Interview: Nathaniel Turner ~ The Miracle In Gary, Indiana!

Hi,

Everybody,

And welcome back to the podcast.

I think this week that it's really apropos that I interview Nathaniel Turner because he was named after a very well-known and famous enslaved Black carpenter and preacher who led a four-day rebellion of both enslaved and free Black people in Virginia in August of 1831.

And as I say in the episode,

I first heard about Nat Turner's rebellion by reading Smithsonian Magazine.

It's one of those things that happens in history that they choose not to teach us in grade school,

Or at least my grade school.

Well,

This week,

I introduce you to Nathaniel Turner,

Who describes himself as a man on a mission to help people live better lives.

And he does that by teaching parents how to raise amazing kids,

But also helping adults build the lives they've always dreamed about.

And I do want to address the fact that the news has been particularly heartbreaking and heart-rending lately.

I know so many of my listeners are just deeply feeling individuals who are highly intelligent.

And I just applaud you for keeping going.

And I want you to know that I witness each and every one of your brave hearts as we walk through this very strange timeline and what's happening right now.

I'm grateful that you all listened to the podcast.

Again,

I'm going to reiterate that I think it's important to know and to listen to podcasts like this so that we can acknowledge that this world is in fact filled to the brim with excellent human beings,

Despite what the news media wants us to believe.

You know,

And one of those,

Frankly,

After you hear this episode,

Is Nathaniel Turner.

He's inspired.

He's intelligent.

And yeah,

He's here to make a difference in the world.

So now,

Without further ado,

Here's my interview with Nathaniel Turner.

I would say that Miraculous is,

Oh,

This is even better,

Miraculous is that in 1981,

In the spring of 1981,

Five families,

Five people,

Decided to love me for no good reason.

And each of them in their own way told me that I could do more with my life.

Most of the time,

I simply say I'm Nathaniel Turner,

The son of Gladys and Tommy,

A product of Gary,

Indiana,

Is the village who raised me.

Currently the husband and father of Latanya and Naeem.

That's who I am,

Probably who I'm going to be when my time on this planet is up.

You know,

You said Gary,

Indiana,

And all I want to do is sing the song.

The song,

Gary,

Indiana,

Gary,

Indiana,

Yeah.

Yes,

Yes,

Yes.

Does it make you think of Michael Jackson,

Too?

It does,

Yes.

Well,

I grew up outside of Chicago,

So we weren't too far away from each other.

Yeah.

And I've actually run through Gary,

Indiana,

A few times.

Very fast,

Right?

No.

Where in Chicago,

Near Chicago,

Did you grow up?

Well,

I was about,

Well,

At that time,

Because traffic's only gotten worse,

About 45 minutes to an hour southwest of the city.

So near Naperville,

Geneva,

Out there.

So,

Yeah,

I know the area.

Yes.

Yes.

So I'm just going to tell you,

You now have caused what is that called?

Oh,

An earworm.

I now have an earworm for Gary,

Indiana,

That's going to just be playing throughout this interview.

So let me ask you,

What was it like growing up?

I mean,

I'm going to imagine that we might be close in age and I'm thinking that you're much younger than me.

We shall see.

OK.

But like,

Has Gary,

Indiana,

Changed very much since you were a kid?

Yes,

It is.

It is socioeconomically worse.

The population has probably declined well over 50 percent.

It's worse.

It was bad.

It was getting it was getting bad as I was.

I guess starting high school and certainly finishing high school,

But it's much worse today.

When I was in high school and Gary,

There were five.

Five high schools today,

There's only one.

I believe there's yeah,

I believe the student population for the public school is probably under under 10,

000 easily.

Wow.

This most of the steel mills are closed.

It is.

Yeah,

It is appreciably worse.

Gosh,

I'm sorry to hear that.

How did your parents end up there?

My father and mother,

Oddly enough,

Live next door to each other in Gary.

That actually sounds perfect.

Well,

Yeah,

It might have sound perfect.

It didn't end up perfect.

But yes,

That's that's and my family is my on my mother's side.

My maternal.

Grandmother was from South Carolina,

My maternal grandfather was from from Nashville,

Tennessee.

My paternal grandparents were both from Phoenix City,

Alabama or Georgia or something like that.

They're right next to each other.

So Columbia,

Georgia,

Columbia,

Alabama.

I don't know.

I've been there once,

But and I swore not to go back again.

But they're from from a very southern rural area and on the edge of Alabama and Georgia.

OK,

OK.

And I'm just you know,

It's interesting.

I know a little bit about Gary.

It sounds that obviously it's a city in transition.

The steel mills are closing and that's that puts a lot of stress on families.

It puts a lot of stress on parents.

It puts a lot of stress on communities.

The community fabric kind of starts to break.

Did any of that factor into the work that you do now?

Absolutely,

We are all told we were all amalgamations of the people,

Places and things that that raised us.

And as I said,

When I describe myself,

I said I'm a product that was raised by by Gary.

I was born in 1965,

A very interesting time in in this nation's history.

In 1968,

The first African-American male was elected.

And that was Richard Gordon Hatcher.

And he was the mayor of Gary,

Indiana.

So my time growing up in Gary was very different because Gary was predominantly a black city.

It actually was a Mecca.

People would come like civil rights leaders and entertainers,

Et cetera,

All come to Gary.

Very interesting time.

So that was the my most formative years.

The city changed a great deal.

There was white flight and then the steel mills closing and so forth.

But early on,

That informed a great deal about who I was and what I was to believe I was capable of doing.

OK,

And I mean,

Quite honestly,

And I said this to you before,

Before we started the podcast,

I said,

You know,

I kind of read people's profiles,

But I also like to be really delighted and surprised by who they are.

You're you left at the age of 16.

