Some popular media would have you believe that good black fathers are like Carolina cougars — rarely sighted, semi-mythical. But I grew up in a community in which they were thick on the ground, and today I honor my own father, Rederick C. Henderson, and all the fathers (and father figures) of my childhood “village.”

In Bel Air Forest, across East Wilson, and beyond, the protectors and providers I’m shouting out include, but aren’t limited to, Harvey Reid Jr., Thomas O. Lofton Sr., Avant P. Coleman, Bennie J. Woodard, Crawford E. Lane, David J. Speight, Herbert Woodard, Nathaniel Roberson, T. Roosevelt Ellis Jr., Howard C. Jones, LeRoy Barnes, William E. Myers, George K. Butterfield Jr., J. Douglas Hagans, Louis Hall Sr., Charles E. Branford, S.P. Artis, James E. Farmer Jr., Elmer J. Cummings Sr., Benjamin A. Harris Jr., Julian B. Rosemond Jr., Clarence Hoskins, Daniel McKeithan, Kenneth Speight, Booker T. Edwards, Franklin D. Jones, James T. Forbes, Chester Ward, Harold Bullock, Charles C. Allen, John C. Allen III, Hayden B. Renwick, Fred L. Valentine, Lucian J. Henderson Sr., and Jesse A. Henderson.

Only a handful of these men remain with us, but their legacies live on.