If We Knew Then: A Postscript to the Kerner Report

The Origin of the Kerner Report

In 1967, a wave of civil disturbances spread throughout many of the country’s African American neighborhoods. Some of these simply involved the gathering of angry crowds; others involved the setting of buildings on fire, massive looting, and gunfire. By July, there had been over 100 incidents with varying degrees of violence. Many whites, including President Lyndon Johnson, believed that the riots were part of a conspiracy, ¹⁰ and when two of the century’s worst riots occurred within a couple of weeks of one another in Newark and Detroit, the nation seemed to be coming apart.

In response, President Johnson appointed an eleven-member commission (which quickly became known as the Kerner Commission, after its chairman, Otto Kerner, the governor of Illinois) to investigate the rioting and to answer three key questions:

What happened?

The Kerner Commission, which began work in August 1967, was initially scheduled to complete an interim report by March 1, 1968 so that its findings and recommendations might help avert new rioting later that year. It was then scheduled to deliver a final report on July 29, 1968. However, when the Commission was told in December 1967 that it would only be given enough funding to keep it in operation until March 1968, it quickly decided to discard the interim report and to produce only a final report.

Working around the clock, the Commission delivered a nearly 600-page final report on February 29, 1968. Its conclusion, after first receiving a special report from the FBI, analyzing over 12,000 pages of data, interviewing 1200 people in twenty cities, surveying another 1876 people in three cities, studying the arrest records of 13,768 rioters, and reviewing socio-economic profiles of twenty-three cities, was that the rioting was not the result of a conspiracy or criminal elements, but was the reaction to decades of “pervasive discrimination and segregation.” Moreover, the report warned that the nation was “moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”

To prevent both future rioting and the nation from permanently becoming two societies, the report proposed, in effect, “a Marshall Plan for the poor,” ¹¹ with a wide array of recommendations involving housing, welfare, education, employment and training, the media, and law enforcement. In calling for the implementation of these recommendations, the Commission wrote, “there can be no higher priority for national action and no higher claim on the nation’s conscience.”

The initial public attention focused on the report was enormous. The nation’s three major television networks all devoted special coverage to it, and newspapers throughout the country led with headlines of “Racism Could ‘Split Nation,’ Riots Commission Warns” and “’White Racism’ Blamed in Riots.” ¹² The public rushed to buy copies of the report—within three months, over 1.6 million copies had been sold, a figure that surpassed that of the Warren Commission Report, which had dealt with the assassination of President John Kennedy. However, the public’s interest in the Kerner Report rapidly faded, and neither the Democratic or Republican Party mentioned the report in their presidential campaign platforms several months later. ¹³

Why The Public’s Interest Faded

It is thought that a number of factors are responsible for why the public’s interest in the Kerner Report evaporated so quickly. Lindsey Lupo, ¹⁴ Steven Gillon, ¹⁵ and Randall Woods, ¹⁶ among others, discuss how the report’s conclusion that racism, not a conspiracy, was responsible for the rioting alienated much of white America. According to a Louis Harris poll conducted about one month after the report’s release, only 37% of surveyed whites agreed with the Commission that white racism had led to the rioting ¹⁷ with another poll instead indicating that 71% thought the riots had been organized. ¹⁸

As a result, many whites believed that the report’s criticism of white society (“white racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II”) blamed everyone for the rioting but the rioters themselves. ¹⁹ In addition, some whites were offended that they were somehow responsible for the rioting or that they were being called a bigot. Said one midwestern congressman, “I, for one, resent. . . being dubbed as a ‘white racist,’ either directly or by inference.” ²⁰

The report’s multitude of recommendations and its call for “unprecedented levels of funding” led critics to claim that the report could easily be summarized in three simple words: “spend more money.” ²¹ This was especially damaging as the president and Congress were already locked in a fierce budget debate over “guns and butter” about how to fund both the war in Vietnam and the existing domestic war on poverty. ²²

President Johnson was also unhappy with the Commission’s work for a variety of reasons, ranging from the report not giving him sufficient credit for what he had done over the past four years to not recognizing the fiscal realities of the report’s recommendations to his uneasiness with the “white racism” conclusion and its impact on white voters. ²³ While Johnson was not as politically popular in 1968 as he had been during 1964–1965, he was still the president of the United States and the most important person in Washington.