I mean,

How did you even have the bravery or the guts to do that?

Well,

So I left Gary at 17,

But I think you're referencing my son leaving.

He left home as a 16 year old and moved to Brazil.

Yeah.

So wow.

Yeah.

How did how did I have the energy to let a child or to let a child leave?

Or did he go?

Again,

Part of him leaving home early is this belief.

The things that I learned,

Of course,

One of the things I learned from Gary about that you could do anything you want to do.

And so Latanya is my wife and we decided very early,

Actually before Naim was born,

What kind of life we wanted for him,

What kind of human we wanted him to be.

So when he turned 16 and we were all standing on top of the Grand Canyon,

Actually,

It was in December of 2011.

He turned to me and he said,

We just finished reading The Alchemist.

He said,

Hey,

Exactly that.

It's time for me to go chase my pyramid.

It's time to chase my legend.

And I said,

OK.

He says,

So all this talk we've been doing for years about dreams and everything.

He said,

I got to leave.

It's time for me to go.

OK.

He said,

You know,

I want to play professional soccer and I don't want to do I don't want to play in MLS.

I want to play in La Liga.

I want to play with Messi is playing.

I said,

OK,

Well,

What do you want me to do?

He said,

You got to get me out of the country.

I need to go somewhere I can train and get prepared to do that.

And so I'm like,

All right,

Here we are standing on the cliff of the Grand Canyon.

He and I are standing,

You know,

Three thousand or so feet above sea level.

And my wife is yelling to us to get off the edge.

I have a picture of us.

He and I are standing on the edge.

And he's telling me what what he must do.

He's a junior in high school.

He's getting ready to go back to start his second semester of his junior year.

And he says,

I'm not going to finish this semester,

But I'm not going back.

I'm not going for my senior year.

I've done everything.

I've got thirty three college credits.

I've essentially finished all my high school work after this this year.

I'm not going back.

Why would I waste another year in high school for my senior year?

So you can't argue with that.

It's true.

So you say,

OK,

I figure I'll figure it out.

And we hired a virtual assistant.

His name is Nathan.

And Nathan helped us shop names,

A soccer background to I think there were 11 clubs across the globe,

The United Kingdom and Portugal and France and in Brazil.

And so he said,

Hey,

It's settled.

The place I'm most interested in going to with the place that creates the most professional soccer players is Brazil.

So we reached out to a gentleman and.

Mr.

De Lima and Miguel de Lima,

To be exact,

And Mr.

De Lima invited us to come over to the city called Natal,

And he set up some tryouts for nine in Sao Paulo,

Outside of Sao Paulo and some things in the tall and we flew there and he tried out in in June of 2012.

And he said,

I'm staying.

So we like,

OK,

Came home and packed up his stuff and he went back to Brazil.

Oh,

My gosh.

Oh,

My gosh.

So I just want to throw in that the Alchemist is one of my favorite books.

And I'm always buying multiple copies that I can give it to other people.

I'm just like you just here.

Just read it.

Just read it.

Just read it.

It's enchanting.

So I love that you brought the Alchemist into this conversation.

But the four hour work week,

Because the four hour work week was what led me.

And I guess you get Timothy Ferris some credit,

Too,

Because the four hour work week is what led me to go hire a virtual assistant.

Oh,

Because otherwise I had no idea I wouldn't I wouldn't know what to do.

So I just said,

Hey,

Here's the task.

Good luck.

Good luck.

And he came back and said,

OK,

Here's here's your options.

Oh,

Wow.

OK.

Amazing.

Amazing.

But,

You know,

I just think I'm not a parent,

OK?

But I just love the grace.

You know,

If my kid was like,

I'm not going to finish high school,

I'm going to finish this year.

But I want to have this giant adventure.

First of all,

I know my 16 or 17 year old self would not have been able to do that.

You know,

Say I'm going to step off this cliff and do that.

At that age.

But I also you know,

Your son obviously is remarkable.

But then the way you responded was remarkable because you supported him.

You know,

My parents,

If I would have said this to my parents,

They would have said,

No,

That's not you're going to do this and then you're going to go to college and you're going to do this.

You know,

There'll be time later for these other things.

But you I mean,

Was it hard to respond in a supportive way?

No.

So when you say when you say it's remarkable or you give me like elevate me to some particular level,

The truth of it is that.

When that's all you've known,

It doesn't seem like there's that there's anything special about that Latanya.

And I try my best to refrain from saying my wife,

Because it sounds silly to some people,

But it feels like an attachment,

Like something or someone belongs to me and she doesn't belong to me.

I'm honored.

I'm she gives me her time and energy.

Nine gives me his time and energy.

I don't ever want to take it for granted,

No matter how long somebody is in my life or or what position they hold.

But Latanya and I made a decision before before we knew that Naim was Naim,

That whatever child we had,

That there were these three fundamental things we were going to give that child.

And we got those things oddly enough.

Well,

We first started to learn those things.

Well,

I did from The Lion King.

So he took me to see the movie The Lion King.

And and I didn't want to be a father until then.

And when I got a chance to watch Mufasa and Simba,

I was like,

OK,

That's exactly what I want.

I want a relationship with a child who no matter what happens to us,

At the end,

He says to me,

Dad,

We're pals.

And when you're someone's pal and you're not looking like you own them,

A pal would say to you when when you say to them,

Hey,

I want I got this dream of doing something incredible.

A pal would say,

Go chase your dream.

A parent,

A scared parent would say,

But you're my baby.

You're just 16.

How are you going to leave me now?

But your pal,

Your real friend would say to you,

Man,

Life is short.

You're right.

You better go do it now.

So in that in that regard,

That's what I've been leading up to.

When I saw that movie,

That was the thing that made me want to be a father.

So I was like,

How do I say to this child now something different?

We're pals.

