The Journey to Freedom Podcast
Journey to Freedom serves as an exclusive extension of the Living Boldly with Purpose podcast series—a platform that inspires powerful transformation and growth. Journey freedom is a podcast hosted by Brian E. Arnold. The Journey to Freedom is an our best life blueprint exclusively designed for black men where we create a foundational freedom plan. There are five pillars: Identity, Trust, Finances, Health and Faith.
The Journey to Freedom Podcast
How Selma’s Bridge Ignited My Purpose to Teach
The pivotal moment came when Joshua Mays stood alone beneath the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Running his fingers along the weathered structure where blood was once spilled for civil rights, he broke down crying. "I began to question what have I put my life on line for?" he recalls, confronting the stark contrast between his life and those who marched across that bridge decades before.
Josh never expected this soul-searching journey when his father suggested he join a civil rights tour through Alabama. Growing up in Colorado with limited exposure to Southern history, Josh thought he'd simply visit some museums with like-minded people. Instead, he found himself standing at invisible boundaries where crossing a street would have meant violence for a Black person sixty years ago, witnessing neighborhoods still visibly segregated, and most devastatingly, discovering his own family's tragic connection to America's darkest chapter.
At the Legacy Museum, Josh was directed to a display containing a jar of soil from where his ancestors, Edward and Dick Mays, were lynched in 1901. They had been falsely accused, then shot, hung, and mutilated beyond recognition. "That was the most shattering thing for me, knowing that my bloodline, specifically, was a part of slavery," Josh explains. This personal connection transformed abstract history into visceral reality, helping him understand his grandparents' warnings about interacting with white people that had previously seemed excessive.
Since returning to Denver, Josh has channeled this profound experience into creating educational spaces for youth using interactive technology. His trauma therapy background, coupled with patience learned from raising his nonverbal autistic son, uniquely positions him to translate difficult history to young people. "I think getting people out there to see it and experience that... it was an amazing somber feeling. It was a feeling that I needed to have."
Want to learn more about Josh's work with youth or join a future civil rights tour? Follow him on Instagram at good_knight87 and connect with Journey to Freedom to experience history's transformative power for yourself.
Visit www.brianearnold.com to join a life-changing journey! Experience a powerful civil rights tour through Alabama with trauma therapy specialist Joshua Mayes.
Feel the emotional impact of Birmingham, Selma, and the Legacy Museum. See how history reshapes identity and inspires action.
Gain insights into courage, heritage, and community impact. Don’t miss the sneak peek: Joshua’s bold plan to educate youth with VR and media rooms!
The pivotal moment came when Joshua Mays stood alone beneath the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Running his fingers along the weathered structure where blood was once spilled for civil rights, he broke down crying. "I began to question what have I put my life on line for?" he recalls, confronting the stark contrast between his life and those who marched across that bridge decades before.
Josh never expected this soul-searching journey when his father suggested he join a civil rights tour through Alabama. Growing up in Colorado with limited exposure to Southern history, Josh thought he'd simply visit some museums with like-minded people. Instead, he found himself standing at invisible boundaries where crossing a street would have meant violence for a Black person sixty years ago, witnessing neighborhoods still visibly segregated, and most devastatingly, discovering his own family's tragic connection to America's darkest chapter.
At the Legacy Museum, Josh was directed to a display containing a jar of soi
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I do have a son, joshua Jr, who's autistic, nonverbal, and with him it taught me the utmost patience. As I work with kids in the schools, I find it very easy just because they can speak. When I come home and talk to my son and he can't speak everything, now he knows sign language and has about 300 words, but he's 13, but up until 10, no words. And so learning his emotions, learning how to see him for who he is and being preemptive with you know if he's going to, if he's going to have a episode where he's breaking out and yelling, you know I have to be, be there and understand that it's on the way. And it really transferred into my job to where now I can see kids. They don't have to say anything. I can tell something's wrong, I can tell something's good, something's right.
Speaker 1:My son has been a big part in how I operate. Ed is my best friend. Joshua Jr is my best friend because he keeps me humble. He's the most loving human I've ever seen. He doesn't judge, you know, whether I'm having a bad day or a good day. He comes up and he just hugs me and you know he wants love and he loves and it's unconditional.
Speaker 2:And to me he is the epitome of what love should look like. Welcome, welcome, welcome and welcome to another edition of the Journey to Freedom podcast. I'm Dr B, I'm your host and we are going to go through a series over the next few weeks of. I believe I've talked to you know, during several of my guests and several of my episodes the fact that we were going to take a group of men, a group of black men, to Alabama on a civil rights tour to kind of find out, you know so not not necessarily everybody stuck, but to really kind of understand the culture, understand where we came from. I know I grew up here in Denver, colorado. I moved to California and stayed there for 25 years but had hardly any exposure to the South. I know that, like when I was a kid, I remember we went to Lexington for a family reunion, but I had no recollection or understanding of anything in Alabama, anything in Louisiana. In fact, my first trip to Louisiana was about six months ago.
Speaker 1:So I had no exposure there.
Speaker 2:I still have never been to Mississippi. I've been to Jacksonville, florida, a few times, and you know. But when I think of the South, you know I've been to Virginia to go to DC but haven't been to. You know, I think we did a couple of track meets in Arkansas but I had no real exposure to the South or what that meant, other than what I read in history books. I read in what I read in. You know I had my grandma. My grandma grew up on a Choctaw reservation in Oklahoma and so you know I had more exposure to the Native American side of my culture than I did the African American side.
