On March 25, Take Charge, an “organization committed to supporting the notion that the promise of America works for everyone regardless of race or social station,” hosted a live panel titled “The Crisis of the Black Family,” streamed by Alpha News.
Led by TakeCharge founder Kendall Qualls and executive director Sheila Qualls, the panel featured leaders across sectors such as law, business, clergy, military service, and more.
One of the main reasons for the panel, according to Kendall Qualls, was to highlight that “the vast majority of black Americans believe that children should grow up in a two-parent family, and they want school choice. None of our legacy civil rights organizations support any of those two things—not one.”
“It’s a political agenda, and it’s deliberate—keeping a whole culture down to generational poverty to drive a political agenda and their objective. And then we’re calling it out. This is not where we want to go,” said Qualls.
Sheila Qualls referenced the 1965 Moynihan Report, discussing why its warnings about the breakdown of the black family have largely been ignored over the past six decades.
She noted that Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed that “24 percent of black children were born out of wedlock” in the 1960s, highlighting that the figure has now risen to “almost 80 percent of black children being born into fatherless homes.”
Kendall Qualls mentioned how government intervention has played a significant role in the breakdown of traditional family structures. He explained that “the federal government financially incentivized women to have children outside of marriage.”
This started with the Johnson Administration in the 1960s through the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, which provided financial support as long as there was no adult male living within the home, Qualls said. He said this policy shift significantly contributed to the decline in marriage rates within the black community and the increase in births out of wedlock.
Education
Shifting the conversation toward education and standards, attorney and panel member Kofi Montzka addressed the issue of lowering testing standards, calling it “incredibly racist.”
“Instead of these quick fixes of trying to lower standards, we need to teach our kids that we were born and created equal and we need to teach our kids to do the hard work so that we can pass the test like everybody else,” she said.
Attorney Kofi Montzka calls lowering education standards 'incredibly racist' during a panel with TakeCharge pic.twitter.com/1fSeXKWGZa
— Alpha News (@AlphaNewsMN) March 27, 2025
Panelist Kevin Lewis added his thoughts on education, saying, “As we lower those expectations, we’re sending the wrong message to them that they can’t succeed because of systemic racism or whatever the reason may be.”
Turning the conversation toward DEI, Kendall Qualls explained how “it’s not a civil rights 2.0 issue. It is a Trojan Horse for a Marxist socialist agenda. They’re using black people to trumpet in their agenda.”
Kendall Qualls calls DEI a 'Trojan Horse' during TakeCharge panel discussion pic.twitter.com/lari5B3cX3
— Alpha News (@AlphaNewsMN) March 28, 2025
“We have a family problem, we have an academic, cultural problem that we got to fix within our families. We don’t have a standards problem,” Qualls continued.
Panelist Hillary Swanson shared her perspective: “Equality means that we’re saying that the opportunity is there, but it’s the doer that creates the difference in what happens in the outcome.”
“That opportunity is there for everyone, but what you do with it is up to you,” Swanson concluded.
Kendall Qualls said he invited representatives from the NAACP, the Star Tribune, and the University of Minnesota to attend. He encouraged viewers to join TakeCharge and support pastors working to “lead the culture back to its roots.”
“This is not going to happen politically,” he added. “It’s got to happen at the grassroots level and it has to happen from a Christian biblical point.”
Symone Harms
Symone Harms is a Media Production and Business Marketing student at Bethel University. She is actively involved in The Royals Investment Fund, The 25, theatre, and other leadership positions. She also cohosts Rooted, a podcast dedicated to being rooted in truth, growing in freedom, and prospering in life. A Minnesota native with a passion for storytelling and digital media, she aspires to a career in broadcasting as a news anchor and reporter.
