A friend and I recently disagreed about what caused the breakdown of Black families. My friend pointed to slavery and segregation. I countered with the arguments of Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele, who have said that government welfare policies played a major role. Steele has described Black Americans as the first group in the country to experience a kind of socialism imposed through federal, state and local government. It’s a striking claim, but one worth considering.
After the civil rights gains of the 1960s came the Great Society and the War on Poverty. In my view, the focus shifted from equal treatment under the law toward policies based on race rather than individual circumstances. Steele argues that this approach fostered long-term dependency: government treated Black Americans as a special group whose problems required ongoing state management, rather than as citizens capable of shaping their own futures. He connects that approach to White guilt and a desire for racial absolution, rather than to the development of Black communities.
Census figures show that in 1960, about 22% of Black children lived in single-parent households. Put another way, roughly four in five lived with both parents, nearly a century after slavery ended. Over the following decades, as government assistance programs grew and became entrenched, the share of Black children in single-parent homes more than tripled. People can debate how much of the original 22% reflected slavery’s legacy. But I believe the dramatic increase that followed was closely tied to the welfare policies introduced in the 1960s.
Those policies changed the financial incentives surrounding work, marriage and fatherhood. Black families had endured generations of racial oppression, yet, like any families, they depended on basic values and relationships to thrive. I think government policy weakened those foundations.
I see the effects in my work on Chicago’s South Side, where around 80% of households have just one parent at home. The single mothers I know are among the strongest people I’ve met. Many are raising children with little support, and may not see how government policy has helped create a system that can be difficult to leave, especially financially.
Sowell’s discussion of incentives, and Steele’s argument about government dependency, don’t feel theoretical to me. For decades, public programs have sometimes provided more assistance to a household when a father is absent than when he is present. If a mother receives greater support while raising children without a husband, that can influence family decisions. That’s not complicated. The Black family endured slavery, Jim Crow and other forms of legal oppression; I believe the rules created by the War on Poverty did serious damage in a different way.
When fathers are absent, young men may search elsewhere for discipline, belonging and affirmation. Gangs can step into that gap, and violence can follow. Girls, too, may grow up without seeing what a responsible man looks like in family life. I’ve spent years trying to be a steady adult presence for boys who lack a father figure, helping them learn simple things: look people in the eye, keep your word, arrive on time and work for what you earn. Those lessons were once part of everyday life in many two-parent homes.
I started Project H.O.O.D. because government programs have not solved these problems, despite decades of effort. Our work is about helping people move from relying on a benefit check to earning a paycheck. It means a lot to see someone receive money they’ve worked for themselves.
We also provide training for jobs in the trades and support mothers who want a better future for their children. We talk with young men about becoming husbands and fathers, not simply having children, and we help them build a connection with Jesus. We do this in the neighborhood, from the ground up. The people closest to a problem often understand best what might help solve it.
I agree with Sowell that the breakdown of the family was neither inevitable nor mainly the result of slavery’s legacy. I believe policies that encouraged dependency, rather than supporting people as they built independent lives, contributed to it.
Still, what policy and culture have damaged can be rebuilt through faith, work and personal responsibility. I’ve seen a mother complete electrician training and find a steady job. I’ve seen a young man decide not to leave his child, as his own father left him. Families can choose marriage and stability over short-term help from a government program.
That is the work ahead: not simply adding programs that may reward the problems they are meant to address, but restoring the values that help families hold together. I believe God cares about families and fathers. On the South Side, we continue to put our faith in both.