We're always going to be pals,

Dad,

Right?

And I'm like,

OK,

That's what Simba says to Mufasa.

So I have my own little Simba and I'm going to be his pal.

And his pal is his pal.

I'm going to encourage him to chase his dream.

Wow.

Wow.

You know,

I mean,

I'm just I'm trying to understand this because that's such a generous way to be in the world.

And I think indicates a deep understanding that everybody's journey is their own.

I think,

You know,

Sometimes we live for our parents and their expectations.

You know,

Not everybody,

Not every child,

Not every parent.

But I mean,

There can be some stress in familial relationships so that people,

You know,

Show up the way others need them to or what have you.

So I'm just I'm just a little flabbergasted and gobsmacked and searching for words because this is just not I just haven't experienced anything like this in my life.

Well,

Neither had I.

Neither had I.

And if I could give you this other portion of this story.

Yeah.

So here we are.

We come back from Brazil.

His birthday is June 27th.

I will never forget it.

He and I had gone out to Best Buy and bought new computers.

We're trying to get everything together now that we're back so he can go back.

And we we pull in the garage and he's sitting in in the in the front seat in the in the passenger side.

And he looks at me,

He says,

Are you OK?

And I said,

No,

Not really.

He said,

What's wrong?

I said,

Man,

Honestly,

And I try to tell the story to you without feeling the same way.

I said,

Honestly,

You got here way sooner than I thought.

You're 16.

I know what I plan.

Like,

I know what I plan.

But but you're here.

Like,

You're you're here.

Now you're ready to leave.

And he said,

Well,

Dad,

Like,

But what are your dreams?

And I said,

I don't have any.

You're my dream.

All I've ever dreamt of was to make it so that your life could be better than mine and it's better than mine is your life is like,

It's incredible.

Now you're leaving.

And he says that it's not too late.

You still have time.

You can do more.

Wow.

And I and I just sat in the car and I weeped and I'm like,

I don't know what that even means.

I don't know what that means.

And he said that.

Do everything that you've done for me,

For other parents so they can do it for their children.

So I don't know what that means,

But I heard you and I will I will I will honor you and I'll try to figure it out.

So it's like he gave you an adventure to go on.

I always tell people like it's it's it's the tree realizing it's like the that that your fruit has an ability to talk to you.

We always see the the tree and we wonder and I I liken this to a lot of things,

The trees and fruit.

And I tell people that the only time we notice the tree is if either the fruit is blue ribbon.

Or the fruit is terrible.

If the fruit is blue ribbon,

We want to keep the tree up and we want to keep producing.

If the tree is producing bad fruit,

We want to cut it down and turn it into firewood.

So like one way or other,

Like the tree has to decide what it wants to be.

And so the fruit told me,

You got to be better.

You got to keep being better.

And OK,

I don't know how to quite do that yet,

But but I'll figure it out.

Oh,

My gosh,

I I think that's what I'm appreciating.

You know,

Just this brief time that I'm getting to know you,

What I'm appreciating about you or just one of the things I guess I should say is that,

You know,

Some people could be given a mission like that and they run away screaming or they sit back and they think,

I can't do this.

I don't even know where to start.

What am I?

I just I don't know.

I just can't do this.

But you you seem like you're ready.

I mean,

I don't know.

Is that right?

You're laughing.

What does that mean?

It means that I don't ever know that we are ready.

So one of the things I like to tell my my my family is that usually when someone is ready,

You're overprepared.

Oh.

But when you know that you're ready to do something,

Then you overprepare.

Yeah.

If I know I'm ready to climb a mountain,

It means I probably climb mountains before.

And so now I know how to climb a mountain.

If you tell me I'm ready to swim in the Olympics,

Yeah,

Because I've been training all my life.

But so I like sometimes you just have to do it because you have faith.

You believe that that sink or swim.

It'll be OK because it's just part of the process when you decide I'm not going to focus on outcomes.

I'm just going to focus on the journey.

Right.

So I don't know that I'm ready.

I will say that when you the first question you asked me about,

Gary,

I will say that part of that is part of my upbringing.

It's part of living in a place where people tell you all the time that you have this responsibility to something bigger than you.

And if you understand that fully like,

Well,

I don't really have a chance to be saying that something I can't do because somebody else did it before me.

Your ancestors survived slavery.

Your ancestors survived,

You know,

The Middle Passage,

Whatever it is.

Well,

Who are you to complain about letting your kid go to Brazil?

Who are you to say I can't figure out how to do more of my life?

Like,

I don't get to do that.

Here it tell me and went back and forth from Canada to America 14 times and save 70 plus souls.

Who are you to say what you can't do?

So you just do it.

Yeah.

Thank you for that.

Thank you.

I that was beautiful.

I want to ask you something that I thought was really.

For me,

Provocative in a good way.

You're on your bio here.

I'm going to read it to you.

You say you say,

I care deeply about helping people who are often left out,

Those who are too poor to be considered wealthy and too wealthy to be thought impoverished.

What does that mean to you?

Yeah,

And we live increasingly in a nation of have and have nots.

And those who have and I don't mean to be to be disparaging or disrespectful to anyone,

But I've met a enough exceedingly,

Increasingly wealthy and privileged people who just want more wealth and more privilege.

And to no end,

Like to no end.

And then there is truly the rest of us,

Even though those of us who think we're in the middle,

I tell them all the time,

You're not in the middle.

Have you understood that you're much more connected in some respect to the folks that you think are at the bottom,

The least of us?

You're and I say us instead of them,

Because I consider myself a part of that.

So that's what I'm saying.

There is a group of people who.

If they're underserved,

We create programs and services and allege we want to help them,

Which really are not programs that intended to to lift them out of their situation.

It's just like I think of medicine.

It never cures anything.