Speaker 2:I know on my dad's side, my grandma, our folks, are from Kentucky and we can trace them back to slaves and and you know what, what happened and went through there I you know, I think I have my, you know, josh, I think I have my dad on here and he kind of talked about when he had to drink out of he's from Missouri and had to drink out of colored restrooms. I had a conversation with my mom just the other day and she talked about like my uncle's getting beat up in California and the issues that they had and the clan guys showing up to my mom and my dad about that, but still no real connection, uh, to to what that is other than and you're way younger than me, but there was a, you know, in the 70s, when I was a kid, uh, a, um, a mini series called roots that came. You may have seen it. Since then, that was, oh my gosh. All this stuff happened, but until I went to Alabama and actually experienced some of the things that I had talked about, I didn't really truly understand it. And so the series that we'll be going through is we were able to go on that trip. We went on that trip a few months ago, about 100 days ago, and because I didn't want to start the series immediately and come back, because I wanted to find out, as a result, what people are doing now, and so excited to talk to Josh he went with us on the trip.
Speaker 2:But before we jump into the trip and what was learned and what was, you know, obtained, I'd really love to kind of focus, to be able to get to know you a little bit. Maybe you can tell your story, tell where you grew up, how you grew up, all those wonderful things that became the man you are and then we'll jump into the trip and then kind of talk about identity and talk about other people going and would it be great for another group to go. So I'm going to give you the floor. You can. You can start it the day you were born and you can start somewhere. I'm going to give you access. You tell your story how you think your story should be told. So the floor is yours.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. So. I'm 37 years old now. I'll be 38 here in December.
Speaker 1:I'm born and raised in Colorado. I grew up in Aurora, one of the rare families that still had mom and dad in the house. A lot of families when I was growing up didn't have mom, didn't have dad in the house, but I did, and my parents were pastors. So I grew up knowing God. I grew up knowing faith, knowing love and church all day on Sunday, church all day on Wednesday, thursday and then rehearsals on Saturday. So I grew up in the church and one of the things I got to learn that really, really set in me is just love for people. And I grew up in the church and one of the things I got to learn that really, really set in me is just love for people. And I grew up watching my father and my mother just love the saints and up in late nights, two in the morning, praying with them going to visit you know sister, so-and-so brother, so-and-so late at night, early in the morning, just to see if they're OK, just to check on them showing up at the hospital. So I really learned how to love people at a very, very young age.
Speaker 1:I grew up with a lot of sisters, so we had, you know, four women in the household and my father, and so I got to learn a woman's touch and I got to learn how to be soft. But with my father I also learned how to be tough, and so I had a good mix. Growing up. I went to Gateway High School, played football there, which taught me a lot of things. Football and sports taught me a lot of things. But, most importantly, growing up with my sisters, I learned how to respect women, and I've learned that that is a huge thing for me, just respecting women. I got to hear the conversations with my sisters when they were talking to boys on the phone, but, more importantly, the conversations they had with each other when they got off the phone, which really gave me insight to women and how they operate.
Speaker 1:And then watching my dad be a man's man. You know he was. He was a man's man. He fixed the car, he catered to my mother, catered to my sisters. You know he was always first one up, always in the gym, always making sure that I was doing what I was supposed to do. And I learned accountability from him at a very young age and I understood the importance of it and what not having accountability looked like through some of my family members. It's crazy growing up because I had family that was in the church and then I also had family that was addicted to drugs. And seeing both sides of those you know Sunday morning in church and then after seeing family come over to the house, some of them strung out, it really really gave me insight to how this world operates. It's a tough world. It made me want to help people and so I grew up wanting to be a psychologist. It turns out I ended up being a trauma therapy specialist, which I do love because I work with young people, and just growing up in the church has really made me want to give back to the community. So I had a good childhood, I loved it and I feel like it really helps me cater to what I do now, which is give back to the community.
Speaker 1:My trials and tribulations have been, you know, car accidents and you know, breaking my legs and breaking my arms and having to fight back from that. But my parents really kept me in a safe area. I wasn't hip to drug dealing. I wasn't hip to anything like that because my dad wouldn't allow me to be around it. It wasn't until I got older where I got to experience the world for what it was. My parents really shielded me from it and while it was good in some, it was bad in some ways as well. Some things I had to learn on the curve because I hadn't experienced it, and other things I knew well. You know how to help, how to treat, how to love through it. And yeah, that's really me, just a Christ-driven young man.
Speaker 1:You know I try to work with kids. I love working with kids. I do have a son, joshua Jr, who's autistic, nonverbal, and with him it taught me the utmost patience. As I work with kids in the schools, I find it very easy just because they can speak. When I come home and talk to my son and he can't speak everything now he knows sign language and has about 300 words, but he's 13. But up until 10, no words, words. But you know he's 13, but up until 10, no words. And so learning his emotions, learning how to see him for who he is and being preemptive with you know, if he's going to, if he's going to have a episode where he's breaking out, um and yelling, you know I have to be be there and understand that it's on the way. Um, and it really transferred into my job to where now I can see kids. They don't have to say anything. I can tell something's wrong, I can tell something's good, something's right, and so, yeah, my son has been a big part in how I operate.
Speaker 1:That is my best friend. Joshua Jr is my best friend because he keeps me humble. He's the most loving human I've ever seen. He doesn't judge, you know, whether I'm having a bad day or a good day. He comes up and he just hugs me and you know he wants love and he loves and it's unconditional and, uh, to me he is the epitome of what love should look like. It doesn't matter what happens. My son always loves me. So, um, that's my driving force now is just the love for my son. I love all my children, my daughters as well, but my son, especially with his condition, I love him, yeah. So, yeah, that's me, that's me.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Well, thank you for sharing that. I mean kind of cool to hear that you were able to see a couple of the sides of what life could be like and then try, you know, okay, this is the life that I'm going to choose, this is what I'm going to do, as far as you know my belief and love of helping people, and I think that's not only to be commendable but just really neat to just see what an influence really looks like. You know, because there's so many people that we interview and they talk and they kind of say, hey, this was the trauma of my childhood and all the things that went on and it sounds like there's parts of it where that could have been traumatic.
