Reginald Hardwick  00:01
Dr. Sheila Johnson, thank you for joining us in our new video podcast studio, one of the areas where a Teen Summit 2.0 The Remix will be shot with all the students. Welcome.

Sheila Johnson  00:12
Thank you. This is such a pleasure, and I'll tell you; this is a dream come true. Ever since the sale of BET and Teen Summit was canceled. There have been so many students that have come to me that have all grown up, and they're saying their fondest memories and something that has really shaped their lives was the Teen Summit show. They're saying I was actual posse member, or I was in the audience, but they said they just loved the show, because it just really helped. It was a problem-solving show, and it's just something that has been needed to really need it.

Reginald Hardwick  00:49
Now I was just going to ask you in 2026 Why is a show like Teen Summit needed?

Sheila Johnson    00:55
The world is very complicated now. It's become not only complicated, but dangerous. In many aspects, people are frightened to speak up. We’ve got mental health issues because we're not communicating. We're not connecting. And especially in underserved communities, they feel as though that they have no hope. And I think with Teen Summit, this remix, I'll call it a resurrection, I want to start bringing that hope back into the lives of these young people. We need to inspire them and give them the tools to not only be able to communicate, but to be able to have the courage to move forward.

Reginald Hardwick  01:44
As a founder of Black Entertainment Television, how did you create the original Teen Summit?

Sheila Johnson    01:50
Believe it or not, it was out of the TV videos when they first came on. And I'm going to give you a little bit of history, MTV would not play any black videos, and so that opened the door for b, e, t, into the video market. And I remember being on the treadmill one day, and I'm watching Michael Jackson and Paul McCarthy and the art of storytelling through music. It was just amazing. And I will tell you, nine months later, I started seeing images of young girls in these videos that I thought were very inappropriate. I just didn't like what I was seeing on the screen. And I kept telling you people in my studio, I said, if you turn the volume off, look at what you're watching. I started seeing a decline in TV watching for our younger people, and it was especially for young women. And I just didn't like what was happening. And there was also something else happening. We were seeing an increase of teen pregnancy rate. So, I decided, I said, I'm going to start a show, a smart television watching. We can really start talking about what we are watching on television, and these important subjects that were happening back then. And my production crew, and I have to give Jeff Lee, who was my producer, I took it to him, and some of the others are not around anymore, and they said, “we think this is a great idea.” We built the set. We were on top of a building in a downtown area. I mean, it was all fake, of course, and we had our little entertainment. We called the fly girls on each, you know, they opened the show, but we were able to really get into subject matters that really pertain to the kids and what they were going through. I was able to choose twenty-five students. I called it my Teen Summit posse. And the reason why we had such a large group is because some of them couldn't do it one week, we shot live. You know there, some of them were athletes and they had games to do. But anyway, they put that show together. We would meet at five o'clock on Friday evenings. They would throw that show together. They thought about what they wanted to do all week, but they're the ones that brought the subject matter from checkerboard dating to the HIV issues that were going on and just all sorts of things. But they told me, they said, “We can't talk to our parents about any of this. They won't listen to us. They're not equipped psychologically to deal with the issues and the changing changes that were going on in the country, especially with the younger people, and that was reason why I wanted to start this show.

Reginald Hardwick  05:00
What was the impact of the original Teen Summit?

Sheila Johnson   05:05
It was like an earthquake happened. I mean, I started getting letters. I got calls. They were saying, “Thank you,” and it was mostly from the younger people. “You've given us a voice. You've given us a voice in a safe place,” and already BET, you know the brand was up there. But to add this component to Black Entertainment Television, where we were really dealing with real issues, the other problem, and this is something that's always underlying, to keep shows like this on the air, or any kind of show you have to have advertisers. BET had a hard time getting advertisers. No one wanted to invest in black programming or a black network. This was the problem from the moment we went on the air to the moment we closed very hard to get advertising. They just didn't want to invest in us, so I had to go for grant money, and it was the Kaiser Family Foundation that, you know, finally stepped up. But we had the eyeballs for the show, but we couldn't get the financial help that we needed. So, I mean, as we reopened Teen Summit, I implore everybody out there, if you like what we're doing, help us. Help us keep it on the air.

Reginald Hardwick  06:29
What are you hoping to see and hear in this new iteration of teens created here at the University of Illinois, your alma mater, and Illinois Public Media?

