The Black Commentator - Rebuilding Black Family Life

Since the early 1900’s, Black and white scholars have written much on the Black family. When one examines the card catalogue of any library in America, one will find volumes of books, articles and newspaper clippings discussing some aspect of Black family life. What we need in the African American community is a framework to examine and solve the problems of Black family life on our own terms.

The capturing of African people, who were placed in chattel slavery in North America, has left some devastating scars on the most basic unit or group — the family. There is no question that the family has been that unit which provides the basic foundation for any group of people to survive and develop. Families constitute grandmothers, grandfathers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and in-laws. Sometimes families extend beyond blood relatives to those persons we bring into our families for whatever reason.

Families function in the context of their racial and ethic identity. This identity is shaped by the historical and external forces of a given society. Although the problems of the Black family appear to be very complex on the one hand, on the other, the problem is very simple.

First, African people who were captured and introduced into the western hemisphere as property and commodities were removed from their land and institutional arrangements of African life.

Second, this process of white takeover of Black life, through the most brutal form of oppression, the slave trade and the eventual enslavement of African people on the plantations of North America, has been a back-breaking experience for our people.

Even though our survival techniques have been superior, in the face of brutal psychological and physical violence against us, we are now at the crossroads. We face the challenge of preserving some of the traditions of the Black family, developed by our ancestors, who fought so hard against racism and white supremacy in this country.

This must be done, in part, through the rising and growing African Centered Education Movement. As our renowned ancestor and deep thinker Dr. Jacob H. Carruthers explained, African Centered Education should focus on the following:

Advocates that restoring the historical truth about Africa is the priority
for African thinkers (including Africans in the Diaspora).
Holds that there is a distinct universal African World View which should
be the foundation for all African intellectual development.
Involves the massive education or rather re-education of the African people
of the world from an African perspective in the interest of African people and
directed by African thinkers. It is a necessary pre-condition for the freedom
of the African mind and subsequently African liberation.

We must not abandon family life. It is the basis for our survival and development. It is the strategy of our white oppressors to place so much pressure on us that we give up our fight for independence and freedom. When the family unit begins to wither away, we must rise to the occasion and fight to keep its basic elements alive in our communities.

It is the duty of all Black people to understand that we are faced with a genocidal set of circumstances in America. Look around our communities and what do we / you see? We witness the absence of that fighting family spirit among us that has been so much a part of Black family life. The family is the support mechanism for all that we do and it is a sacred institution that we must preserve and protect on our own terms.

BC columnist Conrad W. Worrill, PhD, is the National Chairman of the National Black United Front (NBUF). Click here to contact Dr. Worrill.