Join Angie Austin on The Good News as she interviews John Rory Ficklin about his extraordinary book, ‘An Unusual Path: Three Generations from Slavery to the White House.’ Discover the remarkable journey of the Ficklin family, from the humble beginnings of a grandfather born into slavery to serving in the White House across multiple presidencies. The conversation dives into personal stories, historical insights, and the legacy of service and commitment that spans generations.
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hello there, friend. Angie Austin here with the good news. Really excited about this next interview. I was reading the book last night, An Unusual Path, Three Generations from Slavery to the White House. It’s a memoir by John Rory Ficklin, and it details his family’s nearly century-long service at the White House. The pictures, John, it’s so fun to go through them and see your dad with all these images. delicacies at these White House dinners. And then he’s hugging Betty Ford. And I just I’ve never seen Jimmy Carter singing on the White House lawn with Dizzy Gillespie. So I looked up all these things. What a great book. What a great life.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you so much. Yeah, I enjoy those pictures as well. There’s some good ones in here.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, there are. Tell me, just kind of explain to everyone in a nutshell, since I know it already, the three generations from slavery to the White House.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, my grandfather was born enslaved in Rappahannock County, Virginia, in about 1855. And he was widowed twice. I mean, after emancipation, he married. He got married. Found work in quarries in Ohio, saved enough money, came back to Rappahannock County and purchased 37 acres of land. He married three times. He was widowed twice. And his last wife was my grandmother, who gave birth to 10 children. Two of those children, my Uncle Charles and my dad, John Woodson Ficklin, went on to work in the White House as butlers. And eventually, they both became maitre d’. My father followed after his big brother’s footsteps. And maitre d’ is the most senior position in the White House. And then I came to the White House as a summer messenger, as a summer job. And that’s how we got here. That’s the three generations.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, in terms of the presidencies, I know that it went from your family from FDR to Barack Obama. Now, I know you can’t tell me least favorites, but can you tell me a couple of your family’s favorites that you worked with? It looked like Betty Ford was giving your dad quite a hug, and I saw Nancy Reagan speaking with your father. So you don’t have to bring out the bad ones, but any favorites?
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m going to say this, that both my dad – and I kind of favored all of them. We had all of the presidents. I think my dad had a special relationship with the Kennedy family in that they were contemporaries. And, of course, you know, President Kennedy had two children that were about the same age as me and my older brother, and they shared a lot in common. And, of course, the tragedy in the Kennedy family when the president was assassinated, I think it was a special period in my dad’s life. And for me, having met Kennedy, Barack Obama is a 1L law student, and have him finally be elected president, it was a special presidency for me. However, I enjoyed working for all of the presidents as well as my dad. My dad tells stories about all of them that are really pretty funny, and I have some stories as well.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, well, go ahead. I mean, we’ve got, you know, just under 10 minutes. So give me some of the highlights, you know, for you, your family and, you know, and from the book.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I have to say that, you know, attending the state dinner for the Chinese President Xi Jinping was a high point in my career. It was hosted by the Obama family. It was a very elegant affair. And I was very happy to be there. Oh, boy, other things. Yeah, attending the Christmas parties and Fourth of July fireworks on the South Lawn. Those are very special events. Absolutely. Yeah. My dad was honored to have access to a beach house owned by the National Park Service that we visited recently. at least two summers in a row. It was really an honor to spend a week on the beach in a remote place on Assateague Island. It was really quite nice. Wow.
