. Bush for Presidential Personnel, where he managed the appointment process in the White House for over 1,200 presidentially-appointed advisory board and commission positions. He joined the White House staff as Deputy Associate Director, Office of Presidential Personnel in 2001.

  Eric serves on the Board of Directors of Barry-Wehmiller Companies, the Library Cabinet for the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington, The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s National Council, The John F. Kennedy Centennial Memorial Task Force, National Advisory Board of Honored, Young Concert Artists, Advisory Board of Planet Word Museum, Board of Overseers of Samford University and is a former member of the Chapter Board of the Washington National Cathedral. He is a member of the Cosmos Club of Washington, DC and the Grolier Club of New York City. Eric is a Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary International Foundation and Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. He is an avid book collector of first editions and rare books with a concentration on the English writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson. He is currently engaged in developing a collection on the scholarship of the eminent Greek scholar Sir Kenneth Dover and has written and lectured on the intellectual and political contributions of Scottish-born American Founding Father James Wilson. In October 2006, he published a volume of poetry Luminaria.

  Eric earned his bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Philosophy from Samford University. As a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, he earned a Master of Letters in International Relations and a Ph.D. as the John Steven Watson Scholar.

• Wikipedia -

  Eric Motley
  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Eric L Motley
  Born Eric Lamar Motley
  Montgomery, Al
  Citizenship United States
  Education Robert E. Lee High School, Samford University (1996)
  Alma mater Ph.D, Political Philosophy/International Rel., 1996–2000, University of St. Andrews
  Occupation Nonprofit Executive
  Employer Aspen Institute
  Eric Lamar Motley was born near Montgomery, Alabama, United States and grew up in the Madison Park community (Montgomery, AL).[1] He currently serves as Executive Vice President and Corporate Secretary of the Aspen Institute. He formerly served as Executive Director of National Programs, Vice President and Managing Director of the Henry Crown Fellows Program[2] as well as the Executive Director of the Aspen-Rockefeller Foundation’s Commission to Reform the Federal Appointments Process.[3]

  Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, he served as director of the Office of International Visitors in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. State Department. The office had a 100-person staff and a budget that exceeded $80 million. Prior to that, he had served as a Special Assistant to President George W. Bush for Presidential Personnel, where he managed the appointment process in the White House for over 1,200 presidentially-appointed advisory board and commission positions. He joined the White House staff as Deputy Associate Director, Office of Presidential Personnel in 2001 at the age of 27 immediately after receiving his Ph.D. from St. Andrews University. He was the youngest appointee by the George W. Bush Administration.[1]

  Motley earned his bachelor's degree in Political Science and Philosophy from Samford University in 1996. As a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, he earned a Master of Letters in International Relations and a Ph.D. in International Relations as the John Steven Watson Scholar.

  Motley sits on numerous national and Washington, DC boards. He is involved in the arts and humanities and is a book collector. In June 2006, his life story was featured in the Washington Post as part of the series “Being a Black Man in America.”

• Aspen Institute Website - https://www.aspeninstitute.org/our-people/eric-motley/

  Eric L. Motley, Ph.D., is an executive vice president at the Aspen Institute, responsible for Institutional Advancement and governance. He previously served as Vice President and Executive Director of National Programs and prior to that he served as Vice President and Managing Director of the Henry Crown Fellowship Program. In addition to managing the Henry Crown Fellowship Program, he served as the Executive Director of the Aspen Institute-Rockefeller Foundation’s Commission to Reform the Federal Appointments Process, an independent, nonpartisan effort to evaluate the Federal government’s vetting and clearance procedures. Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, he served as the Director of the U.S. Department of State’s Office of International Visitors within the bureau of Public Diplomacy. In 2003, he became Special Assistant to President George W. Bush for Presidential Personnel, where he managed the appointment process in the White House for over 1,200 presidentially-appointed advisory board and commission positions. He joined the White House staff as Deputy Associate Director, Office of Presidential Personnel in 2001.

  Eric serves on the Board of Directors of Barry-Wehmiller Companies, The James Madison Council of the Library of Congress, the Library Cabinet for the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mt. Vernon, jury member of the Ken Burns American Heritage Prize, The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s National Council, The John F. Kennedy Centennial Memorial Task Force, National Advisory Board of Honored, Young Concert Artists, Advisory Board of Planet Word Museum, Board of Overseers of Samford University and is a former member of the Chapter Board of the Washington National Cathedral. He is a member of the Cosmos Club of Washington, DC and the Grolier Club of New York City. Eric is a Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary International Foundation and Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. He is an avid book collector of first editions and rare books with a concentration on the English writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson. In February 2017, he published a memoir Madison Park, A Place of Hope telling the story of the small community he grew up in Montgomery, AL, that was founded in 1880 by a group of freed slaves.

  Eric earned his bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Philosophy from Samford University. As a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, he earned a Master of Letters in International Relations and a Ph.D. as the John Steven Watson Scholar.

