E96: Prayer and Pen with Toni Draper of the Afro News

In this episode, Rebecca Snyder welcomes Frances “Toni” Draper, publisher of the Afro-American Newspapers, to discuss her upcoming book Prayer and Pen, set to release in January 2025. Toni shares the deeply personal and historical journey behind this unique collection of prayers written by her grandfather, Carl Murphy—a prolific writer, journalist, and former editor of the Afro. Together, they explore how these prayers, scribbled on everything from napkins to envelopes, offer insights into Carl Murphy’s spiritual and professional life as he navigated pivotal moments in history, from the March on Washington to his editorial work. 

Toni also dives into the Afro’s storied legacy, touching on its archival treasures, its connection to the Black church and civil rights movement, and the family's remarkable contributions to journalism, community building, and justice. This heartfelt episode highlights the timeless relevance of Carl Murphy’s prayers and proverbs, while celebrating the Afro’s dedication to preserving Black history and culture. 

Join us as we reflect on the power of prayer, the importance of legacy, and the enduring impact of the Afro on generations past, present, and future. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and the Legacy of the Afro
• 4:01 The Story Behind Prayer and Pen
• 10:31 The Intersection of Faith, Community, and Journalism
• 18:01 Mining the Afro Archives: Preserving History
• 23:31 Curating the Prayers and Proverbs
• 37:01 Reflections on Legacy and the Future of the Afro

Transcript

Rebecca Snyder (00:01.348)
Welcome everyone. I am delighted to have Frances Toni Draper, the publisher of the Afro here today in the studio to talk about Prayer and Pen, which is a new book that she has coming out in 2025. So welcome to the program, Toni.

Frances "Toni" Draper (00:18.872)
Thank you, Rebecca. Great to be here.

Rebecca Snyder (00:21.35)
Terrific. Well, so we know through five dubs we've had a great episode in the spotlight on the Afro and we've heard about some of the best moves that the publication has done for the MDDC contest, but this is a little bit new. So tell us about this book and then we'll take a step back and talk about how it relates to the

Frances "Toni" Draper (00:45.034)
Okay, well, talking about this book. So Prayer in Pen is a compilation of prayers written by Carl Murphy, who was my maternal grandfather. Carl Murphy wrote prayers about everything. So we have found over a hundred of his prayers. Some were handwritten on the backs of envelopes, some were on napkins, some his daughters typed up, but he was a man of prayer. And so before embarking on anything,

he wrote prayers. And then he wrote prayers about children and grandchildren and people's recovery from illnesses and things that people pray about all the time. But he also wrote prayers about things that he was writing about in the Afro or events that were happening or boards that he was chairing, the prayers that he wrote before he picked up the gavel, those types of things.

Rebecca Snyder (01:39.718)
So Carl Murphy was the founder of the Afro or no, I'm sorry. The Afro has such a long and storied history. I get lost in the generations. So sketch it out.

Frances "Toni" Draper (01:44.71)
No? No.

Frances "Toni" Draper (01:49.592)
So it's hard to keep up. So Carl Murphy's father, John Henry Murphy Sr., actually founded the paper in 1892 with $200 borrowed from my great grandmother Martha. They had 10 children. Carl was the second youngest of the 10 children. were five boys, five girls. Carl is the one who was a German major.

at Howard University, ended up being the chair of that department. His master's degree is from Harvard, and then he studied at the University of Jena in Germany for about a year.

Rebecca Snyder (02:32.326)
That is an illustrious, that's a lot to live up to as a grandfather or anything else in your family. And so when the Afro was begun with that $200, and I love that it was your great grandma's money. And I mean, there are such strong, powerful women leaders throughout the Afro, and I love that it all starts with a woman. But tell us a little bit about kind of the

Frances "Toni" Draper (02:39.819)
Yes.

Frances "Toni" Draper (02:48.406)
Yeah, we like that story too.

Rebecca Snyder (03:00.71)
context that the Afro was was publishing in and then how that affects Carl Murphy and then I want to get into this the plentitude of prayer that he that he has

Frances "Toni" Draper (03:14.786)
Well, let's think about this from in 1892. John Murphy buys the name and the printing press at an auction. So the name, African American, was already in use when he purchased that. He was 52 years old, already said that he and his wife had 10 children. So let's put that in that context. And reportedly, less than 2 % of the Black population could read. So here you have a formerly enslaved

Rebecca Snyder (03:23.696)
Okay.

Frances "Toni" Draper (03:43.284)
man who was a sergeant in the Civil War, a white washer by trade, married with 10 kids, and he decides that he wants to start a newspaper. He actually was editing something called the Sunday School Helper for the AME Church at the time that he purchased the Afro, and he just wanted to write good news about the Black community.

Rebecca Snyder (04:07.782)
which honestly, I feel like that's a wonderful mission. You carry that through even today, but that is a huge leap of faith to say, know, 52 when people maybe didn't live quite as long. And it is, that's a really tough time to make a leap with 10 mouths to feed, even if your wife is a true partner and can help you fund this. So that's a, and Baltimore in that time, you know, was not there,

Frances "Toni" Draper (04:16.696)
Awesome.

light.

