EXPIRES: 2000

WRITTEN: 1968-02-29

This is our basic conclusion: Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal. Reaction to last summer's disorders has quickened the movement and deepened the division. Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American.

National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Otto Kerner, chair)

Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968, p. 1

Written: 1968-02-29

Addressed to: the American future

Source: Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders

Author: National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Otto Kerner, chair)

Category: Governance

Annotation

The Kerner Commission's blunt warning about racial division became one of the most consequential unfollowed pieces of advice in American history. The report recommended massive federal investment in jobs, housing, and education. Most recommendations were ignored. Fifty years later, racial wealth gaps and residential segregation remained stark.

What Actually Happened

The median Black family's wealth remained roughly one-tenth that of the median white family through the early 2020s. Residential segregation persisted in most major metro areas.

#race#segregation#urban-policy#inequality#commission-report

2000

What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.

Francis Fukuyama

2005

The Soviet economy is proof that, contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, a socialist command economy can function and even thrive.

Paul A. Samuelson

1984

The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard.

George Orwell