David Blankenhorn is founder and president of the Institute for American Values, a nonpartisan organization devoted to strengthening families and civil society in the U.S. and the world.
A 1998 profile in the New York Times describes Blankenhorn as a “consensus builder for a moral base in society.” Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School writes: “No one writes about the crisis in American family life with more candor, intelligence, and sympathetic understanding than David Blankenhorn.” USA Today in 2000 describes Blankenhorn as “leading a grass-roots movement” to strengthen marriage. A 1995 profile in the Los Angeles Times called him “the de facto navigator” of a new fatherhood movement and the Idaho Statesman describes Blankenhorn’s 1995 book, Fatherless America, as “the bible of the fatherhood movement.” In 2005, Carl Gershman of the National Endowment for Democracy called Blankenhorn’s Islam/West project “the most effective initiative to influence opinion in the Arab world since 9/11.”
Blankenhorn has co-edited eight books: Rebuilding the Nest: A New Commitment to the American Family (1990); Seedbeds of Virtue: Sources of Competence, Character, and Citizenship in American Society (1995); Promises to Keep: Decline and Renewal of Marriage in America (1996); The Fatherhood Movement (1999); The Book of Marriage: The Wisest Answers to the Toughest Questions (2001); Black Fathers in Contemporary American Society (2003); Does Christianity Teach Male Headship? (2004); and The Islam/West Debate (2005).
In 1994, Blankenhorn helped to found the National Fatherhood Initiative, serving as that organization’s founding chairman. In 1992, he was appointed by President Bush to serve on the National Commission on America’s Urban Families. A frequent lecturer, Blankenhorn’s ideas have been cited in Time, Newsweek, the Economist, and elsewhere, and his articles have appeared in scores of publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, First Things, and Christianity Today. He has been profiled by the CBS Evening News and other news organizations, and has been featured on numerous national television programs, including Oprah, CBS This Morning, The Today Show, Charlie Rose, ABC Evening News, and C-SPAN’s Washington Perspectives.
Prior to founding the Institute in 1987, Blankenhorn worked as a community organizer in Virginia and Massachusetts. He served two years as a VISTA Volunteer. A native of Jackson, Mississippi, Blankenhorn attended public schools in Jackson and in Salem, Virginia. As a high school student, he founded the Mississippi Community Service Corps and the Virginia Community Service Corps. In 1977, he graduated magna cum laude in social studies from Harvard, where he was president of Phillips Brooks House, the campus community service center, and the recipient of a John Knox Fellowship. In 1978, he was awarded an M.A. with distinction in comparative social history from the University of Warwick in Coventry, England.
Blankenhorn was born in 1955. He lives in New York City with his wife, Raina, their son, Raymond, and their two daughters, Sophia and Alexandra.
Speaking Topics
The Rights of Children and the Redefinition of Parenthood
The State of the Family