Finally, 1968 had to be the most tumultuous year in a decade full of challenges. Within just the first five months of that year, a US spy ship had been captured by North Korea, the Viet Cong had penetrated the compound walls of the American embassy in Saigon, a sitting US president had suffered a startling primary defeat, that president then announced he was not going to run for re-election, Martin Luther King was assassinated, and then Robert Kennedy was killed. In the middle of all of this, the Kerner Report was released. With so much turmoil taking place, it is not difficult to see how a nation would not have been able to maintain its focus on a 600-page report for very long.

What Could Have Been Done Differently: The Role of Racism

Although it was the report’s conclusion that “white racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities” that so adversely affected public support for the report, none of the Kerner Commission individuals interviewed for this article believe that this conclusion was incorrect. However, Gary T. Marx, who was one of the Commission’s social scientists, says the report should have given examples of the types of discrimination that Blacks were experiencing. Because discrimination can often be so subtle and unintentional, and because, in 1968, many whites did not have extensive contact with Blacks, Marx believes that many whites were unable to comprehend the depth of the problem that the report identified. ²⁴ To them, racism involved burning crosses and not wanting Blacks to eat at the same restaurants as whites, and since they personally did not engage in such behavior or subscribe to such beliefs, the report’s “abstract” conclusion with no specific examples thus either did not apply to them or it was incorrect—even though they themselves might be hesitant to hire an African American because that person might have a problem “fitting in” at the office or they might walk past several open seats next to Blacks on the subway so that they can sit next to another white person.

What Could Have Been Done Differently: The Report’s Wording

Closely related to the controversy generated by the report’s finding that the rioting was caused by racism was the stark tone in which this conclusion was presented. However, it was no accident that this message (“what white Americans have never fully understood—but what the Negro can never forget—is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto”) was so bluntly and provocatively worded.

Commission member James Corman, who was one of the Commission’s more moderate members, noted in an October 17, 1967 memo to the Commission’s executive director that “testimony before the Commission has repeatedly referred to an appalling ignorance among white Americans concerning current conditions in urban ghettos. It is essential that the Commission be brutally honest in this regard.” ²⁵

William McCulloch, who, like Corman, was a congressman and who was one of the Commission’s more conservative members, felt the same way, first telling the New York Times on December 19, 1967 that, “I would say that while I have been familiar with some of the cities, I was shocked to see conditions in one or two that I visited. I mean that. I was shocked. I am now convinced it is the most difficult, deep-seated problem of our century.” ²⁶ Two years later, he added, “it was maddening to many people, but we pointed up something that needed to be pointed up: that we are racist.” ²⁷

Minutes from the Commission’s meetings indicate that other members concurred with Corman and McCulloch. Vice Chairman John Lindsay said the report “won’t do much good unless it makes some people uncomfortable.” ²⁸ Commission member Fred Harris said it was “essential that we set forth [the] harsh facts of Negro history,” ²⁹ and Commissioner Roy Wilkins said, “we must convey a sense of urgency.” ³⁰

However, Richard Nathan, who helped prepare the report’s short-term recommendations, says that, in retrospect, this wording, which had been chosen to help make white America realize how disturbing life was for many African Americans and how important it was to immediately do something about that, was “too strong” and may have “turned off” some whites. ³¹ Similarly, Jack Rosenthal, who wrote much of the narrative for the report’s many recommendations as well as its chapter on “The Future of the Cities,” believes that the tone of the report became “counterproductive” since it “caused people to argue more about the cause than the cure.” ³² Rosenthal’s comments are particularly noteworthy since he, along with Jay Kriegel and Peter Goldmark (who were assistants to Commission Vice Chairman John Lindsay), helped coin the “two societies” phrase that became so synonymous with the Kerner Report, ³³ and since he had remarked in an earlier draft of the report’s summary that he did not like that draft because it was not going to “frighten many white racists.” ³⁴

What Could Have Been Done Differently: The Recommendations

It is likely that only the Kerner Report’s conclusion about white racism generated more criticism that the report’s recommendations. Comprising about one-fifth of a report with almost 600 pages, the sheer number of them and the report’s urging of “unprecedented” funding led critics to derisively refer to them as “a laundry list” ³⁵ and caused Time to note that “though many of the recommendations were urgently needed, the Commission’s apparent unconcern for political practicalism was surprisingly unrealistic.” ³⁶

Kerner Commission member James Corman warned his Commission colleagues that this could happen in a January 18, 1968 letter when he cautioned against adopting a report that contained “a wide variety” of “unrealistic and unrealizable recommendations.” ³⁷ One of the recommendations subsequently adopted by the Commission—that 600,000 assisted housing units be built in 1 year and that a total of six million be built within five years—was one that David Ginsburg, the Commission’s executive director, believed was so unrealistic that, even after twenty years, he told an interviewer during an oral history that he continued to be “appalled” by it and that it is a recommendation “that still troubles me, as you can see.” ³⁸

