Sometimes we talk about Black families today as though history simply disappeared one morning. It didn't. 1960 was only 66 years ago. A 20 year old Black mother living through 1960 would be 86 years old today. That is not ancient history. That is somebody's mother. Somebody's grandmother. Somebody sitting in a living room right now who remembers.

Think about the America she was living in. Segregation was still legal across much of the South. Black citizens were still fighting for basic voting rights. Housing and employment discrimination could determine where Black families lived and what opportunities they had. And in that America, some governments decided they also had the authority to determine whether a poor mother's home was "suitable."

Let that word sit for a moment. SUITABLE. Who decided whether her home was suitable? The government.

Some states developed what became known as "man in the house" rules. In Alabama, a man could be classified as a "substitute father" because of his relationship with a mother even though he wasn't the children's father, didn't support the children, didn't live there permanently and had no legal obligation to support them. Yet his relationship with their mother could jeopardize assistance intended for those children.

Stop right there and think about what that means. A government created a policy that could make having a man in a poor woman's life a financial liability to her household. Someone wrote that policy. Someone approved it. Someone enforced it. Real families lived underneath it.

Then look at Louisiana. In 1960, approximately 23,000 children were removed from welfare rolls under its "suitable home" policy. A later federal court decision discussing that history reported something extraordinary. Approximately 95% of those children were Black. Not 55%. Not 65%. 95%.

The federal government eventually intervened against these types of restrictions. The Supreme Court eventually struck Alabama's rule down in King v. Smith in 1968. But you don't get to use the correction to erase what happened before it. Black families had already lived it.

And welfare policy was only one piece of what Black Americans were navigating. Segregation. Housing discrimination. Employment discrimination. Barriers to voting. Unequal schools. Racial violence. Government policies capable of reaching directly into the household.

Then America eventually looked at struggling Black communities and began asking, "What's wrong with the Black family?"

Maybe we've been asking an incomplete question.

Before asking what happened inside Black families, America should be willing to examine what happened to Black families.

And let's be responsible with the history. There isn't sufficient evidence to say AFDC was originally created in 1935 as a secret federal plan to destroy Black families. We don't need that claim because what is documented should disturb us enough.

American governments actually enacted policies under which a poor mother's relationships could affect whether her children received assistance. In at least one documented mass removal, Black children represented approximately 95% of those thrown off the rolls.

That's not rhetoric. That's history.

So when somebody asks, "Why does the Black community still talk about things that happened decades ago?" remember this. Decades ago isn't as long ago as you think. Some of the people who lived through these policies are still here.

Maybe the question shouldn't be why Black America remembers.

Maybe the question should be this.

HOW DID AMERICA EXPECT PEOPLE TO GO THROUGH ALL OF THAT AND LEAVE NOTHING BEHIND?

🧱 THE BLACK WALL

DON'T INHERIT THE NARRATIVE. EXAMINE THE RECEIPTS.