♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> The phenomenal Phylicia Rashad, next on "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Major funding for "The Chavis Chronicles" is provided by the following.

At Wells Fargo, diverse representation and perspectives, equity, and inclusion is critical to meeting the needs of our colleagues, customers, and communities.

We are focused on our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, both inside our company and in the communities where we live and work.

Together, we want to make a tangible difference in people's lives and in our communities.

Wells Fargo -- the bank of doing.

American Petroleum Institute.

Through API's Energy Excellence Program, our members are committed to accelerating safety, environmental, and sustainability progress throughout the natural-gas and oil industry around the world.

Learn more at api.org/apienergyexcellence.

Reynolds American, dedicated to building a better tomorrow for our employees and communities.

Reynolds stands against racism and discrimination in all forms and is committed to building a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

At AARP, we are committed to ensuring your money, health, and happiness live as long as you do.

♪♪ ♪♪ >> We are so honored to have the legendary Phylicia Rashad.

Thank you for joining "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Thank you.

>> Listen -- I want to get right into it.

You were born in Houston?

>> Yes.

>> And you were born into a family that was achievers.

Tell us about your social upbringing.

>> Well, let's see.

My father, Dr. Andrew A. Allen, was a dentist.

My mother, Vivian Ayers, is a poet.

This year, we celebrated her centennial birthday, and part of that celebration involved the republishing of a book that was published in 1957.

This was her second publication, entitled "Hawk."

It's a long-form poem about freedom.

It's an allegory of freedom, which parallels space flight.

And the interesting thing -- well, one of the interesting things about this long-form poem -- is that it was published.

It was released 11 weeks before the launch of Sputnik 1.

Some 20-odd years later, this book was photographed, pages were photographed, enlarged, and hung in Space Center, the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, because when astronauts did go, their reactions were as if they had quoted the book.

It's really inner space that she traversed, but... >> And so, this was first published in 1967.

>> 1957.

>> 1957.

>> Uh-huh.

>> That's really early.

>> And now -- yeah, well, my mama's like that.

And now it's republished by Clemson University Press.

>> Tell us about the rest of the family.

>> My father's father, Lloyd Allen, was the first African-American fireman on the South Pacific Railway.

He met my grandmother, Goldie Matilda Jackson, in Lobdell, Louisiana, on the farm that she had been living on.

They owned a lot of land in that time.

They had ten children, nine of whom survived, and my grandfather wanted his children to be educated.

So, he moved them from that farming community to Houston, Texas.

And somehow he made provision for all nine of his children to have a college education if they wanted it.

That's my father's side.

My mother's side -- well, this is Chester, South Carolina.

They are a tradition of people who came through Brainerd Institute, which was one of those schools founded by the Presbyterian during the Freedmen's Bureau era, yes?

Her grandparents attended.

Her parents attended.

It closed on my mother's graduation day.

She said you'd have thought someone had died because of what that school meant to that community.

There was a chemistry lab.

There was instruction in foreign language, math, science, literature, music.

It was the heart of that community.

Education was always important.

And education, truthfully speaking, was important for that generation of people.

That was the generation that sucked it up, you know?

>> They knew the importance of getting an education.

>> Well, they did, they did, and they relished in it.

My mother once told me -- and I know that this is true for a fact -- that there was only one thing she was ever afraid of, and that was being ignorant.

She wasn't afraid of anything else.

>> Well, you have great grandparents, great parents, and your whole family legacy is so prolific in various fields.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> When did you yourself, Phylicia, start to not acquire talent in the entertainment industry but know that it was going to be one of your paths?

>> When I was 11 years old.

>> That's early.

>> You know, beauty means so much to young girls.

And my mother was very beautiful and my father very handsome.

And my sister was cute as a button.

And all the girls ran after my brother.

And when I looked in the mirror, all I could think was, "God must have been on a lunch break when I was born," because I didn't think I was beautiful at all.

And I wanted to be beautiful because I wanted to be like my mother because she was so beautiful.

But I had a voice, this, and my mother insisted on good speech, and my teachers appreciated it.

So, when I was 11 years old, I was selected to be the mistress of ceremonies for a musical program that involved all of the schools in our community.

And the teachers rehearsed me early in the morning, and they'd rehearse me again after school.

That went on for a month.

So, when time came for the program, I knew the script by heart, and even though I held it in my hands, I didn't have to read it because I knew it by heart.

And I stood there in the largest hall in Houston, Texas, at that time, in a spotlight for the first time that was so bright I couldn't see anything else.

So, I talked to the light.

And I just talked to the light.

Every time I got up, I just talked to the light.

And when it was finished, when the program was over and mothers were collecting their children, I heard two of them say, "Oh, there she is.

There's the little girl who spoke so beautifully.

Isn't she beautiful?"

And I thought, "Ah, that's it.

When I grow up, I'll be an actress.

I'll play in the light and be beautiful all the time."

But what I didn't understand, it would take some time for me to realize, it had nothing to do with the way I was looking, with the dress that I was wearing or the way my hair was arranged.

It was communication from the heart.

That's why I became an actress.

