Editorial note: We will over the next few weeks continue to present full transcripts of all the presentations at the International Conference on Men’s Issues. Fred Jones was our fifth speaker on Day 1, on June 27 2014. All speakers can be seen in their entirety here. Our thanks again to Rick Westlake for doing the hard work on making these transcriptions.
Please note that Adam Serwer of MSNBC misled a national audience about this presentation, as he did with some other presenters. We have yet to see a retraction or an apology from Serwer or from his bosses at NBC Universal, to Jones or to the attendees he so hatefully smeared, or to the readers he lied to. We won’t hold our breath; dishonest spin rules the day in the corporate media world. Still, here’s Jones’ terrific speech. Our best wishes for his family, and our thanks to Dr. Jones for coming in as a last-minute replacement speaker for another who could not make it. Jones wowed us all with his message of enthusiasm and hope amidst pain and tragedy. –DE
(Carnell Smith, introducing Dr. Fred Jones.)
Dr. Fred Jones is a US Supreme Court attorney. In 2010, he was the personal attorney for his uncle, Otis McDonald, in a Second Amendment landmark case where there were more amicus briefs filed by US legislators in both parties—there had been more of them filed than in the history of the United States. Fred is the author of An Act of Bravery: Otis McDonald and the Second Amendment. However, Fred’s proudest moment is that he got custody of his two sons in his divorce and raised them to adulthood.
His driving force was to pursue custody, to be like his dad, that stayed married to his mom for 67 years.
And he is the publisher of Father’s Voice Publishing Company; the author of five books. The star book is About My Father’s Business: The Wisdom of Mose Jones. He dedicated it to his dad. He’s a speaker and a life-coach; he is the Professor of Law and Ethics for many years at Kennesaw State University; he is the Chair of the Division of Human Behavior; he’s the Chair of Quality Enhancement for Sachs; he teaches Criminal Law, Civil Law, and he is an Intellectual Property junkie.
And if you will help me welcome to the stage my dear friend, who will speak about “The DNA of a Champion: How to Win as a Father”—Dr. Fred Jones.
(Applause. Dr. Fred Jones takes the podium.)
Wow. That’s all I know to say is, Wow.
Paul, thank you for the opportunity to be here. Carnell, thank you. The way I got here is, my commitment was to Carnell. I was going to come and just carry his bags. That’s the truth! I came to help Carnell, you know, after we heard about the opposition and everything; and so I said, Man, you don’t need to go by yourself. I said, Let me go with you. So then, someone got hold of my résumé, and read my website, and decided that they wanted me to be here. I actually have notes somewhere…
Thank you … Men, I want you to do something for me. I want you to do it intentionally. I want you to take a moment and give yourselves a hand-clap—men and women, all together. Okay, let’s just give ourselves …
(Leads a round of applause.)
This journey is not easy and — but we can win. Go with me for a moment:
It was May 8th, 1991. I got up that morning, got ready to go to law school to take my Family Law final exam. Came home, after taking the final exam, and my wife at that time had packed up her stuff, and she was gone for a trip to New Orleans. And I didn’t know where she was, for the entire weekend. That was on a Friday. Sunday comes along, that’s Mother’s Day. We had two boys at the time, young boys, elementary and middle school, and the rest unfolds from there.
I want to talk to you about the DNA of a champion. The title is “How to Win as a Father,” but it’s how to win as men. When that thing unfolded, something just came to me; I knew about our system, in Louisiana and America; America leads the world for incarcerating — for incarceration, period. We lead the world for incarceration. And yeah—we’re number 17 on education! 17—but number 1 on incarceration. So I knew that those two boys, if they were going to have any—let me put it like I really felt it: if they were going to have a snowball’s chance in hell, I knew I needed to do something. And, sure enough, the wheels began moving.
How to win as a champ—how to win as a champion. I’m going to try to bring my “B” speech, today: I’m going to Be Sincere, Be Brief, and Be Seated. I’m going to try not to use all of this time that they’ve given me, okay? So, you all go ahead and loosen up a little bit, and then we’ll get this done!
