Hello everyone and welcome to Your Voice, Your Future. I'm Armstrong Williams. You know, what are entrepreneurs? Entrepreneurs are the people who refuse to quit. Think about that. Every great enterprise begins with something remarkably small, right? Somebody believing in an idea before the rest of the world can see it, right? That is the entrepreneur. I consider myself an entrepreneur. Are you an entrepreneur? You know, we celebrate successful entrepreneurs after the breakthrough: the company, the wealth, the recognition. What we rarely celebrate are the years when nobody was paying attention: the rejection, the laughter, the empty bank account, sleepless nights. Can you relate to that? The friends who thought the idea was foolish, the customers who said no, the friends who were unwilling to invest, the mistakes that cost money, and the failure that bruised not only your ego, but your confidence where you almost wanted to give up.
You know, entrepreneurship is not simply always about making money. It is about assuming responsibility for an idea and accepting the consequences of pursuing it, right? An employee may receive a paycheck on Friday; the entrepreneur sometimes wonders whether there will be enough money to make the payroll on Friday. Yet Monday morning, that entrepreneur gets up and tries that routine again. You know that courage matters because entrepreneurs, business owners do more than create businesses. They create jobs. They revive neighborhoods. They challenge established industries, and they transform inventions into products and problems into opportunities.
And tonight, I celebrate my hero. I've wanted to do this interview for a long time. And I didn't know if it was going to happen, but it's happening tonight. There she is. So listen, let me get to it. I became a broadcaster when I started in the '90s. Someone gave me a chance. And so there are these successful people, there are pioneers, and then there are those rare individuals whose lives actually change the possibilities for everyone who comes behind them. And I was one of those. Kathy Hughes is one of those people. Long before Black ownership became a corporate talking point, Kathy Hughes was risking everything to make it a reality. She knew rejection. She knew debt. She knew what it was like to struggle while raising a son and building a business. And at one point, she even lived inside her radio station. But guess what? She kept going.
From WOL in Washington became Radio One, then TV One, and eventually one of the most consequential Black-owned media enterprises in American history. She became the first Black woman to lead a publicly traded company. She created jobs, voices, careers, and something even more important: ownership. And just weeks ago here in the nation's capital, something that rarely happens, the city where she built so much, where she has a School of Communications named after her at Howard University, that extraordinary life was presented a key to this city, which is rare. But today, I don't want to interview the institution. I want you to meet this incredible woman. What did her success cost her? What frightened her when no one was watching? What did motherhood teach her about leadership? What happens to ambition when your health reminds you that none of us is invincible? And after building an empire, what does Kathy Hughes believe God was actually preparing her for?
Let me welcome Ms. Hughes to the airwaves. So let me get started. You're the founding chairwoman of Urban One Inc., the largest African-American-owned and operated broadcast and digital media company in the nation. You recently received the key to the city, as I just mentioned. When they placed that key in your hands, Ms. Hughes—and I always refer to you as Ms. Hughes—did you think about the empire, or did your mind travel back to the struggling woman who once wondered whether any of this would survive?
All right. And I'll get to that after I say I made a mistake encouraging you to become a broadcaster. I should have encouraged you to become a preacher, okay? Because you just delivered one of the best sermons I've heard in a very long time. Hello, Armstrong.
It's wonderful to be here with you. Why did you think it would never happen?
No, why did you think it would? Did you think you would survive when you received that key?
No, I meant me coming on your show.
Okay. I'm so proud of the fact that you started off—I mean, you were barely in your 20s when you came into my life. You were working for Strom Thurmond as an intern. You didn't even have full-time employment yet. And to watch what you've been able to build... and I'll get to the key in one second and talk about that. But I have to honestly say that the day that I spent with you at your office and you shared your incredible art collection with me—a lot of folks when they reach your level of success don't invest in art, quite frankly. That's a very refined taste. That's a very refined attitude. And it is really the documentation of history. And your art collection is so diversified. I really saw the real Armstrong Williams that day. And when you gifted me the book of your art collection and I learned about the church that is now a museum to house that collection for your family and future generations, it really touched me very, very spiritually. So I'm not just saying this to make a joke or make light of it. You need to consider preaching perhaps if you decide to change careers.
Okay, now to the key. I felt humbled because next year I'll be 80 years old.