>> Communication from the heart.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> Well, your childhood dream and aspiration certainly has come true, more than true, over and over again.

So, I read that your family left Texas and wound up in Mexico?

>> My mother took us to live in Mexico for what turned out to be a semester.

She meant for it to be forever, but my father wasn't having it.

But yes, that was my mother.

My mother knew that there -- this was a time during legal segregation.

>> Yes.

>> You know, and my mother -- >> Texas, all over, whole South was segregated.

>> The whole -- the country.

>> Yes.

>> The whole country, right.

And my mother's creative spirit and her mind was beyond these boundaries.

And she saw no reason why her children should be subjected to this, this form of ignorance that was so debilitating for an entire nation.

So, she got it in her heart and mind one day, because she had been to Mexico, that that's where we should go.

She packed up all our things, and not only would we go, we would go on the Greyhound bus, and we would go on the bus so we would be with the people and experience the sights and the sounds and the culture, and we would live among the people.

We didn't speak a word of Spanish.

Didn't know a soul.

I was 13 years old.

Football season was coming up.

I was thinking, "This is ridiculous."

It was the best thing that ever happened.

It was great.

>> You learned how to speak Spanish?

>> Yes, but, more importantly, I learned I was a world citizen.

I learned about Mexican people, their history, their culture, their art.

The world is a big place.

But you won't know that if you don't travel.

>> When you leave Mexico and come back to the United States, where do you go?

>> I go to William E. Miller Junior High School, right back where I was coming from.

I was now in the eighth grade in the second semester.

I had spent a semester in school where core curriculum was taught in Spanish, and I didn't understand the language.

I had been a straight-A student in an academically advanced program, but I sat in a classroom for a semester not understanding the language in which those courses were being taught.

What happens when that happens?

What happens is oftentimes when people don't speak a language, people who do speak that language think that the others don't think.

They begin to look at you as if you're unintelligent.

And if you're a child, a young person, you can start to believe that about yourself because you can't engage.

When I returned to Houston, when I returned to school, surely enough, there were certain things I noticed about my reading skills.

They seem to have faltered because for a whole semester there was nothing for me to read.

It was all in Spanish, and I didn't speak Spanish.

So, that semester was probably the most challenging semester of my life in grade schools, junior high schools.

But then the next year I was a straight-A student again.

I was a straight-A student who had experienced something of another culture.

I was a straight-A student who had lived in a country where people were coming from all over the world, and I was exposed to that.

Chapultepec Palace was a playground.

Every Sunday we went to Ballet Hispánico and Palacio de Bellas Artes.

Oh, the world was big, and I was part of it.

And I was never going to forget that.

>> So, you had this global vision, which you still have today, seeing the whole world... >> Yeah.

>> ...and impacting the world.

You know, fast-forward.

You had such impact on Broadway.

You have such impact in the Hollywood circles.

Tell us about how you see the importance of arts and culture today, because in some school districts they're cutting out music.

They're cutting out art.

They're almost saying it may be irrelevant to the highly technical society that we live in.

So, can you just comment from your own background the importance of arts and culture in not only American society but the whole world?

>> Arts are fundamental to human development, I mean, when you think about it.

I've said this before.

Before a child speaks, a child sings.

Babies sing, hmm?

As soon as a child stands, a child is dancing.

Before you can write a single word, a child can draw a picture.

It is through the arts that we can study cultures from the past, that we can learn about human history, and this is how we learn.

Yes?

The arts direct a young person to the inside of themselves, to what they're feeling, to their own perception.

The arts also help build community and teams among young people.

There's a sense of accomplishment, hmm?

There are so many academic disciplines inherent in the arts.

>> Yes.

>> And for people to ignore that is foolishness.

It's nonsense.

When I was a little girl -- and I mean little -- my mother was my first music teacher.

She called us in.

And when I mean us, I mean my sister, my brother, and I and our friends from the community.

And she was going to teach us note value on this day.

She used a candied Easter egg.

She said "In 4-4 measure, this is a whole note.

It gets four beats to each measure."

She divided it in half.

"Now you have two half notes.

Each will get two beats."

She divided that egg into 16 pieces.

It was my first lesson in fractions.

I didn't know I was learning fractions, but I was.

>> Yes.

>> And I never forgot it.

>> Well, your mother was a master teacher.

>> Yeah.

[ Laughs ] >> You are now at the Howard University in charge now of the higher education of students, particularly African-American, but students from around the world in arts and culture and performance.

From your vantage point, given your storied career, how do you see that rendering from the current generation?

>> They are absolutely wonderful -- so bright, so open, so wanting and willing to learn.

They're like sponges.

And they band together.

They support one another.

It's a joy to be around them.

My only regret is that as dean, I don't get to teach, so I don't get to interact with them in that way.

And the reason I love to teach is because that's where I learn.

>> Yes.

>> They are great teachers.

So, I miss that, because I've had that opportunity at Howard University before.

>> Great.

That's right.

You graduated magna cum laude from Howard.

>> Mm-hmm.

And I returned to teach at the invitation of Al Freeman Jr. Mm-hmm.

