Kerner Commission

The Kerner Commission was the popular name given to the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, chaired by Illinois governor Otto Kerner, Jr. The 11-member commission was created in July, 1967 by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the causes of the 1967 race riots in the United States.

In his remarks upon signing the order establishing the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, Johnson asked for answers to three basic questions about the riots: "What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it happening again and again?"

The commission's report, usually called the "Kerner Report," was released on February 29, 1968. Its finding was that the riots resulted from black frustration at lack of economic opportunity. Its best-known quote is: "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. 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.

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."

External links

• Excerpts from the Kerner Report"