Reflections on Black History: My father, my first and favorite Black history hero
For this Black History Month, the Banner reached out to members of our community and asked them to share their thoughts and feelings about our Black history and culture. We think you will find their responses as inspirational as we did. — Ronald Mitchell, Publisher and Editor, Bay State Banner
My father, my first and favorite Black history hero
by Kevin Hayden
My father, Bob Hayden, served many roles in our community: president of Boston’s NAACP, executive director of METCO, a regular columnist for the Bay State Banner, assistant superintendent of Boston Public Schools, a professor of African American studies at several Boston area universities and colleges, author of several books about Black excellence, and the preeminent expert on Black history in Boston and beyond.
But to my siblings and me he was just Dad, and growing up with my dad meant every month was Black History Month. So much so that other than for the great 1976 official designation of February as Black History Month, when I was almost 8 years old, February did not take on much greater significance or interest in our home. My father’s inspirational doctrine was powerfully simple and constant: “Know your history!” And my dad truly meant it. He once said, “It’s nice to read biographies and look for role models, but I think we have to go beyond that elite list of great Black men and women. We have to look below the surface and examine the contributions of ordinary individuals.”
My dad heralded the lives and accomplishments of Black people like Boston’s very own Lewis H. Latimer of the Edison Pioneers, responsible for the invention of the electric light bulb. He chronicled the courageous history of the Knights of the Rail — Pullman porters in the railroad industry who were primarily Black — and their establishment of the first African American organized labor union under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph, which proved pivotal to our nation’s labor and civil rights movements. My dad’s vibrant way of telling the untold stories of accomplished but lesser-known Black Americans drove him and inspired many.
My dad passed away several weeks after my appointment as Suffolk County district attorney in 2022 and just a week before Black History Month. Since then, Black History Month has become for me a poignant moment of reflection on his legacy and the legacy of countless other Black Americans who have shaped our nation’s history in their own unique ways, big and small. Our country as we know it today does not exist without generations of slavery and the extraordinary sacrifice and selfless contributions of Black people, often against monumental adversity.
The travails and triumphs of African American history is American history. The two are painfully and inextricably woven together. No volume of opposing arguments makes it any less true. Our ongoing long walk to freedom must speak of this history if we wish to see a greater and better America. For the sake of American history, we should all hope and pray that Black history’s expanse reaches into every month of the year.
Attorney Kevin R. Hayden currently serves as the district attorney of Suffolk County. He previously served as chief of the Safe Neighborhood Initiative in Boston and as a bar advocate for the Committee for Public Counsel Services, representing indigent clients in Boston Municipal Court and Boston Juvenile Court.
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