Rebecca Snyder (04:37.678)
Certainly African-American, the black community did not have near the opportunities that they should have in the 1890s. so was Carl Murphy kind of brought up in that faith community as well? I'm interested in that intersection of the black press and the faith community.

Frances "Toni" Draper (04:57.4)
Yes. Well, the whole family was brought up in the faith community and one of Carl Murphy's sisters was an Episcopal nun and she lived to 107 years old, 108, sister Constance. She ran a convent in Canada, lived there for a while, was still riding a bicycle at the age of 80 or so and wrote a book called Other Little Ships.

and was part of a longitudinal study on aging that Hopkins ran. They would bring her to Baltimore every year from Canada. Just to try to figure out what were the secrets to living so long.

Rebecca Snyder (05:37.222)
Well, like in that context, 52 does not seem as much of a leap. Okay. But still, that's impressive. was John Murphy a pastor as well? You have such a strong tradition. Okay.

Frances "Toni" Draper (05:40.063)
That was the game scene I had.

Frances "Toni" Draper (05:50.104)
No, he was not a pastor, but he was the district superintendent of Sunday School for the Hagerstown district of the AME Church. And I think I already named the publication that he was the editor of, it was called the Sunday School Helper. His father, Benjamin, was the organist for Bethel AME Church in Baltimore.

Rebecca Snyder (06:18.566)
wonderful traditions. So then Carl Murphy comes up in this sort of steeped in this sort of activism of the of the black church, which was very, very much not just dedicated only to the spiritual development of congregants, but also to sort of the economic and rightful place of the black community in the world. So Carl Murphy's coming up in this and

Did he, what did he do? Did he go straight into the newspaper? I know all of you have kind of had to do your turn at the newspaper.

Frances "Toni" Draper (06:52.984)
Well, remember that he was a professor of German at Howard University. So he helped his dad on the weekends with the Afro, but his main profession was as a German professor at Howard. However, his dad tapped him to be the one of the 10 to

Rebecca Snyder (06:59.204)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Snyder (07:08.613)
Okay.

Frances "Toni" Draper (07:21.676)
follow him in the business. And so Carl, you he loved the business, he was employed by Howard.

Rebecca Snyder (07:28.506)
Right, well, and that's a real push-pull, you know, to sort of go where, you know, your family is encouraging you. But obviously, he had a very strong professional affiliation with Howard, and he was doing a wonderful job. I mean, that's where he was going. So how did he kind of reconcile both of those? And did that come out in prayer, or how did you see that happen?

Frances "Toni" Draper (07:53.56)
Well, you know, I knew my grandfather, but I died when he died rather than I was 19. So I always knew him as a newspaper man. I did not know him while he was at Howard. His father died at 1922, which was long before I was born. In fact, it was the year that my mother was born. And so he came from Washington, moved back to Baltimore to take over the family business.

Rebecca Snyder (08:21.968)
there's a great history of sort of later in life newspapering. You sort of do your career and then you come back home to the publications. So as a professor, but obviously someone with a very deep spiritual side because he's writing prayers all the time, tell me a little bit about, I love the idea that someone is just sort of leaving the trail of prayers wherever he goes. Where were these prayers used and how did you come about?

Frances "Toni" Draper (08:51.665)
Okay, so the prayers that Karl Murphy wrote were for so many different things. For example, a little bit later than the 1920s and 30s, for example, for the March on Washington in 1963, he wrote a prayer before the march, he wrote a prayer after the march, right? W.E.B. Du Bois was a neighbor of his, and when Du Bois died, he wrote a prayer.

even though they didn't always see eye to eye. Dwight Eisenhower gave a speech one time and called Negro citizens, as he called them, his people. And Karl Murphy wrote a prayer that said, dear God, please tell Mr. Eisenhower we're not his people, we're your people. So he wrote prayers about the Pullman porters, but he also wrote prayers about his grandchildren. He wrote prayers about the seasons. I looked out the window this morning and there were more leaves than you could count.

kind of things. wrote prayers for all the seasons. He wrote prayers for all the holidays, all the native holidays. And he wrote prayers for meals. wrote grace, those kinds of prayers, blessings for food.

Rebecca Snyder (09:55.364)
You what this?

Rebecca Snyder (10:04.526)
It almost feels like it's like journal through prayer almost, that that was sort of the mechanism or the rhythm. Did you in sort of compiling with the person who has had that many prayers sort of written, A, I wanna find out a little bit more about how he kept, like did he like have these filed? know like how, what does that look like when someone is leaving that many prayers in their papers? And was he as,

careful with his other writings to preserve and to kind of create that picture as he was with the prayers.

Frances "Toni" Draper (10:40.226)
So he was a prolific writer. mean, he wrote hard hitting, hard hitting editorial editorials. And he wrote just so much about everything. He wrote under a pseudonym for the paper. So he was Jasper Jones when he wasn't Carl Murphy a lot of times when he wrote in the paper. My understanding about these prayers is that he didn't write them to file them away to keep them as a record, but they were pretty, I mean, they were in the house.

