Cathy Hughes: 0:01

When Ancestry. co m first presented my story to me that had I known I probably would have run for public office. I might have been president by now, because the women in my family, they just think it up and do it.

Crista Cowan: 0:19

Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present and future. I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist. I've spent my whole life discovering the power of family history and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything. My guest today is Miss Cathy Hughes. Cathy founded Radio One, which became Urban One, and when that company went public back in the late 1990s, she became the first African American woman to head a publicly traded corporation.

Crista Cowan: 1:09

We met Ms Hughes when we filmed a project with Ancestry called As We Climb, and one of the things that you'll hear as you listen to her story is that she is a woman with so much tenacity and drive and commitment, and she credits a lot of that to the women who came before her. One of those women that you're going to hear about is her great-great-grandmother, Charlotte Pyles, who was enslaved, and with a woman who inherited her, she was able to escape slavery with her family. Frances Gordon was the white woman that helped Charlotta, and the two of those women leave a legacy that is so impressive and a story that is absolutely worth listening to. I'm excited to meet you and to get to know you a little bit. So tell me, please, what you knew about your family history growing up like what? What stories you'd heard?

Cathy Hughes: 2:08

well, number one, um. I spent summers and then a couple years in school at piney woods uh, country life school as it was called then in Piney Woods, Mississippi, and from the age of probably seven or eight until I was 14, I was was a tour guide. We had what they called the visitors group and buses. Tons, tons, tons of people, lots and lots and lots of folks came by bus to Piney Woods. By the time I had reached my teen years, I was the head tour guide and so I knew a lot because the whole tour guide had to, as I took them around the campus and showed them the academic classrooms and the dormitories and the various buildings on campus.

Cathy Hughes: 2:58

That was just an example of what we were actually saying about the history of the school, and so from about the age of eight or nine, I've been acutely aware of the history of my grandfather's side. Now the interesting thing is I knew very little about Grace, who's a descendant of Charlotta. I knew very little other than that she was married to my grandfather. So you know, it's interesting as I look back in retrospect it's not just people of color who are left out of history, but particularly women of color, because I was shocked when Ancestry told me about a more exciting story than what I had been, you know, taught to repeat. Okay, since early childhood, the story that should have been told as we took visitors around the campus at Piney Woods was the story of grace. And because of what you all found out, the ancestry story resonates more closely I guess would be the best terminology for me because it's the legacy of women who were fearless women who were willing to risk their lives to accomplish their goals.

Cathy Hughes: 4:22

And certainly that story is true also of my grandfather, dr Lawrence C Jones, who founded Piney Woods. But things haven't really improved for women of color at the same level that things have improved for men of color.

Crista Cowan: 4:40

Yeah, well said. So tell me, or tell us all just a little bit about is this on your mother's side or your father's side of the family tree?

Cathy Hughes: 4:49

This is my mother, Helen Jones, which is my mother's side of the tree.

Crista Cowan: 4:54

Okay, and so Helen's father then was Lawrence, and Lawrence was married to Grace. Did I have that right?

Cathy Hughes: 5:01

You have that exactly correct, okay. And as I said, they always told but because of ancestry, I even start talking more about my mother and her incredible career participated in the theft and conspiracy of taking the school's marching band from Piney Woods because my grandfather would only allow them to do Negro spirituals, as they were called, and march songs, anthems, and they wanted to play what the music of that day was called swing. Swing was a forerunner to jazz. They wanted to play swing, they wanted to be jazz musicians, and so the music director realized that she had a particularly talented group of women at the school in the marching band, and one night they decided that they would abscond and leave and took the tour bus with them.

Cathy Hughes: 6:08

Some music history gives my grandfather credit for having constructed the very first tour bus in the entire music industry. Because he had all these girl musicians who could not stay in hotels and because it was so many of them, it was kind of wearing out your welcome to expect people to house large numbers, and he wanted to keep them together. So he took an old bus like a Greyhound bus and gutted it and then built bunk beds three levels high, and the girls not only slept on the bus, but they also did all the rehearsals. And so Charlotta's story prompted me to start telling more about my mother's story, because it's my mother's side of the family that had been ignored for all of those decades and decades and centuries actually.

Crista Cowan: 7:03

Yeah, wow, that's amazing. What instrument did your mom play? Trombone.