It just prolongs and allows you to keep living with the sickness.

And then there's a segment of people who when it comes to like select selective colleges and universities,

Either.

Are too poor to pay for all of the extracurricular stuff to make their children look really good on paper.

And so like who need who need help as well,

But I have too much money in some cases to go to the local state institution without,

You know,

Without going into a great amount of debt.

Yeah,

Yeah.

It's I always think of the word impoverished because I think.

In some way,

Those who are.

I guess you could say the haves,

You know,

With the privilege and the money.

I mean.

The chasing of the privilege,

The chasing of the money to me indicates that there is a hole that's never going to be filled.

And so in some deep way,

They are already coming to this table,

Which is an illusion that's covered with,

You know,

Food for days or years,

But they see nothing but scarcity.

I love the word illusion.

Yeah.

And so to be existing in a world or a reality where there's always scarcity indicates a true lack of poverty inside the soul and the spirit.

And so those people,

I can't even imagine what daily life looks like in that state.

It just sounds awful to me to exist like that.

Well,

It's a place of I would say deep in abiding dissatisfaction and inability to to your point to be full.

I'm always I'm always empty.

There's never enough like like,

For example,

Elon Musk is worth,

I want to say,

Almost three quarters of a trillion dollars.

One man is worth more than 50 percent of the world's population.

And he would then go to work and ask to be paid a million,

A trillion dollars.

Like to what end?

Because this is no longer about having enough resources to do whatever you want to do.

You have more money than many countries,

Many,

Many multiple countries.

You have more wealth in multiple countries,

But it's never enough.

And the person behind him is chasing to catch up with him.

And the person behind him is chasing the person behind her is chasing.

It's like to what end?

Yeah,

You all have enough.

The one thing you don't understand is that in the universe,

The universe does not provide an infinite quantity of stuff.

But there is an infinite quality,

Quantity of love.

There's not an infinite quality,

Quantity of things that rust and moths destroy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And by the way,

There's only one planet,

One earth that we've we've colonized so far.

So we need to be really careful with what we do with it.

Right.

All of everything to one group of people is just ridiculous.

But yeah,

This is a beautiful segue to my second question,

Which is,

Did you grow up in a religious household?

And if so,

What did that look like for you?

And how has that evolved over time?

I'm going to laugh several times because it's not because you're funny,

But the questions are for me reflecting as a humorous thing for me.

I am whether I don't know if you know this or not.

Nathaniel is a Hebrew name,

And it means gift of God.

So my mother,

When you said about a religious household,

My mother,

Definitely being a woman of faith.

And if people can't see it,

My fingers are in a quote because I'm not quite sure what that means.

And I don't mean that to disparage my mom.

I just don't know what it means in terms of the performance or the delivery of what we say is religion or faith.

So my mother raised us in the church.

I was raised in an African Methodist Episcopal church.

That's my mom.

On the other end of the spectrum is my father.

Who was completely against anything that was about the church,

Not that he didn't believe in something bigger than him.

He just felt that the church,

As it was currently constituted,

Was brainwashing people,

My mother included.

And so.

He has certainly had some points.

So my father,

When he and my mother were trying to come up with a name for this first child of theirs,

My father wanted to name me Malcolm.

That was his hero.

Malcolm had passed,

I think,

Died in March of 1965.

My mother was saying,

Having no part of naming a child Malcolm,

No way.

My father's second favorite historical figure was Nat Turner.

Just happened to be his last name was Turner.

So my father said,

Well,

Great,

What are you thinking about?

She says,

Nathaniel.

So he says,

Good,

We'll go with that.

So I became for my father,

Nat Turner,

And I became for my mother,

Nathaniel,

The gift of God.

One hand revolutionary,

One hand gift of God.

So those two,

Those two existences I've been trying to meld together for the totality of my life.

Wow.

Yes,

You mentioned Nat Turner.

And I love Smithsonian Magazine.

And so they had an article on Nat Turner and what he did,

Although,

You know,

Otherwise I wouldn't.

They don't cover Nat Turner in high school or even grade school.

It's glossed over or I mean,

I guess not even addressed.

Otherwise,

If I wouldn't have read Smithsonian Magazine,

I remember reading it and thinking,

How did I not know any of this happened?

But I think,

You know,

These schools and textbook manufacturers sometimes omit things on purpose.

So,

Yes,

They do.

But my but Tommy Turner would not let me not know.

And then again,

If I will,

Growing up in a place like Gary,

When you're in a place that is 97 percent African-American,

When you have the name Nathaniel Turner,

Every classroom you enter asks you this,

Do you know who you are?

Do you know who you're named after?

Do you know what he did?

Do you know what you're supposed to do?

I'm like,

Oh,

My God,

Yes.

Good Lord.

Yes,

Yes,

Yes.

I know.

I know.

Then when you walk in the church,

People say,

Nathaniel,

Do you know what your name means?

Is that how Nathaniel is supposed to behave?

I'm like,

All right.

Yeah.

So so it is.

There's no escaping it.

There's no excuse.

My gosh,

Did that put a lot of pressure on you?

Um,

Yeah,

But again,

That's all,

You know,

So it's like,

Well,

It just is.

Yes,

I'm tired of you all asking me if I know who I am.

Yes,

I'm going to make sure that when you ask me,

Do I know who Nat Turner is?

I can tell you,

Yes,

Nat Turner was a mystic.

He was a minister.

He had a congregation.

He got pissed off one day and he decided that the only way that the way he was supposed to behave based upon what he understood in the Bible was to go out and kill his slave master and others.

And then his own people told on him.

Yes,

I know who I am.

I know the story.

My daddy wants me to be a revolutionary.

I got it.

I'm not sure I want to go out like that,

But OK,

Right.

I got you.

My mom wants me to be a gift to God.

