Oprah Winfrey will be celebrating Black fatherhood this Father’s Day through a special she co-hosted with actor Sterling K. Brown on her Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), Honoring Our Kings, Celebrating Black Fatherhood.
The series celebrates the millions of present Black fathers across the globe through conversations with some celebrity fathers, including John Legend, Kevin Hart, D.L. Hughley, Deon Cole, Tony Gonzalez, and Dwyane Wade.
The special is something Winfrey had wanted to do for some time to help break the stereotype and stigma that have plagued Black fathers for decades.
“I had this idea for several years. I wanted to elevate, lift up, and show the other side of the narrative that we always hear about Black fathers not participating in their kids’ lives and Black fathers not being there,” Winfrey told Entertainment Tonight.
The media mogul and philanthropist continued to praise her father for helping to shape her life in all the right ways.
She recalled her parents’ history and how her father rose to the occasion.
“My mother and father never married,” she said. “They had sex one time. He gets a letter after I’m born saying, ‘Send money. You have a daughter.’ And the reason he did, he said, is because it could have been him. And the responsibility that he took for me, not just a responsibility but care and love and direction and support as a young teenage girl, is the thing that made the difference in me being who I am now or somebody you would have never, ever heard of.”