• NPR - https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=12533197

  < On 'Being a Black Man' August 6, 20079:00 AM ET Listen Queue Download Embed Facebook Twitter Flipboard Email FARAI CHIDEYA, host: I'm Farai Chideya and this is NEWS & NOTES. Whether on TV or in the movies, black men are often portrayed as oversexed, undereducated, violent, even racist. Last year, a group of staffers at The Washington Post got together to paint a more nuance picture. The result, an in-dept yearlong series called "Being a Black Man." Kevin Merida is an associate editor at the Washington Post. He was the coordinating editor of the series and editor of the forthcoming book, "Being a Black Man." Also with us, we've got Eric Motley. He's the managing director and vice president at the Aspen Institute, a public policy think tank. He was profiled in the series last year when he worked as a Bush administration official at the State Department. Welcome, gentlemen. Mr. KEVIN MERIDA (Associate Editor, The Washington Post): Hey, thank you, Farai, for having us. Mr. ERIC MOTLEY (Vice President, Aspen Institute): Thank you very much. CHIDEYA: We're delighted. So Kevin, what does being a black man mean to you? Mr. MERIDA: Well, it means to me that, you know, we're part of this universe. You know, we have identity that, you know, you often see on the street when a lot of times, brothers see each other and there's a nod of recognition, a little head nod, sometimes, you know, when you see people you don't even know them, you know, you embrace. So, there's some sense of shared identity and yet, we're so - we're individuals, I mean, you know, we have a brother on the cover of the book who is a NASA engineer and he has dreadlocks. And I think, for the average person, if they say, well, pick out the NASA engineer in a photo line up. They wouldn't pick out this brother - he sails, he's in the martial arts. We have so many different identities and I think that the world doesn't see that very much, certainly, through the mass media. CHIDEYA: Eric, I'm going to flip the question for you. What do you think being a black man should not mean? Mr. MOTLEY: It should not mean that we are underestimated in what we're able to achieve. It should not mean that we have to be second-guessed because of our abilities, because of our interests, because of our political ideologies or philosophy of life. It should not mean that one should think about us and our birthright as Americans any different from any other American citizen. That we're all a part of this unfolding drama of history, that we all have a place in this country and this world, and that we're no less than the trees and the stars. We have a right to be here. CHIDEYA: Eric, you had a moment in your childhood in a library. Tell us about that. It was portrayed in the Post. Mr. MOTLEY: This is a very important moment, at a library that my grandfather would take me to. My grandfather had no interest, really, in reading so he would stay out in the car, drop me off. I would go in, neighbors would carpool me to the library. I had a great interest in books and learning. And this is the same library that my grandfather my mother had been allowed to go in some 10 years earlier. And as I was sitting in the library one day, I recognized this very frail man in his wheelchair, sitting directly across from me. He had an attendant to his side, a black attendant. And as I looked up, he noticed my stare and he looked at me, and he acknowledged me with a nod of his head and a smile. And I acknowledged him and I went back to my reading. It was Governor George Wallace and that was only a couple of years before he died. It was a very important, because in the very library that he would have prevented me from having gone to some 10 years earlier, we were both sharing a space of learning, a very quiet, sacred moment. CHIDEYA: Kevin, you must have so many stories that are evocative from other people that you profiled in the series. Tell us about one person. What comes to mind? Mr. MERIDA: Well, I was struck by - there's a gentleman by Elias Fishburne. He was stopped on his way to the gym, on the highway. As it turns out, he was talking to his cell phone. Somehow he's in a car accident and the police came, state troopers, and they looked up his name on the computer network that they used, and they saw that he was wanted for some very serious crimes in Atlanta. And so, he was a fugitive. They took him in even though he protested. And they took him down at the Prince George's County Jail in Maryland. And to make this odyssey - this story shorter, he basically was in jail, went from Prince George's County, taken down to Atlanta. He was basically an innocent man. He's protesting all along. It turns out they had the wrong identification. Someone had stolen his ID - a guy by the name of Jarvis Tucker - and had been using it. And he was not able to get himself out of that situation. But the interesting thing I found about it and the nuance thing was during - while he was in his jail, and he was a hairstylist, he started connecting with the brothers who are in jail. And for your listeners, you know, jail is different from prison. I mean, this is kind of a holding station where people are waiting to find their fate. And he was in there. He started braiding brothers' hair and kind of set up a makeshift salon in jail. And he said that the experience - even though it was a horrific experience, to be an innocent man, never been in fault with the law, to spend 30-something days in jail - he found that he had connected with brothers in a way inside that he had never had outside. He had more meaningful conversations inside. It was really telling in terms of what kinds of experiences we have and how we connect with each other. I thought it was remarkable stories done by Tammi Jones. And that was one of my favorite stories in the series. CHIDEYA: Eric, you have been in the Bush administration. Do you ever feel shut out of that conversation because you are a Republican? Mr. MOTLEY: No, not really. I think it was Emerson who said that political party is our excuse for not thinking, for not being thinking people. I think I have always considered myself a thoughtful person. And as I share with Wil Haygood, who profiled me from the Washington Post, there are values and ideas that I subscribe to that are espoused by the Republican Party and as much as there are values and ideas and beliefs that are espoused by the Democratic Party that I also subscribed to. But in no way have I felt that I have been shunned. And I think people who know me know that I'm a very thoughtful person. And I'm ruled by my convictions that I support the candidate that I believe is the best candidate, that I subscribe to ideas that I believe to be the best ideas for society, for America. Mr. MERIDA: Farai, could I add one… CHIDEYA: Yes, please. Mr. MERIDA: …other thing about - one of the most fascinating things I think in the book, and this is something that wasn't in the series, is the interview with Bob Johnson, the founder of BET and the richest black man in the country. It's probably the most extraordinary interview I've ever seen with Bob Johnson because it really - you get a sense that no matter how high you climb, you know, when you read this interview, he really kind of take you through a tour of our world. It's very provocative. One of the things he says - and this is interesting. He says that if you're covered by Forbes magazine, Forbes magazine celebrates wealth. People at the business council celebrate wealth. But does the congressional black caucus celebrate wealth? Black people are very uncomfortable talking about wealth accumulation and wealth preservation because you don't get recognized for being wealthy. You get recognized for giving it away but not for accumulating it. And you can argue with him and disagree. And I know many people will. But I found that throughout the interview, you kind of get a portrait of his world from his standpoint. He talks about doing - what it's like to do business and with the corporate titans of America. And you can see again, yet, even at that realm, he's very much a black man. CHIDEYA: Eric, when you think about your experience, what kind of advice would you give to younger black man? Mr. MOTLEY: You know, no doubt we're all struggling with racism and with differences. I've heard it said, we're all recovering racists. But I believe that this country is a melting pot. And we all have a responsibility as citizens. When I think of Martin Luther King, John Lewis, Andrew Young and the many foot soldiers of the civil rights era in America, I mean, their work was not in vain and should not be in vain. Their lives have made a great difference in opening up opportunities to those of us who followed. So I think we have a greater responsibility and that is to realize that we drink from wells we did not dig. We eat from fruit trees that we did not plant. And we have to work hard. We have to support one another. I truly believe that the sense of community that was so important to my upbringing has been greatly demised in America. And that was the sense of interdependency that people had on one another - neighbors supporting one another. So I think we have to have a conversation as black men, as black citizens, as countrymen about our responsibility to supporting and nurturing community and helping one another in ways that have always been vital ways for the survival of this country. CHIDEYA: Kevin, if you have to sum things up in one line, I know this is tough, of encouragement for other black men, what would it be? Mr. MERIDA: Well, I think that there is power in the diversity within the black male population. And that's something that comes through in this series, in this book. You get to see black men, all their complexities, their challenges, you know, their struggles, their triumphs. And you get to see that all as part of a collective portrait. And that is really to me energizing. CHIDEYA: Well, Kevin, Eric, thank you. Mr. MERIDA: Thank you, Farai. Mr. MOTLEY: Thank you very much. CHIDEYA: Kevin Merida is an associate editor at the Washington Post. He was the coordinating editor of the series, Being a Black Man, edited a book of the same name. That book hits stores tomorrow. And Eric Motley is managing director and vice president at the Aspen Institute, a public policy think-tank. He's a former official in the Bush administration and at the State Department. They joined us both of them from NPR headquarters in Washington D.C. And you can read Eric Motley's profile and find all the stories in the series at our Web site, nprnewsandnotes.org.

• Southwest - https://www.southwestmag.com/eric-motley/

  Groomed for Greatness
  If you ask Eric Motley, he didn’t “grow up” in Alabama’s Madison Park—he was raised. In an excerpt from his new book, he examines the meaning of community.

  BY ERIC MOTLEY

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  Eric Motley has lived the American dream, in part because so many people dreamed it for him. The first member of his family to go to college, he graduated from Samford University in Alabama, went on to receive a Ph.D. from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and then became the youngest appointee in President George W. Bush’s White House. Today, he’s an executive vice president of Washington, D.C.’s Aspen Institute, an organization that brings together diverse leaders in an effort to solve critical problems in society. But none of those achievements would have been thinkable if not for the love and guidance Motley received from his caregiver grandparents (“Mama” and “Daddy”) and countless members of his neighborhood, Madison Park, a tight-knit enclave of Montgomery, Alabama, that was founded in 1880 by freed slaves. His new memoir, Madison Park: A Place of Hope, is a valentine to the place and the people who shaped him—and the true meaning of community. These passages focus on pivotal moments in Motley’s education and reveal what can happen when, as Motley says, people decide to be responsible for one another.

  The November afternoon that I brought home a letter from my first grade teacher, Mrs. Heikamp, Mama was so alarmed she immediately called Aunt Shine.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Aunt Shine agreed.

  She hung up the phone, came to our house, and delivered a stern lecture to me about my “unacceptable” performance. The idea was woven into our everyday conversation: “Is that going to help you prepare for college . . .” With so much reinforcement, I couldn’t help but make this my overriding goal. Everyone in Madison Park knew of the Motleys’ dream for their little boy—and my plan to fulfill it.

  In church the next Sunday, Aunt Shine suddenly stood, asked the pastor for permission to speak, and announced: “Brothers and Sisters, we have a serious problem. Little Eric Motley has been moved from the Rabbits to the Turtles. Any books you’ve finished reading, please bring by George and Mossy’s house. Little Eric doesn’t have a library, and he needs to practice.”

  Everyone turned to look at me. I was mortified by the unwanted attention. But within a few hours, community folks started dropping by until soon our porch looked as if we were having a paper drive. There were 1945 Life magazines and a few way-back issues of Jet bundled together. I had Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume “L,” 1932 edition, and a Farmer’s Almanac predicting the weather for each day of 1948. Someone brought a dilapidated volume of Gwendolyn Brooks’ poetry. Talk about eclectic.

  Learning was taken seriously in Madison Park. Too many older citizens had been denied a formal education and exposure to the arts and ideas. Perfect attendance in school was expected. When the Madison Park School was functioning, the teachers, who were neighbors and fellow parishioners, were a part of the community and enjoyed a relationship socially and civically with parents. And Mama and Daddy exhibited a far greater level of engagement with my academic performance than most.

  With my low marks in reading identified and books and periodicals at hand, Aunt Shine mobilized a volunteer corps of six ladies, all of whom had been retired from teaching for 15 to 20 years. A rotating team of two came by our house every afternoon to coach, drill, and encourage me. They didn’t stop at reading. They must have figured while they were at it, why not tutor me in math too?

  A couple of months in, Mrs. Frankie Lee Winston recognized that if I were falling behind in my studies, there had to be other kids in the community as bad off—or worse—than me. With a few small donations from townspeople to buy workbooks, flash cards, and other materials, they started a community-wide tutorial program in our church to lift up Madison Park’s children. Every weekday from 4 to 5 o’clock in the afternoon for more than two years, about 60 boys and girls from different churches came to sit at the elbows of the volunteer staff.

