touched him anywhere on his body. His forehead seemed OK,
though, and I kissed it a few days before he died. On one occasion,
he asked me to help him to the bathroom because he could barely
walk. I'd never helped anybody like that. In one of my favorite
books, Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom talks about caring for
his old college professor who was dying from Lou Gehrig's disease.
I remember lifting Mr. Montgomery to his feet and helping him to
the bathroom. I waited outside the door until he was done. Then I
helped him back to his chair. Thinking about what had happened
gave me a whole new appreciation for life and making the most of
it. Mr. Montgomery had certainly made the most of it. I appreciated
him for all he'd been through and the man he'd become, but I
also appreciated that he felt close enough to me to ask for help. I
realized then that he really did see me as a kind of grandson figure.
I felt even closer to him.
believe it was that strong faith that helped him to forgive. He was
just a good spirit--a very sincere man. People would be in tears
by the end of his tours of the museum because they got caught up
in his emotion. Word about him apparently spread--everywhere.
People visited the museum from the far reaches of the globe:
Germany, Canada, and Australia. He really moved and touched a
lot of people. I like to call him "the jewel I found in Tennessee"--a
modern day griot. Griots are the old Africans who keep nearly five
hundred years of history in their minds and are able to repeat it like
a recording. Mr. Montgomery was like that. And in writing Finding
the Good, I felt like I was continuing to tell the stories, sharing his
legacy and spreading his faith.
to share. Such a person can tell us things that will benefit us in life.
It's a good idea to go to that person and find out what he or she
has to say. That's something Alex Haley perpetuated. He wanted us
to talk to our elders and have more family reunions so that others
could glean their wisdom. Last October I lost my ninety-five-year-
old grandmother. A few months before her death, she attended a
family reunion we had in Memphis, Tennessee, and it was a joy to
see everyone gather around her. Like Mr. Montgomery, she had
strong faith--she was a prayer warrior. She had a habit of praying
for those who visited her. Now, pretty much everyone who knew her
does the same.
respond to these issues?
tongue one day while he was doing a phone interview.
about you." It opened up a conversation about his background
and about race. We talked about me being black and the issues I
encountered. Dialogue is good. You learn about differences, but
hopefully you also find similarities. That's a theme of Finding the
Good--finding similarities despite our differences.
I used that quote for the book. Forgiveness, love, faith--they are
powerful themes throughout the book. I believe we all are capable
of embracing them, but often we don't because the world can be so
cold. As a result, we can become spiteful and hateful. But there is a
remedy: find the good.
How did these experiences help you in your current job?
column for my college newspaper, Sidelines, and I wasn't afraid
to discuss controversial issues. My column allowed me to express
my opinion. But when it came to my magazine, I made it a point to
be fair and balanced. There was no slander. More than anything, I
looked for stories that were informative--that made people think.
I didn't stop when I started working for AP fresh out of college in
1992. But instead of informing several hundred people on a college
campus, I now reach millions in the same fair and balanced way.
like his wife, Ernestine, to whom he was married for seventy years.
He attempted suicide three times after losing two sons in separate
drowning incidents about fifteen years apart. In one attempt, he
tried to run his pickup off the side of a bridge, but his steering
wheel locked, and it didn't unlock until just after he crossed the
bridge. At seventy-something years old, he became the first black
mayor of Henning and helped unite the town. I love stories that read
like fiction but are actually nonfiction. Mr. Montgomery's story--his
life--was like that. As a reporter, it's not often that you get a story
that's so compelling, so touching.
last December's almost incomprehensible shooting in Newtown,
Connecticut, in which twenty-six children and adults were killed by
a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The story I wrote ran
right before Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday, and I discussed how
his principles of nonviolence might be used to curtail the escalating
violence in society. Something that also gave me the idea for the
story was another one I had written tied to King. Last August, a
man who was cleaning out his father's attic discovered in an old box
a never-before-heard audio recording of King from 1960. In the
audio, which the man's father had recorded for a book project that was
never completed, King discusses the importance of the civil rights