Kerner Commission
Encyclopedia
The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the Kerner Commission after its chair, Governor
Otto Kerner, Jr.
of Illinois
, was an 11-member commission established by President
Lyndon B. Johnson
to investigate the causes of the 1967 race riots
in the United States
and to provide recommendations for the future.
of 1966), and Newark (1967 Newark riots
). In his remarks upon signing the order establishing the Commission, Johnson asked for answers to three basic questions about the riots: "What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again and again?"
played a pivotal role in writing the commission's findings. The Commission's final report, the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders or Kerner Report was released on February 29, 1968 after seven months of investigation. The report became an instant best-seller, and over two million Americans bought copies of the 426-page document. Its finding was that the riots resulted from black frustration at lack of economic opportunity. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., pronounced the report a "physician's warning of approaching death, with a prescription for life."
The report berated federal and state governments for failed housing, education and social-service policies. The report also aimed some of its sharpest criticism at the mainstream media. "The press has too long basked in a white world looking out of it, if at all, with white men's eyes and white perspective."
The report's most infamous passage warned, "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—-separate and unequal."
Its results suggested that one main cause of urban violence was white
racism
and suggested that white America bore much of the responsibility for black rioting and rebellion. It called to create new jobs, construct new housing, and put a stop to de-facto segregation
in order to wipe out the destructive ghetto
environment. In order to do so, the report recommended for government programs to provide needed services, to hire more diverse and sensitive police forces and, most notably, to invest billions in housing programs aimed at breaking up residential segregation.
The Commission's suggestions included, but were not limited to:
"Unless there are sharp changes in the factors influencing Negro settlement patterns within metropolitan areas, there is little doubt that the trend toward Negro majorities will continue."
"Providing employment for the swelling Negro ghetto population will require ...opening suburban residential areas to Negroes and encouraging them to move closer to industrial centers..."
"...cities will have Negro majorities by 1985 and the suburbs ringing them will remain largely all white unless there are major changes in Negro fertility rates, in migration settlement patterns or public policy."
"...we believe that the emphasis of the program should be changed from traditional publicly built slum based high rise projects to smaller units on scattered sites."
One often overlooked recommendation of the report was for an expansion of police surveillance in order to better deal with further unrest. The Commission recommended that:
"police departments...develop means to obtain adequate intelligence for planning purposes...As intelligence unit staffed with full-time personnel should be established to gather, evaluate, analyze, and disseminate information on potential as well as actual civil disorders...It should use undercover police personnel and informants."
The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration released federal funding for local police forces in response.
and the Voting Rights Act
, ignored the report and rejected the Kerner Commission's recommendations. In April 1968, one month after the release of the Kerner report, rioting broke out in more than 100 cities following the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
To mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Kerner Report, the Eisenhower Foundation
sponsored two complementary reports, The Millennium Breach and Locked in the Poorhouse. The Millennium Breach, co-authored by former Senator and Commission member Fred R. Harris
, found the racial divide had grown in the subsequent years with inner-city unemployment at crisis levels.
The Millennium Breach found that most of the decade that followed the Kerner Report, America made progress on the principal fronts the report dealt with: race, poverty, and inner cities. Then progress stopped and in some ways reversed by a series of economic shocks and trends and the government’s action and inaction.
Harris reported, “Today, thirty years after the Kerner Report, there is more poverty in America, it is deeper, blacker and browner than before, and it is more concentrated in the cities, which have become America’s poorhouses.”
Abraham H. Miller, who won a Pi Sigma Alpha
Award from the Western Political Science Association for his statistical refutation of some of the Commission's data analysis, stated, "There is considerable reason for rejecting the sociological and popular cliché that absolute or relative deprivation and the ensuing frustration or despair is the root cause of rebellion."
At a 1998 lecture commemorating the 30th anniversary of the report, Stephan Thernstrom, a history professor at Harvard University, stated,
"Because the commission took for granted that the riots were the fault of white racism, it would have been awkward to have had to confront the question of why liberal Detroit blew up while Birmingham and other Southern cities — where conditions for blacks were infinitely worse — did not. Likewise, if the problem was white racism, why didn’t the riots occur in the 1930s, when prevailing white racial attitudes were far more barbaric than they were in the 1960s?”
Critics of the report also attribute the cause of the riots to the size of the black community where the eruption occurred and the failure of the police force to respond swiftly and adequately.