  Those ladies knew the benefits: a generation of children elevated out of their circumstances.

  I didn’t simply “grow up.” I was raised. Mama and Daddy had little money but enormous influence. They possessed in abundance all the things that count—optimism, integrity, patriotism, common sense, faith in God, respect for others, and a strong work ethic—and passed those on to me. My grandparents were smart enough not to spoil me, wise enough to indulge my love of books, kind enough to chauffeur me to debates and speech contests, devout enough to get me to Sunday school, and inspirational enough not to allow me to become an angry young man.

  Mama was disciplined and extended this to those around her. She governed the affairs of the house with a strong hand, and we obediently obliged. I was expected to make my bed as soon as I got out of it, to dress for the day before interacting with others, to be fully dressed at all meals, to habitually reserve a half-hour of quiet for prayer and reflection, and to consistently err on the side of formality rather than familiarity.

  Mama saw to it that any tendency on my part to be lazy, slothful, grungy, or rebellious was never given oxygen. My grandparents imprinted on me a love of order and routine. From them I learned that the way one starts the day largely dictates how it will unfold. A core tenet of the Motley household was that to rise early was to embrace the newness of the morning, with all of its promise and opportunities, before others started to create noise.

  Someone once said that good teachers are with us for a lifetime; certainly the lessons they teach us are, and in some instances the teachers are as well.
  Sociologists debate the importance of nature versus nurture in childrearing. I would cast my lot with nurture. Whatever my birth parents bequeathed to me biologically has paled beside the years of intense yet patient rearing that my grandparents invested in me. They imparted an inheritance beyond all estimation and far beyond all deserving. And they had an entire community that helped.

  Until junior high, I’d had a flock of hardworking teachers, yet until I met Susan Mayes, I hadn’t encountered the one who would change my life. She took me on as a special project in her speech class. Mrs. Mayes required us to deliver a “demonstration speech” at the beginning of each semester explaining how something was made or operated. I demonstrated the art of making a straw broom, as I had often seen Mama do. I showed how she cut the straw, firmly braiding and tying thin wire and widely cut ribbons to make individual stalks of straw strong and unified.

  I received an A and offered Mrs. Mayes the broom. I was beginning to understand how much a good orator could achieve. Knowing I would need scholarships for college, Mrs. Mayes helped me enter every speech competition possible during seventh and eighth grades. My teacher, who was white, drove me around as though we were reversing the roles in Driving Miss Daisy, although I sat in the passenger seat next to her, not the backseat.

  Almost every Saturday, she would pick me up in her green Mercedes and then glide down country roads to competitions.

  Mrs. Mayes had a way of demanding the best, and with her help, we won almost every time. Only as an adult have I realized what she imparted to me, that tall, skinny black kid with untested hopes: her confidence, a sense of worthiness, her standard of excellence and expectation that I would benefit from competing with others as ambitious as I. She did it for no extra pay and no personal gain. Twenty-nine years later we remain friends. Someone once said that good teachers are with us for a lifetime; certainly the lessons they teach us are, and in some instances the teachers are as well.

  Two weeks before Christmas and one week before my 12th birthday, an unfamiliar knock at the door interrupted our quiet evening. A young man stood at the screen. Daddy invited the stranger in and led him to a chair by the open fire.

  The stranger revealed that he was a college student who’d traveled almost two hours from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, selling books to finance his education.

  “Is this your son, sir?” he asked.

  “This is our grandson. We’re raising him,” Mama and Daddy replied in unison.

  “Well, I hope he likes school, because I have a lot of books that can help him with his studies. I’m selling a lot of encyclopedias and dictionaries this Christmas.” Mama confidently told him our home already had a dictionary, though she didn’t tell him it was two decades old. We didn’t have a full set of encyclopedias, only random volumes.

  “What else is in your bag?” Daddy asked.

  “Well, sir, I also have a book of knowledge,” the stranger replied, as if saving the best for last. He artfully pulled from his bag a large red leather book, embossed with gold letters and decorated with speckled leaves.

  “Knowledge?” I asked, moving closer to inspect this treasure.

  “Yes, the Basic Knowledge is kind of like having 20 encyclopedias in one book. It covers everything you want to know about the world—American history, science, technology, art, and music.”

  “The whole world in that one book?” Daddy asked.

  “Yes, sir,” came the response. “You want to look at it?”

  I reached my hands out and reverently held the book up to the light. Its red-leather binding felt sacred. I’d never seen such a book—so full of facts.

  “How much does a book like that cost?” Daddy asked.

  As though apologetic, the man said in a low but firm voice, “$60.”

  I was stunned. Sixty dollars was a lot in our household, especially so close to Christmas, when gifts had been purchased. Mama motioned to Daddy to follow her into the kitchen.

  Moments passed with hushed whispers. Then my grandparents returned. Daddy reached into his pocket and carefully counted out two $20s, two $5s, and one $10.

  Mama held in her wrinkled hands all the knowledge of the world. “A gift for you, dear Eric,” she said. “Now the future is yours.”

  eric in the oval office
  In the Oval Office with President Bush in 2001.

  To feed my appetite for knowledge, Daddy began driving me to the city every week to check out books from the library—a simple act that changed my life. The 50-minute round trip provided a refuge and bound us more closely. We sometimes drove past the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had once been pastor, and the spot where Mrs. Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus.

  Daddy never talked much about that, or about his role ferrying bus boycotters to and from the city for 381 consecutive days, but he called them “our heroes” who, despite being ordinary people, found the strength to be courageous.

  Daddy kept the faith despite the prejudice he had encountered. He seemed never to divide the world into black and white—good and bad—his conscience was too large, his heart too generous.

  By my childish standards, the old Montgomery Public Library downtown rivaled the great Library of Alexandria. It was a magnificent cathedral of information. I never knew what unusual fact, what teasing photograph, whose quaint story I might stumble onto. I’d begin in the poetry section and select armloads of books, often to the librarians’ whispers: “There’s the Motley boy.” They knew I had a mental map of the shelves.

  One Saturday, after rambling about, I found my way back to my table on the main floor. My eyes were drawn from the page to an older, fragile-looking white man at a table across from me. He was in a wheelchair, with a black attendant at his side. He moved delicately. With bright, piercing eyes hooded by heavy brows, he struck me as a man bearing heavy burdens.

  I returned to reading. But sneaking a glance now and then, I’d find Wheelchair Man flipping pages casually. Our eyes met awkwardly several times. I knew him from somewhere! Once, nodding, as if to say, “Good day,” he seemed as curious about me as I was about him. As closing time approached, a silence added a reverential quality to the nonverbal rapport that had developed between the Wheelchair Man and me. Suddenly I knew.

  As I gathered my books and walked to the circulation desk, we nodded—a parting benediction. I was so eager to tell Daddy, I took the stairs two at a time, and headed to the car, where he’d been waiting for two hours. I opened the door to his usual questions—“What have you been up to in there? Find any good books today? Any Robert Frost?”

  “Yes, sir,” I answered.

  I laid my satchel on the rear seat and blurted out, “You’ll never guess who was in the library; who kept looking at me today.” Daddy managed a dramatic pause before asking, “Someone special?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said emphatically. “It was Governor George Wallace!”

  “Do you mean the George Wallace?” he asked. “Isn’t that something? You just came face to face with one of the most notorious former segregationists in the country.”

  “Some people believe he learned that he had to get the support of black voters to win elections,” Daddy said. “But I think he changed his mind about black people after a gunman tried to assassinate him in 1972 … It put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life and made him understand suffering for the first time.”

  “Do you realize,” Daddy asked, “that if you’d been born 10 years earlier, at the start of Wallace’s first term, you wouldn’t even be allowed in this library? Now, you can sit at the same table with him. Sometimes justice comes slowly, but it always comes.”

  Deep within Daddy was this abiding conviction that we are saved by hope. He didn’t erupt into a diatribe about a former segregationist or gloat over the fact that Wallace came to suffer. Instead, he used the occasion to celebrate the fact that now I could freely use the same library from which Wallace would have banned me.

  As I came to adopt that same hope, my grandparents’ dream for me to go to college became my mission.

  Taken from Madison Park by Eric L. Motley, copyright © 2017 by Eric L. Motley. Used by permission of Zondervan, zondervan.com. Header image: Eric Motley (top, second from left) in his Head Start class.

