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“FATHER'S DAY IS ABOUT MORE THAN PRESENTS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H3188 on June 14, 2001.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
FATHER'S DAY IS ABOUT MORE THAN PRESENTS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Issa). Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, all over America we are hearing the words,
``Happy Father's Day.'' I come to the floor this afternoon to remind America that Father's Day is about more than presents. What are the children without fathers to do?
Fully a third of our children in our country are without fathers, being raised by one parent, usually a woman. The numbers are increasing at an alarming rate. The only thing harder than raising children is one parent raising children. Often that is the case today. If there are one-third of children without fathers today in the home, in the African American community that number is two-thirds.
The results are appalling to family formation. Chronic joblessness among black males, disproportionate numbers in prison which keep family formation from occurring in the usual way, led me to search for answers. I have been involved in a number of activities, and the most recent was inspired by the Million Man March in 1995. I was concerned that something concrete should come out of this march to capture the energy of almost a million African American men coming to Washington to indicate they were going to do something about reconstruction of their communities and of black family life itself.
Yet when they went home and said what am I to do, well, some in fact found lots to do. But for the average unaffiliated black man, there was nothing to capture that energy.
Mr. Speaker, I believe that government and business and unions and communities ought to have a response so that this energy could be used to the highest and best effect. I conceived the idea of a commission on black men and boys that would allow black men and boys in the District of Columbia to get together to indicate what to do and how to do it. Recently we received funding from the Department of Labor.
This commission, set up in the District of Columbia, will be holding hearings; will identify available sources of government and community and private assistance for black men and boys in the District of Columbia; and will point out what the successes are and what the needs and gaps are. The point is it is not another study, ladies and gentlemen. We know the problem is acute. This is an opportunity to get down to brass tacks, tackling one of the great problems in our country which is fatherlessness, one-parent homes in the African American community, rapidly spreading throughout the United States.
George Stark, the former Redskins offensive lineman, is the chair. We have one of our former police chiefs on the commission, the president of the District of Columbia student body, a high school representative, and other men in the city who have been involved in the activities of black men and boys.
The most important manifestation of the accumulated difficulties of African American men is the failure to form families and extraordinary patterns of family disillusion. This is a frightening trend that is traced to an essential actor in the African American community: the black male. We cannot do without him. Black feminists like me have been able to draw attention to what has happened to the women raising these children alone, what happens to girls who get pregnant when they are teens. We are bringing that down. It is time to focus on the black man, the other essential actor.
When we do so, we can halt this frightening trend which is already having domino generational effects that endanger the children of the African American community. Further delay in bringing a strong, concentrated focus on black men and boys before they become men quite simply threatens the viability of the African American community as we have known it historically in our country from slavery to this very moment.
We hope that our own Commission on Black Men and Boys here in the District of Columbia will serve as a model for what other communities can do to bring a focused attention led by black men and boys themselves on an urgent problem in the African American community and in America at large.
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