This series contains the records of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (NACCD) also known as the Kerner Commission or the Riot Commission. The records document the activities of its members and staff, as well as the research undertaken and the information collected for the preparation of its report.
Documentation of the commissioners' and senior staff members' activities are found in the reading and subject files of Commissioner Senator Fred R. Harris (Democrat of Oklahoma), Executive Director David Ginsburg, Deputy Executive Director Victor H. Palmieri, Special Assistant to the Executive Director John A. Koskinen. Records of other administrative staff include the subject files of Associate Director for Public Safety Arnold Sagalyn, Director of Investigations Milan C. Miskovsky, Director of Congressional Relations Henry B. Taliaferro, Jr., and Director of Information Alvin A. Spivak. In addition to the administrative records in those files, there are documents about commission meetings and memoranda sent to the commissioner by various staff members.
Records of the Commission's public activities consist of correspondence received before and after publication of its report, press releases and clippings about the Commission's work, and textual and graphic material related to the report's production and issuance by the Government Printing Office (GPO).
Records of the Commission's research efforts include transcripts and exhibits for hearings, depositions, questionnaires, studies prepared for the Commission, other studies related to the subject matter of the Commission's investigations, reports and other published works of Federal and non-Federal agencies, newspaper and periodical clippings and special issues on a broad range of relevant topics, congressional resolutions, books, bibliographies, audio recordings of television and radio coverage of the disturbances in the summer of 1967, and investigative reports prepared by the Commission's Office of Investigations and other Federal agencies. The subject files of Special Consultant Robert Conot and consultants Howard Margolis and Gerald M. Astor contain research material and correspondence about data gathering and analysis. A subset of the Commission's research involved analyzing print and broadcast media reportage of the disturbances, and featured a conference in Poughkeepsie, New York, from November 10-12, 1967.
Records of two advisory bodies to the Commission are included in its files. Those of the Advisory Panel on Private Enterprise consist mainly of statements of government agencies, business leaders, and scholars on the role of free enterprise in alleviating the causes of civil disorder. The records of the Commission's National Advisory Panel on Insurance in Riot-Affected Areas consist of program planning records, minutes, correspondence, staff memorandums, proposed legislation, press clippings, questionnaires, interview transcripts, and materials relating to field surveys and research studies of insurance problems. The panel issued its own report, Meeting the Insurance Crisis of Our Cities, in January 1968.
