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- Moynihan, as 
early as early 1964,

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is writing memoranda about the 
need to do something special

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for poor Black people as 
opposed to all poor people.

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- I felt that the great crises

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having to do with the 
protection of the liberties

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of Negro Americans in the South

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were probably coming to an end.

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Seemed to me that we would 
now turn to the problems

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of the northern ghettos, 
the northern slums,

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where just passing a law 
wasn't going to change things,

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where problems were 
much more difficult.

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- [Narrator] Moynihan's 
interest in urban Black poverty

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was triggered in part by a 
study he had led a year earlier.

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Eager to boost its ranks 
during the Cold War,

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the military was concerned 
that too many men

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were failing their exams.

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What Moynihan found was 
that many of them came

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from single parent homes and 
a disproportionate number

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were impoverished Black men.

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(soft piano music)

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- Moynihan sat down to write 
his report on the Black family,

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which was titled 
"The Negro Family:

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The Case for National 
Action," on January 1st,

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or thereabouts, 1965, and 
with the help of Paul Barton,

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the chief aid, finished it 
in the remarkably quick time

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of a little more 
than three months.

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- [Politician] 
That report began,

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"The United States is 
facing a new crisis

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in race relations."

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(melancholic piano music)

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- Teenage unemployment 
in the Negro world today

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is almost 25%.

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That is a social crime.

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That's an outrage.

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- He was one of 
the first scholars

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to integrate 
structural analysis,

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for example, the problems of 
urbanization, joblessness,

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Jim Crow segregation, and so on,

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and their effects on 
the Black population.

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And cultural analysis, that 
is a way Blacks respond

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to chronic racial and 
economic subordination.

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And sometimes the 
response is problematic.

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- The very start of the 
second chapter says,

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"At the heart of the 
deterioration of the fabric

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of Negro society is 
the deterioration of 
the Negro family."

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- [Narrator] Moynihan 
immersed himself

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in a raft of statistics 
that convinced him

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impoverished Black families 
were under enormous stress,

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their children deeply affected.

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By 1960, nearly 24% 
of these families

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were headed by single parents.

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This was some 
eight times greater

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than the rate for 
white families.

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- How'd you learn how to behave?

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From your father and your mother 
and the people around you.

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Well, supposing 
there is no father,

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where children are just brought 
up without that support,

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which a family gives it, 
then what do you end up with?

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You end up a cycle 
reproducing itself.

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(somber music)

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- Various columns appeared, 
including one by Evans

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and Novak, who were famous 
columnists in those days.

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That was titled "The 
Moynihan Report."

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That's probably the first time

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that it really became 
known that way.

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(somber music continues)

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- And then people started 
associating the Watts riot

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with the Black family.

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This is a cause 
of the Watts riot.

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The deterioration 
of the families

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helped to trigger these riots.

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- If you're, say, in 
the activist community

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and you're an African 
American, well, the first lens

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that you have on the "Moynihan 
Report" is from Mary McCrory

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or, you know, it's 
from Evans and Novak.

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That's the lens through 
which you read this report.

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(tense music)

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- It came from a 
white intellectual

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at what could not 
have been conceived

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as anything but poor 
timing because it overrode

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what certainly the African 
American leadership

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and community believed 
needed to be exercised.

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Alright, government, for 150 
years, you've done nothing.

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No legislation against 
job discrimination.

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No legislation giving 
people the right to vote.

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The poll tax still out there.

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If you were a white 
man in Mississippi,

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you could go to work 
in a laboring job

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and become middle class.

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If you were a Black man that 
had the same non-skills,

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you couldn't get a job at all.

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What are you gonna 
do about that?

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You're talking about my family?

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Anything.

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The Black family, along 
with the Black churches,

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all that kept the 
Black community whole.

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- This is Ned Brooks inviting 
you to "Meet the Press."

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Our guest today is the author 
of the controversial study,

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"The Negro Family," 
Mr. Daniel P. Moynihan.

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- Pat was blindsided by 
the reaction of the left

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to what he was saying.

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- What's your 
explanation for the fact

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that it is being criticized 
for fostering immune racism?

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- I think there may have 
been a misunderstanding.

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I was trying to show that 
unemployment statistics,

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which are so dull and 
you've read so many of them

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and you don't know 
what they may mean,

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they're hard to believe, 
that unemployment nonetheless

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ended up with orphaned children, 
with abandoned mothers,

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with men living furtive lives 
without even an address,

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that unemployment had flesh and 
blood in it, it could bleed.

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- One of the reasons why 
"The Moynihan Report"

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ended up blowing up 
in Moynihan's face

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is the document was never 
meant for public perusal.

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It is written in a 
very bombastic way.

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It was written to get the 
attention of politicians.

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(dramatic music)