Causes Of The Kerner Commission Report

Immanuel Boateng
Midterm Assignment
Spring 2016

The riots of the summer of the late 60’s were no different from those prior to the period in terms of the factors that necessitated such disorderly behaviors and the solutions that were proffered. The Kerner Commission Report, in the concluding paragraphs, recalls the words of Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, a distinguished scholar when he was asked to give his opinion on the commission’s work. The learned opinion leader did not mince words but slammed the report as an exercise in futility. He dismissed, “I must again in candor say to you members of this Commission—it is a kind of Alice in Wonderland—with the same moving picture re-shown over and over again, the same analysis, the same recommendations,

These conditions, obviously, were deliberate government policies to keep the blacks in perpetual poverty and deprivation. Some of the causes included white discrimination and segregation against blacks in employment, education, and housing; black in-migration and white exodus; poverty-induced bitterness and resentment against society and whiteness; unfulfilled promises arising from the judicial and legislative victories of the Civil Rights Movement and the struggle for equal rights in the South; biases in the enforcement of federal law by state and local law enforcement agencies; frustrations of powerlessness; the mood of self-esteem and the growing culture of black pride; and the perception of the police force by the black communities as a symbol of white

It is the reason Dr. Kenneth B. Clark doubted the usefulness of the Kenner Commission’s report. Even though the social and economic policies that were proffered in the report were comprehensive and plausible, their successful implementation was dependent on the political will of the federal, state, and local government officials. These government officials have to be cooperative in the implementation of the policies in order for it to succeed.
Secondly, these were just suggestions left at the will of government officials; they had to written into policies by respective federal, state, and local governments. The caveat is governments would be selective in these proposals. And this is one of the reasons why its implementation was not successful. However, these policies impacted the New Deal coalition as it set the agenda for the Democratic Party. The party seized the occasion to formulate pro-poor economic and social policies such as ensuring cooperation among government, business and labor which led to the birth of unions and the Social Security