1960s Urban Unrest and the Formation of the Kerner Commission | AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

Learn why dozens of urban riots erupted in the 1960s, particularly in African American communities, and what the Kerner Commission, established by President Johnson, was tasked with in these clips adapted from AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. Despite the passage of the most significant civil rights legislation since the Civil War, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, the riots, and the media’s lurid coverage of them, alarmed the nation and threatened President Johnson’s legacy.