Eric Motley on the Blessings of Growing Up in a Small Town

My name is Eric Motley, and welcome, Guideposts listeners. I am the executive vice-president of the Aspen Institute.

I came from a very small town in Montgomery, Alabama, called Madison Park. It was founded in 1880 by a group of freed slaves, and there was one slave in particular, Eli — Eli Madison, who was the leader of the group. He gathered four other families — eventually seven others — and they had nothing but the clothes on their backs and a little money that they had saved and they decided to venture out and to buy a very small plantation.

This was right after the Emancipation Proclamation had been prepared and they purchased a very small plantation; they worked that plantation. They built a cotton gin, they built a livestock shed, and they sold vegetables. They made enough money that they were able to buy another plantation — the Mays plantation, 1,200 acres — and 14 families in that place, in evidence of God’s grace, developed a community.

My grandfather, George Washington Motley’s grandfather, John Wesley Motley, was one of those 14 families, and so I grew up in a place where my ancestors laid claim. 

Every Sunday morning, every man in Madison Park gathered at Little Joe’s house, on his back porch, to get his hair cut. It was the meeting place, it was under the pear trees that Cheney Jackson has planted in, like, 1895. It was a communal experience. Even today, when I go back to Madison Park, I get a haircut from Little Joe. 

Mrs. Gladys McCarter lived across the street from us; they had 10 kids. Mrs. Gladys always had a warm embrace. If she made a cake and served ice cream, she would always call me over to her house by yelling across the street, “Ice cream and cake, Motley, ice cream and cake!” She continues to be a very important part of my life, and every trip back to Madison Park, I visit with Mrs. Gladys and her husband, Brother Carter, and I spend a couple of hours with them always, just catching up and remembering old times and expressing gratitude.

I think one of the greatest institutions, save the church, is the institution of community, and I grew up in a community where the blessed ties of faith bound the people together. The precept of everyone being your neighbor, the precept of there being no strangers, that we’re all a part of God’s creation, that the God in me wants to meet and know the God in you, and with that spirit and attitude, how can I not possess a spirit of belonging wherever I go? 

That is what Madison Park gave to me, and I think wherever I go, Madison Park goes with me, and I actually think that I’m creating a little of Madison Park everywhere I go.