Josh Kurtz: Author, Author (Part One)! – Maryland Matters

Once I first heard that Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando (D) was writing an autobiography, with the title “My Seven Black Fathers,” the cynic in me raced to a few conclusions.

There was one thing a bit too Obamaesque concerning the title to make me assume this was something however a calculated political doc by a really formidable politician whose personal historical past, with a white mom from Kansas, an African father and a Black spouse named Michele, aligns very neatly with the forty fourth president’s.

I used to be fallacious.

Jawando’s e-book, which got here out final month (the subtitle is “A Younger Activist’s Memoir of Race, Household, and the Mentors Who Made Him Entire”), is a deep, real, and thought-provoking work. It tells the reader quite a bit about Jawando himself, sure. Nevertheless it’s additionally a narrative concerning the Washington, D.C., space in a selected time, a have a look at the disparities between rising up Black and rising up white in suburbia (even in a liberal enclave like Montgomery County), and a broader and vital examination of the significance mentors play within the lives of younger Black individuals.

Jawando, for the uninitiated, is among the greatest rising stars in Maryland politics — a mix of brains, beauty, political pedigree, good works out and in of politics, boundless vitality, and compelling life story. It’s been clear for many who have recognized him for some time that he’s going locations politically. However regardless that he’s solely 40, it’s taken him longer to get there than he imagined.

Jawando narrowly misplaced a Democratic main for a Home of Delegates seat in 2014, extra resoundingly misplaced a main for a congressional seat two years later, was bypassed for an appointment to the legislature in 2017, however lastly received an at-large seat on the county council in 2018. He’s consistently talked about by political handicappers as a possible candidate for larger workplace earlier than too lengthy. However his political defeats have in all probability helped floor him whether or not he realizes it or not, and the additional 4 years he’s virtually sure to get on the council will buttress his resume and provides him extra coverage gravitas.

Throughout his first time period on the council, Jawando has been a pacesetter on police reform, inexpensive housing, and guaranteeing that Montgomery’s neediest residents aren’t left behind. And within the early a part of COVID-19 pandemic, the daddy of 4 led a weekly on-line story hour for teenagers.

So why this e-book and why now? Jawando says writing about his personal story and utilizing it to highlight the significance of mentors to Black youth is one thing he has considered doing for a very long time. Solely throughout the pandemic did he truly discover the time to get it accomplished.

This isn’t a typical politician’s e-book, although I feared it might be. Jawando methodically lays out his life story within the context of the seven Black males who function his “fathers.” The very time period father right here packs an emotional wallop. Jawando might have — and does at occasions within the e-book — interchangeably use the time period mentor when referring to those seven males. And but, the time period father gives a sure intimacy, and a way of the familial, that you just don’t get with a extra impartial time period like mentor.

The one baby of a white mom and a Nigerian father who was emotionally distant to Jawando for a lot of the council member’s life, Jawando, like so many Black boys from fractured houses, hungered for father figures and their invaluable steerage. Within the e-book, Jawando devotes one chapter to every of his fathers, weaving their tales together with his personal and, at occasions, the broader societal image. Jawando additionally describes his religious journey, his often-times troubled educational profession, and his political awakenings.

The primary father is Joseph Jacob, a Black man from Northeast Washington, who grew to become Jawando’s stepfather and provided Jawando affection and stability and an prolonged African-American household, and instilled in him the significance of training.

4 of the opposite fathers:

• Mr. Williams, the one Black trainer Jawando ever had;
• Jay Fletcher, his mom’s overtly homosexual colleague who taught Jawando about well being and vitamin and tradition;
• Wayne Holmes, a highschool coach and gospel choir director; and
• Deen Sanwoola, an entrepreneurial colleague of his mom’s who put Jawando in contact together with his Nigerian roots.

Father quantity six was Barack Obama, who Jawando labored for within the U.S. Senate, within the White Home, and on the U.S. Division of Training. Jawando doesn’t try and inflate his function within the Obama administration or indicate nice intimacy with the president. A few of their closest occasions collectively in actual fact have been on the basketball court docket, the place Jawando participated in a few of these vaunted aggressive White Home pickup video games Obama was so keen on.

However Jawando takes quite a bit from Obama as a father or mother, as a boss, as a hoops tactician, and as a strategist placing his neighborhood organizer ideas to good use on a broader stage as an elected official. Obama was a charismatic and influential chief for a technology of Democratic operatives and activists; Jawando had a rarefied, close-in view, and a kinship based mostly on their related lineage.

The final father that Jawando writes about is his personal — Olayinka Jawando. Jawando’s dad and mom divorced when Jawando was younger, and the elder Jawando seems all through the e-book as an emotionally distant determine who doesn’t seem terribly engaged together with his son’s day by day life, tribulations, or aspirations. He’s broke and depressed. However within the closing chapter, as Jawando grows into maturity, the 2 keep a higher understanding of each other, journey collectively to Nigeria, and finally make peace, simply because the elder Jawando is dropping a battle with most cancers.

All of those chapters give us exceptional insights — into Jawando’s personal life and influences, but in addition into the challenges that younger Black males face day by day. The e-book basically ends together with his swearing-in to the County Council in December of 2018.

That is no political manifesto — and that’s to its credit score. It’s one man’s story, a manuscript from the guts, and it carries plenty of relevance for nearly any pondering individual in at this time’s risky society. It’s going to carry further efficiency if the neighborhoods, colleges and native political skirmishes the writer writes about.

The e-book doesn’t make Will Jawando appear any much less just like the younger man in a rush that he so clearly is. Nevertheless it additionally makes him appear like a younger man with a goal, and that as a lot as something is what makes the story so compelling.

Because the e-book was revealed, Jawando has gone on a whirlwind promotional tour, talking in individual or just about in Chicago, Atlanta, St. Louis, Cambridge, Mass., and D.C., amongst different locations. He has mentioned the e-book at latest occasions with such distinguished Black authors as Ibram X. Kendi, Michael Eric Dyson, and a private hero of mine, Jelani Cobb.

On Thursday at 7 p.m., Jawando will likely be discussing “My Seven Black Fathers” with best-selling writer Clint Smith exterior the civic heart in downtown Silver Spring.

Coming quickly: a have a look at one other not too long ago revealed e-book written by a Maryland political determine (and never Jamie Raskin).