Speaker 2:There's other parts of it. They were just beautiful and fantastic. So thank you for sharing One of the things that I think that you would love to kind of explore now as we, as we go the trip. And so you know, originally, when we were planning out the trip and you know I have a pretty good relationship with your dad and we were going to have your dad go on the trip and he had said, well, you know what, you know he's been to the South and he's experienced a lot of the things there, but he didn't think that you had a lot of exposure and you guys might even have relatives and that kind of stuff that he wanted you to learn about, and so maybe you can just even take us to that conversation that he might've had with you. That was him saying you know what, I have this opportunity for you to go on this trip. Do you want to go? And then maybe what was that like? And maybe your thought process as you were thinking through what it might be like.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So he called me and I didn't answer and I called him back and he said hey, son, I got a question for you and I said what's up? And he said you know you want to go on a trip. And so I'm thinking going on a trip with him. I'm like, yeah, sure. And he says it's to Alabama. And I think in my head, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm like Alabama dad.
Speaker 1:And he says well, there's, there's this group, there's these people I know and I can't actually make it. And, as you said, I've experienced the South and I know that you haven't, son and he's been everywhere Johannesburg, africa. He's been all over the world traveling and he knows that I have not I've traveled America, but I have not been to the South. And so he asked if I wanted to go and I said yeah, and he said well, there's a guy named Brian and I know him well and you'll be going with him. So I'm going to just exchange your information with you. You'll get an email. And he didn't tell me much about it at first, and so it was over the phone. And then that following Sunday, I came to him after I got the email from you guys, and I said, hey, dad, this seems pretty interesting. And then he sat me down and showed me Edward and Dick and said, hey, I want you to look for these, these guys, him. And I said, okay, well, you know what's what's going on. And he says I just want you to look for him. And he didn't. He didn't really explain why or what. He really wanted me to figure it out for myself. And I do appreciate that, because when I got there, what I experienced was crazy.
Speaker 1:But back to the conversation. He said you know, go ahead and experience it. I want you to go and I want you to come back and I just want you to share with the men of the church what you experienced. And yeah, so I said, ok, cool.
Speaker 1:So I was thinking, you know, I was going just to a history museum and to hang out with some guys that believed, that were faith driven, and I thought that was that I didn't realize there was going to be. All that was the experience. So the experience itself was very overwhelming. I experienced every single emotion, certain emotions that I haven't felt that deep of an anger or that deep of a sorrow or that deep of a wow, this is where I'm from, this is how it started, this is okay. Now I get you know, going from the, the shooting and the lynching of my family, I get how they traveled up through Louisiana, right, and how they came all the way across West, through Missouri and through Kansas and landed in Colorado, right. And so I was able to to trace it back just by simply going on this experience and and there was just so much that that that happened in that trip. That was just utterly amazing, yeah okay, good.
Speaker 2:So, and that's grabbing, because so you kind of don't know what it is. Uh, now you, you you're in the airport there's, there's strangers that are yeah amongst us. There's a group, you know, there's a group, uh, you find us, uh, you know, and then so we fly. We kind of get to know each other a little bit. And I know in the airport, when we get to Shuttleworth Airport in Birmingham, that there is this vending machine that is a barbecue machine. Maybe just kind of talk about what we are.
Speaker 1:Well, see, and I'm from Colorado, right? So vending machines here are just popping candy, you know, maybe some chips. We get down there and it's an actual vending machine for barbecue and it cooks the barbecue Like we were all standing around it trying to look in the back of it to see if there was a kitchen behind that. They cook it and serve it through, or how it was going. But it was the most odd thing and one of the guys that went with us they tried it. I think they liked it. It didn't look like the pictures. I'll tell you that it didn't look. It did not look like the pictures. The pictures on the side they looked like some real good cuisine, but as it came out it looked like, you know, like a McRib from McDonald's. One of the old school McRibs is what it looked like. But it was a genius idea. I got to give it to them. It was a genius idea. And as we looked at it on the Internet, it looked like they had a couple of locations. So it looks like they're doing pretty well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think we found like 700 vending machines all around. Yeah, they're there and I was. The fact that you could meet in a machine that's at an airport Right, it was machine that's at an airport, right, I was. It was just hilarious. So, you know, we move in and we're starting to, you know, combine the group. You know the group have, uh, 19 folks of color and then it had, uh, you know, then we have, you know, eight or nine. Uh, you know folks that are, you know, white folks that are part of of the experience and we start out that night and I don't know how much you remember about the night we're talking about story and talking about, you know, one of our podcast hosts here. You know, one of my podcast folks that I did an episode on, you know, kind of led a session to try to get to know each other. Did you begin to feel uncomfortable or feel, you know, maybe kind of talk about what your thought process was there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you're talking about with Jeff. Yeah, yeah, with Jeff. Yes, yes, I thought it was a good icebreaker. Being the fact that my dad was supposed to go and my dad has all these credentials, I felt lesser than as I walked into the door. You know, as I look at it, it's Dr Brian, it's not Dr Joshua, right, and there's all these other, all these people with these positions, and I'm not my father, and so it was awkward until I got into the room and we had that icebreaker and we went around and we tried to do a story and I realized that these are just people, just like I am. We're all just people and we all have a mission, we all.
Speaker 1:So for me, it really made me feel at home, I enjoyed it and it kind of took the edge off for me and I think I had an edge all the way up until we got into the conference room and as we were starting because I wasn't expecting this type of experience you know, I'm like conference classes, what I thought I was going to a museum and so, yeah, I liked it and it also, let me know how you have to work together in order to tell the complete story, right?
