Patrick Moynihan, The Negro Family (1965)
Photograph of a Black Family During the
Great Depression
Moynihan, D. P. (1965). The negro family: The case for national action. U.S. Department
of Labor. Retrieved October 17, 2002 from
http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm.
Moynihan, D. P. (1965). The negro family: The case for national action. U.S. Department
of Labor. Retrieved October 17, 2002 from
http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm.
Source: Moynihan, D. P. (1965). The negro family: The case for national action. U.S.
Department of Labor. Retrieved October 17, 2002 from
http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm.
Photograph of a Black Family
During the Great Depression
Source: Moynihan, D. P. (1965). The negro family: The case for national action. U.S.
Department of Labor. Retrieved October 17, 2002 from
http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm.
Patrick Moynihan, The Negro Family (1965)
Main Points:
1. The role of the family is central to shaping the character of
people, and “[a]t the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of Negro
Society is the deterioration of the Negro family.”
•
The role of the family in shaping character and ability is so
pervasive as to be easily overlooked. The family is the basic
social unit of American life; it is the basic socializing unit….
But there is one truly great discontinuity in family structure in
the United States at the present time: that between the white
world in general and that of the Negro American.
•
…the family structure of lower class Negroes is highly
unstable, and in many urban centers is approaching complete
breakdown….
•
…There is considerable evidence that the Negro community is
in fact dividing between a stable middle-class group that is
steadily growing stronger and more successful, and an
increasingly disorganized and disadvantaged lower-class
group….
2. A long history of discrimination and segregation has worked
against the emergence of a strong father figure in the African
American family.
The Negro was given liberty, but not equality. Life remained
hazardous and marginal. Of the greatest importance, the Negro male,
particularly in the South, became an object of intense hostility, an
attitude unquestionably based in some measure on fear.
When Jim Crow made its appearance toward the end of the
19th century, it may be speculated that it was the Negro male who
was most humiliated thereby.…
Unquestionably, [Jim Crow humiliation of the Negro male]
worked against the emergence of a strong father figure. The very
essence of the male animal, from the bantam rooster to the four-star
general, is to strut. Indeed, in 19th century America, a particular type
of exaggerated male boastfulness became almost a national style.
Not for the Negro male. The “sassy nigger” was lynched.
The White Man’s Double Standard
“We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the
man who embodies victorious effort; the man who never
wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but
who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the
stern strife of actual life.”
--Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life
White mobs murdered some 500 blacks between 1870 and
1900, and more than 100 black people between 1900 and
1910.
White prejudice included animosity toward black troops in
the U.S. Army. Brownsville whites, for example, objected
to the stationing of the all-black Twenty-fifth Infantry at
Fort Brown. In anger, they charged that the troops had
raided the city in 1906 in protest of discriminatory
practices. Later evidence demonstrated the unfairness of
the charges, but at that time President Theodore
Roosevelt had dishonorably discharged 160 of the troops.
(The History of Texas, 189, 261-262)
THE DECLINE IN AMERICAN MORALS?
The general failure of prohibition enforcement brought home
to many Texas what they defined as a decline in American
morals. The rapidly increasing urbanization seemed to blur
what were once clear moral and community values. Migration
to the city disrupted the neighborhoods of rural America and,
coupled with more and better transportation facilities, broke
up the extended family. Historians have cited the urban
growth of the United States as creating tensions between
rural and urban Americans. The anxiety emanated not only
from the countryside, but also from developing southern cities
filled with recent foreign immigrants. The anti-city focus of
rural Texans resulted from their perception of urban areas as
hotbeds of disloyal foreigners, religious modernism, illegal
speakeasies, organized crime, morally suspicious “New
Women,” and corrupting modern music. These tensions were
further abetted by the post-World War I Red Scare and
reinforced by the progressive drive for social control. (The
History of Texas, p. 310)
Percentage of
Texans living in
metropolitan
areas:
1900: 17.1%
1939: 41%
The Ku Klux Klan
The Klan professed as its goals the preservation of patriotism, the
purity of women, white supremacy, and law and order. It opposed
radicals, Catholics, Jews, blacks, Mexicans, the wearing by women of
short skirts, the consumption of “demon rum,” and continued foreign
immigration. By 1922, the organization had 700,000 members and by
1925, possibly as many as 5 million. (p. 311)
A group of men dressed in full Klan regalia march down the street at
night with torches, crosses and flags. A crowd of people line the street to
watch. Source:
http://www.texasrecord.org/results_single.asp?co=US&ci=Breckenridge
3. Unemployment of the African-American male has largely contributed to the present
crisis of the African-American family, which has been forced into a matriarchal
structure.
