My Seven Black Fathers: A Young Activist’s Memoir of Race, Family, and the Mentors Who Made Him Whole

In this rousing debut, attorney and community leader Jawando brilliantly uses the arc of his life to root out how “Black male mentors... make America a more just place for Black boys and a better place for all Americans.” He deploys a novel narrative device by tracing his path to “wholeness” through the stories of seven men who shaped his “sense of what it means to be a Black man in twenty-first-century America.” In vivid and moving passages, he describes the impact these men had on him during crucial times in his life—noting, for example, how he rediscovered his “sense of identity” with the help of his stepfather Joseph Jacob, and how his fourth grade math teacher, Mr. Williams, left a powerful mark on his life by protecting him from bullying and racism. Another particularly stirring section sees Jawando reconnecting with his estranged father before going on to serve as the associate director of the White House Office of Public Engagement under President Barack Obama (another noted “father figure”) in 2009. As Jawando lucidly details, the net effect of the loving support he received helped him become “a statistic on the positive side of America’s skewed racial balance sheet.” This effective combination of the personal and the political acts as a powerful call to action in these fraught times. (May)