Boys in the Middle: Masculinity, Memory, and the Making of Men with Jerome Hunter
On a recent episode of The Pop-Up!, guest host Sean Goode welcomed educator and thought leader Jerome Hunter to the Black Media Matters Studio. What followed was a meditation on masculinity, memory, and the intentional journey of making men.
Hunter, the founder and former Chief Academic Officer of the Seattle School for Boys and a faculty member at Seattle University, brought both professional expertise and deeply personal narratives to the table, challenging traditional notions of what it means to grow up as a Black man in America.
Spokane Roots and the Mixed-Race Experience
Hunter’s work is inextricably linked to his upbringing in East Side Spokane, Washington, a community he described as low-income but rich in heart. Growing up as a mixed-race Black boy in a predominantly white region, Hunter navigated the complexities of identity through local touchstones like Larry’s Barber Shop and Underhill Park. He shared tender, humorous memories of his white mother doing her absolute best with Black hair and DIY fades, and the pride of wearing Xavier McDaniels sneakers from Payless.
Beneath the nostalgia lies a deeper truth about the "middle" space of mixed-race identity. Hunter reflected on how white mothers often strive to protect and provide for their Black sons but may lack the lived experience to prepare them for a world that will inevitably read them as Black men. These early experiences formed the bedrock of his understanding of belonging and the necessity of community in shielding and shaping young boys.
A Generational Legacy of Vulnerability
The most poignant segment of the conversation centered on Hunter’s father, James Gant. A veteran of the Great Migration from Louisiana, Gant’s life was marked by time served in San Quentin Rehabilitation Center in California and a tragic accident at Kaiser Aluminum that left him paraplegic.
As an adolescent, Hunter became his father’s primary caregiver, performing intimate tasks like shaving his head and trimming his toenails. This role reversal stripped away the traditional reputation and power often associated with masculinity, replacing it with a bond of care and vulnerability.
After his father’s passing, Hunter discovered a journal Gant had kept during and after his incarceration. The pages revealed a man the family had never fully known: poetic, intimate, and deeply thoughtful. This discovery was a catalyst for Hunter’s philosophy: men possess an immense capacity for emotional expression, but society often fails to build the "containers" or norms that allow that inner life to be brought into the light. Hunter now works to ensure that this emotional language is invited into public spaces early in a boy’s life, rather than being confined to the private pages of a hidden journal.
Reimagining Education and Middle School
Hunter identified middle school as a "second infancy" for young men. It is a period of rapid neurological development and identity flux where boys are most susceptible to the social cues that dictate where they belong. Too often, middle school is treated as a holding pattern, but Hunter argues it is prime time for Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). He advocates for SEL to be integrated directly into core subjects like math and science, rather than being treated as an extracurricular add-on.
At the Seattle School for Boys, Hunter implemented projects that combined academic rigor with empathy. For example, students used algebra and census data to design tiny homes for unhoused families. By linking math to social responsibility, Hunter helped boys develop a masculinity that includes provision and protection alongside compassion and care. As he quoted Frederick Douglass, "It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."
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