Sheila Johnson    06:40
What I need to hear, and what all of us need to hear, is how we're going to tackle this tough issues that are changing the lives, not only of teens, but for Black America, Hispanic America, all cultures there. We are being erased. We are being silenced, and we're going to do it in a safe way. I just want to get every not only all the cultures, but everybody that is really questioning what's going on to start using their brains instead of watching news out there and believing the dark stuff that is going on. Start looking at who you are, where you want to go, what is your passion, what inspires you? I want to give everyone the courage to understand that we have to bring hope back, love, reconnection, communication, and we got to start becoming problem solvers. And that's what's really, really important. We got to solve those tough problems without granted, denigrating each other, fussing with each other, putting each other down. Let's open up our hearts and our minds to really solve the problems that are going on during these complicated times, because if we don't do it, there's going to be an ending point that we're not going to like,

Reginald Hardwick  08:12
And the arts have to play a big role.

Sheila Johnson    08:14
Arts are so important, I sit with a consortium of not only artists but politicians who want to bring the arts back into the school system, we're finding that kids who are not even around the arts at a very early age, they aren't developing right. And we want to expose them to music. We want to expose them to the visual arts. They need to read more. They've got to get out off the cell phones, out of the iPads. They need to move more. We just need to really expose them to the arts, because they're going to find that the arts are really the foundation and will be the foundation of their lives. It teaches them how to focus. It teaches them organizational skills. It teaches them how to start looking at one another and listening to one another. And I'll tell you a little story. I'm now in the hospitality business. We do what we call I get all my employees together, town hall meetings. That's what it is. I'm fishing for the words. My general manager brought in an orchestra. He didn't tell me about this. The orchestra came in because I couldn't figure out why it was set up that way. The orchestra came in and performed. I got up on the stage. I said, Why do you think this orchestra is here? They loved it. I said, Who's the man with the wand? He's the conductor. I said, “I am your conductor. And then I explained to them about everybody the first chair violinist. First Chair, second violinist. I said you all are the managers of each one of your divisions. What you're saying, they're playing their instrument, they're talking through their instrument, but they're also watching that conductor. They are listening. They are following. I have to be the leader. I have to be the example for all of you. But I want you to use your eyes and your ears to watch everybody that's in your division and working for you. I want you to watch them every day so that you can be better communicators. If they're not having a good day, you look at them in the eyes. This is what the arts are all about. It’s communicating on a much deeper level, and this is what is so important.

Reginald Hardwick  10:54
Well, congratulations, by the way, on the Salamander Collection being named the best luxury hotel brand by USA Today in 2025. In your memoir, I read about the numerous roadblocks you encountered while building in Middleburg, Virginia, from residents first embracing your dream to fighting it, to literally putting up a sign on your property “Don't BET Middleburg,” to construction issues. What kept you going?

Sheila Johnson   11:22
Well. The salamander is the only animal that can walk through fire. It also stands for perseverance, courage and fortitude that has been the driving force ever since I decided to adopt the salamander is my logo. That is what is driving me. I knew that if I had given up, I would have given up for everybody of color, every woman that wanted to get out there and change something. I just needed to do this. There was something that was driving me that if I give up, well, I couldn't live with myself. So, it was really, really important. And during that time, I decided, you know, I'm going to also put together my core values, going back to the arts, harp, honesty, a for H is for honesty, A is for authenticity, R is for respect, and P is for passion, and that's how I live my life by and that's why I could never give up on this project, no matter what curve balls were being thrown at me. I wanted to be an example as a leader that I never, ever give up. I may find another fork in the road in which I can get to my end goal, but I will never, ever give up on my vision and the passion that I have for what I want to do.

Reginald Hardwick  12:53
And I know you are extremely hands-on, from the artwork on the walls to the fabrics. Why is that important? That at your level, you know there are, I imagine some CEOs are like, well, I'll pay someone to do that, but you are very hands-on and very intimate details. Why is that important?

Sheila Johnson    13:13
It's back to the arts again. I know what I want. I have the eye. I have the vision. I know what my home needs to look like. And when my guests come through the door, I say, Welcome to my home. Welcome to my home. I want them to feel who I am when they walk through the doors. And when people leave, they're saying, “You’re right. We feel so at home.” I want my guests to feel vested in the salamander brand. I really want them to be able to live what my standards stand for. I want them to be better people when they leave my properties. That's what I want.

Reginald Hardwick  14:02
You have ownership stake in three professional sports teams, the Washington Wizards NBA team, the Washington mystics WNBA team, and the Washington Capitals NHL team. What has being in the sports professional arena taught you?

Sheila Johnson    14:18
Well, first of all, it gives you status, and I was the first African American and woman to buy into these teams I was given, and I opportunity that I could not turn down. Ted Leonsis was instrumental in getting me in there, and I enjoyed every minute of it I've been in ownership from May of 2007 I have lived and breathed, especially the women's basketball team. We won the national championship in 2019 right before the earth shut down or the world shut down. Do. Yeah, which was, I was glad we won the championship, but the girls really could not celebrate, like most teams do you know, with the parade and everything, but at least I was able to accomplish that. Our hockey team the year before won the Stanley Cup. You know, we became the city of sport team winners, and which was great. Now we're the men's basketball team. We're going through our cycles of rebuilding, which is great, but what it did, it gave me a level of access that most people would never get. I'm now meeting other team owners. I sit on the Board of Governors. I sit on the basketball hall of fame board. It's just giving me access that I would have never been able to have before. And if there's anything that I'm hoping my Teen Summit posse could learn how to do, and if I could teach it to them, access is everything, connection is everything. You could be the smartest, the best person out there, but if you don't have those connections, that is going to elevate you to become more powerful in what you're trying to build, whether it's a brand your own self, you need those connections. There's just no way, the way the world's going. There's no way you're going to make it.

