Abstract
In 1974, the American sitcom, Good Times, introduced the fictional character of James Evans Sr. played by actor John A. Amos Jr. as the golden standard of black fatherhood. While featured on the sitcom for only three seasons, the magnitude of his character and the show’s overall influence on the black community are both forever sacred. Long before the black male fathers featured on sitcoms such as The Cosby Show (Dr. Heathcliff “Cliff” Huxtable), The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (Uncle Philip Banks), and Family Matters (Carl Winslow), James Evans Sr. stood as the black community’s flagship male role model. He is characteristically described as a strong, black family man who took honorable measures to protect his family from the pervasive structural and cultural forces that often destroy black families.
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Notes
- 1.
See Kreider, R. M., and R. Ellis. 2011. “Living arrangements of children: 2009,” Current Population Reports, pp. 70–126, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC, Available at: http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p70-126.pdf
- 2.
See Wolfers, J., Leonhardt, D., and K. Quealy. 2015. “1.5 million missing black men.” New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/20/upshot/missing-black-men.html (April 20).
- 3.
Ibid., 1.5 million missing black men.
- 4.
See Zubrzycki, J. 2012. “Phaseout plan pains Chicago neighborhood.” Education Week. Available at: http://ew.edweek.org/nxtbooks/epe/ew_10172012/index.php?startid=12 (October 17).
- 5.
See the Illinois Department of Employment Security, Economic Information, and Analysis: http://www.ides.illinois.gov/page.aspx?item=2509; Also see, “Black metropolitan unemployment in 2011,” by Algernon Austin, July 2, 2012, Economic Policy Institute, Available at: http://www.epi.org/files/2013/ib337-black-metropolitan-unemployment.pdf
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Hoston, W.T. (2016). We Miss You, James Evans Sr.. In: Race and the Black Male Subculture. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58853-1_4
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