A look back at race riots, black anger 50 years on
UC panel to discuss report that government ignored
In 1968, two black San Francisco psychiatrists wrote a groundbreaking book, “Black Rage,” which examined the psychic stresses behind black anger in America.
William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs concluded that racial hatred and racism were fueling black anger.
I’m sharing this because the foreword for “Black Rage” was written by Fred Harris, a white U.S. senator from Oklahoma who was part of the team of politicians that investigated the race riots that swept the United States in 1967 as part of the Kerner Commission.
Harris did what would be impossible for many of the white politicians who are currently steering our country toward “greatness”: He told the truth about race.
“The root cause of the black wrath that now threatens to destroy this nation is the unwillingness of white Americans to accept Negroes as fellow human beings,” Harris wrote.
Harris acknowledged that despite civil rights bills, and the desegregation of institutions, housing and schools, it remained hard to be black in America because of the country’s history of white ownership of blacks as slaves and continuing discrimination and racism to oppress black people.
Fifty years later, Harris, 87, is still talking and writing about race, and he’ll attend “Race & Inequality in America: The Kerner Commission at 50,” a conference at UC Berkeley this week that will examine race, segregation and inequality in the United States.
“Black Rage” put the black experience in America in the spotlight in 1968. The Kerner Commission’s report, released that year, might have changed the course of history — if it hadn’t been ignored by the federal government.
Here’s some helpful history: The Kerner Commission, formally known as the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, was appointed in 1967 by President Lyndon Johnson to investigate the cause of race riots. That summer, there were more than 150 riots in black and Latino neighborhoods, including in Newark, N.J., and Detroit.
What was responsible for the fiery turbulence?
The commission reported the obvious: Blacks were frustrated with their lack of employment opportunities. The commission found fault with state and federal governments for housing, education and social policies that were unfair to blacks. The policies kept black neighborhoods in wretched poverty.
The Kerner Commission was clear: Whites were granted privilege in this country.
“Anybody that knew anything about the facts knew that that was the truth,” Harris told me during a recent phone interview. “We knew that it would shock people. We also knew a lot of people would be shocked by the fact that we were recommending huge new federal programs to counteract that poverty and racism.”
The commission held 20 days of hearings, and more than 100 witnesses were called, including Martin Luther King Jr. and J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director. Harris visited cities where riots had occurred. In Cincinnati and Milwaukee, he visited black barbershops and walked the streets of black neighborhoods so he could talk to young black men about their needs.
Imagine that: a white politician asking a black man what he needed instead of telling him what to do.
“It couldn’t have been clearer to us that jobs (were) really a tremendous and basic lack in their lives and the lives of people living in the black sections of these cities,” Harris said.
If only the president had listened.
But Johnson, who hammered the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act through Congress, was dismissive of the report. According to Harris, Johnson was led to believe that the protests were orchestrated by agitators and had nothing to do with the way black and brown people were being treated.
Johnson, who was preoccupied with Vietnam War protests and getting re-elected, refused to meet with the commission that had recommended jobs and integration for blacks.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t have the foresight and wisdom to actually follow through,” said John Powell, the director of UC Berkeley’s Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society. He’s the host for “The Kerner Commission at 50.”
“A lot of things that (they were) talking about in terms of needing affordable housing, in terms of universal pay, in terms of universal jobs — things that even when we talk about them today, they sound very radical.”
Powell said the Kerner Commission was the last serious look at racial stratification — the systematic, structural and cultural classification of people — in the country. Because of racial stratification, some people are treated better and given more access, which makes them think they’re more deserving than others.
The report from 50 years ago warned of the country moving toward two societies — one black and one white.
Look at where we are today, and think about this: The Kerner Commission was appointed by a president. Our current president endorsed a Senate candidate who said America was great during slavery.
Raging against racism must be relentless.
“It couldn’t have been clearer to us that jobs (were) really a tremendous and basic lack in their lives and the lives of people living in the black sections of these cities.” Former Sen. Fred Harris, who investigated the 1967 riots as part of the Kerner Commission