America is a nation built on families, faith, and personal responsibility, yet the landscape of the American household has been dramatically reshaped in a single lifetime. Once, the norm for children was a home with two married parents; by 2020, the Census Bureau reports the share of children living with two parents fell from about 85 percent in 1968 to roughly 70 percent, and Black children are far less likely than others to be in two-parent married homes. This is not abstract sociology — it is a national warning flag about the breakdown of the institutions that made upward mobility possible for generations.

Let’s be clear about the facts so we can fix the problem: in 1960 roughly two-thirds of Black children lived with two married parents, whereas by recent counts fewer than two-fifths do, and nearly half now live in single-parent households. Those are seismic changes in family structure that have had real consequences for education, crime, and economic outcomes in Black neighborhoods. The truth is inconvenient to the reflexive narratives on the left, but facts matter if we are going to restore opportunity and stability.

There has long been a debate about why this happened, and conservatives are right to demand honest answers rather than excuses. Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned in 1965 that the crumbling of the family was central to persistent poverty in Black America, and critics argue that some welfare rules and policies enacted in the 1960s onward had the unintended effect of weakening incentives for marriage and stable two-parent families. Economists and social scientists disagree on the size of that effect, but the contested research cannot erase the clear correlation between policy shifts and the incentives facing low-income households.

Another uncomfortable truth for the modern left: parts of the 1960s civil-rights ecosystem moved beyond mainstream reform into radical ideology. Some leaders and factions embraced socialist or pan-Africanist politics, and historical records show communist and other left-wing organizations played roles in early organizing and campaigns — a complex history that deserves sober study rather than dismissal. Pointing out ideological diversity and influence in the movement is not an attack on the cause of civil rights; it is a call to understand the currents that shaped policy choices in the decades that followed.

Patriotic Americans who care about opportunity should respond with bold pro-family policies and cultural renewal, not more excuses or bureaucratic tinkering. We need to champion fatherhood, expand job training and employment for men in struggling communities, strengthen faith- and community-based organizations that support families, and reform welfare so it helps children without trapping households in dependency. If Washington truly wants to heal the wounds of the past and build prosperity for the next generation, it must put the family at the center of policy — because free people and free markets flourish when families flourish.