The National Urban League Wire

Nearly five decades ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1965 report for the U.S. Department of Labor, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, provoked a firestorm of debate in its probing of the roots of black poverty and the decline of the black nuclear family. As stated in the introduction to that report reads:

In the decade that began with the school desegregation decision of the Supreme Court, and ended with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the demand of Negro Americans for full recognition of their civil rights was finally met.…In this new period…[Negro Americans] will now expect that in the near future equal opportunities for them as a group willproduce roughly equal results, as compared with other groups. This is not going to happen. Nor will it happen for generations to come unless a new and special effort is made.

…Individually, Negro Americans reach the highest peaks of achievement…. Indices of dollars of income, standards of living, and years of education deceive. The gap between the Negro and most other groups in American society is widening.

Read More Urban Institute Updates 1965 Moynihan Report on Black Poverty | iamempowered.com.