So, here’s the problem: I knew the jail system—cultural bias, that’s what you put me down for, cultural bias. Come on. I have to dress up to go through Mississippi! And that ain’t no—that ain’t—that’s no joke—still! I mean, I wear a coat and tie, that’s my uniform, just regularly, all the time, you know. I need to look some, you know, because if I just go casual, they just, you know, that’s just—whatever, you know what I mean?
All right. Let me, let me—let me get going, all right, ’cause—We’ll do this now. [hand clap]
The problem: Custody. Divorce. I’ll make it real easy: I didn’t know what I was doing when the mom left, and the boys—the family didn’t make it. Now, I’m not blaming her, or none of that, okay? I’m done with all of that. She was a smart mother. She and I agreed, and she allowed me to rear the boys. From elementary and middle school, all the way to adulthood. And I had the privilege of raising my boys because I wanted to be like Daddy. And Dad—when, growing up as a boy … I remember one thing Daddy said; I remember a lot that Daddy said, but this is one: “I’ll go through fire for my children.”
Mose Jones classic. And he lived it! Fourteen of us, nine girls, five boys — all of us graduated from high school, eleven of us got a college education. Mom and Dad—Dad had an eighth-grade education, Mom had a third-grade education; so they completed high school all together. That’s twelve years.
(Applause.)
But I was in Atlanta, sitting at 832 Powells Ferry Road, trying to decide if Rose’s going to get the boys or if I’m going to get the boys. And she’d already said I could raise them. I was trying to make that decision. And I remember talking to a lawyer; and I was thinking, Do I follow my career now and let her have the boys, or do I get them? And I remember Jo Flemings, a lawyer; she said, “Fred, what are you going to do—just let your boys go? Or are you going to take them, or get them, or are you just going to let them go?” And sure enough, we agreed, and I got the boys.
There are three things I want you all to keep in mind—I’m just here to encourage everybody today:
Three things to keep in mind, for the DNA of a champion.
Number one: you’ve got to know your cause. Have a good cause. All the lawyers in here, you know, in order to bring a case you’ve got to have a cause of action. And every one of you are here because we’ve got a cause. And that cause is our family; that cause is our children. And that cause is what drives you. I’m reminded of a story: When the Israelites were fighting the Philistines, and David’s family was out there at battle—you remember that little story? He said, “Is there not a”—what? A cause, okay? The cause is what wakes us up in the morning; the cause is what puts us to sleep at night.
So, when I write books, I write books just for a hobby; it’s fun, I like to write them to tribute people—About My Father’s Business: The Wisdom of Mose Jones, that’s the first book I wrote. I wrote it so fast—actually, I wrote it about three years. It took a while to get it all together. But to get it printed—my whole family was coming to Atlanta, and the person I was working with hadn’t done anything with the material that I’d given them. And two weeks before my fourteen siblings and Mom and Dad come to Atlanta, I had nothing to present! And I founded this online company, and I learned publishing in 2006.
Okay—I had a cause. You follow what I’m saying? I had something to drive me. Okay? The cause! The cause is key.
Number two: Courage. Now, I know we hear all about courage, be strong, have a good courage, courage, courage, okay? I’m going to turn to 2010 now, when I went to the United States Supreme Court. Otis McDonald, anybody heard that name? Really? Okay, a few, a few. Otis McDonald, any gun-rights—all your gun-rights people know Otis McDonald, okay? Chicago and the whole nine yards. Uncle Otis used to have a saying. I went just to help him, I’m a helper. Otis had a saying; his saying was, “If you haven’t found something you would die for, you have not yet lived.” (Enthusiastic applause.)
So—for me, my family’s worth dying for. I heard one of the speakers say, You take away a man’s family, and everything else about him is just—down. I want to encourage you, those of you who are in the trenches going through legal stuff: Keep the courage! You follow me? Just stay there, keep the courage. And that’s what I did, in rearing the boys, okay? And then I made the comment about Dad saying if you hadn’t found something—Dad saying he would go through fire for his children.
