We have been podcasting The Robert Wesley Branch Show since 2010.
TRWBS Podcast
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Telling Souldier Stories.
All we really have is our story. And it (our story) is ours to tell: when we want to tell it, how we want to tell it, if we want to tell it. Ms. Maya Angelou (1928-2014) taught that lesson very well.
Living on Purpose
By Robert Wesley Branch We are responsible for what we know and how we live. There are people who you see every day who don’t have a clue as to their purpose for being. They don’t know why they came here. These family members, friends, co-workers and complete strangers can more easily tell you what they do for a living, how much they earn each year, what they possess, and they can no doubt eloquently describe for you their vacation plans, but they will most probably stop cold if you ask them: Who are you? What is your purpose? Why were you born? In any corporation or enterprise, you will find some whose job is their dream, some whose job is their passion, and others whose job is but their job. I suppose, on some level, for some people, it is indeed a blessing to possess a position in which you don’t really have to work. This lack of obligation or challenge is what, I guess, distinguishes a position from a job. For the uninspired, a position is ideal; for the visionary, a job is not enough; for the dreamer, nothing less than the dream will do. The challenge for Read More ...
The Maxims of Ptahhotep (c. 2375-2350 B.C.)
“This text, one of the undisputed masterpieces of ancient Egyptian literature, dates possibly from as early as the late Sixth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom…The text was composed under the guise of an elderly vizier who was on the verge of retirement and desirous of handing his position on to his son who also bore the name Ptahhotep.” – William Kelly Simpson, The Literature of Ancient Egypt (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2003), 129.
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
My favorite writer – ever!
Most Watched Videos
These are the most watched videos on the RWB YouTube Channel.
Boardwalk Bigotry: The Day the Klan Came Marching Through My Ocean City Weekend
WASHINGTON – September 6, 1992. My first (and so far, only!) published opinion piece in The Washington Post.
The Origins of Prince Hall Freemasonry
Through the pages of Manly Palmer Hall’s (1901-1990) two books – The Secret Teachings of All Ages and The Lost Keys of Freemasonry – we explore the origins of Prince Hall Freemasonry.
Look at Your Own Life
Know thyself, perfect your spiritual gifts, pursue your higher life purpose, stay single-mindedly focused on your mission, resist fear, turn away from distraction, and walk out your High Calling with gratitude, humility and joy. And all of that, brothers and sisters, creates an aura of magic around you that parts the way before you and has your enemies fleeing from you in all directions, attracting money and opportunity to you from all corners of the world.
Iyanla, Fix My Life
BETHESDA – September 10, 2001. Ms. Iyanla Vanzant left a voice-mail message at my office. At that time, I was an executive producer in Primetime Programming at Discovery Networks. About a week earlier, on a Monday morning, in that very office, I watched the premiere of Iyanla, the Barbara Walters-produced national talk show featuring Iyanla Vanzant. And I wrote lots of notes (and sent them to an email address in the end credits), reacting and responding to what I’d seen in that first show. Iyanla called to discuss my notes. We talked for hours, well into the night. I remember my feet being up on the desk when the cleaning crew vacuumed my office floor that night. That hours-long phone call was the beginning of a professional partnership (and personal friendship) that has lasted over 20 years. In January of 2013, in association with Harpo Productions, I began my work as a consulting producer on Iyanla, Fix My Life, for OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. Traveling the country producing the series, I shot a lot of behind-the-scenes footage that I shared on YouTube in a playlist titled On the Road with Iyanla Vanzant. Take a look.
Million Man March (October 16, 1995)
WASHINGTON – October 16, 1995. In the Company of My Brothers. Words and Images by Robert Wesley Branch. My father reached into his briefcase and pulled out a red-black-and-green button: Million Man March, Day of Atonement, I Want to be in THAT Number!, October 16, 1995, it read. “It’s for you,” he told me. “I saw them and I thought about you. Got me one too,” he smiled, sitting at the kitchen table. Two days before the Million Man March (MMM), I still hadn’t decided to go. I had purposely not watched the news or listened to the radio in the weeks before because I was well familiar with the mainstream’s take on anything remotely related to Louis Farrakhan. Part of my resistance to attending the March was a deep-seated distrust of Black men. I could only hope the gay brothers wouldn’t become targets for their straight counterparts; and that the Christian brothers wouldn’t become whipping posts for the Nation’s Muslim brothers. I was weary of the divisive name-calling; fearful of the spirit of machismo that has separated and alienated so many of us for so long. I was 29. Today, all these years later, now in my late fifties, I see this behavior I describe Read More ...
Educating Boys, Raising Men: What is the Role of a “Conscious” Father?
What is a “conscious” father? Who is that brother? And what is his story? What is the impact on the child – when the father is not in the home, and even more broadly, when the father is not in the life of the son and the daughter – how is that absence affecting the emotional, psychological and spiritual lives of our brothers and sisters? What becomes of a tribe in trauma? Father absence is a trauma to the tribe, brothers and sisters. And that trauma affects every village, everywhere within the tribe.
Souls: Catch and Release.
