Freedom Is Not Enough: The Moynihan Report and America's Struggle over Black Family Life -- from LBJ to ObamaOn June 4, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson delivered what he and many others considered the greatest civil rights speech of his career. Proudly, Johnson hailed the new freedoms granted to African Americans due to the newly passed Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, but noted that "freedom is not enough." The next stage of the movement would be to secure racial equality "as a fact and a result." The speech was drafted by an assistant secretary of labor by the name of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who had just a few months earlier drafted a scorching report on the deterioration of the urban black family in America. When that report was leaked to the press a month after Johnson's speech, it created a whirlwind of controversy from which Johnson's civil rights initiatives would never recover. But Moynihan's arguments proved startlingly prescient, and established the terms of a debate about welfare policy that have endured for forty-five years. The history of one of the great missed opportunities in American history, Freedom Is Not Enough will be essential reading for anyone seeking to understand our nation's ongoing failure to address the tragedy of the black underclass. |
Contents
| 1 | |
TWO The Case for National Action | 21 |
THREE The Report | 47 |
FOUR The Moment Lost | 65 |
SEVEN Unproductive Dialogue 19711983 | 129 |
EIGHT Combating the Silence 19841994 | 145 |
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Freedom Is Not Enough: The Moynihan Report and America's Struggle over Black ... James T. Patterson No preview available - 2010 |
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activists added administration AFDC African American argued Barton behavior black family black women chapter childbearing cited civil rights leaders concerning conservative continued Cosby critics culture Daniel Patrick Moynihan Democratic developments DPM papers early economic emphasized equality especially family issues family structure father federal female-headed families forces Frazier ghettos Glenn Loury Harry McPherson Harvard Howard illegitimacy income increases inner cities Johnson library Kenneth Clark Labor late later Lemann liberal living lower-class black family male marriage married McPherson memo moreover Moyni Moynihan Report National Negro American Negro family Nixon nonmarital births nonwhite out-of-wedlock parents Patterson Paul Barton percent political poor poverty president Press programs proportion racial racism rates reform scholars Senate slavery sociologist statistics trends underclass unemployment United University urban W. E. B. Du Bois Washington wedlock welfare White House William Julius Wilson Wirtz wrote young وو