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INTRODUCTION DAVID BLANKENHORN AND OBIE CLAYTON In November of 1998, Morehouse College and the Institute for American values convened a conference on the state of African American fathers. Presenters at that conference included William Julius Wilson, Steven Nock, Glenn Loury, Elijah Anderson, and Ron Mincy, to name but a few. All of these scholars have done research in the area of the African American family and their work is highly respected both within the academy and among the general public. One statement that stood out particularly strongly was made by William Raspberry, the Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist, when he pondered aloud the question we had asked him to address himself to: “Are black fathers necessary?” His answer: Are black fathers necessary? You know, I’m old and I’m tired, and there are some things I just don’t want to debate anymore. One of them is whether African American children need fathers. Another is whether marriage matters. Does marriage matter? You bet it does. Are black fathers necessary? Damn straight we are. (Raspberry 1998) Raspberry’s statement forced those in attendance to think about the problems facing the family in contemporary society and, perhaps more important, raised the question: What is the role of the father in the lives of their children? For anyone concerned about the well-being of our nation’s children, is any demographic fact more disturbing, more demanding of our collective attention, than the fact that the great majority of African American children do not live with their fathers? Similarly, is any demographic fact more hopeful, or more demanding of our collective encouragement, than the fact the proportion of African American children living with both their biological , married parents, although still quite low, has risen significantly since 1995? In some respects, this entire volume is about those two facts. What do they mean for black children? For all children? For the possibility 1 of improved relationships between black men and black women? For U.S. public policy? For the possibility of racial justice, healing, and reconciliation? For our society as a whole? These are questions of great importance, and to their credit, the diverse contributors to this volume—blacks and whites, women and men, conservatives and liberals , and scholars from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds— treat them with the intellectual and moral seriousness that such questions deserve, but generally have not received in academic and public discussions. Many of the chapters in this volume address the two major changes in family formation identified above. Recent positive changes are not large or definitive, but they are certainly suggestive. And if they continue , they will change the lives of millions of U.S. children and families for the better. Already these changes, particularly with respect to the black family, have demonstrated quite clearly that scholars and other leaders who have long insisted that nothing can be done to change trends in family structure are wrong. In 1997, Donna L. Franklin echoed a widely held view when she stated: “Policy makers will have more of an impact on the lives of poor and African American children when they accept the irreversibility of high levels of nonmarriage of their mothers as a starting point for thinking about changes in public policy” (Franklin 1997, 219). Yet recent positive demographic trends in black (and, more broadly, U.S.) family structure suggest that there is nothing “irreversible” about the trends of father absence and family fragmentation. The reintegration of nurturing black fathers into the lives of their children is the primary focus of the chapters that follow, but the reader will also quickly see several other themes in these papers: more paternity identification, more child support payments from nonresidential fathers, and noncustodial fathers who have better parenting and job skills and are visiting their children more often. If and when these current trends continue and becomes more firmly established in the years ahead, many other good results—including reductions in child poverty, greater asset accumulation for black families, reduced levels of crime, and reductions in domestic violence—are likely to follow. This book is organized in three major parts. Part I (chapters 1 and 2) offers explanations for the declines in marriage within the African American family from several theoretical perspectives. In chapter 1, William Julius Wilson provides the necessary context for us to understand many of the problems facing inner-city families and fathers. Wilson asserts that marriage among many inner-city males is not felt...

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