Exploring Black fatherhood and father-daughter relationships, from life to loss

Giggles from little girls, some toddlers, others a bit older watching the controlled chaos unfold around them drift into the hallway.

Laughter floats into the atmosphere from their dads and those coaching them on how to pose with the flowers from nearby local business Plants N Petals filling the room, creating joy and a contrast to the still, quiet day just outside the headquarters of CoolxDad.

"Our mission is to aid and uplift all fathers of color and strive to build a better world for their children and serve them in their communities," said CoolxDad founder Kevin Barnett. "We wanted to build a space that allowed fathers to come together."

On a Saturday morning in February in the historic Fifth Ward in Houston, Texas, that's exactly what they did - holding their baby girls, one as young as 6 months old, cooing and smiling ear to ear during a Valentine's Day - themed photoshoot.

"It's important that we continuously show our daughters that we want to pour into [them]," Barnett said. "A photo is something that we can archive that allows that to be a memory, the spark back. It can bring emotion out."

It was fitting to have dads and daughters be each other's valentines.

As scholars point out, a father is a girl's first male relationship, and that relationship can have a significant impact on her mentally, physically, academically, financially, and emotionally, to name a few.

"I cherish every single moment that I have with her. She's brought so much balance to my life," new dad Marvin Pierre said of his daughter. "We're just bonding and creating lasting memories forever."

"We're starting new traditions," Barnett adds. "This now becomes the thing that their daughters [are] gonna be asking next year, 'Daddy, are we gonna be taking our pictures this year?'"

Vanessa Stokes' dad had moments in front of the camera, too, but for the most part, he was behind the lens capturing people at their most vulnerable, every camera click and flash opening a portal to history.

"My dad, Dorrell Creightney, was a photographer. He had the first Black-owned photography studio in Chicago," Stokes said. "When I look at pictures of Janis Joplin and pictures of Jimi Hendrix, and, you know, pictures of Aretha Franklin, when I see that, that's me. Those are powerful pictures. It took a powerful person to be able to take them, right? That was my dad. It's an honor to even be his daughter."

Stokes has dedicated her life to managing her father's work, which she believes includes at least half a million images. Some of those moments adorn the walls of her Chicago home.

"I feel that his presence is always with me. I feel like I'm protected still in a sense because of the fact that I have this legacy, and I continue to build upon it," said Stokes, whose father died in 2011. "None of us want the people that we love, especially our parents, to pass on or to transition. We want to hold them here as long as we can."

A day earlier, Stokes found herself welcomed through the doors of a home belonging to Dr. Marquitta Dorsey, an associate professor at Loyola University in Chicago.

Books lined the walls and laid stacked on the tables inside Dr. Dorsey's house, but this meet-up wasn't for casual conversation, though plenty of laughs were shared and intellectual thought pondered.

Stokes and Dorsey are among the many who belong to a unique club that no one really asks to be in.

ABC7 Chicago's Jasmine Minor looks at grief, Black fatherhood, and daddy-daughter relationships in a three-part series.

It's also why ABC7 Chicago's Jasmine Minor and ABC13's Brittaney Wilmore gathered around Dr. Dorsey's kitchen table, surrounded by cups of hot tea, crumples of tissue, and most importantly, photos of their fathers.

"We're here because we are four Black women who have lost their dads, and we're trying to navigate a space we weren't ready for," Brittaney said.

The Loneliness of Grief

"You could see me on TV, smiling," Jasmine shared. "For a long time, I had to be like, 'Smile, smile, smile.'"

It's a sentiment Dr. Dorsey, Stokes and Brittaney agreed with. How do you move forward after experiencing loss, and despite what society tells us, grief that doesn't go away?

"Grief has a start, but it doesn't have an end," said Dr. John Onwuchekwa, grief expert and author. "It's like this house fire. The initial loss may be the fire, but it is the subsequent splashes of condolences that people give throughout the course of the years that tends to remind the grievers of the fact that they are lonely."

A University of Memphis study found feelings of grief intensify around six to eight months after death, then become more intense again around the 12-month and 24-month mark.

Expressing that grief, though, isn't always easy or accepted for Black women, as Dr. Onwuchekwa notes.

"I feel that Black women are often held to a higher standard of exhibiting instant mercy and forgiveness," he said. "It seems to be the case that they are constantly maligned, misunderstood, critiqued, and snapshots of the worst of their grieving are put on a palette."

"And they're used to paint these caricatures of who they are - angry, frustrated and intense - not realizing the weight of all of what they've had to carry," Dr. Onwuchekwa continued.

It's why it's important for communities to have these conversations, "for people to know that they are not crazy, they are not alone," Dr. Onwuchekwa said.

Loneliness is something more people are grappling with, according to a Gallup survey reported in Oct. 2024.

In fact, one in five U.S. adults reported feeling lonely on a daily basis - the highest rate of reported loneliness in the past two years.

In 2023, U.S. surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy declared Americans were in the midst of a "loneliness epidemic." Gallup estimated at the end of last year that 52 million U.S. adults still felt a sense of disconnect.

It's a feeling that can worsen with grief.

"The loneliness of grief is the most surprising thing. People tend to think that the trauma of grief is the loss, but the trauma of grief is not the loss. The trauma of grief is the subsequent loneliness," Dr. Onwuchekwa said.

