Black History Month looks like my dad. A little ol’ country boy who poured everything he had into his family. A man who worked, sacrificed, endured, and showed up, even when the world showed him exactly where it thought he belonged. The wild part? Under “race” on his birth certificate, it literally says “Ne-gro.” And the gag is, my dad is only 59 years old. 59!! That isn’t ancient history. That was his reality. And even now, Black men are still too often viewed through a distorted lens. Seen as threats before they’re seen as fathers, labeled as dangerous before they’re recognized as gentle, hardworking, loving men. My dad has had to navigate a world where respect wasn’t freely given and dignity had to be demanded, simply because of the way he looked on the outside. He has lived through times that tried to limit him, label him, and break him but instead, he used it as fuel to build a better life for us. He endured things he never wanted his children to experience, just so we could wal...