The 1967 Turmoil

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The riots that tore many of the African-American neighborhoods in 1967 was an event that hadn’t been anticipated. It was an event where law enforcement operatives endured shockingly random injuries and deaths. Forceful ransacking of property, battering, and burning of people’s properties became the order of the day during this time. People died in their hundreds while others sustained injuries. The riot was blamed on the young black men since they represented the largest and most visible group of rioters. That assumption very much differed from that of the Kerner commission that ascertained that it was white racism that unlocked the turmoil in American cities.

Unscrupulous consumer credit practices, bad policing practices, a high rate of unemployment, the flawed justice system, suppression of voters, and other forms of culturally instigated forms of racial discrimination all propelled the violent upheaval. The violence was even worsened when the inadequately trained police officers, and the National Guard troops entered the affected neighborhoods to quell the violence.

The turmoil that was witnessed was an amalgamation of the many forms of oppressive acts that the African-Americans had witnessed at the hands of the white man. It was time for them to stand up for themselves and fight for equality. The segregation that the whites had happily initiated left many African-Americans to languish in poverty in the ghetto. Many whites were oblivious of the hardships in the ghetto, and thus they continued living their lives normally while oppressing the Negros. To the African-Americans, the ghetto was created by the Whites, and they had full knowledge of what was happening, but they decided to turn a blind eye since they regarded their race to be superior. Such kind of thinking thus led African-American to take matters on their own hands and fight for what they felt was right.

The Kerner commission that was tasked with the mandate of investigating what happened, why did it happen and how to stop the violence from happening did give a conclusive report that addressed everything.  The report advocates for the initiation of programs that are aimed at closing the gap between promise and performance and the government needs to be ready to fund such programs.