So his oldest daughter is the first person to compile them. So she pulled them together and put them in a book of sorts, you know, a book that I guess people at that time would call it. It was just on 8 1 paper with a staple in it, right? So she had those books, that book rather. Then my mom came along and she said, you know, we should...

Rebecca Snyder (11:23.212)
scrapbook or a folio maybe or

Okay.

Frances "Toni" Draper (11:38.208)
recategorize these prayers. My aunt had categorized them. My mom was the youngest. And so she comes by and she's going to categorize them. So she starts this project of putting them in different kind of categories, right? Then I come along and say, you know, these prayers ought to, you know, should be more accessible to the public. So Prayer and Pen is a book that, you know, it will be released in January. But my book is different. It's not just a book of prayers.

Rebecca Snyder (11:56.486)
Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Snyder (12:05.616)
So tell us more about what's in there because I feel like there's a lot to sort of share and discuss and certainly such a wide ranging life.

Frances "Toni" Draper (12:16.246)
Well, the book has prayers, and it has a scripture that goes along with prayers, but it also has context to it. So if it was a prayer about family, about grandchildren or whatever, there's a blurb or an intro that talks about who he was praying for. Or if it was a prayer that, as I already said about the March on Washington, then the book contains

photos from the archives and the Afros coverage of that march. And then something written about what was so critical about that march.

Rebecca Snyder (12:50.48)
That's interesting.

Rebecca Snyder (12:56.934)
Well, and I love sort of that 360 view of this momentous event that you're seeing through the lens of the prayer, through the lens of the afro, maybe even the lens of editorial, an editorial that he wrote. And so did you find out anything, was there anything that surprised you or anything that you were not as prepared for when you were putting these together?

Frances "Toni" Draper (13:19.992)
Well, I think the thing that didn't surprise me is I've seen these prayers so much over my life. I think that when you realize the sheer volume of the prayers, when I say the number of prayers and the variety of prayers, right? So yeah, prayers of compassion and prayers just about daily living and prayers about faith, prayers about love, prayers about freedom, prayers of, as I said, holidays, prayers about death, certainly prayers about politics.

Lots of prayers about politics, prayers about labor. And then he had some one liners. In the book, I call them proverbs. He just had some one line prayers, and they're just listed. They're like pearls of wisdom. That's why I call them proverbs.

Rebecca Snyder (14:08.563)
He does seem to have, when you were mentioning that prayer around Eisenhower, sounded like he had some great quips. Do you have some favorite proverbs or prayers that came out of this?

Frances "Toni" Draper (14:19.116)
Yeah, let me see if I can pull up a couple of those that I don't have them committed to memory, but I certainly can look really quickly through. So the book is 130 pages. It's a hardback book, right? And so this book, it even has pictures from, they have family pictures. have wedding pictures that we published in the Afro. They're not necessarily people who are part of our family.

the organizations that AFRO covered, their pictures from that, from pickets and protests, their pictures from that, from, we had the largest contingency of war correspondents in World War II, of Black war correspondents, including the first ever Black woman to go to Europe. And that was my aunt, Carl Murphy's oldest daughter, Elizabeth Murphy Moss, the one who compiled the prayers initially, right? So this,

Rebecca Snyder (15:02.022)
is that?

Rebecca Snyder (15:07.457)
Now who was that?

Rebecca Snyder (15:15.186)
huh.

Frances "Toni" Draper (15:18.22)
This resulted in a book called This Is Our War. The war correspondents for the Afro went to Europe and they wrote a story, they called it dispatch, they sent back to the paper every week. There were seven of them. So the Afro printed their stories and when the war was over, put them in a book.

Rebecca Snyder (15:43.174)
feel like the Afro has always had an eye to history and has been really good about sort of mind, just like you've mined the archives and sort of compiled things. I love the idea of that war correspondence book. And just also to contextualize, at that point, you we may think of the Afro as Baltimore and DC, but there were additions in multiple other cities. So seven correspondence is not, you know,

Frances "Toni" Draper (16:05.752)
13.

Rebecca Snyder (16:12.746)
granted it was a big war, there's a lot to cover, but that wasn't all coming in just from the Baltimore view.

Frances "Toni" Draper (16:19.326)
not at all. In fact, when you read that book, this is our war, it is available for order just on the Afro site. But when you read that book, you'll find that the correspondents came in contact with people from all over the country and they would say, you're from the Afro, you're writing a story. My name is so-and-so and I live wherever they put, especially it was Baltimore. When you go back or when you write, you tell my mother I said hello?

Rebecca Snyder (16:47.185)
I love that. That's great.

Frances "Toni" Draper (16:49.314)
So this book has addresses in it. Because the soldier would say, I live, you know, and give us the address. And that's what happened. mean, thinking, speaking of that. So one of Karl Murphy's daughters was as a war correspondent, right? Another was a member of the 6888. The Postal Battalion, one that's, know, Perry's movies come out on that.