  Photography courtesy of Eric Motley

  ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JANUARY 2018

• Washington Post - https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/06/11/a-path-all-his-own-span-classbankheadfor-eric-motley-the-measure-of-a-man-isnt-his-politicsspan/9d884c33-6447-4302-9dc9-21357a54d91f/?utm_term=.7cdf43194379

  A Path All His Own For Eric Motley, the Measure of a Man Isn't His Politics
  By Wil Haygood June 11, 2006 For Eric Motley, the Measure of a Man Isn't His Politics'">Email the author
  MONTGOMERY, Ala.

  There is a little enclave on the rural edge of this history-drenched city. It is called Madison Park. You can hear the roosters. And gawk at Dr. Hagalyn Wilson's roses, tulips and calla lilies, in bloom all over her yard.

  The outside world might not know much about it, but Madison Park has produced a scintillating array of black achievers: lawyers, doctors, educators, ministers -- and at least one Republican on the rise, Eric L. Motley.

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  At 33, Motley occupies a huge State Department office in Washington. He is an obscure but influential Bush administration official who heads an international visitors program. He supervises a staff of more than 100 and oversees a budget that exceeds $80 million. How Motley arrived at this station from Madison Park is the tale of one man's journey through the labyrinth of racial expectations.

  For years, a battle brewed for Motley's political soul. Here, in the cradle of the civil rights movement, the black community in which he grew up was populated overwhelmingly by Democrats, men and women who reached out to nurture and inspire him. They put Motley on the ladder of success. But in time, as his experiences broadened, whites -- mostly Republicans -- embraced his promise and pulled Motley up that ladder.

  There is little doubt now about which political faction won Motley's allegiance.

  At White House black-tie affairs, Laura Bush is quick to single him out: "Hey, Eric!" He is comfortable in the Republican Party. He is not so comfortable with how he is sometimes seen, as if a black man doesn't exist underneath his skin. Eric Motley: the unblack black man. To some, that is a wonderful, modern image. But among others, especially blacks, Motley senses an estrangement that is wearying.

  "I'm tired of that word 'sellout,' " he says.

  Motley believes he represents a new paradigm for the way people should look at a black man in America: the black man whose authenticity is not judged by his ideology, his dating habits, his leisure activities or the company he keeps, and certainly not by his political affiliation.

  Rain is falling in Madison Park, in a patch of open woods, just over the railroad tracks. Eric Motley has returned home, as he does several times a year. He is standing in the local all-black cemetery, sweeping leaves from flat headstones. Uncle Arthur. George Washington Motley, the grandfather. His great-uncle China Motley. He is wearing a pressed monogrammed shirt. He has a beatific smile. "We do all the upkeep ourselves," he says of the living who bury the dead here -- and who lifted Motley up, and who sometimes still worry about his soul.

  * * *

  Help Along the Way

  Alabama is the home of the "Scottsboro Boys" -- the black youths wrongly convicted of raping two young white women in the 1930s. It is the Alabama of segregationist governor George Wallace and the panoramic civil rights marches over in Selma. It is the Alabama of little black boys in desperate straits.

  The journey of Eric Lamar Motley began Dec. 17, 1972, at a hospital over in Tuskegee.

  Barbara Motley had given birth to her first child, a boy. She did not want to keep the newborn and fled the hospital. Adoption or foster care seemed a possibility. It was a haunting tableau: Barbara herself had been adopted by Mamie and George Motley, and now had thrown her own child into that unknown world.

  Mamie Motley heard of the birth, and wouldn't hear of foster care or adoption. The next evening, she rushed from her home and pleaded with a local farmer to take her to Tuskegee, 50 miles away. Her husband didn't drive at night.

  So George -- bus driver, sometime carpenter -- was at home when Mamie arrived with the newborn.

  "He said, 'What we gonna do with this boy?' " remembers Mamie Motley. "I said, 'We gonna raise him, that's what we gonna do.' And we never had to go on welfare."

  Mamie Motley did housework for others -- black families as well as white families. Neither she nor George had much formal education.

  The Motleys certainly didn't have much in common with the black intellectual high-steppers of Madison Park. There was Solomon Seay Sr., the renowned activist and ally of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whose downtown church was on Dexter Avenue. And Solomon Jr., his son, a lawyer and a King acquaintance. There was Hagalyn Wilson, among the first black female doctors in Montgomery. And Prince Ella Madison, a stylish schoolteacher who demanded that black children not fall behind in the classroom. When Eric Motley began falling behind in first grade, Madison and others pounced. They insisted that he repeat first grade, though he didn't want to. With tutoring from various black women in the community, Motley's grades soared. George and Mamie allowed Eric to stroll through the house reciting verse. He helped his grandfather farm, but mostly he wanted to get to the library.

  The Motleys attended Union Chapel AME Zion Church. The red-brick building sits in the shade of tall oak trees. "George built it essentially by himself," says John Winston, a physician and church member.

  After church services, Eric would straighten chairs. He'd walk the elderly to their cars. The other kids sometimes snickered. Friends his age played hide-and-seek, ran races up and down roads. Motley thought such games a waste of his time.

  "My mother got sick," remembers Winston, the physician. "I'd ride by and see Eric's bicycle on the side of her house. I'd know Eric was looking in on her."

  Motley says he never felt ostracized in Madison Park about being adopted. "People in the community would say, 'George Motley's your daddy, boy.' Blood didn't matter that much. People respected who cared for you."

  Barbara Motley moved to Atlanta, where she now resides. She did not wish to be interviewed for this article. Eric Motley finds it difficult to discuss his parents. "My grandparents raised me," he says, giving his stock answer. Motley has never met his father, but there are those in Madison Park who say they know who the man is, and that he continues to reside there. Motley has shown no inclination to investigate the matter.

  The professional black class of Madison Park began watching the young Eric Motley. "My daddy said that boy was going to be something," Solomon Seay Jr. recalls of his father, the preacher-activist. Hagalyn Wilson, the pioneering doctor, hired Eric to tend her garden after school. It was his first paying job.

  When Eric got to junior high -- bespectacled, quick to pull out a can of Lysol to chase away germs on his hands -- some of the children thought him odd. He stayed after class and tidied up for his teachers, wiping off chalkboards, clearing windowsills. Then he'd dash to his next class, beating the students there who were still lolling in the hallways.

  "He was strange," concedes Susan Mayes, one of Eric's seventh-grade teachers, who came to adore him. "He was like a little old man."

  In junior high, in the early 1980s, Motley began gravitating toward white kids. He found like-minded company with them. "We got him into classes for the gifted," says Mayes. "He really didn't have much to do with the black children." Motley recalls only one other black youth in the gifted program.

  Motley found a hobby: public speaking. Mayes became his coach. He entered competitions. The black boy and the white teacher, driving all over Alabama. "It was a reverse 'Driving Miss Daisy,' " says Motley, recalling the movie about a white Southern woman and her devoted black chauffeur. He won and kept on winning. Mayes's family practically adopted Eric. "He was like a brother, and we rooted for him at his speech competitions," says Meredith Mann, Susan Mayes's daughter. "But he was quirky. Like that Urkel guy on TV." (Steve Urkel was the uber-nerd character on the 1990s sitcom "Family Matters.")

  Motley wore high-water pants and hand-me-downs; his grandparents were often in financial difficulty. He started a little bank account with the money he made from his gardening job. Motley's black friends in Madison Park saw less and less of him.

  "White people," says Marcus Wilson, a family friend, "snuck into the community and gave Eric things he had never been exposed to. You have to realize that Eric was a community project. People took him in."

  As a student at Robert E. Lee High School, which was approximately 40 percent black, Motley avoided black cliques. Many of the black kids were into sports, and sports held no interest for him. He watched the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings in the fall of 1991. The proceedings turned into a hurricane of sexual and racial politics. Motley, who had to write a class paper on the confirmation process, fired off a sympathetic letter to Thomas.

  His thoughts about politics were beginning to crystallize. "I think it was also the first time I became truly illumined that I was expected to think a certain way, given my race. It was countering everything my grandparents taught me: Think for yourself. Use your own mind. Be your own person. All these retired black persons who had been tutoring me said: 'Stand on your own two feet!' I didn't need the Negro College Fund to tell me a mind is a terrible thing to waste."

  There had always been independent thinkers in his black community. Motley's own grandfather George Washington Motley sometimes crossed party lines when voting, eschewing Democratic dogma, while keeping a picture of Thurgood Marshall in the house. During races for class office, Motley found himself siding more often than not with conservative positions, which meant siding more often than not with whites. There were stares, and questioning, from blacks.

