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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Welcome to the truth in this art. I am your host, Rob Lee. And today, I'm excited and honored to be in conversation with my next guest, a leader in a speaker with powerful roots, a descendant of both Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington is a co-founder and the president of the Rochester, New York, based nonprofit Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives.
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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Please welcome Kenneth B morris, Jr. Welcome to the podcast.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Thank you, Rob. It's great to be with you.
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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
It's it's an honor. You know, as I was saying, as we got started and I'm going to fanboy out a little bit, but also, you know, just one of the things that I always find interesting before I go into a conversation with the guest is this like, I've been listening to interviews and listening to talks and it's like now I'm actually doing the other side of it.
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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
So it's always interesting to have that sort of change.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Yeah, Yeah. Well, that's great. I assume that you're talking about listening to some of my interviews.
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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Yes.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And you still want to invite me on your show.
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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
So for those who are who are undecided, unfamiliar, and, you know, up until a, you know, like in the last few months, because I did that interview with with Chris Hailey, and that's where it is sort of like, oh, let me let me start doing this research. Let me reach out to give the listeners a bit of your background, like, you know, and you know, what your what your work is about, just like a bit of who you are.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Well, I'm the great, great, great grandson of Frederick Douglass and also the great, great grandson of Booker T Washington. And so if you could imagine carrying that kind of lineage and having that DNA and blood flowing through your veins is kind of a heavy weight to carry at times. But I was born in Washington, D.C. I spent all of my summers in Frederick Douglass, a summer beach house on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, which was built for him to retire.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And and so there were images of my ancestors all around me. And, you know, people ask me all the time, did you did you know that you were related to these these great historical figures? Did somebody tell you? And there was really not a point where somebody said, you know, Kenny, we need to sit you down and tell you something really important.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
I just always knew, know, I started to notice my ancestors were on statues and money and postage stamps and seeing bridges named for them in schools and buildings, you know, was something I would ask my classmates, are are your grandparents on statues?
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Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
Yeah.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And they would say, no, no, no. But anyway, yeah, I was born in and D.C. I lived in Rockville, Maryland for a little while. And then at the age of about ten years old, my family moved to California. And so I've spent most of my life. I've lived a lot of places, but most of my life has been spent in Southern California, which is where I live now.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
I'm a father of two beautiful daughters and married. I've been married and male. Celebrate 30 and this if I get this right, 39 years of marriage. So I'm really proud of that. And then I'm also president of the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives, and I'm a co-founder of the organization with my mother, Nettie Washington. Douglass And we started the organization in 2007, and we work to lift up the life and legacies of my ancestors.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And also we do work around social justice issues and human trafficking prevention, education in K through 12 schools and a whole bunch of things that I'm sure that we'll get into.
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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Absolutely. Thank you. That is like one of the most robust introduction is that a person is president is like, here's everything you know. Yeah, I appreciate that. You know, and I want to like tap back a little bit because I find that you touched on a little bit. But, you know, we we talk about arts, culture, cultural preservation.
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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
And I want to get a sense when you were younger, were you really into anything creative know?
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I wanted to be in the Jackson five. I would have been I would have been Tito. That's how badly I wanted to be in the Jackson five. But yeah, I would be in my bedroom, which was upstairs, and I built a microphone stand cause my parents wouldn't buy me a microphone in the stands. So I took a wait, you know, that she would work out with and some piping that you would use for sprinklers and made a, a microphone stand.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And I would sit up there and work on my dance moves, work on my vocals and taught myself to play the piano. And then eventually I went joined this group called the Young Americans, and we got a chance to to travel all over the world. And so I was a singer and really my first career when I was in my teens, late teens and early twenties was in the music business.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
As a background singer, I don't know. You might be too young to remember Howard Hewett and Shalamar.
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Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
But yes, okay.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And so toured with with Howard Hewett right after he released his first solo album. And so creativity is in my family, it's in my DNA. You know, a lot of people don't know that Frederick Douglass was a violinist. He taught himself how to play the violin and then taught my my great grandfather, his grandson Joseph, how to play the violin.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And Joseph became a concert violinist. He would continue his music education in Boston Conservatory of Music and then play in the White House on several occasions. And he was the first black classical recording artist for the record company back in the day, which was a victor talking machine company. And so that creativity. My wife was on Broadway for many, many years and that creativity has been passed down to my daughters, who are both very creative and working.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
My my older daughter is an actress, television and film, and my younger daughter is focused on the stage and she's in the national tour of ladies right now, touring around the around the country. So creativity is is in our family.