Rebecca Snyder (16:52.083)
how funny.

Rebecca Snyder (17:07.056)
in there.

Frances "Toni" Draper (17:18.84)
on December 20th and so she, but we never knew she was in the 6 AAA until long, she didn't talk about her service.

Rebecca Snyder (17:28.584)
really, was that because she was, what kind of prompted that silence?

Frances "Toni" Draper (17:33.176)
She had no idea. Her children don't know. None of us knows why she didn't talk about. We knew she was in the Army, but we did not know that she was in the 6888. I think it was just at that time. So you're talking about chronically in history. It's history to us because we're looking at it in 2024. It was history probably in 1984, but when people were in the midst of it, that was part of their daily living.

Rebecca Snyder (17:39.386)
Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Snyder (17:51.312)
Right.

Rebecca Snyder (17:58.31)
But I think that's always been, you know, when you look at the Afro, I think that the Afro has always been super, like hyper connected with the black community. think it also comes from, there's a lot of Murphys out there in the world for sure. And so you're into so many different aspects of society and the Afro has been, I think just a really interesting fusion of, you know, positive news for the community and spiritual.

Frances "Toni" Draper (18:12.44)
a lot.

Rebecca Snyder (18:28.282)
growth and support. And you've brought that even into this day because you are, we don't have it on your screen here, but you're Reverend Frances Toni Draper. So tell us a little bit about how that has kind of informed what you've done with this book, but also the Afro.

Frances "Toni" Draper (18:39.807)
You're

Frances "Toni" Draper (18:46.882)
Let's go back a little bit and put this in context. The Black church was always the center for community. so, you know, historically, not now, historically, the Black preacher was the most educated person in the community. And so when people could not read or write or they wanted some interpretation or...

they would go to the local, the local minister, the local church would provide that. And the local church was also the place in the black community for the most part, where that building was freely owned by the people. And so it was a gathering place because of the mere size of buildings, right? So you have a very educated clergy person. You have a building in community where people can come. And so within the black church,

Yes, they had religious services there because that's their purpose, but they also had a whole lot of community meetings, a whole lot of political meetings, gatherings of community there. You found not as much today and not just in the black community, but people went to church, went to synagogue, they went to mosque, they went to religious services. That was part of the daily life of most people.

Right? And so in Maryland, nothing was open until two o'clock on Sunday.

Rebecca Snyder (20:19.29)
Right. I do remember when the blue lows went away, was, woo!

Frances "Toni" Draper (20:24.076)
Yeah, the Blue Laws. So people weren't going to the malls at 11 o'clock in the morning, they were going to church.

Right?

Rebecca Snyder (20:32.198)
Absolutely. Well, and that I think have the remembering that the black church really was the nexus of community and that that was and it was all very much intertwined. And so.

Frances "Toni" Draper (20:44.93)
Right. The Black church, the Black press, the Black civil rights organizations were all intertwined. They carried the Black story. the church was the gathering place. The Black civil rights organizations were the organizers. The Black newspapers were the reporters and chroniclers of community. And think about the fact that other publications were not covering the community at all.

Rebecca Snyder (21:14.982)
Absolutely. And I think it's you have as you've looked through the Afros archives and I believe so check me on this I think that you all have digitized most of the archives now

Frances "Toni" Draper (21:26.872)
We digitize a lot of the archives. We've organized, you know, most of the archives. They are three million photographs, Rebecca. Three million. Three million. It is a treasure trove. So there are three million photographs, because you know from being so involved in the press, one photo may appear in print or online or maybe five or six photos, but the photographer takes 50 photos.

Rebecca Snyder (21:35.56)
my gosh, I didn't realize that many. That's a treasure trove.

Rebecca Snyder (21:55.695)
Exactly.

Frances "Toni" Draper (21:56.352)
Right? So in those times, you kept the negatives. And if they developed all of those photos, right, back in the day, wasn't electronic that somebody was looking through a file and selecting the photos. Those photos were actually being developed and the editors were looking and say, okay, I'm just going to use this one. And that's it. But we would keep the rest. also kept, we also have reporters notebooks.

Rebecca Snyder (22:18.122)
so now, and I'm trying to remember because I feel like you've been working so diligently on sort of the historical Afro, maybe at the Mount Clare. You have a building that you're working on to house all the archives. So talk to me a bit about that.

Frances "Toni" Draper (22:33.664)
in the Upton Mansion. So our 501c3 Afro charities is developing a building in old West Baltimore where they are, called the Upton Mansion. It's at 811 West Landville Street. It used to ironically be, I don't know whether it's ironic, it's the right word, but it used to be a plantation. It's not on 10 acres at one time. The Afro was in that community originally.

Rebecca Snyder (22:55.319)
okay.

Frances "Toni" Draper (23:01.72)
And that was just on one acre. it was a plantation mansion, a historical marker now. And the 501c3, AFL charities who cares for the AFL archives wants to, and we do too, we want to make the collection more accessible to the public. So we are targeting 2026, some time, don't have a month yet in 2026 for that collection to be

housed there and the Afro headquarters to be housed there as well.

