Category: Features

Philanthropist Earl W. Stafford on How Faith Taught Him to Give Wisely: Help People Help Themselves

Post author By Krista Thomas
Post date January 14, 2023

(Adhiraj Chakrabarti)

East of Philadelphia, over the Delaware River, lies a hamlet named Mount Holly. This New Jersey town is where Quakers first settled in the late 1600s. At one time, during the Revolutionary War, it became the state capital.

And, in the late 1940s, Earl W. Stafford was born in this same tight-knit community—a community he dubs “one of those George-Washington-slept-here towns.”

Raised in humble circumstances with meager means, Stafford is one of 12 children. He believes his upbringing made him the industrious business leader and philanthropist he is known for being today. He learned the values of charity, ethics, and kindness surrounded by the love of family and neighbors. “We weren’t rich by any stretch. If we wanted money, we shoveled snow, recycled bottles, cut lawns. It stuck with me,” Stafford recalled. He was fortunate, thanks to a neighborly, business-minded woman, Ms. Mason, who taught him the basics of business selling hot dogs and soft drinks around the block. He said that that entrepreneurial spirit still resonates within him today.

A Business Idea

After high school, Stafford went on to honorably serve in the United States Air Force for two decades, specializing in air traffic control. Equipped with leadership skills, along with an undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, an MBA from Southern Illinois University, and a graduate certificate from Harvard Business School, Stafford was ready to serve the world.

He had hope for success upon leaving the Air Force. Stafford founded a new aviation-related manufacturing company in Washington, D.C., called Universal Systems & Technology, Inc. (Unitech). He utilized his expertise in air traffic control services to create training programs and simulation technology used by the FAA and the Department of Transportation.

But it was difficult for the first four to five years.

“I wasn’t getting paid, and the lights and phones were sometimes cut off,” he admitted. “We endured; God worked it out for us. I stepped out in faith based on the values I was raised with.”

Stafford’s company eventually rose in revenue to the tune of millions. The success wasn’t lost on him or his faith community.

Stafford (L) and his wife Amanda, following his reenlistment in the Air Force, 1971. (Courtesy of Earl W. Stafford)

“One day, my pastor called me. He wanted me to go to Haiti to build a church. I thought of every reason not to go. But I found myself in Port au Prince, a bit disgruntled,” he said. “After a week or so there, getting dirt under my fingernails,” he continued, “I realized that these people were not looking for a handout. They were looking for a helping hand.”

Humbled by the experience, Stafford returned home with a new perspective. His belief in God opened his heart and eyes to recognizing similar circumstances in which people needed help, he said.

The Meaning of Giving

In serving others, Stafford found purpose outside of his career. In 2002, he founded The Stafford Foundation as a faith-based philanthropic endeavor. One of its capstone projects early on was the People’s Inaugural Project, an initiative to bring disadvantaged Americans to experience Washington, D.C., and celebrate the presidential inauguration in 2009. Stafford’s vision brought together several nonprofits that helped to select and welcome some 400 individuals from all walks of life—including wounded veterans and men and women staying in homeless shelters—and from all over the United States. It was a grand event.

With first-class accommodations and dressed in tuxedos and fine gowns, the charity recipients mingled with multi-millionaires. “You couldn’t tell the haves from the have-nots! They intermingled and integrated into the ball filled with over several thousand people.” Stafford continued for the next five years working side by side with those organizations to support the recipients through job training programs and scholarships. The foundation also ran a “Give Before You Get” program: giving homeless or at-risk populations an opportunity to lend a helping hand by building homes and volunteering at hospitals and assisted living centers.

(Adhiraj Chakrabarti)

These projects allowed Stafford the opportunity to explore exactly how to serve others—to do good in the world. “One of the things the Foundation realized,” said Stafford, “is that we live with our hearts instead of our heads. We want to help everyone.” He believes that the Lord has helped him find the missions that need the money most.

The work Stafford feels is most pressing today is for the foundation to provide assistance in Africa. Across more than 25 countries, the foundation has helped to build over 20 churches along with orphanages, training centers to teach women to read and write, and a business center to help small businesses grow. “We want to help people to help themselves. In fact, there are more ways to be helpful than writing a check. Helping others doesn’t have to be on a grand scale or on the front page of the news to impact people. We are judged not by what we give but how we give,” he said.

With grandfatherly wisdom, he believes it is important to listen to God. “When God uses you, it doesn’t mean you are the total solution. It means that sometimes you are part of a solution. When I reach the usefulness needed, God allows others to step in and help further.” He believes wholeheartedly that one can impact others in immeasurable ways. In the community where he grew up, if someone was in need, others gathered and tried to help, even if they didn’t have much themselves. “I knew my mother more than once sent a pot of something to a family who needed it more than we did.”

These kinds of values Stafford understood as an obligation to be “your brother’s keeper”—and he says we still have that obligation to each other today. “It’s not about ego. And it’s not about evaluating impact,” he stated. “We must continue to serve and plant the seed, and one day we will see what grew. We can’t be so satisfied with ourselves when we don’t know the impact we have had,” he said.

From January Issue, Volume 3

Tags Earl W. Stafford, entrepreneur, faith, philanthropy

Entrepreneurs Features Uncategorized

Steve Case, Who Co-founded AOL, is Now on an Epic Mission to Nurture Creative Startups in America’s Heartland

Post author By Annie Wu
Post date January 14, 2023

Steve Case believes that all entrepreneurs should be afforded the opportunities to pursue their ideas to fruition. (Johnny Shryock)

What do an at-home water testing kit company, a luxury watchmaker, and an online farmland real estate investment platform have in common?

First, they were started in America’s heartland—Zionsville, Indiana; Detroit, Michigan; and Fayetteville, Arkansas, respectively—far from the usual, bicoastal venture capital hubs. Second, their initial potential was spotted and funded by AOL co-founder Steve Case and his team of investors, as part of his Rise of the Rest Seed Fund’s efforts to find and invest in the most innovative startups outside of Silicon Valley. The watchmaker, Shinola, is one of the more familiar names, but hundreds of start-ups have flourished so far under Case’s initiative.

The premise behind his idea is simple: Local entrepreneurs know the problems that face their communities, and they know the solutions. What they need is funding.

For example, in 2016, the founder of the at-home water testing kit company, Megan Glover, simply wanted to find out if her local water was safe for her children to drink. When her local utility company proved unhelpful, and a local water testing company quoted a whopping sum of $3,000 for a test, she took matters into her own hands. Today, her company, 120Water, fills about 100,000 kits a year, each sold for $50 to $80, in use across 180,000 locations in the country. Government agencies, schools, and local water systems across more than 19 states use its products.

(Johnny Shryock)

When Case held a pitch competition in Indianapolis in 2017, a stop on one of his cross-country Rise of the Rest bus tours, Glover had taken the chance to present her pitch. Case was immediately intrigued. “The idea was simple to grasp, completely original, and it addressed a true need in the community,” he wrote in his new book, “The Rise of the Rest: How Entrepreneurs in Surprising Places are Building the New American Dream,” which documents his findings after his tours. Glover was chosen to win $100,000 to start her company.

Inspiring Transformation

After leaving AOL in 2005, Case launched Revolution to back entrepreneurs with growth, venture, and seed funds. Since 2014, Case and Revolution have traveled the country by bus, holding a pitch competition and awarding $100,000 to a winning company at every stop. In 2017, Revolution launched the first $150 million Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, backed by well-known entrepreneurs like Eric Schmidt, Jeff Bezos, Tory Burch, and the Walton family (Walmart); a second $150 million seed fund was announced in 2019. Today, the bus tours continue, but the majority of the Fund’s investments are made outside the pitch competition. The Fund has since backed more than 200 companies across 100 cities.

Through his tours, Case has witnessed how industries are being transformed and people’s lives made easier through inventive ideas—thanks to people like Glover who have the pulse on what’s going on in their communities and want to see them thrive. Tech hubs are emerging everywhere, spurring innovation in heartland cities and small towns that were once neglected following America’s manufacturing decline.

Case at the University of Nebraska’s Innovation Campus. (Courtesy of Revolution)

“A lot of places are struggling and feeling left out and left behind. If we can back new companies that can create new kinds of jobs and create more hope and opportunity in those communities, and do that in enough places, it also has the potential to help lift up, and maybe even in a small way, unite a very divided country,” Case said in an interview.

Over the past decade, 75 percent of venture capital has gone to New York, Massachusetts, and California. But that is steadily changing. In 2021, VC fundraising outside New York, the Bay Area, and Boston totaled $21.4 billion, compared to just $3 billion a decade ago, according to a joint study conducted by Case’s investment firm Revolution and the market research firm PitchBook.

Case hopes his Rise of the Rest Seed Fund will help further bridge that gap.

Believing in Entrepreneurs

Born in Hawaii—where TV show episodes could arrive a week later than on the mainland—Case knew the feeling of being left out. “That might have helped to inform some of my thinking and passion around Rise of the Rest … to create a more inclusive economy so that people don’t feel left out,” Case said. His upbringing gave him “more empathy for the communities around the country that, in this innovation world, feel like all the action is somewhere else and not in their own backyard.”

(Courtesy of Revolution)

He soon discovered that there were plenty of entrepreneurs in America’s heartland, away from the spotlight in major cities. They tend to be more impassioned than the Big Tech workers in Silicon Valley, Case said, because they feel deeply connected to their cause. Craig Fuller, for example, came from a family in the trucking business in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a hub for long-haul trucking. “My grandfather was a patriarch of long-haul trucking,” Fuller told Case in the book. “He was one of the first to put two people into a truck and drive across the country when the interstates were popping up.”

Fuller worked with his father on the family company, but after college, he became interested in starting his own business. He noticed that the trucking market was highly fragmented and lacked transparent information. That inspired him to start FreightWaves, a logistics data company, in 2016. Fuller mobilized the freight industry to come together—convincing local mayors and chambers of commerce to organize a first-ever industry-wide meeting in 2017 with 70 Tennessee companies. Five years later, in 2021, the company earned $32 million in revenue. In the last quarter of 2021, its revenue was a 103 percent increase year-on-year.

