This article discusses the impacts of the Moynihan Report, a report on minority male employment and the state of Black inner-city families. It was published by Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1965, less than a month after the assassination of Malcolm X. When it was released to the public, it started a lot of debate around the intersection of poverty and masculinity, as well as the expectation for men to be “breadwinners”. (Jazper Schmidt)

Estes uses the movie Nothing But a Man as an example of some of the disadvantages faced by Black men, especially in the workplace, and how those disadvantages affect their relationship with manhood. In 1964, the year the film came out, 29% of Black men were unemployed at some point in the year, and the unemployment rate was 5x higher than that of white men. This high unemployment, as shown in the film, led to an internalized and reinforced belief in many Black men of not being “man” enough, that having a job was an inherent part of the social role of being a man. (Jazper Schmidt)