daughter of Rose's niece wanted to return to California, and they welcomed her with open arms. She moved in with them, finished high school, started college, and got married, all in the same year. She now has two children, and lives with her husband in another area of the Valley. The niece and her husband refer to them as

"Aunt Rose" and "Uncle Al," according to the Turners, but the niece's children know them as "Grandma" and "Grandpa." The Turners proudly accept their new role, one which has provided a focus for their declining years as well as a new dimension to their lives. Although the Turners had not raised children of their own, the situation was no problem for them. They adapted to the role of new parents and grandparents very easily.

The niece's inability to adapt to a family life with her stepfather has currently severed relations with her mother, which seems to be mutually satisfactory. As a result, although she does not address the Turners as "mother and father," she introduces them to friends as her parents. A symbiotic relationship exists between

the Turners and their niece which has proved beneficial to all. Such arrangements of surrogate parenting are not uncommon among blacks, as they are an extension of the "raising" practice.

The fact that the Turners had a distant relative enter their immediate family circle at a late stage in their lives should not detract from the importance of the practice of child-raising. Traditionally, blacks do not go through the legal steps of child adoption, but rather assume parenthood as a fait accompli through raising children. Many older, urban blacks without children have acquired families in this way.

Another example of long-term family benefits derived from the practice of surrogate parenting is the case of Mae Daniels. "Aunt Mae," as she is fondly called by many of her family, is a widowed septuagenarian who lives by herself in El Paso, Texas. She had two childless marriages, but raised many of her nieces and nephews periodically during the depression and war years. This was necessitated by her brothers and sisters having to go and come with the job market. She in turn raised, from time to time, the children of her nieces and nephews, which provided her with grandparenting experience.

Now, Mae has close contact with two generations of nieces and nephews as a result of her surrogate parenting. She visits them often in Fort Worth and Los Angeles. This provides her with a strong family system to see her through her remaining years. The beneficial effects of the practice of child raising do not end with Mae's nieces and nephews. In El Paso, she lives in close proximity to an older sister, Minnie. They look after each other's welfare, and do many things together. Minnie was raised by Mae's mother and father as one of their own children. This author is grateful to Mae's parents, who have provided him with two such wonderful aunts as Mae and Minnie.

A Projected Future for the Black Family

Traditional roles discussed thus far have been based upon the structure of the extended family but have not taken into account the current reorganization of the black family into nuclear units. As more blacks become urbanized, it appears that the persistence of traditional roles for the black aged is highly uncertain. What Frazier foresaw as a breaking down of the black family system because of movement into the middle class may well be emerging.4

Cohesion and solidarity are two common traits of traditional extended black families which have transcended both households and spatial distance. This is best attributed to the family's need to survive in white environments

As more blacks become urbanized, it appears that the persistence of traditional roles for the black aged is

highly uncertain.

The process of acculturation and assimilation into the major social system is expected to dilute, if not destroy, both the traditional and cultural vestiges found in the black family of past

generations.

which strictly observed both social and economic opportunities for their own members. The effects of giant strides in civil rights legislation and desegregation practices in the latter part of this century will inevitably be mirrored in the family structure of future black families.

According to current population trends, not only is the national birth rate for blacks dropping, but black mothers are becoming increasingly older at the time of their first child's birth. The reasons for these changing birth patterns are not explicitly clear, but the results are that emerging black families are approaching the demographic and social characteristics of their white counterparts, as alluded to by Frazier.

While contemporary young blacks have increasingly better access to higher education, they also, at the same time, represent the nation's highest unemployed category. Both of these conditions render them dependent upon their parents for longer periods than their preceding generations. Either case may result in their delaying the start of a family, thus causing a change in the age patterns of black families.

Younger blacks who are successful in starting families most generally become neolocal, moving away from the parents of both spouses and establishing their own nuclear family unit. This limits the amount of interaction between grandparents and grandchildren, especially when there are great spatial distances between the families. Additionally, young parents are exercising more authority and assuming more

responsibility for the upbringing of their children, which curtails the amount of influence that grandparents have over the grandchildren. More importantly, this arrangement is preferred by many contemporary grandparents, who want

time for themselves.

Lack of interaction between generations may result in the loss of a primary role enjoyed by traditional black elderly, that of value transmission to the younger members of the family. In a study conducted in a southern California suburban community of aging blacks, it was found that schism is developing between elders and their offspring. A sample of residents who had migrated to the area from the South reported that a major concern was their children's rejection of traditional values.

One respondent, 52-year-old Alice Brown, was left with four children to raise when her husband was killed in an auto accident in 1959. The role of single parent was especially hard for her. She recounted how she sacrificed for her children, and longed for the day when they would be independent. Alice wanted to be able to enjoy life, take vacations, and do things for

herself in her time away from work.

