Where were you during the 1967 Detroit Riot?

[beachboy]

Toolin' down 12th St with my parents in Dad's 1967 cherry-red Olds Toronado. It was Dad's idea of fun...he kept saying, "ja, dis is vat Berlin looked like after da war..." I still have the Super-8 movies, a little shaky, tho'...memories...

[carlscomputers]

Toolin' down 12th St with my parents in Dad's 1967 cherry-red Olds Toronado. It was Dad's idea of fun...he kept saying, "ja, dis is vat Berlin looked like after da war..." I still have the Super-8 movies, a little shaky, tho'...memories...

Wow! Your Dad lived through the War in Berlin? I'm sure this was nothing [[not taking away from the seriousness of the Riot) to him! Ha! Ha!

[Philbo]

I lived around the Harper and Van Dyke area and there was a fair amount of looting. My Dad drove a charter bus and had to drive up Linwood avenue that Sunday night to drop off some passengers. When he got home that night he was all shook up and if anybody in the world needed a drink it was probably him. Its funny when you think about it now.

[Ray1936]

"Whenever I go back home, I look out that same window and "see" those tanks."

Those were not tanks, Nan. They were armored personnel carriers [["APC's). They were loaned to the DPD by Cadillac Tool and Gauge about the third day of the riot.

I became a life-long admirer of the Salvation Army during that riot. They kept us in coffee and chow for ten days. I still make a hefty donation at Christmas each year.

[beachboy]

carlscomputers asked:
> Wow! Your Dad lived through the War in Berlin?

Dad was a US citizen. He was there but never told why. Somehow, he got to Hiroshima two days after the blast [[checked this out with Dad's friends after his death) - he described the destruction vividly but refused to say why he was there. From what I've heard, a lot of strange things happened before VE- and VJ-days...

Dad was a wonderful guy, a man's man, full of love and kindness and gentility. Inside was a hard-ass adventurer, so it shouldn't have been surprising that he wanted to sashay thru smoking ruins after getting his "new car". Geez, I remember Mom shitting bricks in the back seat!! I was a zit-faced sophomore and thought he was cool as hell.

> I'm sure this was nothing [[not taking away from the seriousness
> of the Riot) to him!

Actually, Dad was very angry at the way the Govt handled the riot. He sided with the Black folks and was sympathetic about them being abused. I think after what he saw in WW2, he just wanted to build a better world any way he could...some of the WW2 guys were like that. Anyway, he felt the riot was the middle of the end for Detroit...unfortunately correct.

Dad's been gone more than 25 years, and I still miss him ... a lot. He was my best friend.

[Kathleen]

carlscomputers: here's what I posted on a similar DYes thread a few years back....

Posted on Thursday, October 26, 2006 - 5:55 am:
I was 10 years old that summer, living in the E. Warren-Outer Drive area.

What I remember most is at night when we could see the orange glow of fires west of us and hear random gunshots. Some of the East Side neighborhood of our parents' youth was being burned by looters. We knew the neighborhood well enough from all the Sunday drives through the streets of their youth so us kids could visualize what was happening where.

On Tuesday, July 25th, my younger brother's 6th birthday, Grandfather came over for dinner and afterwards we drove to Corrigan Park across the street from Engine 52[[?) at E. Warren and Manistique [[near Alter Rd.) to see the nearest staging area for National Guard tanks and fire trucks called in from the suburbs. Many police officers, firefighters, and soldiers were there...in full gear for whatever awaited them. Helicopters buzzed the sky around us. It was an awesome sight to a 10-year-old!

Every night that the riots wore on was a disappointment for us older kids as the curfew imposed on us cancelled our nightly bike ride with our mom [[who worked during the day). It was a summer evening ritual that we enjoyed and remember fondly.

At some point after the riots were over, we resumed our Sunday drives and, of course, did see the devastation on the East Side, mostly along Kercheval.

If you want to read more posts in those Hall of Fame threads...
http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/...tml?1233694687
and
http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/...tml?1235953895

[carlscomputers]

If you want to read more posts in those Hall of Fame threads...
http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/...tml?1233694687
and
http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/...tml?1235953895[/quote]

Thanks Kathleen

[reddog289]

You know for something that happened 43 yrs ago.To alot of the folks here, It could have been last week or so.I am kinda glad I did miss it all, And hope I never see anything like it in my lifetime.