Speaker 1:You know we only had a part of the story for each person and, as the story's coming around, before it gets to you, you don't know how it's going to turn. It's literally one person before you and then you have to go, and it made us be quick on our feet. It made us have to trust the person before and it made us have to support the person after, knowing, hey, I can't say something that they can't come after and say, and I'm hoping that the person before me says something that I can come off of and not be embarrassed. So, yeah, it was a good icebreaker and it kind of it showed all of us to be humans. I liked it Cool.
Speaker 2:So Jeff Campbell is a person who he runs a a local spot here in Denver called the Emancipation Theater and where he talks about story and how to take folks that, whether they've been marginalized or they've been traumatized or they've had great lives, and help us to understand our story and how it fits into the greater about.
Speaker 2:And so he brought us together and allowed us to begin to talk through some issues that we usually don't talk about, or if we do talk about them, we talk about them in the circles in which we are most comfortable in.
Speaker 2:You know, if we're going to talk about, you know, you know discrimination, and usually when you have those conversations at least the ones I've been part of if we have several black men or black women and we kind of talk about how we've been discriminated against, but we don't add in, you know, our white counterparts and say, well, how did your family deal with this?
Speaker 2:What did you learn while you were growing up? And so we kind of set the tone for the trip as a part of that process of saying, ok, we need to get together if we're going to go through this experience together and learn from each other. And so we go through that that evening, you know, we start creating relationships with the 28 people that are there, and then the next day we decide we're going to go on a tour, and so I don't know if you had heard about Birmingham before. This tour is going to be your first exposure to the South and Birmingham. Kind of talk about maybe just some of the stops we made or the things that you learned as we went on this tour in Birmingham.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I've never I had never been to Alabama period or anywhere near that area. And the experience there, I think, seeing the statues of the dogs on the leashes and as they were biting at the young women, seeing some of the buildings actually getting to touch some of the gravel that they had, and then just seeing the buildings with the bombs and the smoke, the tar of the smoke that's still against the building, and seeing it in the movie, you know, or hearing about it in history, is one thing, but being at ground zero, it brought chills to me. Um, going around and and just walking as we walked and we said, hey, this is the separation line. If you were black back then you couldn't cross this line into this park. You couldn't, you couldn't go that way.
Speaker 1:And this is the street, and standing there knowing that, hey, if this was 50 years ago, as we walked across to the white side, I could go to jail, I could have dogs sick on me, something could happen to me for crossing this street. And so immediately my mind went to I'm completely ungrateful for what I've been giving as a Black man in today's age and I began to appreciate what my elders had went through. I didn't agree and I thought I did. I really did think genuinely that I appreciated what grandma, grandpa, great uncles, aunties, that what they had went through. But I didn't because I, I just I didn't understand that just simply crossing the street and once you're there and you're on the corner, you just it's yeah, it's bone chilling, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, as we go through, we go to, like, the 16th Street Mall, where we know Dr Martin Luther King spoke at. We go to where houses were being bombed just because they were trying to create equal rights and we were trying to. You know, you go through parks and you know, like I think they talked about a theater where there was a rope down the middle that the whites could sit on this side and because there was both folks in the theater they had to separate even the way that they came in. Now, did you feel like one of the like I do this series? You know a hundred words every adult should know and one of the words is palpable. You know, could you feel in the air the just, the, I guess, the history or the environment or the? You know by standing on those streets and reliving.
Speaker 2:You know somebody talking about those moments maybe talk about how you felt in our tour guide as well, I see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was clay. It was, it was certainly clay. Um, just his sense of of defeat, as if, hey, I'm doing my job, I want people to know about this, but there's nothing we can do to change. Uh, and he felt that way and as much as I wanted to encourage him, hey man, we can get through this. He walks those streets and does those tours every single day. And for him to say, yeah, this is where it happened, but no one cares. And you could feel the early 1900s in Birmingham. It felt eerie, it looked eerie, it looked old and I don't mean old like Historic, yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Architecturally old.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yeah, and just the feeling. You could feel the death, you could feel the sorrow in the air and you could feel that people haven't gotten over what happened there. It's still there as much as Birmingham University. It was buzzing around the university and live with people, but as you got five, six blocks away from the university, it was like you walked back into the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 60s, you know, and the only thing that was modern was UAB. And so, yeah, yeah, you could. You could definitely feel, you could definitely feel it.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I noticed, and I don't know, and I'm sure we probably talked about it, because I don't remember if you were on the same bus as we were going through the tour, but when we went through some of the neighborhoods and you could still see a division like a segregated division, like on one side of the block was, you could tell it was still white families. And then we went through this whole area of like project counseling where you knew it was all still black families. Yeah, what kind of thoughts that, what kind of went to mind as you watch some of these buildings that went from nicer still old but nicer to just people still live like this I didn't know that it still existed like that right Ghettos to me.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking some parts of Park Hill, maybe some parts of Chicago, you know, or things that I see on TV, but I've never seen slums and it was a big difference. You could tell even just the stores around that were on the bad side of the neighborhood. It was liquor stores, it was landfills that I seen. I seen a wood shop, I seen cigarette stores, vape stores, but as we were on the nicer side, I seen grocery stores. I seen a Sprouts you know what I mean and so I noticed that the stores, even to this day, sprouts. You know what I mean. And so I noticed that the stores, even to this day, are still the same.
