E-mail a friendJanis Kearney
airdate January 13, 2005
Janis Kearney served nearly six years as President Clinton's White House diarist, the first time in history such an appointment was made. Her résumé includes newspaper publisher, columnist and author. She was also Minority Media Outreach director for the Clinton-Gore campaign headquarters and Public Affairs and Communications director for the SBA. The Arkansas native's books include her memoirs, Cotton Field of Dreams and Something to Write Home About, and Conversations, a look at the 42nd president's years in office.
Janis Kearney
Tavis: When Janis Kearney was working in the cotton fields of the Arkansas delta, she could never have imagined meeting a U.S. president, let alone working for one in the White House. But that's exactly what happened when she became Bill Clinton's personal diarist in 1995. Her incredible journey is captured in the pages of her new memoir, 'Cotton Field of Dreams,' forward written by former president William J. Clinton. Janis, nice to meet you.
Janis Kearney: It's good to meet you.
Tavis: Glad to have you on the program.
Kearney: Thank you.
Tavis: There's so much good stuff to talk to you about, but this--this, without equal, is the most fascinating part of your journey as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure you have your own, but, uh, allow me, please.
Kearney: Sure.
Tavis: Um, first of all, I've done this--this is the second season of this show, and I have been officially beaten now. I'm one of 10 kids.
Kearney: Wow.
Tavis: There have been a lot of folk on this show from big families, but I've been beaten fair and square here. So tell the audience, how many kids in your family, Janis?
Kearney: There's a total of 19 children in my family, and I actually grew up with 17.
Tavis: All right. My mama's like, "Yeah, you win, girl. Your mama and them--yeah, we got 10, but your mama and them got 17. Uh, 17 kids and 2 half brother and sisters. All right. So I've been officially beaten. Let me just concede that you win. Or your mama and them win. Um, what's more remarkable about that is not that Janis has more kids in her family than I have in my family. The amazing thing is that of the 17, how many went to college?
Kearney: 16.
Tavis: 16. Of those 16, how many graduated from college?
Kearney: 16.
Tavis: So of 17 kids, 16 of y'all went to school and graduated.
Kearney: Yes.
Tavis: From schools like...
Kearney: Harvard, Yale, um...Brown, Vanderbilt, Stanford.
Tavis: All right. So I think the point's been made. Thanks for watching.
Tavis: That is--that is the most remarkable thing. What did your mama and them do that other folks have not figured out?
Kearney: Um...they allowed us to dream. They made us know that dreaming was a part of life. It's a part of the process. And behind that dreaming, you work like the dickens to attain those dreams. And they drilled into us that simply because they were not high school graduates, they expected us to far exceed anything they ever did.
Tavis: Tell me the fascinating story that is found in 'Cotton Field of Dreams' of the deal that your mother and father struck, because your daddy wanted y'all, as any good farmer does, in the fields. Now, in my day, we weren't in the cotton fields, but my dad owned a little janitorial business. And so my mother had to insist that we have study time, while my dad wanted all these 10 kids helping him clean buildings to make money to take care of the family. So my mom and dad had to strike their own deal, but your story is much more fascinating. Tell me about the deal your mother and father struck that allowed y'all to go to these great schools and get these degrees later on.
Kearney: Well, it was one of the few things that my parents disagreed on, and that was whether we went to school during the fall or we worked in the fields. And, um, my father, I mean, he was a small farmer. He was a sharecropper, and he needed us to help him make the crop. So, uh, they discussed it back and forth, and finally my father guaranteed my mother that 'if I keep these kids out during the fall, they're gonna do well. They're gonna be ahead of anybody in their school.' And we did. My father would sit down with us--after he had spent all day in the fields--with us in the kitchen after we ate and help us with our homework. I mean, that was a part of his everyday. So all of these kids would be sitting there with my father, and my mother sometimes, going over our homework. And he'd make sure that we got it done.
Tavis: Part of growing up in a large family, um...and I know this as well as you do--you better than I, I suspect--part of growing up in a large family where you do not have, where you go without, is that you become the laughingstock oftentimes of other folk in the community. There are all kinds of jokes being made about why your family's so big, why your mama had so many kids. What did you have to--what did you and your siblings have to endure with regard to what other folk were saying? Now, you got the last laugh, obviously.
Kearney: Yeah, we--we--we had all of that. I mean, the fact that there were so many of us, for one thing. And then we had to stay out of school. We missed the first part of school. And then we had to go back. And when we came, we came ragged. Sometimes we didn't have shoes. People knew that we didn't have lunch money. So the kids would make fun of us. They did all the time. And unfortunately, there were even teachers that fell into that, you know, making a difference between us and other kids. But, thankfully, my parents taught us that whatever it is that you have has nothing to do with your worth. And we believed that. And we did. We'd go back to school and most of us would end up at the top of our classes.