Carter Malloy, meanwhile, grew up on his family farm in the Grand Prairie region of Arkansas, a place he called “a big, flat, beautiful part of the world,” and knew he wanted to contribute to the farming community. After college, he went to work for a hedge fund in San Francisco and made buying and selling farmland a focus of his work. He had financial success, but he noticed that the transaction experience was always very difficult. He launched AcreTrader with the hopes of making farmland investment accessible to all. He had to build trust with farmers on the ground, and his upbringing, coupled with his company’s headquarters in Fayetteville, helped convince them that he wanted to help them prosper.

Case awards a check to the winner of the Rise of the Rest pitch competition in Chattanooga, Tenn. (Courtesy of Revolution)

Leaving a successful career in San Francisco to start up in Fayetteville was a real risk, but Malloy told Case in the book, “I felt that it was really important we be close to the farmland in the middle of the country.” AcreTrader proved that with risks also came promise. This year, the company grew to 70 employees—with staff relocating to Fayetteville from all parts of the country—and received over $60 million in Series B funding, including $20 million from an Ohio-based venture capital firm.

Helping start-ups navigate risk and reap the rewards is central to Rise of the Rest Seed Fund’s mission. Case recognizes that the entrepreneurial journey can be filled with uncertainty, but “you need to believe in yourself. You need to believe in your idea and you need to believe in your team. … Sometimes success comes from not just you, but somebody else that helps you, or being in the right place at the right time.”

(Courtesy of Revolution)

In his book, Case tells the story of how he and his team saw the potential in Shinola, the Detroit-based watchmaker, during their first tour in 2014. His investor partner and Revolution co-founder Ted Leonsis had just bought a Shinola watch. While there, a salesperson spoke passionately about the company’s mission to create good-paying jobs for Detroit workers. The company understood that millennials who care about a connection to what they wear would want to support a brand championing American manufacturing. “Wearing the watch would be a patriotic gesture, symbolizing the revival of the nation’s heartland and its beloved city of Detroit,” Case wrote. The city in turn “had a chance to symbolize a particular American resolve to do something, not because it’s easy but because it’s hard,” he added. Today, the company has 450 employees, with over $100 million in revenue annually, and has evolved into a luxury lifestyle brand demonstrating the quality of American manufacturing.

Sean Henry of Stord, a supply chain software company, expressed a similar sentiment about the workforce in Atlanta. He said in the book that, compared to people in Silicon Valley who constantly want to leap over to the next big thing, “the talent here is very mission driven. They want to be at companies for a long time and build them into something very successful.”

There’s also a growing trend of people who left their hometowns in search of tech jobs in major cities, only to come back home because of the affordability, burgeoning opportunities, and proximity to family. Case observed that the trend has accelerated since the pandemic. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a building in the Innovation District (a tech hub established in 2014) includes fully-furnished units, communal kitchens, and organized activities—ideal for both returnees coming home and new hires wishing to be connected to the local community.

Case at a location of the outdoor gear brand Cotopaxi, in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Courtesy of Revolution)

Cities Transformed

Case’s investment work is inspired by case studies all across America, especially where heartland cities and small towns have used technology to grow their local economies. He has observed that entrepreneurs thrive in places where there is a “tech ecosystem”—a network that can help bring their ideas to fruition. He compares it to a wheel with seven spokes: startups, investors, universities, government, corporations, startup support organizations, and local media all synergize to create an environment that nurtures innovation and entrepreneurship. In cities with strong research universities, such as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, tech innovations have revived the local economy. Long known as being part of the rust belt, a place that has already seen the end of its glory days of manufacturing most of the world’s steel, Pittsburgh has become a center for robotics and AI development thanks to strong research programs at Carnegie Mellon. The university is one of the top five in the country attracting venture capital in companies started by its graduates.

In Phoenix, Arizona, then-mayor Greg Stanton spearheaded an effort to transform the deserted Warehouse District—a shipping and production hub during the late 1800s and early 1900s—into a tech center. Funding and support came from Arizona State University, the city government, the Marriott hotel chain, and local sports teams. Columbus, Ohio, is also enjoying startup success due to public and private sector investment, as companies realize the city’s low cost of living and local talent pool make it an attractive choice for setting up headquarters. Intel announced this year that it would build two semiconductor plants near the city, bringing thousands of jobs and making it the largest semiconductor manufacturing center in the world.

Startup job creation has allowed local economies to prosper. A study by the Progressive Policy Institute found that the country’s top 25 metro areas averaged 11.9 percent private sector job growth over the period from 2007 to 2016, compared to rates less than half of that in areas with lower levels of startup activity. The symbiotic relationship between startups and the communities that support them illustrates the idea that a rising tide lifts all boats. Case cites an African proverb in the book: “If you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far, you must go together.”

Case meeting with innovators and entrepreneurs in Madison, Wis., as part of his Rise of the Rest tour. (Courtesy of Revolution)

Believing in America

Ultimately, Case believes that anyone who has an idea for a new business should be able to pursue it, regardless of his or her background or social network. “That’s what will ensure America remains the pioneering country that got us here, and preserve our lead as the most entrepreneurial nation on Earth,” he wrote in his book.

Case said our country itself is similar to a startup. “It was just an idea of a new nation, with a different approach to democracy, and it led to people choosing to be part of America and coming over from various countries to be part of building what we now think of as the American dream,” he said. Although there were times when it seemed the experiment would fail, “people stuck with it. Eventually, the republic survived and then thrived, and we led the way as a nation in the agricultural revolution 200 years ago, led the way in the industrial revolution 100 years ago, and have led the way more recently with the technology revolution, the digital revolution. And that’s why we’ve gone from this kind of fledgling startup nation to being a leading economy and the leader of the free world,” he said. To ensure we maintain the country’s edge, he believes we must continue to back entrepreneurs everywhere.

He thinks back to his time at AOL, when he was trying to provide internet access to every American. With Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, he has a similar goal of “leveling the playing field. But the difference is, now we’re trying to level the playing field in terms of opportunities, so anybody with an idea can create a company, and every community can have a potential to rise up and be a more vibrant community that’s growing and creating jobs.”

From January Issue, Volume 3

Tags aol, entrepreneur, rise of the rest, start up

Features Entrepreneurs Lifestyle

Why a Corporate High-Flyer Left the Big Pharmaceutical World to Become a Holistic Health Coach

Post author By Crystal Shi
Post date January 13, 2023

“The word ‘transformation’ always resonated deeply when thinking of how I want to serve this world,” says holistic health coach Christine Dunst. (Samira Bouaou)

For Christine Dunst, co-founder and CEO of Embody Wellness Company, “the word ‘transformation’ always resonated deeply when thinking of how I wanted to serve this world,” she said. It had to begin with her own.

In her mid-20s and -30s, working 70-hour work weeks to climb the corporate ladder in the New York healthcare world—while living on processed veggie burgers, diet coke, and restaurant food—left her diagnosed with several stress-related illnesses. At 33, she had two miscarriages that “shook me to the core,” she said. “I knew I needed to fundamentally change my lifestyle, manage my stress and diet, and look deep inside.” Watching her sister fight and lose a heartbreaking battle with an eating disorder strengthened her resolve.

She became a certified integrative holistic wellness coach, and now draws upon her experience to help others—both individuals and corporate clients, which have included Google and Morgan Stanley.

“This matters on a soul level to me,” Dunst said. “It’s more than a job. Serving others is what makes me feel alive.” She spoke to American Essence about her own wellness practices, her work helping others, and the life-changing power of tiny habits.

(Samira Bouaou)

American Essence: How do you start and end each day?

Christine Dunst: I wake up at 6:30 daily. I do a hand-on-heart, 12-minute, deep-belly breathing gratitude meditation before I even get out of bed. Then I say my mantra and think about how I want to show up to the world today. Mindset is key. I follow all that with hot water and lemon to alkalize my body and stoke my metabolism, and then make matcha and ashwagandha for antioxidants and de-stressing goodness.

My non-negotiable nightly practice is a Dr. Joe Dispenza meditation for 20 minutes in my daughter or son’s bed as they fall asleep. My kids now ask me (and their father, who practices Falun Gong meditation) to meditate with them nightly. It’s special.

My daily rituals help destress my nervous system and tone my vagus nerve. Small habits, like gifting yourself the time for self-care rituals, done with consistency, can have a profound impact on your life.

AE: What do you typically eat in a day?

Mrs. Dunst: I cultivate and trust my intuition, so my body tells me what I need to feel good. I eat real, whole food and limit processed junk, sugar, and gluten. I also believe in eating organic and local and limiting exposure to toxins.

I’ve been plant-based for 20-plus years, but now eat wild-caught fish and grass-fed organic meat on occasion. I often incorporate gut-healing foods like fermented vegetables, celery juice, bone broth, collagen, prebiotics like garlic and onions, as well as digestive enzymes and probiotic supplements. I also load up on antioxidants, anti-inflammatory foods like ginger and turmeric, and healthy fats like nuts and seeds, EVOO, and wild salmon. I can’t forget adaptogens; they have been a lifesaver for me. Stress wreaks havoc on the body and adaptogens help keep me balanced. I add them to my matcha, tea, or smoothies.

I try to practice mindful eating daily, slowing down and actually chewing food—it matters! It improves digestion and helps you absorb nutrients more effectively. I’m really trying to curb my habit of eating while standing up. Never perfect, always growing.

AE: What are the most common issues you see your clients dealing with?

Mrs. Dunst: We see many clients who have gut issues—constipation, bloating, weight gain, and feeling lethargic, irritable, and anxious—and may not relate these symptoms to their gut. Eighty percent of immunity resides in your gut; it truly is like a second brain.

Habits we see include beating themselves up, guilt, self-sabotage, and overall speaking unkindly to themselves. We are constantly working on mindset re-writing. Working with clients to celebrate their successes and challenges is positive psychology, which starts to shift their perception of themselves, and teaches them to celebrate themselves in their thoughts and actions. Changing our thoughts impacts our current and future reality.

AE: What’s your advice for someone who isn’t sure how to start on his or her own self-improvement path?

