Amos in character as James Evans with Esther Rolle, in character as his wife, Florida Source: Silver Screen Collection / Getty
This is what I think about when I think about John Amos, whose Aug. 21 death at age 84, was announced on Tuesday.
He was Black America’s most trusted protector. Whether on the big or small screen, the Emmy-nominated actor’s iconic characters — James Evans, Sr. on Good Times, Kunte Kinte in Roots, Kansas City Mack in Let’s Do It Again, Cleo McDowell in Coming To America and Admiral Percy Fitzwallace in The West Wing — all had one common thread: Amos’ character was going to keep us safe.
Safety is at the root of Black Americans’ demands of a nation invested in ensuring the opposite is true. The 14th Amendment was crafted to give Black Americans equal protection under the law. The Voting Right Act of 1965 was passed to protect our right to participate in the political processes that governed our lives, and too often, determined our deaths.
We want protection from corrupt, racist and violent police. We want the protection of women’s reproductive rights. We want to be protected from a society that has entrenched Black poverty, widespread food and housing insecurity, poor education and discriminatory and subpar mass incarceration and other race-specific, mass harms that drive danger. At the core, we want our homes and our families and children protected.
John Amos offered that protective presence on screen. His accolades were well-earned, but they paled in comparison to the ultimate reward: the trust and love of his audience. He made us feel better — and safer.
First Among Fathers
Before the 1970s, no Black father figures were portrayed in their whole family lives on television. That changed with a white man who was, in life, called “the most influential” producer in TV, Norman Lear, who is credited with revolutionizing the sitcom. Three of the shows he gave us in that period — Good Times, The Jeffersons, and Sanford and Son — all had Black fathers. But Amos’ character on Good Times, James Evans, Sr., stood out among them all. For Black America, he was our first television dad.
Amos was fired from Good Times at the end of Season 3 by Lear for strongly disagreeing with what appeared to be the producer’s spotlight on Black buffoonery in a series that offered so much more. He discussed it in the American Masters interview below, which is worth every one of its nearly 59 minutes. But to jump to his remarks about Norman Lear firing him from Good Times, please skip to 49:10.
Fred Sanford, played by one of greatest comedians in history, Redd Foxx, was irrepressibly, and hilariously, irreverent — and condescending to his adult son, Lamont. George Jefferson, played by the late Sherman Hemsley, was initially poorly drawn — the Black bigot in contrast to ‘everyone’s favorite bigot,’ the white character, Archie Bunker, from All in the Family.
Amos’ portrayal of James Evans, Sr. was different.
He had pride, but it wasn’t misplaced or played for laughs. He was stubborn but for righteous reasons. He was firm, but it was justified. Some would argue that he was overprotective, but given the high stakes of living paycheck-to-paycheck in the projects in Chicago in the 1970s, James had no other recourse but to be extreme at times. Taking several jobs to provide for his wife and three children, James Evans, Sr. was and continues to be one of the most realistic portrayals of Black fatherhood in an America full of Black, poor and working-class dads who do and did all they could to make ends meet.
James Evans exuded the most realistic image of Black fatherhood in an America full of Black, working-class families trying to make ends meet.
The stereotype of absent Black fathers took full flight as the Civil Rights Movement came to a close. Negative narratives of Black fathers were supported by disinformation created by white social “scientists” using selective and biased data — lies — to reframe the conversation the nation was having about taking accountability for its white supremacy and structural racism.
The image of Black men as the best example of an American family man — Martin Luther King — had to be erased. The Black father as criminal, morally bankrupt and unwilling to care for the babies they couldn’t stop making for white America to pay for became the image on loop. Who cared about the truth when lying was such a big seller?
For the record, then, like now, Black fathers are more involved with their children than white fathers are. And the harsh disruption in parenting caused by mass incarceration doesn’t erase this truth: Most Black incarcerated fathers lived with and were the primary financial support for their children at the time of arrest.
But for 22 minutes a week over the course of the first three seasons and 61 episodes of Good Times’ eventual sixth season, a 133-episode-run (1974 to 1979), all of Black America had a father in the house. And even now that holds: In the blessed perpetuity known as reruns, James Evans, Sr. lives forever on (you can watch Good Times on Tubi, a free online streaming platform). And John Amos’ portrayal of James Evans, Sr. — even today! — disrupts those false narratives, making him more than just a father to his TV children, JJ, Michael and Thelma. He’s been a father to generations now, as he was most certainly the godfather of future Black television dads like Cliff Huxtable, Philip Banks, Carl Winslow and Dre Johnson.
Consistency Matters
Source: Shareif Ziyadat / Getty
Amos, in his role as Cleo McDowell in 1988’s Coming to America, saw him embody the protective father again. The character was completely different than James Evans, Sr., but the spirit remained. Cleo McDowell, a successful entrepreneur who owned a chain of fast-food restaurants, grew up knowing the pain of enduring poverty. In the film, we meet him as a seasoned, well-resourced Black father determined to get his daughter to marry a wealthy man. It seems shallow. But it’s not. It was his attempt to shield her from the economic struggles he and his late wife knew. By the end of the film, we’re clear: Money wasn’t what mattered to him, only protecting his daughter’s right to happiness.
Even in the 1975 comedy, Let’s Do It Again, where he played Kansas City Mack, a local New Orleanian hustler, the foil for the film’s heroes played Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby, all Mack was really trying to do was protect his people and territory from being wiped out by a rival faction. Sure, Mack is running a racket: A restaurant was a front for a litany of his criminal enterprises. But in Amos’ hands, we also saw Mack as a self-made man who built a world from the ground up and was willing to do anything to protect it.
Amos earned an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of adult Kunta Kinte in the groundbreaking 1977 mini-series, Roots. Kinte had been kidnapped from the Gambia and forced into slavery in America. He refused to allow his slave masters to strip him of his heritage. He took lashes rather than call himself the name he was given — Toby — by the white slaveowner. He lost half a foot for trying to escape slavery and return to Africa. And after becoming a father, he did what so many good fathers do: protect the powerful, guiding force that is a heritage remembered.
Roots, based on the family history of its author, Alex Haley, sowed the seeds for the boom of Black Americans seeking to learn their African lineage — then and even now through 23andme or Ancestry.com. Thanks in part to Amos’ incredible performance as the adult Kunta Kinte (and Levar Burton’s as young Kunte Kinte), millions of Black Americans have been inspired not only to learn of their heritage but also to preserve it for future generations.
Amos’ recurring character on The West Wing, Admiral Fitzwallace, also embodied the role of a protector. In this case, it was in his position as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Fitz” was responsible for advising the president on national security and defense matters, symbolizing his duty to safeguard the country.
More, as Fitz, the protector role extended beyond the military realm; he often acted as a voice of reason and wisdom, particularly in moments of crisis. Fitzwallace’s calm demeanor, moral integrity and steadfast loyalty to the administration reinforced his position as someone who provided a shield not just for the nation, but also for the ideals of leadership and service. He evoked trust and respect, particularly from Black audiences, for whom he represented a dignified and powerful figure in a traditionally white, male-dominated space, standing as a guardian of both national and communal interests.
John Amos played many characters in a career that spanned six decades, excelling in both drama and comedy. You may even remember him most for his time in shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, or movies like The Beastmaster, Die Hard 2, or The Players Club. But his turns as James Evans, Sr., Kunta Kinte, Kansas City Mack, Cleo McDowell and Admiral Fitz are his most iconic, his greatest. Through his expression of those men, our collective spirits were eased because we saw in living color that the idea of Black people being protected — consistently — was not only right, it was something we could create.
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