•
The impact of unemployment on the Negro family, and particularly on the Negro male,
is the least understood of all the developments that have contributed to the present
crisis…. The fundamental, overwhelming fact is that Negro unemployment, with the
exception of a few years during World War II and the Korean War, has continued at
disaster levels for 35 years…. As jobs became more and more difficult to find, the
stability of the family became more and more difficult to maintain….
•
[The African-American community has
paid a fearful price] for the incredible
mistreatment to which it has been
subjected over the past three centuries.
•
In essence, the Negro community
has been forced into a matriarchal
structure which, because it is so out of
line with the rest of the American society,
seriously retards the progress of the
group as a whole, and imposes a crushing
burden on the Negro male and, in
consequence, on a great many Negro
women as well.
Picture by King, Edward, 1848-1896
Source of picture:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/king/king.html
4. A national effort should be made to help the problems faced by the
African-American family.
• It was by destroying the Negro family under slavery that white
America broke the will of the Negro people. Although that will has
reasserted itself in our time, it is a resurgence doomed to
frustration unless the viability of the Negro family is restored….
•
…[A] national effort towards the problems of Negro Americans
must be directed towards the question of family structure. The
object should be to strengthen the Negro family so as to enable it
to raise and support its members as do other families. After that,
how this group of Americans chooses to run its affairs… is none of
the nation’s business….
Questions:
• What is wrong with having female heads of households?
• What are the origins of “the tangle of pathology” in the black community?
• How can the government alter familial relations?
Single Parents
Single parents account for 27 percent of family households with children under 18.
More than two million fathers are the primary caregivers of children under 18,
a 62 percent increase since 1990.
One in two children will live in a single-parent family at some point in childhood.
One in three children is born to unmarried parents.
Between 1978 and 1996, the number of babies born to unmarried women per year
quadrupled from 500,000 to more than two million.
The number of single mothers increased from three million to 10 million between
1970 and 2000.
Divorced Parents
Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce.
More than one million children have parents who separate or divorce each year.
More than half of Americans today have been, are or will be in one or more stepfamily
situations.
Poverty Rates of Single Mother Families by Race (based on cash income)
Children represent a disproportionate share of the poor in the United States; they are 25
percent of the total population, but 35 percent of the poor population. In 2004, 13 million
children, or 17.8 percent, were poor. The poverty rate for children also varies
substantially by race and Hispanic origin, as shown in the table below.
Children Under 18 Living in Poverty, 2004
Category
All children under
18
Number (in
thousands)
Percent
13,027
17.8
White only, nonHispanic
4,507
10.5
Black
4,049
33.2
Hispanic
4,102
28.9
334
9.8
Asian
http://www.epinet.org/images/figure11.gif
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/ETI/image/afam951.gif
Darryll Vann is in a shrinking minority group--African-American men who teach
youngsters. Only 11 percent of elementary school teachers are male and a
much smaller percentage of them are African-American.
Photo by David Snider
http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF1901/McCarthy/McCarthy.html
New Boston Prison
Construction of a new Texas Prison
A federal study released Thursday shows that Texas led the
nation in the number of inmates incarcerated in state prisons and
county jails in June 2003.
Texas had 164,222 inmates on the last day of that month. The
Texas inmate population was up by 4.2 percent, or 6,578 inmates,
from June 2002, according to the study by the U.S. Bureau of
Justice Statistics.
Texas' June 2003 incarceration rate also was the highest in the
nation, with 692 inmates per 100,000 population. Mississippi
ran a close second with an incarceration rate of 688 per 100,000
residents.....Overall, the report said the nation's federal, state
and local prisons and jails were holding more than 2 million
people on June 30, 2003, the largest number in four years.