When problems persist : the making and legacy of the Moynihan Report.

Abstract

In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Undersecretary of Labor for Social Statistics and Policy Planning in the Johnson Administration, drafted an intergovernmental position paper entitled The Negro Family: The Case for National Action which stirred a major controversy among government officials, Civil Rights leaders, and the general public for its alleged contention that the African American family structure in the United States was a dysfunctional "tangle of pathology." This thesis examines the intentions, reactions to, and legacies of what became known as the Moynihan Report. By focusing on the social science research methodology employed by Moynihan, the media distortion of his conclusions, and the historical context within which the report appeared, this thesis concludes that the Moynihan Report initiated an often contentious conversation that influenced and changed the way we talk and act about race, poverty, the family, and the possibility of change in American Society.