50 years after the Kerner Commission, minimal racial progress.
'In 1967, young black men rioted in more than 150 cities, often spurred by overly aggressive policing. The worst disturbances were in Newark, after police beat a taxi driver for having a revoked permit, and Detroit, after 82 partygoers were arrested at a peaceful celebration for returning Vietnam War veterans.
President Lyndon Johnson appointed a commission to investigate. Chaired by Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner (New York Mayor John Lindsay was vice chairman), it issued its report 50 years ago today. It attributed the riots to pent-up frustration in low-income black neighborhoods, indicting discrimination in housing, employment, health care, policing, education and social services. Residents’ lack of ambition did not cause these conditions, it said. Rather, “white institutions created (the ghetto), white institutions maintain it and white society condones it.”
So little has changed since 1968 that the report remains worth reading as a near-contemporary description of racial inequality.
Of course, not everything about race relations is unchanged. Perhaps most dramatic has been growth of the black middle class, integrated into mainstream corporate leadership, politics, universities and professions. Such progress was unimaginable in 1968. Today, 23% of young adult African-Americans have bachelor’s degrees, still considerably below whites’ 42%, but more than double the black rate 50 years ago.'>>>
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/50-years-kerner-commission-minimal-racial-progress-article-1.3845540