Scenes From an Interview: Mary Braxton-Joseph

Leading a Life of Illumination

By Gus Mollasis  | Opening Photo by Nancy Guth

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I had the pleasure of meeting this incredible lady and her equally incredible husband at an Oscars awards show I was hosting for the Sarasota Film Society at Burns Court. It was late and the show was wrapping up, yet these two people, unknown to me at the time, stopped to offer me some kind words about how much they enjoyed the evening and my role in the event.

A gesture of kindness for sure. Some smiles and laughs. Some parting words. I remember asking, ‘What do you folks do?’  “We’re retired. I was in television and my husband was an ambassador to South Africa,” she shared. Impressed as I was, I was exhausted, and the words went right over my head. 

As I sat in an office at Asolo Rep with Emmy-award winning television journalist Mary Braxton-Joseph to interview her for this article, my memories of that evening came flooding back. About 15 or 20 minutes into the interview, I blurted out, ‘I know you. We met many years ago at an Oscar party.’ She remembered and smiled. I remembered her and her husband’s kindness and smiled some more. 

It was a reminder, an illumination if you will, that we really do live in small town, and taking it further, a small world. Mary Braxton-Joseph knows that as well as anybody. 

She was raised by a single mom who set no boundaries on how far she could go in life. 

“I had several aspirations, and my mom instilled in me that the sky was the limit. At various times, I wanted to be president of the United States, also the first female Supreme Court Justice, but Sandra Day O’Connor beat me to that. Eventually I decided that law wasn’t for me. At one point, I wanted to be the chief protocol officer for the White House. I watched TV when I was growing up, loved history, and tended to watch news programs and documentaries over cartoons. So, I had governmental aspirations, but I didn’t know what I was going to do by the time I graduated high school.”

Mary was a good student and was voted most likely to succeed by her classmates in her class of 1968 – a pivotal and turbulent year in American history with the assassination of both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. “Those events happened right before we graduated,” she said.

These were two events that helped bond her classmates, and the memories of those tumultuous times cemented the bond even through today. At her recent 50th class reunion, 250 of her 400 classmates showed up. Strong bonds indeed. 

One of her most important childhood lessons was taught to her by her father, who she lost much too early in life. “My dad taught me to focus on one thing at a time,” she says while cracking that infectious smile and welcoming laugh. 

“I remember once when I would be changing the channels back and forth on our TV, we had a spirited discussion, and my dad made the point that we must watch one show at a time.” Laughter accompanied the sweet childhood memory of a woman who has focused very well on working hard in her life.

From her mother she learned a simple yet important lesson. “From Mom I learned perseverance, never give up qualities and to always do your best. If you do your best, win or lose, you can live with yourself. I guess seeking excellence was something that she instilled into me.” 

Seeking excellence is something she wore easily throughout her school years and into her professional career.

“I loved school and had great teachers. I looked forward to every September because I wanted to learn. My mother surrounded us with books. We didn’t have a lot of money. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the government, we might have had a very different life. Because my dad was a veteran and had worked for the post office, when he died, we got three checks from Washington D.C., so I have a healthy respect for government employees and get upset when people disparage them and the government shuts down for any reason.”   

Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, Mary is a graduate of the American University in Washington, D.C. While living in the nation’s capital, she absorbed every opportunity to learn and get involved, and while she didn’t become the president of the United States, she did serve as president of several organizations including D.C. Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, the Association of Parliamentarians and the Bureau of Rehabilitation.

Focus. Doing your best. Striving for excellence. The quest to learn. The ability to be empathetic. All skills, tools and lessons picked up along the way by this woman who would parlay them all into Emmy awards as a television journalist. And perhaps, more importantly, into a person who sought stories that were guided by individuals who not only sought to do what was right, but also bring light to a world that too often is desperately in need of illumination.

Nowhere was the light so bright then when she encountered Nelson Mandela. 

“He was everything you ever heard and then some. Poised. Dignified. He had a wonderful sense of humor and made you feel right at home.”

“I had the pleasure of meeting him before he became president. I was part of the delegation of foundation executives who went in 1992 after he had been released from prison, and they were still trying to form a government. I put together a press conference with him and the head of the organization, who at the time was a man named James Joseph. He ended up becoming my husband, but at the time, we were professional colleagues.”

As a result of this experience, Mary Braxton-Joseph was instrumental in developing two documentaries while living in South Africa from 1996 through 1999. She performed the initial research including an interview with President Nelson Mandela for “Apartheid’s Last Stand,” a documentary on Robben Island for the Discovery Channel that aired in 1999. She also served as South Africa project coordinator for “Tutu and Franklin: A Journey Towards Peace,” a documentary on race and reconciliation featuring Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Dr. John Hope Franklin. It aired in the United States on PBS and in South Africa.