>> This whole thing about striving for excellence in school, on the stage, in performing arts -- the only thing I'm going to say about "The Cosby Show" is that you became America's mother.

I'm not just talking for black kids, but for all kids that watched.

They were so engaged with "The Cosby Show."

Tell us, playing that role as America's mother, how that impacted you, but, more importantly, how it helped encourage a generation.

>> Well, first of all, I didn't give much thought to being America's mother.

I was working with a talented group of young people... >> Yes.

>> ...and a master of comedy and an assembly of writers and a crew of experienced people.

I was working.

And it was wonderful work.

And that's how I approached it.

It wasn't until really after those eight years and some years after that I met people from different places that I really began to understand the impact of that show, of that production.

I met a young black man from Germany who forged his way through a crowd to come to me to say thank you.

He said, "Before your show, we had nothing.

But when your show came, we had everything."

When I met Nelson Mandela... >> Yes.

>> ...he said, "Thank you."

He said, "I watched your show from Robben Island."

>> While he was in prison?

>> This is what he told me.

>> Twenty-seven years unjustly in South Africa.

>> This is what he told me.

He said, "I watched your show from Robben Island.

I watched it with my guard.

It softened him."

But this is what happens when we communicate as human beings and do so with appreciation for humanity, for our full humanity, a full humanity within ourselves and in each other.

This is what happens.

It isn't so hard to do.

We just have to do it.

You have to want to do it.

>> Well, your impact has been outstanding and long-lasting.

People still refer to those shows as one of the most uplifting moments on television, because, you know, in American society, while we don't have the abject segregation, but there's still racism.

There's still discrimination.

There's still disparities in many different areas.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> And so, when a show like "The Cosby Show" came on, it really uplifted people, not only in the United States but from all over the world.

So, I also want to say thank you... >> You're welcome.

>> ...for all that you have done and what you continue to do, which brings us now to some things that are happening now in our society.

There are some who want to ban books... >> Mm!

>> ...ban a sense of history... >> Mm-hmm.

>> ...pretend like the enslavement of African people was beneficial to African people.

What is your comment on this?

>> The fact that there are some people who engage in this way... ...oh, is certainly disappointing, but not surprising.

But what is surprising to me is that people would accept it.

That is surprising to me.

>> You're right -- or even debate.

Sometimes it seems like to me truth should not be debated.

In your career now, as you reflect back, Phylicia, on all of the things that you've accomplished, what would you say to young people today -- Generation Z, millennials -- about their aspirations?

Because on the one hand, there's certain forces in our society that tries to minimize their aspirations.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> What would you say to young people today?

>> Young people today... are very special people.

They come through in a time when distractions are -- woof!

-- too many.

Too many things to distract one... >> Mm-hmm.

>> ...from one's own self.

And there's more coming all the time.

>> Social media.

>> Oh, my goodness.

So impacted by things that encourage you, that demand that you look outside of yourself for completion, for happiness, for success, for life.

And that's the wrong direction.

>> Yes.

>> Outside is where you offer, but you have to offer from the inside, and you have to know what's inside.

So, with the young people, first of all, I think we have to listen to young people because they need to be heard.

You can't communicate with them effectively if we don't listen to them and really listen to them.

They're very intelligent.

They're very bright.

And they're very deserving.

>> Well, we're thankful that you are teaching all of us to listen.

The audience that will watch this program certainly will be in admiration of all the information that you've shared.

I want to just ask you how you and Debbie -- do you all stay in touch?

The famous, outstanding Debbie Allen.

I can't interview you without also asking you about the relationship that you have with your famous sister.

>> It's the best tennis match in the world.

[ Laughs ] >> Oh, okay.

>> No, it's great.

My sister and I, I guess we just... At this stage, we've progressed from where we were as little ones, as children.

We are still very much attached to one another, still very much together.

We have differing opinions, we have different points of view, and we are not shy to express them.

But in the beginning and the middle and the end, it's the love that binds us, and that's what holds us, and we hold to it.

>> Today, Phylicia Rashad, what gives you your greatest hope?

>> Oh!

To quote "Hawk," my mother's book, "Thank God there is a sky."

>> Phylicia Rashad, thank you so much for joining "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Thank you.

>> For more information about "The Chavis Chronicles" and our guests, please visit our website at TheChavisChronicles.com.

Also, follow us on Facebook, X, formally known as Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

>> Major funding for "The Chavis Chronicles" is provided by the following.

At Wells Fargo, diverse representation and perspectives, equity, and inclusion is critical to meeting the needs of our colleagues, customers, and communities.

We are focused on our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, both inside our company and in the communities where we live and work.

Together, we want to make a tangible difference in people's lives and in our communities.

Wells Fargo -- the bank of doing.

American Petroleum Institute.

Through API's Energy Excellence Program, our members are committed to accelerating safety, environmental, and sustainability progress throughout the natural-gas and oil industry around the world.

Learn more at api.org/apienergyexcellence.

Reynolds American, dedicated to building a better tomorrow for our employees and communities.

Reynolds stands against racism and discrimination in all forms and is committed to building a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

At AARP, we are committed to ensuring your money, health, and happiness live as long as you do.

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