Transcript
Into America
Fathers of the Movement
Trymaine Lee: There’s a photo of Tracy Martin, with his arm wrapped around his son, Trayvon. We talked about it. The last time he was on this show, back in February. He’s holding his boy close, as he plants a kiss on his cheek. It’s a remarkably gentle window into the world, this father and son once shared,
Archival Recording: You know, that picture, just a smile on his face, it ensures me as a dad, that I would always have a friend that depicts love, just the love, the passion and the friendship, the camaraderie that we as black fathers often it’s taken away from us by stereotypes. And so, that picture does, that says that, this is my friend, this is something that I care about. This is someone who I’ve nurtured is my seed. This is why I planted in the ground and nurtured them.
Lee: There’s another moment just like this, except this time is between Michael Brown Sr. and his son, Michael Brown, Jr. Taken just months before he was killed. Michael Brown Sr. was getting married. The father and son are pictured standing next to each other at the ceremony. Broad shouldered, dressed in all white, except for the red rose, blooming from each of their shirt pockets. Mike Jr. has a huge smile across his face.
Archival Recording: Mike was my best man, a lot of people search their best man, they just let you know the relationship we had. So, that was a nice moment. Overall, when I look back, and what all happened that year, and just to see him pass me the ring, pat me on my back. It’s a lot of pictures, though. Those memories that I was just, I will never forget them.
Lee: And being a dad isn’t just about the big moments. It’s about the everyday, like a moment captured in a photo of Jacob Blake Sr. with his son, Jacob Blake Jr. taking on an ordinary summer day.
Archival Recording: This one summer, we grew up maybe 14, 15 times. So, he’s sitting on the couch next to me and somebody said, man, do you all know how much you all lookalike? And I look at him and he looked at me and they took the picture. And I kept that picture, because that moment, I’ll never forget how I felt looking at my boy looking like me.
Lee: In 2012, Trayvon Martin, and unarmed black teen was fatally shot in his father’s gated community in Florida, neighborhood watchman.
Archival Recording: Man, it ain’t no easy way to grieve.
Lee: And just like for Tracy, that’s been true for the countless black fathers who lost children to acts of racially motivated violence across the country. In 2014, massive protests erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, after Michael Brown Jr., another unarmed black teenager was killed by a white police officer. His father says the emotional stress that he carried in the days and months after his son’s death was almost too much to bear.
Archival Recording: So, I had lost faith. Talk to me about God, I’m not listening to that.
Lee: A similar pain struck the heart of Jacob Blake Sr. when his 29-year-old son was left partially paralyzed after a white police officer shot him seven times in the back outside an apartment complex in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Archival Recording: And it’s a mountain of stress, because we’re dealing with what has happened to us personally with our child. And then we’re dealing with sharks in water, at the same time coming at us.
Lee: The attention and activism sparked by these acts of violence has taken deep root inside these three men. But long before their son’s names, their faces, and memories belong to the world, these black boys belong to their fathers and the love that have helped them.
Archival Recording: You know you may outgrow in my lap as a baby, but you will never outgrow my heart as a father.
Lee: I’m Trymaine Lee and this is Into America. So much focus is often given to the mothers of the movement, the black mothers who lost children to police and racial violence. But we rarely hear from the fathers of the movement. So, with Father’s Day around the corner, I wanted to talk with a group of men about their losses, the stereotypes of black fatherhood that can add to their grief and what it means to move forward.
As part of a special on NBC News Now called Can You Hear Us Now, Black Fathers? I sat down with Tracy Martin, Jacob Blake Sr. and Michael Brown Sr. They told me about their own journeys for fatherhood, and the joy and challenge of being a dad amid a global fight for black life.
When I found out, I was going to have a kid almost 10 years ago, I started thinking about the kind of father and man I wanted to be for her. Having a child changed me. And a decade later, there are still things I’m discovering about who I am in the context of this new role as dad. Michael Brown Sr. remembers being a new dad too, with lots of dreams.