And it's been several years since I've had to do the heavy lifting. It's been several years since I've had to worry about are we going to make payroll. Now, our concerns center around who's going to give us the best rate when we go to market to finance something new. And so I realized that I'm the face of the brand. I realized that day when she presented me with the key—and I'm the only woman that she's given a key to, which just makes it that much more surreal for me—but I realized that that key didn't really belong to me. That key belonged to the individuals in our company who each and every day go out of their way to carry forth my mission, my vision, and to keep that door of opportunity for other individuals, such as you when you were in your early 20s, to pass through to go on to build bigger and better things than what we were able to do in my generation. And so, you know, it's not just theatrics with me when I say this key really doesn't belong to me; this key really belongs to the employees, starting off with my son who's our CEO. He's been president of this company, as you well know, for over 30 years. And yet I'm the face of the brand. So I get a lot of credit for a lot of wonderful things that a lot of wonderful people who work for me actually do each day.
Was there ever a moment when you came within hours or days of giving up? And if so, what stopped you?
No. Excuse me. I grew up in a family where—excuse me one minute, Armstrong. I'm sorry. That was kind of emotional for me. No, excuse me. I grew up in a family where failure and 'no' was not an option.
I've been asked that many times: 'You know, on your darkest day, what was going through your mind?' I haven't had my darkest day, I don't think, yet. And I hope that God blesses me and I don't ever have one. Yeah, there were times when we cut it real close, but I let go and let God take over and be in charge of what the outcome was going to be. Excuse me. I don't know why I'm choking now. I think it's because I'm so touched being on this show with you. And I mean that quite sincerely and quite respectfully.
The darkest day, I think, in the history of me being in business was when my venture capitalists called a meeting and told me that—number one, it started off as a husband and wife team that they had loaned the money to. But then I got a divorce, and so all the papers and everything had to be changed over, which they were reluctant to do, to my name. The bank had accelerated its loan and called in their SBA guarantee. So basically, it was the venture capitalists that I was dealing with. So they called me into the office and they told me that they were not pleased with me, that I was not servicing my debt the way I should, and that they were going to foreclose on me. They were going to shut me down.
And I paused for a moment. And I said, 'Dear God, please use my mouth to speak your words.' And what came out of my mouth next was, 'You don't have the power to foreclose on me. You don't have the power to shut me down because this isn't about me. This is about my community. This is about a mission that God assigned me to. And you are wasting my time here threatening me because all you're going to do is upset my nerves, and I've got a whole staff back waiting for me.' Because they had the papers come through and everything. They said that they thought I had lost my mind. They thought I had had a nervous breakdown and they did not want to assume the responsibility for putting me in the hospital. So they backed off. They backed off because I was correct when I said to them that they didn't have the power to shut me down. Only God had that power. And that's the reason I've never once doubted whether or not I was going to have the ability to carry on and achieve the mission that I had been assigned to.
One of the things I've learned with age is that God never gives you a task that He does not prepare you for. When He told Moses to take his entire following and cross the ocean, cross the Red Sea, and Moses is looking at the waters saying, 'God, do you realize how deep this is? We're going to drown,' God said, 'Wait a minute.' He parted the waters, all right? Just had the waters completely create a path. God never gives you an assignment and not give you the tools to accomplish that. You're a classic example of that.
And so when people ask me about the darkest days, did I ever think about giving up? No. To be honest with you, that never ever crossed my mind. I make jokes about sleeping for 18 months in a sleeping bag and washing up in the public bathroom. I really did not during that time understand that I was homeless. I didn't accept that as the definition of what I was going through. I felt I was protecting my business. They had repossessed my house. They had repossessed my car. I had lost everything. So I didn't have any choice but to live there. But, as you know, radio is 24/7, so it's kind of convenient. I didn't have any transportation costs getting to work. And I did not realize that people saw me as being homeless and hopeless until one day I was introduced—I was receiving an award and this woman introduced me as 'from homeless to successful.' And I challenged her when I got to the microphone. I said, 'Excuse me, to my knowledge I've never been homeless.' Afterwards she apologized and she says, 'So Ms. Hughes, didn't you lose everything? Weren't you sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor for 18 months?' I said yes. She said, 'Weren't you washing up in a public bathroom?' I said yes. She said, 'And cooking on a hot plate?' I said yes. She said, 'Well, forgive me, but I think that's the definition of being homeless.' And that's when it hit me. This was many decades after the fact.
Wow. The mindset. Hold that part: the mindset. Kathy Hughes, the legendary Ms. Hughes, is joining us for the full hour. This is our profile and we'll be back.