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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Well, I love hearing I always like and right now I've been kind of going through this kind of piecing through this this book. I really get into books and I find that especially the audio books, what have you, because I'm always on the go, but I can kind of split that attention and be tapped in there. And I've really been in this into this book about creative confidence.
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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
So definitely it's something that's top of mind for me. Like so let's talk about the creativity because one of the things they touch on in there is everyone has it and there is this belief that, Oh, we don't have it. You have to cure 80 and you have to cultivate. And it's like, No, it's already there.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's interesting. You know, I think that we all have the ability to be creative in some way. A lot of times we just have to figure out how to tap into that, create creativity. Yeah.
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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
So, you know, I'm also reading and you touched on some of the musical background before going into Believe you had a background in marketing and marketing. So talk a little bit about that and ultimately what led to you co-founding the Frederick Douglass family initiatives?
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Okay. Well, this is a this is quite a story. I'll I'll try and condense it as much as I can, but, you know, when I was touring with with Howard, my goal at that time was really to try and do my own thing in the music business and being out on the road. I couldn't do that. And so I knew I needed to get back to Los Angeles.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And so I wound up taking a job for a hotel marketing company as just a telemarketer. And to make a long story short, I came up with an idea and the owner of the company liked the idea, and we started our own advertising and marketing company and we cater to the travel industry. Our clients were mainly cruise lines, but some resort hotels are around the world and we worked with corporations who would run conventions and meetings and incentive reward programs for their customers or their employees, their salespeople to try and get them to consider putting those programs on a cruise ship and that their company became very successful.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And I think I did it for about 19 years. And so I was happy again to be a dad and be a husband and a business owner. And don't talk to me about this. Frederick Douglass and Booker T Washington stuff. I really, as I tell the students when I when I interact with them, I was decisively disengaged from my my lineage until Providence or Divine Providence happened in my life.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And that was in 2005. I read a a National Geographic magazine. It was the article written in 2003, I think, but I didn't read it until 2005. And the headline was 21st Century Slaves. And it was an article and a story about human trafficking and modern day slavery existing all over the world, including here in the United States.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And it really just about floored me. You know, I had heard about sex trafficking and I thought it happened in far off places, but didn't really realize how pervasive it was. And so I wanted to learn more about the issue. And there was one night that really changed the trajectory of my life. And I was reading another article, and this article happened to be about a 12 year old girl who was forced to be a sex slave in the brothels of Southeast Asia and service, you know, countless men, you know, almost every single day.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And down the hallway, my girls were getting ready for bed. And my older daughter Jenna was 12. So she was the same age as this girl that I was reading about. And my younger daughter Nicole was nine. And my mind just starts racing just like it's going crazy and I can't wrap my brain around what I'm reading and what I'm hearing down the hallway.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And I remember thinking to myself, That's what young girls and boys should be doing, is getting tucked safely into bed and not being forced into bed to service some sick individual. And when I walked in to say goodnight to my girls, I literally had this moment where I couldn't look them in the eyes and I didn't feel like I could look them in the eyes and walk away and not do something about it.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And it was almost immediately that I did understand that I have this platform that my ancestors have built through struggle and through sacrifice. And perhaps we could leverage the historical significance of my ancestry to do something about this. And so on one side, Frederick Douglass and his legacy as a great abolitionist, and on the other side, Booker T Washington and his legacy is the great educator abolition through education.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And so my mom and I started the Frederick Douglass family initiatives, and we started in 2007. It took us a little while to get our 51c3 nonprofit status from the IRS. But once we did, we were off and running and I sold my business. And I've been doing this work full time since we started the organization in 2007.
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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Well, thank you. Being 2007 was huge here. I mean, I graduated from college that year. That's all I got. That's all I got. It's it pales in comparison.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Yeah. No, I think there was a recession that year. There was a whole lot of stuff going on, but it doesn't seem that long ago. But I guess 15 plus years is as a little time has gone by.