  He was becoming his own man in other ways, as well. Motown, the prideful anthems of Curtis Mayfield and the sweeping poetry of Langston Hughes did not move him. He preferred Bach, Glenn Gould and Tennyson.

  Often Motley made a beeline to the downtown Montgomery Public Library after school. He was sitting there one day, an 11th-grader, and noticed a very frail man being wheeled in a wheelchair. The man was placed at a table near Eric. "Everybody in the library knew who he was," Motley says of George Wallace.

  Eric said not a word to the old man.

  "Here was a man at the end of his life sitting across from me. He represented the old Alabama. I represented the future."

  In his senior year, Motley was accepted to Samford University, a highly regarded and conservative Baptist school in Birmingham. An aunt had wanted him to go to Alabama State, a historically black school -- "so you won't forget where you come from," she told Motley.

  The elder Motleys, however, gave Eric their blessing.

  He had made the transition to independent thinker.

  * * *

  A Lonely Position

  In American politics and letters, the black conservative has long been a controversial figure.

  At the turn of the 20th century, Booker T. Washington was the most influential black man in the nation. An ex-slave who founded Alabama's Tuskegee Institute and pushed the idea of self-reliance, Washington took on the role of racial conciliator. "In all things that are purely social, " he said in a famous 1895 speech, "we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress." Washington became a major distributor of GOP patronage in the South and dined at the White House with President Theodore Roosevelt. But in time, his popularity slid as a chorus of critics questioned his accommodation of inequality and his emphasis of economic improvement over political power. W.E.B. Du Bois, the scholar, pointed many an angry word at Washington, believing his philosophy angled toward keeping blacks in rural jobs and their aim low.

  Even the most cherished entertainers have discovered that being on the other side of the political divide can get you branded a race traitor. Lionel Hampton, Sammy Davis Jr. and James Brown, among others, all heard catcalls because of their support for conservative Republican administrations. Davis's 1972 endorsement of President Richard M. Nixon, whom many blacks considered anathema, triggered threats on the entertainer's life. In the generations since Booker T. Washington's prominence, many black Republicans have encountered similar distrust. In 1955, when E. Frederick Morrow became the first black man in history to work in an administrative position at the White House, he was viewed as an oddity. A Bowdoin College graduate, Morrow was appointed administrative officer for special projects in the Eisenhower White House. (Mostly, he gave advice on civil rights matters, including the Montgomery bus boycott.) Morrow's historic position didn't stop acquaintances from snickering behind his back. After his White House years had ended, he confessed how lonely it had all been.

  * * *

  Soul Food?

  When Eric Motley arrived on Samford's campus, he became friendly with a group of young white Republicans. He also requested a single room. He knew he would be rising every morning at 4:30 -- to write letters, read and call his grandparents.

  Around campus, a portrait emerged: That's Eric Motley -- straightening up classrooms, jawboning with professors and janitors. "Everybody kept telling me I had to meet this Eric Motley kid," says Thomas Corts, Samford's outgoing president. "They would never say he was the most brilliant kid, or the best-looking kid, anything like that. They would just say he was the finest kid you'll ever meet."

  Patrick Millsaps kept hearing the name also: Eric Motley, Eric Motley.

  "I was a sophomore when he was a freshman," says Millsaps, now a lawyer in Georgia. "It was known around campus I was interested in politics. Somebody said, 'Patrick, you have to meet this guy.' They said, 'By the way, he's a Republican. And he's black.' I said, 'Hmm, a black Republican. From the South.' "

  Motley headed up the Samford Speakers Series on campus, beginning in 1994. He brought an eclectic group to campus: poet Gwendolyn Brooks, former State Department spokesman Margaret Tutwiler, Justice Clarence Thomas. To many at Samford, Motley seemed to transcend race. His cultural tastes, in particular, did not conform to the expectations some had of a black student.

  "I just think he's risen way above rap music and never agreed with those contentious and rebellious lines of rap music," says Corts, who brought up rap music without any prompting. Motley kept in touch with all the important people he had come in contact with. "Eric is a master networker," says Bertha Winston, a family friend.

  He wrote Gwendolyn Brooks three times before she agreed to visit Samford.

  Brooks was a celebrated poet. However, she had a fear of flying and arrived by train. "I'll never forget standing on the platform in Birmingham," Motley says. "She was wearing a tam. She had two bags. All these people are rushing by her. She saw me, clasped her hands over her head and said, 'You must be Eric Motley!' "

  Motley escorted her to her readings, her signings, her dinners. They talked poetry. She kept staring at his tie, at the knot. "She said to me, 'My mama always told me there should never be any white between a black man's neck and his tie. Tie your tie, tight.' "

  One evening, Gwendolyn Brooks wanted some fried chicken, some soul food. Motley didn't know of any soul food restaurants, and didn't know any black Birmingham families well enough to get an invitation to Sunday dinner. So he decided to take Brooks to Church's Fried Chicken. "Me and her were standing there, ordering chicken and collard greens," says Motley.

  He kept looking around. He was afraid -- "that somebody might see I had taken Gwendolyn Brooks to Church's."

  Brooks told Motley she'd write him a poem, he says. He kept checking his campus mailbox for it. It never arrived.

  Motley graduated from Samford in 1996. He was encouraged by professors to look at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland for graduate study. Pete Hanna, a wealthy white businessman in Birmingham, pressed some money into Motley's palms. So did the black lawyer Solomon Seay Jr.

  And Eric Motley flew across the ocean. "They took Eric from us," Hagalyn Wilson says. "The white people. I don't know. Maybe we had given Eric everything we had."

  There's not a trace of anger in her voice.

  Motley fell in love with Scotland. He hiked through the countryside, reciting poetry. He became very close to Struther Arnott, the president of St. Andrews, and his wife, Greta. When Motley finished his master's degree studies, Struther Arnott persuaded him to stay on and get a doctorate in international relations.

  Speaking by phone from Scotland, Greta Arnott says she was impressed with Eric. "I don't think, with him, his peers had to get over any racial hang-ups."

  With his doctorate in hand, Motley shrewdly drew on one of his contacts and found himself sitting, at age 27, for a White House interview.

  * * *

  Speaking Up for Bush

  Margaret Tutwiler, who had met Motley at Samford, brought his name to the attention of Clay Johnson during the transition period after George W. Bush was elected president in 2000. Johnson, a longtime Bush acquaintance, followed the Texas governor to Washington and was put in charge of presidential personnel in the first term. Motley's first White House job was as one of Johnson's handful of deputies. Johnson quickly became a mentor to Motley, taking him into the Oval Office. "Less than two months after arriving," says Motley, "I was meeting with the president."

  "The president admires Eric very much," says Johnson, who is now deputy director for management in the Office of Management and Budget.

  Motley's superiors were so impressed with him that he was promoted in 2003. He was given the responsibility of recommending to the president several thousand appointments to advisory boards and commissions. Among them: the Kennedy Center board of trustees, the National Cancer Board, the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board and the International Whaling Commission. (Motley once phoned Marcus Wilson, the Montgomery physician who hails from Madison Park, and asked him if he would consider an appointment overseeing the global AIDS initiative based in the State Department. Wilson was intrigued, but the talks collapsed as Motley demanded to know his views on abortion, which Wilson felt didn't have anything to do with his passion for AIDS work. Motley says he is not permitted to discuss personnel discussions that took place when he worked at the White House.)

  "When you first meet Eric, his skin color, it's black," says Clay Johnson, sitting in his plush office next door to the White House. "He does not dress black, and his accent is not black. He's black, but he's been raised by blacks and whites. I think by the way he looks at the world, he feels colorless."

  Motley dropped his Southern accent. It was one of the things that many of Motley's friends -- even Johnson -- ribbed him about.

  The Bush administration has not been shy about utilizing Motley as a public speaker.

  "I view myself as a moderate-conservative," Motley says. "I am a conservative by nature. But I am not an extremist."

  His stump speech is titled "An Odyssey of Gratitude and Grace." In it Motley talks about his upbringing, his admiration of President Bush, his own White House career: "I am a victim -- a victim of random acts of kindness, from birth to the White House. Without vanity, but with a deep sense that I am a beneficiary, you can trace the grace that runs so true through all my life thus far. My story is that grace, not race, is the dominant factor in life."

  The speech serves as a counter to Bush's naysayers.

  "After I began giving that speech," says Motley, "I got all kinds of invitations. From university presidents, business organizations. Actually, that speech became a kind of hot potato."