And welcome back to our broadcast studios. Ms. Hughes, what did poverty or financial insecurity teach you about money that wealth could never teach you?
That you shouldn't allow what you have to define who you are. My father started college the same day I started to kindergarten. We used to walk to class together because I was attending a school that was on campus, the campus of Creighton University. And at the same time that we were considered impoverished living in public housing, my mother was seeing to it that we were visiting museums.
It's an interesting story because Marlon Brando was a teenager and his mother was in charge of the Omaha Playhouse, and my mother got me signed up for a summer program for kids to learn about plays and the arts. Marlon Brando was our counselor; he was our student teacher. And Jane Fonda—the Fondas are also from Omaha, Nebraska. Jane Fonda's family belonged to the Omaha Club where my father, as he was working his way through college, was waiting tables. Oftentimes she would come in and get bored with hanging with her parents and family, and she would come in the kitchen to see if I was there because I wasn't supposed to be. But she had discovered that sometimes when the weather was bad and I didn't have a way home without my father, that they would stash me in the kitchen at the Omaha Country Club. And so she would come in and play with me.
And so these individuals that God placed in my life during a time when there was this emphasis on money showed me that human beings are all the same. It's not based on what you have. It's really based on who you are and your commitment to first God and then secondly to other individuals. It didn't matter that I was impoverished when I was embraced by these individuals. I thought that everybody was the same when it came to economics.
What excellent insights. You know, you mentioned something earlier about being the first woman to receive the key to the city in Washington, DC. It is fascinating, Ms. Hughes, because you became enormously successful in an industry dominated by men.
And still. Did being underestimated eventually become an advantage, a weapon for you?
As you well know, I've always had a very strong personality. So it was kind of hard to underestimate me. It was not hard to disrespect me, but it was a little difficult because I made it clear what I planned to do, how I was going to achieve what I planned to do. And as I said during a foreclosure meeting, I told the people who thought they had the power to close me down that they didn't have that power, that only God would decide whether or not I'd have to go out of business. So I've heard several women professionals, women entrepreneurs saying that if you're coy and quiet about your plans, it's better because you're being underestimated from the get-go. Well, I've never learned to be quiet and coy, so I don't know at this age whether or not it's a lesson.
Well, one thing we do know is that you built this extraordinary company alongside your son Alfred that you've referred to a few times here. Where does Kathy Hughes the mother end and Kathy the chairwoman begin? Or have you ever been able to separate them?
According to Alfred, I don't, and that's a problem now that he is the age that he is. Generational businesses are very, very difficult—absolutely very difficult—because it's kind of hard to give the child who consistently lost or forgot the keys to the front door the combination to the safe. So you don't really have that just built in. Your mother instinct always rises forth. It's also very difficult when at a certain age you're supposed to be an empty nester, but when you're in business with your child, there's no such thing as an empty nest. And you end up oftentimes spending more time together than you did even during their growing-up process, because during the growing-up process, they went to school, they had activities. Well, when you're in business with the next generation, they don't have any place to go, all right? There's no escape route for them. And so I don't know that I ever was able to separate being the founder and chairperson of the company from being Alfred's mother.
Yeah. But still, family businesses, Ms. Hughes, can produce extraordinary loyalty, but extraordinary conflict. What was the hardest disagreement you and Alfred ever had about the future of the company? And did you ever have those disagreements?
Oh, and we still do. We still do. It's not about the future of the company as much as it is about the direction to get to that future. I think that always the generation behind you is a bigger risk-taker than you are. I think that always the parent generation feels that, 'Well, I tried that and it didn't work, so I'm not going to agree to have you try it when I already know that that's not going to work.' It's very hard to relinquish some of the opinions that you learned, some of the ways you see things that you learned by trial and error the hard way. And here is a new generation with new ideas, new directions, new desires.
I probably never would have had the ability nor desire to take our company public. And yet, because Alfred decided that that was the direction that we should go in, I ended up being the first African-American woman to head a publicly traded corporation, which I'm so honored and it's one of our main credentials when we're in the marketplace. But the reality is I don't know if I could have done that because, quite frankly, it took Alfred quite a bit of time to help me understand the public market, to understand Wall Street. I was terrified of the danger. Alfred announced to me that he wanted to take our company public, that we were going public. He was proud; he had on his cap and gown. He had just graduated within hours from Wharton. So he used that occasion of me being so proud and so happy, so full of joy, to break it to me: 'We're going public.' And I said to him, standing on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, 'We're a family business, Alfred.' And he said, 'There are a lot of family businesses, Mother, that go public.' And I said, 'Yeah, but...' and I was really dragging my feet. And part of it wasn't just fear, but it was lack of information.