Speaker 1:On the nicer side there's the nicer stores and as you got, as we started to go where the bombings were happening, there weren't stores except for liquor stores, and those liquor stores were run down. Holes in the wall in the liquor store, the businesses were falling apart. It's as if they never even attempted to renovate those areas, they never attempted to build it back, as if we're just going to leave it as a memorial for what we did to these people, and they have no interest in building that sector up. And, as Clay explained to us, hey look, there's sections to Birmingham and certain sections they just push to the side. And we went through those sectors and sections and you could tell that the plumbing hadn't been done. You could tell that the houses were ridden and infested, what you could tell from the outside, that there were some serious things going on on the inside and which is a shame, because it looked the exact same 50 years ago.
Speaker 2:60 years ago, yeah, wow, was there any one thing before we jump into now, moving into selma, was there any one thing that clay might have said oh, before we go, that we're going to go to that night with janice um kelsey, but what was there anything that clay said that you just put into your mind, that you remember, that you might want to share?
Speaker 1:yeah, I remember him telling me about the person who I can't remember the name of the person, but who performed at that theater, got beat up, left, cleaned up and because they cared so much, they came back and finished their performance. And that to me, as I want to quit things in life, it's taught me I can push forward. If this man back in the 60s can get beat up on stage, bloodied mouth and need to go to the hospital, go and get checked out and then go back and finish the show, I can go finish this last four hours at work. I can go do this. You know what I mean, and so it really. That stuck to me, not that he said it, but what happened and how he put it. It just prefaced it to. You know, there's no need to be weak in life, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was Nat King Cole too. So I remember the. You know, it was a performer who was coming in to perform and still, it didn't matter how famous he was, it didn't matter how many records he had, he was still a person who would give you so so then that night we go see a lady named Janice Kelsey who happened to be one of the children that was marching.
Speaker 2:The adults decided during this march that they weren't going to march because they might not be able to go back to work or they got beat up and they wouldn't be able to take care of their family. So Janice decided that as a I think she was a junior or senior in high school that I'm going to go march, I'm going to go through this. I'm willing to get arrested and not be able to participate in life. And so she explained what it was like. What was that? You know, seeing somebody who was actually there and talking to you, live up front. What are some things you might have gotten out of that?
Speaker 1:What are some things you might have gotten out of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just the way she explained it. Sitting on the floor in that cell with, you know, 60 or 70 other of her peers and her mixed feelings of am I going to get out of here? But yes, we did it. We stood on our tentoes and stood for our rights. That stuck out to me, the debate that she had in her mind of whether she was going to do it or not.
Speaker 1:I think that she took courage. She didn't find it, it wasn't given to her. She took the courage and, knowing that she would get in trouble with her parents she was worried about getting in trouble with her parents as well as getting, you know, getting beat by the police. But she decided that she was going to go and she went, and the fact that she got arrested and had to sit on that floor and she said she sat there on that floor, it was cold, there was no seats and they just stuck them in there and they kept piling and piling them in, it brought me back to that movie, amistad, where they had them in the cages and they were packed in. And that's what was going through my mind was the Amistad scene on the boat where he says give us us free, give us us free. And he wants to be free and all of his people are caged in the bottom and it just for me.
Speaker 1:It let me know that this has been going on for not only for a long time, but very recently. Me, growing up, I'm thinking this is hundreds and hundreds of years ago, how they put it in our history books and how they explain it to us. They don't explain it to us that we're only two generations removed from this stuff. It's just two generations. Yeah, you know. And so I had a hard time looking at white people, the same afterwards with this, and luckily we had good conversations. I'm sure we'll get to those conversations, but we had good conversations with the 18 Blacks and the eight or nine whites that we had. We had good conversations and were able to express our feelings. But yeah, it was trying. It was a trying experience, okay. So, janice, Kelsey.
Speaker 2:She talks to us. You know, I think the one thing that I remember so plainly is Janice Kelsey's brother and me being a track person, and he said I was an athlete and I was able to outrun the fire hoses, fire hoses. That's the thing as a kid, that my job, my goal, my memory is outrunning somebody trying to roll me down the street with a fire hose and I was able to escape it. Just, oh my gosh, the fact that, yeah, and it seemed like.
Speaker 1:It seemed like he had more loving memories of it. You know where hers were more traumatic. His seemed to be we won. He felt like they won those experiences, you know, and so I could appreciate him feeling like they had a got a victory out of it.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, yes, I hear you there.
Speaker 1:The so then.
Speaker 2:so we leave that night or the next morning, we go to Selma and you know we had some conversations and we did some more stuff with Jeff and you know, maybe we can come back to some of that after, as we just learned to kind of be with ourselves and reconciliation in justice. But then we head over to Selma because we're going to go across the Pettus Bridge. The main place in the movie that's called Selma is this bridge. That Bloody Sunday happened with. This is where I think a turning point in our whole civil rights movement. We think of John Lewis leading a march that's a cross that is eventually going to go to Montgomery, and so we're walking and we're in the evening and we're going to walk from. You know we're going over the Pettus Bridge and then we're going to go to the AME Church where they started the march. What were you feeling at this point when just the we're in a whole nother city but it's still Alabama?
Speaker 2:and now, you've seen the movie before and now you're standing in the same place that the movie's based on.
Speaker 1:I went under the bridge. Oh, you did, I went under the bridge. When you go, when you go over the bridge, you can turn right. Once you get over on the end, you can turn right and go underneath, and underneath is where it hit me. Um, that's the first time I had cried while I was in, when I was in Alabama.
Speaker 1:I was on the bridge, under the bridge, and I was by myself, and I just could feel like, as I was on the bridge, under the bridge, and I was by myself, and I just could feel like, as I was watching the water go under the bridge, I'm just watching the water go, and I began to picture just the bodies that were dumped in that bridge and who might have fell over. And I looked up and I gazed at the bridge and I don't know what type of weapons they had, but I began to imagine how it happened, because I'm there, and so I walked up the bridge down underneath, and then I walked back, and then I walked back across the bridge because I wanted to experience it twice, and each time I just began to look and as I'm looking at the ground, I'm looking at the cracks and there's the grass growing through the cracks, and usually when grass grows through cracks, it's because there's some type of fertilizer. And I'm thinking in my head was it the bodies that died there? Was it all this death that made this like this? Everything was overgrown in green and we'd seen it at night, but I had my light and I had my, and you could see the green that was growing through everything, and you could see the brown, the brownness on the bank, and usually that's bloodbath.