Rebecca Snyder (23:35.845)
that sounds like it's going to be a wonderful party and gala to open that up. What a great celebration.

Frances "Toni" Draper (23:40.426)
I think, right, because people use the archives now to research all kinds of things.

Rebecca Snyder (23:46.16)
Well, I feel like the Afro and the Black person in general, like you have a slice of history that no one else has.

Frances "Toni" Draper (23:52.226)
that no one else has, right? AI does not have it unless we give it to them, which we're not giving anything to anybody, right? We're not giving it. Because the issues that impacted Black Americans, for the most part, were not covered in the same way. So for any kind of press that's very focused on a community, whether it's the Black community, the Jewish community, the gay community, whatever it is,

Rebecca Snyder (23:58.774)
you

Rebecca Snyder (24:10.694)
Absolutely.

Frances "Toni" Draper (24:21.036)
what has more content, because we're not trying to be a general market, general audience publication. We respect those publications. We consider ourselves as part of the brotherhood or the sisterhood, if you will. But we have a real clear focus.

Rebecca Snyder (24:39.27)
Yeah, no, and I think that makes a huge difference. And so like, as we talk about prayer and pen and also the Afro archives, what lessons do you think those sort of historical pieces bring in the modern day? I mean, you're going to considerable effort to make those stories and those archives more accessible. Writing a book is not, you know, something you just flip out every day. So what kind of

prompted you to make sure that you're connected with the history and the archives in this way.

Frances "Toni" Draper (25:11.776)
Well, this is my third book, but my second book, I found the love letters between Carl Murphy and my grandmother, Vashhtie Turley Murphy, who was a co-founder of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. A lot of talk these days about the divine nine, the largest African-American sorority. She was Carl Murphy's student.

Rebecca Snyder (25:33.71)
No. How scandalous? Was that scandalous? I mean, it feels scandalous now.

Frances "Toni" Draper (25:36.984)
I don't know, you know, she was five years older than he was too.

Rebecca Snyder (25:40.293)
Well, and I guess, you know, in those that period of time, people came to schooling when they could. There wasn't, you know, there there.

Frances "Toni" Draper (25:47.168)
Well, she was she was a DC school teacher and at the time, just like in Maryland, you only needed two years. The district decided they wanted their students to have four years. So she was able to go to Howard for her for two additional years. Carl Murphy wrote we have his letter. He wrote an introduction for her to speak someplace and he wrote that while she was his student, they did not court, you know, people don't court anymore.

Rebecca Snyder (25:54.16)
Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Snyder (25:58.288)
Okay.

Frances "Toni" Draper (26:15.414)
They didn't court till after she was graduated, right? That's what he said. So the name of that book is No Ordinary Hookup. The Court's, yeah.

Rebecca Snyder (26:18.992)
So was all very on the up and up. What a story.

Rebecca Snyder (26:26.232)
I love that. Now, now that didn't come through our Daily Bread publishing. Do you have a separate? self-published. Okay, great.

Frances "Toni" Draper (26:31.544)
No, that was self-published. I found their love letters, right? So they start off with, Dear Mr. Murphy and Dear Ms. Turley, very formal, 1913, 14, 15, somewhere in there. And then, you by the time you get to the end of the letters, it's My Dear Carl and My Dear Vash Ty. So.

Rebecca Snyder (26:52.282)
that's so wonderful. Now, I'm just thinking of sort of these packed houses that are in the Murphy family because it feels like nobody throws anything away. Like think it's amazing to find somebody's love letters from the 19th.

Frances "Toni" Draper (27:04.656)
God.

My mother had them, so my husband and I live in the house that Carl Murphy built in 1929.

Rebecca Snyder (27:13.508)
What a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Frances "Toni" Draper (27:16.022)
And my mother found them and showed me where they were. So I said, these letters are amazing. When you read, because who does this? Who courts? People don't court anymore. So I was, let me put it this way. I was a pastor, as you said, but I was a licensed pastoral counselor as well and do a lot of premarital counseling. In fact, I'll tell you about my next book if you're interested in finding out about that.

Rebecca Snyder (27:44.411)
I definitely want to hear.

Frances "Toni" Draper (27:45.9)
But I do a lot of premarital counseling. And I said, you know what? We could learn some things from Carl and Vagetide Murphy. They wrote about, Rebecca, listen to this. Their love letters were, what are you listening to? And what are you reading? And what did you get out of this book? And it's very intellectual. But then in between them, it says, well, can I come and visit this weekend? They had supervised visits.

Rebecca Snyder (28:02.47)
You're in the house.

Rebecca Snyder (28:12.271)
Okay.

Frances "Toni" Draper (28:12.96)
Okay, and she would say, well, yes, if Ms. So-and-so is available to be here or whatever. She writes in one letter, I am upset with the post office that takes more than a day for your letter to get to me. That's when he was writing from Baltimore and she was still in DC.