He had specifically gotten himself into Wharton Graduate School of Business and achieved his MBA because that was his dream, and he knew that if he had broken that news to me prematurely or too soon that he would have gotten serious pushback from me. But that's what he told me. We're walking across the campus, he's carrying his cap, he still has on his gown, and he said, 'You know, I'm taking the company public. We're going public, Mama.' Those are the types of things that break up families, that break up family-owned businesses, because—and particularly most families are more than just two people; my family is just me and Alfred actually that are involved in the company—and so it's one strong opinion and personality against another. I have to honestly say that the greatest education about being an entrepreneur I did not receive being one; it was from Alfred's patience and understanding and tutelage of me.
You're saying so much here. What has Ms. Hughes's success taken from you that nobody warned you it would take?
I don't see it as success, Armstrong. I think that that's a misused term. I think whether or not your life has been successful is when you're laying in that coffin and they talk about what you did to help other people. I shy away from the term 'success' and 'successful' even as it relates to my company. I think we are still a work in progress. I know I'm still a work in progress, and I hope that my determination would never be minimized or changed, because to me success is a completion, and completion is only once you close your eyes.
So if you believe that is the definition of success, then what is the definition of failure?
Shutting down the business, stopping what you're doing. Failure is when you do not accomplish that which you set out to do. And sometimes it takes more than one effort. Sometimes you have to try it; maybe the first time you did not get to the finish line, so you have to come back and run the race again and learn from the mistakes that you made. So to me it's giving up. Failure is when you throw in the towel and say, 'I can't achieve it.' Because no matter how many times you may not achieve it at the time that you desire to achieve it, that does not mean that you're not capable of achieving it ultimately.
You know, I've got to ask when we come back from break, I've got to really dig into the relationship with you and your father, because you got a lot of strength and confidence, and your upbringing had to have a great impact on you, what you watched and what was important to you when you were young. So we're going to get into that when we come back with our legendary Radio One, TV One entrepreneur, key to this city of our nation's capital, Mrs. Kathy Hughes. We'll be back.
I guess it shouldn't shock us that you're still in the prime of your life. Your sharpness, your wisdom, your sincerity—I mean, your brute honesty is just, I find it quite refreshing. You know, before you became the woman the world knows today as Kathy Hughes, who did your father believe you could become? And then also, what did your father see in you before you were able to see it in yourself?
Well, number one, I am a product of being reared by men. My mama was a very accomplished musician, founded a band in the 1930s and was very popular during the late '30s and '40s called the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. My mama was a diva, so my mama did not cook, my mama did not clean. And I'm the oldest of four, and so me and my daddy had three other children that he and my mama had had to feed and take care of. And before my father, it was my grandfather, who in 1909 started the first integrated school in the state of Mississippi in 1909. And they were in the process of lynching my grandfather, and a white big landowner rode up on his horse and asked what was going on. And they said, 'This Negro here trying to teach people how to read and write.' And so he said, 'Hold on a minute.' And so he went up to my grandfather and said, 'Can you teach anybody how to read and write?' My grandfather said yes. The next day, this white landowner showed up with himself and his children, because no one in his family was literate. And so my grandfather started off integrating schools in the state of Mississippi, and he took me under his wing. I lived in Mississippi with him for three years of my life.
So I'm really the product of being programmed for success, encouraged, made to feel beautiful and smart and all the wonderful things that oftentimes you get from both your parents. But in my household, my mama—and I loved her and took care of her for the last 10 years of her life—spent my early childhood days reinforcing how beautiful she was and feeling good about herself, and didn't have a lot of time. And there's a big gap between me and my three siblings. I'm almost eight years older than the next. My mother suffered two miscarriages between me and my brother, and there's almost 10 years between me and my baby sister. And so, not only was it important for my father to instill in me my ability to do that which I do—and he was the first African-American to graduate from Creighton University with a degree in accounting—and my father used to drill into all four of us that if you can read, write, and count, you can be successful.
So let me interrupt you there because you're saying a lot here. What part of your success today would mean the most to him, Ms. Hughes: what you built, the people you employ, the wealth you created, or the woman you became?