Searching for the right words to describe the great man, she pauses and then lands on the word – “Mandela was just great. DIGNITY.”

“When he walked into a room, everybody wanted to be like him. He was a champion of reconciliation. He learned to reconcile differences, so much so that even though he had been in prison for some 27 years, when he got out and became president, he invited some of the people who used to guard him to his inauguration.”

“Every time I get angry about something, I think of that Mandela spirit and it just helps me reframe my attitude. Because if you can see the humanity in the adversary and take time to listen to another point of view, it might not change your mind, but it will definitely broaden your horizons.”

Listening to another point of view. Broadening your horizons. That’s how I feel about the IllumiNation Series at Asolo Repertory Theatre. 

This series of performances and events promotes cross-cultural conversations in the community and is held during select Wednesday and Saturday performances throughout Asolo Rep’s season as a community conversation where audience members can further explore the social issues that they have just seen played out on stage. Mary is chair of the IllumiNation Series committee.

“I don’t expect everyone who comes to Asolo Rep’s IllumiNation Series to be of like mind, in fact its good when people have different points of view,” said Mary. “But after, you see issues acted out on stage, and then you have a chance to come together to talk about it and to listen to other points of view. I’d like to think that people leave the theater with a broader scope of an issue – even if you don’t agree. If you can hear that other point of view, you may not agree, but you can understand it better.” 

With the goal of supporting, listening and responding to the evolving needs of our theater and shared community, this season the IllumiNation Series features four plays that examine issues of race, gender, identity and cultural intersection: The Crucible, A Doll’s House Part 2, Sweat, and The Cake.

The Arthur Miller classic, The Crucible, focuses on the ultimate “witch hunt,” while Doll’s House Part 2 takes a look at marriage and how things have or have not changed, or evolved if you will. Whether you are married or single and whether you saw part one or not, it will resonate.    

On what we learn from Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll House, Mary pauses to offer her answer. “I think we learn lots of things from Nora. Forgiveness. The difficulties of maneuvering through a divorce. The relationships that are broken that you have to rebuild.”  

On the IllumiNation Series, Mary says, “I’m real tickled to be doing this work, because I think we have more in common than we have that’s different. I hope those attending come in with an open mind and leave with that mind full.”

And that’s something very familiar to her for sure. She has been both open and full minded her entire life. 

Along the way she’s had a celebrated career, raised two children and married the Honorable James A. Joseph, the first African American U.S. ambassador to post-apartheid South Africa. 

It has truly been a life in which she has had it all – but not all at the same time. A life filled with many places she’s called home. New Jersey. Washington D.C. South Africa, North Carolina and now Sarasota. 

“We were splitting time between Cape Town, South Africa and North Carolina.” Not wanting to be too far away from their grandchildren and out of the United States for long periods of time, the couple sold their place in Cape Town and decided to move to Sarasota after visiting Sarasota for a Selby Foundation event at which her husband was a speaker. 

“We were snow birds for a few years splitting time between North Carolina and here. Gradually we became more involved in the community and we were invited to a performance at Asolo Rep by Charlie Huisking, who was on Asolo’s board. Long story short, I ended up on the Asolo board and my husband ended up on The Ringling board. When Asolo Rep came a knocking, I was phasing out of being ‘Madame Fundraiser’ for 12 years for various organizations, and it was time for me to have fun.” And, she is definitely having fun. 

“I love the magic of live theater. I have a background in film and television, but there is something wonderful that is created on a live stage. Each night it’s a little bit different. There’s something about it that leaves you uplifted and transported. It’s an experience that I want everybody to have.” 

Realizing time was running short and me being a film guy, I especially wanted to get her valuable take on the 2018 film, Green Book*, which touches on that very subject. 

“I loved that movie because there are many different stories that come out of that era, and they are not all that black people are all picking cotton and the white people are cracking whips. They are all not like that. I think this story brought to life the relationship that developed between these two people that came from very different backgrounds. And I like the way they handled things.”

“First of all, I’m from New Jersey, so that’s my neck of the woods. The Viggo Mortenson character, I know those type of guys. You have this very elegant and accomplished African-American, with all his artifacts and how he lives his life, with this guy from the streets who you’d consider a junior thug and who’s just trying to make a living. I hope that everybody sees this film. I was just so happy. I think Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen can both play anything. It was great to have them come together, and have them develop a relationship, and get to a level of acceptance.” 

Acceptance. Dignity. Reconciliation. Learning from each other. Illumination. The same principles a man named Mandela lived by. 

Her mother was right after all. For her little girl named Mary, the sky truly was and is still the limit.

 *Green Book is a 2018 American comedy-drama film. Set in the Deep South in the 1960s, it follows a tour between African-American classical and jazz pianist Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and Tony Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen),[5] an Italian-American bouncer who served as Shirley’s driver and bodyguard.