The Vanishing Black Family: Delano Squires on Marriage, Moynihan, and the Crisis in Black America

“Second wave feminism taught women that femininity was weak, masculinity was toxic, marriage was oppressive, the home was a prison, and children are a burden.” — Delano Squires

Sixty years ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan published The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, which was immediately attacked by the left as victim-blaming and by the right as an admission of state responsibility. In 1965, 25% of black children were born to unmarried parents. Today the figure is 70%. So is the black American family vanishing? Delano Squires — director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Human Flourishing at the Heritage Foundation — certainly thinks so. In his controversial new book, The Vanishing Black Family, Squires argues that “welfare” and “feminism” have made black marriage optional and children vulnerable.

Squires identifies what he calls the “sinister six” forces that have dismantled the black family: slavery’s legacy, the welfare state, second wave feminism, popular culture, the failure of the black church, and the indifference of black progressive leadership. Perhaps his most controversial claim is that the second wave feminism of Betty Friedan did specific damage in black communities by weakening the social norms that survived slavery and Jim Crow.

His prescription is a Heritage Foundation-style free market revolution led by black institutions rather than by Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s federal government. The church, HBCUs and black media should all embrace education, work, marriage and family. Give her a ring before she gives you a baby, Squires advises young black men. But leave Betty Friedan literature off the wedding gift list.

Five Takeaways

•       From 25% to 70%: The Statistics Behind the Book: In 1965, when Moynihan wrote his report, 25% of black children were born to unmarried parents — a figure Moynihan regarded as a national crisis requiring urgent political response. The national average was 7%. Today, 70% of black children are born to unmarried parents. The national average has risen to 40%. Squires’ argument: the gap has widened, the scale has changed, and the Moynihan consensus — that this is a serious problem requiring serious attention — has been largely abandoned by black progressive leadership. Only 33% of black adults are married, compared to 48% of Hispanics, 57% of whites, and 63% of Asians.

•       The Second Wave Feminism Argument: Squires’ Most Contested Claim: Squires devotes an entire chapter to second wave feminism and its specific damage in black communities. His top-line claim: that second wave feminism — from Betty Friedan’s characterisation of the suburban home as a “comfortable concentration camp”, to Gloria Steinem’s description of married women as “hostesses” — taught women that femininity was weak, masculinity was toxic, marriage was oppressive, the home was a prison, and children a burden. He is careful to distinguish this from the franchise and access to credit. He argues this ideological framework did particular damage in communities where family structures had already been weakened by slavery and segregation.

•       The Success Sequence: Finish School, Get a Job, Get Married, Then Have Children: Squires’ prescribed alternative to the cultural norms he critiques: the “success sequence,” a term drawn from social science research. If you finish high school, get a job, get married, and then have children — in that order — your chances of living in poverty are in the single digits, approximately 3%. His slogan: give her a ring before she gives you a baby. He advocates