SPEAKER 04 :
How about any, as you mentioned, there’s a couple of funny stories, any thing that kind of stands out or notable that you think people would be surprised to hear or get a kick out of hearing?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I have to think on that for a minute here. Um, There are some. I mean, there was one story that my dad tells about President Johnson at the wedding of one of his daughters and how he was able to prevent the president from cutting the cake in the wrong place and having the cake come tumbling down. Oh, my gosh. That was a good catch.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, to interrupt the president, yes. I was curious when I was reading a little bit about your family. Was it difficult to, you know, from your grandfather from slavery to the White House in the book, you talk about him and buying land and, you know, his background, obviously very difficult with the three wives losing two of them. And then, boy, the third one having 10 kids. That’s quite a feat right there for her. Was it difficult to trace his background, his roots, or was that easily done?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, it was very difficult to do. I mean, he had no idea who his father is. It’s assumed that his father was a white man, and probably we don’t know if he was an employee of the farm or if he was one of the farm owners. He knew his mother. And he knew, you know, two of his siblings, and he knew when they were, you know, they were sold off to another family, and he never saw them again. But, you know, all we know about my grandfather is what he told his children, what was passed down to his kids. And, you know, what we think we found in the – Oh, shoot. I’m sorry. In the census records, we think we found him and he’s described there as a five year old mulatto child in the census records. And so that’s that’s all we really know. I mean, we’re still looking for his trying to find his father and find out who his father was and what may have become of his mom, of his mother.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, it’s interesting now with all the, you know, the genetic testing and such that, you know, I’ll bet you in your lifetime, you will probably be able to figure that out. I’ve, you know, followed some family stories where they’ve kind of figured out that numerous people, you know, were related to one specific, like well-known, very famous dignitary type father who, you know, fathered many children. And, you know, through, you know, genetic testing now, you know, there’s a huge group group of people that were related to this very famous man. And so I just think it’s fascinating now that, you know, you may be able to discover, you know, who that was at some point in time. It’s just unbelievable what you can find out about family histories now. Why was now the time for you to to write your family history? What prompted you to write the book?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I started writing the book after my well, after my after I retired. But my dad started writing the book when he retired and unfortunately she passed away before he could he was diagnosed with lung cancer and passed away before he got very far in the book at all um but then i picked it up when i retired i you know family and friends and particularly my wife were kept encouraging me to write this book and saying that the story needed to be documented need to be told And so when I retired, I picked up the mantle and started working on the book. And I really got serious about it once I met the White House Historical Association, who were coming from the same place about documenting and recording the history of the White House and people who worked there. And I was really encouraged and encouraged. Finally got really very busy and finished the book.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, when they – you talk about how many ficklins worked there. Were there really that many? I read that there was a Washington Post quote where a butler observed a ficklin here, a ficklin there. I see ficklins everywhere. Were there really that many of your relatives working there, or is he just joking?
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, no, that’s a fact. Really? I had – Oh, I had, at one point in the late 1940s, early 1950s, I think I had two aunts that were working there, an uncle. Matter of fact, an uncle was working there as a part-time coat checker in my house on the day that Pearl Harbor was bombed. Oh, wow. And let’s see, my mother worked there as a part-timer for a while, and… I had two cousins who worked there, one cousin who just stopped working there as a part-timer, I think maybe four or five years ago. But only Uncle Charles and my father were the only two who worked in the residence as full-time employees. Everyone else were part-timers on call for events and that kind of thing.
SPEAKER 04 :
What I think is really cool is to go from your grandfather a slave and then you became quite an important person in your life and had quite a colorful career. And so really interesting book, An Unusual Path, Three Generations from Slavery to the White House, John Rory Thicklin. I wish we had more time. Is there a good website for people to head to for more info?
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, absolutely. Well, the book is available online. at the White House Historical Association’s website, shop.whitehousehistory.org, and it’s available at Amazon.com. Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER 04 :
Excellent. I’m there looking at it right now on the White House site. Thank you so much, John. What a great book. Congratulations, and good luck with the book.
SPEAKER 03 :
And thank you, and thanks for having me on today.