Cathy Hughes: 7:20

Okay, had miscalculated her delivery date. So she ended up being there for several weeks and, after I was born, came back and settled down in Omaha and applied to the Omaha Symphony and in fact became first chair for the Omaha Symphony. And the tragedy of it was, she was so excited because here she had had this whole career, traveling Europe, being a member of an 18 piece, all women's orchestra and so, but to be, you know, first chair in a classical, you know, symphony, symphonic orchestra was just, you know, her dream come true, recognition of her talent. Well, there was a bad snowstorm in Omaha and my father came to pick her up and they realized that my mother was not white. She hit back in those days they did not have a race on the applications, they just she auditioned, she got the job and they fired her that next morning because, you know, he showed up saying you know, it's a bad snowstorm.

Cathy Hughes: 8:26

I came to pick up my wife and I'm sure they stayed up all night long, okay, worrying about who was going to be the first one to tell her in the morning.

Cathy Hughes: 8:35

It's interesting because when my mother died, that story came out and the current director of the Omaha Symphony called me and apologized on behalf of his ancestors who had done that terrible service to my mother, and invited me the next time I came to Omaha to please come by, because they would like to do a special tribute to my mother's band. They were called by many the first freedom riders, because here they were, 18 women strong on a bus, a converted bus traveling the segregated South, and four of the women in the band were in fact white, and it was so interesting because they would put on makeup to darken themselves up. It was my mother and two other women who what they call pass could pass for white, who would get arrested. So once they got them down to the station and realized that they had brought in the African Americans because they knew there were white girls somewhere in this band, because they saw flyers and other things. But they kept arresting the light-conflected African-American women my mother was one of whom and the white girls would get away scot-free with makeup.

Crista Cowan: 9:58

Wow, that is an incredible story all the way around. It sounds like you are who you are because of your mother, in large part.

Cathy Hughes: 10:09

So then she yeah, I'm sorry, not just my mother but Charlotta. I said when Answerscom first presented my story to me that had I known, I probably would have run for public office. I might have been president by now. Because the women at my family they just think it up and do it All right. They can imagine greatness.

Cathy Hughes: 10:47

And when I was a youngster I was educated throughout my entire life in a Catholic environment, catholic schools. The nuns used to send notes home saying that I was suffering from delusions of grandeur, and I now know how wrong they always knew as I grew up and became, you know, involved in my career and my work. But that was sheer. Once I found out about Charlotta, I was like, please, you all had no idea who you had in your classroom for all those years, or you would have cultivated me. You could have gotten the star for turning out the first woman president of the United States. Because basically, like my mother and her whole lineage, if they could think it, if they could think it, they could believe it. And once they believed it they could achieve it.

Crista Cowan: 11:33

So Helen is your mother's name, correct, correct, and Grace is Helen's mother.

Cathy Hughes: 11:38

Yes.

Crista Cowan: 11:39

Do you have any stories about Grace? Anything you've learned about her over the years?

Cathy Hughes: 11:44

any stories about Grace, anything you've learned about her over the years. Well, as I was giving my youthful tours of the school, when we would talk about when we would get to the music department, the rehearsal halls, we would talk about the fact that the idea of a band and choirs came from Grace, because Grace had done this in Iowa. Because Grace had done this in Iowa, she had brought this idea with her when she married Dr Lauren C Jones. That it was a very effective, very productive fundraising element. And she's the one that really kind of is responsible for the various groups. There were quartets, there were, there was there were the Sweethearts of Rhythm, the women's orchestra, but the men also had an orchestra, because back then co-education was not a thing. Okay, and that all of that started with Grace.

Crista Cowan: 12:39

So then, grace is related to Charlotta. How Granddaughter Grace is Charlotta's's granddaughter? Had you ever heard of charlotta? No you did. You know no stories about her, no growing up.

Cathy Hughes: 12:53

I didn't even hear stories about grace. Okay, and that's what I'm saying here, these effective fundraising. I mean, piney woods is still open today. We have 150 students. Right now, as I'm speaking to you, she was the one that initiated the financial base that awarded and provided longevity for the school, and yet the only story that we were told was my grandfather.

Crista Cowan: 13:19

Was about her husband. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting how those stories of those women get obscured and they seem to take a backseat to the men in their lives sometimes.

