Black Families in White America

A number of American Negro families managed to escape the more crippling consequences of poverty and racism. What are the sources of their achievement? What are the barriers they still face as they struggle for equality with the white middle class? And what about those families who still languish in the black ghettos of America? How do they break out of the ghetto and into decent housing, jobs, and schools? In Black Families in White America, Andrew Billingsley, Negro social scientist, provides answers to these and other questions.

The author presents a bold, reasoned analysis of the history, structure, aspirations, and problems of black families in a white-controlled society. The goal for the Negro family, says Bilingsley, is to break free from white institutions. Blacks first must “manage and control their own institutions” before they can make a “maximum contribution to their own community and the larger community.” Refuting the Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s report, The Negro Family: A Call For National Action that “concluded, quite incorrectly, that the Negro family in this country is falling apart,” Billingsley remarks: “Negro families have shown an amazing ability to survive in the face of impossible conditions. They have also shown remarkable ability to take the barest shreds of opportunity and turn them into the social capital of stability and achievement.“