This Tulsan creates space for fathers to be ‘courageous’ — and find community

It took over 20 years for Marquess Dennis to understand what it meant to be a good father. 

He didn’t meet his own dad until he was 14 and didn’t form a bond with him until he was 30.

“My dad wasn’t involved in my life when I was a kid, so in my mind all I was taught was if I was there I won, right? … If I’m here, ta-da, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do,” Dennis told The Eagle.

Without an example, Dennis said his connection with his first three kids suffered. They were 13, 11 and 3 when he landed in prison in 2014. When he got out three years later, he had missed several birthdays and crucial development years.

But it wasn’t until then that he began to understand the responsibilities of parenthood. 

“As a father, you reintroduce my kid to me at 13 or 14, I am a stranger to them,” Dennis said. “I don’t have any collateral built up. I don’t have any influence in their life. I’m just a random stranger.” 

From fathers to dads

Dennis, 45, now teaches local dads how to foster better relationships with their kids through transparency and vulnerability at the Tulsa nonprofit he started in 2020, Birthright Living Legacy. 

He runs it with his wife Crystal. They have two young boys together, ages 4 and 1. As a couple they’ve experienced three miscarriages, which Dennis said has influenced his teaching and approach to fatherhood. 

Over the past two years, he’s implemented his teachings into his own life to rebuild his relationship with his two eldest sons, who are now 25 and 16. He’s also begun the process of getting to know his 23-year-old daughter. 

Birthright Living Legacy’s office, at 3939 S. Harvard Ave. in midtown, is like a large living room. There are couches, a fridge filled with energy drinks, Gatorade and snacks. Plenty of board games are stacked on shelves. There’s also a play area for kids filled with video games. 

Every second and fourth Thursday evening, you’ll find about 20 dads meeting for Birthright’s Courageous program. Conversations cover everything from divorce and custody battles to what it’s like expecting your first kid.   

The space isn’t meant for one specific group, people or race, Dennis said. It’s for anyone wanting to learn how to be a father, whether they are one or planning to be. Some attendees are trade workers. Others are teachers and veterans. 

“I lead with transparency and vulnerability, so I let them experience that while causing them to express themselves, be vulnerable, be transparent,” he said. “Being transparent is me telling you what I want you to know… vulnerability is me telling you what I don’t want you to know.” 

Humble beginnings 

The Courageous program started out in the couple’s living room. Dennis made a post on Facebook in 2020 seeking local dads to meet at his house and discuss ways to develop as a father. 

In its first week, one dad came, then three. After some ups and downs in attendance, that number eventually rose to 20.  

“Creating the community was the most important part, because with the community then comes the culture. The culture then permeates out into the atmosphere,” Dennis said. 

As it continued to grow, he received his first grant and started fine-tuning his curriculum with the help of a philosophy professor. Birthright began operating in the former 36 Degrees North building in 2021 — now known as Gradient — before moving into its current space in 2022.  

Pride and ego 

In one of his latest sessions, Dennis taught dads the pitfalls of being prideful and how to deal with the urge. 

The group took turns reading aloud 28 manifestations of pride on a piece of paper. 

“Pride makes us feel special and unique. It is where we feel more unique and special than someone else,” he told the group. 

Each attendee then circled a manifestation they relate to. From there, they explored how it might be a hindrance to their character. 

Jamanuel Barnes, a father of three, has been attending meetups for three years. His sheet of paper was full of circles. 

“My father was a hard, tough guy and so I’m kind of coming up as a hard, tough father,” Barnes said. “I’m working on kind of cutting those cycles out, the ones that hurt my relationship with my kids.” 

He compared his experience as a Black father to a boxing ring. Barnes grapples with trying to lead in a way that’s not influenced by generational trauma or societal expectations of what it means to be man. 

“These meetings are like going and sitting in the corner with your team (and getting coached on) what I’m doing wrong and what I need to do in the next round,” he said. 

As they went through each manifestation, Dennis would tie back each lesson to a personal anecdote of mistakes he’s made in the past and how he’s learned from them. That often means discussing the life he’s built — and the losses he’s endured — with his wife Crystal. 

Keeping it personal

They find that emotionally charged topics often draw the largest response from Tulsans. The couple once shared a social media video advertising a meeting about grief, which Dennis navigated with Crystal during her miscarriages. 

That night, after the video gained traction, new and old faces attended the Courageous meeting to discuss similar experiences. Dennis realized he wasn’t alone. 

“(A dad) interrupted me to tell (his) story, because he was like, ‘Wait, you mean I can do this here?’ He had been here multiple times, he just didn’t know that he could talk about that,” Dennis said. 

To close out the session on pride, Crystal surprised the entire room with an early Father’s Day present by handing each attendee a rose. As their faces lit up, the dads thanked her with a round of applause.

“I even had one dad stop me and he said he takes care of all the roses (as a job) and he said, ‘I’ve been taking care of roses for years and no one has ever given me a rose,’” she told The Eagle. 

Father or not, the Courageous program is free to attend. 

Once a quarter, Birthright hosts a community “park crawl” where fathers and their kids are invited to a local park to play and eat together. 

In the leadup to Father’s Day, families are also allowed to nominate dads for Birthright’s Fatherhood Love Lottery Sweepstakes. The winner earns a title: Father of the Year. 

Ismael Lele is a Report for America corps member and writes about business in Tulsa for The Oklahoma Eagle. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting this link.