Kerner Report Warns: America Splits Into Two Societies
The Kerner Commission told Johnson what he didn't want to hear: white racism caused the riots, not outside agitators or Black militancy. The report said police practices, unemployment, and housing discrimination were splitting America into two nations. Johnson buried it. He never publicly acknowledged the findings. He'd appointed the commission himself seven months earlier, after Detroit and Newark burned. The report became a bestseller anyway — two million copies in three weeks. Congress ignored every recommendation. Fifty years later, the wealth gap between Black and white families was larger than when the commission wrote those words.
February 29, 1968
58 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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