The Long Hot Summer

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.7 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 9 July 2020

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Starting in 1965, summer after summer, America's cities burned. There was civil unrest in more than 150 cities across the country. So in 1967, Lyndon Johnson appointed a commission to diagnose the root causes of the problem and to suggest solutions. What the so called "Kerner Commission" returned with was hotly anticipated and shocking to many Americans. This week, how that report and the reaction to it continues to shape American life.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Early Sunday morning in July of 1967, there was a raid of a after hours bar in Detroit.
0:13.8	Police had it under surveillance for several weeks.
0:16.3	The early hours of Sunday morning, last, a raid of the premises and discovered an after
0:21.3	hours drinking establishment.
0:23.0	It was crowded.
0:24.0	There were dozens of people there.
0:25.4	They came together to celebrate someone who had been fighting in Vietnam.
0:30.3	And they tried to arrest everybody.
0:31.8	A large crowd gathered.
0:33.3	Their curiosity turned to hostility.
0:36.0	They began shouting their disapproved.
0:38.1	There were bottles thrown.
0:39.6	Several store windows were shattered.
0:41.8	Garbage cans were upended.
0:43.3	The contents set on fire.
0:45.3	A eruption of violence and that simply spread.
0:47.9	So 100 rounds, squeeze out now and ocean this silent, dense quiet everybody looking.
0:56.2	Fire has been raging for more than 30 minutes.
0:58.9	The people have been evacuated and yet the firemen are unable to respond.
1:06.1	They have the fear they couldn't control the situation.
1:08.2	The local police simply are overwhelmed.
1:10.4	The entire city of here to be here.
	...

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