ABSTRACT

The roles of historical precedents, current culture, and family structure are significant in understanding intergenerational health. It has been suggested that African-American culture, family structure, and lifestyle, more than any other group, must be viewed in its complexity as an adaptation to conditions in the American social system (Billingsley, 1993). These conditions have often been harsh beginning with the forced removal from familiar lands and structures that supported their growth and survival to foreign shores that rendered them powerless, in a system set up to threaten every aspect of their being, offering no legal or moral protections.