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by Rick Loessberg (Author)
Inside one of the nation's most important works on race
Two Societies: The Rioting of 1967 and the Writing of the Kerner Report studies the 150 riots that occurred throughout the country in 1967 and how this infamous report was written in only seven months and unanimously adopted by both Republicans and Democrats. Designed so that each chapter can serve as stand-alone account of some aspect about the report, its development, or the rioting, Two Societies also looks into why the rioting seemed to suddenly stop after Martin Luther King's assassination. It assesses to what extent progress has been made at eliminating the "two societies" that the report warned about, and it compares 1967's rioting to the disorders that occurred after George Floyd's death in 2020. Given that so many of the subjects that the Kerner Report addressed (unequal economic opportunities, controversial police incidents, a lack of understanding about the existence and impact of racism, etc.) are identical to those that we struggle with today, Two Societies will not only be of interest to those who study or participate in creating policy but also those who want to know what happened then and what is happening now.
Author Biography
Rick Loessberg has previously written numerous articles on the Kerner Report and conducted an oral history interview of Kerner Commission member Fred Harris for the LBJ Presidential Library. He also has had a more than thirty-year career working for or with local, state, and federal government and administering many of the types of programs that the Kerner Report recommended.
