MLK, The Kerner Report, and The Fourth Estate

Where do we go from here?

Photo by LeeAnn Cline on Unsplash

First, let me explain the terms in the title that might be unfamiliar to some.

Kerner report: Officially known as the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. This commission was created by President Lyndon Johnson to investigate the causes of race riots between 1965 and 1967. The investigation began in July 1967 and ended in February 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. called the Kerner report a “physician’s warning of approaching death, with a prescription for life.” Two months later MLK was assassinated and riots erupted all over the country again.

The fourth Estate: This term refers to the media functioning as an informal fourth branch of government. The term is attributed to Edmund Burke. Burke claimed Great Britain’s Parliament had three estates, but the reporter’s formed the fourth estate of the realm, and the fourth estate was more valuable to the public than the others.

Now, during past MLK holidays opinion writers on the left and right reminded their readers in 1967, the year before MLK’s assassination, MLK published a book called: Where do we go from here? Community or Chaos. Then the writers attempted to answer MLK’s question.

Writers on the left praised the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965…