Tavis: Of those 17 kids going to college--16 of them going to college--one of--there were 17 kids, we said--one of you did not graduate. And there's a tragic story behind that. Tell me the story what happened to your sister and what lesson you learned from what she had to deal with.
Kearney: Uh, Joanne, who was my best friend for many, many years growing up, and also my enemy, because Joanne I always thought was more beautiful, more--much smarter. She was brilliant. In her early 20s, we learned--she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. And the thing that my family had to deal with was--you know, a weakness in our family. We had been geared to have a tunnel vision about success and, you know, being all that we could be. And then we had to deal with that, with my sister's sickness. So that was a learning curve for us. And I tell people that I think we're still learning and we're still grieving. Because mental illness is nothing that the black family has grappled with quite yet. I think we're still trying to figure out how to deal with it. Because it's a weakness. We've seen it as a weakness over the years. So I learned that mental illness is not a weakness. I'm learning that, and I'm talking about that, and I'm telling people the black family has to stop looking at it as an illness--as a weakness, because that's how we grow. We look at it as an illness and move on from that.
Tavis: She died tragically.
Kearney: She killed herself. It was a suicide. And that's the other thing that the black family is still, you know, learning how to grapple with.
Tavis: Your father still lives?
Kearney: My father is 98 years old.
Kearney: He still lives by himself. He still drives. He still has--
Tavis: In Arkansas, at 98.
Kearney: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. He has a lady friend.
Tavis: Oh, yeah? I imagine that's--go, playboy! Go, player! At 98 he's got a lady friend.
Kearney: And he takes care of himself.
Tavis: Wow. That's amazing.
Kearney: He still lives on the 2 acres that we actually owned.
Tavis: Oh, yeah? So--so tell me what the Kearney--when the Kearney clan gets together, what are these reunions like?
Kearney: Oh, my goodness. It's grown over the years.
Tavis: Do you have any idea how many grandkids there are now?
Kearney: There are over 100.
Tavis: Over 100 grandkids?
Kearney: Over 100 grands and great-grands. But it's just, um, reaffirming--
Tavis: 2 acres ain't enough land for you all to get together on, is it?
Kearney: Well, we go to different people's houses now. We kind of travel around. But, uh, it's just reaffirmation, and my father is just so proud of us that--
Tavis: As he should be.
Kearney: It's a time for us to just say we did what my father wanted me to do, wanted us to do, what my mother wanted us to do.
Tavis: Now, at one point you all had--when you were working for President Clinton in the White House as his diarist--I want to talk about that in just a second--but one of these Kearney clan reunions was held in Washington. And President Clinton came by, did he not?
Kearney: Yes, he did. It was actually--we, um--he invited us up and we had it, um, on the south lawn, uh, and it was wonderful. He came out, took lots of pictures, and talked to everybody. And he tells everybody that he knows all of us, you know, he knows every name.
Tavis: Bill Clinton always exaggerates, but that's another story. I love the brother, but that's all another issue.
Kearney: All our names start with "J," so he said, "Oh, I can name every "J," every "J." Yeah. But it was wonderful.
Tavis: Then again, Bill Clinton's awfully good. He may be able to do it--if you ask him to do it--Bill Clinton, as you--you've been with him a lot of years--Bill Clinton is the only person I know, black or white, who knows every verse and stanza to 'Lift Every Voice and Sing,' and that would be the black national anthem.
Kearney: That's right.
Tavis: And Bill Clinton knows all the words to it.
Kearney: That's true.
Tavis: He kills me. He kills me with that. Um, tell me how you got to be Bill Clinton's diarist. I didn't know presidents had diarists on staff.
Kearney: This was the first time a president had a diarist. Uh, there is a woman at the White House who keeps files on everything presidents do.
Tavis: Like an archivist.
Kearney: Yeah, archives. But this was the first time a president actually had a personal diarist who, uh, chronicled his presidency. Um, and I got the job because I was a part of the Clinton administration since 1993, and they decided in '94 that they would hire a diarist, and I interviewed for it. And I think he felt comfortable with me, and partly based on that. Because it was a--a--a job that would have access to him and it needed to be someone who he felt very comfortable with.
Tavis: What's the coolest thing, right quick, about being a president's personal diarist?
Kearney: Living a dream every day. Living a dream. Meeting people like Nelson Mandela. President Nelson Mandela. Something that I never dreamed I'd ever do in my lifetime.
Tavis: Got a whole lot of books. I read a lot of books, but not a whole lot of books I have the nerve to come on television and actually recommend. It's called 'Cotton Field of Dreams,' a memoir by Janis F. Kearney. And, uh, if this conversation doesn't motivate you to read about this, about what we can do in these days to make sure that families live up to their full potential, if you're not motivated, then I can't help you, but if you want to learn more about, uh, what happened in the Kearney clan, pick up 'Cotton Field of Dreams.' Janis, nice to see you.
Kearney: Thank you.
Tavis: All the best to you. Up next, a conversation and a performance--I've been waiting for this--Michael McDonald is in the house. Stay with us.
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