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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
So soon in going into this working and making sort of the having that awareness and making sort of this transition from like you know, kind of being disengaged, as you were saying to and deep in it, you know, to to talk about maybe doing that sort of 15 plus years of some of the ways because it's I think a lot of times the oppression, the sort of like slavery, some of these things that are inequities, that they're right in front of us.
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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
But, you know, they're they're covered. And I remember, you know, like I'm in I'm in Baltimore and I'm a big black I'm a six foot four black guy. So, you know, that's that's a dynamic that I have to live with that. And I find that in times where I speak with a mixed audience, I have people telling me that's not my experience.
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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
And I was like, Mm hmm. And I find that things a little bit more covered. And I find when I go to other places, it's definitely over. Now I'm able to identify things a bit better. So to talk about a little bit of like some of the ways that these these the slavery oppression, these different things are like hidden in plain sight in like how you like may be shifted in seeing those things maybe in a different light since you've been doing this work.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Yeah, it's interesting because when you were talking, I was thinking about this idea that sometimes we can't see things that are right in front of our face until light has been shown on it. And that reminded me of an article or an essay that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote last year. I don't remember exactly when I read it, but he used the analogy of, you know how when you're in a room and there's sunlight shining in through the window and you see all of these particles in the air of all this dust and stuff floating around that we're breathing in constantly that we don't see, you know, And I remember, you know, the last time that I
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
saw that light shining on that dust, and I thought, man, how is it that our bodies can breathe all of this in and we can still, you know, move forward and we're not coughing and sneezing all day, for one thing. And and what he was saying was that that light that was being shown in on that dust that we're taking in every day is the same thing as when something is in front of you that you can't see until light is shown on it, which I see light as education.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And so when you're educated about something, all of a sudden you start seeing all kinds of things that are in front of your face that you didn't know existed in that you might have been immune to or desensitized to. And so, you know, our work that we do, the foundation of everything we do is around education, because both of my ancestors who were born into slavery, both of them understood from a very young age that education was going to be their pathway to freedom.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Right. And for Frederick Douglass, when his slave mistress began to teach him how to read and write when he was about eight or nine years old, he knew that that was going to be his pathway to freedom. When he heard his enslaver say to him and to his wife, You cannot teach a slave how to read and write because if you do, it will unfit him to be a slave.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Frederick Bailey heard that message loud and clear and he thought, Hmm, if you don't want me to have this, I'm going to do everything in my power to gain it. And he understood right then and there that that was how he was going to one day free himself. And so he would teach himself to read and write so that the Frederick Douglass family initiatives, when we were looking to get started in our human trafficking, prevention, education work, one of the things that I thought about was that story and how can we unfit communities to allow slavery to exist and thrive and that's through education.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And at that time, when we first started, most of the organizations, the anti-trafficking organizations that were doing very good work, they were focused on the the end result, the rescue, restore and rehabilitation after the victimization has already occurred. And then also law enforcement was focused after the crime was already committed and there wasn't a lot of work being done around trying to prevent new victims from being spewed into a cycle of exploitation.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And as well-meaning as those organizations were and are in the work that they were doing, it does create this cycle of exploitation where we're just rescuing, restoring and rehabilitating. And that's very costly to a community, not to mention the costs and the trauma that the victim suffered. And for child that had their childhoods stolen. In a way, it's very difficult to get them back to some semblance of wholeness and prevention.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Education is really gets at the root of of the issue. But the other thing that you were talking about is just kind of the intersectionality of all of these various issues that they come together and communities. And really, I believe that the common denominator to all of that is poverty. And so where people are vulnerable, people can be exploited and the exploiters are the ones that know how to prey upon the most vulnerable among us.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And when you talk about human trafficking around the world, it's estimated that there are more than 40 million people, men, women and children that are in some form of slavery or bondage, some of those people living in conditions as horrific as the slavery that my ancestors endured and survived. And half of those victims are children. And Frederick Douglass had a great quote.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
He said, It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. And I would add to that broken women. And so as a part of our mission, we're working to build strong children. And both of my ancestors are superb examples of the power of education.