  Motley, who recognizes Bush is not popular among blacks, sees himself as evidence of Bush's inclusion of minorities. "If blacks are afraid of the administration, doesn't it make sense to have me on the inside?"

  Earlier this year, Motley became director of the State Department's Office of International Visitors. The office works with embassies abroad in identifying emerging leaders, who often travel to America and are hosted by Motley's office. Among recent invitees were a group of HIV-infected mothers from South Africa who came to learn about AIDS prevention in America.

  Motley's office, on Fourth Street SW, is in an annex away from the main State Department headquarters in Foggy Bottom. Several pictures adorn walls and shelves. One photo Motley considers a prized possession. It is of him and the men whom he considers mentors: Motley with President Bush, Clay Johnson, Pete Hanna, Struther Arnott and Thomas Corts. There are no pictures of Motley's Madison Park mentors.

  One evening this year, Motley was hosting a group of foreign visitors in State's ornate Benjamin Franklin Room. There were shrimp and lamb satay served from silver trays. The group was mostly volunteers who work with Motley's visitor leadership program. A gregarious sort, Motley floated in and around knots of people. Often he would be pulled up close to someone and a camera would flash. He seemed at ease, his navy suit buttoned, his laughter loud enough to be heard, the chandeliered light twinkling off his eyeglasses.

  On the podium, Motley welcomed everyone, sending out greetings from the White House and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He spoke reverently of the historic furnishings. Then he sought to share a little about his own life: "When I first went to work at the White House, my grandmama said, 'What you gonna be doing over there?' "

  He paused, like a comic.

  " 'Serving coffee? Or cleaning?' "

  The humor, couched in a kind of backstairs at the White House nostalgia and delivered to a mostly white and foreign crowd, fell flat. The chuckling was painfully awkward.

  * * *

  A Solitary Life

  The furniture in Motley's well-appointed Georgetown condominium is mostly French and English antiques. Motley's friends sometimes joke that his home is a museum. His walls are lined with leather-bound books: obscure British poets, essayists. Friends worry that he is a lonely man. Motley spends most of his free time reading.

  He also raises orchids, a tribute to Hagalyn Wilson.

  He collects obituaries, clipping them from newspapers. It is as though the dazzling arc of his own life has so surprised him that he wishes to untangle the arcs of other successful lives. "I have a television, but it stays in the closet," Motley says.

  His style of dress swerves from preppy to English dandy.

  When Motley is not at work, he visits antique stores, art galleries. He is single. "I don't think he'll ever get married," says grandmother Mamie Motley, who believes he is too finicky for most women.

  Motley confesses he has had a difficult dating life. A long-term relationship with a woman ended not long ago, and it seemed to derail him. He even discussed it with Clay Johnson.

  "It was his first heartbreak," says Johnson.

  Motley won't discuss it.

  "He asked me what to do," Johnson continues. "I said 'Eric, I don't know what to tell you. I've been married to the same woman for many years.' "

  Motley has not tapped into the vein of black cultural life in Washington. Sometimes he will hop on his bicycle to look at the architecture of black churches over in Southeast. The curiosity of his eyes satisfied, he pedals on. One can sit in Motley's apartment for hours, and the phone won't ring, not once. "I grew up by myself," Motley says. "Of course there were kids around. But my interests, for the most part, were always different from theirs. I had this wonderful capacity as a child to keep myself engaged."

  * * *

  Homecoming

  To travel to Montgomery, Ala., with Eric Motley is to watch him through the looking glasses of others.

  Here sits Mamie Motley on her front porch. She is beyond proud of the child she still calls "Bug."

  "He don't like me to call him Bug no more," she says, grinning.

  Mamie Motley lives alone. She lives for the thrice-weekly phone calls she gets from Eric. "He come home and he goes around picking up all the trash on the roadside," she says. (Mamie Motley will not, however, discuss politics with her grandson.)

  Here sits Prince Ella Madison, another of the important Madison Park ladies in Eric's young life. She is bent in her chair by a window that floods her with fine slices of Alabama light. She is 94.

  "Eric, have an ice cream sandwich," she demands as he enters her home.

  She is proud just to see his brown face. Her voice is high and thin. "Eric, remember when I used to drive you around with me, telling you to read the signs?" Motley remembers.

  "He'd sometimes say, 'You going too fast!' I did drive fast," Madison says.

  They cackle together.

  "You know they burned another church in Alabama," she goes on, referring to a wave of church arsons in the state. "Over in Talladega. And I don't think they had that church insured, either."

  Motley registers no reaction.

  "Write me!" she says to Motley, as she stands leaning on her walker at the back screen door.

  Here stands Solomon Seay Jr., the fabled lawyer. Like his father, he, too, knew the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. They all used to pass the steamed okra back and forth across the table. "Lot of kids around here was jealous of Eric," Seay says, standing next to Eric in his living room. "Little petty jealousies."

  Seay has been ailing: a stroke. But he still does some lawyering.

  Seay's tone changes as he relates to Motley his feelings that he plans on keeping up pressure on the Bush Justice Department over racial makeups in Alabama schools and busing matters. "Well, I don't work for Justice," Motley says, laughing the words out, against Seay's solemn face, against Seay shaking his head.

  "You know Bob Carter, the judge?" Seay asks Motley. "Well, he once wrote an article about a black judge, about a man in a black robe who thinks white."

  Momentary silence.

  "My name certainly wasn't in that article!" Motley blurts out, before letting loose some nervous laughter.

  Seay doesn't crack a smile.

  And not far down the road, here stands, in his junk-strewn yard, Nathaniel Johnson, a farmer of very modest means. He, like the others, is happy to see Eric home for a visit. The farmer is in a T-shirt and coveralls. He is holding a pipe; whiffs of tobacco scent the air. There are other things Johnson wishes to say to Eric Motley.

  "Boy, what in the world you doing up there in Washington? Y'all done messed up the whole country. What in the world is Bush doing? Things just a mess. I mean, a mess. I don't like that business over in Iraq one bit."

  "Well, Mr. Johnson . . ."

  Eric fidgets. Grins. The grin vanishes.

  "No, I'm serious!" Johnson goes on. "I mean things is messed up!"

  Motley asks Johnson if he really means what he is saying.

  " 'Course I do!"

  Nathaniel Johnson is asked how he came to meet Eric Motley.

  "I'm the one who went with Mrs. Mamie down to Tuskegee to get the boy the day after he was born. I'm the one brought the boy home!"

  Nathaniel Johnson's roosters, just a few feet away, are crowing. He is pointing at a rusting car, which he still rumbles around in. It's the one he drove to Tuskegee when he picked up the newborn Eric Motley in 1972.

  * * *

  The Road Ahead

  The service inside Eric Motley's home church is winding down. The minister has singled out Motley, talked about how he had been praying for him and President Bush.

  In the basement, the church ladies have set out dinner -- fried chicken, collard greens, steamed okra, candied yams, sweet tea. Already, Motley is up, helping to clean off tables, move chairs about.

  Motley has said to White House officials -- as well as power brokers in Alabama -- that he may return to Alabama after his tenure in the Bush administration. "These people have said to me whatever it is I want to do, they're willing to help me," Motley says. "I'm trying to decide what I want to do."

  He may run for office at some point. He wants to keep outrunning labels. "There are still some people in this community who are not overly anxious to embrace Eric," says Solomon Seay, "even though he has gotten to where he's at in life."

  Seay admits he sometimes thinks about Motley in relation to his own father. Solomon Seay Sr. would be on the back porch reading books with Motley. Sometimes other kids would throw walnuts at the old man and young Motley, and run off. Seay Jr. wonders if that experience, in some way, scarred Eric Motley, turning him away from black folk in his professional life, setting him inside a zone of what Seay refers to as "cultural naivete."

  Jim Wilson, the lawyer and member of Motley's church, has watched Motley's career from afar. And Wilson also has concerns about Motley. "My worry," he says, "is that when all of this is over -- the Bush administration, Eric's job, because it will all come to an end -- my worry is: Will Eric be able to find his way back home?"

