Where were you during the 1967 Detroit Riot?

[Don K]

I was 13 and living in South Jersey. I recall seeing segments on the evening news about the riots and my dad having plenty of racially offensive comments [[as he did about the Newark and Plainfield riots in NJ). It was after I moved here in '78 I found out that the event was seared into the memory of anyone who lived in the area at the time. One of my first friends here grew up in East Dearborn and remembered the Dearborn Police patrolling the border with Detroit.

[oladub]

Earlier today, Sunday, I was reading this thread and was reminded of comments made by the Prince at the end of Romeo and Juliet. He criticized the foolishness that cost the two antagonistic houses so much and himself for not interceding. The thought was a bit too esoteric so I didn't post it after looking up the quote.

We have had flooding problems in the last couple of days, where I am, so I agreed to take my wife to an art fair to put problems behind for a few hours. Walking around an art fair is, after all, more fun than rescuing stranded cattle twice, picking up debris, and digging trenches to drain fetid water. We went our own ways at the art fair. I had a strange conversation with a photographer who gave me two postcards he had for sale but who asked me to leave when we started talking about Vietnam because he was getting too emotional remembering the costs. I then ran into my wife who wanted to show me a drawing of Shakespeare - of all people. I hadn't mentioned anything to her about Shakespeare so this was coincidence. The artist had already packed up his Shakespeare drawing but he brought it out and I told him about the coincidence of having looked up that particular quote and being taken to see a Shakespeare drawing in the same day. To my surprise, he knew the passage and recited it. So I thought that perhaps this was worth sharing. Think of the Montagues and Capulets as being two races who antagonize and destroy each other and the Prince as being the Mayor and others who had the power to stamp this thing out but instead allowed it to go on.

The Prince:
“Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!
See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.
And I for winking at your discords too
Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.”

Detroit has been punished for it's hate. We've all been punished.

[carlscomputers]

Thank You Oladub for sharing! I have gotten so much passion, knowledge, etc. from this thread & your post is so fitting...

[Zacha341]

OK, it was just a casual question; indeed I am adept at google and bing.com as needed.

And just 'WHAT' precisely are you describing/ defining in your use of the word "intertubes"?

Union Lake is still called Union Lake. If you point your intertubes machine to the google, you might even be able to find a map to this most hidden of treasures.

[Downriver Gal]

And just 'WHAT' precisely are you describing/ defining in your use of the word "intertubes"?

The internet is a series of tubes. Everybody knows that.

[Zacha341]

Yikes! Indeed a tragedy... that I missed that! Some of the web 'vernacular' gets by me, yet the bills will still get paid somehow. LOL. Thanks for the heads up...

The internet is a series of tubes. Everybody knows that.

[Zacha341]

Hmmmn, usually Dennis Archer is exempted from the 'list'... He certainly tried to the right thing it can be argued as least so as to not be cannonized with the likes of Kilpatrick et al. Hah. What a failed attempt after all... Dennie.....

Whatever the problems were that the black folks had with the city or the police on that night in July of 1967 were, it’s nothing compared to the screwing they got everyday over the next over forty years during the Coleman Young, Archer, and Kwame Kilpatrick administrations. You can try to revise history, lie to yourself, or just go into denial, but the truth is the truth. We should all look back on the Mayor Cavanagh years as “the good old days”.

[jefferson78]

I was 7 years old at the time of the riots. My family had just moved from the east side, living with my grandmother, to the west side. I remember my Mom talking on the phone with her Mom and mentioning a "race riot". I knew something bad was happening but could not put my finger on it. Hearing the word "race" and running my imagination, I envisioned revelers tearing up a city to conduct some kind of race.
Later on, the event became apparent when we visited my Grandma and stood on the porch with my brother and sister watching the National guard pass by in their vehicles and waving to them, thinking "this was different".
My Dad worked downtown at the Greyhound bus terminal and shortly after the violence subsided he drove our family down 12th street to see the damage. It was a surreal scene I won't ever forget and it really left an impression on me as a kid.
To this day, I am fascinated at the history of this unfortunate event and even ended up working with a former National guradsman when I was 35 who was sent into the middle of the most dangerous areas.
For all of Detroit's troubles and history, I will always be proud to call it my hometown and I pray that it will rise again to it's former glory.

