Private Sector Alternatives to the Welfare State: A New Agenda for Black Americans
The black community in the U.S. has a rich tradition of self-help institutions. These institutions, essential to black survival, thrived in the time of black slavery, during the period following the Civil War, during the Great Depression and during other crisis — long before there was a welfare state and at times when white society was either hostile or indifferent to the plight of blacks.