SPEAKER 04 :
You are welcome. Well, I really think this is a great book. And again, you can get it, you can just Google to John W. Ficklin. And by the way, he’s humble, but the author that we just spoke to, the Honorable John W. Ficklin’s career spanned Eight administrations culminating with President Barack Obama appointing him to the position of special assistant to the president for national security affairs. So quite an unusual path. And, you know, we didn’t get to talk a ton about his grandfather. Maybe I can get him back on the show because I really enjoyed him and his story. But in his book, An Unusual Path, Three Generations from Slavery to the White House, the story starts with his grandfather, James Strother Ficklin, who was born enslaved in 1854, and then he was conscripted to serve as a water boy to Confederate Army troops quartering in rural Virginia. And then following emancipation, he worked as a houseman, a laborer, he worked in coal mines, and then he purchased, as John mentioned, the 37 acres of land in Virginia, where he farmed, produced molasses, and raised 10 children. And what a hard life. He lost two of those wives. And then the third, the 10 children that he talks about, that was the third wife. John Woodson Ficklin was the author’s father. So that was the seventh of those 10 children. So his grandfather, a slave, and his father born after his father had started working as a laborer in coal mines. And then… the author’s father moved to D.C. as a teenager and he found work as a butler in the city and his older brothers were working as butlers at the White House during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. And so that’s when the author’s father joined them. And then over the course of 43 years in service at the White House, John Woodson Ficklin was promoted to head butler and then major the hotel. And so the author, John, talks about how he realized how important his dad’s job was as he watched his dad serve as an usher at the funeral for President John F. Kennedy. He was an usher for that funeral. And as he mentioned, had a really nice and close relationship with the Kennedys. So just a little bit more about the book. You know, and again, this I think I think I’ll just have him back. Don’t you think he was good? I think he was pretty good. John Rory Thicklin, An Unusual Path, Three Generations from Slavery to the White House. Thank you so much for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin. Appreciate you.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
Hello there. If you are just joining us, this is Angie Austin with the good news. And the good news is we have a returning guest that I really enjoy speaking with. You know, if you are somebody who isn’t really familiar with AI yet, it has been the talk of our house for weeks now because my husband’s business is looking into it. And then I’ve got a kid in business school and I’ve got two girls that are like figuring out how to use it to their benefit, but not use it too much because they’re students. Well, a new study finds that business leaders are making bold bets on AI, but success really depends on embedding into the DNA of the organization. We were just talking about this last night. So what does all of this mean? Well, we have an expert joining us again, Salima Lin, a managing partner of Strategy, M&A, Transformation, and Thought and Leadership with IBM Consulting. Welcome back, Salima.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you, Angie. I enjoy speaking with you too, Angie.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I get a kick out of you. Okay, so it’s funny that we were talking about this last night because one of the partners in my husband’s company crunched these numbers, right? And he decided that one particular salesperson maybe wasn’t, you know, valuable enough, right? But then two of the other partners were on the phone for an hour last night and I was listening to them saying, well, we’ve got to factor this in and the clients that have stayed on and the ones that have done this and this one back to this year. And he’s like, and then we have to… They were talking about a particular kind of AI software, and they were saying you have to put in enough data for it to give you the correct answer. And when they put their data in, which was more extensive and more going years back to see what the total value is, um after like an hour they figure out yes this person was really worth it so don’t just let ai like on a whim make you uh get rid of an employee that actually is valuable so it was kind of interesting for me uh to to listen to that is that kind of what you’re talking about is getting into the dna the ai getting into the dna of an organization yeah absolutely correct i mean we we think of ai as being just a technology
SPEAKER 05 :
But it isn’t just the technology, right? It’s about technology and people. And whereas I always think about AI as being the quintessential specialist, right? It can do tasks at a rate and pace that we just can’t match, right? So we can do analysis and produce reports and, you know, understand, you know, how things relate to each other. But it doesn’t have the context. Right? It doesn’t have to teach you thinking. It’s a creativity that you and I have. And so you can’t have it operate on its own. It’s got to work alongside with people who could interpret, put the context, make the decisions exactly as you just laid out with the example.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, in terms of, you know, as we are looking to the future into the next, you know, five, ten years even, what’s the biggest challenge that C-suite executives face? And what do you think they should prioritize now in order to succeed later?
