Voices In My Head Podcast Episode #287: Guest Francois Clemmons (Officer Clemmons) from Mister Roger

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Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is your source for discussions on music, literature, movies, pop culture, theology, and more. Now sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of the Voices in My Head podcast. And don't forget to let the voices in your head be heard by following me on Twitter @RickLeeJames and sharing your thoughts about today's show.

Oh, sweet Jerry, I love the color of the Caribbean.

Oh, now I'm a soldier, and when I see a gun, All alone. Now if you can, you can never, you can never, you can never, you can never be for I too want a loving one to carry me home. Tell all my friends Sweet child, I'm coming for a carry me home. Sweet mama, sweet child.

Dr. Francois Scarborough Clemmons is an Afro-American singer, actor, playwright, and university lecturer. He is perhaps best known for his appearances as Officer Clemmons on the PBS television series Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood from 1968 to 1993. A Grammy Award-winning artist, he has performed with the Metropolitan Opera in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as well as the the Cleveland, Ohio Metropolitan Opera Studio. He's also performed over 70 roles with companies including the New York City Opera, Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, and the Washington Civic Opera. Clements has also sung with numerous orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Maybe most impressively, in 1973, he won a Grammy Award for a recording of "Porgy and Bess." And possibly the role for which he is best known, for 25 years, Clemons played the role of Officer Clemons, a friendly neighborhood policeman in the neighborhood of Make-Believe on the children's television show "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood." In the neighborhood itself, Clemons ran a singing and dance studio located in the building diagonally across from Mr. Rogers' house. As Officer Clemons, he became one of the first African Americans to have a recurring role on kids' TV. TV series, period. There's a lot more I could share about him, but for right now, I'll stop and say, François Clemens, welcome to Voices in My Head.

Well, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. I've been looking forward. I've been thinking a lot about this. It's been a long time since I've appeared on a podcast or a radio broadcast. I don't know exactly what to call this because you're more than radio.

Well, Podcast is fine, that's the main thing, and we have some feeds on YouTube and things like that as well. But I'm so glad to have you. I don't know if you know this, but I have been running a Twitter feed for some time now of Mr. Rogers quotes, and over this past weekend we made it up to 14,500 followers on that Twitter page. And so we have a lot of listeners who are interested in the neighborhood and your part with it, and it's always such a @FunFamily there on Twitter. It seems to be one of the few positive places on Twitter that we try to just put goodness and light out through Mr. Rogers quotes. So we're just so glad to have you on the show today.

Well, thank you very much. Pleasure to be here.

Well, as we begin today, I've been delighted to read about how active you still are as a writer. You're actively writing across several genres for a variety of age groups. Groups, and you have an autobiography in the works, you have a children's story you're working on, a volume of poetry, and more. And last night when we chatted briefly, you told me how tired you were, so my first question for you today is, Officer Clemmons, are you always on duty, or do you ever sleep?

Well, I do sleep, you know, but that's interesting because, you know, I can sleep sitting up in a chair. I'm in my office right now in a rather comfortable chair, and if I were to tell the truth, I'd have to admit that more than a few times I've awakened to discover that I'm asleep at the computer. So I'm one of those, and sometimes I consider it a blessing that I do have that gift. I can sit in the car, not driving however, but sitting in the, you know, the passenger's chair in the backseat, on a train, on an airplane. I can sleep almost anywhere as long as the herd of elephants are not dancing around in the middle of the bed.

Well, that's good. I hope that doesn't happen very often. So that's great. Well, I want to— I want to ask you a few— no, that's great. I'd love to ask you a few neighborhood related questions as we get going here today. And I've read this, and I'm just asking if you could confirm it. Is it true that Fred Rogers noticed you when he heard you singing in church? Is that where he first found you?