I don't know. I lost my father when he was only 45 years old. He was a victim of two doctors giving conflictive prescriptions to him. I don't know. And I lost my grandfather during the first five years of me being in business. I think both of them always said to me that no matter what I did with my life, that peace and happiness and helping others... My grandfather started this mantra in our family that has come down through generations: that in order for you to do well in life, you must first do good for someone else and you must be at peace with yourself.
So I think that part of the blessing of longevity has been that I'm not a worrywart. I don't stress out. I will every now and then, as you well know, Armstrong, explode. But once I explode, it's over. I don't carry grudges. I don't seek revenge. But yeah, I will go off, okay? And it's slowed down now that I'm almost fourscore. But after that, it's over, you know? I don't fret; I don't think about it. So I think that my father and grandfather both would be very pleased. I'm basically a happy camper.
You know, people like to say the number of people you empowered, the number of people who populate the world today that Kathy Hughes touched their lives, and they always like to put that into a Black box. But you don't really care about color; you care about talent. You care about the plight of minorities and you've empowered them. But there are so many people's lives that you've touched irregardless of race and socioeconomic background. You are universal.
Let me tell you a story that you don't know.
One of my most successful mentees was the white woman East Coast sales manager for Fox News. And she heard me speak at an event, and she came up to me afterwards and said, 'Would you accept me as your mentee?' And I said yes. She wanted to buy stations. And so first I set up a savings strategy with her. She was making gobs of money, had gobs of power, all right? But I needed to help her translate that into ownership, because that's what she wanted. Three times we went to market. Three times she had the money, and three times a gentleman by the name of Armstrong Williams beat us to the punch.
Yes. You and I have never discussed this.
She went a fourth time and Byron Allen beat her to the punch.
Oh my goodness. She now produces award-winning short films. She decided that media ownership was not going to be for her, okay? All right. And most people are very surprised, because in that male-dominated world of successful sales managers, she's like a legend for TV sales. And at one time she and I were on the phone doing research on properties and things. Yeah, you beat her.
Exactly. And then, like I said, the last time she said, 'Okay.' She said, 'Now this is going to surprise you,' and I said, 'Well, I can't help you with that.' She said, 'I've been given an opportunity to invest in a company in London that produces short films—shorts, she called them.' I said, 'What's a short?' She explained to me, and that's what she did. She took the money that she was going to use to become a broadcast owner—she lost her husband and it devastated her for a prolonged period of time, so she moved to London to run the company that she bought outright. And she produces these award-winning shorts because you and Byron Allen did not allow her to buy the properties that...
Well, let me tell you, I...
And so, hey, and I'm sure that most people would understand that she is white, okay? She is a woman, cuz I don't think a sister has ever been a regional vice president of Fox News sales, okay?
Let me mention to you, I mean, listen, I'm loving this exchange with you, because you know why I have such love and respect and honor for you: because you're just such a good, decent, caring human being, and you believe in fierce loyalty. But you know, you've faced health challenges that you've never tried to apologize for, tried to hide. Was there a moment when your body forced you to confront something your ambition had allowed you to avoid: the fact that even Ms. Hughes cannot control everything?
Yeah, that's when I faced cancer. I realized that I couldn't control it. I realized that, and I have to honestly say recovery was the hardest part for me. Thank God for a world-renowned surgeon that I was referred to and for some reason made me his priority—again, the will of God. His surgical nurse said to me, 'So, have you known him very long?' And I said, 'I just met him two weeks ago.' And he said, 'You're going to be in surgery next week with him?' And I said yes. He said, 'It took me six months to get an appointment for my grandmother, and I'm his surgical nurse.' And he just, again, appeared out of nowhere.
But the recovery was very difficult for me, and I still have some residual challenges, such as balance and other things. Cuz I used to walk, as you know, 10 miles a day was my thing: five in the morning, five in the evening. And now I'm counting the number of steps. Most days I can get 5,000, and last week I'm proud to say I got 10,000 in three days, but I'm paying for it this week.
So when you have faced uncertainty, Ms. Hughes, about your health, what suddenly stopped mattering?
Nothing. In fact, things became more important, Armstrong.
Yeah, they became more important because I realized what people had been telling me for a long time that I was just ignoring, which is that you got more time behind you than you have ahead of you, okay? So I don't know. Like I said, last week I forced myself to do 10,000 steps three days in a row, 30,000 steps. Now this week, my legs are like, 'Are you out of your mind?'
But you know, Ms. Hughes, when we often hear people testify about faith after they've survived something, I'm interested in the harder moment: was your faith ever shaken while you were still waiting for the outcome?