Reginald Hardwick  16:27
I imagine at times though you are the only Black person or the only woman in the room, do people still the audacity to underestimate you? And how do you deal with that?

Sheila Johnson  16:41
There could be some really stupid people that will bring that up, and I just walk away. You don't want to feed that person anymore. I don't think about it. I just go in. It's the way you enter the room, the way you're dressed, the way you present yourself. You command who you are. So many people say they feel intimidated by you good I'm glad they do, because when I speak, I want them to listen. I want them to understand who I am. I'm not going to give in to that kind of intimidation, and that's what's important. My presence and the way I plan to go into a meeting or even go into a party is very important.

Reginald Hardwick  17:27
From taking your orchestra of young musicians to perform before Queen Noor of Jordan to hosting Hip Hop acts on Teen Summit. We've talked a little bit about why Arts is so important to you, but I know foundationally, it has been from the time you loved the violin. If parents are watching this, you know, why involve your kids in the arts? I know there's a lot of competing interests. What does it do for children?

Sheila Johnson    18:05
Well, I said it earlier. It teaches them something that is so deep, it reaches something within. And I can talk about the brain, left right brain. It helps them to become better problem solvers, better thinkers. It helps them to think outside the box. There is no other form in which you can teach a child. Their mind needs to wander. It needs to think about things. It just takes them into a whole another area that's never going to be reached by any other subject matter. It teaches them how to dream. It teaches them how to visualize. It's, believe it or not, we have a music room in our heads, and that music is constantly there. So, they call sometimes they call it an ear worm, but there is music always in our head. It can be associated with something, but it teaches us the art of storytelling. It's all connected, and that's why it's so important.

Reginald Hardwick  19:17
What are we as a society missing by not focusing on the arts, and particularly here in America,

Sheila Johnson  19:29
What are we missing? We're missing a generation that is falling through the cracks. We're missing empathetic individuals. We're missing inspiration. We are missing young people with feelings to be able to understand and empathize. Empathize. Us with one another. We're missing a lot.

Reginald Hardwick  20:05
You're back on the campus of the University of Illinois, which you first arrived as a freshman in 1966. What is it like? And I know you've visited here before, what is it like to be back?

Sheila Johnson    20:17
You know, when I come back, I conjure up old memories, the university is wonderful, but I was here during some difficult times. There were only one hundred Black students out of thousands here. It was during the Black Power movement. It was a conflicting time for me. It was the first time coming out of Maywood, Illinois, and I had to really try and find my way. I was the only African American in the music department. There was only one other African American woman, and she was in the dance department. That was it. And I had to deal with prejudices I hate to say this, but there were students there that used the N word to me. How did you get in? Is it because you're Black, that kind of thing. I tried out for the cheerleading squad, got on the cheerleading squad, and I was thrown out of the music school, and so it took Dan Perino to get me back in. We went, and they had no excuse of why they threw me out. They said, “Oh, you make a break a finger tumbling around.” There was absolutely no rhyme or reason of why they did that. So, these are obstacles that were thrown in front of me, and I look back at them. Do I resent it? No. Made me stronger. Everything in life that I have gone through has put me on this dais with you, and to be able to create Teen Summit. And if there's any lessons that I can share with these young people, it is to never give up. There are going to be roadblocks, whether they're fair or unfair, you've got to learn to journey through them and just make it work.

Reginald Hardwick  22:07
What would you tell that young classic violinist who came here if you could have just a minute, few minutes with that young woman in 1966?