Well, I— yes, I had the church job at Third Presbyterian Church, and he was a member of the congregation, and I was the tenor soloist. They had a paid professional quartet: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. And it was the choir director, Mr. John Lively, who is now dead, was a wonderful, energetic, enthusiastic man who, blessedly, they had a wonderful musical program that, you know, would be the rival of any congregation in America. They had musical productions all through the year. Hmm. Yeah, he hired me, and so I really felt like I had a platform. To learn and develop my skill as a tenor soloist. It was like being back in school, although I was still in graduate school. And I did many works, and the church really, really supported the musical program at this wonderful Presbyterian church. And at several of those performances, evidently Fred Rogers, uh, was there. And so he, um, He would come up afterwards and say very nice, positive things that he felt. I never particularly paid much attention because Fred was a very plain, nondescript man. He wasn't someone who stood out in the crowd. But I also began to note the sincerity of his words. That's what began to separate him from the rest. The crowd that came back in during the church reception. Usually there was a reception after the concert. And Fred's sincerity, and there was a humbleness about him that was not forced or fake. He was just very, very gentle, very low-key. And it impressed me that he was always there. So after 5 or 6 performances, I consistently saw him. This nice man who always seemed to be there somewhere in the crowd and, uh, very quiet. He didn't seem to have much to say. People were extremely nice to him, but he didn't mind being one of the last people. It turns out, I found out later, he was married to Joanne Rogers, who was an alto in the choir, and she sat very close, right next to me practically most of the time. And so he was coming as well to hear his wife and see her and support her. But she was always saying to me, "You need to meet my husband. You need to meet my husband." And she— that was it, you know. And the choir director was saying, "You must meet this man, Fred Rogers." You know, and so finally one day I said, "Who is this man? I don't need to meet him, but who is he?" And they said, "Well, he's been coming up." He comes up to see you every time you sing. He's been here. He loves your voice. I said, "He has? No one has introduced himself to me by the name of Rogers or whatever." They said, "He's very quiet, but he's been there every single performance." Sure enough, one day I was there rehearsing with John Lively, the organist, for a special Good Friday service that I had come up with an idea of doing the Passion of Christ mixed with American Negro spirituals. And it was a rather unique presentation of things like Calvary, the Crucifixion, Were You There, uh, um, and he never said a mumbling word. I used those spirituals and the minister read passages, uh, about him going before Pilate, Pilate washing his hands and, um, you know, him carrying the cross and stumbling and falling and all of that kind of stuff. Well, afterwards, I— he did come up to me and he did say, what a wonderful, wonderful Good Friday service. I've never been so touched. Wow. Would you— could we have lunch together? And I thought, well, yes, but it's a free lunch.— and I thought, well, I don't know what we would talk about. He said, well, let's talk about your music. You have such a special talent and I'm interested in how you got to this point, this level. And the choir director and Joanne was there and said, yes, we've been telling him about you, Francois, and so why don't we have lunch? We'll arrange it and we'll let you know. Sure enough, they did. And the point I just want to make, and I'll shut up, is that our lunch lasted for like 2 hours. Wow. When I met with him, it turns out, and everyone who really knows Fred knows what a tremendous introvert he is, very, very, very quiet. He sat and listened and I started talking and I never shut up. And so we had a bond made in heaven. That's all I always think about that. That he was a great listener and he let me talk all through lunch.

Wow.

Then afterwards he took me over to the television station and introduced me to everybody, and so to speak, the rest is history.

Wow, that's, that's a great story. That's really great. I love hearing that. Well, you know, I've read several books about Fred Rogers, and all of them at some point or another mention you and your relationship with him. And I had read that your experience with police up until this time at least had not been great, partially because of where you had grown up and experiences that you had had as a black man. And I wonder, what did you think of the idea that Fred Rogers had of making you a police officer on the show?

Well, I bristled. I, I thought it was a very terrible suggestion. A suggestion coming from, uh, this man who I was learning to trust, and I was becoming close to him. And then all of a sudden he hands me this cactus, you know. You know, that's how abrasive the suggestion was, uh, you know. And I, I really pulled back and I asked him, are you serious? You know, I questioned— I was I was totally surprised by the suggestion. Nothing in my relationship with him up to that point had prepared me for such a thought, idea, first of all, of being a regular on his program. It was a children's program. You have to understand, my focus was on the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. I had worked very hard. I had learned a lot of repertoire. Repertoires, my emphasis on languages had been very intense at Oberlin and I continued that at Carnegie Mellon. Well, I didn't feel that a children's television program would utilize those skills that I had worked very hard at. So then for him to say he wanted me to be a regular on that show, it wasn't an operatic thing, you know, it wasn't in my fach, in the avenue that I felt I would specialize, that I had focused on so much. Well, on top of all that, now he wants me to be a police officer. And they were abusive, they were mean, uh, they were someone to be feared. And, uh, I just— any excuse that I could get to be away from policemen, I used it. They, they did not have a positive, um, reputation among most Black people. I mean, I, for example, I went out with some of my friends to some of the clubs, and when the police entered the club, there was a change in the atmosphere, and there was this tension, and you never knew if they were going to arrest somebody or hit somebody with their billy club or take someone out for questioning that we didn't know why. Uh, there were, there was all kinds of intimidation. So I, I had this, and I even knew, you know, about people, young men usually, who were arrested and came back into our community very much having been terrorized and tormented. So I thought police, I don't want to be— they were the enemy in my way of thinking, and you stayed away from them if you wanted to survive. I'd also had the talk You know, Whoopi Goldberg and a few of the other people who have spoken about this on television, Toni Morrison, they all make reference to this talk that you have to give your black boys in order for them to survive. And what it basically is about, keeping your eyes down, taking a low profile, not talking back to policemen, saying if you see the policeman go the other way, don't go to certain places at night, There's a whole attitude that you had to have to survive, and I had had it from my aunt to my uncles and my mother. Everyone had basically thoroughly indoctrinated me how to behave. Well, how am I going to become one of those guys? Was such a stark, uh, change for me. I'm positive on a certain level Fred had no idea How shocking the suggestion was. Ultimately he did because we talked about it for several weeks, not every day but almost every day, and I certainly went to the station. I was still in grad school and I was still going to class and performing and stuff, but I would go by the station because he had invited me to come by on a regular basis whether I was filming or not. And I was becoming closer to him, and this issue was, um, very troubling to me to become Officer Clemmons. So, you know, I was young, 24, 25 years old, so I did not have the emotional, psychological, intellectual equipment yet to understand. Eventually I did, but I'm just— for a while I was just, uh, creating a role., and I didn't have to take so much responsibility for that role as Officer Clements forever. And forgive me for going on like this, but—

No, it's fine.

