Webinar
October 1, 2021 11:30 am CDT
Healing
Our Divided Society: The State of America 50 Years After the Kerner Report
“Our nation is
moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”
The above conclusion was made more than 50 years ago by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the Kerner Commission. Established by Lyndon B. Johnson, this commission examined the reasons for the 1967 civil unrest in largely Black communities. The commission, comprised exclusively of white men, was unified in its blunt assessment of the systemic racism and policy and socioeconomic failures that were leaving Black Americans further behind white Americans.
Barriers affecting people of color were identified in almost all areas of well-being and opportunity, including health, education, economic mobility, housing, employment options. The recommended solutions for equity and advancement of people of color were captured in the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. More than 50 years later, we must ask: “Why hasn’t the U.S. made more progress?”
In 2018, the Eisenhower Foundation, the private sector continuation of the Kerner Commission, released its 50-year update of the Kerner report, Healing Our Divided Society. The update lays bare the minimal headway that has been made in reducing poverty, inequities, and racial injustice across the nation. In several ways, the Biden administration has sought to seize the day on the priorities of the Kerner Commission—and several contributors to Healing Our Divided Society are in the new administration. But we still need what the Kerner Commission referred to as “new will” to scale up and sustain what works.Join Dr. Alan Curtis, president of the Eisenhower Foundation and member of the 1968 commission, as he reexaminations the state of America in achieving equity and social justice. This webinar also will include an opportunity for participants to engage in a facilitated discussion on what social sector leaders should do to achieve equity for all.
Learn more about the Kerner Commission how its recommendations are still needed:
The Unmet Promise of Equality (The New York Times)
Kerner Commission Findings Still Resonate More than 50 Years Later (Spotlight on Poverty & Opportunity).Learning Objectives:
- Key findings and recommendations of the Kerner Report
- Implementing and sustaining cross sector change and investment in equity and social justice
- Strategies and goals for social sector leaders to advance equity and inclusion in their organizations and the communities served
Presenter
Dr. Alan Curtis
President
Eisenhower Foundation
Alan Curtis, president of the Eisenhower Foundation, co-authored the Crimes of Violence Task Force Report on President Lyndon Johnson’s National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. He was executive director of President Jimmy Carter’s interagency Urban and Regional Policy Group and urban policy advisor to Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Patricia Roberts Harris, the first African American woman to be appointed to lead a federal Cabinet office.
Curtis has also led human rights delegations to Tibet, Uyghur East Turkestan, and China, as well as police reform delegations to Japan. He has authored and edited many books, including Healing Our Divided Society; Locked in the Poorhouse; Patriotism, Democracy and Common Sense; American Violence and Public Policy; Criminal Violence; and Violence, Race and Culture.
Presently, Curtis is replicating evidence-based youth development models like Quantum Opportunities in American cities. He holds a bachelor’s economics from Harvard, a master’s in economics from the University of London, and a doctorate criminology and Urban Policy from the University of Pennsylvania.