Dr. Onwuchekwa adds that's where having groups and community can help, providing a solution to the very real fear of being alone.

"It's holding the hand of somebody else, walking through that dark hallway of grief that can remind us that just because life as we knew it is gone, it doesn't mean that our life is through," Dr. Onwuchekwa said.

#GirlDad: A movement

All four women who opened up about their fathers' deaths had personal relationships with their dads, but that type of loving connection hasn't always been depicted in the mainstream.

"The stereotypes of Black fathers are, they're not present, they don't care," Barnett said.

Those are stereotypes, however false, rooted in decades of systemic disparities in employment, housing and government policies, Dr. Dorsey explains. As she writes in the book, "Health, Parenting, and Community Perspectives on Black Fatherhood: Defying Stereotypes and Amplifying Strengths," "The impact of the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and political oppressions, guided by the "war on drugs," particularly in Black communities, would disenfranchise Black families."

Dr. Dorsey shares in her chapter #GirlDad, "At the turn of the century, gang activity, disproportionate rates of incarceration, and distrust of law enforcement would disable the efforts of Black men to engage fully with their families, particularly as it relates to monetary support."

"Public housing policies, specifically for those households where the females received AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children, now TANF, Temporary Aid to Needy Families) were under heavy surveillance to ensure that Black men were not living in the home as recipients of AFDC, creating a greater wedge affecting fathers' engagement with their children," she continues.

TV shows in the 90s centered around Black families such as "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," "Family Matters," and "Sister, Sister" appeared to show the contrary: loving, present Black fathers in well to-do families.

"My dad was always there," Stokes said of her father. "I could always call him and he was always present and he would show up. I know it was challenging for him being a small business owner... to have to deal with society and society's idea around how Black men are."

But a shift in the culture, and one could argue, globally, happened when Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna died in Jan. 2020.

"And #GirlDad, of course, was born," Jasmine recalls.

In the days that followed Bryant's death, him being a dad to four young girls was thrust into the spotlight and so was the phrase.

According to research in 2023 from Dr. Dorsey, the phrase #GirlDad has been used over 2.2 million times since January of 2020 and its usage has only continued to skyrocket.

Duncan's speech about Bryant's devotion to his daughters and the coining of the phrase went viral.

"This influx of pictures, testimonials, stories. It was incredibly overwhelming," ESPN SportsCenter anchor Elle Duncan recalled. "It really highlighted the love, patience, tenderness and presence of Black fathers, something that I think summarily is overlooked."

Charting a Way Forward

As Dr. Onwuchekwa explains, the death of the person doesn't mean the death of a relationship.

"It's important to remember that you never really move on. You only move forward," Duncan said.

But moving forward isn't a language many of us speak when it comes to loss or grief, especially those looking to comfort those experiencing that.

That's why Dr. Onwuchekwa recommends to those looking to console others to consider asking people about their loved one: "It's saying tell me a story about your love," rather than "saying sorry about your loss."

For Stokes, she'll tell the story of her father, not only to those who visit her home, but more publicly in Chicago.

"I'm creating a gallery and café called the Out West Gallery and Café on the west side. It's going to be dedicated to, permanently, my dad's work," Stokes said. "But then also other artists, visual artists and performance artists. So I'm creating my own legacy with that, too."

"I feel like dads have this way of allowing you to dream, allowing you to pursue your passions and to bring out the God-given talents and gifts that you have as a daughter," Jasmine said. "For us, all three of my sisters and I played tennis."

Jasmine's family started the Minor Legacy Fund on behalf of her late father. It is an annual $5,000 scholarship given to a female tennis player. She, like the other women, felt called to carry their dad's legacy through their work.

That mission can be seen in the ways Dr. Dorsey uses her skills to honor her father's life every day.

From the moment she puts pen to paper, writes, or publishes her work to the art she's crafted and displayed in her home, Dr. Dorsey's father's spirit and personality are on display. One piece, Oasis, is reminiscent of the safe space between her and her dad.

"It's a collection of pieces that I got from his garage, and it's like a mosaic of glass and ceramic," she explained. "I call it Oasis, because when I was in L.A., I would go to his place as an oasis, where I could talk to him about things and have conversations with him where he just listens, and just hears me."

Sometimes just showing up can become a way to give back, too.

"My family and I walked in a National Kidney Foundation walk last November because that's not something that I'd ever thought about," said Brittaney, whose dad fought Stage IV kidney cancer. "I said, 'If people are suffering from this disease, I don't want to be afraid to let people know that I'm doing it.' That, I think, made me feel some type of connection, even if it's a small part. Hopefully, he's proud and seeing us go on to do something."

But it's not just daughters hoping to carry on their fathers' names.

Dads, like Barnett, are working to leave something for their daughters, too.

"Legacy for me is being able, when it's all said and done, for my family to stand proud, knowing that they are a part of the name that I work my life off of," Barnett said. "It's about what I leave inside, inside her heart. To know when no one's looking around, she's still going to make the right choice. That to me is what legacy is."

GRIEF RESOURCES:

Houston:
Houston Methodist
Memorial Hermann Health System
Grief Recovery Center

Chicago:
The Dinner Party
The Loveland Foundation
Peoplehood