Not realizing that I was the Officer Clements for 27 years. It stuck. And it stuck in the most positive ways. That I learned while I was playing the role of Officer Clemmons. Um, he was— for example, I had no gun, I had no, uh, whistle to blow for help. I didn't, uh, I hadn't learned any karate, any defensive arts. Um, you know, there was— what does Officer Clemmons do? He walks around the neighborhood, he's helpful when he can be, which is what Fred used to talk about, helpers, and he sang songs. Well, I was very happy about the part of singing songs because I'm a musician, I'm an artist, I'm a tenor, and it gave me a certain role as a performer that people all over the country and indeed all over the world heard me sing some of everything— Handel, Schubert, Gershwin, uh, um, Ellington, and, uh, spirituals. I, you know, my first guest appearances on the show, I sang American Negro spirituals. I was extremely happy about that. So Fred continued to allow me to basically choose my repertoire. So Augustus Clements introduced that. I didn't realize this. I know it sounds naive. But I didn't really realize how many people I introduced to classical music until we started this 50-year celebration and people wrote emails and letters. And they're still, you know, and as I went around the country with the movie Won't You Be My Neighbor, people would say to me, I heard about classical music listening to you on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Now there were certainly other guests like Wynton Marsalis and Yo-Yo Ma and Van Cliburn. Fred had very excellent taste, in my opinion, for classical music, and those are some of the world's greatest musicians. So it wasn't just me by a long shot, but I was in the mix, and I was the one who was there regularly all the time, and I was singing this very, very diverse repertoire, which happened to be what I like, but it's also what he liked. So yeah, Worked out, you know, it worked out very well. And when I won the Grammy for Porgy and Bess, I sang all of those songs at some point on the program, in addition to singing all of his— almost, almost all of his operas. I didn't sing all of them, but almost. Yeah. And so that was one of the things about Officer Clemmons. He was primarily an artist as opposed to, let's say, a disciplinarian.

Sure.

Or, you know, someone who came in and hit somebody in the head with a billy club. And then the other thing was I received communications from people that they have become a police officer because of me. Are you ready for that one?

Wow.

I, I was, I was totally unprepared when the first couple of, uh, letters or emails came in saying I like Officer Clemmons. And then now there are people saying, I'm 40 years old, I'm 45 years old, I'm 30-something years old, I became a police officer watching you on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. And even more surprising, I'm a black man and I decided to become a police officer watching you on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Well, I just have to go sit down. Yeah, because that's a, that's a very strong statement for someone to make. And, uh, I'm not, you know, I, I never foresaw that kind of long-term positive collateral, uh, result of what I was doing. I just did not.

Well, that is a, a very powerful thing when you think about it. And that's one thing I appreciate about Fred's vision of even like the land of make-believe. I didn't realize it as a kid, but I think I see it now as his way of almost showing us what it means when, you know, the Lord's Prayer, when it says, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." In some ways, I think that Fred's vision as a minister would come through in those ways in, in the land of make-believe and in the neighborhood where he would help us imagine what could be and what could be when the kingdom comes in that sense. And I think that your character as Officer Clemmons obviously was a huge part of that, of helping us see something different out of police and something different of— and, and that's so inspiring to hear that when you tell me, that, that people have told you they've gone into law enforcement and because of that. That's just, that's a powerful thing to think about.

Yes, yes, it is very powerful. And I also have to tell you that there were problems in the neighborhood of Make-Believe, but they were solved with, uh, usually with compassion and with, uh, understanding. Um, people had their feelings hurt or they challenged one another, but they came together and they talked or they demonstrated to one another who they were, what could be done. There were alternatives. They dealt with war in a way that— and conflict and differences— and tried to solve their problems other than fighting and killing, that kind of thing. And I think that was definitely part of Fred's philosophy.

Yeah, that's amazing. Well, in the decades that you spent as part of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, you were a vital part of that. There's one scene though in particular that it seems like you remember with great emotion, and it's touched on in the documentary, it's written about in many places, and a great many people who watched the Neighborhood, they also remember this as well. And it was from an episode that aired, I believe it was in 1969, when Fred had been resting his feet in a plastic pool on a hot day. I wonder if you could tell us a bit about that show in particular and what it meant to you.