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Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
Yeah.
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Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
And I want to go back and to some of the, you know, initiatives, but definitely I want to put this comment in there about, you know, just I think when we as a people start having a sort of awakening and an awareness of what's happening, you know, like you seek out information, you want to make sure it's good information.
00;17;04;16 - 00;17;28;05
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
And I think with how there's been like over the last however many years, I'll say, you know, probably, you know, 6 to 8 years, it's been a lot of like misinformation out there, fake news or whatever the terminology might be thrown out and I think it's a means to control the person. If you start seeing, you know, what's really happening, then you're going to maybe investigate like, oh, this is happening to our children in this country.
00;17;28;12 - 00;17;59;05
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
These are the things that are happening. What can we do to remedy that? People start taking action. But if news is suppressed or if it's misrepresented, then, oh, everything is good. Let's just keep on moving. Hey, there's a new meme, there's a new cat video. So, you know, could you share your thoughts about how that sort of information cycle is out there and especially when it comes to some of these issues around like, you know, disenfranchisement around like some of the issues that you guys are working towards remedying?
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Well, history is important for a lot of reasons. I think history is most important because we need to know where we've come from in order to know where we're going. But history is not just about the past. It's also about the present and it's about the future. And I think that particularly for young people, the more that they know about where they come from, the better they can navigate the world in which they live.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
When you talk about miseducation and, you know, keeping blinders over people's eyes again, let's take our cue from history. It was illegal to teach an enslaved person to read and write. And why is that? Because they didn't want to unfit them to be enslaved. Frederick's master also said to him, you know, he'll be or to his wife. He'll be running away with himself.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And so as Frederick starts to teach himself how to read and write, he starts to think critically about his condition of oppression and enslavement. And he starts to ask questions like, why am I a slave? And why do you own me? And how can you know your birthday? And I don't know my birthday? And so he had that light that was shown into his mental bondage, into his mental darkness, and he knew which way to point.
00;19;09;04 - 00;19;27;23
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
I remember when we first got started, I was in a a barbershop in Albany, New York, and talking to a group of African-American teenage boys and the 16 year old boy, I'll never forget this. He said to me, You know, Mr. Morris, if I could just describe to you what's going on in my mind, in my brain. He said, it's like a pitch black hallway.
00;19;28;03 - 00;19;47;08
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
There are no windows, no doors, no way out. I don't know which way to turn. And what you just told me about that little bit of light being shown into Frederick's mental bondage. I now have some light being shown into my darkness, and I know which way to point and I know which way to get out. And that gives me hope.
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Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And so, you know, when I was coming up, history was really and I'm older than you are, especially if you if you graduated college, you said 27. Right. So I'm quite a bit older than you are. I remember when I was coming up, you know, the history was definitely whitewashed and sanitized and and people of African descent were placed in an inferior position in history.
00;20;10;03 - 00;20;31;27
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
They might give us a Frederick Douglass, but they would give us the safe. Frederick Douglass, The the prophet, the white haired statesman looking away from the camera, the grandfatherly figure. They didn't give us that abolitionist who looked directly in the camera and said, I never want to look like a happy, amiable fugitive slave. And when you look me in the eyes, you're going to see my humanity.
00;20;31;27 - 00;20;54;20
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
You're going to see a man that's worthy of freedom, worthy of citizenship. They wouldn't give us that. They gave us a watered down, sanitized Dr. King, you know, not the radical king. And so this history and by design, the place people of African descent in an inferior position to prop up white supremacy. And you've got a power and oppression dynamic that has existed in this country since its founding.
00;20;54;20 - 00;21;14;23
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And education really is is the key to all of this. And we hear all the time knowledge is power. I think a lot of times for young people that goes in one ear and out the other. But but it really is true. And because of my unique connection to history, we always want to make sure that we're always turning back and we're taking our cues from history.
00;21;15;02 - 00;21;44;18
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And then we give examples about what happened, how to do some of these things still look the same today. And so we've seen young people start to ask questions, critical questions, when they start to get some information, education, and they'll ask, well, why is it because I'm born into a certain zip code? I have less access and opportunity to good, good education, good health care, economic opportunity versus someone else's born into another zip code through no fault of their own.
