''The Vanishing Family: Crisis in Black America'' is a

CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs '' CBS News Sunday Morning'', '' 60 Minutes'', and '' 48 H ...

special report Breaking news, interchangeably termed late-breaking news and also known as a special report or special coverage or news flash, is a news, current issue that broadcasters feel warrants the interruption of scheduled programming or current news in ...

hosted by

Bill Moyers Bill Moyers (born Billy Don Moyers, June 5, 1934) is an American journalist and political commentator. Under the Johnson administration he served from 1965 to 1967 as the eleventh White House Press Secretary. He was a director of the Counci ...

that aired in January 1986. It explores changes in

African-American family structure The family structure of African Americans has long been a matter of national public policy interest. A 1965 report by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, known as ''The Moynihan Report'', examined the link between black poverty and family structure. It hyp ...

at a time when 60% of Black children were born to

single mother A single parent is a person who has a child or children but does not have a spouse or live-in partner to assist in the upbringing or support of the child. Reasons for becoming a single parent include divorce, break-up, abandonment, becoming wid ...

s. ''The Vanishing Family'' received numerous awards and widespread acclaim from newspaper columnists. Its influence led Sen.

Bill Bradley William Warren Bradley (born July 28, 1943) is an American politician and former professional basketball player. He served three terms as a Democratic U.S. senator from New Jersey (1979–1997). He ran for the Democratic Party's nomination f ...

(D–NJ) to introduce the

Bradley Amendment In United States law, the Bradley Amendment () is an amendment intended to improve the effectiveness of child support enforcement. It is named after Senator Bill Bradley, who introduced it. The Bradley Amendment requires state courts to prohibit r ...

, which since its passage in 1986 has enforced the provision of

child support Child support (or child maintenance) is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child (or parent, caregiver, guardian) following the end of a marriage or other similar relationship. Child maintenance is paid d ...

Summary

Moyers interviews several unwed Black mothers in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.social welfare programs Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet Basic needs, basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refe ...

. The program includes commentary from Dr. George Jackson of

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commissi ...

, Rev.

Jesse Jackson Jesse Louis Jackson (né Burns; born October 8, 1941) is an American political activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. senator ...

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

Professor of Law

Eleanor Holmes Norton Eleanor Holmes Norton (born June 13, 1937) is an American lawyer and politician serving as a delegate to the United States House of Representatives, representing the District of Columbia since 1991. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Earl ...

, and

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Professor of Political Economics

Glenn Loury Glenn Cartman Loury (born September 3, 1948) is an American economist, academic, and author. He is the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at Brown University, where he has taught since 2005. At the age of ...

Reception

At a time when ''

The Cosby Show ''The Cosby Show'' is an American television sitcom co-created by and starring Bill Cosby, which aired Thursday nights for eight seasons on NBC between September 20, 1984, until April 30, 1992. The show focuses on an upper middle-class African- ...

'' was the most watched show on television, ''The Vanishing Family'' presented a radically different image of Black American families to the American public. The special was immediately controversial and received numerous awards. The ''

Christian Science Monitor Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

'' described ''The Vanishing Family'' as "a hard-hitting news special" on "the current state of the black family in America." ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' noted that the special had "no negative racial stereotypes" and praised it as using "intelligence and grace" to describe its subjects. ''The Vanishing Family'' won an

Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award The Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award honors excellence in broadcast and digital journalism in the public service and is considered one of the most prestigious awards in journalism. The awards were established in 1942 and administered ...

Gold Baton for excellence in broadcast journalism. It won Program of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in News and Information at the 2nd TCA Awards. The special won a Peabody Award in 1986. The special also won

the Hillman Prize The Hillman Prize is a journalism award given out annually by The Sidney Hillman Foundation, named for noted American labor leader Sidney Hillman. It is given to "journalists, writers and public figures who pursue social justice and public polic ...

and the

Humanitas Prize The Humanitas Prize is an award for film and television writing, and is given to writers whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced and meaningful way. It began in 1974 with Father Ellwood "Bud" Kieser—also the founder of Paulist P ...

Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of ...

wrote an essay criticizing ''The Vanishing Family'', arguing that there was a flaw in the statistic that impelled the report. In ''Women, Culture & Politics'', she attributed the percentage of black children born to single mothers to the low, and declining, number of married black women having children.

Legacy

Authors Kathryn Edin and Timothy J. Nelson credit ''The Vanishing Family'' with the introduction of the

, a legislative amendment that prohibits retroactive reduction of

obligations.

Bob Ehrlich Robert Leroy Ehrlich Jr. (born November 25, 1957) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 60th Governor of Maryland from 2003 to 2007. A Republican, Ehrlich represented Maryland's 2nd Congressional district in the U.S. House of ...

sees ''The Vanishing Family'' as validating the concerns from

Daniel Patrick Moynihan Daniel Patrick Moynihan (March 16, 1927 – March 26, 2003) was an American politician, diplomat and sociologist. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York in the United States Senate from 1977 until 2001 and served as an ...

, whose 1965 publication '' The Negro Family: The Case for National Action'' had attracted criticism.

References

External links

*
''The Vanishing Family'' summary
at

The Paley Center for Media The Paley Center for Media, formerly the Museum of Television & Radio (MT&R) and the Museum of Broadcasting, founded in 1975 by William S. Paley, is an American cultural institution in New York with a branch office in Los Angeles, dedicated to ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vanishing Family, The CBS Reports 1980s American television news shows Peabody Award-winning television programs African-American society