Well, several things. First of all, it was done twice in 1969. You know, that was early on because the show started in 1968. So I think Fred had been thinking about things like this all along. It was not a— a new idea that's part of the creative process that he brought to, uh, when he was creating Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Then we filmed it later, like in '87 or '88, when I did my last— I can't remember the year I did my final show, but that indeed was the last show that I filmed with him. That wasn't the last time I performed with him because we did personal guest appearances forces for 5 or 6 more years. So now, getting back to the actual scene, it has been discussed quite a bit now because of the, uh, first of all, the physical significance of people putting, uh, acids in, in the swimming pools around America and some of the major cities in order to prevent black people from using those pools in the inner cities usually, or even in suburban locations. If they went— they were being supported by city tax dollars, so Black people were contributing to the upkeep and to the maintenance and having been a part of building these, um, structures. So they had every right from a technical perspective to be using those facilities. And they had been paying for them for years, not just one time or something like that. So, uh, the idea that they couldn't use them was ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous. But there were white people who resented Black people coming in to enjoy these facilities, and they were putting, uh, uh, acid in that water. It's unbelievable. Oh, I also— yes, it's unbelievable, but I think it has a special significance to Fred, not only because of the racism and the hatred and the dehumanizing aspect of someone treating another human being like this. He was a great swimmer. He loved to swim, and I don't think I don't think most people quite realize the connection that I think he really identified with the fact that someone would do that to prevent somebody from swimming. He loved to swim. He swam every morning.

Yeah.

And in addition to that, I know that he loved me. And the idea that somebody would do that to prevent me from going in a swimming pool just just made him livid.

He—

I think he saw red at the idea that there were people behaving in this manner. And his way of dealing with it was to have that scene and invite me to come in and sit down with him and put my feet in the same tub as his. That was his statement about that stupid racism, what they were doing. He— I— it was very, very strong, very powerful, because not, not only did we put our feet in the water together— and I don't know your, uh, liturgical background, your biblical understanding at all, but that really relates to that Last Supper when he washed his disciples' feet. Fred was helping me dry my feet and clean my feet in that water. It does have a spiritual dimension to it, which some of the people who have come here to discuss it with me want to go deeper into the significance of him drying the feet of a Black gay man. And because in our society Black people were the castoffs, the ones who were very insignificant things that we did or tried to do or wanted to do, when like, like writing, composing the American Negro spirituals. This is a great, great, great body of music that white people basically dismiss. They do, but not the rest of the world. If you go to Europe and Asia and places like that, you can sing American Negro spirituals all evening. They loved it, and they say it's a unique great form of music which came out of slavery. When you think of where— how it was, uh, developed, it's just amazing that this great body of music came from such suffering. Yeah. So anyway, getting back to, uh, to Fred about this, um, so the biblical significance of Peter and Jesus washing his feet, helping him dry his feet was not and is not lost on the ministry across America. Presbyterians, Lutherans, Catholics, uh, even Unitarians have come and sat down and wanted to discuss the significance of this. Now, the last thing I really want to add, this is important to me, Fred filmed this scene twice. Not once, but twice. And that speaks to what he meant. He was trying to say something. He never changed his mind about integration, about our caring, what our neighbors— he was being a neighbor. And there are people who take this stuff on the surface and they, um, uh, they rattle it off. Off in a casual manner, but the link between us as human beings is real. When Fred says, 'Won't you be my neighbor?' Yeah, he is talking to every living soul. He is— if you are black, if you are gay, if you're young, if you are old, he does not care. 'Won't you be my neighbor?' And people have to listen to that, and they are listening. And some of them are troubled because they are thinking in terms of race, and he is not. The thing that bound us together was our spiritual destiny. Uh, he understood it long before I did, and that was why that man was standing at the back of that crowd, sitting in the back of that church, listening, thinking, that's the one that I am going to join with on this journey. And when I— when he tapped me to come on to the show, he had a long vision in mind. This was not some two little songs, three songs, and goodbye, ish, check. No, he was way past that. And I grew into a deeper understanding of who this man was who had spoken to me. I'm sorry, I went on.

No, you know what, people are here to listen to you, so that's fine. And you know what, we just watched the other night— I have a 5-year-old son, and every night we watch an episode of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood before bed, and it kind of helps to calm him down. And just the other evening, the second time came on, and we watched that. And I did the biblical significance is not lost on me. I'm a minister and I lead music at my church and I find it to be incredibly powerful. And I've just so appreciated that scene again and again. And it's wonderful to me to be able to introduce that to my son too, because me and my wife and my son, we always joke that we're so white, if you put us next to a white wall and shut our eyes, you wouldn't see us. But it's wonderful because, you know, my son's teacher in kindergarten is this wonderful Black lady, and we intentionally wanted him to be there because it's important for us, for him to experience a diverse world and to experience who neighbors are. And it was wonderful for us just to sit with him and, you know, kind of go through that episode and talk about it. And we did talk about about the foot washing and what it, what it meant to be a servant. And so we, we appreciate you as much as we do Fred in that regard, in that we have, um, you know, it's, it's a wonderful way for us to be able to talk to our children about things. And, and I don't think that he is going to— I hope, I hope that my son won't grow up sensing that there needs to be any sort of divide, you know. And, and that's partly because partly because of you, and so we have to thank you for that as well. We appreciate you.

