Clifton Taulbert was born in Glen Allan, Mississippi. His first memoir, Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored, is the beautifully written story of his years growing up in the Delta. Its sequel, The Last Train North, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. It was followed by Watching Our Crops Come In.

Taulbert has also written the delightful picture books Little Cliff and the Porch People, Little Cliff's First Day of School, and Little Cliff and the Cold Place. American soldiers stationed in Iraq have read from these books to Iraqi children, and the books are popular presents from the soldiers.

In Eight Habits of the Heart, Taulbert presents timeless principles that can be used to improve relationships and build community. Excerpts from it were included in The Corporation for National Service's 1997 Historical Presidents' Summit for America's Future. Eight Habits of the Heart for Educators and its accompanying Facilitator's Guide illustrate how these principles can create better school communities.

Taulbert founded the Building Community Institute to promote the ideals of community, and their clients have included the FBI, Ford, the U.S. Justice Department, Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and the Department of Defense.

Clifton Taulbert's life and work have brought him much acclaim. He has won an NAACP Image Award for Literature, a Mississippi Institute for Arts and Letters Award, and the National Jewish Medical and Research Humanitarian Award. He has been selected for the United States Air Force Enlisted Airmen Hall of Fame. Time listed him as one of America's outstanding black entrepreneurs.

The awards and accolades keep arriving because Taulbert's words and actions are from his heart. He has a remarkably genuine character, and others embrace it.

I recently met with Mr. Taulbert in his south Tulsa office and found that in person, he is as kind, thoughtful, gracious, and good-humored as his books had led me to believe.

By Emrys Moreau

EM: You are from Mississippi originally. You could live anywhere, so why here? Why Tulsa?

CT: I came to Tulsa specifically to complete my undergraduate education at Oral Roberts University, so that was my entr...e to Tulsa. Upon getting here and finishing school, I met my wife, who is from Arkansas. Over a period of years, Tulsa became very much like "home," and we chose to live here.

EM: Why had you chosen to attend Oral Roberts University?

CT: ORU is indicative of my faith, and I wanted to finish out those last two-and-a-half years in an environment that gave me an opportunity to look at that, to explore my faith, to see just where I stood and whether or not it was still meaningful to me. It was a very good decision on my part!

EM: Did attending ORU solidify your faith, then?

CT: Well, I think what it did was it gave me the idea that, though my faith is personal, it can be personalized in my commitment to reach out to help others and to live my life not just for myself. It really helped to validate what I thought and what I believed. It was not just "living in a church 24/7," but it was looking at how I could live a good life, a better life so that I could be a better citizen, and a better neighbor and a better friend.

EM: Your life and work are inspired by your faith, yet you aren't imposing about it.  

CT: No, because it's mine and it's very close to me. I embrace it whole-heartedly, but at the same time I am secure enough in it that I give everybody else the right to do as they please.

EM: Were any of your college teachers a profound influence on you?

CT: My college years were pretty fragmented. I started out at the University of Maine, then went to the University of Maryland and then finished my last years at Oral Roberts. Dr. Paul and Dr. Helen Inbody were my sociology teachers at ORU, and they probably had the greatest impact on me.

EM: Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored would be a perfect choice for Oprah's book club. Have you considered calling up Oprah and telling her, "I have this wonderful story..."?

CT: Well, I have been interviewed in the last week, and with two or three different sets of people, not only here but in Ohio, and that's the first question they asked, "Why has this not been...?" 

Maybe it's not enough pages. [Laughing] That could be it! It's a quick read, and maybe Oprah's books have to be a much longer read!

From the standpoint of giving people a better understanding about human kinship...  I think there's no better book to do that. It would be a great choice for Oprah, and I think people would be very pleased. Maybe one day.

EM: One film reviewer noted that although there are several movies about racial discrimination in the South, they really are about the white people. Yet Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored (as a movie and a book) focuses on the community of African Americans. Was that focus intentional, or just how the book turned out? 

CT: Writing that book was really, for lack of a better term, a "gift of my memories" that I thought would be for my family and a few friends. Suffice it to say, it ended up being an invitation to the world to look at the community where I grew up. And I think that from that perspective, since the movie was based upon the book, the movie reflected that as well. It gave the American public the opportunity to look behind the wall of segregation and into the homes and lives of African Americans in the South.

EM: Eight Habits of the Heart has been extremely well-received. Again, I don't know why this book hasn't been on Oprah. 

CT: It's the pages. If it was five-hundred pages ... But I want people to get to the point. I don't want them to spend fifteen hours reading it and then forget what I said.  I want to write a book that is small enough to have impact, be memorable, and be a call-to-action.

EM: Did you expect Eight Habits of the Heart to be such a success?

CT: I thought it was good. I thought it would be meaningful. But it has literally moved beyond my expectations. Sometimes I even ask myself, "Did I write that book?" It just lends itself to great conversation, great debate.

I was speaking in the St. Louis area and a judge there had read the book. He is a Missouri state judge, a graduate of Stanford University, a very bright man, and he said my little book, for him, was "a revolution in consciousness." Anytime someone has a revolution in consciousness that means they begin to think differently. And when you can start thinking differently, then you can act differently.

EM: You are passionate about building community. Many of us today already have so many responsibilities – work, school, family and friends. We don't have a strong connection with our neighbors because we're all too busy to know each other. What suggestions do you have for us? How do we start being involved in our community?

CT: I find it is absolutely essential that we become intentional about the process of building community. That means, that even though the circumstances may be dire, and we may not be able to get out and do some of the things we'd like to do, we need to stop and say, "Okay, it's not just about me."

