In this article the authors call attention to the 1965 report, "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action," published by then Assistant Secretary to the Labor Department, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Fifty years later, these authors suggest that, in retrospect, Moynihan understood that the emerging pattern he noted was troubling above…

In his 1965 report on the black family, Daniel Patrick Moynihan highlighted the rising fraction of black children growing up in households headed by unmarried mothers. He attributed the increase largely to the precarious economic position of black men, many of whom were no longer able to play their traditional role as their family's primary…