THE DECLINE OF MARRIAGE, CONTINUED: William Raspberry at the WaPo has another opinion piece on the catastrophic decline of the institution of marriage among blacks. Here is the problem in a nutshell:
In 1890, 80 percent of black American households were headed by husbands and wives. That's just 25 years after the end of the Civil War.
In 1900, the percentage was mostly unchanged, and so it remained -- between the high 70s and the low 80s -- for 1910, 1920, 1930, for every decennial census report until 1970, when it was down to 64.
For the 2000 Census, the percentage of black families headed by married couples was 38. The only good news is that it was also 38 percent in 1990, suggesting that the trend may have stopped getting worse.
I only wish the solution could be stated as concisely.
8:17:36 PM 
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