FATHER’S DAY, JUNETEENTH AND TRUE LIBERATION We need to expand our definition of fatherhood
Today, Father’s Day falls on Juneteenth, the nation’s newest federal holiday, after a bill was signed into law last year by President Biden. It is a day that many Black Americans and a growing number of states, cities and counties celebrate as the end of slavery in the United States. Though the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued by President Lincoln in 1863, the news had been hidden from the enslaved Black Americans in Texas, necessitating Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger marching to Galveston on June 19, 1865, to inform the enslaved African-Americans there that the Civil War had ended and they were indeed free.
The story of Black fatherhood in America also involves a deception. Black fathers are routinely demonized for being “absent.” But our story is not a simple one of loss or absence.
At a time when we as a nation are dealing with so much loss as a result of COVID-19, gun violence and economic hardship, these holidays provide us an opportunity to retell and reframe an old story, a lie really, about who we are.
We often hear a singular story about the absence of fathers in Black communities. Whether it is the widely discredited conclusions about the Black family found in the Moynihan report of nearly 60 years ago or the more recent ramblings of Georgia Republican Senate nominee, Herschel Walker, who in a recent interview compared a Black father leaving his family to forced separations during slavery, the trope of the inadequate and distanced and disengaged Black father is alive and well.
Despite Walker’s hypocrisy — last week he was outed for having three children whom he doesn’t see and had to be sued to admit paternity and pay child support for one of them — the reality of Black fatherhood has always been much more layered and complex. Studies have shown that Black fathers are actually more involved in their children’s lives whether they live with their children or not. A 2013 CDC study showed that Black fathers are more likely to bathe, feed and read to their young children on a daily basis than fathers of other backgrounds.
And while 69% of Black children were born to parents who aren’t married as of 2020, higher than other groups, we should be careful not to equate “unmarried” to being “uninvolved.” Indeed, more than half of Black dads live with their children and many other Black fathers are stepping up in the lives of their children.
This is not to say that there are not significant challenges for Black men seeking to be a part of their children’s lives. All types of people make bad choices. The toll of systemic and institutional racism, however, is staggering and there are many Black fathers who have succumbed to a biased criminal justice system and poor health outcomes, including violence in our communities as a result of disinvestment. In 2015, The New York Times reported on the more than 1.5 million Black men who were “missing” from their communities as a result of incarceration and early death. Despite these challenges, Black fathers, father figures and mentors continue to be a powerful force for good in their communities.
In my recently released memoir, “My Seven Black Fathers,” I posit a simple but powerful idea: that the raw material of Black male success and wholeness is contained in the very bones of Black men. And that when they engage with other Black men and boys, their impact is transformative for the individuals they “father” and for their communities at large.
I tell the story of my young life through the lens of the seven Black men who made me who I am today and gave me the love, care, attention and skills to keep me on the right path when I might have strayed. I only have one biological father, of course, but these relationships were all much more than just genetic connections.
They include my stepfather, two of my mother’s co-workers, my high school choir director, President Barack Obama and my fourth-grade math teacher, Mr. Williams, the only Black male teacher I would ever have who modeled excellence, taught me how to tie a necktie and helped me deal with bullying. All of these Black men in their own way fathered me and taught me very different things. The duration of the relationships varied greatly; I knew Mr.
Williams nine months and never saw him again, and I’ve known my stepfather for more than 30 years, but each provided unique contributions to set me on a path of self-love, service and wholeness.
If we continue to think of fatherhood in binary terms — either you’ve got one or you’re out of luck — we’ll shortchange the future of Black boys and girls.
In a 2018 study on Race and Economic Opportunity conducted by researchers at
Harvard, Stanford and the Census Bureau, there is data to support this idea of an expanded view of Black fatherhood. In a devastating critique of systemic racism, the study shows that in 99% of census tracts in the United States, Black boys and white boys from similar wealth and family backgrounds at birth have wide earnings gaps years later as adults. Then there are a tiny sliver of communities where Black boys and white boys are doing similarly well economically years later. These “Black boy safe zones,” like the one my mine mother worked in and where I met four of my seven Black fathers in Silver Spring, Md., had a statistically significantly higher proportion of Black working-class fathers in them.
This, a version of it taking a village to raise a child, underscores both the importance of fathers in the lives of Black children but also demonstrates there isn’t just one way to be a father. A Black father in one home is potentially a mentor to a boy in another. This was certainly my story, and these relationships are flowering across our country.
We need more of these relationships to come to fruition, which is why we must enable them through policy, practice and programs. The stubborn statistic that Black male teachers only account for 2% of the teaching profession is a good place to start. A study by the Institute of Labor Economics released in 2017 found that low-income Black students who have had a Black teacher for at least one year in elementary school are less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to consider attending college.
New York City’s new schools chancellor, David Banks, has spent much of his career growing and supporting a new cadre of Black educators to pour into and nurture the next generation of Black children at his Eagle Academy schools. Mayor Adams has often talked about the importance of fatherhood and mentorship in his life.
At this moment in our history, as we emerge from the pandemic when our children have been through so much, it’s time to make the investments in teacher training, support and retention to make sure all students see themselves reflected at the front of the classroom.
I believe we are at a moment when real progress can be made to acknowledge and expand these life-saving relationships and finally begin to turn the page on one of the most persistent stereotypes confronting Black men and fathers today. Let’s tell the full story of who Black fathers are — the treasures of whole communities. If you know a Black child who needs guidance, provide it or connect them with someone who can. If you work in a school district, advocate for more Black male teachers. Sign up to mentor with a local youth-serving organization. We all have a role to play.
Black men are not the only possible father figures or mentors for Black youth. People of any ethnic background can potentially provide guidance and support to young people as they struggle to grow and learn. Caring white or Latino or Asian-American teachers or parents can help improve the lives of Black boys and girls. But in America, with our fraught history of racism, these relationships between Black men and boys are particularly powerful.
And as we celebrate the promise of freedom offered by Juneteenth, let us also celebrate the fathers and father figures in our lives and commit to being that for more people in our communities. The gift of these holidays falling on the same day, gives a unique opportunity of commemoration and celebration and hopefully a recasting of Black fatherhood. I know that without my Black fathers, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive and reconcile with my biological father later in life or be the present father I am in the lives of my four children. I know that I’m not alone.