Cathy Hughes: 13:29

Not only the backseat. I realized when Ancestry made their presentation to me that some of the things that my grandfather had gotten credit for all those years really belonged to Grace.

Crista Cowan: 13:40

Yeah, so tell me about, tell the story.

Cathy Hughes: 13:44

I want, I want to hear the story of Charlotta in your words, as if it was you telling it for the first time daughter of the slave owner did not believe in slavery, interestingly enough, and made her very clear to her father that if the plantation and the slaves were left to her, that she would do everything in her power to free them. And she had this incredible sisterhood bond with Charlotta. This incredible sisterhood bond with Charlotta so to the point where when the daddy died and the daughter the only daughter was in the will and possession of the plantation and the slaves, her brothers sued her. They tried to take her to court to kill the will, because they're like she's got to be crazy. How does she think we make our money? It's with these slaves. And she took Charlotta and her children and she incarcerated them for their safety until she was able to go to court. She won. The will was legally binding. Then she partnered with Charlotta to take the children and herself to freedom. She financed that trip. She used her resources to get them on the road to freedom.

Cathy Hughes: 15:20

And those type of stories again are not told. We have so many stories told about the cruelty of slavery. But God created everything in duality. So if there's a bad, there has to be a good. If there's an up, there has to be a down. If there's a right, there has to be a left. So I just wonder how many individuals like this daughter of the slave owner were really good people who really saw slavery as an abomination and risked their lives, security and life to help Shalana, challenged by her own family for not having her head screwed on right. Because how could you possibly want to take these slaves to freedom? And the interesting thing is, if you're really? I'm not real religious, but I'm very spiritual and I believe that God communicates with us all the time, but most of the time time we have our receiver turned off. You have to turn your receiver on to get the message.

Cathy Hughes: 16:28

I think it was probably predestined that they would end up in Iowa, although the incident, as it was explained to me was Francis was taken advantage by. The money was actually stolen by the person who was supposed to arrange passage and they ended up settling in Iowa. And then I think of Charlotte's daughter. The youngest was able to be placed with a Quaker family who educated her, and it was her daughter who became the first. Yes, it was the daughter, because it's third generation. By third generation, charlotte's offspring were not just college educated, they had advanced degrees in education, but the reality is it was almost a fast track for my family because of Charlotta. Charlotta, with no education, became an orator, spoke at some of the biggest you know they had I guess modern day terminology would be convention centers All right, she spoke on programs with Frederick Douglass.

Cathy Hughes: 17:35

She raised the money to again put her life in danger, going back to all right free. Back to all right free. Buy back the freedom of two sons-in-law, because she didn't want her grandchildren being reared without a dad. Now, if that's not progressive thinking but also fearlessness, what type of commitment does she have to her grandchildren that she would run the risk? She was a runaway slave. They probably had posters on her, okay. And the fact that certainly it had to be Kentucky. If her daughters had had babies by other slaves, okay, that's where they were enslaved was Kentucky. So she goes back to the state that's looking for her butt. Okay, with money, okay.

Crista Cowan: 18:21

Yeah, she's safe in Iowa with some of of her children, her grandchildren. She could have stayed there and just counted it as a loss, and she chose not to exactly that type of fearlessness is unparalleled.

Cathy Hughes: 18:36

I mean, it's that's favorite part of, because she gets part of the credit for getting her children out of slavery.

Crista Cowan: 18:47

Absolutely.

Cathy Hughes: 18:48

And the story of the fearlessness, the determination, the commitment, the compassion that the women who ultimately produced me. That story needs to be told as inspiration for other women. I think it's a story of inspiration and courage, history that needs to be told far and wide.

Crista Cowan: 19:11

Yeah, since I first heard, it has been inspiring to me, and I'm not even related to these women. You, as a descendant of Charlotta, how has your perspective changed, or what might have been different had you known this story growing up?

Cathy Hughes: 19:28

I think that all of us, at a certain stage in our lives, go through a period of insecurity. It usually occurs during the teen years, the younger teen years. Does he like me? Am I friends with her? You have some of these inherent insecurities that just come with age. But I had a lot of insecurities I think probably more than a lot of people because I had these dreams and goals that were being not only discouraged but actually characterized as something was wrong with me. How dare I? You know if I can just give a quick sidebar about my mother.