Rebecca Snyder (28:30.342)
That's so romantic. That's lovely. And it's wonderful that they had such an intellectual connection as well as that romantic connection. And I sort of feel like maybe there's some lessons for that premarital counseling.

Frances "Toni" Draper (28:39.084)
very intellectual.

Frances "Toni" Draper (28:46.264)
Yes, in the middle of the book, I have these lessons for pre-marital counseling. And we also printed in the book the actual letters, cursive, we reproduce the letters in cursive. A lot of young people can't read cursive anymore, but we typed them out too, but so you could see their handwriting. Hers was beautiful.

Rebecca Snyder (28:58.33)
No.

Rebecca Snyder (29:04.132)
And they're always so beautiful. People have some wonderful penmanship.

Rebecca Snyder (29:10.938)
Well, your grandfather had other skills.

Frances "Toni" Draper (29:11.35)
And this was challenging, but I grew up reading his handwriting. So it wasn't, it wasn't too, and he wrote poems, original poems to her.

Rebecca Snyder (29:24.007)
He was so prolific because we have the prayers, the poems, the love letters, the academic pieces that I'm sure he was writing, plus the editorials.

Frances "Toni" Draper (29:32.632)
he wrote a lot. Right, and he was the recipient of the NAACP's highest award, the Spengard Medal, in 1955. And so we have copies of that speech around. That's not in any book. I don't have any plans to put that in the book. NAACP has put it in a little book already. He was quite the scholar. And so we grew up listening to German music.

Rebecca Snyder (29:57.945)
I bet,

Frances "Toni" Draper (29:58.71)
This German professor thought that we should all listen to that in my, he has 16 grandchildren and we all thought.

Rebecca Snyder (30:05.424)
Wow, those are some big families. But I think that's also a great way to, you're building sort of that family spirit and you have great stories about all the children, all the grandchildren have done time at the Afro and have really, like you're very centered in that family. And I think it helps to have so many, so many members there.

Frances "Toni" Draper (30:28.952)
Is there? Yeah, 13 of us lived here in Baltimore. Carl Murphy was also the first black chair of the board of trustees at that time of Morgan State College and lived within walking distance. So when we would visit on a Saturday, he would take us all over to Morgan and say, this is where you're going to school. Now, that, as I said, he went to Howard and Harvard.

His daughters, all but the one who was in the service who went to Howard, all went to Big Ten schools for journalism because the University of Maryland would not admit black students. And the of Maryland paid to tuition for my mom and her sisters. Three of them went to the University of Wisconsin and one went to the University of Minnesota. My mother hated the University of Wisconsin. And I can imagine that in, you know, 19, she was probably there in 19...

Rebecca Snyder (31:06.242)
Frances "Toni" Draper (31:27.96)
40 or so, 39 or 40. and her sister were the only two African Americans in the dorm.

Rebecca Snyder (31:36.262)
That is hard.

Frances "Toni" Draper (31:37.784)
So we have a picture of them where my aunt drew a circle around their faces. And I'm like, mom, why did she do that? We can look at this picture and see where you guys are.

Rebecca Snyder (31:47.782)
Right, it might be a little obvious.

Frances "Toni" Draper (31:49.25)
Yeah. So Carl Murphy being the chair of the board of Morgan and the Fine Arts Center there is named for him. He was.

Rebecca Snyder (31:57.498)
Now, what do you think he would think about Morgan now? Because Morgan has really just gone through a resurgence.

Frances "Toni" Draper (32:04.664)
He would be so proud. was chairman of that board for a long time, on the board for a long time. And when he died, he was still on the board. followed him as vice chair of the board. I was on the board for 25 years until I came back to the Afro full time. So he would be very proud. He was proud of anyway. And he really crusaded and championed Morgan.

Rebecca Snyder (32:14.575)
Really?

Frances "Toni" Draper (32:33.058)
Dr. Martin Jenkins, we heard, all of us did not go to Morgan, but 10 of us did.

Rebecca Snyder (32:41.218)
That's a significant number. That is a lot. That is a lot. So now when we think about prayer and pen, what do you want people to take out of that book? And we talked a little bit about some of the lessons that, you know, his love letters are teaching the new generation, but what do you want people to take out of prayer and pen?

Frances "Toni" Draper (32:41.496)
Out of 16, that's a lot.

Frances "Toni" Draper (33:00.354)
Well, one thing I want people to take out of prayer and pen is that here was a person who didn't stand any more than five foot two. As you said, he was very learned.

very academic oriented, but also he was a crusader for justice. so Prayer and Pen shows a different side of Carl Murphy. It shows a personal intimate side of him. lot of times, there a lot of people who pray, so he's not the only one. But most of the time when we pray, it's a private matter between us and God, We don't publish our prayers. And in fact, many of us don't even like to pray in public, much less publish our prayers.

So I think it helps us to understand what really grounded him, what motivated him. And when you look at his prayers and then look at his editorials and other things that he written, and he's the one we credit with really growing the apple. You mentioned that there were 13 additions. Doesn't sound like a lot, but there were 200 employees and they were union.