00;21;45;00 - 00;22;03;04
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And Plainfield from the start is not level. They start to ask critical questions about, you know, the systemic racism in running rampant in institutions around the country. And so that's what what education really does. And and, you know, that's that's where our focus has always, always been.
00;22;04;08 - 00;22;26;15
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Well, I mean, I'm over here. I got chills. I'm seeing like the light amongst the darkness in my mind's eye now. And it's definitely the questions that are presented. I remember and the way you're describing the zip code thing, I remember at a point I was like, unemployed or what have you. I had a non-compete and I was unemployed from a from a marketing job.
00;22;26;24 - 00;22;45;09
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
And I'm doing applications with one of my buddies. And on paper, like my group of friends, it's like I have pretty decent credentials. And I had a had a buddy who's a white dude. And I was explaining I was like, you and I, you're going to be predisposed to having better opportunities if you go for the interview than if I do.
00;22;45;23 - 00;23;02;14
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
And he was just like not getting and I was like, we can I can take your application and put this zip code on our study. Just playing with different things was like, I guarantee you'll be rejected. And I remember I say, they can't ask you what your race is like. Some of these they can't ask you. They can ask you where you live.
00;23;02;23 - 00;23;12;23
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
They can actually use zip code and then they have like census data, all of these different pieces of information to piece together a profile. And you start asking questions why.
00;23;12;24 - 00;23;13;25
Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
Why, why?
00;23;14;22 - 00;23;42;29
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
And people don't want those sorts of questions. So now in the role that I'm in and the day job I'm in, those sort of hiring positions and I can kind of see it now in a for like 360 view. And I say, Oh, this is built this way, oh, this was built this way. So I think a lot of the work that's happening, especially the work that you're describing, helps give folks, young folks like just like a leg up in kind of understanding like this is this is the system that we're in now.
00;23;42;29 - 00;23;48;09
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
How can you know, with that awareness, how can we kind of like sort through it and how we can be prepared to combat it?
00;23;49;16 - 00;24;07;12
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Yeah, well, I'm in New Jersey and I know we talked before we came on the air about the presentation that I did today to 600 middle school and high school students, and they were all looking at me, you know, kind of cross-eyed when I introduced myself with all of those greats in my title. You know, they're counting on their fingers and how many grades is it?
00;24;07;23 - 00;24;31;22
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And I always start my presentation the same way because I want them to understand how close we are to the days of slavery. And my great grandmother, who lived to be 101 years old now she married Frederick Douglass, his grandson Joseph, my great grandfather. And so she met Frederick Douglass first when she was a little girl. She didn't know that she was going to grow up and marry his grandson.
00;24;32;00 - 00;24;57;18
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And then my aunt Portia, to whom I was very close as well, I lived to be 95 and she was Booker T, Washington's daughter. And so I remember sitting at the knee of both of them, and they could tell me firsthand stories about both men. And so I was trying to I was it was several years ago or several years after we started, and I was trying to figure out something that could help give the students some context between the distance of the generations.
00;24;57;18 - 00;25;16;16
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And I had this thought, you know, that hands that touched Frederick Douglass and hands, it touched the great Booker T Washington also touched mine. And so in a sense, even with all of those greats, I can say I stand one person away from each man. I stand one person away from history, and I stand one person away from slavery.
00;25;16;28 - 00;25;40;28
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And when you consider for hundred years and 400 plus years of generational trauma, and that's been passed down and in 1865, when the last of the four 4 million enslaved people were freed without a plan, most most of them spent the first couple of years just trying to reconnect with family that they had been separated from. They didn't own property.
00;25;40;28 - 00;26;08;19
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Most didn't know how to read and write. They didn't they had just had the burlap on their backs. There was no counseling to help them deal with it. There was no post-traumatic stress order designation. And then, you know, we go into the years, the 12 years of reconstruction, and then we get the push back and Jim Crow and segregation, and then we can just go through the whole litany of all of the injustices that have been heaped upon people of color, but people of African descent in this country.
00;26;08;29 - 00;26;17;28
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And it's like you said, you know, these systems are built and designed and they work exactly as they were intended to work.
