Civil Disorder: The Kerner Report, Part 3

Presents three prominent Negroes who analyze the Kerner Report in terms of favorable response to it. Shows panel composed of Charles V. Hamilton, black nationalist leader and co-author of Black Power: The Politics of Liberation; Baynard Rustin, a Negro spokesman; and psychology professor Kenneth Clark. Indicates their pessimism with regard to progress., This episode of the Public Broadcast Laboratory NET series, aired on March 3rd, 1968 is entirely devoted to the report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the Kerner Commission. Established by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967, the Commission was appointed to investigate the causes of the 1967 race riots in the United States and to provide recommendations for the future. PBL illustrates the crux of the problem of the urban ghetto using two New York City communities as examples: Harlem, where conditions remain essentially unchanged since last summer, and Bedford-Stuyvesant, where attempts are being made to attack urban poverty and despair. James Baldwin, author and essayist, and William Styron, author of “The Confessions of Nat Turner,” will review the Report on Civil Disorders as a social document. The broadcast concludes with a live, interconnected analysis of the Report on Civil Disorder moderated by Tom Pettit of KCET-PBL. Guests include David Ginsburg, executive director of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders; Charles V. Hamilton, black nationalist leader and co-author of “Black Power: The Politics of Liberation;” Baynard Rustin, prominent black spokesman; and Dr. Kenneth Clark, a leading psychologist.