
TODAY WE RECOGNIZE THE 49TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GROUNDBREAKING “KERNER REPORT”
The Powerful Report Can End Payback Ambush Attacks On Police; Cops Killing Black Men; Black On Black Crime; And Improve Police/Community Relations
The Report Can Also End Poverty, Unemployment, Homelessness, Gun & Gang Violence, Racism, And Reduce Dropout Rates
Global and Domestic terrorism, along with Gun & Gang violence continue to have a devastating affect on the lives of our young citizens. As we celebrate our 15th anniversary our work will remain focused on how we can improve both public safety and Police/Community relations. Over the last months we have seen an uptick on “Payback Ambush Murders” of Police, as well as more videos of the Police shooting unarmed Black men. Tensions are riding high and some are saying this is just a tip of the iceberg. Over the years we have marched, lobbied, created programs, worked with community leaders, gangs, criminals, clergy and elected officials on a host of initiatives to make this a safer and better America, but this is the worst we have ever seen it. Believe it or not we are at war and if we don’t take a proactive stand we will suffer a level of murder and mayhem not seen since 911.
.
.
.
.
.
In NYC we have had a lot of success for the first half of the year. In June we attended a major press conference to announce Gun Violence Awareness Month in NY, the first and only state to dedicate an entire month to Gun Violence Awareness, and it seems to have paid off. As a result June 2016 was declared the safest in four decades as murders dipped to 34.4% from 32 last years to 21, while shootings dropped 3.7% from 108 last year to 104. For the first half of 2016 homicides were down with 161 through June — a 6.3% drop compared to the 172 reported over the same period in 2015. Shootings were also down about 20% in the first 6 months of 2015 with 435 compared to 545 last years. Mayor de Blasio said “it’s the fewest shootings in the first 6 months of any year in our history.” Police say the declines were driven in part by a crackdown on violent street gangs, an element we urged Police and Politicians to pay more attention to through our Hip-Hop Against Gun & Gang Violence project. So far we are on pace once again to be the safest big city in America and need your support to achieve that task.
THE HEALING POWER OF THE 49-YEAR OLD KERNER COMMISSION
In New York, especially after 911, we understand the importance of working hard to find solutions to improve Public Safety. The Hip-Hop Summit Youth Council has been in the trenches as we celebrate our 15th anniversary this month. All too often we find ourselves searching for solutions to a problem not knowing that one may already exist, that’s why we had to bring this information to our young citizens on the groundbreaking “Kerner Report” because you need to understand history to find solutions to address the problems of social justice and racial inequality we have today. In the 50’s and 60’s there was a lot of social unrest in America fueled by the Civil Rights Movement. Things got so bad that on July 28, 1967, exactly 39 years ago from today, former Democratic President Johnson created a commission titled “The Kerner Commission,” which consisted of 11 members led by Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois. Things got so bad that on July 28, 1967, exactly 49 years ago from today, former Democratic President Johnson created a commission titled “The Kerner Commission,” which consisted of 11 members led by Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois. (This is the first Federal Report that blamed Race for the nation’s problems.)

Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, Chairman and NYC Mayor John Lindsay, Vice-chair of Kerner Commission.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
They were charged with coming up with a viable plan to address the murdering, crime, poverty and racial tension that was tearing our county apart by assessing exactly what happened, why and what can be done to prevent a repeat of the crisis. The document was called the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders or the Kerner Report. It took 7 months of painstaking investigation to come up with comprehensive solutions to the problem. As we recognize the 39th anniversary of the creation of this powerful and historic commission the general conclusion then and still holding true today is that: Our nation is moving toward 2 societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal. Discrimination and segregation continue to threaten the safety, growth and development of this country. Dr. King pronounced the report was a “physician’s warning of approaching death, with a prescription for life.”
The report outlines the facts behind the shame of our cities and the crisis our nation is under. The horror of Watts was the first shattering revelation about America’s racial crisis and an introduction to the future it left unchecked. The summer of 1967 revealed the deep-rooted hate across the U.S. as a result of over 300 years of inequities. The worst was a two-week period in July, first in Newark and then in Detroit, setting off a chain reaction in neighboring communities.

John Kennedy, Malcolm X, Dr. King, Robert Kennedy — 4 leaders for Justice assassinated during the Civil Rights Movement.
.
.
.
You see, after reading the over 500-page comprehensive report we were convinced that the strategies and solutions proposed could be applied to the problems we are having today. In fact, if former President Johnson would have acted on the commission’s findings we would not be experiencing a race war that has lead to an increase of Police being murdered and Black men being killed by Police. These actions continue to divide our country today. We have no idea why the former President went through all the trouble of coming up with a detailed solution to the problem and then dropped the ball, but young citizens in America want to know what happened? Even if the former President decided to let the country remain divided, what happened to the voice of the other 11 panel members, which included the NAACP? What happened to the media, after all there were some high profile people involved who came up with a great plan to stop the murder and mayhem 4 months ahead of schedule?

