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I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time taking time to be more fully present. Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now. Hi to everybody watching and listening on Super Bowl Sunday with the election just a couple of days away. I know that so many of you may be at this point tired of politics or the negative ad campaigns and the constant news cycle about our divided country.

I like to think of super soul as a space where we can take a breath and where we can slow down, center ourselves and focus on what really matters.

Now, what's most important to me is that as American citizens, we exercise our sacred privilege, our right to vote, because there are millions of people who came before us and who are living now around the world who didn't and don't have that same rights.

It is my fervent desire that we we do not take the vote for granted. And I want to show you a clip from the Oprah show back in nineteen eighty eight, I think, where I explained over 32 years ago the reason why I always vote.

I've been telling the story for years. If you haven't heard it, here it is. I'll start with Norma and me, I'm I'm trying to remain totally unbiased during this show, but I will start with you all because as black people in this country, I just find it difficult to believe that you're not going to vote for somebody since so many of our people died for the right to vote.

So so you have to address that issue for me first. Well, yes, basically, I feel that who who am I being true to first, myself or my country? I don't want to be a hypocrite and not vote for, you know, somebody that might do the job right. I, I don't know. I just feel that. Let me tell you this story.

There's a Reverend Otis Moss in Cleveland who who told this story in a sermon that he gave.

He was born in a little town, I think, in in Georgia. I can't remember the name of the town. I'll try to make the story brief.

He says he remembers the day his father, as a black man, was first given the right to vote. His father walked six miles to the voting poll. He got there and the people told him there, you're in the wrong place, boy. He walked another eight miles to the voting poll and they said, you're in the wrong place. You should be seven miles up. He walked another seven miles up and got there. And it was too late to vote after his father walked all those miles back home.

The children are waiting to see daddy. What did it feel like as a black man to vote for the first time? And he had to tell them. His father had to tell them that he didn't have a chance to vote because he went to the wrong place and was was denied the right to vote. And Reverend Otis Moore says that now because when four years later came around, his father had died and was not able to vote as a black man, that now every time he goes into the to to the to the pole and pulls a lever, he pulls that lever for his father, a black man who was denied the right to vote and died before he could just remember that story on Election Day.

OK. And now I'm having what I have always called a full circle moment, because Otis Moss is remarkable story has now been made into a beautiful short film title, Otis Dream.

Now, for me, it's both heartbreaking and also inspiring at the same time. So I urge you to watch this film and then share it with a friend shared with a family member.

Because here's the fundamental question.

Do you want your voice to be heard and think about the price that has been paid for your voice to be heard?

So after we watch Otis's dream, I'll be joined by Reverend Otis Moss. The third, he is the original Otis Moss grandson for a conversation about his grandfather's story and the legacy that he's left.

So stay tuned. We'll be right back with my interview. And now here is Otis's dream. Let me tell you a story. A story about my father. Otis Moss, senior. It's the story of my father's determination to exercise his right to vote one morning in the fall of 1946. He got up determined to cast his ballot. My father was a farmer, a sharecropper in the rural south. He served in the military during the First World War, always a man of dignity, quiet courage and determination.

Mother, his devoted wife had died at an early age and my father struggled as a single parent of five children. I'm going to vote today, June. We were amazed, excited that our father is about to do something really significant. What about I know you love your. He walked from the house, well dressed, well groomed, six miles to the town center. Now, marriage things have been introduced, keep certain people from voting, especially black people.

We knew the racism, the hatred, the injustice represented in government, Eugene Talmadge, know if I may have all in. He was well aware of all of the dangers, toys, snags and roadblocks to keep him from voting. But he was willing. To face all of that and exercise his right to vote. He did not know what the experience would be for him on that day. But he was well aware. What was taking place all over the south at that very moment?

Mr. Goldsmith, Mr.. Sir, I am Otis Moss, and I'm here to vote. What did you say your name was, Otis Moss. Oh, it looks like you've come to the wrong polling place, you need to go over to the Moundsville school. I have a letter here from the county stating that I vote here. People from your side of town are vote mountville. You're supposed to get a letter, but the mail's been slow this past few weeks.

Did he come? I think he came here.

May I have my letter back?

Let me tell you a story about my grandfather. He'd already walked six miles to the first polling place. Now he's being told you've come to the wrong place, a clear and blatant lie. Now he has to go to the Monville school. To the middle school is in a different city. I imagine. As my grandfather walked, the sounds of the world crept into his ear. You are a second class citizen. You are three fifths of a person.

