Between 1968 and 1972, approximately 50,000 black and biracial children were adopted by white adoptive parents. At the time, adoption of black children by white families was thought necessary due to the increasing number of black children in foster care and the seeming lack of black adoptive families. In the early 1970s, transracial adoptions gained in popularity as the number of available white infants declined and the number of prospective adoptive parents continued to grow.
The practice of transracial adoption was severely challenged in 1972. At the national conference of the North American Council on Adoptable Children, the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) issued a formal position opposing transracial adoption, citing concerns that such placements compromised the child's racial and cultural identity, amounting to a form of cultural genocide. The NABSW expressed concern that black children raised in white homes would fail to develop effective coping strategies to deal with racism and discrimination, and would experience subsequent identity conflicts as they grew older. The NABSW also challenged traditional adoption practices and raised questions about institutionalized racism within the adoption profession. They brought forward existing evaluation criteria for prospective adoptive couples that routinely prevented black families from qualifying, and stated that even though prospective black adoptive families did exist, adoption agencies were failing to recruit them and were, in fact, passing them over in favor of white couples.