• Huffington Post - https://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/eric-motley

  Eric Motley
  Vice President and Executive Director of National Programs, The Aspen Institute
  Eric L. Motley joined the Aspen Institute (Washington, DC) in 2007 as a Vice President and the Managing Director of the Henry Crown Fellows Program. Established in 1997, the Henry Crown Fellows Program seeks to develop a new generation of community-spirited leaders. The program honors the memory of Chicago industrialist Henry Crown (1896-1990), whose legendary career was marked by a lifelong commitment to honor, integrity, industry and philanthropy. In addition to this role he currently serves as the Executive Director of the Aspen-Rockefeller Foundation’s Commission to Reform the Federal Appointments Process, which is an independent, nonpartisan effort to evaluate the Federal government’s vetting and clearance procedures. Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, Eric served as the Director of the U.S. Department of State’s Office of International Visitors within the bureau of Public Diplomacy. As Director he oversaw the International Visitor Leadership Program, a program that is designed to build mutual understanding between the U.S. and other countries through carefully designed visits that reflects future foreign leader’s interests and support U.S. foreign policy goals.

  In 2003, he became Special Assistant to President George W. Bush for Presidential Personnel, where he managed the appointment process in the White House for over 1,200 presidentially-appointed advisory board and commission positions. He joined the White House staff as Deputy Associate Director, Office of Presidential Personnel in 2001 at the age of 27 immediately after receiving his Ph.D.

  Eric is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, Class of 2003. He has written and lectured on the intellectual and political contributions of Scottish-born American Founding Father, James Wilson. He is currently engaged in developing a collection on the scholarship of the eminent Greek scholar Sir Kenneth Dover, including copies of all his books, personal papers and various items from his personal catalogue. In October 2006 he published his first volume of poetry Luminaria and is a contributing writer to US Airways Magazine as an essayist.

  His civic involvement encompasses leadership roles with a wide range of local, state and national organizations, including the Cosmos Club of Washington, DC; Grolier Club of New York City; Board of Directors of Young Concert Artists; Manuscript Society of America; The Odysseus Circle; Samford University; University of St. Andrews, Scotland; and the Young Executives Council. He serves on the Board of Directors of Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Affinity Labs in San Francisco, The Inter-American Development Bank Foundation, The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s National Council, and the Chapter Board of the Washington National Cathedral. Eric is an avid book collector whose library consists of over 4,500 volumes which includes but not limited to over 1700 first editions and rare books. In June 2006 Eric’s life story was featured in the Washington Post as a part of the series “Being a Black Man in America.”

  Eric earned his bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Philosophy from Samford University in 1996. As a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, he earned a Master of Letters in International Relations and a Ph.D. in International Relations as the John Steven Watson Scholar.

• Bible Gateway - https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2017/11/how-a-small-town-can-teach-love-and-faith-an-interview-with-eric-l-motley/

  Jonathan Petersen
  November 14, 2017
  How a Small Town Can Teach Love and Faith: An Interview with Eric L. Motley
  Jonathan Petersen
  Content manager for Bible Gateway
  Eric L. MotleyWelcome to Madison Park, a small community in Alabama founded by freed slaves in 1880. And meet Eric Motley, a native son who came of age in this remarkable place where constant lessons in self-determination, hope, and faith taught him everything he needed for his journey to the White House.

  Bible Gateway interviewed Eric L. Motley about his book, Madison Park: A Place of Hope (Zondervan, 2017).

  [Watch Eric Motley’s Facebook Live Q&A about Madison Park]
  Buy your copy of Madison Park in the Bible Gateway Store where you'll enjoy low prices every day

  Why did you write this memoir?

  Eric L. Motley: I never thought that my personal journey was interesting enough to broadcast, but over the years I’ve been exposed to an increasing number of narratives that would suggest an embattled American experience, and I feel called to offer another perspective. The inspiration for this book comes from the desire to celebrate an idea, an American spirit, a people. A group of freed slaves founded Madison Park in 1880 in Montgomery, Alabama and decided to make America work for them. In the process they developed a moral communal vocabulary with great power, but its story has never been told. There’s no single narrative for the African-American male, or a citizen of a rural community, or any American for that matter. In an increasingly polarized society, where the concept of community seems almost alien, I now have the courage and inspiration to tell a story about a place and a people that manifested some true and tangible aspects of the American Dream. There are two narratives—my own story and the history of this special place—but they’re intimately interwoven.

  Tell about your creative process? How long have you been working on the book?

  Eric L. Motley: I’ve always kept diaries and commonplace books. Memory has been a centering force in my development, and recording observations, experiences, and reflections has been a part of my daily exercise of learning for all of my life. But writing Madison Park required a level of concentration and focus that extended beyond my “miscellanies.”

  I decided to approach it in a very unconventional way. Instead of starting off with a publisher or an agent, I decided that I’d go the route of writing, and writing, and rewriting. The end goal was not producing a book that could be sold; the motivation was telling my story and the story of my people without constraint and telling it to myself first. For me this was first and foremost an intellectual, emotional, and spiritual exercise in recollection.

  Also, the very nature of a memoir requires a type of honesty and forthrightness that’s not always easily achieved. As for me, there were a lot of emotional and psychological boxes that I had long sealed and put away in the attic of my mind and heart. In some instances, I’d put the manuscript in a drawer for extended periods of time, until I was ready to go where I knew I needed to go, in order to reveal a more honest me. Writing comes naturally and quickly; it’s the rewriting that takes time. I produced over 500 pages. Then I decided it was time to get an editor to help me trim the excesses and to find the soul of my creation.

  You write about “the burden of gratitude.” Explain what you mean by this?

  Eric L. Motley: I think all of us live with a bit of regret: regret for not always allowing our feelings and expressions to be manifested, regret for not always having acted on generous impulses or inspirations. When I look back, I’m often disturbed by the thought that there were a good number of people who significantly gave of themselves for my betterment whom I never thanked or to whom I never adequately conveyed my gratitude. Some were strangers who flashed in and out of my life, and others were neighbors, friends, and teachers, many of whom did not live long enough to see their investment in me realized. I often find myself wondering if they had any real sense of my appreciation. One must constantly cultivate a sense of gratitude; it’s borne of continuous reflection and recognition of one’s own poverty and deep need for others.

  Why do you credit the community of Madison Park, Alabama for instilling values such as hope, self-determination, and generosity within you?

  Eric L. Motley: As a child I grew up among people trying to make ends meet. By societal standards we were all poor, but we never surrendered to the idea of living in statistics; we lived in community. The blessed ties of faith bound us to one another. You planted a bit extra to share with those who had no land to grow their own food; you cared for the elderly; you helped neighbors in their time of need—never waiting for them to ask for assistance. There was no rule book; but the guiding precepts and biblical teachings defined our moral conduct.

  The founders and subsequent generations built a community on bedrock values of knowing your neighbor’s name, lending a helping hand, and supporting each other through life’s ups and down. Every aspect of our common life was imbued with a sense of ‘we, not me.’ Alienation is difficult in a place where we all believed that we were all responsible for one another.

  At an early age I was taught to believe that there’s goodness in everyone, and that, whether or not we realize it, the God in each of us yearns to shine outwardly. My grandparents were pragmatists whose realism was always tempered with hope. They instilled within me a self-perpetuating sense of optimism and hopefulness. I have come to believe along with theologian Reinhold Niebuhr that nothing is ever understood in its immediate context of history; therefore, we’re saved by hope, faith, and love.

  How and when were you introduced to the Bible? How have you relied on the Bible throughout your life experiences?

  Eric L. Motley: I have no recollection of there ever being a time in my life in which I was not a Christ-follower. I didn’t have a “Sycamore tree” or “Damascus Road” experience. In many ways I was born and nurtured into my faith. There is a wonderful line from the book of Proverbs: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

  My grandparents were people of serious faith who daily exercised the discipline of prayers and reflection. They sought in everything to allow their faith to permeate their outward actions. I also found wisdom in the instruction of Sunday School teachers and the ministers of my church. So through early exposure and consistent example I came to know the path by which I have chosen to travel.

  But ‘chosen’ is a very important idea to me, because at some point you try to make sense things given your own capacity to reason and analyze. You begin to call into question what you once surrendered to as a child. Inquiry is important to me, so I’ve held up my faith to the light of reason—and the watermark of Bible teaching is fully seen. So, I believe because I was first taught to do so, and I furthermore believe because I’ve examined my beliefs and have found them worthy of credence. At every turning along the way I’ve been reassured that I’m on the right path.

  How did you move from your humble beginning to become special assistant to President George W. Bush?