Speaker 1:Right now, I'm thinking in my head now can't be stains from 50, 60, 70 years, but maybe it is. And so, as I'm, as I'm looking at it, I'm thinking in my head no, it can't be stains from 50, 60, 70 years, but maybe it is. And so, as I'm, as I'm looking at it, I'm just I'm thinking, wow, people really sacrifice their lives to stand up for what they believe. And then I begin to question what have I stood up for? What have I put my life on the line for? Is it my children? And I realized that I have never put my life on the line like they have. I never would want to. I know that they sacrificed so that I wouldn't have to, but then I began to think of my own courage, and would I have courage if I had to? It began to make me self-regulate and self-check myself on that bridge as a black man of color. And am I doing enough for my race? Am I doing enough for my people? Because look what my people went through here on this bridge.
Speaker 1:You can see Pettus Bridge. It's right there, it's still there, the name itself, but it's still Pettus Bridge and it's everywhere. There's Pettus Church, there's Pettus, this. And as we learned about the name Pettus and how horrible this name is, I began to look like, well, he still has a memory here. The people here still believe that this is his land. When there's wrongdoing, you try to right the wrongdoing, and by changing the name would be to right the wrongdoing, and I understand that if you change it, maybe we're erasing history. But the fact that it's still being honored by the Pettus Church next to it, the Pettus Bridge, the Pettus River, pettus Street, pettis Avenue, everything was Pettis right there, and it just baffled me to know that a city, a state, would still recognize all of these things for this one man that committed such, you know, there's such atrocity in that name.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so you know we walk from the bridge over to the AME Church. So you know we walk from the bridge over to the AME church and I know your family is, you know pastors and you know have the churches in the city. Did that have any significance for you, sitting on the steps of that church as it went through? Maybe kind of just share just a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:You know, sitting on the steps, I made sure I took a picture. It felt like a piece of me as I sat on that. I sat there and I just said, okay, this is where it went down and I am here, and I felt one with my own culture. It really gave me a feeling of peace and I know that that sounds weird because there was so much to unpack there, but I felt at peace, knowing that, okay, now I can do something. Now I actually have the drive to go out and do something about this, whatever it might be. But it gave me peace that, ok, I'm here, this is where Martin Luther King was at. This is the church, this is as you look around, this is where this is everything.
Speaker 1:And I'd only seen pictures, I'd only seen in. I had a calendar that had all these things in it, but it wasn't the same as sitting on the on the steps. It wasn't the same as feeling that and saying, hey, I am now a part of history. I realized that this is where I come from. You know, not necessarily me, but my people. This was a staple of how we moved forward, because when that happened, a lot of things transpired. Afterwards, a lot of felt the need to move and the need to mourn, and so yeah, for me it was just the same feeling that I had felt the entire trip of wow I I am completely clueless as to what the South really was.
Speaker 2:The South really was. I'm sorry someone might think I'm on mute. Thank you for sharing that. That was, oh my gosh. Yeah, so we leave Selma and then we end up going to why you came on the trip. Right, we have this museum, and on the way to the museum there's a gentleman Dr Mack was one of the greatest historians of that time that kind of talked to us a little bit about what we were going to see when we got to the museum. Is there anything from that drive? Because not only are we listening to Dr Mack tell us about history, we are driving down the same road in which they walked from Selma to Montgomery on that march road in which they walk from Selma to Montgomery on that march, and so we're seeing this whole thing unfold before we ever get to the museum and hearing some history behind it. Is there anything from that conversation that you could?
Speaker 1:talk about. So when Scott had it on his thing and it kept going in and out, so I wasn't able to hear Dr Mack, I wasn't able to hear him talk. It kept going in and out. I wasn't able to hear dr mac. I wasn't able to hear him talk. It kept going in and out, so unfortunately I wasn't quite sure what he was saying. Um, so I, I, yeah, I, I don't know okay.
Speaker 2:So what's good is we have that recorded and so I'll make sure you go back and I'll send it to you so you can listen to that whole uh talk while we were going. So I didn't realize that some of you guys missed that. But yeah, it's all recorded and you'll be able to hear the whole thing. So we get to the museum and you know it's a nice building, it is a good place where you're kind of not sure, because this is why you came tell us about the museum and your experience at the museum the whole day that we're spending there.
Speaker 1:I was excited as we walked in. I didn't know I knew that this is where I was excited as we walked in. I didn't know I knew that this is where I was coming to look for the names I was given right. And so I go in there and I'm thinking that Edward and Dick Mays are two people that had some big contribution that you know. I'm like, okay, we're going to find out that we're royalty or something you know. And I'm thinking because it's Black History Museum. As I walked in, it was an eerie feeling the music.
Speaker 1:When you walk into the museum they have the boats. It's this water, it's this screen and this water and all you hear is the water and you see the boat come in and it's coming and it's a, it's a 3d screen, so it's real. You feel like you're in in the screen and you hear this guy come on and he's talking and he's telling you about what's about to happen and it's telling you the expectations of the slaves as they're coming closer to the shore. And then they get to the shore and you can go left or you can go right, but it goes into this next room and I remember to the left there was a young lady singing a hymn behind this cage and then Wade in the water. Wade in the water and she's singing and she begins to talk to you about how she misses her mother and she misses her father and she doesn't know where they went and she's not sure where she's at or where she came from. And she's on her fourth stop and she just wants to go back home. And she's telling you the story and how she's praying to God. And then you look to the left and on the left is another cage with a man and he's determined to get back to his wife and his kids and he's been captured. And you can keep going. There's more and more people, and that's the first, like the first feeling, and you know that's just the entryway.