Stand Up & Stop Out Gun & Gang Violence with the Power Partners 4 Peace and the Hip-Hop Against Gun & Gang Violence Project.
.
.
.
.
I guess at the end of the day many leaders said the government had no real intentions of ever fixing the problem. What that says to our young citizens is that the people have to take control of their own future because no one is going to give you anything, it’s all up to you to make a difference and secure your future. Citizens have to understand that at the end of the day if there is too much money being made off the problem the solution will be put on a shelf. To the rich, Black and Blue lives don’t matter, only the dollar bill. When will the poor and middle class wake up and figure out that they are both being used by the 1%? They only have themselves to blame because united they stand and divided they will fall to gun violence.
.
.
.
While we search for answers we will reintroduce this master plan to America with a focus on generation X and the Millennials because young citizens will benefit the most. This will be a part of our “Call To Action” for young citizens to step up to the plate and help heal the wounds that compromise their future and are tearing the country apart. We want to use this report for what it was intended to do, and this is to empower every citizen that wants to be a part of the American dream.
Said former President Johnson “The only genuine, long-range solution for what has happened lies in an attack — mounted at every level — upon the conditions that breed despair and violence. All of us know what those conditions are: ignorance, discrimination, slums, poverty, disease, not enough jobs. We should attack these conditions — not because we are frightened by conflict, but because we are fired by conscience. We should attack them because there is simply no other way to achieve a decent and orderly society in America,” ended Johnson.
Excerpts from the report state the following:
The alternative is not blind repression or capitulation to lawlessness. It is the realization of common opportunities for all within a single society. This alternative will require a commitment to national action — compassionate, massive and sustained, backed by the resources of the most powerful and the richest nation on this earth. From every American it will require new attitudes, new understanding, and, above all, new will. The vital needs of the nation must be met; hard choices must be made, and, if necessary, new taxes enacted.
Violence cannot build a better society. Disruption and disorder nourish repression, not justice. They strike at the freedom of every citizen. The community cannot — it will not — tolerate coercion and mob rule. Violence and destruction must be ended — in the streets of the ghetto and in the lives of people. Segregation and poverty have created in the racial ghetto a destructive environment totally unknown to most white Americans. What white Americans have never fully understood — but what the Negro can never forget — is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.
It is time now to turn with all the purpose at our command to the major unfinished business of this nation. It is time to adopt strategies for action that will produce quick and visible progress. It is time to make good the promises of American democracy to all citizens — urban and rural, white and black, Spanish-surname, American Indian, and every minority group. Our recommendations embrace three basic principles:
- To mount programs on a scale equal to the dimension of the problems:
- To aim these programs for high impact in the immediate future in order to close the gap between promise and performance;
- To undertake new initiatives and experiments that can change the system of failure and frustration that now dominates the ghetto and weakens our society.
Our next move is to “Pound the Payment” using our Power Partners 4 Peace initiative as a platform to achieve safety and prosperity for all. Our movement was created to address: Police shootings of minorities; the shooting and killing of law enforcement officers; Poor Police/Community relations; and social issues like poverty, racism, unemployment, gun and gang violence and dropout rates that continue to plague our nation, especially poor and disadvantaged communities. After Johnson signed the Civil Rights Bill, which was a hard fought uphill climb, legend has it that as he put down his pen he whispered to an aide, “We have lost the South for a generation”, anticipating a coming backlash from Southern whites against his Democratic Party. As long as there are a group of pissed off people out there who feel that laws were passed to destroy their lives we will continue to experience acts of hate from those citizens who feel they are better than those who don’t look like them.

BLACK & BLUE LIVES MATER We have to improve Police/Community Relations in order to stop killing each other and focus on the real criminals.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
AMERICA IS A GOD-FEARING NATION
Biographer Randall B. Woods has argued that Johnson effectively used appeals to Judeo-Christian ethics to garner support for the passage of the Civil Rights Act. At 15 Johnson joined the Disciples of Christ, or Christian, church and would forever believe that it was the duty of the rich to care for the poor, the strong to assist the weak, and the educated to speak for the inarticulate. Johnson shared the beliefs of his mentor, FDR, in that he paired liberal values to religious values, believing that freedom and social justice served both God and man. He held white America accountable to their Christian values, questioning how individuals who go to church every week and identified themselves with a merciful and just God could continue to support racial discrimination, police brutality, segregation and the killing of innocent people? Where in the Judeo-Christian ethic was there justification for killing people because of the color of their skin?
At the end of day the people have the power to shape the direction of this country so we will take this 39-year-old report and put it in the hands of the Millennials and Generation X so they can take us to the next level. According to former press secretary George Christian, former President Johnson was unsurprised by the riots saying: “What did you expect? I don’t know why we’re so surprised. When you put your foot on a man’s neck and hold him down for three hundred years, and then you let him up, what’s he going to do? He’s going to knock your block off,” ended Johnson.