Looking back: PBS' 'The Riot Report' features former Sen. Fred Harris

May 17—Times have changed — at least we'd like to think so.

United States Sen. Fred Harris was thrust into the national spotlight in 1967, when violence broke out in Black communities across the country.

Harris was tasked by President Lyndon B. Johnson to spearhead a national effort in getting to the root of the problem.

President Johnson appointed the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders — informally known as the Kerner Commission — to answer three questions: What happened? Why did it happen? And what could be done to prevent it from happening again?

The bipartisan commission's final report, issued in March 1968, offered a shockingly unvarnished assessment of American race relations, a verdict so politically explosive that Johnson not only refused to acknowledge it publicly, even to thank the commissioners for their service.

"(The country) has changed quite a little," Harris says. "White people's attitudes have changed. During the time of the Kerner report, we asked, 'Do you think Black people are systematically mistreated?' The majority of white people said 'No.' "

Harris, who now lives in New Mexico, is featured in American Experience's upcoming documentary, "The Riot Report."

It will air at 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 21, on New Mexico PBS, channel 5.1. It will also be available to stream on the PBS app.

The next night, at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 22, Harris will be the guest of honor at a free public screening of clips from "The Riot Report" at the South Broadway Cultural Center. Harris will detail his involvement in the Kerner Commission, examining the race riots of 1967 — followed by an intimate discussion and Q&A, as he looks back on his life and career.

At 93, Harris is the last living member of the Kerner Commission.

"During the height of the riots in Detroit, I introduced a joint resolution that underlined the causes," he says. "I held hearings in my subcommittee. I had been involved with integration efforts throughout Oklahoma. It was a straight shot that I would be involved in the Kerner Commission."

"The Riot Report" explores this pivotal moment in the nation's history and the fraught social dynamics that simultaneously spurred the commission's investigation and doomed its findings to political oblivion.

It is directed by Michelle Ferrari, co-written by Ferrari and New Yorker journalist Jelani Cobb, and executive produced by Cameo George.

"The simple fact is this: We are in the worst crisis we have known since the Civil War," said a television journalist in September 1967.

Several weeks before, a police raid on an after-hours club in a predominantly Black section of Detroit had sparked racial unrest unlike anything Americans had ever seen: a furious uprising that paralyzed the city, left 43 people dead and burned hundreds of buildings to the ground. Nor was it an isolated incident. The disturbance in Detroit had been preceded that summer by violence in Newark, New Jersey; Milwaukee; Cincinnati; Rochester, New York; Toledo, Ohio; and scores of other cities, mainly in the North and Midwest.

Few contemporary observers expected the bipartisan Kerner Commission (named after its chair, Gov. Otto Kerner Jr. of Illinois) to deliver meaningful answers.

Only two members of the commission were Black and both, like the nine white members, had been chosen by Johnson on the strength of their allegiance to him.

Adding to the skepticism was the widespread perception that such commissions were typically convened as a gesture without commitment to any particular course.

Johnson, for his part, hoped the commissioners would find evidence of outside agitation — ideally, by Communist-aligned advocates of Black Power — and would draw conclusions that both acknowledged his significant civil rights achievements and shored up support for his ambitious social agenda.

But the Kerner Commission defied expectations.

In addition to holding pro forma hearings with experts, the commissioners toured many of the afflicted cities, an experience that moved Tex Thornton, arguably the commission's most conservative member, "about 90 degrees to the left," he said.

Those visits were followed by thorough field investigations conducted in 23 cities by teams of social scientists. In the end, although the commissioners split over many issues, there was unanimous consensus for the report's central conclusion: the cause of urban disorder was white racism — and the spark that set it off was almost invariably police brutality.

Hurried into print, the 708-page report instantly became a New York Times bestseller, with more than 700,000 copies sold in two weeks.

The urgency of the report's message was further underscored mere weeks after its publication when Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated and the nation's inner cities erupted once more. Yet, according to a poll later that same month, a majority of white Americans rejected the commission's conclusions and its recommendations.

By the time Richard Nixon's law-and-order campaign won him the presidency that fall, the Kerner Commission had been swept from national consciousness.

"The Kerner Commission's unanimous and blistering report put a spotlight on what was at the heart of structural racism and inequality in America," says George. "The findings of this dedicated and bipartisan group remain relevant in today's America, and we hope our film adds some much-needed context to the ongoing national conversation."

Harris says the report caused a rift between him and Johnson.

"He didn't talk to me for a while," Harris says. "We did make up at one point."

Harris recalls hitting the streets with a small team in Detroit, asking young Black men who had been involved in the riots about what happened.

"They were shooting craps on the sidewalk and they jumped up as soon as they saw us," he says. "They asked us if we were FBI. They told us that they needed jobs. Jobs were scarce in the Black community. The central recommendation was for there to be more job creation throughout the country."

Harris says the report and the commission also pushed for communities to be served by those who live within.

"We made strong recommendations to include Black people to be involved in becoming police," he says. "Community policing needed to include officers that looked like the people they were serving. At the time, there were very few Black policemen. There's been progress there."

Harris has seen the documentary and is pleased with the outcome.

"It is the best possible film they could have made," he says. "It's very fair to Lyndon Johnson, though he rejected the report. The report has stayed alive because it told the truth. The bad mistake we made with the commission was not involving the press and the public in the work. During the first 20 days of public hearings, I made a motion that the hearing be open to the public and press. That didn't happen. It would have been terrific to have everyone involved to get the proper input."