Well, thank you for that.

We're going a little bit longer than I had planned, but are you still okay to talk for a bit longer?

Oh Lord, yes. I'm just getting started.

Well, that's great. There's so many interesting things that as I've read about you in different books books and the things that have been a part of your life. But one thing that I would love to talk about a little bit, because this is something that still is a cause of a lot of tension, and you had said that in the neighborhood there was conflict. And I think that probably in real life, as wonderful as it seems that Fred was, and my greatest regret is that I never got to meet him while he was alive because he's such a hero of mine. But it's obvious that you and Fred were dear friends. I mean, you can just see it on the show, both on and off the screen, and things you've said about him. But that isn't to say that your relationship wasn't complicated at times. Oh, yeah. I've read that you grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home and were taught that homosexuality was a sin against God and against nature, and that it was not only a sin, but that it was a symptom of having a weak mind. So because you grew up feeling that gay people were weak-willed and morally weak people, you lived for a long time as a closeted gay man. And I read a quote from you saying, nobody in his right mind wanted to be gay, and I didn't want to be gay. So when Fred Rogers was informed by someone on the crew that you had been seen at a gay establishment, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about his initial reaction to that, and when he talked to you about that, and then in ways that maybe he had to even change his own thinking in some ways as a way to be a good neighbor to you. And you can go in as little or as much as you'd like to talk about on this, but I just sort of love to hear your side of things because I think it's one of those things that is important to us right now. We're at a time where that conversation is still very difficult, especially among religious people.. And I just love to know maybe some of the inner workings of that with you, if you don't mind.

Oh no, I don't mind because it has been very much out of the closet, so to speak, since this movie dealt with it in a very honest, very gentle, touching, but very honest way. It has opened the subject up for a lot of good, meaningful discussion about homosexuality and about my life in particular. I never imagined that I would be discussing it so publicly, but the film doesn't leave any choice, and people have asked, and I think it's important if they've asked to try and meet them and discuss it. So when I first began to discuss my sexual life with Fred, I was very troubled. I felt that I wanted to be involved and I wanted to be active, but he felt that if I were openly gay in the community and on television, because that's what I was asking, he would lose his sponsors. So quite frankly, in a sentence, it came down to finances and whether or not he could have a television program. Program sponsored by Sears or Johnson Johnson or Joseph Horne's company. There were companies other than that that were supporting him. And he felt that because of the religious right and because of the fundamentalism in this country, a program like that would lose its support. And he just wasn't ready for that. It had nothing to do with how he personally felt about me or gay people. He had gay friends. And so he said to me, "Please don't come out, François, because if you do, I fear that we will have to separate ourselves from you. Not personally, but on the program." So I always wanted people to make sure that they understood there was a difference between Fred the person and the man who was on television. And there was a practical reason that he felt that way. The other parts of that was, I think, and someone else said this, uh, a gentleman who was talking to me, that I Fred Roger'd Fred Rogers because I helped him grow in that area. But by the time he, um, oh, I say maybe 10 or 15 years, I don't think he would have cared about sponsors or the fundamental right or some of those people, because his message was so pure and so loving and his motivation was so there that he didn't judge anybody. He knew that he was human like anybody else, but his, uh, vision had changed to the extent that he felt he had to be true with what he was saying. I like you as you are. I think you turned out nicely, and I like you as you are. To tell people that day in and day out on that television program and then not practice it in your own daily life— he was not capable of that. And my walking, just the fact that I was there, my presence was a constant reminder to him that you had not only to talk the talk but walk the walk. Now, I don't think that that was a miserable, difficult decision for him because— and he wasn't perfect, but he was a man deeply, deeply, uh, immersed in love, in the word of Jesus Christ. And I— when I say it, I mean New Testament Jesus never said one word about homosexuality in the New Testament. It's not there, folks. And he certainly never talked about hate and stoning gay people and throwing them out, rejecting us. This is not New Testament. And therefore, I know that Fred wrestled with the idea of helping people to grow, and we do grow and we do change. And he also helped me to understand that I was not to carry the sense of guilt or rejection or that there was something painfully wrong because I was gay. This is a natural part of the human condition and I took full ownership of it with his help. Hmm. Yes. So it's It's a very important thing for people to know that.

And I appreciate you being able to talk about it. And again, it's probably not something that you always wanted to have to talk about all the time, but I think that the dialogue and the conversation is something that is so helpful to us. I don't think there's any benefit that comes from us hiding things or being fake about things, and I've appreciated that. Mentioned in books like, uh, Michael Long has a wonderful book and he goes a lot into, uh, in his book Peaceful Neighbor about your relationship with Fred and, and ways that you helped each other grow in that regard.

