Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation

Created in 1981, the Eisenhower Foundation is the private sector continuation of two Presidential Commissions – the 1967-1968 bipartisan National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (the Kerner Riot Commission, after the big city protests in Detroit, Newark, Los Angeles and many other cities) and the 1968-1969 bipartisan National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (the National Violence Commission, after the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and Senator Robert F. Kennedy).

The Kerner Riot Commission. The Kerner Riot Commission famously concluded, "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal." The Commission said it was "time to make good the promises of American democracy to all citizens – urban and rural, white, black, Spanish surname, American Indians, and every minority group." The panel viewed the federal government as the only institution with the authority and resources to create change "at a scale equal to the dimensions of the problem." The "most persistent and serious grievances" were unemployment and underemployment. Inadequate education, segregation and a racially biased criminal justice system also were pressing grievances. The Commission therefore called for well funded and sustained federal investments – "new initiatives and experiments" for employment, job training, improved education, adequate housing, livable income support, vigorous civil rights enforcement and police reform. In addition, "Important segments of the media failed to report adequately on the causes of civil disorders and on the underlying problems of race relations." The Kerner Commission concluded that, nationally, new attitudes, new understanding and, above all, "new will" would be necessary to carry out its recommendations.

The National Violence Commission. The Kerner Commission report was issued in March, 1968. In April 1968 Dr. King was assassinated, and in June 1968 Senator Kennedy was assassinated. The National Violence Commission then was formed. In its final report the following year, the Violence Commission, as the Kerner Commission, concluded, the most important policy issue was lack of employment and educational opportunity in inner city neighborhoods – set within a larger American economy that prized material success and within a tradition of violence that the media transmitted particularly well:

To be a young, poor male; to be undereducated and without means of escape from an oppressive urban environment; to want what the society claims is available (but mostly to others); to see around oneself illegitimate and often violent methods being used to achieve material success; and to observe others using these means with impunity – all this is to be burdened with an enormous set of influences that pull many toward crime and delinquency. To be also a Negro, Mexican or Puerto Rican American and subject to discrimination and segregation adds considerably to the pull of these other criminogenic forces.

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