SPEAKER 05 :
Absolutely. So in terms of what’s the biggest challenge? Most leaders would agree that AI will have a profound impact on their business, but few can really identify what that specific impact will be. And so the biggest challenge is closing that gap, right, between I believe in AI’s potential, but how will it turn into results for me, my people, my company, right? And to better understand it, as you had mentioned, our Institute for Business Value, the IDV, we surveyed 2,000 C-suite executives and asked them what will drive success for them over the next four years. And that’s where we saw that clear gap, right? 80%, 80% of executives expect AI will significantly contribute to their revenue by 2030. Only 24%, Angie, can clearly say where that revenue will come from. So they’ve got a clear picture of the destination, but they don’t know how to get there.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. And I’m sure you’re seeing some of the, like, little missteps on the way. I can think of one just off the top of my head. I don’t know if I told you this one last time. We were buying a big, like, Ram truck for my husband, and we had the Mercedes dealership way out and way, like, at least an hour, hour, hour and a half from us. I said, oh, yeah. And, you know, it’s like Sally. Sally said, yeah, come on out. It’s here. So we get there. Right. There is no Sally. Apparently, Sally is AI. Like we’ve we kind of dug down to figure out where is Sally. Sally said she was here. Is there a Sally? Who’s Sally? You know, we’re like, oh, my gosh, AI brought us here and the truck isn’t here. And so we’re like, OK, so you have not helped your business. You have harmed your business with AI because you made people drive an hour and a half. For a person that doesn’t exist and for a car or a truck that’s not located here. So I feel like they’re trying to use it to answer a lot of questions and replace people in terms of really answering quickly. And I’m really on the ball. I’m AI Sally. I can answer you back in 20 seconds, except that I’m giving you misinformation.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s exactly right. And that reinforces the point I said earlier about it’s not just about the technology. It’s about people and technology. Because in that situation, of course, hindsight is 20-20. But you can get the information really quickly and it can narrow it down. But it doesn’t mean you don’t make a phone call and just confirm. So I think they go hand in hand.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, and I also think with, you know, and we were confirming too via text, but in their case, they need to have like a human then intervene towards the end of this process, you know, to actually interface with the customer and give them, right, like you said, a real phone call. Okay, so with AI changing the way that organizations and students for that matter, you know, compete and grow, my son says it’s really integrated into his business school program where he goes to college. And so how is… changing how people compete and grow now? Because I’m sure just like the way it took a lot of businesses a long time to get a website or to get an app or to really get into the 2026, it took a lot of them a long time to do that. I take it that a lot of people are being like, I don’t need AI and blah, blah, blah. I don’t need that. So how is it changing the way organizations are competing and growing the way you see it?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, absolutely. So I think there’s a real shift in in how businesses are using AI to compete. So on one hand, as you and I just talked about, there’s this efficiency and productivity aspect of it, right? It’s not just about doing things faster or cheaper, right? It’s about creating new products and getting them to market much faster with a better customer experience. And so the way organizations will, yeah, exactly. The way organizations will do this It’s not just about using the same AI models everyone else uses, because then it’s generic, right? It’s common. Everyone has access. What becomes differentiating is uniqueness, right? So it’s the way companies will use the AI that’s built on their data. their workflows, their intellectual property. That’s where we get the advantage. That’s how they will grow.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, I am so impressed with it, Celine. You’re going to laugh at the way I’m impressed with it. I like doing my own research because I think research is super fun, and I love talking to all my guests like you, and especially when I have return guests like you that I enjoy talking to. I just get a kick out of doing my own research. But what I’ve been doing it using it for extensively is we’re planning this month long trip to Europe. And I am blown away when I say I want to be in this area of Paris, for instance, and I want this price range and I want a breakfast in the morning that’s included and blah, blah, blah. I mean, within split seconds, it has like an itinerary for me and it can tell me where to buy tickets or how to travel from like country to country, whether it should be train or if there’s a line that I can take or whatever. And like you said, the time that it takes, it’s mind blowing. Or I don’t know if you’ve done this yet. A room like interior decorating. I see it changing like that whole world. I mean, I don’t know what areas of business it’s not going to affect AI. My husband’s already talked to my kids about one of them wanted to be a lawyer. And now he’s thinking, well, maybe you should be a nurse because she had a couple of like top, you know, things to do. Because now these poor kids, they got to figure out which careers might not be quite obsolete, but they might not be as needed as they look towards the future is where they’ll fit into the business world.