In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan was roundly criticized for predicting the violent, hopeless future millions of children from broken families now face.

Moynihan – a sociologist, diplomat and four-term Democratic senator from New York – was serving in President Lyndon Johnson’s Labor Department when he wrote his report on family and poverty.

With Johnson’s War on Poverty in full swing, Moynihan’s office was studying employment and poverty trends among Black Americans.

As he analyzed the data, he discovered an alarming shift: Black families were experiencing a significant rise in single-parent households.

The cause? Well-meaning federal welfare programs that penalized marriage and rewarded father absence. Such policies were weakening Black families – and if left unchecked, he warned, the

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