The Boys and Girls Aid Society of Oregon launched a transracial program in the early 1960s and renamed it “Opportunity” in 1967. The surveys it conducted in the late 1960s and early 1970s were (and are) among the only sources of national and state-by-state statistical data on the adoptions of African-American children during a period of intense debate about where black children belonged. The commentary that accompanies the numbers laments the decline in transracial adoptions and attributes it to opposition by the National Association of Black Social Workers. To my knowledge, these figures, which circulated in mimeographed form, have never been previously published.

OPPORTUNITY's survey of the adoption of black children shows a substantial decrease in the number of black children placed in 1972 in both black and white homes as shown in the following table:

To provide comparative data, the following table shows the placement activity of all agencies (252) which reported from the four consecutive years 1969 through 1972:

BLACK CHILDREN NEED HOMES

The decrease in the total number of black children placed in adoption is particularly disturbing when one considers the tremendous backlog of black children who are in foster homes throughout the country solely because agencies did not have adoptive homes for them. This condition appears slated to become worse, not better. The Child Welfare League of America in their current study of participating private adoption agencies states, “At no time have sufficient non-white homes been approved to accommodate the non-white children accepted (for adoption), and in the last period (July to December 1972) the ratio was only 59 homes per 100 children.” The picture for the participating public agencies was even more discouraging. The League reports, “The 20 public agencies approved 108 white (adoptive) homes for every 100 white children but only 51 non-white homes per 100 non-white children.”

Because of the high backlog of black children, this first year of declining adoptions might be expected to show a percentage decrease in white placements far larger than with black placements. The reverse happens to be true. Total white placements by all responding agencies totalled 32,063 in 1972, a decline of 14% from 1971. Black placements were down 18%, a decline nearly 30% larger than for white placements.

INTERRACIAL ADOPTIONS*

The militant campaign by some black social workers against interracial placements has obviously discouraged certain agencies from approving white adoptive applicants, however qualified they may be. The 39% decrease in placements of black children in white families is not offset by more placements in black homes. Comments by the responding agencies indicated that some had reverted to their earlier practices, denying adoption to black children if no black families were available. The damage to such children, like the cost of maintaining them, is monumental. We can only hope that most adoption agencies, adoptive parent organizations, public officials, and private citizens will insist that every child is entitled to loving parents, regardless of his or their color.

*OPPORTUNITY uses interracial which suggests a “blending” in preference to transracial which connotes a bridge over a chasm.

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CHILDREN PLACED BY AGENCIES FOR ADOPTION IN 1972 BY STATES & REGIONS