Michael Brown Sr.: Well, I’ll tell you from the moment I’ve seen him, smelled him, healed him, I rather protect him to the day I die, sadly, wasn’t able to do that, someone else’s choices that they made in life too, in Mike’s life, but I always wanted to set an example. A good example,
Lee: For Tracy Martin, the road to Fatherhood has had some challenges. He grew up without his father in the house,
Tracy Martin: Public housing probably was one of the worst things that could happen to black families, simply because it said, OK, mom, you can pay $6 a month rent for you and your kids. But the daddy can’t live there. So, now he’ll go to separation. Having that absent father figure in the home made me resent my father somewhat.
Lee: Trayvon wasn’t his firstborn. He became a dad as a teenager. But by the time Trayvon was born, Tracy felt he had a chance to do things differently. And to have a real relationship with his son,
Martin: I was grooming my son to be a man of the same type of character that I am. OK, son, this is how I’m cut. You can be cut like me by step your game up, be greater than me.
Lee: Jacob Blake Sr.’s relationship with his son grew much later in life. In the beginning, he struggled to focus on his responsibilities as a father,
Jacob Blake Sr.: When Jacob was born, I was getting married to another young lady. So, I was out there in new streets. And when I saw him, I wanted it so bad to be a good father at first, not so much when he was young that it worked that way. So, as he got older, our relationship started picking up and becoming better, because he got to be around me much more. And we got to travel and do things together. And now, I was trying to make up for the things that on the front side I didn’t get to do.
Lee: And Jacob says, despite the challenges in the beginning, his love for his son was unwavering
Blake Sr.: There’s no timeframe, right? You love that child; you may not be there all the time for that child in some frame or some point in time. But your love never changes for that child.
Lee: The three men have another thing in common, complicated relationships with the mothers of their three boys. Tracy says when he and Trayvon’s mother, Sabrina Fulton decided to separate, they still made sure to parent together,
Martin: You know, I had to set aside some differences and do what’s best for the child, I had developed a good relationship with my kids to the point that I had been separated from Sabrina and moved out of the house. And my kids didn’t know that I had moved out of the house because I would go to work, come back to the house where they were, stay at the house until they went to sleep. And then I leave. And during that process, we started developing the friendship. Whereas all right, we understand that we ain’t compatible no more. And she moving on, I’m moving on. But those kids still going to be there.
Lee: In those nuances sometimes, we see the stereotypes of black fathers emerging.
Martin: Right.
Lee: Talking about like, this absenteeism, or single mother, not ever realizing how involved a lot of black fathers are in their children’s lives.
Martin: Right.
Lee: Over indexing in so many ways. Have you had to contend with those stereotypes, especially in the wake of these very public situations?
Martin: Yes, the point of the matter that they tried to say that Mike was in a store stealing or whatever, if he had better guidance, this wouldn’t have happened. And from that day forward, people were just attacking the family. I’m like, wow, these how people feel
Lee: And you all trying to grieve, man, you’re trying to grieve and it’s all that piled on top of you.
Martin: It’s crazy, because not making this a racial issue. But we got to take the blinders off. Mike Brown, they assassinated Mike Brown’s character after he was dead. Trayvon Martin, they assassinated his character after he was dead, right. And they said it was due to bad parenting. But what happens when you got a 17 or 18-year-old white kid going into schools shooting his peers has never said that it was due to bad parenting.
Blake Sr.: 18-year-old walked into that grocery store in Buffalo, New York. That white boy walked in there and killed those people. It never was a question of how his parents raised him.
Lee: And so, with the weight of that going through the grieving process very publicly, and then it’s like all these layers of racism and the white supremacy and stuff. That’s the parenting. How do you find ways to still stand strong?
Archival Recording: It took me a while, you know, Tracy know, I was in a tunnel for long time.
Martin: Yes.
Archival Recording: I have to divert. All I knew was AK and (inaudible).
Lee: As you said, it took you a while to get to the point because I can imagine that anger, right, that’s your child, you took mine. I’m coming for you. But it took you a while to get to a point where it’s like, you know what, if I do that, we all lose and the legacy loses,
Archival Recording: We lose. I want to find this guy so bad, to worse to a plan on my hill, my blood pressure was off balance. So, I have a migraines and stuff like that. Just living and breathing, trying to figure out how can I handle this problem? So, I had to find myself, I had to get myself together. And so, he took my son enough to take leave mentally, that’s two wins.