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, absolutely. So it’s interesting. I’m going, Angie, to Italy. uh in may and i used ai to to put the whole itinerary together now i have to say it wasn’t just one question and one answer i had to as you said earlier i had to keep giving it context and better and more data for it to give me a tailored response but it is fantastic um i tell a couple things that you said there that i would comment on first uh you’re right ai is going to have a massive impact right um across the board for us as human beings day to day as well as in business, executives that we spoke with in the study project that AI will boost productivity and efficiency by 42%. by 2030. That’s massive, right? That’s massive. And by the way, that is why AI is so transformational, right? It can work faster and scale bigger than we can as humans. And so that potential is really staggering. But again, as I said before, it’s not just about that, it’s about humans. And in terms of, you had mentioned something about jobs changing. I think you hit it on the nose, right? Some jobs may go away, but new roles will be created with all that growth and many more will be transformed. And so what matters is, you know, taking steps to equip students like your kids and workers in the workforce with the skills they need to partner effectively with AI technologies.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, when I think about how these have to go hand in hand with a human, right? My husband just received something, a legal document. And as he was reading through it, he just started laughing. He’s like, this is AI. He’s like, so this isn’t even like you could I could never take this to court. He’s like. They’ve got so much misinformation in this document. So he calls the lawyer and he goes, oh, yeah, I just thought I’d throw it at one of the young guys and see, you know, like what he could come up with. And we’re like, oh, is the young guy named AI Fred? You know, like, really? The young guy. So I see at least right now, like it has to be done hand in hand with a human because AI. If the data isn’t put in correctly, you just have a hodgepodge of a mess of information that might not even be relative in this case to the court case that, you know, is going on. So that was like a huge fail.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, no, absolutely. And that’s why I think, you know, focusing on skills is really, really important. And by the way, like this transformation, like with humans is already underway, right? 57% of executives in our study said that the skills, that we have today will be obsolete by 2030, 57%. And so we really do need to be focusing on skilling ourselves, right? And getting better and doing and trying different things. And by the way, what I would also say is that nearly half of employees said that they are actually comfortable being managed by an assistant, an AI agent. And so I think employees are embracing this more than they are resisting it. which bodes well, obviously, for companies out there.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, they’d never be jealous. The AI, Fred, would never be jealous of your cool outfit you wear to work. It would reduce office politics. All right, so I have one more question. Here’s the thing that I get a little bit thrown by. Choosing the AI, like, okay, so one of the companies I talked to is throwing Claude around. I use sometimes DeepSeek and ChatGPT. How do you figure out which one works for your business? It’s kind of overwhelming.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, there are a lot of choices out there. I would say two things. I think, as I mentioned earlier, there’s a lot of access to a lot of different tools. I think you have to, one, determine, you know, why you’re using it, what’s that use case, because there are, you know, advantages of one versus the other. The other thing that I would say is that it’s not just about using one, right? It’s about using many. And so what we’re seeing companies do is tailor their AI portfolios, right? So blend some of the custom, some of the small Models that are out there with some of the bigger ones and in fact when they do this when they custom tailor it based on what they need And they embed their own data their own workflows into it. So it becomes unique to them They expect to drive productivity gains 24% greater than the individual that’s using it generically so know what you want it for and make it unique to you and
SPEAKER 04 :
And if they want more information or help, where do they go to IBM Wise to get more info?
SPEAKER 05 :
They would go to IBM.com slash IBV and read the report, Enterprises 2030.
SPEAKER 04 :
IBM.com forward slash IBV. Shalima, always a pleasure to have you on the program. A lot of fun to learn from you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. You bet.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
