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John Amos embodied the switch-cutting, loud-talking, hard-loving Black daddy on ‘Good Times’

As word of Amos' death spread, social media erupted in a collective, "Damn, Damn, Damn."

Actor John Amos, who starred as the family patriarch on the hit 1970s sitcom “Good Times” and earned an Emmy nomination for his role in the seminal 1977 miniseries “Roots,” has died. He was 84.
Actor John Amos, who starred as the family patriarch on the hit 1970s sitcom “Good Times” and earned an Emmy nomination for his role in the seminal 1977 miniseries “Roots,” has died. He was 84.Read moreNick Ut / AP

Black America lost its first TV dad.

John Amos — best known as J.J., Thelma, and Michael’s ornery father, James Evans Sr., on Norman Lear’s Good Times — has died.

Amos’ publicist, Belinda Foster, confirmed the actor’s death on Tuesday. Amos, 84, died Aug. 21. Foster didn’t specify the cause of death or explain why the news was released more than a month after Amos’ passing.

As word of Amos’ death spread, social media erupted in a collective: Damn, Damn, Damn, a tribute to the memorable Good Times season 4 premiere when Florida (Esther Rolle) comes to terms with husband James’ death.

But before that heart-wrenching classic American TV moment, Amos embodied the switch-cutting, loud-talking, hard-loving, Black daddy who moved from the deep Jim Crow South to northern cities during the Great Migration. Good Times was set in Chicago’s infamous Cabrini-Green Projects. Writers Eric Monte and Mike Evans wrote the show based on their lives. Lear developed it.

Men like James Evans Sr. — in their no-frills button-up shirts, work pants, and newsboy caps — worked factory jobs at a time when unions didn’t allow Black men to join them, often doing the same backbreaking labor as their coworkers for a fraction of the salary. They were the last hired and the first fired. Amos’ James Evans Sr. embodied their plight.

Still, they fed and clothed their families, took a taste on Saturdays, and stayed home and rested while their wives went to church on Sundays. Dads like James Evans Sr. sacrificed their happiness to ensure a better life for their children. He struggled to keep his temper in check — blowing a gasket on infamous episodes like when his dad reappeared in his life, when he thought another man was interested in Florida, and when J.J. (Jimmie Walker) did, well, anything.

Evans was the patriarch of a Black nuclear family, a first for prime-time television. The Evanses predated The Cosby Show’s seditty Huxtables, Family Matters’ happy-go-lucky Winslows, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s extravagant Bankses.

Yet, for all the joy (and slapstick) provided by the Evans family on Good Times, Amos complained vehemently to Lear that the show — especially J.J.’s buffoonery — was offensive to Black people and helped cement mainstream America’s belief that all Black people were poor, lived in the projects, and couldn’t be taken seriously. The backlash to Good Times in the 1970s fueled The Cosby Show in the 1980s.

Netflix released an animated version of Good Times in April featuring a reimagined Evans family, adding a drug-dealing baby. It was all very Bebe’s Kids meets the millennium and just didn’t work. Amos made a cameo appearance as the crooked alderman Fred Davis in the 2019 Live in Front of a Studio Audience Good Times reunion. The late Andre Braugher reprised Amos’ role as James Evans Sr.

After Good Times, Amos continued to play memorable Black dads. In 1977, he starred as the elder Kunta Kinte in Roots, Alex Haley’s generational saga about his enslaved family. Kinte doted on Kizzy (Leslie Uggams), teaching her about his life in Africa before she was sold away.

In the 1988 film Coming To America and its 2021 sequel, Coming 2 America, Amos was Cleo McDowell, the shifty, upwardly mobile proprietor of McDowell’s (no, not McDonald’s). His goal was to ensure his daughter, Lisa, (Shari Headley) marry a prince.

Amos was born in Newark, N.J., and was a professional football player before he was sidelined by injuries and pursued acting. He appeared in dozens of television shows including The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The West Wing, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, 30 Rock, Two and a Half Men and the The Righteous Gemstones.

Amos’ death comes on the heels of the deaths of other great Black actors including James Earl Jones and Louis Gossett Jr. Jones, Gossett, and Amos were urbane Black actors who portrayed Black men as strong, vulnerable, family men, paving the way for Laurence Fishburne, Anthony Anderson, and Damon Wayans.

Amos’ Evans toiled, ranted, raved, and died in character so other Black TV dads could take a beat and smile.