Isaacson Walter - Madison Park: a place of hope

In this beautifully written book, Eric Motley shares his personal odyssey of grace and gratitude. This is a memoir about lovelove of family, community, literature, language, and ideas.

FORMER FIRST LADY LAURA BUSH

The roots Eric L. Motley traces in his hometown of Madison Park, Alabama, a place founded by former slaves not long after the Emancipation, serve as a powerful reminder of the shaping influences that family, faith, and community have in African American livesso, too, the love of mentors, neighbors, and teachers who nurture those lives in the crucial years of their development. In the personal odyssey of this remarkable black Renaissance man, in whom a passion for learning was cultivated at a young age and through whom others have been touched from the Deep South to the White House, we find inspiration in the history that binds the citizens of a place across generations and hope for every child, whatever their birth, blessed to be raised among those who see education not only as a value but as a vital spark to be shared.

HENRY LOUIS GATES JR., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University

In writing as clear as water, Madison Park tells a moving story of hope: how members of a small African American community in Alabama joined together to enable a young man with no worldly advantages to realize his potential, even beyond theiror hisimagination.

ELAINE H. PAGELS, Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion, Princeton University; author of Gnostic Gospels

As a 1970s first-grader, Eric Motley was dubbed a turtle because of his poor reading skills. Two decades later, he became the youngest appointee in George W. Bushs White House. In this compelling memoir, Eric shows how his life trajectory was shaped by the self-reliance instilled by his grandparentsbut also the timely support of a close-knit community of mentors and supporters. Whatever attributes we ourselves bring to the table, our networks propel us further.

REID HOFFMAN, cofounder of LinkedIn and co-author of the #1 NYT bestsellers The Startup of You and The Alliance

Eric Motley has crafted a beautiful volume, an inspiring tale of family, community, determination, and hope. His is a deeply moving and deeply American story. The lovely prose brings to life those who raised him and taught him and opened doors for him, as well as those who tried to keep those same doors firmly shut. The book is sharply observed and utterly engrossing. Once I started, I could not put it down.

STEPHEN L. CARTER, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Yale University; author of Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy

ZONDERVAN

Madison Park

Copyright 2017 by Eric L. Motley

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

EPub Edition September 2017 ISBN 9780310349648

ISBN 978-0-310-34963-1 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-310-34966-2 (audio)

ISBN 978-0-310-34964-8 (ebook)

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Art direction: Curt Diepenhorst

Cover design: Darren Welch

Cover photos: BJ Ray/My Portfolio/Shutterstock

Interior design: Kait Lamphere

First printing September 2017 / Printed in the United States of America

Im tired of sailing my little boat,

Far inside of the harbor bar;

I want to be out where the big ships float

Out on the deep where the Great Ones are!...

And should my frail craft prove too slight

For storms that sweep those wide seas oer,

Better go down in the stirring fight

Than drowse to death by the sheltered shore!

Daisy Rinehart, 1905

When I first met Eric Motley, I knew there must be a wonderful backstory.

He was the youngest appointee in the George W. Bush White House, but he had the demeanor of a courtly collector of antiquarian books, which he happened to be. Despite his youth, his face went blank when the name of any contemporary pop star came up, but he had a passion for comparing renditions of Bachs Goldberg Variations. He was an African American from a tiny tight-knit black community in Montgomery, Alabama, but he had the worldly outlook of someone who got his doctorate from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He had the deferential deportment that comes from having been taught by his elders to consistently err on the side of formality rather than familiarity. But after a while, I realized that there was something much deeper behind that respectful demeanor: a true inner strength based on spiritual humility.

After four years in the White House, Eric became the director of the State Departments Office of International Visitors. When his term was up, I was able to recruit him to the Aspen Institute, where he had been part of a small cadre of young leaders in our Henry Crown Fellowship program, and he now serves as one of our executive vice presidents.

Along the way, Eric nurtured a diverse array of consuming intellectual passions that would seem quirky were he not so serious about them. His office, piled with books and journals, is graced by a large color portrait of Samuel Johnson. Eric is an avid collector of rare and first-edition books, with Dr. Johnson being his foremost passion. His faith was shaped by the sermons of the Reverend Lee Chester Washington of Montgomerys Union Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church, which his great-great-grandfather had built and his grandfather rebuilt, and his doctoral dissertation was on the application of German theologian Reinhold Niebuhrs philosophy to contemporary geopolitics. He has written about the Scottish-born American founder James Wilson, and he has collected the books and personal papers of the classical scholar Sir Kenneth Dover, who once tutored him in Greek. An avid poet, he published a volume of his own verse in 2006.

Of course Eric does have a few blind spots. We once ran into Peyton Manning walking down the street, and Eric afterward confessed he had no clue who that was. When our colleague Peter Reiling was heading off to a concert, Eric asked him whether Led Zeppelin was a good singer. The only celebrity he feels a kinship with is Tiger Woods. He tells a funny storyonce you get to know Eric you discover that he has a wry sense of humorabout walking on a beach below the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, not far from his university, and being mistaken by a group of excited Japanese tourists for the golfer.