American Attitudes and Race

In 1963, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights sent a report to President John F. Kennedy and congressional leaders, concluding: "It is now 100 years since this nation, lagging behind other civilized countries, abolished slavery. Yet today, the descendants of those freed slaves still suffer from customs, traditions and prejudices that should have died with the institution in which they flourished."

Five years later, President Lyndon Johnson's National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders -- commonly known as the Kerner Commission after its chair, Gov. Otto Kerner of Illinois -- issued...