“What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again?” These are the questions that drove President Lyndon Johnson to create the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, in the summer of 1967, after a series of disturbances in Los Angeles, Chicago, Newark, and Detroit. Those disturbances, derisively called “race riots,” called out for reflection and pragmatic action. Members of the Commission included its leader and chair, Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, then New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay (vice chair), Oklahoma Senator Fred R. Harris (a Democrat), Kentucky Commissioner of Commerce Katherine G. Read more