Mrs. Dunst: Start identifying why you want to improve; then, define what you want to improve. During our first session with a client, we always help them create their exact goals and success metrics. Having this in writing is powerful. We have them print and say their goals every day so that they are their guiding force in all the decisions they make.

Pick one or two micro-habits you can commit to, and start there. Maybe it’s drinking half your body weight in ounces of water a day. Great! Commit to this for 14 or 30 days. Then layer on additional habits.

De-stress your nervous system daily—examples include deep-belly breathing or a gratitude practice—even if you start at 1 to 2 minutes. Move daily, even if it’s a 10-minute walk. Small habits, done with consistency, can have a profound impact.

AE: What has been your biggest life lesson over your years as a wellness coach?

Mrs. Dunst: Letting go. Especially after illnesses, a car accident resulting in a TBI and neck injury 6 years ago, and losing my father and sister within months of each other, I have a deep faith in something bigger than myself guiding us all.

Interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
From January Issue, Volume 3

Tags coach, corporate, health, pharmacy

Features National Parks Poetry The Great Outdoors

The Allure of Big Sur: Why This Slice of California’s Coastal Wilderness Has Captured Artists’ Imaginations for Generations

Post author By David Coulson
Post date November 23, 2022

The rugged coastline of Rocky Point at Big Sur. (Maria Coulson)

Big Sur is not so much a destination as a state of mind. The landscape and wildlife speak to the naturalist in every soul who visits there.

For decades, people have journeyed to Big Sur seeking inspiration and communion in this magnificent natural cathedral. Time spent exploring along the coast or trekking through the mountains or roaming among the redwoods or simply laying back in harmony with the surroundings is a sojourn for body, mind, and spirit.

Central California’s Big Sur region of wild and rugged coast and rough and tumble mountains stretches for 90 miles from Carmel to San Simeon, intersected only by iconic Highway 1. Big Sur is about the mountains and the ocean and the interface between the two. Early-20th-century resident poet Robinson Jeffers called it the “greatest meeting of land and sea in the world.”

An artist paints amid wildflowers at Garrapata State Park. (Maria Coulson)

Grandeur and Remoteness

Big Sur’s grandeur and remoteness have long made it a haven for literary luminaries. Author Henry Miller developed a strong relationship with the area, embracing it as his spiritual home for 18 years.

“Big Sur has a climate all its own and a character all its own,” he wrote in his mid-century memoir “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch.” “Skies of pure azure and walls of fog moving in and out of the canyons with invisible feet, hills in winter of emerald green and in summer mountain upon mountain of pure gold. There was ever the unfathomable silence of the forest, the blazing immensity of the Pacific, days drenched with sun and nights spangled with stars.”

From his house set on a slope above Partington Canyon, Miller had imposing views of the ocean. But he chose to work in a small, wooden shed facing a wall, not to be distracted. “Big Sur is the California that men dreamed of years ago,” he wrote. “This is the Pacific that Balboa looked at from the Peak of Darien, this is the face of the earth as the Creator intended it to look.”

A clear pool ensconced between the massive boulders of Big Sur River Gorge. (Maria Coulson)

Miller fretted that the unspoiled complexion of Big Sur would be lost to the “air-conditioned nightmare” of modern life. He needn’t have worried. It is much the same now as then. Admittedly, a procession of RVs does form in the summer. But only about 1,750 residents live there.

Other than the Native American Esselen tribe, followed by a few loggers, mountain men, and pioneer families in the late 19th century, Big Sur remained a fortress for solitude. Then, in 1937, came the completion of Highway 1, with the blasting of cliff faces and the erecting of bridges spanning cavernous canyons to create a tenuous, narrow strip along the coastline.

Drama and Adventure

“This was home, this rugged, lonely coast,” novelist Nora Roberts wrote in “Daring to Dream.” “He had tooled along the spectacular Amalfi Drive in Italy, sped through the fjords of Norway, but not even their heart-stopping beauty could match the sheer drama of Big Sur.”

Its breathtaking stretch of cliff-hugging, hairpin-turned highway is considered the quintessential scenic coastal route in North America. Even if you cruise the tight track in a humdrum Hyundai instead of a snazzy Mustang convertible with the wind in your hair and the sounds of the Beach Boys’ “California Saga” celebrating Big Sur in your ears, this drive uncorks clutch-the-edge-of-your-seat excitement.

California brown pelicans are often found on rocky or vegetated offshore islands. (Maria Coulson)

You never know what’s over the next rise or around the next bend. It might be mountains that plunge into the ocean, surf and wind that pound the rocky shore and contort the cypress trees into otherworldly shapes, or a sheltered cove that harbors a tranquil sea painted in shades of turquoise and sapphire.

A Haven

Big Sur is a hiker and naturalist’s delight with five state parks. The Ventana Wilderness of Los Padres National Forest encompasses a wide range of terrain and trails from casual to challenging and sea level to thousands of feet in elevation. Some of the shortest and easiest jaunts are among the most picturesque. Meadows and hillsides are awash with brilliant wildflowers such as lupines, goldfields, and paintbrush and Calla lilies. Old pirates’ haunt Partington Cove is where otters and seals frolic in the sea swells. McWay Falls plummets 80 feet onto a secluded beach.

In an enchanting forest canyon stroll among a mantle of lush mosses, five-fingered ferns, and delicately flowering sorrel, the only sound is a rippling creek. You will be walking in the footsteps of John Steinbeck; let him be your guide. “Soon the canyon sides became steep and the first giant sentinel redwoods guarded the trail, great round trunks bearing foliage as green and lacy as ferns. A perfumed and purple light lay in the pale green of the underbrush … and overhead the branches of the redwoods met and cut off the sky.”

At higher altitude, the redwoods give way to choked scrub and pungent sagebrush characteristic of an ascent to 3,709-foot Pico Blanco, “a steep sea wave of marble” in Jeffers’s words. Once atop, taking in the panorama, look for California condors with a wingspan of more than nine feet, soaring in bright, cloudless sky or amid fingers of fog.

Storm clouds gather over the 80-foot-tall McWay Falls. (Maria Coulson)

Many Big Sur beaches can only be admired from afar because of high cliffs. But there are accessible strands where you can wiggle your toes in white sand. Garrapata Beach’s long shore and thunderous waves are attractive to beachcombers and lollygaggers alike. The small cove at Garrapata Creek on one end and Dowd Creek spilling over the bluff onto the beach at the other serve as bookends.

Pfeiffer Beach is renowned for its lavender-tinted sand, and offshore Keyhole Arch is popular at sunset. It’s a prime location to sight migrating gray, humpback, and blue whales. Local winged residents living along the sweeping seascape include gulls, cormorants, pelicans, and snowy plovers.

Wildlife and Wilderness

Beyond Big Sur’s scenic splendor is its ecological diversity and importance as habitat for terrestrial and marine wildlife. Nowhere else will you find fog-nurtured redwoods thriving on one slope of a canyon and sun-worshiping yuccas on the other. Similarly, sea otters and cormorants live near dry-climate canyon wrens and whiptail lizards.

Richard Brautigan wrote in his novel “A Confederate General from Big Sur”: “This morning I saw a coyote walking through the sagebrush right at the very edge of the ocean―next stop China. The coyote was acting like he was in New Mexico or Wyoming, except that there were whales passing below. That’s what this country does for you. Come down to Big Sur and let your soul have some room to get outside its marrow.”

A 1960 Austin- Healey parked along California’s Highway 1, overlooking Bixby Bridge in the distance. (Maria Coulson)

The mountainous reaches of the Ventana Wilderness that extend inland for 30 miles are a tight jigsaw of ragged ridges impenetrable other than by mule or foot. Only the most intrepid venture to the headwaters of the Big Sur and Little Sur rivers tucked away high in the Santa Lucia range. The rushing, tumbling torrents cascade down through narrow, rock-walled canyons, spilling into crystalline pools canopied by stands of old-growth redwoods.

The cool marine layer does not extend past the coastal crest, leaving much of the Ventana Wilderness hot and dry during the summer and early fall. The rare, spire-like Santa Lucia fir is found only here on the windswept slopes and rocky outcrops.

Jeffers captured this desolate and hard-bitten terrain in early stanzas of “The Beaks of Eagles”:

“An eagle’s nest on the head of an old redwood on one of the precipice-footed ridges

Above Ventana Creek, that jagged country which nothing but a falling meteor will ever plow; no horseman

Will ever ride there, no hunter cross this ridge but the winged ones, no one will steal the eggs from this fortress.

The she-eagle is old, her mate was shot long ago, she is now mated
with a son of hers.

When lightning blasted her nest she built it again on the same tree, in the splinters of the thunderbolt.”

The poem embodies the timeless spirit of Big Sur. A pilgrimage there catches time in a bottle that lasts a lifetime.

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.

Tags big sur, California, poets

History Features

How American Pilots Formed the Kosciuszko Squadron During World War I to Help the Polish Fight the Soviet Invasion

Post author By Allen Shoff
Post date November 22, 2022

(L to R): Merian C. Cooper and Cedric Fauntleroy, aviators who fought in the Kosciuszko Squadron of the Polish Air Force, pose for a photograph between 1919 and 1920. (Public domain)

Near the end of World War I, the Russian Empire, its army rent by defeat after costly defeat and with morale ebbing, collapsed. Bread riots, strikes, and a mutinous army forced Czar Nicholas II Romanov to abdicate on March 15, 1917. After three centuries of Romanov control, the Russian Empire dissolved into a provisional government, which was soon replaced by an October coup that installed Vladimir Lenin and his Bolsheviks in command of vast swathes of the country.

The Bolsheviks were not content with Russia alone. Although now embroiled in a bitter civil war, they sought to spread the communist revolution all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. The newly independent former subjects of the Russian Empire—Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, in particular—now found the Bolshevik hordes on their doorsteps. The Red Army swept out from the steppe, snatching up territory and installing puppet governments, despite attempts of brave peoples along the line of march to resist. It seemed more and more likely that all Europe would turn red.