Well, I have to say I'm a fan of Michael Long. I am an unabashed admirer of his and I'm, I'm very happy to have met him. He came here to Middlebury twice and we sat and talked just as you and I are communing and talking because I felt from his email and from his telephone conversations, this was a serious man who really was interested in knowing who Fred Rogers was. He did not want us to gloss over and paint a pretty picture. He wanted to know what was going on. And I absolutely, I was so drawn to his search for the truth that it was the same as my search. Church for the truth. So I'm, I'm very happy you feel that way about Michael, because Lord have mercy, in my opinion, it's the best book about Fred Rogers out there.

You know what, I, I was gonna say, I agree with you. I've read several books and his is my favorite. And in fact, I had him on the show a few episodes ago, and we've become friends, and so we message each other quite a bit now after this.

Well, I'm not surprised because I I do too. I message with him.

He's a good guy.

He really is. And when I was writing some parts of my autobiography— I've written two, but I'll explain. One is Diva Men: My Life in Song, which really deals with the early struggles of not only being gay but being Black in a segregated system in Youngstown, Ohio. And I've talked with my buddies of some 60, 70 years. Whom I went to school with them, are two different worlds, a Black world and a white world that we went through up there in Youngstown. Uh, it was very, very segregated. There were some things that happened that were very painful to me as a boy growing up, not just as a gay person but also as a Black person in school with them in the same building but having a very, very different, uh, experience. Then, um, I wrote— I started my literary agent urged me last February, I guess it was, might have been January, to write a book about Fred Rogers because I had about 2 or 3 scenes in my book, Diva Man: My Life in Song, that really focused on the relationship with Fred. So I stopped everything and I started focusing on scenes and things that had happened over the years with Fred that people generally didn't know about. About. Uh, he didn't publicize those things. I didn't publicize them. I— they weren't— they were not in Michael's book because they were my personal experiences with Fred. And also, they weren't— I don't think they would be in Max King's book, which has just been published, because he didn't interview me, and it was, uh, too difficult. There were other factors involved, but that was the main thing. I was— I've had two strokes. I have survived those two strokes. But there was a lot of illness at the time that he was trying to negotiate and, uh, set up a— for some, some interviews. And so it didn't work. Anyway, I thought I need to put those things down on paper. And with the help of my literary agent— I'm telling you, she is just an angel— that, uh, she assisted me in writing this book, uh, called There Are Many Ways to say I love you. Well, we, we worked together, and over 6, 7, 8, 9 months or whatever, it just poured out of me. It's like Fred Rogers channeling through me the things that we talked about, the things that we had done on the most personal level. This is not a chronology of things that he did, and he, you know, he went to Dartmouth and he went to Harvard and Yale and California and Illinois. No, This is not that kind of, uh, a story. This is about the issues that we were dealing with of a human being growing and learning and being challenged and disappointed. The issue— the political issues, the racial issues, the sexual issues that I don't think a gentleman or a lady doing a chronology of Fred would be able to deal with or choose to deal with. So I said, that's my role. I need to talk about Fred on the most personal level in a way that only his wife or his two other sons would be able to write about the way I can. And so my agent, she suggested it, we did it. When it was finished, she submitted it to a couple of publishers, and much to my surprise, They said, "Is there any way to weave Diva Man in with 'There Are Many Ways to Say I Love You'?" I was stunned because I really felt that the times were really right for Fred Rogers. I don't think I understood until she and I had some very serious conversations of how important it was to have that other element. To understand more about who Fred Rogers is. Yeah, boy, did that take me by surprise.

I bet.

So I sat down with her and the two of us worked. She worked the most, I have to say. In this case, they're my words, but the chronology and the weaving and the significance of understanding the balancing of us as two individuals really came from her insight and her wisdom. I'm very, very grateful that the publisher suggested that and that she brought it to me, and I agreed that we sat down and did it because it was, it was like wrestling with a boa constrictor or something. It was really a difficult, difficult task. With all due respect, I think it makes for a very powerful piece of reading because it's not superficial. I'm not a superficial person. Fred certainly is not. So I wanted people to sit down and get a good read. You know, a lot of the people who are going to see this movie, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" I've been fortunate that my health has continually improved and this company, Focus Features, who is handling all the publicity They are just wonderful, and they've invited me around the country to film festivals and gatherings and what have you. And I have, uh, this, this age group that's coming, that they're not the youngest children, although there are some there, but it's this group in the, from 20 up, who are, who watched Mr. Rogers when they were young. They're in the, many of them are in their 30s and many are in their 40s. Yeah, they are coming to see this film and to think about our society now, our world now, the issues that we are dealing with, starting at the White House and the Congress and our state governments and our city governments, right on down. There are important issues that we are dealing with, and this age group are, are the groups that would watch Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

Yeah, yeah.

