EDITOR'S NOTE: “Strengthening Black Families Post-Katrina” is the final of BlackAmericaWeb.com's three-part A Million More series examining the myriad issues to be addressed at this Saturday's Millions More Movement in Washington D.C.

Click here for "A Million More, Part One: The State of Black Men 10 Years After the MMM."
Click here for “A Million More, Part Two: State of Black Women 'Mixed' After Marches."

According to a July 2005 report by the Selig Center for Economic Growth, if African-American buying power, at $761 billion, were a country, it would rank 10th in the world, leaving nations like India, South Korea, Mexico, Australia and Brazil in its dust.

In addition, fewer blacks are renting apartments, with approximately 50 percent of black Americans owning their own houses, viewing home ownership not just as part of the American dream, but as the best overall investment a person could make.

These statistics show great progress for the black family in 2005. Yet we all watched in horror as blacks of all ages sat amidst squalor, cried out for help and waited in line for food in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, making parts of the Gulf Coast region look more like a Third World country and far from a part of the wealthiest nation on earth.

As the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March is celebrated during this weekend’s Millions More Movement, many are hopeful that issues which regularly draw concern, such as public education and crime, are addressed, as well as how black America can avoid ever having to go through another Katrina-like fiasco.

“Hurricane Katrina is a glaring example of why we need to do more,” Avis Jones-DeWeever, Ph.D., told BlackAmericaWeb.com. A researcher with the Institute for Women’s Policy, Jones-DeWeever said the black family is strong enough to handle a myriad of problems, but there needs to be a greater effort amongst everyone to take responsibility for the lives of family, friends and strangers alike.

“The bottom line is that we need to be prepared to take care of our own. There are enough black people in this country where there doesn’t need to be any brother or sister sleeping on a cot,” Jones-DeWeever said.

“It was heartbreaking to see,” she continued, “and I’m hoping, following this anniversary celebration, that we will do more at the grassroots level to produce institutions and organizations that will allow us the opportunity, ability and infrastructure to assist in ways where, eventually, things will get done.”

That is the same optimism that Jane Smith, director of Spelman College’s Center for Leadership & Civic Engagement, has as she reflects back on the both the Million Man and Million Woman marches and looks ahead to what could come out of the Millions More Movement.

“I am so troubled by the country that we live in now,” Smith told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “I’m troubled by our reaction to the hurricane disaster, the war in Iraq and increasing poverty for all people.”

Smith said that these issues and others will have a great impact on the state of the black family if they are not addressed through demands from those attending the march and anyone concerned about the black family in general.

“There’s poor preparation that are children are getting in public schools. The prisons are being occupied by people of color. There’s an increase in diseases such as heart attacks and diabetes,” Smith said. “I do think that a combination of these obstacles, threats and challenges are going to settle with one another in some profound way that’s going to affect [the black family’s] culture.”

In addition to demanding action on issues at the march, Smith believes adults need to take responsibility for future generations, regardless of their relationship with them. It’s necessary, she said, in order for children to have a more positive upbringing and better chance for success.

However, such success is undoubtedly related to class, with blacks of higher socioeconomic standing having a better shot, Smith said.

This past August, a U.S. Department of Commerce study reported that, in 2004, blacks had the lowest median income of any race at $30,134, and the poverty rate of black families remained steady at 25 percent for blacks. Another ominous sign for lower-income blacks was health coverage, with 19.7 percent of black families possessing no health insurance, leaving many of us emotionally, as well as physically impaired.

“There are strengths in the family that are underwritten by the presence of men and women playing different roles,” Smith said, adding that the growing number of incarcerated black men and women has had an effect on the state of black families. Statistics now show that of the nation’s 2.1 million prisoners, 50 percent of them are black, a figure that paints a distressing picture for the state of black people in general.

“In the lower classes and amongst poverty-stricken families, the absence of men and women [at home, versus being housed] in the penal system affects the quality of interaction,” Smith said, adding that children don’t need a married mother and father in their lives to succeed. “I think that family interactions have the ability to improve when you can have a male figure and female figure present for the development of children.

“We have so many children going into the foster care system and being raised by people other than family,” continued Smith. “Depending on what class you’re in, you have the opportunity to change the construction you need for a healthy family.”

A healthy family doesn’t necessarily have to be headed by a husband and wife, although some more conservative figures may argue otherwise. The numbers of black marriages have taken a sharp decline in recent years. According to the National Fatherhood Initiative, blacks and whites married at nearly identical rates from the late 1890’s to the mid 1950’s. But by 2004, just 38 percent of black males were married, compared to 59 percent of white males.

And the latest U.S. Census reports that two of three black children live in a home without a father, and close to 70 percent of all black births were out of wedlock.

Jones-DeWeever said those who use those statistics to justify husband-wife households are doing a disservice to those “non-conventional” families.

“They keep using these statistics to make the point that black marriages are going to hell in a hand basket,” said Jones-DeWeever, whose parents have been married for 46 years and whose husband's parents recently celebrated their 50th anniversary.

“I don’t think marriage is an indicator of the strength of black families, but I do think that black families are strong today, just as they were strong in yesteryear,” Jones-DeWeever said. “They just take a variety of forms, from single parents to grandparents, to people cohabitating.

“We are strong and we have severe challenges that a lot of other families don’t have to worry about or face,” she added. “And, that makes it harder.”

Among the issues that the black family must face that their white counterparts do not, Jones-DeWeever said, are access to quality education and combating a sometimes unjust justice system. It’s these issues that she hopes are addressed this weekend, said Jones-DeWeever, who plans on attending the march with her two sons, ages 10 and two. But she knows that her sons will need her and her husband to teach them lessons that their white counterparts do not have to prepare for.

“I struggle with how I need to prepare them to survive in this society as they get bigger and grow,” Jones-DeWeever said. “The stigma of being a black make in this society is so strong. They’ll need to know who you act when you’re a 16-year-old black boy behind the wheel of your parents’ car and police stop you.

“It could be a matter of life and death for them, but not for a white family,” Jones-DeWeever said. “It’s an unfortunate reality of our lives as a black family.”

No matter how bleak some of the statistics and concerns may be for black families, Jones-DeWeever is confident that, if those who attend the march will act as forcibly as they speak, there’s nothing that black families can’t overcome.

“I still have faith. Despite all of the obstacles that have been put in our way since the moment we were forced ashore, we have survived,” she said. “If that’s not an indicator of strength, I don’t know what is.”