Speaker 1:And then there's different sections, there's modern day slavery, there's the segregation, and then there's the spot that I went first, where I was able to see Ed and Dick and come to find out that my family, ed and Dick, were not royalty. They were shot in 1901. They were accused Ed was accused of talking to a white woman and Dick was accused of killing a cop. Come to find out, a guy named Earl Dawson was the actual killer and the actual person that touched the young lady. My family was lynched in Selma, right there, and there was a jar that they had dug up from the actual soil and in this jar they had put the soil over some of the remains where my family had died, where Ed and Dick were lynched and shot. Family had died. Where Ed and Dick were lynched and shot. The crazy thing about Ed and Dick were not only were they shot and lynched, they were cut into thousands of just thousands of cuts after they were dead. And I was able to read this story in the museum and, thankfully, the lady that worked there she told me, she said hey, you found your family. She allowed me to take some pictures and so I got a picture of the full story and pictures of the jar and pictures of me with the jar.
Speaker 1:And that was the most shattering thing for me, knowing that my bloodline, specifically, was a part of slavery, um, knowing that it was a part of segregation, knowing that it was a part of of this piece of America, this piece of history. Uh, because before I didn't know and because I didn't know, I I could say yeah, yeah, yeah, we all, as Black people, experienced this and we all you know. But once there was a name Edward and a name Dick attached to it and it was verifiable and they had the records and I was able to order the records and they, you know, go right up to my father, thomas Mays, and then two generations before Dick and Edward back into slavery. It shows the whole lineage and it was bone chilling and it was sad. It was sad to know that my great, great, great great grandfather was sold, actually from Spain and Mays the name Mays is a Spaniard name from Spain, and they sold them from Africa, brought into Spain and then sold from Spain over into Louisiana, then up into Alabama and that's where Dick and Edward were hung, shot and stabbed. And so there was a whole line that I had no idea about, my roots I had no idea about. And I was able to find my roots and be grateful and understand.
Speaker 1:Okay, now I know. Now I know the anger that my grandmother and grandfather had. You know. Now I know when they told me hey, you can talk to him, but don't try. I understand what they were saying. You know I understand what they said. I always be careful, keep, stay buttoned up around them. I understand now, um to where back then I didn't.
Speaker 1:I, before this trip, not even back then before, literally before this trip, I didn't necessarily agree with grandma, and now I understand and agree with how she felt, you know, and yeah, yeah, so that experience they have this room, that it's like a calming room, a reflection room, and I remember I just went and sat in that crowd for about 20 minutes after realizing that it was. You know, that my family had been through this. But then, as I looked up, there's just all these pictures of all the amazing Black people and people of color that have done the utmost amazing things. And it brought pride to me because I seen the different inventions and the different people and the different creators and the different book writers and storytellers and all these amazing things of Black people that we've built in that room, aside from the rest of the museum, was a part of peace and of love and showing that, hey, we are somebody and we are an amazing culture and this is what we've done as a culture. These are the amazing things that we've invented and built, and so that brought me a little bit of peace, but I was physically drained.
Speaker 1:I remember as I walked out those doors the energy was gone from me, I felt enlightened, I felt like I had gained so much knowledge. But I was drained. I was angry. I wasn't angry because I was too drained to be angry, I was just tired. I was very tired, yeah, but thankful, I was just tired. I was very tired, yeah.
Speaker 2:But thankful. I was thankful for the opportunity to go there and be part of it and learn and grow, and that kind of brings us back. I mean, we had a great conversation afterwards where we got in a room and kind of were able to let some of that out. But also one of the things that you said is it said this is what I need to do. You know whether it was on. You know, as you're looking at the Pettus Bridge or you're in the museum, now you're thinking about what is my responsibility. So we come back home and what has you know as a result of the trip? What have you been doing?
Speaker 1:or thinking about, or experiencing and wanting to change. As you now know, I've had this experience, but now what? Yeah, so the youth. Um, I came back with an understanding that we have been taught the wrong things all of our lives, and the truth that I thought was the truth isn't the truth. And I came back to Denver, colorado, fully expecting to transfer my experience into the youth coming up from ages eight to 18, right, and so what I've been doing is speaking about this in my classes. I'm a trauma therapy specialist and I also work at the Boys and Girls Club, and so I've been speaking avidly about this experience and showing people hey, this is what I went through, this is what I learned, and this is where you can get this information, and these are things that you need to learn about your culture, but also creating a space for these kids to learn. At my church I know you've been to the church a lot of those rooms that we had did get sold up by the apprenticeship, but I was able to save four rooms for myself, and one of the rooms that I'm turning into is specifically for African-American studies, to show our youth where they can come and learn about where we're from, learn how they got here.
Speaker 1:I essentially want to reincarnate what I've seen at the museum in a smaller form, inside of this. Now, also in there, I want to have a place for kids to come in and have fun. Now, also in there, I want to have a place for kids to come in and have fun. So I've ordered these informational gaming tables. I tell you, brian, these things are amazing. They're these touchscreen tables where I can install certain programs, history programs on them, and then they're innovative where the kids can touch them, learn and learn about their history. And so I'm having a gaming room and one. The other room is all VR. It's going to be VR, where I'm doing virtual learning.
Speaker 1:And then the fourth room is a media room where I want to be able to transfer the children's message to the children. So I want to have similar how you have your room. I want it ran by the children, where the children are speaking to the children. So I want to have similar how you have your room. I want it ran by the children, where the children are speaking to the children and it's their own message. And so, yeah, originally I wanted to.
