In a special Father’s Day event on OWN last night, actor Sterling K. Brown co-hosted Honoring Our Kings: Celebrating Black Fatherhood alongside Oprah Winfrey herself. The pair featured and honored prominent Black fathers on the show, including retired NBA baller Dwyane Wade, “All of Me” singer John Legend, comedian D.L. Hughley and more, who discussed their responsibilities as fathers.
Winfrey cites her father’s love as an inspiration for the special, telling PEOPLE that her father always stepped up, despite not knowing for sure if she was his biological child. “I had a father who took responsibility for me, even though he knew I could have been somebody else’s child,” she said about Vernon Winfrey, who helped raise her to be the go-getter many love today.
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Discussing the absentee father narrative often used when discussing Black male authority figures, she continued, “I wanted to turn the table on that narrative of Black fathers not being present in their children’s lives…”It’s chipped away at the fabric of who we are as a society and a world.”
“The images on the evening news or portrayals in films, gangsters, stories that show absentee fathers, or focus on men being in prison, away from their children and not caring about their children, that’s what you’ve heard, but that isn’t what we know and feel.”
Honoring Our Kings: Celebrating Black Fatherhood, which Winfrey referred to as the “most important, meaningful, exciting show I’ve ever done for OWN,” featured Andra Day of The United States vs. Billie Holiday fame. The “Rise Up” singer performed a song tributed to her father. Also in attendance at the two-hour Father’s Day special were comedians Kevin Hart and Deon Cole.
Mentioning the emotional and intense conversations between herself, Brown and the featured guests, Winfrey also revealed to PEOPLE, “I’m excited because I know that the feelings that I had, the goosebumps, the ‘ah-ha’s, the hair-raising moments that I experienced, the tears that I and Sterling K. Brown experienced while we were taping it, I know the rest of the audience is going to feel that.”
Viewers who missed last night’s event can catch Honoring Our Kings: Celebrating Black Fatherhood online or on the OWN app.
