From Publiceye.org "Decades of Distortion" (Dec 1997)
The AFDC program, only a small part of the Social Security Act, covered children living with their mothers.30 The legislative history of the Social Security Act allowed the states, which administered the AFDC program, to condition eligibility upon the sexual morality of AFDC mothers through suitable-home or "man-in-the-house" rules.31 These behavioral rules were often intentionally used to exclude African Americans and children of unwed mothers from the rolls.32 One Southern field supervisor reported:
The number of Negro cases is few due to the unanimous feeling on the part of the staff and board that there are more work opportunities for Negro women and to their intense desire not to interfere with local labor conditions. The attitude that "they have always gotten along," and that "all they'll do is have more children" is definite....There is hesitancy on the part of lay boards to advance too rapidly over the thinking of their own communities, which see no reason why the employable Negro mother should not continue her usually sketchy seasonal labor or indefinite domestic service rather than receive a public assistance grant.33