[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 83 (Thursday, June 14, 2001)]
[House]
[Page H3188]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                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.

                          ____________________