The Essential Kerner Commission Report: The Landmark Study on Race, Inequality, and Police Violence

While there were a few interesting revelations & insights throughout, mostly this seemed to be a confirmation—of how things were, and too often, of how they remain. Probably the only bit of the report I was previously aware of was the often-repeated “two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal” line, but seeing it in its full context reinforced just how accurate that assessment was (and, again, is). You feel a certain tension reading this—while the language is in the formal register of its time, and uses some quite out-of-date terms, its relevance to the present day is also palpable and clear. In his framing, Jelani Cobb points out numerous points of connection between then and now, but honestly, those parallels fairly jumped out, all on their own.