Governor of Illinois
The Governor of Illinois is the chief executive of the State of Illinois and the various agencies and departments over which the officer has jurisdiction, as prescribed in the state constitution. It is a directly elected position, votes being cast by popular suffrage of residents of the state....
Otto Kerner, Jr.
Otto Kerner, Jr.
Otto Kerner, Jr. was the 33rd Governor of Illinois from 1961 to 1968. He is best known for chairing the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders and for accepting bribes....
of Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, was an 11-member commission established by President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
to investigate the causes of the 1967 race riots
12th Street riot
The 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street riot, was a civil disturbance in Detroit, Michigan, that began in the early morning hours of Sunday, July 23, 1967. The precipitating event was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a blind pig, on the corner of 12th and...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and to provide recommendations for the future.
Background
Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the commission on July 28, 1967, while rioting was still underway in Detroit, Michigan. Mounting civil unrest since 1965 had stemmed riots in the black neighborhoods of major U.S. cities, including Los Angeles (Watts Riot of 1965), Chicago (Division Street RiotsDivision Street Riots
The Division Street Riots were episodes of rioting and civil unrest, which occurred between June 12 and June 14, 1966 in Chicago, Illinois in the United States.-History and cause:...
of 1966), and Newark (1967 Newark riots
1967 Newark riots
The 1967 Newark riots were a major civil disturbance that occurred in the city of Newark, New Jersey between July 12 and July 17, 1967. The six days of rioting, looting, and destruction left 26 dead and hundreds injured.-Social unrest:...
). In his remarks upon signing the order establishing the Commission, Johnson asked for answers to three basic questions about the riots: "What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again and again?"
Members of the Commission
- Otto KernerOtto KernerOtto Kerner is the name of two political figures from Illinois:*Otto Kerner, Sr. , Attorney General of Illinois & judge on U.S. Court of Appeals for Seventh Circuit...
, Governor of Illinois and chair - John LindsayJohn LindsayJohn Vliet Lindsay was an American politician, lawyer and broadcaster who was a U.S. Congressman, Mayor of New York City, candidate for U.S...
, Mayor of New York and vice chairman - Edward BrookeEdward BrookeEdward William Brooke, III is an American politician and was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican from Massachusetts in 1966, defeating his Democratic opponent, Endicott Peabody, 60.7%–38.7%...
, Senator (R-MA) - Fred R. HarrisFred R. HarrisFred Roy Harris is a former Democratic United States Senator from the state of Oklahoma. He served from 1964 until 1973.-Biography:...
, Senator (D-OK) - James Corman, Congressman (D-CA)
- William McCulloch, Congressman (R-OH)
- Charles ThorntonTex ThorntonCharles Bates "Tex" Thornton was an American business executive who was the founder of Litton Industries.-Biography:...
, Founder of defense contractor Litton IndustriesLitton IndustriesNamed after inventor Charles Litton, Sr., Litton Industries was a large defense contractor in the United States, bought by the Northrop Grumman Corporation in 2001.-History:... - Roy WilkinsRoy WilkinsRoy Wilkins was a prominent civil rights activist in the United States from the 1930s to the 1970s. Wilkins' most notable role was in his leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ....
, Executive Director of the NAACP - I.W. Abel, President of US Steelworkers of American
- Herbert JenkinsHerbert JenkinsHerbert Turner Jenkins was the longest serving police chief of Atlanta.- Early life :He was an automotive pioneer in Atlanta, working at its earliest car dealership.That experience led to his last book.- Policing :...
, Police chief, Atlanta, Georgia - Katherine Graham Peden, Commissioner of Commerce, Kentucky
Findings of the Report
Appointed by Johnson to serve as the commission's executive director, David GinsburgDavid Ginsburg (lawyer)
Charles David Ginsburg was an American political advisor and lawyer who was among the founders of Americans for Democratic Action and served as executive director of the Kerner Commission, which warned that the U.S...
played a pivotal role in writing the commission's findings. The Commission's final report, the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders or Kerner Report was released on February 29, 1968 after seven months of investigation. The report became an instant best-seller, and over two million Americans bought copies of the 426-page document. Its finding was that the riots resulted from black frustration at lack of economic opportunity. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., pronounced the report a "physician's warning of approaching death, with a prescription for life."
The report berated federal and state governments for failed housing, education and social-service policies. The report also aimed some of its sharpest criticism at the mainstream media. "The press has too long basked in a white world looking out of it, if at all, with white men's eyes and white perspective."
The report's most infamous passage warned, "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—-separate and unequal."
