It's factual to say that people are best set-up to succeed in life when their parents are happy and remain together, they receive good education and are surrounded by a loving environment.
Jim Crow laws in America led to many years of segregation and a disadvantaged population as a result. The idea that blacks and whites were 'separate but equal' made segregation acceptable. Unfortunately, the separate part unfolded and 'equal' did not eventuate. Black schools (and facilities on the whole) were much worse than the ones the whites had access to, this led to a poorer education and life experience generally.
Racism also meant business owners (who were overwhelmingly non-black, due to historical reasons such as slavery) didn't employ blacks, this meant blacks were poorer on the whole as they were not employed. You didn't hire black people unless you were happy to pay them less (and some did). When equal pay became a thing, many blacks lost their jobs to white people.
Add to this the government incentive for women not to get married in the late 1900's which led to black single-family households going from 20% to 70% in a very short period of time. As mentioned, fractured families impact children.
The above things are purely things that have occurred since ~1880. You could go further back and try to understand the impacts slavery had on blacks for generations, even after it was abolished.
While I agree that people are responsible for their own decisions, it's also true that some are much further back than others when it comes to living a 'successful' and 'fulfilling' life. I don't think this negates personal responsibility, but hopefully helps us deal with others in a more gracious way.
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