[carlscomputers]

Beachboy, your Dad certainly sounded like a great man. For all you know, he may have been a top secret Army Intelligence Officer? Thanks for sharing your memories of him...

[margaret]

Lakewood Avenue, between Kercheval and Jefferson [[far east side)...and that was my 16th birthday, when the riot began. the heat wave, the humidity, the rage. stories of snipers shooting into cars from the Ford Expressway overpasses. I was such a stupid teenager, all I could think of was that due to the friggin riot the state offices were shut down and I couldn't get my driver's license on my birthday, like I wanted to. neighbors listening to police radios, getting macho with their rifles, etc. smoke in the air, some fires on the east side not too far from our house, up near Mack as I recall. National Guard soldiers marching down our sidewalk, and when my dad lit a cigarette on our porch, they whipped around toward him with rifles ready. crazy time. scary. destructive. groups of people not allowed to assemble, so we could not practice cheerleading, LOL! then when we finally could, we would flirt with the good-looking military guys cruising around in their jeeps. oh, what a person can get used to, right?

[Maof]

Lakewood Avenue, between Kercheval and Jefferson [[far east side)...and that was my 16th birthday, when the riot began. the heat wave, the humidity, the rage. stories of snipers shooting into cars from the Ford Expressway overpasses. I was such a stupid teenager, all I could think of was that due to the friggin riot the state offices were shut down and I couldn't get my driver's license on my birthday, like I wanted to. neighbors listening to police radios, getting macho with their rifles, etc. smoke in the air, some fires on the east side not too far from our house, up near Mack as I recall. National Guard soldiers marching down our sidewalk, and when my dad lit a cigarette on our porch, they whipped around toward him with rifles ready. crazy time. scary. destructive. groups of people not allowed to assemble, so we could not practice cheerleading, LOL! then when we finally could, we would flirt with the good-looking military guys cruising around in their jeeps. oh, what a person can get used to, right?

yes, right on mack. i grew up on manistique and mack and remember the national guard in their "tanks".

[Brian1979]

I was 12 years from being born

[Brian1979]

About 11 years and 7 months from being born. I was born in 1979.

[daveyarm]

My wife, my two kids, and I had just moved to the suburbs, specifically Novi. I still worked downtown, so I as acutely aware of all the problems for those four or five days. I spent the next 40 years living in the suburbs, and always feeling slightly guilty about it. I'm happy to report that four months ago I moved back t Downtown Detroit. I love it!

[mediaangel]

A few of my relatives still lived in the city around the Van Dyke and Gratiot area and my mom and I were going to visit my Grandmother. As we drove down an Dyke we could see smoke coming from downtown. At my Gandmother's house my uncle advised us to go back home. We did, but ventured out a few days later and went to visit other relatives around the Van Dyke and Outer Drive area. As we turned onto Van Dyke we saw a police cruiser with that had rifles pointed out the window.

My Grandmother and my uncles sat on their front porch during the riots and watched all the goings on, they were either not afraid or just plain stupid.

[nain rouge]

Daytime population change due to commuting: -659 [[-0.1%)

It's not that simple when it comes to Detroit. I think you have situation where there are more professional/highly-skilled jobs within Detroit than Detroiters are qualified for, and a relative lack of much-needed low-level/service industry jobs. So you have suburbanites streaming in for the higher paying jobs, and masses of Detroiters taking the bus out to the inner-ring suburbs to work in the many restaurants and retailers located on the main thoroughfares. "-659" doesn't accurately portray the situation.

[Vitalis]

I was 15 that summer, and was pretty much glued to Channel 7 from our very fine family home in Grandmont, watching Jim Herrington and Bill Bonds tell all. The riot area seemed very far away from our neighborhood way out Grand River near the Southfield freeway. The parish of St Mary of Redford was my little piece of Detroit, except for when I escaped with friends by bus downtown to a ball game or a movie. I had grown up very sympathetic to the civil rights movement, but I was just as naive to the tension in the Detroit negro community as I was to the struggles in Memphis or Selma. And I was finally puzzled, and yes, disappointed, and embarrassed by what had happened in my own city that summer.

