Dawson's Vow

In 2001, nearly seven out of 10 African-American babies were born to unmarried mothers. Bad public policy deserves part of the blame for the low rate of marriage among blacks, says Diann Dawson, who has worked for the federal government for 24 years. Now, she believes, government should play a role in helping to rebuild the black family.

As a result, during the past year Dawson has begun to organize the African-American Healthy Marriage Initiative at the Administration for Children and Families, a branch of the Health and Human Services Department. The initiative's goal is to spark community organizations and churches to educate black Americans about the benefits of marriage, as well as the challenges.

A career Senior Executive Service member at ACF, Dawson admits that she knew little about the "marriage movement"-loosely coordinated, small groups that have sprung up in all parts of the country in recent years-when her boss, movement stalwart Wade Horn, came to the agency in 2001. But she was impressed with the statistics he cited in arguing that married families are happier, healthier and wealthier than single-parent households.

Still, something didn't sit right with Dawson. "I didn't see the issues being addressed quite in the way [that would address] some of the concerns we face in [in the black] community."

At the same time, feminist organizations were slamming Horn for championing government funding for marriage education. They argued that it could lead women to stay in abusive relationships, and that decisions about marriage were none of the government's business. And many blacks didn't believe that an initiative developed by a white man in a Republican administration would be well-received by their community.

Still, Dawson went to Horn and volunteered to help. She enlisted three African-American regional administrators at ACF and began to organize events to raise awareness. Thus far, ACF has sponsored four forums around the country, bringing together business and community leaders to think about developing marriage education programs. Among the groups that have volunteered to pitch in are the Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that provides job training for the poor, the Center for New Black Leadership, a Washington conservative think tank, and the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, a national fraternal organization based in Baltimore.

In addition, Horn freed up $6.2 million in ACF funds to launch some programs on a small scale. In March, Dawson joined forces with the Wedded Bliss Foundation, a Washington-based group founded after the October 2000 Million Family March on Washington to promote marriage in the black community. The foundation's founder, Nisa Islam Muhammad, is a national correspondent for the Final Call, a newspaper run by the Nation of Islam. With Dawson's help, the foundation teamed with Black Enterprise magazine to host a nationwide Black Marriage Day, which included workshops and the renewal of wedding vows in about 70 cities.

Dawson says she is laying a foundation. She hopes she will be able to do much more when Congress re-authorizes the 1996 welfare reform legislation, which includes $1.5 billion in additional funds to help states and communities launch marriage education programs. But the welfare bill has been hung up in Congress on disputes over welfare work requirements and child-care funding.

She hopes that partisanship doesn't wipe out the progress that's been made. To this point, she says, people of all political persuasions are coming around, and attendees at her forums agree. Diane Weathers, editor-in-chief of Essence magazine, attended one last year. Many of the participants, she editorialized last October, "didn't necessarily share my political ideology, [but] we all agreed that men, women and especially children derive immeasurable benefits from a strong marital bond."

Dawson has bucked the critics because she's seen firsthand how public policy drives family decisions. Starting her career in the South Carolina Department of Social Services, she worked on the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program-the old welfare system. AFDC was fundamentally flawed, Dawson believes, because it denied aid to most two-parent households. "It absolutely played a role in the destruction of some families," she says. "If you needed some help, the man had to leave his family." In the 1990s, Dawson helped usher in welfare reform as the No. 2 official in the ACF's Office of Family Assistance.

She rejects the argument that other concerns of African-Americans, such as the high rates at which black men are jailed or the poor state of urban public schools, should take priority over marriage promotion. "There are many issues that we need to deal with," she says. "It's not an issue of 'Let's deal with people who are incarcerated and then we won't need to do this.' People are always going to make decisions about their relationships. We are adding another service component."

Dawson's resolve strengthens when she thinks of her own upbringing in a two-parent household in segregated Wilson, N.C. Her parents "were perfect people in my mind," she says. And her community was full of committed parents like them, she recalls. "It's not about how poor you are. It's about what they valued. They valued education, even though they weren't educated. And so, when I hear people say, 'Let's deal with the schools,' I say, 'Yes, we should,' but I've also said there's something very fundamental that children get whether or not they are poor, and it comes from their parents."

To feminist critics of her program, Dawson says that good marriage education will boost women's self-esteem and teach them to avoid bad relationships. "Why can't we be positive and interject some services that would be very constructive?" she asks.

That positive attitude also has won Dawson some allies. "Diann is a public servant," says Dianna Durham-McLoud, president of the Illiana Coalition for Family and Community Restoration, an Illinois-based pro-marriage group. "To see her move through the system, and make things happen in a way that will be effective, is wonderful."

Not Tying the Knot

Since 1970, the percentage of unmarried black men and women above age 15 has risen steadily.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau