James told his family that his father is dead because he was too ashamed to say that his father (Henry) abandons the family and ran away. And he refused to see his father when Henry showed up after many years at sea.

Henry said the reason he ran away was because there were no jobs around and by leaving there was one less mouth to feed. That didn't seem to be too convincing since he was the family breadwinner.

And James probably had the right to be mad at his father since if Henry hadn't left the family, he probably didn't have to drop out of school and made a better man out of himself.

https://i1.wp.com/jimihaze68.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/untitled-315c.png

Henry was selfish.

Henry was selfish.

Yes, Henry was shown in bad light in that episode. I guess they wanted to showcase that alot of children grow up without a father figure in the household. Even in today's society is a problem where one in four children living in households where no father, biological or other, is present. And in African-American community, it is over 50% of children.

he said wasnt making enough money to feed a tick:lol::lol: