From the Desk of the President Bishop Garland Hunt – August 2024
Friends,
There is a crisis in America that I’d like to talk to you about today—it’s the violent assault on marriage. The disintegration of marriage began many years ago. Today, while marriage is down among Americans of all races, blacks are the most unmarried people in society. Here are a few statistics to give you background information:
- U.S. Census data show that from 1890 to 1960, Black men and women were more likely to be married by age 35 than their white counterparts. By 1965, according to the Moynihan report, one in four Black children were born to unmarried parents. Today, the non-marital birth rate for Black women is 70 percent, and 44 percent of Black children live with a single mother.
- According to Pew Research, in 1980, about 6 percent of Americans aged 40 and over had never been married. Now that number is at about 25 percent. Back in the 1970s, over 20 percent of Black women had never been married. Today, it’s around 48 percent and climbing.
- There are fewer Black men available for dating or marriage. In 2021, Black men were incarcerated at over five times the rate of their white counterparts.
- Over 45 percent of single mothers with children under the age of six live in poverty. However, married couples with children have a single-digit poverty rate.
- According to the Heritage Foundation, Roe v. Wade and abortion on demand were not the only factors leading to marital decline and the high growth of out-of-wedlock births. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson announced the “War on Poverty” which was followed over the next decade by more lenient welfare policies, subsidized single parenthood, substantial marriage penalties, and a significantly diminished importance of fathers in the home.
- In 1968, the Supreme Court contributed to the assault on marriage by ruling that a non-married mother had a legal right to continue to receive welfare while cohabiting with any man who was not the father of her children. The government has essentially declared war on marriage.
While you are digesting this devastating information, remember that children raised with two parents who are married have much better outcomes higher level of education, stronger emotional health, less likely to experience teenage pregnancy and less likely to engage in delinquent behavior. The decline in marriage stunts society’s growth, drives up poverty and yields higher abortion rates.
As I noted in my book, Crisis in America: A Christian Response, there was a time in the Black community when our homes were headed by a married father and mother, both were not only attending church but were also upholding the standards of the Bible. Why would things get worse when today we have more economic success, education, social advancements and freedom than we had back in the day?
We walked away from God and thus all the principles that held our families together. We stopped singing Amazing Grace.
You see, without a biblical worldview of marriage, our families will continue to collapse.
Are you willing to take a firm stand for biblical marriage?
At the Douglass Leadership Institute, we care deeply about marriage because it strengthens the Black family—and all families. We are praying fervently about the calamitous state of marriage and thus the family.
And yet, we need your help to unite with like-minded pastors and faith leaders across the country to equip men and women of faith to lead positive change in their communities as we together work to strengthen the family, including protecting the unborn, education initiatives, economic empowerment and opportunity and faith-based criminal justice reform—all under the canopy of a biblical worldview.
To join us, to donate, and to learn more about our new program, the North Star Network, go to www.dlinstitute.org.
“It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.” — Frederick Douglass
For Him,
Bishop Garland Hunt
President, Douglass Leadership Institute