And, uh, you know, I was at Dartmouth, uh, just a couple of days ago, and the question and answers after seeing this movie, these are some serious conversations going on, which is not, not appropriate for the 3 and 4 and 5-year-olds. So, sure, uh, you know, I know that, uh, Morgan, you know, his children were watching Mr. Rogers. They were childhood. And to many people, it seems like maybe this is a movie about that early childhood experience, but it's dealing with it on the most serious adult level.

Certainly, certainly. It's, it's a powerful film. It really is a powerful film.

Yes, it is. And I can tell you, 90— more certainly 80% of those people who are sitting there crying, and when they came— when, when the movie was over, I mean, it was like they had all had lesson in how to treat your fellow man or woman. This is— and Fred said these are real ideas. Get a grip, people. Yeah, you know, we do some reevaluation.

It's true. And, and you know, there is such a— there is such an angry climate right now in our world, and I find it so interesting. I told you about this this Twitter account that I run. It's nothing, it's pretty, it's pretty much nothing but Fred Rogers quotes. Every now and then I'll put some articles that are related and things like that. But this past weekend, Google put that Google Doodle video out that was, you know, only like a 2-minute video. And my, my Twitter feed over the weekend, I shared that and I gained close to 3,000 followers just this weekend. From showing that video. And people are constantly messaging me and giving me replies on Twitter and sending me emails as if I were Fred Rogers or something because I run this account. But it's interesting because the constant thing I'm hearing from people is, thank you so much for sharing this voice of kindness that is so opposite from what we are hearing on the news and in politics and from the White House. So we need this kind, gentle voice that can speak this truth into the world. And I think it really is maybe having more of an effect now on those of us who grew up watching The Neighborhood and who remember what Fred was like. I think he's almost the antidote. And I tell people all the time, I say, I don't think people realize it's not so much Fred that people are drawn to, but I think it is the Jesus in Fred that people are drawn to. I think it is the power.

It's the sincerity. It's the fact that he's non-judgmental. Yes, because obviously he was a Presbyterian minister, but he never said Jesus Christ or God once on the program, but it was always implied. It was there in the things he did the way he did it, the people he dealt with, how he dealt with the people. So in every sense of the word, there was this sense of, "Who is my neighbor and how do you treat your neighbor?" Yeah, that's a powerful legacy.

You must be very proud to be a part of that legacy. I am. I feel like we all owe you a great deal as well. As the many cast members who are on that show, because you have been such a help to us, maybe in recapturing some of our humanity in the midst of this craziness that we're living in right now. And our time's gonna be running short here, at least on my end. I'm gonna have to go pretty soon, and I have so appreciated getting to sit and talk with you, and maybe we can do it again someday in the future. But I wonder if maybe— Yeah, I wonder if, I wonder if maybe we could close today. I know that music is your great passion, great love, so I wonder if we could, if I could ask a music-related question today. Um, before we end our time together, it's, it's my understanding that in the late 1980s you had an experience singing spirituals with a friend that left you just profoundly moved. And you've talked about singing spirituals today, and the experience, it sort of led you away from an operatic performance towards these spirituals. And I read that you were enjoying singing these spirituals and giving your art in a way that you had not felt it was so important when you were singing Mozart or Schubert or Bellini. And you began to ask Fred Rogers why there was no professional ensemble that sang spirituals like that that were comparable to the Haydn Society or Handel Society or any other ones. So when you were unable to find a society like the one you envisioned, you decided to create one, the Harlem Spiritual Ensemble, dedicated to preserving the American Negro spiritual. So I— the question that is there, as I've gone on so long, how did these spirituals enrich you as a human being? I'd love to just let you talk a little bit about what they mean to you.

Well, the spirituals are really the history of Black people. When I went to high school and Oberlin and Carnegie Mellon, I did not learn about Black American history and obviously true African history. Those spirituals opened the door. For me. Uh, I began to— when I learned about the spirituals, I began to learn about myself. And it's like, uh, the Schomburg Library is a great institution in New York City, a part of the public— New York Public Library. And when you go in there, you see these, uh, books and writings and manuscripts of great Black African scholars, writers, bibliophiles. I'd go down the list and you say, why wasn't I taught this in school? Hmm. That was my incredible complaint, because you could graduate from school thinking Black people have done nothing, have contributed nothing. And I feel that that is blasphemous. It's a horrible thing to do to a person, to write them out of history, so to speak. So, and when I was in Carnegie Mellon, I decided I decided to start self-educating. I'm going to educate myself. When I was at Oberlin, my voice teacher, a wonderful woman, we were totally reconciled, but she refused to let me sing American Negro spirituals as a part of my program. That's how little she thought of the spirituals. Had I been Polish, she would have said, yes, sing Polish songs in Polish. Had I been Hungarian, yes, sing Hungarian songs in Hungarian. Had I been Italian, yeah, sing Italian songs. On and on. But when I said Negro spirituals, she said no. And her excuse was, I did not have to teach you that. That's a crock of bull. I'm not, you know, going into your podcast here, but I was pissed at her. Now they could sing the music of their heritage, which they had learned at home and in church and their communities, but I couldn't sing my music that I had learned at church and home in my community. And so for that reason, I had to do them with the help of my buddies as encores. That's a humiliating experience to put a young man through, or young woman. So when I went to grad school, I said to my voice teacher, if I can't sing spirituals, I cannot study with you.