Sheila Johnson    22:21
Well, just try and be the best you could be, and that was the way I lived my life. I mean, I practiced hard, I did everything I could, and I'll tell you, even when I got into the university I made last year in the second violin section, I thought I could play better than that, but apparently, they didn't think, but I wasn't going to give up. And I ended up being first chair of the second violin section. And then I remember trying out for Chicago Civic Symphony, got into the first violin section. I won the Illinois All State Competition. I mean, you just keep going. What I would tell myself, and what I was telling myself back then was to never give up. I really, at that point in my life, didn't have another alternative. The violin was my life. And as I got older and continued to teach and to conduct orchestras, there were opportunities that came along. Queen Noor walked into the old post office pavilion and wanted my orchestra to be part of the largest cultural festival in the Middle East. I never turned that down. There were problems within the Jewish community because it was Jordan. There were parents that said, “my kids are not going on that trip.” I tried to educate them that this is about the arts. It's about building bridges and connections. Even King Hussein, he says, Look, if it's a passport issue, don't worry about it. I worked with the State Department, and not only was it just that one trip, but they continued to have us back. I built the music conservatory in Jordan, raised the money for. It's still there. I'll be meeting with the Jordanian Ambassador soon. It's just been an amazing journey. And then from there, of course, then it was the beginning of the whole cable industry. And that was the birth of cable. And that's when there was this opportunity. I'm saying, We've got to do a company. Everybody else there was Nickelodeon, CNN, you name it. But there was nobody representing Black voices. We had to give the African American community a voice, and that was the birth of BET.

Reginald Hardwick  24:50
You wrote this incredible book, very revelatory. And as you can see, I have a few pages marked here what has been the impact of as you talk in interviews and give talks in different cities across the country, of writing this book,

Sheila Johnson    25:11
You have no idea. I never thought that the book would be loved as much as it's been an inspiration. I've had people lining up crying, people that I hadn't even seen in years, that were U of I students as I'm touring around the country, I'm reconnected with them, and they said, “Sheila, we had no idea. No idea.” People had no idea what I had been going through, personally. But what inspired them more than anything is that I never gave up. My mother, and I'll never forget this, she had a cane. I thought she was going to hit me over the head, but She smacked it down. She says, “I want you to get your power back. Stop looking in the rear-view mirror, you get your power back, because I know my daughter, you get out there, and you do what you're passionate about.” And that was like a lightning bolt. And I said, I'm going to do this. She lived with me. And I mean, from day one, she knew what I was going through. She had warned me ahead of time, don't do this. Don't get married. She knew, and she just But mom, you know how we could do that. But I went on and did it. I don't regret it because it has really been an education. It has been an education about life. It's been an education about love. It's been an education about finding my passion. It has taught me how to put myself number one. I was always there for everybody else, but I never opened the book on my own life and what I needed. And to write that book was unbelievable therapy. It took me two years to get that done.

Reginald Hardwick  27:18
I remember reading in the memoir about your relationship with your father and your family had integrated hospitals in different areas, and you were so close to him, and then one day, he's gone, and your mother is crushed. How did you How were you able to keep pushing on because so many I know, so many people who their parent situation like that just would have hurt their trajectory for the rest of their life. How did you?

Sheila Johnson    27:49
I realized I had to become the parent because my mother fell apart, and I had a brother, I still have a brother, and I just had to kick it in. I had to become the adult at 16 years old, I remember working at JC Penney, mopping floors, avoiding cockroaches. I then worked up in the material department, you know, selling, you know, the Vogue collection of whatever. I forgot what you call them, but Vogue patterns. I was up in the pattern department. I did, I hustled, I did whatever I had to do. And even coming down here to Urbana I remember working at Lum’s, working at the YWCA. I graduated from this school with $27,000 in my checking account. I saved every penny. I made my own clothes. I did whatever I had to do to survive. Don't ask me why, how, or what motivated me to do it. I just knew I had to survive. I had to help my mother. We had to get through this. And one thing it taught me is never depend on a man. Never depend on anyone. You have to take care of your own self, your life. And there's hundreds of millions of people out there that don't realize that I have to be in charge of myself. I was just so angry that that happened. I was hurt my father to just shift over like that, you know, having an affair with someone else at the hospital, and just abandoning his family. But the way he treated me when he did that, I was supposed to be the apple of his eye, but the way he treated me, there's something psychological, and when I think back on it, that was going on in his head that was mean, and maybe it was his way of cutting me off completely without not wanting to have any kind of affection for his daughter anymore. Something snapped in him, and even when he passed away, I wanted to go down to the funeral. My brother wanted to go, but that wife of his wouldn't even let us in. So, people are mean. People are what they are. That was another life lesson. You can't depend on anyone. That's why, again, with this Teen Summit, I'm trying to teach these kids, you have to put yourself first. You have to find out who you are, what motivates you, what gets you out of bed in the morning. Do not depend on anyone out there, you find out who you are and what you want to do and go for it.

Reginald Hardwick  30:48
Last question for that first round of teenagers we get here in central Illinois, what's your advice for them? 

Sheila Johnson    31:03
I want them to understand my story. I want them to get as much out of this experience as possible, and to let them know that we're here for them. We're going to help them grow in their journey through life, because it's going to be a tough one. I don't know what the future holds, but at least they're going to have a home here.

Reginald Hardwick  31:31
Dr Sheila Johnson, it's been such an honor and a pleasure to speak with you today. 

Sheila Johnson    
Thank you.