To have a good time Father’s Day, The Dialog U.S. requested Philadelphia anthropologist, playwright and poetic ethnographer Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon to mirror on a poem she lately carried out to accompany a 1986 {photograph} by means of Philadelphia photographer Joseph V. Labolito.
Williams-Witherspoon, who additionally serves as senior affiliate dean of the Heart for the Appearing and Cinematic Arts at Temple College, stocks how the collaboration happened, and why one in all Labolito’s pictures specifically introduced again a hurry of liked reminiscences of being somewhat lady putting out along with her dad.
Native citizens sitting at the steps within the coloration at 3106 N. Vast St. in North Philadelphia in 1986.
Joseph V. Labolito/Philadelphia Collections
There Are Black Fathers
To Daddy, Father’s Day, June 19, 1983
I’ve recognized males
Who upward thrust at daybreak
To run a kind of race;
Running thru sleep
Preventing lengthy sufficient to yawn
Offering for his or her households Just a bit
position.
Black males going, going, going
(infrequently, until their long gone.)
I’ve recognized males
Who trudge house after lengthy hours
And a fair longer ache,
And nonetheless organize to grin,
Warmed by means of the voice of a kid.
“Hi, Daddy!”
“How was your day?”
I’ve recognized males Who take care
Even if Mommy can’t.
And, despite the fact that they may be able to best
Cook dinner hamburgers actually excellent,
They put band-aids on awfully neatly.
I’ve recognized males
Who loving exchange misplaced enamel
With glossy new dimes;
Take note birthdays and Christmas’.
Dutifully restore
Outdated, damaged toys And, even, infrequently,
Wipe away salty tears.
I’ve recognized males
Who reprimand,
Train us values
And, if we’re fortunate,
Along side Mother,
Lend a hand us take a stand.
Who calm us after we’re nervous;
Scare us after we’re dangerous — Hang our fingers.
I’ve recognized males,
Now not simply as Fathers;
However, extra so, as “Dads” —
Who give us what we get
And gave us what we had.
Loving and type;
Stern, but robust,
I’ve recognized males
Who’ve guided generations alongside
As supplier, supporter, father or mother — Pop, Dad!
There are Black fathers
Who would gladly do it once more
Parenting long run generations.
Sure, I’ve recognized Those males.
© 2025 Kimmika L. H. Williams-Witherspoon
What do you wish to have other folks to remove from the poem?
The entire poem is a tribute to my father, Samuel Hawes Jr., who lived from 1920 to 1989, and the numerous males like him who had been at all times provide and participatory within the parenting in their kids and the offering for his or her households.
For me, the poem reductions that stereotypical narrative and celebrates the African American males that I knew rising up – Daddy, my uncles, the deacons in our church, the community dads on my block.
The boys on this {photograph} constitute males like Daddy, who at one level labored two jobs to supply for his circle of relatives. He drove a yellow cab and labored the graveyard shift as a presser on the U.S. Mint. He took me to college each morning when I used to be in highschool. He made it to each college serve as or instance, drove me to and from events so I may just hang around with buddies, took me to church each Sunday morning and on the ones particular highway journeys to Cleveland, Akron, Ohio, and Fortress Lauderdale, Florida, during my existence.
Let us know about your collaborator for this piece
Joe Labolito is a Philadelphia photographer whose paintings, I consider, is visible ethnography at its absolute best. During the ‘80s, ’90s and 2000s, he documented the people, streets and neighborhoods of Philadelphia. His photographs are housed in several public and private collections, including the Special Collections Research Center at Temple University and the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Print and Image Assortment.
A couple of 12 months in the past, I noticed an showcase of Joe’s paintings at Temple. Since that point, I’ve been the usage of a few of his pictures as a visible suggested for my scholars, whilst he and I mentioned doing one thing in combination down the street.
When I used to be requested to take part in Temple College President John Fry’s investiture occasions in March 2025, I requested Joe if he sought after to do one thing with me. Immediately he stated “Yes … whatever it is.” I requested him to ship me possibly 25 of his favourite pictures, and as an alternative, he despatched me a couple of hundred. After I were given a minute to sift thru them, there have been 11 that, once I checked out them, instantly caused strains of poetry.
This {photograph} of the 2 males and the little lady, on the other hand, made me be mindful an outdated poem, “There Are Black Fathers,” I had written a very long time in the past – on Father’s Day on June 19, 1983 – for my father sooner than he gave up the ghost from prostate and bone most cancers. I went digging thru my outdated journals till I discovered the poem that I had written for Daddy, and I carried out that poem to this {photograph} on the match.
What stood out to you about this {photograph}?
The juxtaposition between the boys and the little lady – their gorgeous, vivid smiles, the enjoyment they perceived to radiate – all of it made me take into consideration and be mindful how a lot I beloved Daddy my whole existence however particularly as somewhat lady.
That’s the facility in a lot of these creative, subject matter and visible artifacts. This {photograph} transported me proper again to my formative years, full of the heat of a summer time’s day, putting out with my dad, and the promise of a banana Popsicle later within the afternoon.
What’s your procedure for writing a poem to accompany {a photograph}?
Regardless of the suggested – {a photograph}, a panorama, an individual I’ve handed in the street, a phrase or word – the primary draft is a free-write sensory obtain unload. I ruminate after which write down the entirety that involves me in no matter order it comes.
After which with every next draft or cross at it, I get started studying the poem out loud and tweaking it, making edits, shifting and converting issues whilst crafting strains that body and construct the tale. I learn the piece aloud over and again and again till the poem tells me once I’ve were given it proper. I don’t know the way, however my ear will inform me when it’s achieved and proper with my spirit.
What’s poetic ethnography?
Ethnography is a space of anthropology. From the Greek phrase “ethnos,” ethno merely way other folks or tradition, and graphy, from the Greek phrase “graphia,” is the writing about stated other folks or tradition.
Conventional ethnographies are normally written in a diarylike magazine shape. You find yourself jotting issues down – ideas, emotions, expressions, verbatim texts from interview contributors – along bits and items of principle that correlate. Box notes are a mixture of prose and clinical inquiry. I’m a proponent of compiling poetic ethnographies – turning my remark and investigation of cultures, communities, and my box notes, into poetic shape.
Rising up in Philadelphia and a manufactured from Philadelphia public faculties, my number one language is mainstream U.S. English, however I inform folks that my exact language is poetry. I see the sector thru poetry, and in the course of the medium of poetry, I feel I’m higher ready to articulate the sector I see.
