Kuci: Film School

Director Michelle Ferrari’s comprehensive documentary THE RIOT REPORT tracks a time in recent American history when Black neighborhoods in scores of cities erupted in violence during the summer of 1967. After four consecutive summers of urban violence, President Lyndon Johnson appointed the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders - informally known as the Kerner Commission, (named after its chair, Governor Otto Kerner Jr. of Illinois) - to answer three questions: What happened? Why did it happen? And what could be done to prevent it from happening again? The bi-partisan commission’s 708 page final report, issued in March of 1968, just days before the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., would offer a shockingly unvarnished assessment of American race relations - a verdict so politically explosive that Johnson not only refused to acknowledge it publicly, but even to thank the commissioners for their service. THE RIOT REPORT explores this pivotal moment in the nation’s history and the fraught so