Its results suggested that one main cause of urban violence was white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
and suggested that white America bore much of the responsibility for black rioting and rebellion. It called to create new jobs, construct new housing, and put a stop to de-facto segregation
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
in order to wipe out the destructive ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
environment. In order to do so, the report recommended for government programs to provide needed services, to hire more diverse and sensitive police forces and, most notably, to invest billions in housing programs aimed at breaking up residential segregation.
The Commission's suggestions included, but were not limited to:
"Unless there are sharp changes in the factors influencing Negro settlement patterns within metropolitan areas, there is little doubt that the trend toward Negro majorities will continue."
"Providing employment for the swelling Negro ghetto population will require ...opening suburban residential areas to Negroes and encouraging them to move closer to industrial centers..."
"...cities will have Negro majorities by 1985 and the suburbs ringing them will remain largely all white unless there are major changes in Negro fertility rates, in migration settlement patterns or public policy."
"...we believe that the emphasis of the program should be changed from traditional publicly built slum based high rise projects to smaller units on scattered sites."
One often overlooked recommendation of the report was for an expansion of police surveillance in order to better deal with further unrest. The Commission recommended that:
"police departments...develop means to obtain adequate intelligence for planning purposes...As intelligence unit staffed with full-time personnel should be established to gather, evaluate, analyze, and disseminate information on potential as well as actual civil disorders...It should use undercover police personnel and informants."
The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration released federal funding for local police forces in response.
Aftermath
President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had already pushed through the Civil Rights ActCivil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
and the Voting Rights Act
Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of national legislation in the United States that outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the U.S....
, ignored the report and rejected the Kerner Commission's recommendations. In April 1968, one month after the release of the Kerner report, rioting broke out in more than 100 cities following the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
To mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Kerner Report, the Eisenhower Foundation
Eisenhower Foundation
The Eisenhower Foundation continues the work of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders and the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence The Eisenhower Foundation continues the work of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (the Kerner Riot...
sponsored two complementary reports, The Millennium Breach and Locked in the Poorhouse. The Millennium Breach, co-authored by former Senator and Commission member Fred R. Harris
Fred R. Harris
Fred Roy Harris is a former Democratic United States Senator from the state of Oklahoma. He served from 1964 until 1973.-Biography:...
, found the racial divide had grown in the subsequent years with inner-city unemployment at crisis levels.
The Millennium Breach found that most of the decade that followed the Kerner Report, America made progress on the principal fronts the report dealt with: race, poverty, and inner cities. Then progress stopped and in some ways reversed by a series of economic shocks and trends and the government’s action and inaction.
Harris reported, “Today, thirty years after the Kerner Report, there is more poverty in America, it is deeper, blacker and browner than before, and it is more concentrated in the cities, which have become America’s poorhouses.”
Criticism
Conservative critics of the Kerner Report argue that the basis and findings of the report are deeply flawed. They contend that the report exonerates rioters for their behavior and places the blame for their actions on the larger society. The notion that racism created pathological social conditions that lead to the eruption of racial riots, as the Kerner Commission argued, was not supported by the findings of many uncited sociologists. The major riots took place in cities where blacks experienced the least racism; although Los Angeles, Newark, and Detroit were certainly not without racism, it did not compare with that in the deep South. This last point, however, that it is in the South where "true racism" existed (in past tense) is a myth itself, created to absolve the North of its subtle and continuing racism.Abraham H. Miller, who won a Pi Sigma Alpha
Pi sigma alpha
Pi Sigma Alpha , the National Political Science Honor Society, is the only honor society for college and university students of political science in the United States. Its purpose is to recognize and promote high academic achievement in the field of political science...
Award from the Western Political Science Association for his statistical refutation of some of the Commission's data analysis, stated, "There is considerable reason for rejecting the sociological and popular cliché that absolute or relative deprivation and the ensuing frustration or despair is the root cause of rebellion."
At a 1998 lecture commemorating the 30th anniversary of the report, Stephan Thernstrom, a history professor at Harvard University, stated,
"Because the commission took for granted that the riots were the fault of white racism, it would have been awkward to have had to confront the question of why liberal Detroit blew up while Birmingham and other Southern cities — where conditions for blacks were infinitely worse — did not. Likewise, if the problem was white racism, why didn’t the riots occur in the 1930s, when prevailing white racial attitudes were far more barbaric than they were in the 1960s?”
Critics of the report also attribute the cause of the riots to the size of the black community where the eruption occurred and the failure of the police force to respond swiftly and adequately.