U.S. Army Capt. Merian Cooper watched the spread of Bolshevism and feared for the future of Europe. He had a personal stake in the continent, having flown a British De Havilland 4 over France during World War I. He’d demonstrated both daring and tremendous piloting skill when, hit by a flurry of rounds from a group of German Fokker aircraft that ignited his gas tank, he threw the plane into a steep dive, choking the flames and managing to crash land next to a German infantry outpost. He spent the remainder of the war in a prisoner of war camp. It was during his incarceration that he heard Russians plotting to spread communism throughout the world. His biographer considered this the moment that he began his “lifelong crusade against the Communists.”

A photograph of Cooper on Feb. 1, 1920, during the time he served with the Kosciuszko Squadron. (Public domain)

Fighting for Poland

After his release, Cooper joined a humanitarian mission to Poland, now embroiled in the midst of what history would call the Polish–Soviet War. The sight of innocent young Poles defending their freedom tore him to his heart. He wrote to his father, “It grieves me every day that I am doing so little for the cause of Polish liberty, when Pulaski did so much for us.” The story of Casimir Pulaski—the Polish noble who fought and died for American independence as the “father of the American cavalry” and was comforted at his death by Cooper’s own great-great-grandfather—deeply affected Cooper. He vowed to set aside his peaceful work and “get into the fight” against the Bolsheviks.

By early 1920, the colorful captain, joined by the equally eccentric Maj. Cedric Fauntleroy as commander and a total of 21 American pilots, entered the fray as the Polish 7th Air Escadrille. The squadron soon bore the name of Tadeusz Kosciuszko, the famed Polish army officer who aided the Americans in the Revolution. The American flyers saw themselves as repaying a debt owed to Poland, who loaned her son to the infant nation when she most needed aid.

Initially tasked with logistical and reconnaissance duties, the Americans gladly aided the Polish army’s May 1920 Kyiv Offensive, aimed at freeing the Ukrainians from the grasp of the communists. Largely unopposed in the air, the Kosciuszko Squadron nonetheless found the advancing Bolsheviks striking at their airfields and had to flee and regroup. Although the Polish and Ukrainian forces recaptured Kyiv on May 7, 1920, soon the tide turned under the wave of red, and the American flyers fought a bitter retreating action across Ukraine and back to Polish soil. Here the Americans did their namesake proud.

Photograph of the Kosciuszko Squadron of the Polish Air Force on Jan. 9, 1920. (Public domain)

Maintaining air superiority over the Bolshevik forces, the Americans bravely flew sortie after sortie, diving out of the sky to strafe the Bolshevik forces at horse-head height. This daring tactic and the roar of the biplane engines terrified the enemy horses and men alike, and to sow additional confusion, the Americans hand-dropped bombs with devastating accuracy, breaking up the enemy advance. Meanwhile, in what came to be known as the Miracle on the Vistula, the tattered body of the Polish army, bolstered by students, nurses, professors, and priests, smashed the encroaching Bolshevik army along the Vistula River and saved Warsaw from danger. Polish cavalry regrouped along the line and, aided by the exhausted pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron, obliterated the Red cavalry at the Battle of Komarow in late August through early September 1920. The salvation of Poland was at hand.

One of the Polish commanders, Gen. Antoni Listowski, is said to have remarked that “without [the] assistance [of the Kosciuszko Squadron], we would have gone to the devil a long time ago.” Many of the men in the Squadron received Poland’s highest military decoration, the Virtuti Militari, including Merian Cooper and Cedric Fauntleroy. The brave airmen of the Kosciuszko Squadron never shied from the thick of the fight: Three of the 21 pilots were killed, and the group as a whole flew more than 400 sorties in defense of their fellow man. Just like the many foreign noblemen that came to fight for America during her own revolution—Baron von Steuben, the Marquis de Lafayette, and, of course, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, to name a few—the men of the Kosciuszko Squadron stood up against oppression and risked their lives for others. Whether drawn by a sense of adventure, of camaraderie, or of duty, they lived out the core values of what it means to be an American.

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.

Tags pilot, plane, Poland, Squadron, WWI

History American Success Entrepreneurs Features

Grumman Engineering Had to Get 30,200 Pounds of Apollo Spacecraft to Moon and Back

Post author By Bob Kirchman
Post date November 22, 2022

The Apollo 11 crew (L to R): Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin. (Public domain)

In the fall of 1962, a little airplane manufacturer on Long Island, Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, beat out seven competitors for the lunar module contract. How did this happen?

The story begins when Leroy Grumman, the company’s founder, struck out on his own in 1929. Working out of a rented garage, he began developing some of his own experimental airplane designs. In 1932, he presented the U.S. Navy with the FF-1, his first production fighter aircraft. The plane’s design continued to be improved, leading eventually to the creation of the F4F Wildcat, Grumman’s first fighter with folding wings.

Diagram of the Apollo Lunar Module cockpit. (Jasmina Zhang for American Essence)

Grumman built tough planes. The “cat” series, built for the U.S. Navy, had a reputation for getting their crews home. The sturdy aircraft, designed and built for carrier deployment, earned the company the nickname “Grumman Iron Works.” Aluminum, however, was the material Grumman engineers had real mastery over, forming it into beautiful aerodynamic shapes to build their planes.

Enter Aeronautic Engineer Tom Kelly

Grumman engineer Tom Kelly spoke of his involvement in the early development of the moon lander: “I guess I’ve been involved in Apollo-related work as long as anybody in Grumman, actually. I started on the thing in 1960—April 1960.” Kelly and his team competed for NASA-funded studies. Though they didn’t win any of them, Kelly said, “we went down and gave our own study conclusions to the NASA people right along with everybody else—we had a very active interest in-house, and we just wouldn’t let it die; whether it was funded, or not, we kept going with it.” Kelly’s work ushered in a whole new era for the company.

Buzz Aldrin removes the passive seismometer from a compartment in the SEQ bay of the Lunar Lander (Apollo 11 “Eagle”), July 21, 1969. (Public domain)

Grumman was not one of the larger competitors for NASA contracts. They initially offered to be a subcontractor in General Electric’s bid to build the command module and service module. North American Aviation beat them out. NASA had originally intended for the command module and service module to land on the moon and take off directly from the lunar surface to return to Earth. That particular spacecraft configuration proved to be prohibitively massive. It would require a rocket larger than anything already developed just to get it into space. But an engineer at Langley Research Center, John Houbolt, suggested taking along a smaller spacecraft, just to land on the moon. It would then launch from the lunar surface and rejoin the command module, which would now remain in lunar orbit.

The lander would be discarded after the astronauts transferred back inside the command module, which alone would return to Earth. Rendezvous in lunar orbit seemed risky, but it saved so much weight that it allowed the program to go forward at a pace that would meet President John Kennedy’s challenge to land on the moon within the decade. When NASA decided that they would develop the program around the lunar-orbit rendezvous approach, Tom Kelly and his team were well prepared to offer their proposal. Grumman wrote up the proposal, and General Electric became the subcontractor for the lander’s electronics.

When they won the contract in 1962, Kelly and his engineering team realized that they would be faced with the same challenge that had faced Leonardo da Vinci, the Wright brothers, and Charles Lindbergh: weight! Every step forward in human flight had involved overcoming the limitations imposed by gravity. NASA gave them an initial estimate of 30,200 pounds for the spacecraft. The craft that landed on the moon and then launched from the lunar surface to rendezvous with the command module had to fit within this prescribed limitation. They had seven years.

Armstrong trains in the Lunar Module simulator at the Kennedy Space Center on June 19, 1969. (Public domain)

Overcoming Challenges

Kelly’s team worked tirelessly to conserve weight in unusual ways—in particular, the engineering of the astronauts’ seats. Grumman built 15 landers, 6 of which actually went to the moon. Some of the others are on display in museums, and visitors often ask where the astronauts’ seats are. In 1964, the design team eliminated them. The astronauts flew the lander standing up. In gravity that was one sixth that of Earth, the astronauts could fly, land, and take off standing in the craft. Their legs were all the shock absorbers they needed. With no seats, the astronauts also had more room for donning their space suits for the walk on the lunar surface. They could also hang their sleeping hammocks for the rest they needed while on the moon. Removing the seats saved weight in itself, but the move also allowed the astronauts to stand closer to the craft’s windows, allowing them to be significantly smaller. This saved hundreds of pounds of glass as well.

Astronaut Pete Conrad would refer to the cabin design as a “trolley car configuration.” Bethpage, New York, where the landers were built, is just 30 miles east of Brooklyn, where trolley car motormen actually stood up while operating a throttle with the left hand and a brake with the right. According to Kelly, those trolley cars had already inspired the name of a baseball team. Manhattan residents, who had more subways, sometimes referred to Brooklyn’s inhabitants as “trolley dodgers”; hence, the team’s name came to be the Brooklyn Dodgers. Did the trolleys of Brooklyn also influence the design of the lunar lander? Conrad’s reference suggests it might have.

The Apollo 9 Lunar Module (Spider) photographed from the Command Module on March 7, 1969, the fifth day of the Apollo 9 Earth-orbital mission. (Public domain)

Armstrong after the completion of the Lunar Extravehicular Activity on the Apollo 11 flight; photographed by Aldrin on July 20, 1969. (Public domain)

The landing module (LM) had to operate in extreme temperatures. The team came up with the Kapton sheeting (a kind of Mylar foil covered with gold leaf) that gives the lower part of the craft its “tinfoil” appearance. It simply reflected the solar heat away from the spacecraft, much like a windshield reflector does for a parked automobile. Because the lander never had to fly in atmosphere, it needed no aerodynamic design—no smooth, rounded surfaces to resist airflow. It could just be a long-legged, boxy shape. The first manned LM, flown in the Earth’s orbit by Apollo 9, would be called “Spider.” After one more dress rehearsal in lunar orbit by Apollo 10, the “Eagle,” flown by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11, would land on the moon. The date was July 20, 1969—eight years after John F. Kennedy laid down the challenge.

