Joseph Fields brings empathy learned through adversity to Greenville Habitat: Emerging Leaders

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of stories running in February on emerging Black leaders in the Greenville community.

Tragedy and adversity can push a person in one of two directions — toward anger and bitterness, or toward empathy and understanding.

For Joseph Fields, vice president of equity for Habitat for Humanity of Greenville County, life confronted him with that choice from an early age.

He believes his life might have followed a different path but for the grace of God and the influence of remarkable women — first and foremost his mother, Florine Jefferson.

Words of wisdom

Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1986, Fields was barely 2 years old when his father was murdered. Seeking safety and community on little more than a hunch, his mother moved the family to Greenville when Fields was 5.

The family did find connection and belonging here but also further struggles. Fields said moving to South Carolina was a bit of culture shock, as it was the first time he was surrounded by people who didn’t look like him.

It was also the first time he was called the N-word.

“As a kid, your capacity is so small,” Fields said. “You fight, you get angry … and sometimes the response was shame even though you didn’t have anything to be ashamed about.”

Through it all, his mother taught him the lessons of dignity, self-worth and empathy that shaped his character and gave him the tools needed to transform adversity into compassion for others.

Underlying it all was a bedrock message of faith. Fields said he learned to trust God to use the struggles and traumas of life to forge him into the man he has become. Instead of bitterness, it has produced in him a profound sense of gratitude.

A winding road

Fields has relied on that faith and fortitude throughout his life.

School was a struggle — an ordeal, really — and by the ninth grade he had enough and dropped out.

But the intervention of his high school basketball coach showed him an alternative path. He earned his GED diploma, enrolled in college and joined Kappa Alpha Psi, which is one of the “Divine Nine” historically black fraternities and sororities of the influential National Pan-Hellenic Council.

The path from being a struggling student to becoming Habitat for Humanity of Greenville County’s vice president of equity was winding but guided by empathy and an ability to make the people around him feel seen and heard.

After years as a successful federal agent with the Department of Homeland Security, a training injury brought that career to a close and left Fields looking for a new opportunity to use his skills.

While a career in law enforcement might not seem like the ideal background for someone in charge of building community and increasing options for Black homeownership, Habitat’s leaders saw Fields’ empathy and tenacity as vital assets to the organization’s work.

His life has taught him the profound value of compassion, rootedness and connection and motivates him to help others find those anchors in their own lives.

“You know, once you have that vision, you can’t cut it off and you can’t give it to anybody,” Fields said.

3 questions with Joseph Fields

What keeps you up at night?

“Knowing that the job is not done and having the vision to want to push a culture and a city and a state just to be better.”

Who or what inspires you?

“The beautiful Black women in my family.”

What do you do to decompress/relax?

“Running. I’d run three, four hours straight if you let me … There’ve been times before a run I just felt like the world was right here (on my shoulders). And after the run it was just, ‘This is a beautiful day.’”