[carolcb]

I was 12 and we lived in Wayne. My dad hauled cars out of the Ford plants and he was away - I am not sure what state he was in but far enough that he couldn't get home in a hurry. He called home and told us to go stay with family out of state. Of course, nothing was going on in Wayne. But it did scare my dad. I do remember we could not buy gas. We stayed at the house and that was that.

[jackie5275]

Union Lake is still called Union Lake. If you point your intertubes machine to the google, you might even be able to find a map to this most hidden of treasures.

The lake itself is stilled called Union Lake, but the surrounding community has been changed into Commerce, White Lake, West Bloomfield, & Waterford Townships depending on where you are. This was done when the Union Lake post office was closed by USPS in the early 1990s. Some businesses were able to keep their Union Lake name & address for identity purposes, but for the most part Union Lake is gone.

[jcole]

I don't know how many of you are aware that there were previous race riots in Detroit, but here is an article from the Detroit News about the 1943 riots. In many ways, this was a worse incident than the 1967 ones.
Here's a direct quote from the below linked article:

Five black men received 80-day jail terms for disturbing the peace. Two were acquitted. Twenty-eight were charged and convicted on various charges including concealed weapons, destruction of property, assault, larceny. There was little arson, due to gasoline rationing, but more than a few cars were overturned and torched.
Tipton and Little, the two blacks linked to the original rumor, were sentenced to two-to-five years for inciting a riot.
The city's white police force was criticized for its "restraint" in dealing with the black rioters, despite the fact that only blacks -- 17 of them -- were killed by police.


From The Detroit News: http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history...#ixzz0unpuizmu

http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=185

[Ronjm23]

I had already left the Detroit area and was living and working in upstate NY when I learned of the riots. My parents were still alive and living in the downriver area. I decided to come home to visit and try to calm them. I recall vividly exiting the tunnel and after the customs check the officer saying, "don't you know there's a riot going on?" Of course I did. I recall getting on the Edsel Ford doing ~ 90 mph. There wasn't a car in sight. There were no problems downriver and by the time I left to return to NY it was all over. I never had a good realization of the causes. It would be a few years later when I hear Gordon Lightfoot's recording 'Black Day in July.' I had a better idea of what happened and why.

[littlebuddy]

Lived Downriver and was 12 when the riots started. My mom kept us home from school, not sure if school was shut down or just her fears, as she was in the riots in 1943 when she was a kid. We drove over to my Grandma's house where my Aunt and Uncle also lived in Dearborn just a block or so from the Detroit border and the first thing I seen when I walked in the house was a shotguy right by the door. My uncle said with a smile that he was waiting for a carload of them to come down the street. That has always stuck out in my mind, what he said and the smile he had on his face.

[river rat]

Most of us who were there would rather forget that time period. I lived at Mack and Beaubien and had an E.ticket for the entire fiasco. I worked in health care at the time and remain amazed at the continung claim that "only" 40 some individuals lost their lives due to the riot/uprising/rebellion. The 'riot deaths' were those due to trauma caused by obvious murder or arson. Those who were killed when hit by cars, had heart attacks, didn't get to the hospital for logistical reasons, etc. were not classified as such. Eugene Methvin has written on the riots and it is worth a read. old.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback200509011316.asp

There were two weeks of tanks on the streets with soldiers everywhere. Those of us who considered ourselves Detroiters forever abandoned that dream that month of July, 1967. I have heard many say that it was only a minor reason for the decline of the city; do not believe that. When you were there and saw what transpired, you knew Detroit was doomed to a gloomy future. I left three years later and although my memories of growing up in Detroit remain happy, I have never regretted what some may say was abandoning the city. I disagree, the city I grew up in abandoned all of us.