Her children are all grown now, but they continue to return home. Daughter Charlene became pregnant before she finished high school. This was a total affront to Alice's value system but was "no big deal" to Charlene. Charlene and her baby live with Alice. Alice's three sons move in and out of her house "whenever they feel like it." One has been married and divorced, and though his former wife has custody of their daughter, she spends a lot of time in Alice's care. Mrs. Brown is not enjoying her role of grandpar

ent.

Alice Brown was raised in a family system which valued the work ethic, education and marriage, and devalued disrespect towards parents and elders, premarital sex, and the use of any kind of dole. Despite this, in Alice's opinion her children have rejected the positive values of her generation, and have adopted a negative system as their way of life.

The theme of differing value systems between aging parents and their children was commented on at a more basic level by another respondent, Otis Cates, a 58-year-old barber and native Texan. His main concern about the young was their lack of basic survival skills which were instilled in all past generations of blacks. Survival skills are common-sense practices used by blacks as a method of coping with poverty and racism.

According to Cates, young blacks of today do not know how good they have it compared to his generation. They have neither endured extreme poverty nor experienced severe levels of discrimination as did his generation. Lack of respect for parents and elders was another of his concerns. "I can just see one of them youngsters mouthin' off to Mr. Charlie (term for white man) like they does to us. They'd be dead Negroes," said Cates. He continued, "One thing we learnt early was. how to survive on nothin'. If somethin' happened to us, they couldn't fend for themselves; wouldn't know what to do."

Sentiments like those of Otis Cates and Alice Brown among contemporary blacks who have lived on both sides of the effects of racial discrimination point out the changing role of elderly black family members. The current move toward racial equality and equal economic opportunity may well remove the necessity for the special roles played by traditional aged black family members. The distinctiveness of their past roles resulted from the lifestyle of blacks which was dictated by their place within the major social system.

If blacks achieve in the future a lifestyle comparable to whites, then the fulfillment of

Frazier's prediction of similarity in family units between whites and blacks is imminent. The process of acculturation and assimilation into the major social system is expected to dilute, if not destroy both the tradition and the cultural vestiges found in the black family of past generations. The effects of blacks achieving middle-class status will remove many roles from the family which are now reserved for the elders. It is absurd to imagine that there will still be a need for the Pierre Lartiques to "float fish" and hunt to provide food for the family, or for Big Mamma to cure an illness when the family has a health insurance plan.

There is a sadness attached to the passing of the traditional black family. The system of support provided by its family institution has been responsible for the survival of blacks as a counterculture in the United States. Especially sad is the role loss expected for the black aged. Although more black elderly live with their offspring than do whites, the number is decreasing as more of them than ever before are living out their lives in retirement homes. The number can be expected to rise as the utility of the aged decreases.

Retirement homes have not been especially appealing to older blacks who were highly integrated into their family systems. However, with the current move among contemporary blacks towards individuality and personal

freedom from the system of extended families, there is a possibility that in future generations, retirement homes may become palatable to them.

Perhaps younger blacks, who have adopted a different value system than their elders, will find caring friendship circles in facilities for the aged. Losses in interaction between current black generations, when projected into the future, can mean the isolation of grandparents from their grandchildren. Traditional black families have used that relationship as an avenue to perpetuate affection and to bind the generations together. This relationship may become the most serious casualty in the changing Black family's structure.

REFERENCES

This is a commonly used procedure for establishing older Blacks' birthdates due to the disdain for keeping records of Blacks during that period in the South.

2 Alex Haley Roots. Garden City, New York. Doubleday & Co. 1976.

3 E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939, Chapter VIII.

4 Op. cit. Chapters XIX-XXII.

5 W. E. Huling, Aging Blacks in Suburbia, dissertation, University of Southern California, 1978.

f great importance to the aged, in general, and aged blacks, in particular, is the commitment of the Federal government to insure their rights and entitlements.

Separating out older black Americans for detailed consideration and analysis is warranted for several reasons: aged blacks tend to confront the adjustments common to old age with fewer financial resources than their white counterparts; they are victims of a lifetime of social and economic disadvantages; and the effects of being black exacerbate the problems of old age so that a sizeable proportion of the black aged population experience what the Senate Special Committee on Aging termed a "multiple hazard."

The overall objective of this article is fourfold: one, to highlight the need for Federal efforts in the aging field by presenting a profile of the elderly population and their concerns/needs; two, to provide a Federal perspective on the minority aged, in general, and

Action

N. Alan Sheppard, Ph.D.

Dr. Sheppard is Deputy Assistant to the Chairman of the Federal Council on the Aging.

aged blacks, in particular; three, to show by example, how a Federal agency such as the Federal Council on the Aging can move from concern to action for the minority elderly; and four to discuss how the Federal government can move toward ensuring the rights and entitlements of aged blacks.