She wants me to be God fearing and well behaved and courteous and respectful.

And,

You know,

I got it.

I got it.

Now,

How do I do both of them?

How do I not kill people and be and be a good person all at the same time?

How do I be?

How do I be a revolutionary and also and also be a good human at the same time?

So I'm still trying to figure it out.

But that was the that was my childhood.

I have to say that I'm intrigued by your brief summary here,

Because I did not know Nat Turner was a mystic.

Interesting.

You know,

In the in the article,

They did not address that.

Yeah,

He had a vision and he felt God speak to him and tell him that it was time for him because because interestingly enough,

I won't spend a whole lot of time on it.

But Nat Turner was taught to read so that he could placate the other slaves by reading the parts of the Bible that made slaves comfortable being slaves,

Meaning happy.

And one day he read and started reading this part about liberation,

Et cetera,

And realized,

Well,

Hold on a second.

It's not just about slaves obeying your master.

There's some other stuff in here,

Too.

And then that's when he had this change of heart.

And if I can say this,

His best friend,

His name is Will.

And in the story of this revolution and my best friend as a child,

And even today,

His name is Will.

Yep,

Yep,

Yep.

Can't make it up.

Dr.

Willie Underwood,

The third.

Wow.

That's that's.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Well,

I mean,

I it does say that you're a lawyer.

I am a lawyer.

Yes.

And I mean,

I don't know what kind of law you practice,

But I mean,

It's not.

None.

I'm going to say none your business guy.

But no,

I don't practice any law.

I do have a law degree.

I do not practice law,

Though.

OK,

I just remember I went to University of Illinois,

Champaign-Urbana.

One of my friends who was a couple of years older than me,

He had graduated and he came back to go to law school.

And I remember him going through his first year.

And we met,

I don't know,

To go to a game or something.

And he was like,

I don't I don't know if I can do this.

This is this is insane.

It's harder than anything I've ever done in my life.

Absolutely.

I mean,

So anyone who's been to law school,

I don't even know how they.

I know I couldn't do it.

I could not do it.

Well,

You could,

But you'd have to first stop saying,

I know I can't do it because you can't do it.

You could do it if you chose to do it.

Like anyone,

Someone like me could show you how to do it.

That you could certainly do it.

Now,

You may not want to do it.

And honestly,

Once I got to law school,

After my first semester of law school,

I was like,

I don't even want to be a lawyer.

But being from Gary and knowing that people were expecting me to finish,

I had to finish.

I can't go home.

All these people are celebrating the fact that this kid from Gary has made it to law school.

I can't go back home now so that people are looking up to me and telling their children,

Hey,

Look what Nate is doing.

Now Nate has quit.

So I have to finish.

But no,

I figured out very early that I don't want to be a lawyer.

The process,

What I learned,

Like the way to think and the Socratic method,

Those are things my father introduced to me as a child.

But I didn't understand it at all.

I didn't understand it.

Then I got to law school and I was like,

Oh my God,

This is every day with my daddy.

The hell I do want this for three more years.

Are you kidding me?

I got to take classes with my doing this stuff I've been doing my dad all my life.

Absolutely.

Get me out of here.

No way.

But I had to finish it.

I'm just listening to you.

And then you brought your father back in and I'm just imagining your father who's at home and he's looking at your mom and she has this deep abiding faith and this connection to the religious community and those who also have faith.

But then here's your dad over here and he's teaching the Socratic method and you guys are having these really intellectual conversations and the sharing.

I mean,

What an interesting house to grow up in.

To say the least.

Yes.

I always tell my father,

Tell people my father,

Again,

Malcolm X was his favorite person.

And so if you like,

You know,

Chicago,

The number two mosque for the Nation of Islam was in Chicago.

So my father,

Like he leaned and then there's the period of time with the Black Panthers and he also was in the service.

And so during that time,

So when the treatment of Black soldiers,

Et cetera,

And how he felt about that,

He was born in 1942.

So,

Yeah,

So it's just a very different time.

He was a child product of a single parent.

And so his,

What he was trying to do for me as a Black man in the 60s was,

It was different than certainly probably most people were growing up.

And then with my mother,

Juxtapose my mother on the other side.

Yeah,

Yeah.

But yeah,

By the time I got to law school,

I was like,

Well,

I've already lived this for 18 years.

I know what this is.

And I'm not,

You mean I got to pay for this?

And they give you a degree for this?

It's called a lawyer?

No,

I don't want,

I want no part to this.

But I had to stay and finish.

Yeah.

And then did you just go,

Did you go back to Gary or did you go somewhere else?

No,

I finished after,

So when I finished undergrad,

I went back to Gary for a small time and I worked for the U.

S.

Treasury.

And then they encouraged me to go and become a tax attorney.

But in the back of my mind,

What I was really thinking about was being a civil rights attorney.

And later realizing that I really,

What I really wanted to do is be a human rights attorney.

There was,

As I understood it,

When I got to law school and understood what civil meant in terms of like citizenry,

I came to my realization that many people are not welcome as citizens and they're not because we don't first see them as human.

And you can't have a citizen that you don't see as a human.

So I thought,

Well,

Maybe I should be focusing on human rights.

And I also,

In addition to that,

I decided to work on my master's in history and theology.

So there the two parts came back together,

Right?

The Socratic stuff my father was teaching me and then the,

Some people call them soft skills,

A good friend of mine calls them capacity skills,

The capacity skills stuff about,

You know,

The wholeness of our humanity,

Et cetera.

Then I was learning the historical concepts of our humanity.

I was learning that stuff at the same time.

Oh gosh.

I mean,

I,

You know,

I went to seminary and have a master's of divinity.

I had a choice to get a master's of theology,

But I decided that my track was more master's of divinity,

But it was always so interesting to talk to the people who were getting a master's of theology.

