There's a prevailing narrative in our society when it comes to black men.

It's a narrative that was spelled out in detail over 50 years ago, but it's right at

home in our country's family of stereotypes about blackness, stretching from colonial times

through the present day.

It's a widely held, often unexamined belief that black men don't stick around to parent

the children that we father.

This narrative was given the stamp of government approval in 1965.

That March, a report titled the Negro Family, the Case for National Action, was delivered

to the Johnson Administration.

It's better known as the Moynihan report, named after Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who at

the time was Assistant Secretary of Labor.

Moynihan was trying to convince LBJ that civil rights legislation would not produce racial

equality on its own.

His report identified the fracturing of black families as one of the main drivers of inequality

and laid much of the blame for that fracturing at the feet of absent black fathers.

Critics on the left attacked the report for ignoring systemic factors of racism.

The right latched on to it as a rationalization for inequality and some used it to promote

racist stereotypes about black families and loose morals within the black community.

Despite these attacks, black men are actually more likely to be involved in their young children's

lives than fathers of other races.

According to a 2013 CDC study, black fathers were more likely to bathe, feed, and read to

their children under five years old daily than both white and Latino fathers, regardless

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