I Remember '67 Riots & LA's '92 Riots
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Cincinnati_Kid
#45 isn't helping matters much either.
I had just turned 21 when the '67 riots hit. All Detroit liquor stores were closed, so I had to drive to Ann Arbor to buy beer. I agree that you have to study & learn from history or you wind up like our current President & his administration. I lived in a lovely neighborhood at Evergreen & 6 Mile completely unaffected by the riots. I received a good education in Michigan, at Redford high school [['64), Albion College, Economics, B.A [['68), & University of Detroit, M.B.A. [['72) in a time before Betsy DeVos emasculated the education system. I left in '71 because of the "doughnut hole" effect: beautiful suburbs surrounding an inner city nobody cared about.
I left Detroit for Emory University Law School in Atlanta, a city beloved by residents. This was before Detroit's devastating loss of population & business.
I lived in LA when the '92 riots hit. I may be one of the few to experience 2 major riots first-hand. The Detroit riots were much worse.
I've since become an expat for many years, teaching for the University of Maryland in Tokyo for 15 years before retiring to Thailand several years ago. I left the States because I felt it was too conservative, too religious, too violent, too anti-science, too anti-intellectual & too expensive. Obama almost tempted me to return, but now we elected Trump. How is this possible?
In retrospect, after traveling the world, I still have pleasant memories of Detroit. I lived in a time before reality diminished its dreams & hollowed out its future.
Comparing the Detroit & LA Riots
Quote:
Originally Posted by
stasu1213
Detroit was worse than LA 1992 riot? How so
We didn't have Federal troops & tanks in the '92 LA riots, though I remember seeing young California National Guardsmen holding AK-47s guarding the beaches from gangs. That frightened me. In both Detroit & LA I received most of my news from the media. In LA I was closer to the disturbance where in Detroit it was completely 2nd-hand.
When the Detroit riots started on 12th street I was parked there to attend a Tigers game at old Briggs Stadium. I was attending a double-header against the Yankees. I left after the 1st game [[just when the riots were starting) because the Tigers were playing so badly. I didn't hear about the riots until I got home. The defensive shortstop made 3 errors on one play. That was it for me.
As I remember, the level of violence & deaths & injuries were lesser in LA than Detroit. The riots in both cities happened so long ago it's difficult to remember anything except feelings. Both riots were cataclysmic. Comparing them is somewhat meaningless. The LA riots were less violent, because LA's leaders learned a bit from the Detroit riots. Unfortunately, the police forces of both cities were too aggressive.
1967 Detroit Riot Memoirs
Day 1
In the summer of 1967 I was living in an apartment at 70 W. Warren, between Woodward and Cass, having come to Detroit from my university in Indiana to work a summer job at the Dearborn Engine Plant. My car had died a couple of weeks before and I was taking the Warren Crosstown bus to my job in the Rouge industrial complex in Dearborn.
The following is my eye witness account of the 1967 Detroit Riot, as excerpted from a diary I kept and am now posting on the 50th anniversary.
Sunday - July 23, 1967
“I got up at 1 PM today today and proceeded to do a great deal of housecleaning until about 5 PM when Dan and his fiancée Vivian came by and took me out to Vivian’s [parent’s house] for swimming and supper.
“In the afternoon I discovered that a riot had exploded in Detroit’s near Westside with the eye of the storm being at 12th Ave. and Euclid Avenue, about one mile from my apartment. Widespread firebombing and looting had been reported.
“Upon returning from Southfield with Dan and Vivian, a black pall of smoke could be seen hovering over the inner-city area. It was ominous and frightening. We were going to leave the expressway at Livernois and go down to Grand River to stop at Vivian's place of work but raging fires, the sight of looters running about with their arms full of thievings and the radio reports of sniper fire changed our minds. Notable was a complete absence of police and firemen.
At the top of the ramp fires could be seen raging untended at a couple of storefronts down Livernois. Numerous looters, Afro and Euro-American, were joyously running about on Livernois hugging arms full of thievings. Other people sat on their porches calmly watching the festive scene while their littles one played on the sidewalk before them. The scene had a party atmosphere, unthreatening, all laughter, no anger. There were too many people on the street for driving so we continued across Livernois and down the down ramp back onto the Lodge.
An evening of uncertainty followed. A symphony sirens continuously wailed in the background. Squad cars were flying in and out of the 13th Precinct police station a block away at Hancock and Woodward. All hands were on deck. They were leaving on patrols in convoys of four cars, each with a rifle barrel sticking out of all windows but the driver’s. Fire trucks were racing and howling by on Warren and Woodward. The distinctive sour woody smell of smoke that comes from burning buildings hung in the muggy summer air. I had no TV, but the radio broadcasts I heard had turned to full time coverage of the exploding events that worsened with each update. From the radio I learned that a 9:00PM to 5 AM curfew had been imposed creating an awkward situation.
“When I got home, to my surprise and delight, Toni came by. [A woman who I had met the previous evening at Johnnie’s Restaurant through a mutual chess-playing friend. The three of us had ended up hanging out at my place and drinking wine to wee hours.] She was just lonely. So we spent the evening together setting the stage for a most interesting episode. We learned from the radio that a 9 PM to 5 AM curfew was in effect so Toni had to stay here for the night. We slept in the same bed together, but did not sleep together, odd and frustrating to have a Playboy bunny in your bed and yet unable to take advantage of it! She is too crazy about some other man at the moment who is apathetic towards her. She's strange and captivating.”
Read: Day 2