Speaker 1:As you came to the meeting at the church, I wanted to help the homeless and I think I will lead up to that. But I think the starting point is here and because I have the things that can do that, so, yeah, I came back and immediately got got to work and and having people come check out the spaces and also, as I'm going to different schools and asking if I can come and speak to their children about it, and I think the next step is getting young adults and children there, and I noticed in some of our conversations we said that there has to be some type of buffer. They can't just go straight and see what I've seen at the age of eight. That might be detrimental to them. If we're bringing people there and if there is a room and a space that I have where they can learn about Journey to Freedom and then go on the experience and witness it there, there is a buffer here and then they can go there. And I think that can be all ages and all inclusive, and so I think getting people out there to see it and experience that.
Speaker 1:Because, as much as I said, I had a somber feeling. It was an amazing somber feeling. It was a feeling that I needed to have. It was a feeling that I wanted to have. I wanted to feel my emotions, and so, and I did, and so I want to recreate that, and that's what I've been doing since I've been back these last hundred days. Wow.
Speaker 2:Well, and I just think you know and maybe you're wrong, but you know the children of Aurora are going to benefit from these visions and what God's placed in your heart. Does this happen? Or maybe it does, and it just takes longer without some of the things that you learned on the trip.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think it. I don't think it happens. Maybe not for me. I don't think I had the courage to do it. I was very timid and had some self-doubt. While I'm very courageous on the outside, on the inside I can be timid and it gave me courage. I was able to take courage from there and I don't think I would have gotten it from anywhere else. I don't think any podcast I listened to. I don't think any show I go to any you know motivational speaker I go to see live can replicate what I got to experience in Alabama, in Birmingham, in Selma, in class, because the classes that we had were essential, because they gave context and they put a parameter around what I was experiencing and it allowed the classes allowed me to unpack my feelings. Had I not been able to do that, I don't know if I would have came back with the same love for people that want to go. So I think the experience plus the classes was amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We think about relationship and how important relationship is. Do you believe that you created some of those relationships for life as a result of the folks in the cohort of people that we?
Speaker 1:went through it with yeah, yeah, amazingly enough I have you know, I've I've actually been been to your house and and you've been to my church and I've been able to same with Scott and even Steve as I've gone through the classes on Mighty Networks. There's been so many people. The apprenticeship is in in our building now and that's because I was working with Scott and a couple other guys and so, yeah, I think the trip itself has given me lifelong relationships, business relationships and friendships.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, oh, that's cool. Well, what I can tell is it seems like there's a, you know, when you think of a caterpillar or whatever, that goes into a shell and then it gets to become a butterfly, your name continues to come up in conversations. And, you know, can we get Josh involved in this? Or how can you know, would Josh like to do this? You know, even with whether it's Young Life or you know other folks that are just having these conversations with me, folks that are just having these conversations with me, and I'm just so thankful that you were able that God put it in your dad's heart to say this is something Josh needs to do, and so I can't wait to do it again.
Speaker 2:I can't wait to have you know another trip where we're going to take more people and we're going to get you know more folks to be there and come. Is there anything? You know I've asked a lot of questions and been selfish on my side. Is there anything that you want to make sure you add? Like I would love for you to tell people how to get ahold to be part of some of the things you're doing.
Speaker 1:But yeah, what didn't I cover that you wanted to make sure that was said in this, in this yeah, I know, in the in the preview, we were going to talk about the identity, trust, faith and health. The one thing I wanted to add to that is love as a pillar. I just saw that and, as far as me, you guys will see me around. You guys can follow me on Instagram. That's where I post a lot of my videos with the youth I work with and, uh, my handle is good underscore night 87 as G O O D.
Speaker 1:Underscore K N, I, g H, t, like the knight in shining armor 87. Um, and you can find a lot of what I'm doing at the church on on my Instagram and, um, everything that I'm doing in the community as far as the young men that I work with, uh, I do a segment called Take Five and I do five minutes, just a five minute interview with young youth around the city and what they're doing, from building robots to trying out for youth leagues, all sorts of things that they're doing. So you can check that all out on my Instagram.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, my gosh, thank you for doing that, thank you for being part of the show today, thank you for this whole thing. I mean for those of you who would like to go on it. You know you're watching this and go, man, I would love to go there. Contact us, you know, click the links below. We will get you there. The goal that I have, and for the program, is that we get to change the world based on knowing where we came from. And if we know where we came from, we have the ability to know where we're going. You know, god put us on this earth for all these different purposes, and if we can find those purposes through knowing who we are, better the world's going to be a better place, and so we want to keep track of you and what you're doing, and you know. So you know this is probably one of many more conversations that you and I will get to have and to have in a forum that other people will be able to see and watch and be able to experience. And so you know we will continue to pray for your family, we'll continue to make a program for you and the things that you're doing to make our community a better place, and so thank you again for being part of it.
Speaker 2:If you have not subscribed yet for this podcast, I'm asking you to go ahead and do that now. I'm saying this is my call to action is learn from those who have come before you. Learn from those so many great efforts we're going to do this series. Josh is just one of many that went on this trip, so we'll hear from different perspectives. I did Jason Tucker just the other day, and so we've got him, and so he came with his perspective and how the trip affected him, and we'll get everybody that's on the trip. Eventually. I talked to Scott a little bit, so we'll just continue down the series, and so thank you guys for being on. Don't forget you were God's greatest gift. He loves you, if you allow him to, and so we want to make sure that we see you guys on the next one. Have just this incredible, amazing day today, and we'll look forward to talking to you soon.
Speaker 1:See you guys, yes, sir.