This article is about dads as heroes. It is not about ego or testosterone. It is not about scoring touchdowns or driving in runs. And it’s not about politicians wrapping themselves in the American flag as they send other people’s sons and daughters off to die in foreign lands. This article is about true heroism, the soft-spoken, dignified, purposeful, “speaking truth to power” heroism represented in literature by Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

You remember the scene from the classic movie version starring Gregory Peck referenced in the above quote. The trial is over and the courtroom is empty, except for Atticus and the African-American spectators, segregated in the balcony with Atticus’s children, Jem and Scout. Atticus has completed his defense of Tom, a defense surely in vain due to the cultural mores of the American South at that time. No African-American would ever receive a fair trial of his or her peers, certainly not on a charge of attacking a white woman. Tom would be found guilty of the assault; the outcome was never in doubt.

Atticus, weary and resigned to the outcome, is folding his papers back into his brief case. The camera then pans to the balcony, where every spectator is slowly rising in honor of this gentle man who has defended their friend and neighbor. Scout, her eyes reflecting both sadness and awe, is slow to rise, prompting the Reverend’s encouragement: Stand up, Miss Scout. Your father—this hero who has defended us in spite of the futility of it all, in spite of the criticism he will receive—is passing by. This great man who has done the right thing because it is the right thing, even when his entire culture speaks against him . . . this man is walking by us now. We must stand to honor him.

This is true heroism—the quiet, dignified, respectful, honest speaking of truth to the misguided values of the culture in which one lives. It is a heroism that is rarely recognized, one that is seldom appreciated. We far too often absorb the culture’s values rather than confront them. We may from time to time extend ourselves to comfort the afflicted, but we avoid at all costs afflicting the comfortable. Indeed, we seem to spend most of our resources—financial, political, social, religious—in the safe enterprise of comforting the comfortable.

Where is the heroism of Atticus Finch today? It is inside every one of us, and it is manifested when we speak truth to power, even when it involves personal and professional risk. Such heroism will not make the evening news. It will remain hidden, well below the cultural radar. But in Atticus Finch we—dads, most notably, but all of us—have our model—a heroism driven not by ego or testosterone but by the righteous call to stand firm in the face of injustice.