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What John Amos taught me – and America -- about Black fathers | Opinion
Star-Ledger Guest Columnist
By Walter Fields
The actor John Amos played many characters during an illustrious television and film career, which the Newark native rode all the way to the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
Amos was weatherman Gordy Howard on the iconic television show,
The Mary Tyler Moore Show. He portrayed Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Percy Fitzwallace on
The West Wing. He was the adult Kunta Kinte in the historic TV miniseries
Roots, Kansas City Mack in the movie
Let’s Do it Again, and Cleo McDowell in the comedy classic
Coming to America.
However, it was his portrayal of James Evans, the strong father of a poor Black family trapped in public housing in Chicago, on TV’s
Good Times, that defined his career.
John Amos passed away in August, and his death marks a point of reflection for Black Americans. We lost a talented actor, and I lost a friend.
It was his role in
Good Times that I first came to know John. As a teenage boy who had recently lost his father to cancer when
Good Times first aired, his character captivated me because he resembled the father I knew in my own household. It was the strength that John Amos gave to the role, and the humility, and most importantly, the love and devotion of his family that drew me into the show. In words and deeds, I saw my father when John was on the screen. The death of his character felt like a personal loss.
In the episode when his wife Florida, played by Esther Rolle, receives news of his death and she drops a glass bowl and shouts –
Damn, Damn, Damn! – it was a moment that brought tears to my eyes. It reminded me of the emptiness I felt when my oldest sister came to my school to tell me that our father had died.
For many years, I pondered why the James Evans character had such an impact on me. After all, it was a television show.
Then, by some divine orchestration, I met John one afternoon as he was watching my daughter’s high school basketball practice; he was the godfather of my daughter’s head coach. A conversation led to a friendship, and John became a supporter of my work on behalf of
Black children and families in my community.
One day I shared my thoughts with him about his portrayal of James Evans, and told John that unlike any other Black television dad -- including Bill Cosby’s Heathcliffe Huxtable in
The Cosby Show, Robert Townsend’s Robert Peterson in
The Parent Hood, or Anthony Anderson’s Andre Johnson on
Black-ish -- James Evans was the Black father I knew and the one that most resembled the Black fathers of my friends. He was
real and kept it real.
As a young Black man that longed for the guidance and support my father gave me in eleven brief years, I could turn on the television and could still hear his lessons in the voice of James. When society was hell-bent on perpetuating the image of the irresponsible and negligent Black father, James Evans was working multiple jobs to support his family, protecting his children from the unsavory characters in the projects, and declaring his love for his wife.
This was the Black father I knew, and John showed him to America.
I knew as a teenager that I wanted to find a way to defend Black fathers. It has inspired me to pursue a doctoral degree in applied sociology and social justice at Morgan State University. My research centers on the positive role Black men play in fathering their children, and how they support a child’s intellectual growth and maturity.
I have grown weary of the negative media depictions and bad social science research that underlies the narrative of irresponsible and absentee Black fathers. That narrative has victimized Black men far too long, and it has led to misguided public policy that has harmed the Black family. My experience ran counter to that framing of Black fathers, and it was not the type of character John Amos portrayed on television.
Through my research I intend to disprove that narrative, and in doing so, honor not just my dad, but Black fathers in general, and my friend, John Amos.
Walter A.H.L. Fields, Jr., is a second-year student in the inaugural cohort of the PhD program in Applied Sociology and Social Justice at Morgan State University in Baltimore
