This month marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Moynihan Report, the infamous memo that then–Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote for federal policymakers on the apparently dire state of the black family.

Conservatives are taking advantage of the anniversary to publish their usual columns celebrating the report and recalling how Moynihan, maligned and ignored, correctly identified the “real” problem in the black community all those years ago. To them Moynihan is a martyr, and they use his report to bolster their claim that black communities suffer not from institutionalized racism, but rather from a “culture of poverty” that devalues hard work and destabilizes the family.

Liberals also have a long tradition of defending Moynihan. Nearly every year, it seems, someone discovers that Moynihan was indeed a somewhat old-fashioned New Deal liberal, interested in securing full employment and fighting the collateral damage of automation.