{"id":23414,"date":"2017-04-25T14:00:33","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T14:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hourdetroit.com\/cause-and-effect\/"},"modified":"2019-09-16T13:08:31","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T17:08:31","slug":"cause-and-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hourdetroit.com\/community\/cause-and-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"Cause and Effect"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>hat caused Detroit to erupt in violence the summer of 1967? Perhaps Marlowe Stoudamire, project director of the Detroit Historical Society\u2019s ambitious Detroit 67 program, says it best: \u201cPeople didn\u2019t just wake up one day and say, \u2018I\u2019m pissed off.\u2019 The blind pig raid was the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back. [If] we were in perfect harmony \u2026 it wouldn\u2019t have sparked what was already building up in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

There have been many studies about what led up to the unrest\u00a0in the summer of 1967. But several books stand out, including Thomas Sugrue\u2019s The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit<\/em>, Sidney Fine\u2019s Violence in the Model City: The Cavanagh Administration, Race Relations, and the Detroit Riot of 1967<\/em>, and Hubert G. Locke\u2019s The Detroit Riot of 1967<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now a new book is about to join that august company. Detroit 1967: Origins, Impacts, Legacies<\/em> ($39.99, Wayne State University Press), edited by Joel Stone, a Detroit Historical Society senior curator. Here\u2019s just a taste of the new book, plus short takes on those other seminal works<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Detroit 1967: Origins, Impacts, Legacies\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>(2017)<\/p>\n

One of the main goals of the Detroit 67 Project was to dispel the myth that 1967 was the start of white flight. What happened is a \u201cdeep story,\u201d says senior curator Joel Stone. And Detroit 1967 is a deep dive. It ranges from colonial slavery in Detroit to the present day, and includes some suggestions for the future. It offers up memories, facts, and analysis from nearly 30 contributors, with chapters by journalists like Bill McGraw as well as historians such as De Witt S. Dykes, Danielle L. McGuire, and Kevin Boyle.<\/p>\n

It concludes with an essay by Desiree Cooper titled \u201cIt Can Happen Here.\u201d She says that Detroit is once again being considered a \u201cModel City,\u201d but cites incidents like the 2015 incident when an Inkster police officer \u201cwas caught on his cruiser dash cam pummeling the black motorist Floyd Dent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooper ends the book with a cautiously optimistic take: \u201cFifty years after the riots, Detroit is living up to its motto. It is seeing better things. It is rising from the ashes. And if city leaders, residents, and businesses are willing to build a city that works for everyone, they are sure to avoid the fire next time.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"The\u00a0Origins of the Urban Crisis\u00a0<\/em>(1996) <\/strong><\/p>\n

Thomas Sugrue stresses that it was not the social programs and racial unrest of the 1960s that caused \u201cwhite flight,\u201d but rather a slow and painful process of \u201cdeindustrialization\u201d that began in the 1920s. In the preface to a 2005 edition, Sugrue says: \u201cOne of the greatest migrations of the twentieth century was the movement of whites from central cities to suburbs. From the opening of \u2018greenfield\u2019 factories to the rise of corporate \u2018campuses\u2019 to the proliferation of shopping malls, suburbs have attracted a lion\u2019s share of postwar private and public sector investments.\u201d The crisis emerged from two \u201cimportant, interrelated, and unresolved problems in American history: that capitalism generates economic inequality and that African Americans have disproportionately borne the impact of that inequality.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also describes visitors in the 1960s passing through \u201ctwo Detroits, one black and one white.\u201d<\/p>\n

We may be somewhat more integrated today, but the danger of \u201ctwo Detroits\u201d remains just as problematic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"Violence in the Model City\u00a0<\/em>(1989) <\/strong><\/p>\n

Sidney Fine picks up the narrative in 1962 and the election of Jerome P. Cavanagh. It sets the scene with talk of separate but equal education. He also focuses on housing issues and the state of police-community relations.<\/p>\n

At the time of the 1943 riot, the Detroit Police Department was reportedly \u201cone of the most bigoted\u201d departments in the nation. While the racial composition of the force had changed slightly by the 1960s, the NAACP reported that Detroit blacks were subject to \u201cunreasonable and illegal arrests, indiscriminate and open searching of their person on the public streets \u2026 and violent, intimidating police reactions to their protests against improper treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even 20 years after 1967, there were lingering issues. Fine cites former Detroit Free Press reporter Barbara Stanton as saying there was \u201cfar more destruction and violence in Detroit in 1987 than in 1967,\u201d adding that it was \u201cas if the riot had never ended, but goes on in slow motion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if it could happen again, Stanton answered: \u201cIt is happening right now, a riot without end, a tragedy still without resolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"The Detroit Riot of 1967<\/em> (1969) <\/strong><\/p>\n

First published in 1969, The Detroit Riot of 1967 is being re-released this September by Wayne State University Press. It\u2019s an intimate telling of the events of 1967 from Hubert G. Locke, who was then an administrative aide to Detroit\u2019s police commissioner. At one point, he covers the riot in an hour-by-hour account, including its outbreak, the looting, arson, and the sniping. He also details how the police, National Guard, and federal troops attempted to restore order. The book also includes Locke\u2019s take on the community\u2019s response, from political and civic leaders to the religious and social agencies. And in one section foreshadowing recent controversial police interactions with the community, Locke explores the problems of urban law enforcement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interested in exploring the reasons for Detroit\u2019s summer of 1967? Check out these classic \u2014 and new \u2014 books<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1476,"featured_media":602009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5910],"tags":[5977],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n