The Afro had its own press at that time. And so for all of those additions. And Carl Murphy was at the center of a lot of gatherings of people, black and white, who wanted to do what was best for community. So he was the kind of person that would champion the NAACP, would write about the NAACP. If somebody said to him,

You know, we want you to be the president in NAACP. For the most part, he wouldn't do that. His commitment for community was there, but he put so much into both the Afro and into Morgan and into his family. And he did a lot of traveling as well. A lot of traveling, a lot of speaking. So I want people to really take away from the fact that you can be your authentic self in the workplace. His father, John the...

Rebecca Snyder (35:02.95)
and so.

Frances "Toni" Draper (35:12.822)
founder of the Afro said, a newspaper succeeds because it believes first in God, then in itself and in the present generation. So all of our team meetings that we have now, we start them with a Karl Murphy prayer.

Rebecca Snyder (35:26.81)
That's wonderful. So and I love that it is that you're bringing that through as a through line to the present day.

Frances "Toni" Draper (35:35.986)
through line to the present day and there are over 16 children, five for preachers. One is the first female bishop of the AME church. She's retired now.

Rebecca Snyder (35:48.358)
and

Frances "Toni" Draper (35:49.944)
So then you have, so you have Bishop McKenzie, you had myself, you had Marie Braxton who pastored for a long time, you have my sister who is in ministry, and then you have a cousin who is both a psychiatrist and a minister.

Rebecca Snyder (36:09.318)
interesting combination. That's well and that is that spirituality is so evident in in the way that you all run the afro and and what you're what you're doing to bring bring community through. I know that prayer and pen is only 50 of those prayers so how did you choose? It feels like you had hundreds of prayers to choose from.

Frances "Toni" Draper (36:10.52)
It is interesting how we listen.

Frances "Toni" Draper (36:29.9)
Thank you.

Frances "Toni" Draper (36:35.672)
We worked around certain topics. So let's say that we selected some prayers around freedom, right? And then we found the archival material to support that prayer or to illustrate, I shouldn't say support, to illustrate that prayer. So it was a prayer first and then it was the story to illustrate or the picture.

Rebecca Snyder (37:03.024)
Okay.

Frances "Toni" Draper (37:04.17)
So it was a matter of, so for example, if the subject, if the chapter is family, there's a chapter called family, right? There may have been 30 prayers on family, but we only selected a certain amount on that topic. That's how it was narrowed down. So there were more prayers about family, for example, more prayers about, let's say fall, let's say he wrote,

10 prayers about fall, but we were doing the chapter on seasons, we wouldn't do all of those, all 10 of them on fall. We'd pick a couple on fall.

Rebecca Snyder (37:41.638)
That's it. It sounds like a big, big project and I'm glad you've gone through it so we can enjoy the prayers and enjoy the book. But earlier you had talked about your next book, so tell us what's on the horizon.

Frances "Toni" Draper (37:56.457)
Well, it's not yet, the publisher has not said affirm yes. They've said, wow, we like this, right? So I had to wait until December to really say that the publisher has said, that this publisher has said affirm yes. But my husband and I have been married 50 years and it was 50 years in January of 2024. So 50 days leading up to our 50th wedding anniversary, we did,

a tip a day. So we did 50 tips for 50 years of marriage.

Rebecca Snyder (38:29.414)
I remember seeing that on Facebook and those were like wonderful conversation starters and just some were really, I was like, of course. And then some were, okay, I hadn't really clicked in with that. So 50 tips for 50 years.

Frances "Toni" Draper (38:31.445)
on Facebook Pride.

Frances "Toni" Draper (38:47.544)
So the concept is you'll have a tip and then you'll have a scripture and you'll have a prayer, right? So it'll be, think of it like a gift book for, well, maybe newlyweds and oldieweds, right? So many people said to us, you ought to put those things in a book. We saw them on Facebook, we saw them on IG. And so my husband and I sat down just one day and we did all 50 at one time.

Rebecca Snyder (39:03.131)
Yeah

Rebecca Snyder (39:15.77)
Did you really? Now was it a stretch to come up with 50 or was it the challenge more to get it down to 50?

Frances "Toni" Draper (39:16.886)
You did.

Frances "Toni" Draper (39:23.512)
Well, when we got to 50, we stopped. no, think I did a 50 first as a bonus one. So, you know, it wasn't too bad. We just thought about things that, you know, how you say to yourself, wow, I somebody had told me that. You know, I wish someone had told me that then because hindsight is always 20-20, so we could look back on our marriage. And, you know, nobody has a perfect marriage, but we were intentional.

Rebecca Snyder (39:27.703)
Hahaha

Rebecca Snyder (39:37.178)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Frances "Toni" Draper (39:53.41)
about certain things. And so it didn't take us long. I it took us maybe two or three hours to just think of things and write them down.

Rebecca Snyder (40:04.672)
What tip stands out for you? feel, and we never went back to your favorite prayer or proverb. So, you know, we can end with some of your favorites.