Lee: Is there pressure when you’re in the public eye to have to be respond a certain way? Like you said, you mad, and killed your boy, and you are angry? Is there pressure to feel like, I can only respond like that, like?
Brown Sr.: So, when everything first happened with Mike, I was told not to speak. If you’re not going to say something to this that needs to be saved, don’t say nothing, because I was told that it will, it could kill the character of the case. So, I’m walking around with all this pressure and can’t release. And my wife said, Mike, you’ve got to, you can’t let these people keep talking for you. They’re going to, you’re going to fall out the white, you’re going to wither away. So, I had to find my voice. And it took a while, because after people telling me what I should say, and I say, I said, I’m going to say what I want to say.
Lee: For Jacob, it’s felt like being in two worlds. In his public life, he had to remain calm and composed. But in his private life, he was battling a whole slew of emotions.
Archival Recording: I think my daughter and one of the interviews, we had told, the interview has something that she said, my father is mad, but he can’t show how mad he is. Because then you all will say.
Archival Recording: Apple don’t fall far from the tree. That’s what they’re going to say.
Archival Recording: So, I was holding back a lot of anger. And I think we all were, because we didn’t want to negative connotation connected to our names. But if anyone at this table can tell you that they were not mad. Then I, you know,
Archival Recording: Question their character.
Archival Recording: Question their character.
Archival Recording: Yes.
Lee: In the days and months after these violent assaults on their children, the pressure mounted, and Michael says this pressure, caught up with him, made him guarded and untrusting. He kept his circle tight. He remembers Tracy and other fathers who had lost children reaching out. At first, he said he pushed him away. But with some persistence, they found their way through.
Archival Recording: So, Tracy, Ron Davis and Uncle Bob, he was just asked us grants, uncle Kane in St. Louis, embracing. At that point, I don’t know what deal was going on. But these guys was – they were there for me.
Archival Recording: We had to kind of break into that wall, man, because we all had a wall of resilience. Because in incidents like this, man, you got to be very careful with the people that you bring into your circle. And so just you know, I’m saying just trying to break out, I said man, I’m a nice guy.
(CROSSTALK)
Archival Recording: This is tough, man. And Mike would never smile, man. Mike could never smile. I was like, man, you know we’re trying, I’m trying to tell hey bro, it’s going to be good.
Lee: How did you ultimately crack through the wall? And how did you like how did you all come together as brothers after like?
Archival Recording: The thing that they close at a store when the store closes, the metal?
Archival Recording: Metal.
Archival Recording: Mike started rolling (inaudible). He rolling it up a little bit at a time. And then finally he was like, a little sunlight. But you see it happening, right?
Lee: We’ve talked before about this idea of a club nobody wants to be part of, right, but here we are in this conversation is long growing list of names, who’ve had ones galvanized the community but shone a glaring light on the systemic issues in our country, the racist issues in our country. And I wonder if you actually it sounds good to say, you guys are together, but do you all lean on each other. Have you all become friends in this?
Archival Recording: I’m not going to say friends.
Archival Recording: Family.
Archival Recording: I’m going to say brothers, man.
Archival Recording: Right.
Archival Recording: You understand? I remember the first time I met, Tracy was coming through the airport, I think I was going out, in Charlotte and Tracy was coming in. This is before Jacob was shot. And I stopped him in Charlotte airport, and I grabbed his arm and I said, brother, I’m down with you, man 100 percent? You remember that?
Archival Recording: Oh, yes.
Archival Recording: I held his arm, I stopped, drop my bag and stop and say, man, I’m down with you. 100 percent.
Archival Recording: Not knowing that we’ll be sitting not
Archival Recording: Not knowing that later on, we’d be sitting in this table together.
Lee: When we come back, where these fathers are today, and the legacies, they’re working to leave behind, stick with us.
Trayvon Martin’s death, and the acquittal of the man who killed him would go on to spark a new generation of protests and global attention on police and vigilante violence. So, fathers like Tracy, Michael and Jacob had become activist, a role they hadn’t imagined for themselves, before the worst of their fears about this country came true. Now, they’re building organizing networks, sharing resources with other parents who’ve lost children, and energizing a movement,
Archival Recording: Families United, our organization, I founded would be (inaudible) Breonna Taylor. We fight for families all over the country.
