ABOUT
Hakim
Hakim Hilliard is a father.
For the purposes of Wisdom of the Heart, that is the beginning of everything. Before titles, professions, accomplishments, or public work, this project begins as an act of fatherhood - a way of gathering memory, love, truth, family history, and emotional inheritance for his daughter, Asa Pearl.
He is also a lawyer, writer, and storyteller whose legal practice focuses on public policy and regulatory affairs. But this space is not rooted in profession. It is rooted in love, memory, responsibility, and the sacred work of leaving something meaningful behind.
Hakim is the baby of the family, the youngest of four children, and the only one born in Africa, in Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa, during the years his family lived there while his father worked on the continent.
Beloved by two parents and raised among siblings he admired deeply, Hakim often describes himself with humility as the baby brother in a family of giants - still listening, still learning, and still trying to understand what he inherited.
His father, Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III, and his mother, The Honorable Patsy Jo Hilliard, shaped a home rooted in identity, protection, memory, service, and love. His father taught that knowing ourselves was essential to becoming whole. His mother helped make that belief livable through her strength, vigilance, courage, and care.
His sister, Dr. Patricia Hilliard Nunn, his brother, Asa IV, and his father have all preceded him into eternity. His sister Robi remains a living source of love, steadiness, and connection in the family.
In their home, service was not demanded. It was modeled. Hakim and his siblings came to understand it as part of life - part of belonging to a family, a people, and a larger human story.
Before becoming a father, Hakim wrote to reclaim memories of when his family was all in the house together. After Asa was born, those memories found their central purpose. What once seemed like disconnected stories became part of his duties as a father.
Through Wisdom of the Heart, Hakim gathers those memories and offers them to his daughter so she may one day stand on the shoulders of the people, love, wisdom, service, and memory that carried him.
WHY I
Write
I first began writing to myself because I was shy
As a child, there were conversations I did not know how to have outside of my immediate family.
Writing became the place where I could speak honestly, ask questions, and listen back to myself.
At Marcus Books in Oakland, California, Mr. Richardson, the bookstore owner, gave me the poems of Langston Hughes and the stories of Jesse B. Semple. Those voices helped me understand that writing could become a conversation with the self - a place for truth, memory, humor, struggle, and becoming.
I have never thought of writing as a gift in the traditional sense. I do not call myself a great writer. I simply try to be an honest one. I do not write what I cannot feel. I do not write what does not bring me back to the emotion each time.
Before I had a child, I wrote to reclaim memories of when my family was all in the house together. I wrote to remember my father’s wisdom, my mother’s protection, Patricia’s brilliance, Asa IV’s love, Robi’s steadiness, and the life of service that surrounded us
After my daughter Asa was born, the purpose became clear. What once felt like disconnected memories became part of my father duties. I wanted to give her stories that would help her know the people, love, and memories that supported me all my life.
Memory may be the greatest gift I can give her because memory leads us toward the wholeness we
all seek. It helps us gather the scattered pieces of who we are, where we come from, what we have
inherited, what we have survived, and what we are still becoming
I write so Asa may one day know more than the names of her family. I want her to know the love,
service, struggle, tenderness, humor, and responsibility that shaped us
I write as a father.
Everything else comes after that