Cathy Hughes: 20:16

So, in order to build my company and you know, thank God, and I give all praises to my creator, we're the largest African American owned and operated communications company in the country when I was building it, when I only had the one radio station, I lost my house. My car was repossessed, I had to live in the radio station and I slept in a sleeping bag and I washed up in the public bathroom in the middle of the night, because radio starts at 6 am, that's the morning show. But my mother, in her care, in her love, begged me to give up that dream, begged me to go get a good government job, because at that time it was believed that the government never had layoffs, and my mother was part of the insecurity, because she and several people who were close to me told me that there was something mentally wrong with me, that I would never, ever be able to hold on to my radio station, that I would never, ever be able to grow it, that this was a field and as I sought counsel from the men because to this day you can count the women owners on one hand, and four of those were inherited from their daddy and they were the only child okay, but to actually build it, and when everybody you could, you know those nights when you can't sleep, you wonder if they were right. If I hadn't known about Charlotta, I would have told them oh, get out of the way, this train is coming through, I know, just because someone else has not accomplished this, but I know I may be the first, but I know I can get this done. So my whole life would have been lived, I think, sooner.

Cathy Hughes: 22:11

And it takes a certain boldnessness, a certain determination to follow your dreams. And I'm living testimony, I feel, to the greatness of god, because if you believe it, if you believe that that's what god intended for you to be and to do. It's going to happen. That's exactly what's going to happen, because that thought that is in your head. It was when your receiver was on and God said you know, you're going to be good in the communications industry. Just keep on sleeping on that floor. You won't be on that floor. This too shall pass away. You will not be having to, you know, cook on a hot plate for the rest of your life. You one day might even have a chef. Ok, but you can't give up, and I think that I encourage young people all the time.

Cathy Hughes: 23:04

Sometimes we have to keep our struggles to ourselves and I wonder sometimes, when I think about the combination of Charlotte and Frances, how much they kept to themselves. I wonder. You know, certainly you know the. The. You know the story is that she was vocal, that she told her daddy she was gonna free the slaves. All right, she did not want them, but but what went through her mind? That she would actually endanger herself by escorting them into freedom. That would have given me comfort on those nights when I couldn't sleep on that hard floor.

Crista Cowan: 23:46

Yeah, wow, and I wonder, if your mother had known that story, if she would have also approached her life differently and your life differently as well.

Cathy Hughes: 23:56

I think that if she had known, then I think that maybe her net would have been spread wider and broader. But if she in fact went through periods of insecurity and questioning of herself, we didn't know it.

Crista Cowan: 24:15

Yeah, yeah, and it's interesting how, as women, we keep those things sometimes close to the chest. We want the best for our children. Charlotte certainly wanted the best for her children, grace wanted the best for her children, your mother wanted the best for her children, and sometimes we don't always make the best choices in light of those desires, but it sounds like the women in your lineage have done that to the best of their ability and great things have come of that. Even if you are the great thing, it sounds like. And so I guess, if I was to ask you what you hope for the future, and so, I guess, if I was to ask you what you hope for the future, knowing what you know now about your family history, what would you say is your hope?

Cathy Hughes: 25:13

For my family. I am really encouraged with two very difficult as a single mama with just one son, but I feel now an obligation. So I have a handful of young women and some of them aren't so young. So I try to make up through mentorship, through example, through assistance with women who are not biologically mine but call me mama, and a lot of them have their own biological mamas and so they call me mama number two. But what I would like to do in my family is to share the strength, the vision, the opportunity that was afforded me with other women, particularly women of color. So the fact that I did not biologically have a daughter, I have vested in other daughters of other mothers and tried to help them, not only share in my story but share in my legacy.

Crista Cowan: 26:15

Ms Hughes, thank you so much for sharing your story, for allowing Charlotte's story to be shared. I appreciate your time. Thank you for being here.

Cathy Hughes: 26:24

I thank you all so very much. Because you opened my eyes. I now have an archival project going on in my company to keep the story alive, to document it. None of that would have occurred had it not been for Ancestry. com and I love the dot com that I always add to Ancestry because you opened my eyes to my history, to my family legacy, and now I'm trying to pay it and play it forward by documenting not just my story in the company but the story of so many individuals. It's so important when you know from whence you come. So I thank you all.