Tom Kelly and the Grumman team did some thinking beyond the task at hand that proved invaluable just two missions later. They recommended designing “lifeboat” capabilities into the LM. These capabilities would save the lives of the Apollo 13 astronauts when their command-service module was crippled by an explosion. The crew fired up the LM and used it to provide life support and navigation right up to the time that they jettisoned it. The command module was the only part of the spacecraft that could reenter the atmosphere. Though the LM “Aquarius” was consumed in a fiery reentry itself, the “Grumman Iron Works” team had successfully delivered one more crew safely home. In 1994, Grumman merged with the Northrup Corporation to become Northrup Grumman, one of the country’s largest aircraft manufacturers. In 1994, Grumman merged with the Northrup Corporation to become Northrup Grumman, one of the country’s largest aircraft manufacturers.

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.

Tags armstrong, Grumman, moon, NASA, Tom kelly

Features American Success Entrepreneurs

There Are Only 47 of These Vintage Tucker Cars Left in the World, and They’re Worth Millions Each

Post author By Dave Paone
Post date November 21, 2022

A fully- restored No. 1006, one of the 47 surviving Tuckers designed and manufactured by Preston Tucker. It has the signature three headlights. (James Secreto/ Nostalgic Motoring Ltd.)

Since the dawn of the American automotive industry over 100 years ago, car enthusiasts have been debating which car is the most collectible of them all.

While some, such as the 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, and the 1964 and a half Ford Mustang, are at the top of many collectors’ lists, most will agree the Tucker 48 is indeed the be-all-end-all car to have in a collection. Even if you don’t have a collection, one Tucker trumps a dozen Oldsmobiles.

Who and What Is a Tucker?

From a young age, Preston Tucker was in and out of the automotive industry. Even though he never had formal training or a college degree, he had a thorough understanding of how mechanical things worked, particularly automobiles.

It was Tucker’s childhood dream to design and mass-produce cars for the American market using elements that were either his inventions or rarely used before. After the war, he was able to raise $20 million (over $259 million in today’s money) to do exactly that through the Tucker Corporation.

Tucker and his crew made 51 cars by hand. There were subtle differences among them and the designers were constantly making small improvements as they went along. Parts were not 100 percent interchangeable from one vehicle to another.

“You can’t take a door off one and put it on the other,” said Mark Lieberman, a Tucker owner and historian. “There were changes in the engine that were made. There were changes in the suspension that were made.”

Each car is known by its number. There’s the prototype, known as No. 1000, also referred to as the Tin Goose. Then there are 50 Tucker 48s, numbered 1001–1050. However, prior to the Tin Goose was the Tucker Torpedo. “It was never a car; it was only a plaster model,” said Lieberman. To make things even more complicated, Nos. 1026 and 1042 are known as Tuckermatics because of their unique transmissions.

Innovations

Safety was a priority for Tucker. In all of the cars, he installed a windshield that would pop out should the driver or passenger be thrown through it, thus avoiding lacerations.

You know when you’re looking at a Tucker because it has three headlights. Tucker installed one in the middle of the front end that was connected to the steering wheel.

Automotive visionary Preston Tucker drives one of the cars he designed. (Courtesy of the AACA Museum)

Then there was the sponge rubber crash panel, which was essentially the first padded dashboard. Tucker also had this material on the doors, making the Tucker 48 the first car with a padded impact area. The automotive industry has since embraced this feature. “It’s been a staple ever since,” said Lieberman.

Tucker wanted his car to have seat belts, which no other manufacturer had at the time. However, the marketing department felt seat belts would send the message that the car wasn’t safe, and Tucker was overruled on that one.

The Tucker 48 had four-wheel, independent suspension. “Unheard of at the time,” said Lieberman. “Now it’s commonplace on many automobiles.”

The Big Three and the SEC

At this time in America, just about every car owner owned one made by one of the “Big Three” car manufacturers, Ford Motor Company, Chrysler Corporation, or General Motors.

The automotive establishment in Detroit was not happy with Tucker’s unorthodox methods of manufacturing and marketing and perceived him as a threat. History has painted The Big Three as being the villains in this saga, but that isn’t necessarily true.

A smear campaign was done with false charges of fraud, brought on by the Security and Exchange Commission. Tucker and his executives were tried and acquitted, but the SEC succeeded in putting the Tucker Corporation out of business.

Where They Went

After the demise of the Tucker Corporation, the 51 cars were scattered about the country. In the 1950s, a showman named Nick Jenin bought up 10 of them and toured the country, bringing them to state fairs on two car carriers, where he promoted the story of Preston Tucker.

“Ezra Schlipf is another gentleman that bought quite a few of them and resold them,” said Lieberman. “There were guys that became known as Tucker specialists.” Collector David Cammack purchased three, none of which he’d even start, let alone drive, for fear of damaging them. Cammack also collected Tucker artifacts, such as original documents and blueprints, making his collection the most extensive of them all.

The second of the two Tuckermatics, No. 1042, had sat idle at the Michigan State Fair Grounds, even though it was owned by Jenin. The powers-that-be decided a good way to get this car off their property was to have an event where, for the price of a dollar, anyone could smash it with a sledgehammer.

In 1988, Paramount Pictures released the feature film “Tucker: The Man and His Dream,” starring Jeff Bridges as Tucker. It was produced in part by George Lucas’s Lucasfilm Ltd. and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The biopic didn’t do well at the box office, but it introduced Preston Tucker to the general public. “The values of Tuckers wouldn’t be what they are today without the movie,” said Lieberman. Lucas owns a Tucker 48 and Coppola owns two.

The steering wheel of a Tucker, which directs the center headlight. (Courtesy of the AACA Museum)

The Resurrection of No. 1006

Lieberman has been a car enthusiast his whole life. In 1992, when he was 29 years old, a friend told him of a Tucker for sale. The story the friend verbalized was that in a parking structure in downtown Detroit, where he stores his car for the winter, there was a Tucker that might be for sale. Lieberman found this claim hard to believe. He went to the building, which was “packed full of dilapidated vehicles and cars in storage.” He met with the owner of the place, a retired police officer, who walked him over to a “dark, dingy corner.”

“Lo and behold, there’s three headlights looking at me from this corner,” said Lieberman. The exterior of the car was covered in dirt, and the interior was being used, literally, as a garbage can. This included Wendy’s bags and wrappers, a kitchen food processor, and a bathroom scale. Plus, the side windows were broken. “I didn’t care. I wanted it all,” said Lieberman.

After a few minutes of negotiating, Lieberman wrote a check and called for a flatbed to come get his newly found treasure. The trip home was in the pouring rain, which gave the car its first wash in decades, “leaving this trail of black behind it.” Lieberman didn’t realize until he arrived at his house that there was a convoy of drivers following them, who wanted to buy the Tucker from him on the spot. Lieberman has since restored the car to its original splendor (pictured) and at one time or another has owned five Tuckers.

A collector on Long Island currently owns No. 1044, which once belonged to Lieberman. “I pulled that car out of a barn where it sat since the ’70s,” he said. The barn was in Ohio, and he bought it in 2016 or so. “I just got it running and driving and I sold it at auction,” said Lieberman, where the current owner purchased it for about $1.3 million.

The Tucker Automobile Club of America

Lieberman has owned five Tucker 48s and he’s the senior director of the Tucker Automobile Club of America in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The club is part of the AACA Museum, which Lieberman describes as “the center of the Tucker universe.” On display there are Cammack’s three cars, Nos. 1001, 1022, and 1026, as well as the artifacts he collected. No. 1026 is the only surviving of the two Tuckermatics.

While the Tucker Corporation is long gone, Preston Tucker LLC exists today, located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It was started in 2012 by Tucker’s two great-grandsons, Sean and Mike Tucker. The great-grandsons work closely with Lieberman in restoring the autos. “The three of us know every bolt, every fastener, and every component of these cars,” said Lieberman.

The great-grandsons, Bob Ida and his Ida Automotive, and Bruce Devlin were the craftsmen who restored No. 1044, from the barn in Ohio, with parts supplied by Lieberman. Currently, all of them are involved in the restoration of three more Tucker 48s.

Other Locations

The Museum of American Speed in Lincoln, Nebraska, currently has a Tucker on display, as does the Tallahassee Automotive Museum in Florida. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in D.C. has No. 1039 on display, which was acquired through a 1992 narcotics arrest by U.S. Marshals. The automotive museum at The Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas also had a Tucker on display for many years. The establishment is now called The Linq, and the museum is long gone. The car, No. 1008, is now at a museum in Chicago. No. 1030 is currently at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.

Senior director of the Tucker Automobile Club of America and five-time Tucker 48 owner Mark Lieberman, with two Tuckers at his Michigan-based car dealership, Nostalgic Motoring. ( Courtesy of Mark Lieberman)

The LeMay Collections at Marymount in Washington state has No. 1007 on permanent display. It was purchased in 2002 at an auction for $334,800. Although its initial engine was replaced in 1948, the transmission is original. “The car came with a Cord preselector transmission from the factory and remains in the car,” said volunteer Tim Hallen. Its most recent restoration was completed in 1993. The original color of the body and interior was green, but both have been redone in a non-Tucker blue.

There’s a Tucker in Japan, one in Germany, one in Australia, and one in Kuwait. The City of Cacapava, Sao Paolo, Brazil, owns No. 1035, and the Maine Classic Car Museum has No. 1028 on display.

The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation has one on display, which is ironic because the Ford Motor Company was one of the Big Three that was supposedly responsible for putting the Tucker Corporation out of business. The disclaimer on its website reads:

“Tucker built 51 cars before a shortage of money and a surplus of bad publicity closed his company. Some think the Big Three conspired to destroy him. More likely, he was overwhelmed by the enormous cost of building an automobile company from scratch. Tucker raised over $20 million, but probably needed ten times that much to secure his firm’s future.”

Lieberman feels this statement is “all very true.”

“All cars are accounted for,” said Lieberman. “Of the original 51 cars, including the prototype, 47 survive.” He estimates that of the 47, just over half actually start and move but aren’t really roadworthy. He estimates about 10 or more can be driven long distances.

