How Black Parents Survived 2020

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A man stands in front of the Djingareyber mosque on February 4, 2016 in Timbuktu, central Mali.
Mali's fabled city of Timbuktu on February 4 celebrated the recovery of its historic mausoleums, destroyed during an Islamist takeover of northern Mali in 2012 and rebuilt thanks to UN cultural agency UNESCO.
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December 22, 2020

By Dani McClain, New York Times

‘What kind of world did we bring them into?’

The pandemic has tested parents’ limits, and for Black families 2020 has been especially crushing. Black people are dying from Covid-19 at two times the rate of their white peers. The recession has widened the gap between Black and white unemployment, with Black workers disproportionately facing permanent layoffs. And Black and Hispanic students are at greater risk of falling behind during this year’s academic upheaval.

Jenn Ponder and Daniel Hertzberg have been strict with their pandemic quarantine protocol because 5-year-old twins Isaac and Lincoln have asthma, along with their mother. Credit…Jon Henry for The New York Times.

Protests against police violence and conversations about racism in the workplace were personal for Black families. These reckonings were a sign that more Americans seemed to be acknowledging the discriminations and dangers Black people have faced for generations….

As this difficult year draws to a close, six families share how they have coped.

Read the full article here.

Learn more about how black fathers talk about police brutality and education in the Jim Crow South.

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