00;26;18;18 - 00;26;36;26
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Yeah. I think when when something's around for a very long time, it's not gone. It's no post-racial anything. It's something is there and it's just more nuanced. It's you know, it is this thing they talk about with muscle memory. It's like a kind of that. It's like, Oh, yeah, it's our it's work and we're supposed to fight.
00;26;36;26 - 00;26;37;13
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Exactly.
00;26;37;16 - 00;27;03;02
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
No, it's not is absolutely is absolutely terrible. So I got I got two more real questions and then I want to you with these rapid fire questions after. So could you share like some of the like let me frame it a little differently. Can you share like you know your thoughts on obstacles and how you approach obstacles from your vantage point down through your history?
00;27;03;02 - 00;27;12;00
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Like how do you approach obstacles? And was there one obstacle that really comes to mind that was very impactful for like where you're at now in your life?
00;27;13;06 - 00;27;41;26
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Again, I take my cue from history and I think about the obstacles that my ancestors faced. And for somebody like Booker T t Washington, who was freed when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed on January 1st, 1863, he was nine years old and he was freed and he wanted to go to school so badly that he worked in the salt and coal mines at night so that he could begin his lessons during the day and eventually makes a 500 mile walk to go to school at Hampton Institute at the age of 16.
00;27;42;07 - 00;28;14;15
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And he faced all kinds of obstacles. He ran out of money several times. He had to take odd jobs along the way. He slept outside. He slept under bridges. But the lesson there was there was no obstacle that was too great, no challenge that was insurmountable for him to overcome, to get that education. And so when I face obstacles, which we all do and we all face challenges mostly, sometimes daily, I look at those as opportunities to be able to, you know, get a bus through that that wall or get over that wall.
00;28;14;24 - 00;28;34;16
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And I don't ever really think about obstacles as being insurmountable, you know, that we can get through them. To your question about was there one obstacle that kind of changed the course for me and the trajectory, I, I knew that you were going to answer that question. I've been thinking you were going to ask that question, and I've been thinking a lot about it.
00;28;34;24 - 00;29;10;17
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And I really can't think of one obstacle that really changed everything for me because again, I look at them as opportunities. And so when I read that National Geographic magazine, that certainly changed the trajectory of my life. I didn't know that I would be doing this work. But because I have been doing it as long as I've been doing it now, I can look back at my whole life and even starting with in the entertainment business, that helped me be able to do these types of things, to do radio interviews or to go on TV or to stand up on stage and speak in front of people.
00;29;11;06 - 00;29;20;29
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
So, you know, I guess for the listeners out there to take every obstacle is as a challenge and an opportunity to be able to to bust through that.
00;29;21;21 - 00;29;29;21
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
I remember hearing of this and thank you. I remember hearing of this one quote about obstacles, challenges. Those are vitamins. You got to take those every day.
00;29;30;00 - 00;29;33;23
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Yeah, that's I haven't heard that quote, but that's that's beautiful. I'm going to have to use that.
00;29;33;23 - 00;29;34;01
Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
Yeah.
00;29;34;22 - 00;29;54;14
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
I'll tell you exactly who said I'm blanking on the name right now, but I want to I want to ask you this. This is this is a little like self-serving, but it's almost a nice Segway. So you have an accomplished and prolific career like a public speaker as well. You know, and I see CNN, I see NPR. I see a keynote speaker at the United Nations.
00;29;54;14 - 00;30;11;28
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
So how do you prepare like, you know, for for those who get a little mumble mouth at times and, you know, maybe get the yips and kind of mess up what they're going to say? How do you prepare? Because, I mean, this is everything. I was hoping for this, the crisp conversation. How do you prepare? Like, do you get nervous?
00;30;11;28 - 00;30;12;17
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Tell me about that.
00;30;13;07 - 00;30;33;29
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Yeah, I do get nervous. It's kind of a nervous energy or excitement and it pops up in different ways. You know, I'll I'll have an opportunity to speak in front of 2000 people, and I'm calm and my heart rate is not going fast. And then there are other times when I'm in a room with 25 people and my heart rate is, you know, my heart is pounding out of my chest.
