Donald Lobsinger Detroit Right Wing Radical Passes

**Lowell** · July-10-20, 08:55 AM

Before the TEA Party, before the radical Trumpers, there was Donald Lobsinger. From the 60's through the 90's one could not attend a left wing protest or reformed Catholic ceremony without seeing him.

His message was devoutly conservative Catholic and anti-Communist carried out in a series of street theater stunts with his tiny group Breakthrough.

He passed without notice two years ago, his passing only now be discovered and told by veteran Free Press reporter Bill McGraw in today's Detroit Free Press. McGraw's article is a well-researched telling of this controversial and colorful Detroiter.

When the Bolshoi Ballet stopped in Detroit as part of a cultural exchange, he tossed anti-communist flyers from the balcony. When another touring Soviet troupe made an appearance at the Masonic Temple, Lobsinger and Breakthrough members tried to enter dressed as a priest, soldiers carrying a casket and a mourner.

To protest the modernization of Catholic rituals and music after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, Lobsinger and acolytes showed up at Sunday masses at east-side churches dressed as clowns, playing guitars.

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**jcole** · July-10-20, 12:52 PM

And I won't miss him a bit

**leapfrog** · July-10-20, 02:38 PM

Originally Posted by jcole

And I won't miss him a bit

No kidding.

This from the article:

In the mid-1960s, Lobsinger joined with Thomas Poindexter, a city council member and what historian Thomas Sugrue called the “official voice of angry white Detroiters” - many of them Catholics - who bitterly fought neighborhood integration.

Yeah, big loss for the area.

**mikefmich** · July-10-20, 02:41 PM

I went to a rally or whatever he held at some hall in SCS, maybe '67?
Talked my dad into taking me, pops hid a tape recorder under his coat, spoke to him personally for maybe a minute, with the tape running.

Was doing a report for HS, in retrospect we were probably lucky we didn't get beaten or killed.

**JBMcB** · July-10-20, 04:04 PM

Originally Posted by Lowell

He only got a ticket? Burning a Russian flag these days will get you a visit from an FSA agent, probably a lethal one.

**Dumpling** · July-10-20, 05:35 PM

There was a civil rights rally in some place like the
Coliseum back in the day that I went to. This would
have been anywhere from 1967 through 1972. 1972
was the year that the Vietnam War ended.

Anyways. The place was very full, and the crowd was
singing "We Shall Overcome". But there was one person
there who was TOTALLY not singing "We Shall Overcome"
nor any other apparent hymn. It was a loud dissonant
warble. I asked my mother who that could be, and she
replied, "Donald Lobsinger". So that is when I learned of
him.

**IrishSpartan** · July-10-20, 07:12 PM

I knew about this a couple of months after he died. I'm somewhat surprised it took this long to come out. Most of the people on staff at either newspaper nowadays probably would have no idea about Donald Lobsinger. The memories from long ago of Lobsinger and Geary at St. David.

**GPCharles** · July-14-20, 02:57 PM

He gathered his minions and picketed outside GP South before, during and after the MLK speech.

**rickbak** · July-14-20, 03:21 PM

Originally Posted by IrishSpartan

I knew about this a couple of months after he died. I'm somewhat surprised it took this long to come out. Most of the people on staff at either newspaper nowadays probably would have no idea about Donald Lobsinger. The memories from long ago of Lobsinger and Geary at St. David.

These are the same out-of-state clowns who continue to spell Joe Louis "Joe Lewis."