River rat

[MickeyMac]

I’m still waiting for an apology from the black community for the damage they did to the city

Maybe the racist white community should apologize. The 1967 riots was years in the making.

[xphillipjrx]

I was born in 1969. My grandparents always had a pantry in the basement with like 10 cans of every kind of food. We were cleaning up the house a couple of years ago after my grandma died and my mom said something about "all that riot food". Turns out my grandparents got caught high and dry with no reserves during the riot and ever since then they stocked up on food like crazy.

[Searay215]

I was a SP4 in the US Army at Ft. Rucker AL, Lock down mode, all leaves canceled, given riot training and was perpared to be shipped to a city of the army's choosing on a moments notice.

[5thSFGP]

I was half way through a government sponsored trip to SEA. Never have understood the riots. Angry that a blind pig was busted? Well . . . just step outside your home `and throw a match into it - what a deal. I don't think that anyone will argue that the riot was the beginning in the rapid decline of Detroit and Coleman finished it off. I visited a few weeks ago enroute to Traverse City for vacation, drove around my old neighborhood - Haverhill & Harper,and I wanted to cry - what a bloody mess! I've been to a lot of places during my 20 years in the army, but I've never felt as vulnerable than the couple of hours in Detroit I spent in Motown.

[Retroit]

I’m still waiting for an apology from the black community for the damage they did to the city

Who suffered more from the riot: blacks or whites?

It seems to me that the riot did more long-term harm to the black community than it did to the whites who moved off to better lives in the suburbs. The black community may have succeeded in driving the white "oppressors" from "their" city, but what did that leave them with? Arguably a more poverty-stricken and crime-infested city than they inherited in '67.

[jcole]

The excuse for the riot starting was the raid of the blind pig. It started long before that. There were groups in town in advance of July that were here to specifically incite trouble, as well as years of discrimination against minorities. If the blind pig hadn't been raided, something else would have tipped it.
The entire U.S. was a tinderbox waiting for a flint at that time.

[Detroit Stylin]

My uncle said with a smile that he was waiting for a carload of them to come down the street. That has always stuck out in my mind, what he said and the smile he had on his face.

I hate to inform you of this but that statement in and of itslef lets you know where your Uncles mind was at and how they thought on a regualr basis before and AFTER the riot...

[SMRJim]

That was the summer between 1st and 2nd grade for me so memories are fairly vague. We lived near Grand River and Grenfield. I do remember seeing the trucks and tanks going by, seeing the national guard over at St Marys of Redford church one afternoon, and being in the backyard at night and not being able to go out front like we usually did to play with the neighborhood kids. I've heard that there was some looting and/or vandalism that went on over by the Grand River/Greenfield shopping center, though nothing beyond that [[no fires or shooting). I think that the guard was placed on top of some of the stores there.

[Zacha341]

Thank you, I knew there had been some change.

The lake itself is stilled called Union Lake, but the surrounding community has been changed into Commerce, White Lake, West Bloomfield, & Waterford Townships depending on where you are. This was done when the Union Lake post office was closed by USPS in the early 1990s. Some businesses were able to keep their Union Lake name & address for identity purposes, but for the most part Union Lake is gone.

[Honeyman]

My father had a shoe store on Gratiot at Van Dyke. Days after the riots when he finally came back to see the damage, the display windows had been shattered. On one of those displays where an expensive pair of Florsheims had sat, somebody took those and replaced them with their old bloody footwear. He couldn't help but laugh that they had taken the time to mount them correctly on the display as if those shoes were for sale.

[Zacha341]

Indeed these events are always bigger than the expressed 'trigger' point...

The excuse for the riot starting was the raid of the blind pig. It started long before that. There were groups in town in advance of July that were here to specifically incite trouble, as well as years of discrimination against minorities. If the blind pig hadn't been raided, something else would have tipped it.
The entire U.S. was a tinderbox waiting for a flint at that time.