Hmm.

And he was wise enough to say, yes, you must You must sing them because number one, you sing them so well, and number two, because they are such an important part of American culture. And I've never had anybody since then say don't sing them. As a matter of fact, when I got to New York, I was in the Metropolitan Opera Studio for years, and the gentleman who— Mr. John Gutman, who was in charge, heard— he said to me, I heard that you sing American Negro spirituals. Better than anybody, and I want to hear some. So in this Lincoln Center, this man's office, I'm standing up in there singing either "Slow Tea Chariot" or "Balm in Gilead." I'm not sure which one it was now. And he says, "Oh my God, that is wonderful." Now the program we're doing in a special concert hall called Liszt Hall after Franz Liszt, the great European composer. And he says to me, we're going to do a concert here and they're going to do excerpts from La Traviata, somebody else from Aida, somebody else from Elixir of Love, and on down. You're going to sing two spirituals, Mr. Clements. That's what I want. Well, you can imagine my shock. Here I've gone to school for 6 years with, you know, thousands of dollars, and I'm at the Metropolitan Opera and Mick American center, and this gentleman asked me to sing American Negro spirituals. Well, I was too crude. I can't tell you, but I talked to a couple of my friends. I got very, very good advice. First of all, he said, "You better sing them because if you tell him no, he may never have you back there again." So I did sing them, and what really captured the deep feeling that I have for these spirituals and what I communicate, I open the door to something. It's like there's something there that everybody cannot tap into, but I can and I do. I walked off stage and one of my peers, a wonderful young white girl, said, "Now who in the world else wants to go out there next. I had the audience in such a state that nobody else wanted to go out again. You know, it's like when your little children and the dogs get out there on stage and they do such a fabulous job, nobody else— nobody wants to follow the children and the dogs. Anyway, so that's my, uh, was my early— one of my earliest experiences when it's like the universe was tapping me on the shoulder and said, do this. So we were traveling and I decided I had some advice from people, so I started the Harlem Spiritual Ensemble. Everyone said, "If you sing these songs, your career is going to be over. You're never going to be asked to do this or do that and blah blah." They were wrong. I can't tell you how wrong they were. Once I put the ensemble together, the doors opened everywhere. I had sung in playing at every major concert hall. And the thing, the one, if you'll forgive me, arrogant thing that I'm going to say, not only did we get invited to Carnegie Hall in every major city, Houston, San Francisco, California, everywhere. When I walked in the door, Diva Clements walked in that door and I was the boss. I was. And that would not have happened had I been just another tenor doing Electric Love a la Traviata. Coming. When I walked in, they said, Dr. Clements, what can we do for you? Those people were all wrong. This was my destiny. This was my calling. What do they know? So I stopped listening to them. I stopped listening to them because they didn't know. Yeah, sorry I went on about it, but no, I, I wanted you to.

I really wanted you to. I— well, I I know that's very important to you, and you were really, I think, groundbreaking in doing that. We have a great debt to owe you. Well, brother, it has just been such a joy to sit down with you today. I appreciate having you as a new friend, and I appreciate what you've done. I'm very proud of you. I just wanted to say that while we had the chance. Keep doing what you're doing, and we look forward to— I'll look forward to reading your books and your many endeavors and getting to hopefully talk to you again on this podcast another day. There's so much more I'm sure we could cover. But as I always say to all of my guests, thank you for being one of the voices in my head this week.

Oh, you're very welcome.

Let it start.

Let it start.

All around this world, I'm gonna let it start. Hello, around this world. Ah, ah, come let us shout. Oh, around this world. And you know, sometimes I used to hear my great-grandmother, Miss Laura Mae, say, "Well, I feel a little something in my soul today.

I am ready to die.

So I'm gonna pick up the beat just a little bit." Yes, and she had a little hope.

Well, I'm gonna be around a long time.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com, follow me on Twitter @RickLeeJames, like my artist page at facebook.com/rickleejames, and keep up to date on what I'm writing on my author page on Amazon. There's also the Voices in My Head Facebook community found at facebook.com/groups/voicesinmyhead.

@voicespodcast.

And if you want to follow my alter ego on Twitter, follow my popular Mr. Rogers quote account found @MrRogersSay. Also, make sure to follow my appearance schedule on my website, and if you would like to have me come to your town to do a concert, a speaking engagement, or a book event, you can book me through my website at rickleejames.com/bookings. And it would mean the world to me if you would write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews we receive, the more visible this podcast is on the internet. And now the benediction. May the God of peace, who raised Christ from the dead, strengthen you in your inner being for every good work. And may the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit rest upon you and dwell within you this day and forevermore.

Amen.