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The American history of Black fatherhood demands a new narrative

Black fatherhood may be the most redemptive force we rarely talk about. It is the moral backbone of a people who have taught this country how to love in the face of hate.

The story of Black fatherhood is not just a family story — it is a bold narrative of Black men refusing to surrender their humanity in a country that too often treated them as subhuman, writes Jack Hill.
The story of Black fatherhood is not just a family story — it is a bold narrative of Black men refusing to surrender their humanity in a country that too often treated them as subhuman, writes Jack Hill.Read moreLaurence Kesterson / AP

There are stories we tell in America that are simple, straightforward, and heroic. And then there are the stories that refuse to fit cleanly into our myths. Black fatherhood is one of those stories. It is not linear. It is not easy. It is not told often enough. But it is, without question, one of the most morally compelling and emotionally stirring narratives we possess.

To speak about Black fathers in America is to wade into a centuries-old paradox. It is to speak about love that persists even when it is outlawed. It is to witness devotion forged under duress, fatherhood practiced in the shadows of brutality, and dignity maintained in the face of persistent assault. The story of Black fatherhood is not just a family story — it is a bold narrative of Black men refusing to surrender their humanity in a country that too often treated them as subhuman.

This story begins, tragically, in 1619, before Black fathers were allowed to be fathers in the eyes of the law, but they were fathers in the eyes of love. Even as they were shackled, sold, and separated, enslaved Black men held on to their role — as best they could — as protectors and nurturers.

Picture, for a moment, a father watching his child be sold away, knowing he will likely never see them again. That grief is incalculable. And yet, even then, something unbreakable formed: A resolve to love deeply even when the world said such love was futile.

What strikes me is how similar the emotional architecture of Black fatherhood in the 18th century is to what we see today. Love under siege. Responsibility against the grain. The same kind of paternal devotion that once resisted the auction block now navigates systems no less cruel — mass incarceration, economic exclusion, and cultural erasure.

By 1865, with the end of slavery, there was hope — brief, radiant hope — that Black families would finally be allowed to flourish. Reconstruction saw formerly enslaved men searching desperately for wives and children from whom they had been separated. That era — so brimming with potential — was crushed under the heel of Jim Crow, and once again, Black men were cast out of full citizenship, their ability to provide and protect circumscribed by racial terror and legal deceit.

And yet — again — they endured. They married. They raised children. They worshiped. They built communities. They were the silent spine of the Black church, the quiet strength of the Black family.

By the 1960s, amid the swelling tide of the civil rights movement, Black fathers were marching, organizing, and leading. They weren’t just heads of households — they were architects of a new moral vision. A vision where their sons and daughters could walk freely and without fear. It’s too easy to remember Martin Luther King Jr. as a leader of marches and speeches. We forget he was a father, too. And perhaps it was in that role he was most vulnerable, and therefore most powerful.

But then came another storm. The late 20th century brought the war on drugs, the explosion of incarceration, and a nation quick to label Black fathers as absent. It’s a narrative that stuck — because it was easy, not because it was true.

What’s harder to see, but far more accurate, is this: Black fathers — often denied the luxury of proximity — remained deeply involved. They coached from prison pay phones, they wrote letters of love and correction, they sent what money they could. According to the data, Black nonresidential fathers are more likely than their white or Hispanic peers to read to their children, to bathe them, to help with homework. That’s not a stereotype. That’s a truth.

I think about this today as I walk through my own neighborhood and see Black fathers pushing strollers, showing up to school events, leading with quiet strength. Their love is not performative. It is not loud. It is durable. And it is rooted in a kind of moral wisdom that comes from living in a world that constantly questions their worth — and loving anyway.

Will Jawando, in his deeply moving memoir, My Seven Black Fathers, describes fatherhood as a communal act. That’s what makes Black fatherhood so spiritually rich — it’s not just about biology. It’s about presence. It’s about modeling manhood in a culture that offers very few mirrors.

Black men are reclaiming the narrative with the same resilience their ancestors carried through chains and violence.

“A father in one home,” he writes, “can be a mentor to a boy in another.” That sentence lives in my mind. In it is a kind of civic poetry, a belief that fatherhood is a thread that ties a people — and perhaps a nation — together.

George Floyd was a father. That fact was not an accessory to his story; it was the heart of it. He called out for his mother as he died, but he lived for his children. And when the world rose up in the summer of 2020, we weren’t just mourning a man — we were mourning what had been stolen from his family. The right to father. The chance to watch his daughter grow up.

Today, there is a quiet revolution happening. Mentorship programs, barbershop reading circles, fatherhood coalitions. Black men are reclaiming the narrative with the same resilience their ancestors carried through chains and violence. They are teaching their sons that tenderness is strength, and their daughters that presence is power.

But this is not their burden alone. If we are to be a nation worthy of its ideals, we must do more than stop demonizing Black fathers. We must start revering them. Not in some sanitized, mythic way — but in the real, complex, emotional truth of their lives.

In the end, Black fatherhood may be the most redemptive force we rarely talk about. It is the moral backbone of a people who have taught this country how to love in the face of hate, how to endure without bitterness, and how to lead families when the world conspires to break them.

We owe it to them — not just to tell their story, but to listen.

Jack Hill is a diversity consultant, child advocate, journalist, and writer.