9/23/2023 0 Comments Kerner report findings![]() ![]() Commissioners focused attention on institutional forces such as unemployment, housing discrimination, and particularly the police. As Zelizer writes, the report "blamed 'white racism' for producing the conditions that were at the heart of the riots," tracing the history of racial unease all the way back to slavery. It took aim at federal and state governments for their failed education, housing, and social service policies. The commission found that the riots were the result of black frustration at the lack of economic opportunity. An opening passage, which became the document's most memorable line, reads: "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white-separate and unequal." The final 426-page report, released in February 1968, maintained its provocativeness. ![]() He challenged the group to "let your search be free, untrammeled by what has been called the 'conventional wisdom.'"Ī first draft of the report, however, proved so inflammatory that the attorney in charge "cursed and screamed" while his colleague threw the pages against a wall, Zelizer wrote in his 2016 essay. In the wake of riots in cities across the country, many of which saw black citizens clash violently with police, Johnson wanted to know what had happened, why it happened, and what could be done to prevent it from happening again. Otto Kerner of Illinois-was appointed by President Lyndon B. The bipartisan, 11-member group-known officially the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, but commonly referred to as the Kerner Commission after its chair, Gov. senator from Oklahoma and the only surviving member of the Kerner Commission. Zelizer is among the academics and policy experts who will contribute from Baltimore, along with a number of scholars from Johns Hopkins and Fred Harris, a former U.S. ![]() Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture and at Berkeley, with a live broadcast available at the Lewis Museum. The Kerner Commission at 50 will feature eight panel discussions, with speakers both at Baltimore's Reginald F. This week, to mark the 50th anniversary of the report, Johns Hopkins will co-host a three-day conference, along with the University of California, Berkeley and the Economic Policy Institute, examining the current state of race and inequality in America. "That's really the center of it, in addition to how the media portrays urban violence." "Many are surprised at just how much the report revolves around the issue of policing," says Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs and the author or editor of 18 books on American political history. Though the Kerner Report never brought about the massive policy shifts its authors recommended, its findings have remained relevant through the decades as the tensions of 1967 continued to reappear in new forms-most recently, in unrest over police brutality in cities such as Baltimore Charlotte and Ferguson, Missouri. ![]() "It's incredible to look back at, but even today it's hard to imagine the government producing any report that is this blunt." "Certainly then people weren't comfortable or familiar with a report, coming from the government, that was so hard-hitting," says Princeton professor Julian Zelizer, who wrote an introduction to a 2016 reissue of the text. Video credit: Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society ![]()
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