[stasu1213]

I was living on French Rd then but could barely remember it saving that the store on the corner of French and E Warren was looted and national guard showed up later

[jcole]

I was 11 years old and living in the 7 Mile and Kelly area where a lot of Detroit Police lived back then. There were 5 officers on my block, including my father, who was an inspector at the time. He was stationed with the 46th Infantry where he spent several nights lying on the floor to avoid being shot by gunfire from the streets.
We kids were at home, scared to death that our fathers wouldn't be coming home again. There was a 6 pm curfew, so we had to stay on the porch in the evening and anxiously wait for word of what was happening.

[LodgeDodger]

Sounds like some of you folks have a few years on me--HELL YEAH! Anyway, the only thing I remember is my Mother telling us to stay on the back porch. We couldn't go anywhere else.

My Pop worked for the City of Detroit. I do remember hearing a story about the way the guys who worked for him saved him. About a month after the riots, Pop was working somewhere in the city. A bunch of black guys cornered him and started to beat on him. His workers stepped in and finished that fight. Thank God Pop had his workers there with him.

[DetroitPlanner]

The only thing I can remember was going to the D&C IGA Foodliner on Joy Rd and having the place pretty much cleared out. I was really a younging then. But I do remember that. We were relatively unscathed in our area from the riot [[Joy Rd/Southfield).

[shovelhead]

15, living on the west side of Farmington Township near I-96, today M-5 freeway. I remember helicopters flying along the freeway, turning and flying over our house on the way back to the city.

On Sunday, we went to my aunt's in Novi for a family dinner. That is the first time we heard of the riots. I was supposed to go on Monday to Detroit as the last day in driver's education was the downtown day. Drive downtown, go to the coney island for lunch courtesy of the teacher.

When we met for class, he said we were not going to the city, but to Ann Arbor again. Bummer, no coneys but we get to look at co-eds instead, all while in the luxury of a 67 Galaxie coupe.

Thursday, I took my permit to get it signed at Northville Police and my road test for my restricted motorcycle license. Rode the bike there on the streets as I had no other way to get it there. Didn't worry too much about getting stopped, all cops had other things on their minds.

My dad had to make a liquor run, we drove out to Brighton to a state package liquor store and he waited in line to get his bottles.

In 1968, the Monday before Dr. King was killed, I bought a new BSA motorcycle from a dealer in Hazel Park, about a half mile north of Eight Mile. I picked it up on Friday afternoon, things were getting panicky in the city and the burbs. I picked it up, sent my mother north on Dequindre to one of the mile roads, back to Farmington, while my friend with his '68 Super Hawk and I went across Nine Mile home. About Nine and 75 traffic was gridlocked. I jumped the curb, started riding down the sidewalk as this was a new bike with about ten miles on it and it didn't take too kindly to extended idiling. My friend said "What if the cops see us?" I replied' "Gotta catch us!"

The most bizarre thing I saw that night was atop the Farmington Police, two officers standing at watch with rifles in hand........

[wirt]

I was 6 years old and growing up in the suburbs. I remember my next door [[police) neighbor going down to help out. My dad took us down later and I remember seeing a burnt out house near Linwood with just the chimney and a vaccuum cleaner standing.......

[56packman]

I was 8 years old, at my parent's home in NW Detroit [[7 mile/Lahser) and we could not leave our little postage stamp yard without permission, and then our parents would watch us cross the street to go to the neighbor's house to play. I remember the curfews, and how my dad would drive the family car to a lot on Grand River and take the bus to work instead of driving downtown. The most serious affect the riots had on us was the interruption in beer sales. The old man was going crazy after the stock of Strohs long necks were exhausted. The neighbor two doors down found out and told my Dad "I have a case of beer left over from new year's eve, I've been on the wagon and don't need it, you want it"? the old man leapt at the chance, carried home a case of very hot Pabst Blue Ribbon, cracked one open right there and drank it.
we had just gotten our first color television, a Zenith console. I remember my parents saying that if the riots spread to our area we would load the six kids and the Zenith and some clothes into the Chevy wagon and go live in Union Lake with my uncle. That never came to pass, of course.

[chitaku]

growing up in Harper Woods, i took the bus to the Tigers game. We noticed smoke rising towards the end of the game, and when I got on the bus home a family friend grabbed me and drove me home explaining to me about the riots. I was 13. crazy man