A lot of what we do is driven by the fact that somehow we have the idea that it is about us. But it is about "us plus." I think when we understand that the "plus" includes our neighbors and friends, those we know and those we don't know, then we will find ways to live beyond our front door. We just have to be intentional about it.

EM: How do you stay organized with such a full schedule?

CT: I write notes on everything! Sometimes it can get a bit overwhelming, but we try to orchestrate it so things won't fall through the cracks. We have staff meetings very frequently. In Tulsa, we employ four people. We also have certified trainers all over the country who have offices in their respective cities. When we have major work to do, for states or the government, then this team comes together to make that happen.

EM: Has your son Marshall followed in your steps in any area? 

CT: Somewhat. Marshall is in L.A., and he is working in television production there, trying to find his way in that world. I think in some regard we have similar traits. Because he's doing several different things, at some point it will all come together and I will be able to see what I call "that great level of focus."

EM: What do you enjoy reading?

CT: I love biographies. I think it's so wonderful to read about the lives of others because you understand how fragile it is to be a human being, how hard it is to be a human being and how you screw up just by living. You read about other people who live, walk, and breathe just like you, and – in spite of their humaneness – they manage to do incredible things for humanity. It just gives me the idea that great things are expected of me, in spite of how little I think I have to offer. There are some things inside of all of us that we can give and share.

EM: A current news topic in this country is Barack Obama's campaign for presidency. What is your opinion of him?                                                                     

CT: Well, I don't have an opinion on him as a candidate, but the one thing I really like about him is his ability to stand-up about what he wants. He seems to be fearless in that pursuit. Oftentimes, being Americans of African descent, there are so many hurdles to overcome. To me, it is so refreshing to me to see a man stand, who seems to be standing without baggage.

EM: Do you think America is ready for an African American president?       

CT: I'm not sure. I think there are pockets of Americans that are. It's like two worlds, you have the African American who stands out because of position, be it entertainment, be it sports, religion, or whatever... But there are so many other African Americans who are doing incredible things in our country, such as heading major Fortune 500 companies, and the average person does not know that these people are involved in the making of America. So, in some degree, they're already running things! And we are benefiting; we just don't know it! I wonder if every American knew who held all the positions, if that would be a tremendous "Ah-ha." Would that be a shock? I don't know...

I know there are many Americans who recognize that skills and abilities and perspectives can be held by any people and can be translated into great service. But then I also know there are some Americans who don't look like me, who perhaps feel that intellect and abilities are more defined by external values such as a color, and perhaps even gender, for that matter. But I think we are maturing, and we're heading in the right direction, and I think that a Barack Obama conversation speeds that maturity process along.

EM: Also in the news recently were comments suggesting that Barack Obama is the first African American who some feel could get elected to the presidency. I know that in your book (Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored), you mentioned Jesse Jackson's campaign, and how important it was. Do you think these comments negate what Jackson did?

CT: I don't know... I think that there are two levels of passion. You know, there's the passion of being an African American, and I think there's the passion of the American. I think that Barack Obama, probably in a wonderfully strange way, may be showing us the look of the "quintessential American."

EM: He has said that his family reunions are like a U.N. gathering.                    

CT: [Laughing] And that may be our greatest fear... that President Woodrow Wilson's U.N. would come live with us!

Family reunions should be "people reunions" and I think Barack Obama's family reunion is a "people reunion."

EM: You have accomplished so many great things in your life. You've spoken at the Library of Congress. You've taught at Harvard. You've been nominated for the Pulitzer. Is there any one accomplishment that means more to you than the rest?

CT: You know, I really don't think about it often. I think about the Iraqi War, because that's on a lot of our minds, and if you look behind you, you'll see a picture of an American soldier [with an Iraqi child] holding my book. That was something I had nothing to do with, knew nothing about. When I found that my writing had traveled that far, touching those lives, that was an incredible thing for me because that was a journey that just happened and I had a chance to see it.

There are moments that still astonish me, like that picture of me [also on Taulbert's office wall] with Sandra Day O'Connor and my wife and friends. Again, that was one of those situations where I had an incredible opportunity to address members of the United States Supreme Court. This is not something I would have even dreamed or thought of.

I remember speaking in Puerta de Limón in Costa Rica to a small Black Anglican church for my first time ever. People were sitting very close to me, and their eyes watched my every move. I remember one young man in particular who held my hand so tightly, with tears in his eyes and they said so much. I realized that we looked the same. We spoke a different language, but some of the same types of things I had encountered because of my color, so had he. I left him with the idea that there is a tomorrow. He needed to hear that, and he needed to hear that from someone who looked like him. He needed to know that tomorrow could be better.

I've had incredible moments...

EM: What are you working on now?

CT:  Well, I have a new book in New York right now and it hasn't been sold yet. It's my first historical fiction, called Memories of Summer. Summer is a mutt, a dog, and Summer tells the story of growing up on this incredible 19^th Century plantation that is still in existence today and is still operating. It's about all the people he encountered after being found on the floor of a general store and then brought to live in this palatial mansion. I have spent so many years around the dog, and he's such an incredible dog that I said, "Wow, this dog can talk!" And I said, "Gee, I'm going to write it, I'll make him talk!" So, I made my dog talk!

EM: So is this a book for young adults or adults?

CT: It's a family book. I know that oftentimes in New York, they get stuck with "adult," "young adult," or "preschooler." Well, there's a word that we should never forget and it's "family." It's a family book. It's a book that moms can read, dads can read, and they can read it to their children. I wrote it for the family, and that's hard to sell because people don't know that "family" exists. But this is for the family.

Email Emrys Moreau at emrysmoreau@yahoo.com