For decades, America has pushed a lie: that the breakdown of the Black family was the result of “bad choices,” “culture,” or “absent fathers.” The data says otherwise.  The collapse wasn’t organic. It was engineered through federal policy, economic sabotage, and deliberate political strategy. It Began With Policy, Not Behavior After emancipation, Black families were targeted through immediate systems of control: Black Codes, vagrancy laws, convict leasing, and forced labor co