You are nothing but a Negro. But in his spirit, he hurt his faith. And the song say, ain't gonna let nobody turn me around. Not just walking, but marching to the next polling place.

Steps through the doors of the Monville school, unsure. Yes, I'm here to vote, I was sent here from the Legrange courthouse, you are in the wrong place.

You supposed to vote at the Rosemont School.

The clerk from the courthouse say I was to come here. I don't know about that.

But I know you supposed to vote at the Rosemont School. Let me tell you the story of my great grandfather because of the color of his skin. He was held back from voting Voli, a basic right of his one of his freedoms because of the way he looked.

He wasn't allowed to, despite the next polling place being six more miles. Despite the disappointment and the anger and frustration, his determination, strong will and dream to vote outweighed any disappointment that crossed his mind. Boy, I sure am sorry, but the polling place closed. Now, if you would have been here five minutes earlier, we would have let you in.

Wounded. But never give up. Denied. But never accepting that denial. Insulted. But refusing. To accept. The insult inwardly. And that by. Setting an example. And a memory. For generations unborn. Just a few years after that, father. Was killed. In an automobile accident. Fast forward. I became a participant in the civil rights movement and the voting rights movement and and Dr. Martin Luther King Junior in the Selma march witnessed the signing of the voting rights deal 1965.

That was a great moment. It was a great victory in the civil rights struggle. It was a great accomplishment. However. No one could dig up our father's bones and put. A ballot in his hand, some things are beyond repair. Oh, your Poppo minute. Promise me. If you get a chance. One of the remarkable moments in my life and in my memory is taken my son Otis, the third to vote, I paused on my side of the curtain in prayerful silence and listened for Otis the third punch, his ballot that.

Became music. Freedom music. Liberation Music.

The sound of my father's footsteps trying to cast his vote.

You know, I've often wondered how Otis Moss felt when he got to that last polling place and told it was closed, what must have been going through his mind and how tired he would have been and how hot the day would have been.

And his mind on that long walk home, what was on his mind? What was he thinking about? Well, now I want to welcome the man responsible and may have some answers to those questions. The man responsible for the powerful film you just saw, Otis, his grandson, Reverend Otis Moss, the third. Hello, Reverend. How are you?

It's a delight to be with you today.

It's such a pleasure. So I just want to say, when is the first time? You know, I just saw a clip of me. I was telling the stories in the 80s, so it must have been the early 80s when I first heard the story.

I have been telling the story of your grandfather for as long as I can remember, actually, since I left Baltimore. And that was eighty three, I think.

So tell me when you first heard the story. Well, the story of my grandfather has become like law in my family, my father would not only tell the story to to us, but he also told it to to the church. And my father has one of those voices. There's James Earl Jones as Morgan Freeman and there's my dad. And he would share the story with the congregation. And it became mythical and magical at the same time, these people of Dignity and Troup County.

So I was probably about 10 when I remembered the story, but it was in 88.

You had already become a purveyor of that story when you shared it again. And I had the opportunity to cast my vote for the first time for Reverend Jesse Jackson in the primary in Ohio.

My father took me to that was an elementary school that was 88.

Wow.

So when, you know, you grew up hearing it, I heard your father, Reverend Otis Moss Jr., tell the story at a prayer breakfast in for the Black Caucus. So that had to be in the early 80s or late 70s when I first first heard it.

And, you know, it impacted me. As I've said often, it impacted me for life, that story. And I want to know when you became aware of what it really meant.

I mean, because there's one thing, your young boy, you're hearing the story and. Oh, yeah, that's your grandfather. But when did it impact you?

And when you went into the voting booth yourself, did you carry the image of your grandfather with you, as I have done since I heard the story?

It was really at that moment when I had the opportunity to go in the voting booth. I was I was with my father. He'd been sharing the story.

And my grandfather was was with me the spirit of my grandfather.

And when I come out of the voting booth, my father has tears in his eyes because he knew at that moment something was being fulfilled, that what his father couldn't do, I was able to do. But I was casting my ballot for someone who looked like my grandfather. And it really just just struck a chord with him. And it was just a beautiful moment that I will never forget.

And then fast forward, when my son had the opportunity to vote for the first time, he voted for a black woman, the mayor of Atlanta, and called his grandfather and said, I voted.

And do you think great grandpa would be excited that I voted?

And so it's both of us got an opportunity to vote for someone who looked like us when we had the opportunity to vote.

Wow.

You know, so I love that it is sort of a sacred rite of passage in your home. It feels like that's what it has become.

And I was just sharing some thoughts because I've been working all this past week doing many of the swing states, talking to thought leaders and social thought leaders about the importance of voting and trying to rally people around this idea of voting.

And it occurred to me after watching this beautiful film that you all just constructed, it occurred to me that to not vote feels like shaming your ancestors.

It is a dishonor to your answer. It is a dishonor.

You are dishonoring those people like your grandfather who got up and got themselves in the best state that they could and knew that they were risking so much.

Because if you can for a moment, tell us what Georgia in nineteen forty six, which some people are still alive and don't know what that means.

Georgia in nineteen forty six. What he was risking he he knew he might not even get back home.

That's right. That's right. So nineteen forty six. My grandfather is a sharecropper, he puts on his Sunday best because he was going to go to the polls, he's going to go as a person of dignity. He was a single father raising five kids and Governor Talmage was running for re-election who was an avowed racist, who said there are three problems in Georgia. And he gave the N-word three times in his stump speech. And if you elect me, you will never see another Negro vote in the primary.

He was saying to the people of Georgia, and this is not hyperbole, I'm going to make Georgia great again in the process.

And then he says to all of the domestic terrorists that no one is going to arrest you if, in fact, you see someone of African descent trying to vote.

So when he went out that day. He wasn't sure if he was going to come back when he went out that day, he he went out also in honor of his wife, who died because of medical apartheid, because they wouldn't treat her at a white hospital. He understood the connection between policy and casting his vote, and he walked 18 miles in honor of a woman he deeply loved and a family he cared about and wasn't sure if he was going to make it back on.

Yeah, when I think about the risk that was taken, not only not only if he made it back home, what could have happened to his home?

You know, the clan, right?

Midnight, doing something to your children, to your son and then your father, in spite of being raised by a single father and having all the difficulties of, you know, putting your life together or being able to keep your life together once your father has passed.

Those were the days where the community came together and said, we will take care of these children. Not. Is that what happened? Yeah, that's right.

That's right. When my grandfather died in a car accident, I hit on a drunk driver, killed him.

The community came around and my father and his siblings and one person down the road said, I'll take care of you. Another person said, I've got you. It was a village situation and it was a beautiful thing to see.

And so my father can go where the children split up, where the children split up, they were split up. They were sort of different family members and extended family took care of different family members. So the youngest uncle, my Uncle Mitchell, was taken care of by a family member because he was so small. And then, you know, my father was taken in by by neighbors who says you have a home with us.

From now on, his sisters were taken in by different people and they cared for them, raise them. And all of them had that ethic of we're going to vote from now on in reference to the memory of their father.

How do you think your dad, Otis Moss Jr., who we see in the film as a young boy, how do you think he was shaped by his father? That's I thought about that question because my father is he's a gentle giant, he's a person of conviction and compassion. His his idea of manhood is not volume and violence or some toxic masculinity.

It is just the simplicity of loving, caring and being committed to the people you love. And he saw that in his father, a father who was a sharecropper, but said, I'm going to take care of my children. He saw that in his father, in the simple dignity of making sure that his clothes looked a certain way when he walked out.

He believed that he was to be a person committed to that small Troup County area. We've got to take care of everybody around here. And he has that to this day.

There's there is I know nobody. I know there's if I could be the tenth of the man he is. I would be all right. Hmmm, well, I know of what you speak because he's one of the people I admire most in the world.

I think his his his integrity impeccable and doesn't just is not just a fine preacher, but such a such a fine human being and lives the word that that has been my experience with your father.

So when and how did you all decide that you were going to turn this into you are going to stop talking about it and you were going to actually turn it into a film and let the world know about it?

Well, it's been kind of, you know, ruminating in our in our minds for quite some time as we've been bugging my father, you have to write your memoirs because he's got more stories and experiences and he just seems to connect with everyone. But really, this summer is really when it moved this pandemic helped us, pushed us. There was a wonderful woman in Columbus, Ohio, who wrote a song.

She heard you speak about my grandfather.

And so she just wrote a song talking about Otis walking, Otis walking from polling place to polling place and shared it with my parents. And as we talk together as a family, said, it's about time that we put something together. And so this summer I started writing the script. I didn't send it to any church people because I don't want people say, Oh, baby, that's real good.

I want to send it to some people who actually do fail to take it. So I sent it to some individuals who would give honest feedback, who were in the film industry, and they said, you know, you this is this is OK. This is this is all right. And it's it was sacred serendipity that brought together all of the necessary filmmakers in order to put this production together. The spirit of God was really working in that moment. Well, I want to give a shout out to Keith Walker, who was the cinematographer for this.

