BLACK ATTITUDES AND THE 1960s BLACK RIOTS:

Nearly all aggregate-level studies of political violence use objective indicators to assess an aggrieved group's dissatisfactions and deprivations. Critics of this research often note that there are no necessary connections between perceived grievances and their objective counterparts. Moreover, even if such correlations do exist, detractors contend there is no inherent relation between felt grievances and participation in—or support of—collective violent protest. The 1968 Kerner Commission's 15-Cities Study provides a unique set of data to test both of these objections. Correlational analyses of aggregated subjective reports of black grievances and their objective counterparts reveal a weak relation; however, such reports do not correlate with riot activity in directions that would be predicted by conventional wisdom or much of current social science theory.