How does the author's relationship with her father evolve as noted throughout the memoir, Manifesto: On Never Giving Up?

Evaristo’s father was a Nigerian man who immigrated to Britain, and she examines how both his cultural heritage and his experiences of racism shaped who he was as a parent. She resented him as a child, both because of her own internalized racism and because he was a harsh authoritarian figure, but she recounts that she later came to understand that his parenting style was intended to protect her and her siblings and prepare them for the world they would grow up in. She also came to understand later on that his mode of speech, which she had interpreted as angry, was in fact simply a neutral form of expression typical of Nigerian men.

Evaristo also notes that her father was quite different with other adults and away from home than he was with his family — that he was warm, gregarious, and deeply caring. He was committed to the Afro-Caribbean community in the area and ran for local political office. Evaristo credits both of her parents’ socialist and community-based politics with inspiring her own activism and values. She also shows, both through explicit mention and implication, how her father’s fighting spirit and refusal to be treated poorly drove her own path towards persisting in creating the life she wanted for herself.