Keith is with me for years. He's my favorite photographer. And I can see his hand, his camera hand his eye all through this.

So bless you for that. I know so many people will see the film and will be moved by the film.

What's your intention for what it achieves?

Well, what we're doing, we're deploying the film to five hundred at minimum 500 churches across the nation, especially in swing states, and that have 500 churches play the film.

We know that we can reach 100000 people that will focus on voter suppression and getting out to vote. And so we have a chance to vote the dream. And we want you to share your story maybe the first time voting or who is the person that you are voting in honor of?

Who is the ancestor in your community? Who is the person in your family who was denied the right to vote, hashtag vote, the dream. I vote in honor when our vote of Otis Moore, senior, who is it in your family?

And it's not the person that maybe in your family, maybe you say our vote in honor of Harriet Tubman, you know, our vote in honor of Frederick Douglass, whoever it may be, we want people to understand there is a legacy that we we stand on the shoulders of other people.

Well, yeah, as I've been saying for years, I vote in honor of Otis Moss. So I'm so glad you all have made a film.

I want to know, you know, one of the reasons why I like the film so much is because nothing in it speaks about our division, except y'all did cast some very nice, mean white people in there and some very nice, very nice me white people.

When the woman says, I know that you're not supposed to vote here, I mean, very good casting, very good acting.

So I want to know, what is your personal prayer for us where we are now and where we're where we are headed in the next few days?

My prayer is that we would reclaim the jazz of democracy, and when I say jazz, it means that in a jazz band, everybody is allowed to solo to bring their unique perspective to the table. And it's my prayer that we will learn the jazz of democracy, that even though the piano and the saxophone aren't supposed to play together, they do.

And they make beautiful music. And I think jazz teaches us what democracy is all about. And I hope on Tuesday that people will bring their solo, they'll bring their song to build something new in this nation. And we literally, in the words of John Coltrane, we can create a love supreme even though we've seen strange fruit. Sounding like your daddy preach here this morning, OK, I want to tell all of our Super Bowl audience that tomorrow night, Monday night at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, 7:00 Central, I'm asking leaders across many different faiths to gather together in a one hour program in prayer for our country.

I agree. We're in a battle for the soul of our nation. And my hope is that Monday night we can be another or have another chance to center ourselves, focus on what really matters, and come together in a prayer for peace and unity. And I hope you join us. You go to w w w dot to zoom with Oprah Dotcom to watch it live and be a part of our big prayer service.

All you have to do is register and you can watch it for free. That's at 8:00 p.m. Eastern tomorrow. And I believe so strongly in your grandfather's story and in this film that I want everybody I know to watch it. And so what we're going to do is have it up on Oprah, Dotcom, any time for anybody who wants to see it. Where else can people see the film? They can go to Otis's drin dotcom and we also have resources, if you want to join the fight against voter suppression.

You can learn about the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. You can learn about fair fight. That was started by Stacey Abrams. You can learn about Iraq, the vote or the Brenin Law Center that tracks voter suppression.

We want people to be educated because this isn't just about November 3rd. This is about generations that are yet to be born. We have to make America not make it great again. We just have to make America the yet to be United States.

Wow. Thank you so much. Thank you, Reverend Moss.

Reverend Otis Moss, the third.

Thank you for bringing your grandfather's story to life in such a such a poignant manner. Now, generations and generations to come will be able to do exactly what you said will be able to know his story.

Can you wonder obviously you all thought about what he would think about this.

What did you. Oh, tell me this. What did your dad say when he first saw the film?

Oh, Sister Winfrey. We showed him just, you know, the rough cut. My father, you know, my father's quite you know, my father. He's quiet, he's laid back. He is one of the coolest brothers you ever will meet.

You know, not only, you know, I was going to say a man of dignity. He's not a man of dignity. He's a man of dignity.

You got you got you got him. You got OK.

But when he saw the rough cut, he got quiet and he he teared up. He took his hands and he went like this and he said, I know my father would be proud. And it was we were all his ground children were around him and. It was it was a moment that I will never forget. Hmm. Well done, well done, sir, well done and to everyone watching and listening. Do we need to say it again?

If you haven't already, please vote by everybody. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm Oprah Winfrey, and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast you can follow Super Soul on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. If you haven't yet, go to Apple podcast and subscribe rate and review this podcast. Join me next week for another super soul conversation. Thank you for listening.