The Kerner Commission Twenty Years Later

The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (named the Kerner Commission after its chairperson) was appointed in 1967 to investigate the causes of the racial disturbances that swept many American cities. In its report issued one year later, the commission described a city-suburb polarization that was rooted in racial and economic differences. America, it warned, was becom­ ing a racially divided and unequal nation. The commission deliberated on vari­ ous strategies that might avert this destructive polarization.