What A 1968 Report Tells Us About The Persistence Of Racial Inequality

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In summer of 1967, African Americans protested, marched, and rioted in cities across the country. The unrest convinced President Lyndon Johnson to set up the Kerner Commission, which spent about six months doing research, visiting slums, and holding hearings. In 1968, they published a provocative report that civil rights leader Jesse Jackson recently called "the last attempt to address honestly and seriously the structural inequalities that plague African Americans."

"Segregation and poverty have created in the racial ghetto a destructive environment totally unknown to most white Americans," the said. "What white Americans have never fully understood — but what the Negro can never forget — is that white