I always thought it was really heady,

But also so needed,

Like desperately needed to just have someone with those kinds of skills as,

You know,

With you,

It was,

You had the law and the history,

And it was like this,

The theology beast kind of just beautifully actually compliments all of that in a really interesting way.

Oh my gosh.

I've never heard that before.

What?

Well,

Neither have the universities.

When I graduated from Valpo in 1990,

1994,

December of 1994,

The president of the university called everybody's name to the stage to get their diploma,

And then he didn't call me.

And I thought,

Surely they have found me out.

I didn't realize I really don't belong here.

I'm really not graduating.

And then he says,

Hey,

There's a gentleman that I need to introduce you to.

He's the first person in the history of this university to earn both his master's and his doctorate degrees,

Juris Doctorate,

At the same time.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Let me introduce you to Nathaniel Turner.

So he calls me up to the stage.

So yeah,

The university had never seen anybody do that either.

That's,

Oh my God,

Just like completely shocked right now.

Wow.

Um,

Wow.

Oh my gosh.

I mean,

Yeah,

I was going to say,

You probably are excellent dinner party conversationists.

I'm something.

I'd love to ask you the main question of the podcast.

I mean,

Frankly,

I just,

I don't know.

I think people's lives are so fascinating.

I think we all have multiple stories inside of us,

Whether it's the dreams that we have or the life experiences that we have.

But certainly,

You know,

You modeled a way of life for other people,

Just by everyone that you touched,

Everyone that you knew,

Everyone you came into contact with,

With your singular experience,

You know,

Let alone your educational experience,

But growing up in this interesting and intriguing household with these different methods of interpreting the world.

And then this legacy,

Right,

Of your name,

The legacy of your name,

And the expectations in the community around the legacy of your name and in you.

I mean,

All of those are stories that you are now living out into the world.

And they're all actually beautiful.

And you're embodying them in ways that are pretty profound and also generous.

You know,

The way you responded to your son was with such generosity of spirit.

We need more of that,

Frankly.

I'm just,

I feel like I'm going to leave this conversation and just be thinking about this the rest of the day,

And I'm not going to be able to let it go.

Well,

If you ever have more questions,

You know where to find me.

I'm happy to answer them.

Well,

I'd love for you to share,

You know,

One story,

Two stories,

Can be more than one story of a time or an event,

Something that's happened where you could have witnessed it,

Or it happened to you,

Of something magical,

Miraculous,

Or mysterious.

Magical,

Miraculous,

Or mysterious.

Yes.

Magical.

Watching my son be born.

Mysterious every day.

I don't know what the day is going to hold.

Today,

People talk about,

I wrote this recently that,

You know,

Yesterday's history,

Tomorrow's a mystery.

But truly,

Today's a mystery.

If we can do this,

And I shared this with my wife earlier,

Which I find it interesting that you're asking this.

If we can understand that both yesterday and today are homes that are inside these very tall privacy gates,

And that once we,

Once yesterday is gone,

We have no right to look back into the gate of yesterday.

And once we're in today,

We have no right to look into the gate of tomorrow.

So that,

The mystery is today.

What can I do with today to be better today than I was yesterday?

Perhaps better today than I was at any point in time in my life.

That's,

So you said mystery,

Magic.

Yeah,

I said magical,

Miraculous,

Or mysterious.

Magical,

Miraculous,

Or mysterious.

And I would say miraculous.

Have I answered that part yet?

Miraculous is just that I'm here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That I'm here.

That people,

I would say that miraculous is,

Oh,

That's even better.

Miraculous is that in 1981,

In the spring of 1981,

Five families,

Five people decided to love me for no good reason.

And each of them in their own way told me that I could do more with my life.

In fact,

They paired it what my son would later pair it to me when he was at the same age.

When I was 16,

Five people told me,

Nate,

You can do more with your life.

I just met with my high school guidance counselor in the spring of my sophomore year.

And he asked,

You know,

What do you want to do?

And I,

Well,

I want to go to college.

My friends are going to college.

And he says to me,

You're not college material.

The best you can hope to do,

Nate,

Is join the military.

He wasn't saying I could be an officer or a gentleman.

He said,

You know,

I could be a grunt.

He didn't even think that I was good enough to work in the steel mill,

Which would have been perhaps a preferable choice.

Now,

What he didn't know was that my father had given me three things that I could do.

Three things he said you must do.

In two years,

There are three things you must do.

And I was like,

What happens in two years?

He says,

Well,

In two years,

You'll finish high school.

And in two years,

You have to,

One,

Get out my house and get a job.

Two,

You could go to the service,

But I forbid you from going to the service.

I was there and you will not do that.

And three,

You could go to college.

And I was a C student at best.

And I was like,

How am I going to go to college?

So now I tell my high school guidance counselor that I want to go to college.

And he tells me that the only of the two options that seemed plausible to me,

Because moving out and not having my mom being around my mother,

Right,

And working full time,

Like,

Well,

This is not,

I've been working since I was 10.

This is an overrated experience.

I would like to do something,

Something else.

This is overrated.

Trust me,

I could tell you some stories about that.

Um,

So I was like,

Okay,

What am I supposed to do?

And five people,

Uh,

Frank McKinney,

Grant Turner,

Charlene Turner,

James Kimbrough,

And,

And,

Uh,

Faye Kimbrough told me that I essentially told me I could do more with my life and gave me what I call today a little bit of what we,

What I frame as the starting five.

They gave me five people to help me point my life and guard my life and put me in the right direction.

Wow.

Okay.

I am like,

I know you said I can't go into the gate of the past or look over the gate of the past,

But I'm a little annoyed with that guidance counselor.

That is awful.

It is,

It is.