Now, me, my story of raising my two boys, it wasn’t easy. I mean, when I went through my divorce in Louisiana, I moved to Atlanta, Georgia. Well, I didn’t have any family in Atlanta. I had nobody to help me, nobody to support me. And I had never prayed and looked for resources so hard. And then one of my cousins came and stayed with me for a couple of months, in Atlanta, in Marietta, and that’s when I kind of got my feet moving under me, and we and the boys—we survived. It was some tough years, but we survived.
But the thing I enjoy about it, right now, is, one of my favorite Twitter followers is who? One of my sons, you see? And one of my other ones, he’s a creative, gifted type; he’s still working on his story. You follow what I’m saying? Yeah, he’s still working on it. He’s still pulling it together. I’ve been with him—and, ah, you know, the thing about that one, and I’ll just kind of keep my—I know we’ve got videos and cameras, so I’ll just keep it like “that one” and talk about the two in general, because none of this is private … I’m a lawyer now, I realize that everything is pretty much public.
But I remember the darkest day in that one’s life was when he went to jail down in New Orleans. And I’m like, Lord have mercy, New Orleans jail—anybody know anything about New Orleans jails? I mean, some of the worst in the world. You don’t want to go to jail in New Orleans, okay? And then I’m up in Ohio someplace and I got a phone call from one of the other persons in the jail, telling me about my son, saying that he needed help and they’re picking on him—you’d have to know this one, he’s kind of small and kind of cute and good-looking, you know what I mean? You know what they do with—okay, hello.
(Nervous, uncomfortable laughs.)
I didn’t sleep well that night. But finally I figured, You know, I’d have to kind of let him go … but I made my way to New Orleans, and they got him moved, to make a long story short.
But the thing about that son is, he … I found out at one point that he was … what do you call it, bipolar? And, man oh man, you know, that was the ride. That was the ride. I mean, just going through all of that with him, and hanging in there with him, and I’m glad to say I haven’t heard any bad news here lately. You follow what I’m saying? He’s still staying positive, and I’m very thankful for that.
(Loud applause)
So—an act of bravery. And that’s courage, right here. Family, right here, was the cause. Courage, right there. Family is also a big cause for me, as I said earlier—family and friends united. I got all fourteen of my sisters and brothers to come together with me, and ride to Atlanta, Georgia, last year to produce a CD of songs and stories about our mom and dad. We sit around and tell jokes. And I did all of that without a contract, without a fight, and—of course, I had to pay for it all, but it’s my product. But we all did it together. Isn’t that phenomenal? Fourteen sisters and brothers came together to do that. Okay?
Now, I want to close by talking about my final point: it is commitment. Okay? Staying committed. This kind of movement here, we need to all stay committed, okay? I want to encourage you all to dig in deeper than ever—Matter of fact, I go to a lot of events and stuff, and I do stuff—I’m a pioneer, I do stuff by myself the first time; I don’t wait for permission or nothing. And I have a lot of admiration in my heart for anybody that puts something together for the first time. Hello, somebody!
(Loud Applause.)
Come on, come on, do a little better than that! Come on!
(Louder applause)
Okay, my time is probably up.
Because people generally are negative, and they’re critical, they all want to complain and whine—just be positive and be thankful! Amen!
(Applause)
And the woman who saved my life when I was a little boy, Mabel Thomas, she said, “Fred Jones, you’re an embarrassment to the Jones family name.” (Laughs) That’s when I was in eighth grade. I wrote a book on her because it changed my life when she told me that. Okay?
So, the DNA of a champion is: you’ve got to have a good cause, you’ve got to keep the courage, and you’ve got to stay committed to your goal, to your passion. And to this day, I’m excited about my two boys—one of them, the one in Texas, has a “No Complain Campaign,” you know, no-complain campaign. And he’s all over Facebook and everything: “No Complain Campaign.” He wants to keep it positive.
If any of you all want to stay in touch with me, I’m on Twitter at FredJonesSpeaks. You can find me on Facebook at Fred Jones Speaks as well. I just want to commend you all and tell you to keep the faith, keep on doing what you’re doing. This is an awesome work, and I pray God’s blessings upon it for a long time.