Lee: How do we as black men in our community step up and try? And we know it’s overwhelming, the police, the federal government? But how do we create a barrier around our community, is there anything to do at this point, even given all the system that structures
Archival Recording: These kids, they say these kids are lost, they not lost, they need some structure, they need someone to talk to. And we have to make time, all of us, not just a (inaudible) all of us. Help to make time in some type of way, now is all different types of ways that we can like I run an organization that Michael Brown (ph) Change Foundation, right, and our phone stay off the hook.
Archival Recording: Off the hooks.
Archival Recording: And we’re small, I try my best to get to all the cities, as much as I can find in this kind of, but we make it happen.
Archival Recording: But in order for these young people to see they have to see you, you have to be tangible, they have to be able to put their hands on you and see that you’re really out here about this business, because they’re going to take over when you are the one that they’re throwing rose petals in on. Right.
Archival Recording: It’s an educational piece that goes, that plays a huge part. And it’s different components that it’s going to take, you know what I’m saying to get our kids back, to bring them back in. We’ve got 50 different components, but that educational piece, if you don’t know your history, you definitely ain’t going to know what’s ahead of you.
Lee: And while all three men are carrying on their son’s legacies in public, they’re still working through their private grief. That grief looks different for Jacob, because even though his son survived, the road to recovery has been long.
Archival Recording: He was in dark he was in darkness. Like Mike said he was in a tunnel. He was in darkness for a minute and watching your child go through that and go, he had spasms and they were hurt him so bad. You know, it was like every spasm he was having man, to do some tell you to watch him having a man.
Lee: And see him feeling that pain.
Archival Recording: Seeing him feeling that type of pain for year. His mental was much better. And he’s able to pull himself up now with these, the assist of these legs that he has on now, he’s ready to play some baseball (inaudible).
Lee: Every day, Mike Brown feels the pain of losing his son. But he’s also finding some happiness
Brown Sr.: My kids bring joy on my face. (Inaudible), she was 18 months when Mike was killed. She is nine, she’s tumbling, she’s in gymnastics, every time I look up, we hug, they look great, but they look good. They look like daddy.
Lee: Tracy Martin also has a younger child, a son named Tyler, born a year after Trayvon was killed.
Martin: We can never replace what was taken away from us by having another child but the substance there he’s brought to my life, right? The understanding of protection, being over protected. Being a father, being a protector, being a provider, he brought on that spectrum for me, I don’t really believe in reincarnation. But man, if you sat down and had a conversation with Tyler, by the end of the conversation, you’ll be saying, all right, Trayvon. I mean, it’s just, it’s so many similarities.
Lee: Now, when Tracy looks at his other children, he reminds them that they have the responsibility of representing their brother in all that they do.
Martin: So, you’ve got to be mindful of what you do. That goes back to what we say, I’m saying I don’t live my life. I can say and do whatever I want to say and do, right. But I always respect my son.
Lee: This conversation was part of a special I’m hosting on NBC News Now called Can You Hear Us Now, Black Fathers. Join me as I travel all across the country to explore issues important to black America, through the lens of fatherhood. You can hear more from the fathers of the movement and come along, as I visit with Mario van Peebles, we talk about the arts and his famous father, actor, director, and Renaissance man, Melvin van Peebles, and I take a special field trip with my colleagues, Al Roker (ph) and Craig Melvin (ph), to chat about black man’s relationships with their fathers, their health, and much more.
You can check out the full installment of this conversation streaming June 17, on NBC News now at 10:30 PM Eastern.
Into America is produced by Sojourner Ahebee, Isabel Angell, Allison Bailey, Aaron Dalton, Max Jacobs and Joshua Sirotiak. Original music is by Hannis Brown. Our executive producer is Aisha Turner. Thanks to Fernando Ahuda (ph) and Bryson Barnes for their engineering work on this episode. And special thanks this week to our colleagues who put in work on this Father’s Day special, including Olivia Cruser, Luis Diaz (ph), Jack Goodwin (ph), Jeff Kipnis (ph), and Kevin O’Realis (ph). I’m Trymaine Lee. Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there. See you all next Thursday.