Tucker’s Legacy

Preston Tucker died in 1956, at the age of 53. So he never saw the worth of each of his 51 creations surpass $1 million. He never saw his life played out by actors on the big screen. So it’s up to collectors with the desire to keep the Tucker 48s intact, and craftsmen such as Lieberman, Ida, and the great-grandsons to help them do that, to keep Tucker’s legacy alive.

Perhaps if Tucker could witness these things, he’d know that there are 47 machines that represent American ingenuity, American entrepreneurship, and the American Dream.

And those things will always survive, even if the 47 remaining cars don’t.

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.

Tags automobile, innovation, tucker 48

Features

Super Bowl Champion Eric Weddle Exemplifies Humility On and Off the Field

Post author By Alice Giordano
Post date November 21, 2022

It was called everything from a male version of a Cinderella story to the greatest comeback in American sports history. It drew even those who are most uninterested in football to their television sets. Some football fanatics even couldn’t believe what they heard.

Just three weeks before Super Bowl LVI took place in February 2022, ex-NFL safety Eric Weddle got a phone call that sounded more like the neighborhood kids asking him to come out and play. And to some extent, it was.

Only it was the Los Angeles Rams, a little stunned themselves by their underdog status as an unlikely contender in the playoffs for the highly coveted Super Bowl. The California team found itself unexpectedly without either of its safeties, and so it turned to a former teammate, who had retired two years earlier after a 13-year-long career in the NFL.

(Heather Broomhall Photography)

“The first question they asked me, is what kind of shape I was in,” recalled Weddle. He admits he is still pinching himself, several months after helping to lead the Rams to victory.

The surprise invitation would create the ultimate in second chances and also turn Weddle into an even bigger role model off the field.

Redemption

Weddle, remembered mostly for his days with the Baltimore Ravens and San Diego Chargers, retired after the 2019 season with the LA Rams without a Super Bowl win—a reality that was tough for him, he said, but something he just had to accept.

The six-time Pro Bowler and two-time All-Pro player thus settled into life as a full-time dad. Weddle soon became busy making school lunches and driving around his son and three daughters to their litany of activities: Brooklyn, the eldest, plays volleyball and soccer; Gaige, obviously football; Kamri is involved in acrobatic dance; and then there’s Silver, whom Weddle affectionately calls “our baby monster” because she’s into everything!

Then came the phone call. After Weddle’s return was announced to the press, Rams coach Sean McVay expressed this laudatory sentiment: “If there was anybody that was going to be able to do it, it would be him.” Not only did 37-year-old Weddle suit up, but his performance was bar none, completing five tackles—with a ruptured pec to boot—in what turned out to be one extra-glorious win against the Cincinnati Bengals. His tackle of Bengals wide receiver Tyler Boyd during the team’s final drive deprived it of one more chance to add points to the scoreboard, leaving the Rams’ lead of 23–20 as the final score at the Super Bowl.

Weddle with his family after the Los Angeles Rams won the Super Bowl. (Courtesy of Eric Weddle)

Weddle was the talk of the town with his storybook comeback, headlining ESPN, CBS Sports, and every other media outlet in between.

A ball-hawking safety who led the league in interceptions and was recently placed on the 2023 ballot for College Football Hall of Fame for his early days with the Utah Utes, Weddle was back in the game, and the NFL wanted him. Who wouldn’t cave to such temptation?

Football Lessons

But to Weddle, the choice was clear. This fall, Weddle hit the field as head coach of the Broncos—that is, the Rancho Bernardo High School Broncos in San Diego, a homespun venue far removed from the million dollar NFL clubhouses that Weddle is so well-acquainted with. It’s also where his 14-year-old son is now attending school.

“I had every opportunity, but in my mind, if I’m going to be involved in football, coach anyone, why not it be with my own son,” reflected Weddle—who, by the way, also loves to cook. “This is an opportunity for me too, to be a leader in a different way to my kids and the other kids.”

Leadership, he said, sometimes means not being afraid to go against the mainstream. And he sees football, as well as other sports, as an unsung teacher of leadership—both on and off the field. “You learn so much from sports, how to treat people, how to interact, how to work through problem solving, how to communicate, how to handle adversity, and competing,” he said. “You’re also trying to beat other people at a play. Sometimes it works in your favor and sometimes it doesn’t. Are you going to quit, or are you going to keep fighting and keep pushing?”

Weddle previously played for the San Diego Chargers. Here, he’s in a game against the Buffalo Bills. (Courtesy of Eric Weddle)

And if you’re not hooked on football yet, consider Weddle’s viewpoint on how it could mend the world through example. “Every football team has a great locker room,” he said. “Race, political views, where you’re from—that all doesn’t matter, because we’re there as a team with one common goal: to win.” This world, said Weddle, could unify, if people just started acting like a team.

Weddle is also a dedicated church leader. As a stake president in the Church of Latter Day Saints, he is actively involved in church fundraisers, youth camps, and coordinating speakers for the church’s radio fireside chats. During his NFL career, it was pretty common for Weddle to seek out a church near the stadium where the team was playing to attend service before the start of a game. His faith, he said, has kept him grounded and focused on what’s most important.

And right now, that is coaching the Rancho Bernardo Broncos to a championship, something Weddle talks as passionately about as his NFL career. With a pride-filled motto of “Blue In, Blue Out,” the blue-and-white-uniformed Broncos seem just tailored for Weddle. Already well-versed on the team’s stats, Weddle already has some game strategies in mind for his new team.

Of course, he might have a little extra inspiration on hand, or that is, on his hand: a big, shiny Super Bowl ring, for one shining star.

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.

Tags Eric weddle, Feature 1, football, super bowl

Features Entrepreneurs Generation to Generation

Chicago-Based Historic Brand Oxxford Clothes Still Hand-Sews Every Suit for a Tailored Masterpiece

Post author By Hazel Atkins
Post date November 20, 2022

(Courtesy of Oxxford Clothes)

After a career of working on Savile Row with Sir Hardy Amies to produce the Queen’s day-wear, then moving to Ontario with custom tailor Coppley, Warwick Jones thought he was ready to retire. While planning a paradisaical retirement of fly-fishing in New Zealand, he was called by the head of the Individualized Apparel Group (IAG, the parent company that owns Coppley and Oxxford, among others) and asked to run the Oxxford Clothes factory in Chicago.

(Courtesy of Oxxford Clothes)

Today, he is enjoying it hugely, and he is passionately dedicated to the craftsmanship of making garments by hand. Jones said, “The difference between a machine-made and a hand-made suit is like night and day.”

Oxxford Clothes was established in Chicago, an epicenter of the Arts and Crafts design movement, in 1916. Despite global changes in methods, machines, and mass-production, Oxxford has remained faithful to its mission to produce the best bespoke, hand-sewn men’s apparel out of the finest fabrics in the world.

An Oxxford dinner jacket. (Courtesy of Oxxford Clothes)

(Courtesy of Oxxford Clothes)

At Coppley, Jones was working with clothing that was largely machine-made. When traveling for business, he encountered “scores and scores of Oxxford Clothes in places like Neiman Marcus, just hanging on horrid little hangers, and I would put them on and immediately have the beautiful feeling of the coat as it melded to my body.” The first thing you notice, he says, is that the collar of the coat “hugs your neck; it is not too high or too low.” Also, “when you move your hand forward in the coat, it moves forward with you,” he explained. “It sings to you.”

The secret to the special song of the Oxxford garment is in the stitches. When Jones first went to Oxxford Clothes, the CEO of IAG told him to put a suit through the factory and follow it every step of the way. So he did, and it was the best way possible to learn about the process and, importantly, the art of the stitches. Jones said that there are on average 14,240 stitches in every suit: “I counted every one of them!” he said.

There are 4,000 stitches in the pants, and 900 stitches “just to put the roll on the canvas of the lapel so that it will stay that way forever.” Every button hole is sewn by hand and takes about 20 minutes to do, in contrast to the one-and-half seconds it would take a machine.

The stitches in each suit reflect the distinct personality and style of its craftsman. (Courtesy of Oxxford Clothes)

(Courtesy of Oxxford Clothes)

The most important thing to understand, Jones added, is that “they’re putting in the needle in such a way, and tightening the thread in such a way that, the reality is, they’re not just sewing a stitch. They’re putting personality into the garment with every stitch.”

This personality comes from the artisan working on a piece, and “the stitches are all quite unique, actually,” Jones marveled. For example, in the padding of a lapel, they aim for 25 stitches per square inch. Some tailors will do 20, and some will do 30, and “that’s their character going into what they’re doing, and it makes a difference.” Each Oxxford suit becomes a collector’s item. Jones said that all the tailors working in the Oxxford Clothes factory have their own way of doing things, and when he looks at their work, “I could tell you who sewed it.”

The individualized character of the stitches is matched, of course, by the individualized nature of bespoke clothing. Even if a client orders six suits at once, they will all be made from different materials, and they each make their way through the factory as a one-off. Every garment will have its unique characteristics, and no two garments will feel the same.

Each bespoke suit is tailored to meld flawlessly to the body of its wearer. (Courtesy of Oxxford Clothes)

The Oxxford Elite Fall Coat. (Courtesy of Oxxford Clothes)

This attention to detail, this personal approach, is mirrored in the daily work life of the factory. Jones greets every artisan in the morning and says good night to them all in the evening. In the Oxxford Clothes factory, Jones described, “the most noticeable thing is the quiet. When you walk out onto our shop floor, you don’t hear anything.” There are 100 people working there, he said, and “I know every one of them by name. It’s a place you enjoy coming to every single day.”

It is hard work, requiring great concentration and dexterity. It takes eight weeks to make a suit. Every hand-sewn stitch gives meaning to the final product, but it is never seen. It is hidden by fabric on the outside and lining on the inside. However, the artisans know it is there, and “they believe in it,” Jones said. All the hard work is worth it because “there’s nothing better than seeing a man walk out of a showroom in a new suit. Nothing feels as good as that first time you wear it. You feel empowered.”