Jack Rosenthal similarly believes that having so many recommendations worked against the Commission’s final report, saying that they were “unnecessary” and “impractical.” “How do you get people to agree what was the most important question,” he asks, “when you present them with so many options?” ³⁹

Rather than advocating for a wide variety of specific programs as the final report eventually did, Corman had earlier urged the Commission to pursue a more strategic path. “We cannot foresee the final details of a totally just society but we can urge new directions,” he wrote the Commission. ⁴⁰ In particular, he wished to recommend options that increased inter-racial communication and reduced segregation. ⁴¹

David Chambers, who was the special assistant to David Ginsburg, believes that Corman “was dead right” about the number of recommendations. “We would have lost nothing if we hadn’t had so many recommendations.” ⁴² Along with fewer recommendations, Chambers would have also liked the final report to contain priorities for key subject areas so that policy-makers would have had some idea on where to focus their attention. “Naming a few specific priorities,” says Chambers, “would have been smart, particularly if they had been ones President Johnson could support and that the Commission could plausibly argue directly addressed the conditions of inner city Black residents.” ⁴³

Jay Kriegel acknowledges that the recommendations “were probably a little overdone” (but not to Lindsay, he adds), but he does not believe that reducing their number or having the report concentrate on priorities would have noticeably improved the report’s influence. ⁴⁴ To him, the focus of the report was on race, not on the report’s recommendations. ⁴⁵

Perhaps, because the Commission was advised by so many prominent urban affairs experts (e.g., Anthony Downs, Daniel Moynihan, James Tobin, Garth Mangum, James Coleman, etc.) and because the final report contained so many recommendations, none of the interviewed Kerner Report participants can recall a proposed recommendation that was discarded then, but that they now wish had been included in the final report. Indeed, a review of Commission correspondence, meeting minutes, and draft report chapters only finds a handful of proposals (reinstituting twice-a-day mail delivery, increasing the minimum wage, directing some portion of defense contracting to disadvantaged areas, requiring defense contractors to hire disadvantaged workers, etc.) that were presented, but never significantly discussed. Richard Nathan, however, says that he wished the report had placed a greater emphasis on welfare reform and revenue sharing for cities. ⁴⁶

What Could Have Been Done Differently: The Report’s Structure

Although the Kerner Report is regarded as being well-written, ⁴⁷ it is very long, and David Chambers jokes that it is “one of the most widely-bought and under-read reports” in history. ⁴⁸ James Corman had earlier recommended that the Commission’s report be “concise” so that “an interested citizen should be able to read the report in its entirety without devoting more than a day to the effort.” ⁴⁹ Similarly, during a January 11, 1968 meeting of the Commission, Commission member Roy Wilkins supported efforts to keep the report as brief as possible, saying that “every 1000 words we drop is all to the good.” ⁵⁰ However, in the Commission’s effort to ensure that it had a very comprehensive and well-documented report, its final report still had close to 600 pages.

A large portion of this report—about seventy-eight pages—is composed of statistics and tables. The Commission included these because it had been shocked by the conditions that it had seen during its on-site visits, and it wanted to make it absolutely clear to white America that such conditions existed and were not being exaggerated. However, there reaches a point when too much information simply becomes too much information. James Corman again had warned the Commission of this in his October 17, 1967 memo when he wrote that the “public has a low threshold for statistics and only the most important and descriptive statistics should be included.” Recognizing this and the impact that visual evidence can have, Corman also recommended that photographs “be given careful consideration as the most effective means of communicating the plight of the ghetto, especially Negro children and young adults.” ⁵¹

While the Bantam paperback version of the report contained twenty-four photographs, all but three of them dealt with the rioting, not with the conditions that led to it. Although the Government Printing Office (GPO) version of the report did have five times more total photographs than the Bantam version, the number that dealt with the actual rioting and the riot aftermath again exceeded those associated with discrimination and the conditions of the inner city (62 vs 42). Moreover, the GPO version of the report probably accounted for less than ten percent of the total number of copies of the report that were published.

