Explore the vast range of titles available.

Using an intersectional lens of race and gender, this article offers a critique of the Kerner Commission report and fills the gap of the missing analysis of white rage and of black women. A protracted history of white race riots resulted in the loss of black lives, black-owned property, and constitutional rights. However, only black riots, marked by the loss of white-owned property but few white lives, was the issue that prompted the formation of a national commission to investigate the events. Then and now, the privileging of white property rights over black life and liberty explains why black revolts result in presidential commissions, but white terror campaigns have never led to any comparable study,

The Kerner Commission’s report is regarded as one of the nation’s most important works on race. However, the earlier rejection of an internal staff paper (“The Harvest of American Racism”) because it was “too radical” left a “gaping hole” in the Commission’s plans (“Harvest,” which sought to use social science to explain why only some cities encountered rioting, was to have been the report’s “core chapter”) and caused a staff split that threatened its work. Much has been written about the challenges of incorporating social science and public policy with references about them being in separate worlds with different languages, schedules, values, etc. This article examines to what extent any of these challenges was present as “Harvest” was being written and reviewed. It then seeks to determine what influence any complicating factor may have had and what, if anything, could have been done to produce a different outcome.

We consider how antiblack legal precedents constrain African American access and success in higher education. We employ critical race theory to assess status and trends for African American college, graduate, and professional students. Our forty-year analysis traces national patterns of African American student enrollment and degree completion at public, four-year institutions. Using the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, we find that higher education remains a site of intense racial struggle for African American students. Across institutions we see various trends: the number of African American students at flagships has declined, more students enroll and complete degrees at black-serving institutions, and historically black colleges and universities are more racially diverse.

The Kerner Commission identified factors contributing to police ineffectiveness during the 1960s civil disorders. Since release of the Kerner report, the frequency and intensity of civil disorders has declined and the policing of disorders has changed. Using the report recommendations as a framework, we analyze changes in police disorder management during the 2014 events in Ferguson as these involve operational planning and equipment. Data for the Ferguson case are constructed from media reports, police and activist accounts, after action reports, and field observations. We link changes seen in Ferguson to larger institutional changes in law enforcement over the last fifty years. We conclude with discussions on what did and did not work in the policing of Ferguson and highlight implications for policing of protest and disorder in the twenty-first century.

This article studies the evolution of African American neighborhoods since the publication of the groundbreaking Kerner Commission report in 1968. We first examine how black and riot-affected neighborhoods evolved in four representative cities—Detroit, Newark, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.—during this period. Among black neighborhoods in these cities, we find that black neighborhoods not directly affected by riots fare better but trend similar to those that were. Notably, a number of disparities the commission identified as policy priorities—such as relatively lower income, higher poverty, and higher unemployment—persist despite declines in racist attitudes, extreme segregation, and an increased suburbanization of blacks. Fifty years after its publication, these findings suggest that the concerns of the Kerner Commission report remain relevant.

On its release in 1968, the Kerner report, with its “two societies” warning, was the subject of intense public attention. However, within a year, concerns arose that the report's influence was limited and that its recommendations were not being implemented. This perception has not changed noticeably since then. Fifty years later, it is important to accurately assess the report's legacy and whether the nation has avoided becoming two societies. It has become clear, however, that the report has been implemented more than previously thought and that it has been and continues to be influential. It has also been determined that despite progress toward eliminating the disparity between blacks and whites, it has unfortunately not yet been as extensive as is needed.

This article uses newly collected data on communities receiving Neighborhood Legal Services Programs (NLSP) grants between 1965 and 1975 to evaluate the impact of NLSPs on civil disorders and resulting changes in property values in African American communities. We employ several empirical strategies, all of which confirm the NLSP's effectiveness in combatting civil disorders and indicate a robust, positive relationship between NLSPs and property values. We find that NLSP funding increased property values by 2 percent. These results are consistent with a substantial reduction in riot propensities due to target government funding, and further support claims by the Kerner Commission report that the NLSP mitigated the damage resulting from the civil disorders.

The Kerner report was, and is, unrelenting in its appraisal of the deleterious effects of racial inequality but opaque as to how whites functioned in that regime. Fifty years later, and in a moment of renewed urban unrest and rioting, whites continue to benefit from racial inequality within key social structures: education, employment, housing, and policing. To understand both the evaluations of the Kerner report and contemporary white interpretations of the social order, I systemically analyze the report alongside six ethnographies in all-white organizations across the United States. The analysis opens a window on similar racial logics in the report and among contemporary whites. These logics assist in the reproduction of white interests, even under the supposed best of intentions, legal remedies, and policy recommendations.

Immediately after the Detroit violence of July 1967, President Johnson appointed the Kerner Commission and ordered it to determine what had happened, why, and what could be done to prevent urban riots. This analysis focuses on racial change in metropolitan Detroit. Progress has been made in racially integrating the suburban ring closed to African Americans at the time of the violence. Evidence indicates social integration in that interracial marriage is more common and blacks are more represented in prestigious occupations. However, on key economic measures, African Americans are now further behind whites than they were in 1967. This can be attributed to fundamental changes in employment and the failure of the educational system to provide the training needed for jobs in the new economy.

What role should racial difference play in the American workplace? As a nation, we rely on civil rights law to address this question, and the monumental Civil Rights Act of 1964 seemingly answered it: race must not be a factor in workplace decisions. InAfter Civil Rights, John Skrentny contends that after decades of mass immigration, many employers, Democratic and Republican political leaders, and advocates have adopted a new strategy to manage race and work. Race is now relevant not only in negative cases of discrimination, but in more positive ways as well. In today's workplace, employers routinely practice \"racial realism,\" where they view race as real--as a job qualification. Many believe employee racial differences, and sometimes immigrant status, correspond to unique abilities or evoke desirable reactions from clients or citizens. They also see racial diversity as a way to increase workplace dynamism. The problem is that when employers see race as useful for organizational effectiveness, they are often in violation of civil rights law. After Civil Rightsexamines this emerging strategy in a wide range of employment situations, including the low-skilled sector, professional and white-collar jobs, and entertainment and media. In this important book, Skrentny urges us to acknowledge the racial realism already occurring, and lays out a series of reforms that, if enacted, would bring the law and lived experience more in line, yet still remain respectful of the need to protect the civil rights of all workers.