But,

But,

Uh,

I heard Stephen Colbert or something,

Say something very profound.

And when asked,

When he's asking about his,

His,

His life,

Cause he's had some things happen in his life that are very traumatic.

And he said,

I've had to learn to love the things I wish had not happened.

And I could not,

I,

I can't,

I can't say anything more profound than that.

That is,

That is life.

You have to learn to love.

If the guidance counselor had not told me that I was not college material,

He wouldn't have lit a fire up under my behind to stop getting C's.

It is no coincidence that my father decided to tell me something similarly at the same point.

And the,

The only of the options that I had that seemed plausible to me was the very one that the guidance counselor said I couldn't do.

Right.

It doesn't,

Like,

There's no coincidence that these five families,

These five people decided.

And then when I say like,

Embrace me as their own,

I mean,

One of the people came to see my mother.

It was my childhood was filled with what the CD calls,

CDC calls adverse child experiences.

I have eight of those 10 experiences.

And he came to my mother and said,

Listen,

If you all don't want him,

I'll take him.

I love him.

I'll take him.

His name was Frank,

Frank McKinney,

Uncle Frank.

So,

And then there's Charlene and Grant that because their last name was Turner and their daughter was my high school classmate,

People thought she and I were brothers and sisters.

So her mother was,

Was the business school teacher.

So I got to know her mother because,

You know,

We would walk upstairs and she'd introduced her to her mother.

Eventually she just went along with it and she became my mother.

And so then she would invite me to the house.

It's just Michelle's brother.

And I met her father,

Grant,

And he would accept me as his son.

And then they would introduce me to their huge family.

So suddenly I had this huge family that,

That was connected and loved each other in a way that wasn't happening in my own home.

And then my friend,

James' father was Judge Kimbrough.

He was the most respected person in the community.

He's a guy that was at one time being considered for a federal appointment.

And he looked at me one afternoon at their home and he says,

Nate,

What are you going to do?

And I said,

I don't know.

I'm going to be a basketball player.

And he,

Matter of fact,

He's about five foot seven.

He just kind of looked at me and he said,

Hmm,

Yeah,

I don't,

I don't like,

I don't think so.

And I said,

Well,

Judge Kimbrough,

How did you become a judge?

And he told me,

He said,

And he said,

This is just like this.

I attended Fisk University and I attended John Marshall Law School.

And in those,

In that,

Those few words,

He'd said to me everything I needed to know.

He said,

Nate,

You just got to get to one college and you need to do well enough.

And then you go to law school because he was the person that I'm,

I professionally,

I'm most respected.

So he's the reason in some respects that I became a lawyer.

And his wife,

Faye,

Was,

Was our math or geometry teacher.

And so when I needed extra help with math,

I could ask her for help.

But if it hadn't been for those five people,

I would,

I would not have,

I would not be having this conversation with you today.

So if I look back in the past,

I look back in the past with joy and,

And gratitude and mercy and grace.

I'm thankful that the counselor said what he said,

Because he was perhaps what I needed at the moment,

Right?

I feel sorry for other students who he may have said that to,

That didn't get those five people who loved them for no reason,

Without question.

But for me,

I don't know how I'm holding the ill will.

And then it makes for a great story,

Right?

It makes it,

Now I get to tell people,

Hey,

I had this guy named Mr.

Tunk and he told me what I couldn't be.

Oh,

By the way,

He has two sons that became engineers.

And I raised one engineer who had more engineering education proficiency than they ever could imagine.

So it makes for a great story.

It does.

It does.

And I just think about,

I mean,

It just talks about community and support and those five people seeing you deeply and knowing that you are possible of more.

It's like they were these little angels in your life.

Absolutely.

Yeah,

That kept the hope alive or helped you to dream bigger,

I guess.

Absolutely.

And one of the saddest parts of this story is that none of them ever saw me become me.

Uncle Frank died,

I want to say my freshman year in college.

Oh.

Judge Kimbrough passed,

I believe,

My sophomore year.

He was in a car accident.

Grant,

I think he saw me graduate from college,

But he had cancer.

So he died from cancer before I could finish law school.

Charlene is still living.

So she's Grant's wife.

I still see her.

And then Faye,

Mrs.

Kimbrough,

She died four or five years ago.

So,

Yeah.

But so I tell everyone,

I mean,

That they're responsible.

I could tell people about my family and that's fine.

But the whole idea that when people say it takes a village to raise a child,

Like it could not be any more true in my life as an example than in any life,

That if it wasn't for that village of people.

And again,

That's and I think that that's part of what Gary gave me that I don't know if I could have gotten from anywhere else.

And that's a wrap on my conversation with Nathaniel Turner.

There's a really delightful Easter egg after the end of the outro,

Where Nathaniel talks about how he met his wife.

It's a really funny story.

It's really charming.

And yeah,

Let's just say that I am two thumbs up for spicy women.

I think they make this world a more splendid place.

I need to thank him for appearing on the podcast and being a wonderful human being in general,

And also being willing to just laugh with me and have a really great and deep conversation.

I want to thank each and every one of you for listening to this podcast.

I think especially in these times,

Which appear so very dark,

It's important to have touchstones like this podcast that you can go back and say,

Oh,

Yeah,

Remember that magical moment?

Oh,

Yeah.

Remember that miracle?

Because those are the kinds of memories and listenings that we need right now to remind ourselves that even in the darkest of nights,

There is a glimmer of light always.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Nathaniel.

Hold those you love lightly.

I know each of us has people in their lives that they want to see succeed,

That they want to see go out into the world and make it a more beautiful place.

I think it's really hard if you have kids to let them go and trust that the universe is going to carry them.

But Nathaniel absolutely believes in the goodness of the world,

Absolutely believes in the intelligence and goodness in his son,

And is there to lift his son up.