David Chambers agrees with Corman, saying that many of the tables included in the report “were unnecessary” and that shortening the report would have made it “more approachable.” ⁵² Chambers, like Corman, would also like to have seen a more direct relationship between the report’s recommendations and its findings and conclusions about race and discrimination, as does Gary Marx. ⁵³ Such changes, when combined with the earlier suggestions about reducing the number of recommendations and identifying priorities, could have also helped somewhat counter the inevitable conservative charge that the Kerner Report “represented the culmination of the Great Society approach: an undifferentiated batch of categorical programs offered with the unstated hope that they would turn lower-class individuals into middle class citizens.” ⁵⁴

What Could Have Been Done Differently: Acknowledging President Johnson

Much has been written about how President Johnson did not like the Kerner Report because it did not sufficiently acknowledge the contributions of his presidency. ⁵⁵ Many of the Commission’s key participants now believe that they should have done a much better job acknowledging the president. Gary Marx says, “Johnson had a legitimate complaint. He deserved more credit.” ⁵⁶ Likewise, David Ginsburg says that it “may have been a mistake” to not better recognize what the Johnson Administration had done in civil rights and the fighting of poverty. ⁵⁷ Victor Palmieri, the Commission’s deputy executive director, says that he would not change anything in the final report “except the omission of any credit to Johnson, which, as I look back on it, was inexcusable.” ⁵⁸ Jay Kriegel concurs, saying “we should have done better by the president and what he had done and what he stood for. . . he was not the enemy.” ⁵⁹

What Could Have Been Done Differently: Having More Time

Because the Commission and its staff had so little time (7 months) to do so much (hire a staff of 200, determine how to investigate rioting in over 120 cities, conduct research, study data, reach conclusions, and write a 600-page report), it would not have been surprising if the people involved in this challenge had said that they wished that they had had more time. However, none of the people interviewed for this article say that having more time would have helped. In fact, John Koskinen, who was the special assistant to the Commission’s deputy executive director, believes that if the Commission had had more time, the pressure that helped it unanimously adopt a final report might have been lost (which, if the report had not been unanimously adopted, says Fred Harris, would have been “a catastrophe”) ⁶⁰ , or its work would been overtaken by other real-world events—like the death of Martin Luther King which led to another wave of rioting that would have likely had to be studied and compared to the 1967 rioting. ⁶¹

Would Any of It Have Mattered?

All of the suggestions made by the Kerner Commission’s participants would have improved the final report. Shortening it would have made the report less daunting to the public and could have allowed the public to focus more on the problems that the Commission had identified. Having fewer recommendations, prioritizing a core group of them, and making sure that they tied back more directly to the report’s major findings and conclusions would have also helped address the criticism that the report was politically and financially unrealistic, and better acknowledging President Johnson’s accomplishments could have provided the report with the almost always important support of the White House.

Moreover, providing “every-day” examples of discrimination could have done much to increase the public’s understanding and acceptance of the report’s major finding about discrimination and “two societies.” Even fifty years after the Kerner Report, surveys still show there is a vast discrepancy between African Americans and whites as to whether discrimination still exists and a lack of familiarity among whites as to what constitutes discrimination. ⁶² Had the report, which had a visibility that no other government report on race has since had, been able to illustrate the more frequent types of discrimination that Blacks regularly experience before self-congratulatory complacency, fatigue, and other issues like inflation, gas station lines, Watergate, and the Great Recession emerged, perhaps the gaps that these surveys continue to show would not be so large.

It would also have helped eliminate another problem that Gordon MacInnes identified about the report attributing the rioting to white racism. “When everyone is responsible, no one is responsible. This is not to say that white racism isn’t a problem or even that it isn’t the most important explanation [for the rioting]. As a policy recommendation, it leads to nothing, except a paralyzing guilt that freezes debate and halts the search for helpful answers.” ⁶³

However, it is understood that while some of the proposed revisions—like reducing the number of recommendations and more closely linking them with the report’s major findings—would have been relatively easy to do, others—like revising the report’s tone so that it would be less harsh without undermining the urgency of its message—would have been more difficult. Similarly, suitably acknowledging President Johnson’s accomplishments without alienating the Republicans who made many of them (like the 1964 Civil Rights Act) possible and without making the report appear to be a tribute to Lyndon Johnson in an election year would have also been very difficult. John Koskinen, for one, does not believe that it would have been possible to walk that fine line between acknowledging the president and not turning the report into a piece of campaign literature. ⁶⁴ Peter Goldmark likewise believes that attempting to sufficiently acknowledge the president would have been almost impossible, saying, that, given the president’s insecurity, “we could not have done anything. . . short of saying that he walked on water” ⁶⁵ —which calls to mind an earlier quote from the president that demonstrated his insecurity when he said, “if one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: ‘President Can’t Swim.’” ⁶⁶ It should also be understood that any effort to better acknowledge the president would have had to be clearly known from the very beginning of the Commission’s work (and not done as an afterthought as the report was being finalized) as it is believed that Commission member Charles Thornton regularly passed “backdoor” information to the president about the Commission that contributed to the president’s dislike of the final report. ⁶⁷

