We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Freddie Taylor. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Freddie below.

Freddie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Who is your hero and why? What lessons have you learned from them and how have they influenced your journey?

Tough question because I have many and they are displayed on the wall behind me in my office. I love to try and draw on their skills, dedication, perseverance, and insight in my daily life.

But for your question, I will select Marcus Garvey and Mary McLeod Bethune.

Both were born around the same, Bethune in 1875 and Garvey in 1887, with the same spirit of perseverance and a fierce dedication to the people they were serving. These are two of the traits I admire the most in people and try to draw on their strength to succeed.

Bethune grew up on the plantation her parents were enslaved and fell in love with education the first day she visited the “Big House” on that plantation with her mother. She found a book on the porch and picked it up, but a white child of the plantation snatched it from her and told her, “Books are for white people”. Mary’s thoughts about that was an intense focus on education because she figured there were something in those books that she needed in order to be successful and grow. It gave her the strong desire to educate and be of service to her community. This is part of her origin story to educate her people and ultimately start Bethune Cookman college and literally educated 10s of thousands of people over the century the institution has been around.

Gavey has a similar history of service to his people. But he was born out of learning the printing press and journalism as a young man thanks to his uncle in Jamaica. And after having the privilege to travel throughout the Caribbean island, central America, and South America, he noticed the Black and African descendants relegated to the bottom of society in all the places he visited. He figured there must be something wrong and spent his life trying to assist and build his people. This is the origin story of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. An organization that he grew to over 5M members before the phone, internet, and social media was a thing. An amazing feat and something I love to draw on as we continue to build and grow the Urban Intellectuals movement.

Freddie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My dad, who is 94 years young today, raised me to have an affinity and appreciate for Black history. He would encourage me to read and study our history growing up, even reward me $10 per chapter I read in the books he purchased for me. This was the origin of my foundation and appreciate for the history and culture.

But it wasn’t until my children were born in 1999 and 2003 that I got to see the educational system from the eyes of a parent. This changed everything because I couldn’t believe the same lies and propaganda were were taught in the 1980s were still being taught to children int he early 2000s. I found myself saying someone should do something, someone should tell these children and our community the truth. Then one day, I became someone.

Over the decades before the start of me going full time in Urban Intellectuals, I spent a lot of time talking about social issues, history and the state of the Black community. So once I figured out how to earn an income discussing these things, it was on and I was all in.

This has been a labor of love and passion for me. It is something that I have done for free so no matter what happens in the business, this is just who I am and what I do.

At Urban Intellectuals, Black History Made Easy is our mantra and what we do. We create products, services, and experiences for people to learn more about the contributions to humanity Black and African people have contributed throughout time. Seems like something that would be natural for us to know, but the system we experience doesn’t do that, so our company is necessary.

I want people to know that we are serious about sharing these messages and love what we do. We are a company comprised of people that have come from customers to employees and they are just as passionate about this work as I am. I’ve found that to be one of our secret weapons, working with people that started off purchasing our products. Their dedication is next level to our customers.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I use to own a real estate appraisal company from 2002 to 2009, but around 2004-2005, I decided that I wanted to learn how to make money online. Going out into the world appraising houses wasn’t the best for me as I hate traffic and being in the Chicagoland area, you are going to experience traffic.

In 2004, I taught myself how to build websites by going to the library and getting a book, then building out a website for my appraisal company. I also built a few other sites and started earning my first bit of revenue online.

I remember telling the wife after a few hard months that I was now making $0.22/day, up from $0.02/day. LOL, if you could have seen her face, she was like, ummm, ooooooookay. I guess that is good.

but a few months later when I reported that I was now making $2.22/day, she started to see where I was going with this. Over the years, that grew to $22.22/day, then $222/day, and the most recent number is $2,222/day, but I k now the next jump is the one we are really waiting on. :)

But this grow took years of ups, downs, changes in business plans and more to get there. It has been worth it, but I know it is possible which is the biggest part of the issue. Most people don’t realize something like this is possible.

How’d you meet your business partner?

Interesting story, My COO and I met in a Skype group back in 2007. I mentioned that I was interested in learning how to make money online so I ended up in this Skype group and talking with others from all over the world who were trying to figure it out as well.

Over a few months a small hand full of us broke off and made our own skype group and held each other accountable, shared best practices and all of that. Ian and I kept in touch and he would assist me in different aspects of web design and technical needs as I didn’t have those skills and he did. I just have flat out blind ambition and the gall to go for it. And he actually had technical skills.

Around 2014, he noticed that I was really starting to pick up some traction with my Urban Intellectuals movement and assisted a bit more. In 2016, things got serious and he came on board full time and we started really building out the company.

We didn’t actually meet in person until 2018 when we did our first annual planning meeting in Morocco. It was an amazing experience and we are still really good friends to this day. I’m proud of our friendship and what we’ve been able to accomplish with a stranger on the internet in a skype group.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://UrbanIntellectuals.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/urbanintellectuals/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/urbanintellectuals
• Twitter: https://x.com/urbanintellects
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UrbanIntellectuals