Return My Son

My name is Derrick Griggs.

As of 6/19/25 has been 498 days since I last hugged my son, Ibrahim.

You stripped away my fatherhood without cause, when you question my love, when you place a price tag on my humanity — you make it clear: this system sees Black men as less.

I am a proud father of a 12-year-old Black boy in the National Junior Honor Society, who misses his brother Ibrahim.

Yet even after proving my innocence by taking a polygraph, you tell me I have to buy back the right to raise my son.

You take from my family what you would never dare take from others — our bond, our dignity, our future.

You tell my sons that Black fatherhood is optional. That their love for their father is something they have to earn or negotiate.

I say NO.

I say ENOUGH.

The actions of the oppressor define the level of resistance of the oppressed — and I am here to tell you: I will resist. With everything I have. For my sons. For my family. For my soul.

These videos will show the father I am.