You ignored 100 years of history, thus completely changing the truth to support your reasoning.
Marriage in the black community was not "optional" for the almost 100 years between Emancipation and the Great Society. Booker T. Washington was talking about economic emancipation as a follow-on to political emancipation, and people were listening and acting. Churches and social organizations were solidly behind marriage and family and young men being financially successful, marrying, and starting families in the proper way.
Black families and black businesses throve despite segregation, even in the South. Atlanta (my home town) had a prosperous middle and professional class -- with banks, insurance companies, colleges, churches, all doing well. I personally know families that moved into Atlanta from rural farms where they were sharecropping and put the next generation through college and professional school.
All that changed with the Great Society and the welfare state.
So you can't blame the current situation on some kind of spiritual payback for slavery without pretending that Washington and the rise of the black middle class never happened. And of course the assumption that most of the folks who are suffering the consequences of socialism now had any connection with slaveowning is false. Relatively few Southerners owned slaves, since the majority worked on the very large plantations. And a not insignificant number of slaveowners were free blacks. Do their descendants pay 'spiritual reparations' too?
Full disclosure: I'd be first in line for spiritual reparations if such a thing existed, since my 3xg-grandfather was the #1 slaveholder in Russell County Alabama. The #2 man was a Jewish guy from Charleston or Savannah (can't remember which), and #3 was a free black man. But at least I've studied the issue.
I never claimed what you just said. (Is that the way you normally twist what you read?)
Here's what I said -- what you were responding to -- and since you're a bit reading-challenged, allow me to highlight in bold-faced the key qualifying words: Generations later, marriage still was "optional" in many urban families...
So what did I say?
(1) I said "many urban families". What did you then twist that to mean? (The "black community" -- implying the entire black community).) Oh, and BTW, "many" doesn't even mean "most."
(2) More importantly, I further qualified my statement by centering the contemporary problem as one that has been retained within the "urban" population strain -- not suburban and not rural. And since your history-challenged response failed to take this into account, let me focus on the "history" you chose to ignore -- and in so doing completely distorted what I said in order for you to support your response.
Rural South Population Numbers Among African-Americans, 1870 on
1870: 80% of African Americans lived in the rural south (source: Author Kwang Chung Kim).
1890s: This increased to between 90% - over 90% (Sources: escholarship.org and author Melvyn Bragg)
1910: The Percentage of U.S. residents who were African-Americans and chose to reside in the rural south was still over 80% (Source: edliberation.org)
Before WWI: This percentage was still "almost 90%" according to Faustine Jones, "Black Americans & the City: A Historical Survey," Journal of Negro Education, Summer, 1973, p. 265.
So, right there you can see that for over 50 years post-slavery, my comments were not even addressed to this overwhelming number of rural families!! And, not only did almost 90 or even over 90 percent of the black community NOT live in "urban" areas, YOU are the one who changed the remaining "urbanites" from what I said -- "many" to imply I was talking about the entire black community. Furthermore, since you referenced Booker T. Washington -- who died in 1915, please tell me how you could apply Washington's comment made toward almost 90% of rural black families and use that to shine a light on what I said about "urban" families? (Apples & Oranges)
Even in the beginning of the 1930s, the majority of African-Americans lived in the rural South. (So now we're talking 70 years of post-slavery). And you'll note that the South has been the last "frontier" to become urbanized. Cornell University said in 1970 that 41.3% of the rural population of the U.S. still lived in the South.
Atlanta
Yes? And? What do your anecdotal bites about urban Atlanta have to do with what I said? (I never even addressed "the history of a black middle class.") I mean "so what?" The African-American community had a very profitable business community in Tulsa until the race riot of 1921. But how would that negate or reinforce what I said? What do profitable business communities where American-American families thrived in post-slavery America have to do with anything I said?
...my 3xg-grandfather was the #1 slaveholder in Russell County Alabama. The #2 man was a Jewish guy from Charleston or Savannah (can't remember which), and #3 was a free black man.
In 4 states alone, free blacks had over 10,000 slaves. In Charleston, SC, alone over 400 slaveholders in the 1830s and 1840s were black. (Source: University of Wisconsin @ Eau Claire)
Relatively few Southerners owned slaves, since the majority worked on the very large plantations.
The same University of Wisconsin source says "31 percent" of Southerners were slaveholders (another source I saw said "29 percent.") So almost 1/3rd is "a few?" Another source said 49% of South Carolina families were slaveholders...so half of that state is by no means "a few." (Also I don't understand how you can crunch the numbers of 30% = "a few" when defending your heritage but when I pointed out that "many" urban families --which were only 1 of 8 black families referenced to begin with -- is somehow provocative for you).
So, let's get back to my original point about the effects of a legacy -- positive & negative. The University of Wisconsin @ Eau Claire says that in 1820, 68% of black families were headed by a woman. That matriarcal trend continued well into the next 44 slaveholder years...and I contend, beyond that.
Just because that 68% decreased over the generations -- only to rise back up to 70% more than 150 years later -- doesn't mean the two are not totally unrelated. (As with any trend, many variables exist...I never claimed this was the only variable...that would be poor social science)