Stories are interwoven, always. The thread we will follow is this:
Sam Wilson's parents might have moved out of Harlem, if his father wasn't so loyal to his congregation. As it was, they lived across the street from the church for the first twelve years of his life.
Sam was the middle child of three, Sarah before him and Gideon after. Minister Paul Wilson and his wife Darlene were the best people on the block, their neighbors said. Paul gave good sermons, soothing his flock's righteous fury. Darlene was strict, and didn't stand for any nonsense, but she organized the congregation as best she could. People used to say that the Wilson's did more for the neighborhood than a government program ever did.
Sam grew up carefully, his mom keeping a watchful eye on all of them. Harlem was not a place you could trust your children to grow free. He took his father's sermons on hope to heart.
Sam wasn't the kind of kid to jump into fights, but he would do it, if he felt that he should. There is a distinction.
Here is this thread: Steve Rogers, the kid from Brooklyn that Sam had never heard of, was good and honorable and true, but he still had something to prove. Sam had things to prove, but they wouldn't be proven by fighting. Captain America was a symbol now, a documented living legend that absolutely had never protested, or disobeyed direct orders, or gotten in a back alley fight that wasn't with a Nazi/communist/terrorist. Sam knew him.
(Captain America is taken and played with over the years, but the story they like to tell best is of an underdog, but not too much of an underdog. In the popular narrative, Steve Rogers, born on the fourth of July, has the asthma and scarlet fever, but never the anxiety that the serum didn't cure.
America's enemies are always Captain Roger's enemies.)
Let's go back to the first thread. Sam also knew Gabe Dugan, but he had to look for him.
Sam saw his father's loyalty get him killed. Two boys were fighting, and his father, doing something he had done countless times before, got between them. There was a knife. There was a phone call in the middle of the night. There was a funeral.
There was a widow and three fatherless children, eight, twelve, and fourteen. Darlene Wilson packed up her kids and got the hell out of Harlem.
But black preachers and their families are never rich, so the next neighborhood is just a small step above. Here, Sam isn't Minister Wilson's older boy, and those men who offer sin don't have mothers who pray with this boy's father. Thankfully, Darlene Wilson is a battle axe of a woman. They leave the Wilson kids alone after Darlene is done with them.
Sam was a good boy, but never compliant. Sarah was young, but she was taking lessons from her mama. Gideon was devout and caring.
The army recruiters come, promising help with college, the chance to prove yourself, serve your country. Sam didn't fall for a goddamned word of it, laughed about how it was suddenly our country when they needed cannon fodder. Sam still joined. Gideon was going to be a soldier of god, and Sarah a soldier of the living, so Sam would be a soldier of war. He wanted to help people.
Remember not to lose the thread. Sam Wilson is the hope that comes when all hope is lost.