Reflecting on The Moynihan Report

Sometimes the truth ain’t pretty. And we can’t ignore it or dismiss it just because we don’t like the messenger.

Such was the case with the infamous Moynihan Report several decades ago. The report detailed what would become of the black community should the traditional black American family life continue to deteriorate. Columnist Clarence Page writes about the Moynihan Report and a new book that tries to make since of all:

Forty-five years ago this summer a report on serious declines in traditional black American family life leaked out of President Lyndon Johnson’s Labor Department and exploded into controversy. We’ve been grappling with the issue ever since.

The report by Assistant Labor Secretary Daniel Patrick Moynihan has been largely forgotten, but the socio-political arguments that it ignited continue to burn, often with more heat than light, in that rough terrain between raw emotions and rational thought.

“It proved enormously controversial and established its author’s reputation as an iconoclast, yet today ‘The Moynihan Report’ is largely forgotten,” says James T. Patterson, history professor emeritus at Brown University. “Sadly, its predictions about the decline of the black family have proven largely correct.”

Continue reading.

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