Rioting due to lack of an urban strategy

It's been 15 years since I walked the streets of West Baltimore on occasional assignments as a reporter with the Baltimore Sun. But it came as no surprise in watching coverage of this week's riots that many of the same problems that plagued the area then still exist. The streets where demonstrators protested the death of Freddie Gray are the same streets whose open-air drug markets were depicted in the HBO television series "The Wire." But the riots that overshadowed peaceful protests could have occurred in almost any urban environment with the same problems – poverty, no jobs, bad schools, poor health.

Gray's spine was broken after being arrested, linking his death to those of the African American men who died while in police custody in Ferguson, Mo.; Staten Island, N.Y., and North Charleston, S.C. The subsequent demonstrations, rallies, and cries of "Black Lives Matter" after each incident, however, were about much more than how black suspects are treated by the police. You can have the most cordial cops in America and still not have good schools, better health, and jobs. Remedy those problems and black people won't feel like they need to riot to get someone to listen to them.

That's not a new assessment. It was made 50 years ago by the Kerner Commission, which was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to investigate the 167 riots that occurred in 1967. "The frustrations of powerlessness have led some Negroes to the conviction that there is no effective alternative to violence as a means of achieving redress of grievances, and of 'moving the system,' " said the commission. Think about that. Fifty years later and with a black president, as well as black mayors in cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia, many black people still feel powerless. And powerlessness can lead to rioting.

Go to many of the big cities in America and you can still see vestiges of the 1960s riots, including once-thriving commercial corridors in African American communities that now offer little more to see than blight. Is this nation doomed to keep repeating its mistakes? President Obama voiced his frustration Wednesday, saying real change "requires more than just the occasional news report or task force." He's right. It requires an effective urban strategy that recognizes what was lacking in Johnson's "Great Society" antipoverty program and George Bush's "No Child Left Behind" education program, and specifies how Obamacare can help more people. Most of all, it requires an effective way to hear the concerns of people who aren't being heard, and to act on those concerns before anyone riots.

Harold Jackson is editorial page editor of The Inquirer.