Each one of Oxxford Clothes’s custom garments passes through 120 hands before its completion, according to the company. (Courtesy of Oxxford Clothes)

Tags chicago, handsewn, oxxford suit, suit

Features

A Champion Wins Alaska’s Toughest Dog Sled Race By Communing with Nature and His Furry Companions

Post author By Sandy Lindsey
Post date November 19, 2022

Sass and his team at the 2022 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. (Courtesy of Brent Sass)

Attitude is everything for Brent Sass, winner of the 2022 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Always a challenging event, it was particularly harrowing this year.

Sass said he went through what he describes as “mental warfare” to bring his team across the finish line first in 2022, triumphing despite being blown off-course by a mammoth blizzard on the last leg. He credits his passion for the sport, a close relationship with his dogs, leadership skills, and an unwavering positive attitude—but most of all, he credits his dogs with keeping him honest.

“You can’t really fake attitude with them,” he said. “The dogs can see right through most anything. So you truly have to be excited and happy about what you’re doing. If you’re in a bad mood, they are, too. When you’re happy, the dogs are happy, and when the dogs are happy, you can pretty much get through any conditions.”

Brent Sass raised the dogs on his sled team from puppies and has formed a special bond with them. (Courtesy of Brent Sass)

The strong bond between Sass and his dogs allowed them to triumph over seemingly insurmountable challenges. (Courtesy of Brent Sass)

Established in 1973, the Iditarod winds through roughly 1,000 miles of wilderness from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska. Teams of up to 14 dogs pull sleds for 8 to 15 days—it actually took up to 20 days in the early years—through blizzards, white-outs, and the generally rough terrain of wild Alaska with possible wind chills of minus 100°F—in a good year. The weather for the 50th anniversary 2022 race was so fierce that three mushers (drivers of a dogsled) were forced to take shelter, despite resulting penalties.

Into the Wild

Sass experienced a crash that could have ended the race for him during a harrowing blizzard. “We were having a blast, until we were on a side-hill and the wind gusted up real high and it caught me,” he said. “I got top-heavy and we just tumbled down off the trail into the abyss.” The dogs were dragged down with him. “Finally, everything stopped and the dogs immediately hunkered down. Drifts are already coming over the top of them and I knew they’d be wondering what to do.”

He looked up and realized he had lost sight of the trail. “At that point, I turned on the sled’s handlebar headlight so I could see the sled, because if you walked away 10 feet, the sled was gone.” With the light on, he walked farther and spotted a reflector on a trail marker. “The sled was pretty far off the trail, but I had been pounding my foot into the hardpack [compacted snow] so that I had some bit of trail that I could follow.”

Pink and Slater take a rest during the race. (Courtesy of Brent Sass)

With the trail found, his next focus was to tend to the dogs, calming them while cleaning their eyes and muzzles of snow and ice buildup. “Through the chaos, I was talking to the dogs to reassure them. I got them all stood up, dragged the gangline [a central line that connects the sled to the dogs’ tuglines] around, and got the sled turned around so we were pointed towards where I had found the trail, and we resumed the race.”

While 2022 was his first Iditarod win, he is a three-time champion of the Yukon Quest, a 1,000-mile dogsled race, and placed third and fourth in the 2021 and 2020 Iditarod races, respectively. With this year’s Iditarod title, that makes him one of only six people to win both 1,000-mile races. Over 21 years of mushing, Sass said he has learned the importance of maintaining a positive attitude, no matter what, as his bad mood can cause the dogs to “sour.” After experiencing a breakdown in the 2016 race, he developed a new mantra—“Run your own race”—which he had tattooed on his body, along with “Attitude is everything,” “Pain is inevitable—suffering is optional,” “Livin’ on the edge,” and “Believe.”

When not racing, he owns and operates Wild and Free Mushing, which breeds, raises, and trains Alaskan huskies for long-distance races. He also guides expeditions into the Arctic wilderness. He described himself as “professional dog musher/dog dad/wilderness guide/gold miner/equipment operator/cabin builder/landlord.”

Sass with his lead dogs, Slater (L) and Morello, at the completion of the 2022 Iditarod race. (Courtesy of Brent Sass)

A Real Connection

When he was 8 years old, his grandparents visited Alaska, bringing back photos of mountains and rivers that greatly inspired Sass. He told his parents he would go to Alaska when he grew up. After graduating from high school, he attended the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he skied on the cross-country ski team his first year.

In 2001, he purchased land in Goldstream Valley, just outside of Fairbanks, and started building rental cabins. After two summers, he had six cabins. One day, as he was working on the cabins, he saw a dog team go by. “A light went off in my head, and I knew I wanted to do that,” he said. “I’ve never let that dream get away.”

He followed the dog team to talk to the musher, who told him to come back in a week. “When I did, he handed me a 5-week-old puppy that I named Silver,” he recalled. “Little did I know, that dog would change my life. Over the next several years, I built more cabins and collected more dogs from the newspaper’s ‘free items’ ad section,” which advertised dogs for adoption.

(Courtesy of Brent Sass)

His goal was to assemble a team of dogs that could pull him through the wilderness. It was a motley crew led by Silver, an old Alaskan husky named Brent, a Mackenzie River husky, a Saint Bernard/husky mix, and another big husky named Leer.

Around this time, he applied for a job at a kennel, having no idea it was owned by five-time Iditarod winner Susan Butcher and Yukon Quest champion David Monson. The job turned into an amazing mentorship for Sass. In addition to learning from Butcher and Monson how to raise and train dogs, Sass began studying other racers, their moves, and their dogs, eventually opening his own breeding operation. Though Silver was bigger than the standard race dog, he was extremely smart and mentally strong; he became Sass’s main breeding stud. Sass ran tours by giving sled rides to paying visitors in order to fund his races.

“I named the kennel Wild and Free Mushing after a song by Hobo Jim, the Alaska state balladeer,” Sass said. “‘Wild and Free’ is a song about a guy who follows his own path, making it the perfect name for my kennel.”

Silver, who passed away at the age of 18 three years ago, was the foundation of Sass’s breeding program. The canine is the father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather of 80 percent of the kennel’s pups. “The dogs are everything,” he said. Sass has raised all 50 dogs that he currently has in his kennel. “I bond with each dog, and the relationships that I build with these dogs is what makes it possible for us to compete at the high level required by these races.” Sass is a great example of what can be accomplished by an individual who seizes upon a dream and seizes upon his every waking hour to make it come true.

Sass behind an “IditaRider,” the winner of the annual bid for a short sled ride at the ceremonial start of the race. (Courtesy of Brent Sass)

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.

Tags Alaska, dog sled race, iditarod, race, sled dog

History Features

The Story of Nellie Bly, the Brave 19th-Century Journalist Who Went Undercover to Expose Abuses at an Insane Asylum

Post author By Rachel Pfeiffer
Post date November 18, 2022

Illustration of the Blackwell Island insane asylum in New York. (Public domain)

In 1887, Nellie Bly boarded the boat with the other patients bound for Blackwell’s Island, now known as Roosevelt Island. Their stay in the filthy cabin was mercifully short, and soon they crossed the East River and disembarked. After an ambulance ride, Bly and the others found themselves ushered into the stone buildings of the insane asylum. Unlike the others interned at the asylum, however, Bly came by choice. As an undercover reporter, she planned to witness the rumored abuses at the asylum firsthand and expose them.

“I had some faith in my own ability as an actress,” Bly later wrote. “Could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell’s Island? I said I could and I would. And I did.”

The Reporter’s Beginnings

Nellie Bly was the pen name of Elizabeth Jane Cochran, born May 5, 1864, in Cochran’s Mills, Pennsylvania. When her father died young and his estate was split among his many children and second wife (Bly’s mother), the family fell on hard times. From a young age, Bly worked many jobs to help support her mother and family but struggled to find work that paid well.

In 1880, the family moved to Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, (the city was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907). One day, Bly read an article in the Pittsburgh Dispatch opposing women in the workplace. She wrote a letter to the editor offering an opposing view on the subject. Managing editor George Madden was impressed, and in the next edition of the paper, he asked the author of the letter to come forward.

Photograph of Nellie Bly in 1890 from the Museum of the City of New York. (Public domain)

“She isn’t much for style,” Madden said, “but what she has to say she says right out.”

Bly went to the Dispatch’s office and soon had a job and a pen name—Nellie Bly, after the popular song “Nelly Bly” by Stephen Foster. One of her first series for the Dispatch covered the conditions of poor working girls in Pittsburgh. At 21 years of age, she went to Mexico and wrote articles for the Dispatch until her criticism of the country’s censorship almost resulted in her arrest.

The majority of the articles the Dispatch assigned her, however, were simple, women’s interest pieces on entertainment, arts, or fashion. Bly wasn’t satisfied writing these pieces, so in 1887 she packed her bags and headed to New York.

A Secret Assignment

Bly tried to find a job at a New York newspaper for a few months to no avail, but she wasn’t about to return to Pittsburgh in defeat. Giving up wasn’t an option. “Indeed, I cannot say the thought ever presented itself to me, for I never in my life turned back from a course I had started upon,” she wrote.

One night, Bly realized her purse was missing and with it the rest of her money. She went to the offices of The New York World and demanded to see the editor in chief. When Bly finally spoke to managing editor John Cockerill, she pitched the idea of riding in the steerage of a ship to Europe and back, reporting on the condition that passengers, primarily immigrants, endured. The World wasn’t interested in that idea, but Cockerill proposed a different idea instead. The 23-year-old Bly would get herself sent to Blackwell’s Island and experience the rumored abuses firsthand. Bly agreed to take the assignment.

“How will you get me out?” she asked.
“I do not know,” Cockerill replied. “Only get in.”

Illustration of Bly practicing feigning insanity from her 1887 book “Ten Days in a Madhouse.” (Public domain)

Illustrative plate of an insanity expert at work, from Bly’s 1887 book. (Public domain)

The Asylum on Blackwell’s Island

Bly rented a room at a boardinghouse called the Temporary Home for Females. Her theatrics there and at Bellevue Hospital soon earned her a place at the asylum. Once there, Bly quickly found the rumored abuses to be true. The food and overall conditions were horrendous. Many people at the asylum were wrongly interned, including some immigrants who didn’t get a chance to plead their cases because they couldn’t speak English.