00;30;33;29 - 00;30;58;23
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
So there's no rhyme or reason to why I get nervous. But I definitely do. And I remember the first time that I read Frederick Douglass wrote about the first time that he spoke in front of a white audience. And so he becomes one of the greatest speakers that this country has ever seen has ever known. And when he was about 22 years old, he was asked at an anti-slavery meeting on Nantucket Island to stand up and just tell his story.
00;30;59;03 - 00;31;18;15
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Well, he had honed his skills in speaking skills while he was enslaved in black churches. But this now he's standing up as an enslaved person who was at a fugitive slave. We would have called him a fugitive slave at that time. But we call those people freedom seekers Now. That's that's a whole nother story and conversation about language.
00;31;18;25 - 00;31;38;23
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
But he wrote he said, I was so nervous that I was shaking from every limb, you know, his knees were knocking together. And here's one of the greatest speakers, again, that this country has ever seen. And and he got nervous as well. So those that kind of anxiety, I think, is very common. And for me, singing on stage was very different than speaking on stage.
00;31;38;23 - 00;31;45;06
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
I was very comfortable singing on stage. And the first time that I had to speak on stage, I was a nervous wreck just.
00;31;45;06 - 00;31;46;13
Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
Like I did.
00;31;47;01 - 00;32;02;07
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
I couldn't for probably put two two sentences together. But yeah, it's, it's, it's a beautiful thing to be able to get up in front of an audience and and be able to share stories about my family and the work that we do. And I feel blessed to be able to do this work.
00;32;03;05 - 00;32;11;24
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Thank you as as great. So I got I got a what, four I got four rapid fire questions for you.
00;32;12;12 - 00;32;12;21
Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
Okay.
00;32;12;28 - 00;32;24;18
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Don't overthink them. They're, you know, they're goofy, silly little questions. But, you know, they they like people peek behind the curtains. So here's the first one. Regardless of distance. Do you prefer flying or driving?
00;32;25;11 - 00;32;27;15
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
I'm flying. Absolutely.
00;32;27;15 - 00;32;29;21
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Flying over One second. Someone's at my door.
00;32;29;22 - 00;32;30;02
Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
Okay.
00;32;31;08 - 00;32;34;01
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
So see, she said driving.
00;32;34;24 - 00;32;35;17
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
I said, flying.
00;32;35;21 - 00;32;36;11
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Flying. Okay.
00;32;36;22 - 00;32;37;01
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Yeah.
00;32;38;10 - 00;32;42;26
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
So let's see. Hmm. Are you more of a thinker or doer?
00;32;44;02 - 00;32;44;17
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Thinker?
00;32;45;24 - 00;32;46;10
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Are we all.
00;32;46;14 - 00;32;48;29
Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
Right? Yeah.
00;32;48;29 - 00;32;55;09
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
It's just like, Oh, I've just got to just leap before I log is like, now I'm going to look and I want to figure out where do I want to land? That's not right.
00;32;55;11 - 00;33;00;26
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
But, you know. Yeah, you notice I had a little bit of pause in between there because I was thinking about the question.
00;33;01;00 - 00;33;01;21
Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
That I.
00;33;03;16 - 00;33;15;25
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Actually I could say I'm both a thinker and a doer. I think first and then and then I do something in the same way that I thought about your question, and then I answered it. So I did something like that.
00;33;16;06 - 00;33;19;16
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
That's a that's a very creative way of answering that. Going back to the creative thing, you know?
00;33;19;18 - 00;33;20;12
Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
Yeah, yeah.
00;33;22;02 - 00;33;27;04
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
What object act that you would usually have on your person that you misplace the most?
00;33;27;28 - 00;33;28;27
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
My Chapstick.
00;33;30;28 - 00;33;33;23
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Chapstick. Some remotes, they're like the number one book is like.
00;33;34;18 - 00;33;36;02
Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
Where's that remote? Where's that? Yeah.
00;33;36;05 - 00;33;47;00
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Yeah. I'm always I have. And then when I find the chapstick, I'll have find like four or five of them in all different places that I dropped them or left them around the house. No.
00;33;47;15 - 00;33;52;12
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
I thought I lost my wallet earlier and I went to the gym and I was like, Do did I.
00;33;52;12 - 00;33;54;04
Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
Bring my wallet with me and my my wallet?
