RENWL

This kid starts first day of school with Pops’ at his side. See, that’s what we talking about!

As many of you know we’ve been dialoging with Pastor Joshua Beckley of of Ecclesia Christian Fellowship in San Bernadino. Pastor Beckley was one of the individuals behind the recent lawsuit (it was dismissed) that was seeking to enforce California to defend Prop 8. We wrote Pastor Beckley regarding our concerns over the black family and the epidemic in the black community of so many fatherless children and single parenting by their mothers.

Pastor Beckley was gracious enough to respond also mutually expressing his concerns as well in regard to the erosion of the black family and stated that he was very interested in keeping up dialogue about the issue in terms of sharing possible solutions or ideas on what we can possibly do in our perspective worlds to address this problem. Well, the ball is in our court in terms of tossing ideas out there we think would be realistic in approaching the support of fatherhood in the black community.

VOILA! We just came across this great article in the Chicago Tribune about black fathers in the city who have started this incredible tradition. It’s called the Million Father March in which these dads all walk their children to the first day of school.

And wouldn’t you know this was all started by a Chicago South Side African American minister.

Phillip Jackson, who runs a church on the South Side according to the Tribune, said a high unemployment rate, mass incarceration and a lack of education all contribute to black fathers not being involved in their children’s lives. The Trib also states that over 600 cities across the world are already participating in the program. Locally in Chicago, about 100 public and private schools participate in some fashion.

600 cities around the world participate in this? That’s news to us. But we’re not surprised. When it comes to the black community and the media, it ain’t news unless it’s BAD NEWS.

Whatever. This dealio has got our wheels turning. We wonder if we share this with Pastor Beckley would he be interested in us investigating this together, like us both contact this Jackson man in Chicago to find out more about this program?

Our initial thinking is, why limit it to the first day of school? Why not enlist local school districts to really push dad participation with their children.  Like the City of Los Angeles has all these healthy eating drives which are a good thing. The First Lady has her obesity deal for overweight children. Why not promote father involvement with their kids in terms of school related activities or yea, just walking their children to school?

But maybe instead of the first day of school how bout all the time or something along those lines. We’ll keep chewin’ on it and get back to you all with a more clear cut gameplan. But we most def’ see the possibilities.

The more we think about it the cooler the whole thing gets. Imagine, if we put our heads together we can get something off the ground fo’ real.

At the back of this is father visibility—that’s the goal. Just to see fathers proudly showing up to school or school involvement for their children.—just to see fathers see themselves.  Something like this undoubtedly has to make any man feel good about being a dad. We think this Chicago idea is genius.  Okay.  We’re going to send this post to Pastor Beckley and see what he thinks about it.  Keep your fingers crossed cause we gonna post what he says about it (if he doesn’t mind us doing that.)  Wish us luck.

Anyway the original article is below.