You don't even necessarily have to be related to the people that you lift up.

But I think we're here,

Each and every one of us,

To be of service to others,

To advocate for others,

To lift other people up,

To have their backs.

And we need that more than ever.

Now,

In this new strange reality we're living in,

We need to have each other's backs.

We need to be there for each other.

Because when a tally is made of history,

These days and those who stood up for each other are going to be marked and noted and set down in the history books.

So have each other's backs.

Be there for each other,

Just like Nathaniel.

And I'll see you next week for the very next episode of the podcast.

And until then,

Know that I'm holding each and every one of you in my heart and praying for better days.

Thank you.

Nathaniel,

I'm just like,

This whole conversation has just been so amazing.

I'm just like,

Yes,

I'm supposed to go and work out after this.

And I'm like,

Already envisioning myself on the treadmill being like,

I need to think about this whole conversation for this whole hour.

Because I just,

There are so many.

First of all,

Thank you for sharing.

This might be my pleasure.

Thank you for listening and for holding space for me.

Well,

I think you're a gorgeous reminder,

Right?

Because Nat Turner,

The historical Nat Turner,

He wouldn't have been successful if it wasn't for his community.

You know,

Of course,

He was a minister.

He was a man of words.

He had a charismatic presence.

And he had a vision.

He was gifted a vision from source.

And so he had the strength and the intention to go forward and bring that vision to the people,

Let them know.

And then they rallied around him.

And here you are.

You're also Nat Turner,

Nathaniel Turner.

And you have your own community that rallies around you.

It's like we believe in you.

And we want you to bring beauty to other people.

We see you.

We see who you are.

And there's a really interesting parallel there of people seeing each other,

Being able to witness for each other and show up for each other and then lifting each other up.

Because I think that's what we're all called to do is whatever way we can in this world is to lift other people up.

And I just.

.

.

I mean,

You've just.

.

.

My brain is like,

I don't know.

I don't know what the rest of the day looks like.

I'm not sure what's happening right now.

Hopefully,

The rest of the day is going to be good.

Again,

Yeah.

No,

I get to talk to you.

You're wonderful conversations.

It's not like the interview.

You do really feel like a new friend.

And we're trying to figure out what we know about each other.

I'm going to say this is going to sound kind of strange.

But when my wife hears this,

She'll attest to this.

This reminds me a great deal of the conversation that my wife and I had when we first met each other.

We,

January 8th of 1993,

We met for dinner.

I prepared dinner for her.

Long story short,

I was trying to woo her.

I'd met this young woman while she was working at Valparaiso,

While I was at Valparaiso.

And oddly enough,

She was there because I led the student protest.

And we shut down the school.

And the school decided it may have to make some changes.

And they needed to hire some more faculty and staff who were women and people of color,

Et cetera.

And she was one of the people that got hired.

So she oftentimes teases me about when I'm complaining about something.

I say,

You know,

It's my complaint.

It got you to me.

So a good friend of ours,

Her name is Monique Bernuti.

Monique says,

Nate,

You have to meet Tanya.

She's the new person.

She's working in the Office of Admissions.

I said,

I don't want to meet anybody.

I don't want to meet anybody.

I just got a terrible relationship.

I don't want to meet anybody.

She says,

Nate,

I'm telling you,

You got to meet her.

So she introduced me to her.

I'm inviting a group of people to dinner.

And she's in a room.

And I invite her.

And she says,

I have plans already.

I said,

Well,

Fine.

Like,

Go ahead.

You're not that fine.

I don't,

Like,

Whatever.

So she shows up at the little restaurant.

And I say to her,

I don't know what you're doing here.

Because your offer expired.

So she orders.

And then I'm sitting in the car.

And Monique's sitting in the car.

And our windows are open.

And she says,

Nate,

What did you think of Tanya?

I said,

Like,

Whatever,

Monique.

She says,

Nate,

She's the one.

I said,

Like,

Get out of here.

I'm not trying to.

Look,

I'm barely making it through law school.

I got to.

Let me just.

She says,

Nate,

She's the one.

So I went home.

That's the 7th.

I go home.

And I wake up the next morning on the 8th.

It's a Friday.

And all I could keep hearing was,

She's the one.

She's the one.

She's the one.

She's the one.

So I put on my best little outfit for the day.

And I go on campus.

And I stop at this florist.

And I buy her a dozen roses.

And I get 11 red roses and one white rose.

And I write on this little card,

I have the feeling that you are as distinct from all of the other women I've ever known as this white rose is from the rest of the roses.

And I hand her the flowers.

And she looks at me like,

How many times have you tried this line on somebody?

And I was like,

Oh,

Maybe she is the one.

Maybe she is the one.

So I said,

Look,

I'd like to invite you to dinner.

And she says,

I don't know.

How about you come out here?

And you can come to my place.

And so we went grocery shopping.

And I bought stuff.

And I made dinner for her.

Essentially,

We talked all night.

And we told each other the absolute truth,

The worst of the worst about ourselves.

And 13,

14 hours later,

It's 9 AM in the morning.

She and I are still sitting on opposite sides of the couch.

And I look at her.

And I say,

You know what?

I think I could marry you.

And she looks at me.

And she says,

You know,

I think I could marry you.

And two weeks later,

I buy her an engagement ring.

And six months later,

We were married.

So your conversational style reminded me of that.

Oh,

My god.

What a huge honor.

I have to say that I like,

You know,

I started this off by saying it was going to be a spicy conversation.

But I do,

I want to just say that I love the way she sounds spicy.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No,

I tell people all the time.

She really doesn't care that much.

She loves me.

She really doesn't care that much about me.

I'm really not that big of a deal.

She'll tell you I'm a big deal out in public.

But at home,

I'm really not that big of a deal.