It should be clear that although all of the proposed revisions would have certainly made the report “more artful” as John Koskinen notes, ⁶⁸ none of the interviewed Kerner Report participants have any illusions about whether a revised report would have inspired a “let’s march off to save the inner city” effort by Washington. “The war, the politics,” says Koskinen, had seen that that would not happen. ⁶⁹ As mentioned earlier, even before the report was released, the president was already encountering great difficulty persuading Congress to just maintain the current federal budget. The decade-long rise in the nation’s crime rate and the public’s equating of the 1967 rioting and the rioting that followed Martin Luther King’s death with lawlessness only made any effort to increase the federal commitment to the inner city even more difficult. As Theodore White reports in his coverage of the 1968 presidential election, “the great concern that. . . dominated the second half of the campaign. . . was law and order,” ⁷⁰ and because the rioting, says Julian Zelizer, “fueled conservative arguments for law and order and against the waste, inefficiency and ineffectiveness they claimed infected” Great Society programs, the opposition to these programs “grew more vehement” ⁷¹ (as an example, what was thought to be a routine bill to help eliminate rodents in slum areas was surprisingly defeated in the House with opponents making especially vicious comments, calling it a “civil rats bill” and suggesting that the president simply turn some cats loose instead).^72,73

What would have happened, though, if the report had been written as suggested, is that more people would have understood the report, less would have so quickly been able to reject it (although there still would have been those who would have found some other reason to oppose it), and the report would not have been left by the White House to simply disappear. While Congress may not have rushed to implement it, it may not have kept such a distance from it either. The report could have become more respected and become a living reference source that was cited not just when there was a tragic Ferguson-type incident (as it largely is today). It could have been used to support new legislative efforts and to provide the unifying and underlying strategic foundation that domestic programs are frequently accused of not having.

Perhaps then, it would have been referenced more during the discussions on major urban legislation over the next several years—the 1970 Housing Act, ⁷⁴ President Richard Nixon’s Family Assistance Plan (FAP), the 1973 Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, and the 1974 Housing and Community Development Act. This probably would not have necessarily led to any more urban legislation being approved (although it is interesting to think about what impact this might have had on FAP), ⁷⁵ but it would have helped counter the perception that the report is largely forgotten and filed away, ⁷⁶ a perception which only serves to weaken the report’s credibility (if it is that important, it would not have been forgotten), and it would have continued to keep alive the report’s message that there is a difference between white America and Black America.

The Kerner Report’s participants are also under no illusion that these improvements would have substantially reduced discrimination (Jay Kriegel, for instance, says, “race is going to be with us for a long time”). ⁷⁷ While providing examples of common discrimination would have helped address what David Chambers calls “unconscious racism” on an individual level ⁷⁸ and could have possibly helped us be further along than we are today, it is difficult to foresee, given all that was going on politically in the country (the rise of law and order as an issue, Vietnam, the weakening of the Great Society, etc.), how such examples without strong national leadership from both political parties could have led to a great awakening among whites. ⁷⁹

Conclusion

There are times when the Kerner Report seems to be remembered more for having been “forgotten” than for what it concluded. This is especially unfortunate given the importance of the topic that it covered and the continued existence of many of the problems that the report identified.

A number of suggestions for improving the report have been made by key people who were originally responsible for creating it. All of the suggestions address major criticisms of the report and could have enabled the report to resonate beyond its first ninety days. However, none would have likely led to the substantial revitalization of distressed inner city neighborhoods, the type of federal commitment that the Kerner Commission desired, or to the elimination of discrimination.

Although this is somewhat disappointing, it is not necessarily surprising. It is also peculiarly reassuring. 1967–1968 was a frightening time in America, and the need for a strong and viable Kerner Report was essential. Had we realized now, after more than fifty years, that the report could have definitively been made to be far more influential or that it could have recommended a hastily-rejected idea that could have noticeably changed America, then the Kerner Report would have been much more than a missed opportunity as was earlier suggested—it would have been a tragedy. Fortunately, however, there appears to be no tragedy, perhaps only an understandably missed opportunity to make it more accessible and incrementally useful—an opportunity that now exists for any other future effort on race and economic disparity.