Recent scholarship on male teachers across several national contexts has investigated the dilemmas of hegemonic masculinity for male educators while only recently beginning to examine race as a mediator of masculinity politics in teaching. Conversely, an emergent body of work on Black male teachers has centred analyses of race and culture, but has yet to explicitly question Black male teachers' relationships to hegemonic masculinity. Drawing upon critical analytic perspectives from Black masculinity studies, this article explores how 11 Black male teachers in an urban, predominantly Black school district in the USA negotiated popular discourses that position Black male teachers as father figures for Black students. By delving below the surface of these discourses, this article identifies a complicated set of Black masculinity politics that may shape the experiences of Black male teachers, and that warrants further consideration by educational researchers, teacher education programmes and urban school districts committed to preparing and supporting Black men in the teaching profession. (Contains 3 notes.)