Reflections on the fishers of men and women – and the souls we catch in the doing of our ministry, also known as our Higher Life Purpose. When and how do we release the souls we catch? In other words, people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Now, how many times have we heard or said that? Are we letting go of – releasing – those souls whose frequency and vibration we have transcended? Also reflecting on the principle of “Be Impeccable with Your Word,” from Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements.
Book Shorts
Excerpts from some of the books I’ve read, studied and recorded. Timeless. Sacred. Wisdom.
1982: Og Mandino’s “University of Success.”
Let me tell you about a gentleman who was born nearly 100 years ago (in Framingham, Massachusetts) to Italian immigrant parents. He was the editor of his high school newspaper and had plans to study journalism in college, only his mother died of a heart attack and his college plans were sidetracked. Instead, he went to work, for a time, in a paper factory, and he soon joined the United States Army Air Corps, became a military officer and a bombardier in World War II. After leaving the military, he became an insurance salesman. His life eventually brought him to the state of Ohio, to the city of Cleveland, to alcoholism and on one winter morning, standing outside of a pawn shop, in the most dangerous and dirty and sleazy part of Cleveland, with the rain falling on his shoulder-length hair, this 30-something-year-old man peered through the window into a pawn shop and saw a gun for sale, on the shelf, for sale $29. And as he looked at that gun, he thought about how his drinking had cost him everything that really mattered: his wife, his daughter, his job, his home, his self-esteem. And he reached into his rain-soaked pocket and Read More ...
Lessons from the Ancestors I: Marvin Gaye, Phyllis Hyman and Nancy Wilson.
“Bad blood between father and son” – that’s how the police described the events at the Marvin Gaye Sr. household on that day in Los Angeles. Marvin Pentz Gaye Sr. shot and killed his son, Marvin Gaye Jr., on April 1, 1984. Marvin Gaye Jr. (1939-1984) was shot twice with a gun that he bought for his father, who used that gift of a gun to end his son’s life. Y’all ever heard that term the elders say: “I brought you into this world – and I’ll take you out.” That appears to have been the case in this particular father-son story. It is a very long way from being born in Washington, D.C. in 1939, to being shot twice by your father in a house in Los Angeles in 1984. That, brothers and sisters, is a long and winding road. Was there undiagnosed mental illness in Marvin Gaye? Brother Marvin is one man in a very long line of brothers who have experienced chronic chemical depression – many of those brothers were experiencing undiagnosed depression. What lessons can we learn from this tragic turn of events in Brother Marvin’s life? Likewise, our dearly departed sister, Ms. Phyllis Hyman (1949-1995), Read More ...
Lessons from the Ancestors 2: Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross and Grace Jones.
In 1994, author Malidoma Patrice Somé (1956-2021) published his book, Of Water and the Spirit. Brother Malidoma was from the central African country of Burkina Faso, born into the Dagara tribe. On page 23 of his book, Brother Malidoma writes: “If one obediently walks their life path, they will become an elder somewhere in their late forties or early fifties. Graduating to this new status, however, depends on one’s good track record. A male elder is the head of his family. He has the power to bless, and the power to withhold blessing. This ability comes to him from his ancestors, to whom he is very close, and he follows their wisdom in counseling his larger family.” If you live long enough and if you take notes while you’re living; if you read and review and revise your notes and learn your lessons; if somewhere along your journey you find the language to express who you are in the world and what you stand for – in the family, in the tribe; if you walk in this way and if you live long enough to reach your late forties and early fifties, Brother Malidoma teaches that you will, eventually, become an elder.
Brothers Helping Brothers: When a Brother Goes Through.
We all need somebody to lean on.
Mai Maiesha Rashad: Emissary of Love
Many people knew her as the “First Lady of Go-Go” music. I knew her as a jazz singer, spiritual teacher, a sister and my very good friend of 29 years. There are those rare and unique people who come into your life and teach you things you didn’t even know were important for your evolution; they deposit seeds into your unconscious self long before you are awakened; they “see” into what your soul is becoming and water you with Love. Ms. Maiesha Rashad was that for me. From the darkness, she brought forth the Light. She left us on June 15, 2020. May her music never end.
Broken Legacy I: The Fathers in Our Families
A roundtable of brothers having a conversation about the physical, emotional and spiritual presence (and absence) of the men in our families, as well as a discussion on six male archetypes: the Wounded Man, the Common Man, the Negative Alpha Man, the Angry Old Man, the Sexually Addictive Man, and the Broken Man, as presented in the book Man Heal Thyself: Journey to Optimal Wellness by Queen Afua.
Broken Legacy II: “What kind of man am I?”
Through the pages of Queen Afua’s 2012 book, Man Heal Thyself: Journey to Optimal Wellness, a roundtable of brothers are answering the question: “What kind of man am !?” Chapter 1: The Wounded Man. Chapter 2: Enter the Wellness Warrior. Chapter 3: The Healing Powers of the Elements. Chapter 4: Man Heal Thyself. Chapter 5: Man Heal Thyself/Man of Vitality (Arit 1-7). Chapter 6: Supreme Man of Optimal Wellness (Arit 8-12). Chapter 7: Final Thoughts and Comments.
