Donna Franklin provides the reader with a very important lesson in how to understand current stresses in family life by studying the ways in which early experiences and circumstances led logically and inevitably to the present depressing, even alarming, state of family life at the end of the twentieth century. This is an important work." -John Hope Franklin, author of From Freedom to Slavery: A History of African Americans Why are so many African-American children growing up in mother-led families? From a nuanced historical perspective, Donna Franklin offers no-holds-barred answers to this question.... She brings a provocative new perspective to America's pressing debates about poverty, fatherlessness, and how to (really) reform welfare." -Theda Skocpol, Professor of Government and Sociology, Harvard University Ensuring Inequality is a well-crated, closely reasoned, and well-documented narrative that challenges conventional understanding of the plight of African American families." -Martin Rein, Professor of Urban Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Franklin's book is a well-informed, thoughful and insightful synthesis, demolishing a number of destructive fallacies as it proceeds through its highly readable chapters. It should be useful to all concerned with family, African American history, social policy and many others." -Linda Gordon, Professor of History, University of Wisconsin No meaningful future discussion of the problems of the black family or of the American 'underclass' can occur without taking account of Donna Franklin's powerful insights, meticulous scholarship and acute analysis. This invaluable scholarly work ought to dispel many of the ideological myths surrounding these subjects." -Professor Roger Wilkins, George Mason University One of the most important contributions to the study of the black family in recent years." - The Washington Post Ensuring Inequality, along with Wilson's When Work Disappears, may be among the leading intellectual salvos in a public policy battle in which it might be said that the liberals are striking back." -Chicago Tribune For years, it has been within the University of Chicago sociological tradition to study factors influencing the development and transformation of immigrant and migrant families. This volume, developed and written by a former faculty member of that institution, illustrates the best of that tradition applied to African-American families." -Contemporary Psychology