REMARKS OF

THE HONORABLE NATHANIEL R. JONES

Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (Ret.)

GOVERNOR’S CONFERENCE ON OTTO KERNER

ABRAHAM LINCOLN PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS

November 2, 2013

 Judge Jones served as Deputy General Counsel of the Kerner Commission 1967-68

            I am delighted that today’s commemoration is a giant step toward rectifying history by highlighting the outstanding national leadership of Governor Otto Kerner, provided at a time when our nation was being torn asunder.  For me to have been able to be a part of the noble effort that Governor Kerner led was a highlight of my life.  By permitting me to share in this great occasion, is to do me great honor.

            Since I was first invited to discuss with you the work of the Kerner Commission, I have been pondering an approach that would describe how Governor Kerner and those who were associated with that mission were able to effectively redirect the attention of Americans away from simple-minded reasons for urban violence, to the complexities of the actual causes.

            As I pondered, I came across a recently published account of the Warren Commission that studied the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  Its description of that process was less than flattering.  It led me to reflect on and contrast the picture painted by the author of that book, with the enduring worth of the Kerner Commission, and its distinguished chairman, Governor Otto Kerner.  It was the leadership skills of Governor Kerner that accomplished the miraculous task of redirecting minds of the other ten independent, tough-minded, diverse individuals whom President Lyndon B. Johnson asked to undertake the monumental task, to the reality of the Sixties that stirred the nation.  As an assistant general counsel to that body, I was at the very heart of the Commission’s activities and saw firsthand the skill with which Governor Kerner dislodged his colleagues from their early predispositions, to reach a general consensus as to causation, and offer a set of solutions to the nation.

            A glance at the persons President Johnson selected to serve with Governor Kerner provides an indication of the gravity with which he regarded the situation.  Picked as vice chairman was John Lindsay, mayor of New York; Senator Fred Harris of Oklahoma; Senator Edward Brook of Massachusetts;  Congressman William McColloch of Ohio; Congressman  James Corman of California; Katherine Peden, Commissioner of  Commerce of the Commonwealth of Kentucky; Roy Wilkins, Executive Director of the NAACP; I. W. Abel, president of the United Steelworkers of America; Charles B. Thornton, Chairman of the Board and  Chief Executive Officer, Litton Industries; and  Herbert Jenkins, Chief of Police, Atlanta, Georgia.       

            The urban uprisings occurred after Brown vs. Board of Education and other major civil rights court decisions had been handed down, landmark civil rights laws regarding employment, education and housing had been enacted, and the country appeared to be taking steps to remove racial barriers.  Why then, many asked, was there so much unrest?  Why was there such anger and impatience, and violence in America’s urban areas?  Governors, Mayors and President Johnson himself were puzzled.  These were some of the questions that prompted the president to seek answers through the appointment of a national commission.  Washington’s penchant for attention-grabbing names ignored the official name set forth in the Executive Order issued by the President, which was The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder, and dubbed the group the “Riot Commission.”  Reality soon set in and that shorthand label gave way to the more appropriate and lasting shorthand name of the Kerner Commission.

            The charge that President Johnson issued to this Commission with regard to the riots that were ripping America’s urban areas apart was three-fold:  What happened?  Why did it happen?  What must be done to keep it from happening again?

            This was no easy feat given the incendiary rumors that were sweeping across the country. Law enforcement officials and the media pegged such easy targets – the rioters – as “outside agitators,” “communists,” and “radicals” of one form or another.  Governor Kerner urged members of the Commission to accept the wise counsel of Wilkins, Mayor Lindsay and Senator Harris, and take walking trips into the ghettoes that had been ignited.  This led to a commission decision to dispatch full teams of fact finders in order to gather data and information which would provide answers to President Johnson’s first two charges of finding out “what” and “why.”  Governor Kerner kept the Commission and its investigators focused on those goals, while at the same time, remaining mindful of the need to come up with solutions.

            The Commission’s probes that preceded the hearings were deep, and it provided a set of profound recommendations, indeed, a roadmap, for guiding America away from the abyss that led to the commission’s creation.  That roadmap remains relevant today.