Frances "Toni" Draper (40:09.792)
I can't hear, so let me share a couple of...

Okay, you to end with it? Okay, you want to go back to the tips that you want to do?

Rebecca Snyder (40:19.248)
I want a tip, want a proverb, and I want a prayer.

Frances "Toni" Draper (40:22.648)
Okay, let me give you a tip. Like, for example, one of the tips is don't go to bed ugly. know that you like that favorite pajama or, you know, shorts or whatever it is, the mismatched top and bottom, right? We said if it's old, if it's frayed, if it's missing a button, if it's stained, just throw it away. Don't even give it to the goodwill, throw it away. Because people start off marriage

Rebecca Snyder (40:31.29)
So don't put a bit ugly, tell me about that.

Frances "Toni" Draper (40:52.82)
really concerned about the things they wear in the bedroom and then as time goes on, there's less concern.

Rebecca Snyder (41:02.158)
That actually, I would not have thought of it when you said don't go to bed ugly. I was thinking, okay, don't go to bed angry, like ugly faced, but truly just don't wear trash to bed. I love it.

Frances "Toni" Draper (41:13.592)
Don't wear trash to bed. And if you're in a blended family, like we are, had a tip about blended families, right? Don't let the people who are not a part of your new family disrupt your family.

Rebecca Snyder (41:29.502)
Kind of keeping borders around and consciously growing what you have.

Frances "Toni" Draper (41:30.892)
Yeah, yeah, keep some boy. Right, but our number one tip is keep God first.

Rebecca Snyder (41:37.508)
which again is that fruit through line. do that with the Afro and in your own family. It's wonderful.

Frances "Toni" Draper (41:43.18)
Do that all the way through. So that's a couple of the tips. There are many other tips like don't use sex as a weapon. And know, there's scriptures about that.

Rebecca Snyder (41:46.182)
Cool.

Rebecca Snyder (41:51.93)
Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Snyder (41:56.536)
The Bible's rarer than we give it credit for, for sure.

Frances "Toni" Draper (41:59.352)
Yeah, so we paired with the tripters or, know, don't seek advice from your friends whose marriage is a wreck. They can't give you advice, not really. if they don't, right, they will, so one of tips is if someone starts a sentence with, I were you, I would do, you know, turn them right off because they're not you. And especially if their situation is not ideal, they just don't have anything.

Rebecca Snyder (42:12.08)
but they're always so willing to share that advice.

Frances "Toni" Draper (42:28.736)
really to help you at this time because they're still dealing with their own. And that's okay. They're just not the best people to get advice from. So go to a licensed counselor and we'll get some help for your marriage. There are people who do that.

Rebecca Snyder (42:31.898)
Mm-hmm.

still working it through.

Rebecca Snyder (42:40.154)
Right.

Rebecca Snyder (42:46.406)
Perfect sense. Well, I can't wait to talk to you about that book, but why don't we end with your favorite prayer from the book you have coming out?

Frances "Toni" Draper (42:54.786)
Well, I'm going to share a couple of the Proverbs, right? They're one line of it. Yep. So this one says, forgive us, O God, for doing the things that make us uncomfortable and guilty when we pray. Or how many times, O Lord, did we never pray at all and then work ourselves to death to earn something that is ours for the asking? This one says,

Rebecca Snyder (42:57.487)
go for it, because those didn't sound fun.

Frances "Toni" Draper (43:23.756)
We ask thee not for tasks more suited to our strength, but for strength more suited to our task.

Rebecca Snyder (43:31.024)
Mmm. I love-

Frances "Toni" Draper (43:32.928)
Without thy help, yeah, I love that too, without thy help in our conferences, we can do nothing. Without thee, we shall discuss more and more and settle less and less. Forgive us that we all talk too much and think too little, worry so often and pray so seldom.

Rebecca Snyder (43:54.554)
These are such universals. I mean, I feel like so many of the proverbs that you're sharing with us now could have been written right here and right now.

Frances "Toni" Draper (44:06.08)
Right here, right now, and so could a lot of those prayers. Here's this one. Lord our God, since we cannot always do what we like, grant that we may like what we do. So his prayers are practical, they're timely, they're relatable, and I just thought they needed to be shared with the greater public.

Rebecca Snyder (44:29.58)
I I'm so glad that you brought this book out into the world. It's coming soon. When does it publish?

Frances "Toni" Draper (44:34.614)
It publishes January the 7th. However, it's available for pre-order anywhere books are sold. And I recommend to people to go to Amazon. So you can go to amazon.com and just search for Prayer and Pen or Prayer and Pen by Frances Draper. That's my legal name. And the full word is written by Bishop McKenzie. We talked about her a little earlier. So you can pre-order it now and

Rebecca Snyder (44:56.026)
You

Frances "Toni" Draper (45:04.472)
have it first week in January.

Rebecca Snyder (45:07.627)
Well, I look forward to doing that and thank you so much for coming out and talking to me.

Frances "Toni" Draper (45:12.057)
Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you for having me.