The Old Order Changeth

The publication of this Symposium in 1978 marks the tenth anniversary of the final publication of the Race Relations Law Reporter. The timing of the Symposium is particularly appropriate for another reason as well. In 1968, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder, commonly known as the Kerner Commission,issued a report that had been requested by President Lyndon B.Johnson in July 1967. The Commission, which was to investigate the underlying causes of the riots that plagued America's larger cities during the 1960's, offered the pessimistic conclusion that "Our Nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white-separate and unequal." In the face of this bleak prediction, the Commission issued a voluminous set of recommendations concerning what should be done in America in the following years to relieve the tensions between the races.