Exactly fifty years ago, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan declared a crisis in race relations. The only remedy, he declared, was to focus on “a new kind of national goal: the establishment of a stable Negro family structure.” Unfortunately, the deterioration of the black family has only grown worse, and white, Hispanic, and Asian families have followed right along. Let us use this Valentine’s season to start a revolution of love, especially within our families, that produces a “happily ever after” ending for ourselves, our children, and our nation.
Join the Marriage and Religion Research Institute and The Family Research Council at noon on February 12 for the annual release of the Fifth Index of Belonging and Rejection and its complementary report, The State of the Black Family. The Index charts present intactness of the family in the U.S. by examining the proportion of seventeen year olds who live in an intact married family. Special guests Garland Hunt and Star Parker will join MARRI director Patrick Fagan in discussing how reviving an everlasting love in the American family, especially the black family, is the key to national reform.
Garland Hunt
Garland R. Hunt, Esq., a graduate of Howard University School of Law, has been President of Prison Fellowship, Commissioner of the Georgia State Department of Juvenile Justice, and Chairman of the State Board of Pardons and Parole. Earlier in his career he was staff attorney for the U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit. Vice-President of the Association of Paroling Authorities International (APAI). He was a member of the Governor’s Commission on Family Violence.
He has received numerous awards, especially in the field of parole services, including the APAI President’s Award and the Ben Baer Award.
In church ministry work Garland, an ordained minister, is the co-pastor of The Father’s House in Norcross, Georgia. He has been General Counsel and Executive Vice-President of the Fellowship of International Churches (FOIC) in Atlanta, as well as Vice-President of Wellington Boone Ministries in Atlanta, an umbrella organization of several community-based initiatives to college and high school students.
He is married to Eileen and has three adult children, Garland Jr., Christa and Jeremy.
Star Parker
Star Parker is one of the names on the short list national black conservative leaders. She is the founder and president of The Center for Urban Renewal and Education, a public policy think tank that promotes market-based solutions to fight poverty.
Early in her life Star spent seven years in the grip of welfare dependency, but worked her way out of it and went on to become a much-sought consultant on Welfare Reform in the mid-90s, when she founded UrbanCure, dedicated to moving America's poor out of welfare dependency.
Star has a bachelor's degree in Marketing and International Business from Woodbury University and has received numerous awards and commendations for her work on public policy issues.
She regularly consults with both federal and state legislators on market-based strategies to fight poverty; she has spoken on more than 190 colleges and universities about anti-poverty initiatives, has authored several books and is a nationally syndicated columnist with Morris Communication Group.