  Eric L. Motley: My journey has been one of both grace and gratitude. I exhibited some intellectual potential at a very early age. My grandparents had a guiding desire for me to go to college—to be the first in our family to pursue higher education> And a considerable number of people appreciated my appetite and their aspirations for me. I grew up in a community; and people took an interest in me because I seemed interested. All along the way individuals helped me to realize my potential. They also helped me to become more self-aware of my capabilities and shortcomings. Sunday school teachers, ministers, school teachers, YMCA directors and staff, neighbors: all guided me, tutored me, helped show me the way forward. My curiosity—part DNA and partly inspired by my grandparents—opened me up to discovery and wonderment and the unknown. With the help of a lot of people I got a good education and my appetite for growing and discovery quickened. Finally, with the help of a lot of great mentors I’ve been able to have a very fulfilling professional life; and personal and spiritual life.

  What lessons have you learned in letting “the past be the past”?

  Eric L. Motley: I use the parable of the Prodigal Son to illustrate the power of forgiveness and reconciliation in my own life. There’s no way forward unless you surrender to the fullness of God’s grace. There you’ll find newness of life. The same is asked of us as we engage with our fellow travelers. I deny myself the joy of a restored relationship with my mother if I continue to cling to the things of the past that separated us. “Morning by morning new mercies we see,” should serve as a daily invocation to each of us.

  What do you hope your readers will take with them from your book?

  Eric L. Motley: That in a very politically and culturally polarized society where we’re daily reminded of all of the things that separate us, we need to refocus ourselves on the things that tie us together. I hope this book will remind people of the power and importance of community—what can happen when people support each other, know each other, affirm each other, and create safety nets for one another. No man is an island unto himself. This is a story about community, about the human spirit, the American spirit, about the promise of hope.

  What is a favorite Bible passage of yours and why?

  Eric L. Motley: There are too many to just name one, but at an early age I committed to memory Psalm 46:1: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” What an affirmation of faith; not just for bad times, but for all times.

  What are your thoughts about Bible Gateway and the Bible Gateway App?

  Eric L. Motley: I use Bible Gateway often to find a passage, examine, and study it devotionally. It’s a great resource, and in a very fast world it’s become a frequently used one.

  Bio: Eric Motley grew up in Alabama, the son of adoptive parents who raised him in the freed slave’s town of Madison Park, Alabama. From this beginning in the black community he rose to become a special assistant to President George W. Bush. Eric is Executive Vice President of the think tank The Aspen Institute (@AspenInstitute) which on a national and international level discusses today’s global issues that face the United States and her partners across the world.

Madison Park: A Place of Hope
The Christian Century. 135.2 (Jan. 17, 2018): p35.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 The Christian Century Foundation
http://www.christiancentury.org
Full Text:
Madison Park: A Place of Hope

By Eric L. Motley

Zondervan, 304 pp., $24.99

Eric L. Motley is a former special assistant to George W. Bush who writes about his admiration for Clarence Thomas and Dick Cheney. He's also a black man who grew up in the freed slaves' town of Madison Park, Alabama, and witnessed a KKK march in nearby Montgomery when he was four: "1 remember thinking, 'They have no faces.' It was a chilling sight." Motley steers clear of politics in this memoir, focusing on how the churches and schools of Madison Park taught him about the unspoken social contracts that create community. The character who emerges most clearly in the book is the town itself. Madison Park is "a living, breathing organism" whose commitment to community is "planted deep in the earth, carefully and powerfully cultivated" by the former slaves who established it.

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Madison Park: A Place of Hope." The Christian Century, 17 Jan. 2018, p. 35. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A524380074/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d3f127dd. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A524380074

Madison Park: A Place of Hope
Publishers Weekly. 264.41 (Oct. 9, 2017): p63.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Madison Park: A Place of Hope

Eric L. Motley. Zondervan, $24.99 (304p)

ISBN 978-0-310-34963-1

Motley, executive vice president of the Aspen Institute, writes with charming flair about the dedicated individuals who shaped him throughout his life. Born into a hardworking family of limited means, Motley was raised in Madison Park, Ala., an African-American community established by freed slaves. Though the story is grounded by the portraits of people Motley knew, Madison Park slowly emerges as the main character. Motley's lean descriptions reflect his quiet, modest upbringing: "Most homes were small wood-framed houses.... Most families owned a couple acres of land, with their house close to the road and what lay behind designated farmland." With the strength of his community supporting him, Motley accomplished much, earning his Ph.D. in international relations and later working in the White House as special assistant to George W. Bush. His story is inspiring, but it often reads like a list of anecdotes featuring people from his life he wishes to thank, and personal topics such as romantic relationships are quickly glossed over. Nonetheless, this book will leave readers nostalgic for a place most have never visited and will intrigue those interested in how faith can strengthen community bonds. Agent: Larry Kirshbaum, Waxman Leavell. (Nov.)

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Madison Park: A Place of Hope." Publishers Weekly, 9 Oct. 2017, p. 63. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A511293384/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=5195c641. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A511293384

• The Days of My Life
  https://kendraheatwole.wordpress.com/2018/01/01/book-review-madison-park/
  Word count: 203

  JANUARY 1, 2018 BY KENDRA L
  Book Review: Madison Park
  _225_350_Book.2434.cover.jpg

  This memoir is a tribute to the community, Madison Park, that raised Eric Motley. Motley was born to a teenage mother and adopted by his grandparents. The people of Madison Park, AL, rallied around young Motley and chose him to be their D.U.K. (Designated University Kid). The way they sacrificially gave of their time and resources to help him succeed is astounding. This book gives an interesting glimpse into the history of Madison Park, life in a Deep South African American community, racial issues that accompany Motley’s ambitions and achievements, and the life-changing impact of safe, strong community ties.

  From his humble beginnings in Madison Park, a community established by freed slaves after the Civil War, Motley went on to graduate from Samford University in Birmingham, AL. He then went to the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and eventually became an assistant to President George W. Bush. He currently serves as an executive vice president of the Aspen Institute in Washington D.C.

  I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my review.

• Articles and more.... Storie, racconti, recensioni ...
  https://alfemminile.blogspot.com/2017/12/madison-park-place-of-hope-by-eric-l.html
  Word count: 704

  Madison Park A Place of Hope by Eric L. Motley
  Madison Park A Place of Hope by Eric L. Motley is a book published by Zondervan, and one of the most beautiful one I read this year.

  It's a common and extraordinary story this one but a story of great importance for the beautiful message it wants to communicate.

  A history of a harmonic community, of good people, where brotherhood, help, friendship the best values they knew and where negative sentiments closed out from their doors and unwanted.

  It's a story that you must read because not only it will enrich your soul but it will let you become more good and optimistic with your friends, your own community, your neighbors.
  If there are people like the ones of Madison Park, everyone can emulate them, everyone can be like one of them. Your community thanks to this book can become a best place.

  The author through this memoir wants to tell to everyone what a joy has been to him to growing up in Madison Park, Alabama, sharing with all of us its own perception of reality, the importance of a healthy community in grade to be helpful for everyone. If he became who he became it was thanks also to the people of Madison Park. This one a great homage to them all and to a place in grade to make the difference.

  Mr.Motley with the time became an important person and he worked as a special assistant to President George W.Bush but many other people of that town built beautiful existence in various different fields.

  Mr. Motley tells in his book that this place Madison Park created near Montgomery, Alabama by a group of freed slaves after the Emancipation Proclamation wanted by Abe Lincoln on January 1st 1863.

  More than 3 millions of slaves set free, these people decided to build up a special community.

  These people adds mr Motley: "Took care, because they desired it, of bodies, souls, minds and they desired freedom not only from slavery but also from poverty."

  As you will see without to telling to you too much the personal story of mr. Motley complicated at first although he found wonderful people close to him in grade to let him become who he is now.

  He tells at the end of the book that he loves to return to Madison Park also for this reason: because he feels the necessity of indulging in his hometown, stopping by to the cemetery for...Gratitude.
  For thanking all the people who gave him good advice permitting him to become who became.

  Many sacrifices, this man in love for books is an avid reader and collectors of first editions but also someone who, with an extreme grace will tell you his little corner of the world, where people in most cases made fortune without forgetting their community, but, all the opposite, once returned home they were helpful in every necessity.

  The community divided in two sides as it happens often: "This Side" and "Over the Bridge" where also political views were different.

  You will discover what it means "creating a community" as the author says and feeling to be part of a community, where people can work for you without asking money, or in grade of opening the door at some children because there are dying parents who can't grow up them anymore and ask to you to do that.

  I wanted to read this book because I also live in a little rural community. I found great warm and a lot of similarities with our own land.

  Highly suggested for sure!

  I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

  Anna Maria Polidori