Black communities have worsened since the Kerner Commission report despite civil rights gains

Evidence

In the same vein, it should have been obvious that rebellions in Black communities would sweep our nation again and again, given that police officers and vigilantes continue to kill unarmed Black people like Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd, and given that the deplorable conditions documented in the Kerner Commission’s report remain mostly unaddressed. While some Black people have benefited from the social and policy changes brought by the civil rights movement, in many respects, things have gotten worse for Black communities since that report was published, with so many more Black people in prison, on probation or parole, and subject to legal discrimination due to criminal records. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 408

Categorization

• XREF: Contested empirical claim central to the historian disputes — the Kerner Commission’s conditions remaining unaddressed echoes the Wilentz letter’s challenge on empirical grounding.