Aging Picture Today and Tommorrow

A clue to the future: the elderly are the fastest growing element of our overall population. Between 1960 and 1975, for example, the proportion of elderly in the total population increased from 9.2 percent in 1960 to 10.5 percent in 1975. The "aging" of

the black population proceeded at a somewhat slower rate during this time with the proportion of blacks 65 years of age and over increasing from 6.2 to 7.2 percent over five year period. In terms of absolute numbers the percentage increase translates into 1.8 million older black persons in 1975, a gain of approximately 300,000 between 1970 and 1975.

These shifts in social composition promise a shattering variety of changes in the lives of all of us, and in the landscape of our cities-just as the post World War II "baby boom" led to a proliferation of suburbs and school construction and later the youth led political turmoil of the 1960's.

Some signs of the coming shift have already begun to materialize throughout our society. We are beginning to see fundamental changes in the delivery of health care, transportation, and other government services; a functional redefinition of what government is supposed to do and be; and an extension of benefits of these changes

to younger elements of the population. The nation's elderly are being aided in their quest for a redefinition and redistribution of power by more than just their raw numbers. In line with a number of other governmental rearrangements during the 1970's, the most venerable minority now has its own special interest advocacy and funding agency structure outside the traditional political apparatus and often in conflict with it. These new political mechanisms are similar in construction and intent to the Office of Economic Opportunity for the poor of all ages or the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration.

Major Problems of the Aging

In the United States, we have certain democratic ideals about access to services, availability of resources, and social support. We believe there should be equal opportunity for the goods of society (Dancey, 1977). Yet in reality, we know that elderly people, and particularly black elderly people, are very much deprived with regard to access, availability and support. In part, this is illustrative of the unfavorable stereotype or form of discrimination labeled as "ageism which suggests that there is something wrong with being old.. Illustrations of the adverse impact of these unfavorable sterotypes upon the lives of older persons are all around us. They result in discrimination in employment and housing, they greatly limit educational and recreational opportunities, they separate generations and they induce loneliness and hopelessness" (Montgomery, 1973). Largely as a result of ageism older persons constitute the largest deprived group in America. They are deprived in terms of income, health care, nutrition, transportation, acceptance, dignity, and even spiritual well-being. Discussions of these concerns are well documented in aging literature (Sheppard and Turner, 1976; Dancy, 1973; Hill, 1973; Sheppard, 1974).

Federal Perspective on Elderly
Minorities

In the last several years it has been recognized that elderly Blacks, His

panics, American Indians and Asians. suffer from multiple jeopardy; not only do they experience problems due to their minority status, but they also experience problems often associated with aging, such as health or income difficulties.

The Federal Council on the Aging,' has become aware of and concerned about variations in groups within the older population. A major area of concern is that the four dominent ethnic minority groups-American Indians, Blacks, Hispanics/Latinos, and Asian Americans generally have shorter life expectancies than their white counterparts. And as a result, minority group advocates have proposed that the age criteria for eligibility for government programs should be different for minority elderly. For

example, at the 1971 White House Conference on Aging, the idea was advanced that social security retirement benefits for blacks and other minorities should begin several years earlier than for whites because of these shorter life expectancies.

The Federal Council on the Aging was established under the provisions of the 1973 Amendments to the Older Americans Act for the purpose of advising the President, the Secretary of HEW, the Commissioner on Aging, and the Congress on matters relating to the needs of older Americans.

Throughout its deliberations, the Federal Council on the Aging adopted a position calling for equity in Federal programs and policies for the nation's older citizens. If there are major differences in the life expectancies and in other aging related factors between minority elderly or some minority elderly groups, and the majority elderly, the Council felt these differences should be clearly understood and addressed.

Minority Policy Study

The Federal Council's Research and Manpower Committee considered the need for a minority policy study, which would provide information and data to permit the Council to make informed and realistic recommendations based on an understanding of the impact of Federal policies on minority elderly. Eventually, the Research and Manpower Committee proposed to the full Council that a study be undertaken to examine and assess the policy implications of present and proposed Federal legislation on minority elderly.

Scope of the Study2

In October 1977, the Federal Council contracted with the Human Resources Corporation of San Francisco, a minority firm, to conduct the study. The contractor was asked specifically: ⚫ to formulate policy recommendations which seek to achieve equity for minority elderly; ⚫ to formulate alternative policy recommendations to the Council's frail elderly porposal (if warranted); and

to identify data gaps and research needs in these and related

areas.

The recommendations were to be derived from a review of the following

sources:

• Federal benefit and service programs;

the Federal Council on Aging's frail elderly proposal;

2 The summary scope of the Federal Council on the Aging Elderly Minority Study was taken from a paper by ex-Council member Dr. Sharon Fujii, who served in an advisory capacity to the contractor.