00;33;54;14 - 00;34;12;10
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
And the crazy thing is, I have one of these these little airtags. So I was looking at my iPhone. I was like, it says my wallet's with me because I can't think it, so I don't think I have it. So I get home and I put the little device on and it's tracking. Is I paying, paying, paying it, and it's just buzzing like really crazy on a phone.
00;34;12;10 - 00;34;16;00
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
It was it was in my backpack the entire time, which I have the entire time.
00;34;16;22 - 00;34;17;00
Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
Well, that's.
00;34;17;00 - 00;34;20;27
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
Good. You have one of those. Find those tags on it so you can find it if you do it.
00;34;21;05 - 00;34;33;13
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Yeah, because you know, part of it is the travel thing. I would vary because I'm usually bring in my recording gear. So it's like I lose my gear or I can lose all my clothing. If I'm traveling, I lose my gear. I am not happy now.
00;34;33;13 - 00;34;33;22
Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
No.
00;34;34;26 - 00;34;44;14
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
So this is the last one. And this is this is, you know, nice, nice Segway, nice wrap up for this this this conversation. What is your most strongly held belief?
00;34;45;02 - 00;34;46;03
Rob Lee - The Truth in This Art
Mm. Oh.
00;34;47;06 - 00;35;17;28
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
I again taking my cue from history and Booker T Washington how he just always talked about character I think my strongest belief is that character is important and honesty is important. Truth telling is is important. And so, you know, these are types of things that my wife and I have tried to teach our girls as well, and they've grown growing up to be just beautiful human beings.
00;35;17;28 - 00;35;19;07
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And I'm very proud of that.
00;35;20;16 - 00;35;39;05
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
Thank you. That's great. So that's pretty much it for the main podcast and and in the conversation here. But I want to open it up and invite you to share anything you want in these final moments, like the shortest shameless plug, the website, the social media, all of that good stuff. The floor is yours.
00;35;39;24 - 00;36;01;12
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
February 14th, which was Frederick Douglass birthday, we announced that we are building a new museum called the Frederick Douglass Museum Center for Justice, Knowledge and Equality in Rochester, New York, which was Frederick Douglass, his adopted hometown. It's where he published a North Star newspaper. So where he spent 25 years of his life. And it's where he and my great, great, great grandmother, Anna, are buried.
00;36;01;29 - 00;36;29;00
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
That's going to be a 4 to 5 year project to get that build. We signed a purchase and sales agreement with a businessman there in town. And the beautiful thing about it is it's just blocks down from the and building where he published the North Star newspaper. And so Frederick Douglass is returning to Main Street. The other thing that I'm really excited about is we just partnered with Forefront Books and Simon and Schuster on a new Frederick Douglass Books publishing imprint.
00;36;29;07 - 00;36;51;26
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
And we're going to amplify the voice of Black and Brown authors. The first publication on that new imprint is our Douglass family edition of Frederick Douglass. His first autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. And through a project that we call 1 million abolitionist, we're working to give away 1 million copies of that book to students all over the world.
00;36;52;03 - 00;37;26;09
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
I gave 600 of them today away today at the presentation at the school here in New Jersey. We've today given away more than 100,000 copies of that book because we also had in 2018, which was Frederick Douglass bicentennial year, we published a bicentennial edition of the narrative. So we're a long way away from the million. But with the help of your listeners and people that want to contribute to help fund the books, you can go to our website, which is f DFI board, and that's the acronym for Frederick Douglass Initiatives.
00;37;26;09 - 00;37;45;20
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
F, f, d, f i dot org. Click on the initiatives tab and you can see all of the great projects and programs that we're working on. And if you'd like to help support the project, you can do that on the website as well by making a tax deductible contribution. So we got a lot going on at Frederick Douglass family initiatives.
00;37;45;20 - 00;37;46;14
Kenneth B Morris Jr - FDFI
So check this out.
00;37;47;07 - 00;38;06;05
Rob Lee - The Truth In This Art
And there you have it, folks. I want to again thank Kenneth B morris Jr for coming on to the podcast. And I'm Rob Lee saying that there is culture and heritage in and around your neck of the woods. You've just got to look for it.