            Before the roadmap could be drawn, the profile of rioters, their grievances, and perceptions had to be understood.  There was great difficulty in winning the confidence of residents in the urban areas.  Without their cooperation, our teams encountered great difficulty in obtaining the facts that would educate the Commission as to the reasons for the deep unrest that prompted the explosions.  The rumors and accusations leveled at urban residents by media and law enforcement officials created suspicions that the Commission staff members were CIA or FBI agents.  Thus, our first challenge was to establish credibility and trust.  Without that, there could be no effective communication.  Governor Kerner’s keen understanding of that reality, as I have indicated, resulted in the “walking tours” that built bridges of trust.

            It is difficult, without context, forty-five years after the issuance of the report on March 1, 1968, to comprehend the significance of the changes that have taken place in this nation.  Essential to such an understanding is an awareness of the climate existing at that time.  Time doesn’t permit review of facts precipitating events the Commission grappled with.  For instance, in 1967, there were 24 disorders in 23 different cities.  In Detroit, Michigan and Newark, New Jersey alone, a total of 66 persons were killed and hundreds wounded.  In addition, property damage exceeded 33 million dollars.  After our work commenced, reports were received of incidents in 150 other cities.

            As we gather in Springfield, Illinois, to reflect on the work of Governor Kerner and the Commission that bears his name, it is well to recall the words of a son of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, spoken to the congress in the midst of the Civil War on December 1, 1862.  “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.”  Also, the philosopher, George Santayana, years later, echoed Lincoln’s words which remain relevant:  “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

            Here is what the Kerner Commission taught us about the past and what must be done to avoid a recurrence:

What white Americans have never fully understood—but what the Negro can never forget—is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto.  White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.

            This teaching was based on over 1,200 interviews conducted by the teams, arrest records in 22 cities, and other data.  A profile of a rioter emerged, which represents Dr. John Conant’s definition of “social dynamite.”  The Commission declared:

White racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II.  Among the ingredients of this mixture are:  Pervasive discrimination and segregation in employment, education and housing … Black in-migration and white exodus, which have produced the massive and growing concentrations of impoverished Negroes in our major cities … The black ghettoes where segregation and poverty converge …

            Those and other findings and conclusions of the Report sent shock waves across the land.  Never before had a Presidential Commission acknowledged the existence of White Racism, and dared to charge America with being responsible for it.  Yet, any who looked honestly at America’s history, going back to slavery and the Dred Scott decision in 1857, as the Commission did, had to acknowledge that racism was injected into America’s blood stream by the pernicious institution of slavery, reinforced by the Supreme Court decision that described slaves as subhumans, with no rights that white people were bound to respect.

            What the Commission’s findings confronted and identified was the viability of the legacy of slavery and the Dred Scott decision.

            Yet, in its recommendations, the Commission held out hope for continued positive change.  It was painfully clear, said the Commission, that dry rot resulting from the disparities of decades of neglect and educational deficits, if addressed, could be overcome.  What was required then is what is required now.

            Earlier I quoted an admonition from a son of Illinois, President Lincoln, to not forget lessons from the past.

            What we find in the Kerner Report is a lesson from another son of Illinois, Governor Kerner, a lesson that warns that America is becoming two societies – black – white, separate and unequal. 

            As now a third son of Illinois, who has ascended to the office of President of this great nation as its first Black President, Barack Obama, seeks to redress the history that President Lincoln and Governor Kerner asked us not to forget, there are disappointing signs of an unwillingness of a small, hard core of Americans to learn from the past.

            In yesterday’s New York Times John Harwood provided the most recent reminder that the basic conclusion of the Report about two societies – black – white, had not been heeded.

            I still insist that the words of the Kerner Report can help this generation – if only we will listen to them – and the efforts of the current son of Illinois who occupies the White House is trying to show the way.  Of all of the words in the Report, the following paragraph continues to strongly resonate and provide salvation of the nation:

Only a commitment to national action on an unprecedented scale can shape a future compatible with the historical ideals of American society.  The major need is to generate new will to tax ourselves to the extent necessary to meet the vital needs of the nation.

            As one who was there when the Report was drafted, I can say to you, those words constituted the credo of Otto Kerner – which we must keep alive.