The nurses and caretakers at the asylum treated all patients with contempt and cruelty. Bly gathered testimony from patients in addition to the experiences she herself endured. After arriving, she acted completely normal and explained to the doctors that she should be examined and let go. She quickly learned that her only way of escape would be when someone from the World came to get her.

“The insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island is a human rat-trap. It is easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out,” she wrote.

After 10 days in the asylum, an attorney from the New York World came and obtained her release. Bly found herself strangely conflicted upon her departure. “I had looked forward so eagerly to leaving that horrible place yet when my release came … there was a certain pain in leaving,” she wrote. “For ten days I had been one of them. Foolishly enough, it seemed intensely selfish to leave them to their sufferings.”

A journalist on the go, Bly poses with her carpetbag, 1890. (Public domain)

Bly wrote a series of articles exposing the asylum, which were then compiled into a book, “Ten Days in a Madhouse.” Later, she testified to a grand jury about her experiences. This led to an increase in funding for Blackwell’s and institutions like it to provide adequate care for patients. “I have one consolation for my work—on the strength of my story the committee of appropriation provides $1,000,000 more than was ever before given, for the benefit of the insane,” she wrote.

Honor and Truth

Bly’s career was never smooth sailing, but she continued to write the rest of her life. “Energy rightly applied and directed will accomplish anything,” she said.

Though plagued with writing filler pieces, she also wrote articles that exposed an employment agency, a company supposedly “selling” unwanted babies, another factory where girls worked in horrible conditions, a corrupt lobbyist, and more. She was in Europe when World War I broke out, so she served as a war correspondent, braving the front lines. All in all, Bly worked to report what she saw regardless of what subject she was assigned.

“Write up things as you find them, good or bad,” she said. “Give praise or blame as you think best, and the truth all the time.”

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.

Tags expose, insane asylum, journalist, Nellie Bly, Reporter

Features

World-Class Performer Steven Wang on Discovering the Power of Dance in America

Post author By Annie Wu
Post date November 16, 2022

Wang performs the Tibetan dance piece “Khata for the Gods,” from Shen Yun’s 2012 program. (Courtesy of Shen Yun Performing Arts)

It had been a few months since Steven Wang last spoke to his parents, located halfway across the world in China. He knew that every time he phoned, the Chinese authorities would be listening in via wiretapping, so he avoided calling too often.

He started by asking simple questions, the way he always did. In these conversations, Wang couldn’t really share with his parents about his new life in America or about his recent experiences performing as a principal dancer at world-renowned theaters. The information could become ammunition for the Chinese regime, which keeps a watchful eye on those like Wang and his family who have been labeled enemies of the state because of their faith.

Wang’s mother and father have been repeatedly arrested and have spent intermittent time in jail because of their belief in a meditation practice called Falun Dafa, a self-cultivation discipline with meditative exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. In 1999, the Chinese communist regime outlawed the practice amid the movement’s rapidly growing popularity. Across the country, hundreds of thousands were rounded up and detained, often tortured while imprisoned.

On a fateful day in November 2009, Wang’s mother told him that his father had passed away. After his last imprisonment in 2003, his health drastically deteriorated—no doubt due to torture. He died of kidney failure in September 2009. “That day, I hid inside an empty warehouse and cried by myself for a long time,” Wang said. He regretted not being able to see his father one last time.

Wang began dance training at 9 years old. (Courtesy of Steven Wang)

But Wang knew he had a greater mission at stake: In the land of freedom, he would tell the stories of millions like his parents who still face persecutionand possibly mortal danger because of their refusal to give up their faith. Through the language of dance, Wang would convey the resilience and courage that many Falun Dafa adherents embody.

“I would think, when my father was in prison, did he experience similar torture? I imagined how a practitioner, or my father, would endure such suffering.” He would then try to display that suffering onstage.

Most recently, Wang learned that his mother was detained on July 7, 2022, at the Changsha No. 4 Women’s Detention Center, likely for distributing pamphlets about Falun Dafa, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center, which tracks persecution cases.

Wang is pictured with his mother and two sisters. (Courtesy of Steven Wang)

Wang later came to the realization that he also faced a form of persecution: the burden of uncertainty, invisible pressure, and the suffering of his loved ones. He would try to channel the emotions he felt via dance. “I hope people will understand the truth,” he said.

A Deeper Meaning Behind Dance

Wang was intrigued by dance at a young age. He grew up in Hunan Province, a place known for producing top-level gymnastics athletes. But training in gymnastics was grueling, and somehow, young Wang had a gut feeling that the sport was not for him. In 1996, when he was about 9 years old, Wang told his parents he wanted to give dance a try. His father brought him to a local arts center. When he saw the group of young classmates in their dance outfits, he felt it was the right place. Wang excelled in his class and eventually got accepted into a professional dance academy in Chongqing City—hundreds of miles away—for secondary school.

Shortly after he started dancing, Wang’s parents began practicing Falun Dafa. The practice had spread quickly across the country, with nearly 100 million adherents by the late 1990s. Wang noticed a change in his parents: They were no longer arguing the way they used to, and his father’s diabetes symptoms had disappeared.

In July 1999, the communist regime initiated its persecution campaign against Falun Dafa. Wang was too young to fully comprehend it and was far away from home. But he knew that people like his parents were being arrested and jailed because of their faith. During the 2001 Lunar New Year holiday, Wang’s parents were both arrested. He and his three elder sisters were left at home alone. “We were like orphans,” he recalled.

Seeing that the children had no one to take care of them, Wang’s aunt and uncle stayed with them for the holiday. “They pitied us and decided not to go back to their hometowns for [Lunar] New Year and stayed with us. It left a deep impression on me. I felt for the first time that our family wasn’t whole,” Wang said.

Later that year, Wang and his sisters visited their father in prison. The elder Wang was seated behind a clear barricade as guards watched intently behind him. Detainees were not allowed to talk; they could only write down messages to their visitors on a chalkboard. “He looked like skin covering bones. He looked very weak.” It was a memory Wang would never forget.

At boarding school, he was shielded from the realities of the Chinese regime’s persecution. Meanwhile, his mother and father tried to evade being arrested again. In 2008, while Wang was enrolled at a dance college in Chongqing, his mother found out about Shen Yun Performing Arts, a burgeoning performing arts company centered on an ancient art form called classical Chinese dance. Classical Chinese dance—with its unique gestures, postures, and movements—has been passed down through the ages. Its roots trace back to the imperial courts and theatrical performances of ancient China. Shen Yun, based in upstate New York, seeks to revive traditional Chinese culture through dance and music. Wang had already been learning similar dance techniques in China, and his mother encouraged him to apply for an opportunity to train and study abroad with Shen Yun.

Wang competes inthe 2010 NTD International Classical Chinese Dance Competition, portraying a knight who must decide how to use his sword skills nobly. (Courtesy of Shen Yun Performing Arts)

Wang was accepted. Everything went smoothly for his trip to America. It was here that he understood the true meaning of his craft. In China, nearly everyone kept their minds focused on getting ahead. “In that society, you’re thinking about how to get a good job after graduating, to find a good job and a good salary,” Wang said. He didn’t think beyond graduating from college, getting a steady salary as a dance instructor at a school, and then making extra money by offering private lessons.

He hadn’t considered the greater significance of what dance could be. “I didn’t have a concept about what classical Chinese dance really is until I entered Shen Yun,” he said. Through the stories of legendary heroes and men of great virtue from Chinese history, Wang learned what true kindness, humility, and trustworthiness mean. He learned that personal cultivation is critical to improving one’s technical skill: “I had to be very humble. I had to be able to accept criticism, no matter where it came from.”

In China, where the communist regime has instilled atheism throughout society, “when they teach you history, they talk about how each dynasty did things incorrectly, what mistakes they made.” “They wouldn’t tell you about the good things,” Wang said. That affected the dance training. “The more negative things you learn, the dancing also becomes more negative, dark.”

Shen Yun artists have the creative freedom to explore the beauty of age-old traditions, the positive moral lessons passed down through generations, Wang said. “I realized that the traditional things are cleaner, more beautiful, and have more flavor. My attitude was full of diligence and positivity.”

There were long days and nights spent rehearsing and refining his skills. He also sustained a knee injury. But he knew that self-discipline was the key to improvement. “I only had the thought of changing myself. I didn’t feel tired. I felt my life was very enriching every day.”

Portraying the Truth

Since the winter of 2008, Wang has toured around the world with Shen Yun in more than 1,000 performances. As principal dancer, he has portrayed the main character in several pieces that depict the modern-day plight of Falun Dafa practitioners in China.

During the 2010–2011 season, in a number called “The Opening of Heaven’s Gates,” Wang portrayed a practitioner who goes to Tiananmen Square in Beijing to let the public know that Falun Dafa is an upright practice. Police officers quickly charge in and tear away the banner he holds (it reads “Falun Dafa is Good”), beating him unconscious. The adherent’s steadfast faith moves celestial beings who use their powers to revive him. Those who witness the miracle praise the immense compassion displayed by the celestial beings. Inspired by divine blessings, Wang’s character expresses courage and elation.

In 2017, Wang portrayed a father who tries to protect his young infant from the Chinese policemen’s angry blows. “At the time, I tried to think from my father’s perspective: To protect my family, what would he do?”

(Daniel Ulrich for American Essence)

Wang is grateful that his new home country cherishes the freedom that is so wantonly trampled on in China. “Here in the U.S., I can choose my belief and follow any spiritual practice without having to fear that I might be persecuted,” he said.

He also feels honored that through playing historical Chinese figures, he can exhibit virtuous qualities that people can learn from today. “These are universally recognized. Respect and believe in the divine. Be sincere toward people. Be humble. Practice kindness and love. Be passionate in your work, and be bright and optimistic.” Such values have been eroded in China by the communist regime, but Wang hopes to have the chance to change that: “As a proud American citizen, I hope that one day, when the Chinese Communist Party falls, we can perform in China and bring back all the traditional values that used to be part of the Chinese people.”

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.

Tags china, dance, performing arts, shen yun

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