We must study and invest in grassroots work that raises marriage rates.
We must study and invest in grassroots work that raises marriage rates.
B rad Wilcox has written an important new book in which he explores how strong marriages benefit individuals and society in virtually every way imaginable. I thank him for doing so, because I don’t have the patience to marshal all the necessary evidence to persuade elites of something that I consider common sense: that strong marriages are the irreplaceable building blocks of healthy families and communities. And more importantly for the work I have done for decades, strong marriages are crucial in the effort to overcome generational poverty and revitalize struggling communities.
Making the case for marriage and even enacting marriage-supporting policies are welcome steps if they can happen, but they are not remotely close to sufficient for the restoration of marriage in the places where it is most needed. There are those who falsely claim that the decline of marriage and rise in out-of-wedlock births in the low-income segments of the black community are due to the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. In fact, the opposite is true. Slaves went out of their way to marry, even when forbidden by law. Upon emancipation, freed slaves worked tirelessly to reunite with family members separated by sale or war.
For at least a century after slavery, black Americans built strong families and communities characterized by devout Christian faith and self-determination. When the country was struggling through the Great Depression, the black marriage rate was higher than the white marriage rate. In my own low-income black urban neighborhood in Philadelphia, nearly every home had a man and a woman raising children. It was also safe, and the elderly could walk in the streets without fear, even late at night. Any serious attempt to strengthen marriage and family in these communities today must build on the faith and self-determination that drove those past successes. This is not only possible, it is happening all over the country. You just have to know where to look.
If you look on the walls of the Woodson Center conference room, you will see photographs of scores of grassroots leaders, many of them former gang members, drug dealers, or criminals. As part of their redemptive journey almost all of them, in addition to exiting lives of crime, formed marriages and families that have stood the test of time.
Derrick and Kenisha Ross, who were gang leaders in Washington, D.C., in the 1990s, have now been married for over two decades, building successful careers and raising their children in what any outside observer would deem a loving, healthy environment. Gary Wyatt, once a drug dealer, has been married to his wife, Patricia, for over 33 years. In both of these cases, the marriages had a multiplicative effect: More of their neighbors pursued marriage because they saw a living example of what was possible.
If marriage rates are a leading indicator of prosperity, as Wilcox demonstrates in his work, they are most often a trailing indicator of the success of the work that we do at the Woodson Center. The Rosses and the Wyatts decided to marry after they decided to give up destructive behaviors and devoted themselves to their Christian faith. In most low-income struggling communities, the largest barrier to marriage isn’t the hypocritical and destructive elite worldview that discourages marriage. It is a combination of lack of character — currently found up and down the income spectrum — and negative social pressures.
The most important solution, then, to the decline of marriage in low-income communities is to build character and create positive social pressure. At the Woodson Center, we have found that the most effective way to do that is by supporting the indigenous, neighborhood-scale institutions that naturally emerge in response to social problems.
Consider the Wyatts’ own organization, North Hill Community House / He Brought Us Out. It works daily to reduce neighborhood violence and increase peace and prosperity in struggling neighborhoods in Akron, Ohio. In 2022 the organization was instrumental in preventing a police-involved killing from escalating into riots. When he “started to have a voice in the community,” he “knew that a strong marriage could make the difference in your voice,” Wyatt explained. “Patricia and I were very transparent in our decision-making and growing and raising a family together.” “We built our organization” on the foundation of “family and marriage.”
Another Woodson Center affiliate, CFADD, also emphasizes marriage, through direct, practical teaching with a robust curriculum but, more importantly, by modeling healthy, strong marriages. CFADD gives people who are divorced or who never married, whether with or without children, the opportunity both to observe and to learn the skills, habits, and character traits they need to form successful marriages.
There are many other examples of these oases of marital stability. They exert positive social pressure to marry and help those who may not have grown up with many examples of strong marriages to access the wisdom and supportive community that enable them to build their own. Pastor Bryan Carter in Dallas offers free pre-marital counseling and free weddings to cohabiting couples.
As I have complained for decades, these institutions are either invisible to most social scientists and government officials or dismissed out of hand for not being led by credentialed experts.
At the end of the day, the human virtue needed to build successful marriages is caught more than it is taught. In a perfect world, this happens in one’s own nuclear family. But in the absence of that, indigenous mediating structures must make up the gap. For more than 40 years, the Woodson Center has identified and resourced these groups in some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in America and has witnessed astounding transformation as a result.
If those who are persuaded by Wilcox’s argument are serious about addressing the marriage crisis in these communities, they will follow suit.