1
20
15
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/2e0fffda92ff63ce08a5b747fb197a50.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/20/2019
Oral History
An audio or video resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Diann Cousino
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Diann Cousino lived at St. Martin's and attended Wayne State University the summer of 1967.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
William Winkel
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Monroe, MI
Date
The date of the interview in MM/DD/YYYY format.
02/07/2017
Interview Length
The total length of the interview in HH:MM:SS format.
00:07:09
Transcriptionist
The first and last name of the transcriptionist.
Julie Vandenboom
Transcription Date
The date of the transcription in MM/DD/YYYY format.
05/23/2017
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>WW: Hello. Today is February 7, 2017. My name is William Winkel. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society's Detroit 67 Oral History Project, and I am in Monroe, Michigan. I'm sitting down with—</p>
<p>DC: Sister Diann Cousino.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you for sitting down with me today. Would you like to share your story?</p>
<p>DC: I would. I have kind of forgotten it, but the impact of the experience just never leaves your mind. So I'm going back to Sunday, July 23, 1967, and my mother was a widow at that time, with nine children, and we were going to— she was picking me up at St. Martin's convent on the lake, and she had to drive through Jefferson to go to Newport, Michigan, where we were having a family reunion. And everything was normal. It was a sunny day, and we saw our cousins.</p>
<p>Then it was time to come home, so we left the family and came through Jefferson and I just couldn't believe my eyes. There were young men with bats and balls and rocks, and throwing them in the storefront windows, and others were running in the stores, just grabbing stuff. I didn't know what was going on, and I was trying to hope that my mom could remain peaceful and we didn't want to alarm the children in the car.</p>
<p>So then she took me all the way to St. Martin's and I was worried about her going home. But I didn't know— it just shocked me so much that this was happening in our own nation, in our own country, in our own city, and I taught in Detroit, at Jesu, and I just couldn't imagine, because we had good relationships there with people. I just couldn't understand what was going on there.</p>
<p>And in our journal it says because of the economic riots, they called it, there was no Bible School, because this was in the summer. But I was attending Wayne State, and we wanted to help out— the sisters in our convent. We called the police to see if we could help out at Deaconess Hospital. They said, No, Sisters, we don't want to jeopardize your safety. So they said, Just pray and just hope that this blows over.</p>
<p>But we were hearing gunshots, and machine guns, and we learned later that a policeman died at Jefferson and St. Jean.</p>
<p>Then on Wednesday, July 26, we decided to brave it out and go to Wayne State, which is where we were taking classes. And we had food and clothing and things, but this was terrible, to go down Jefferson. I can still see it, the— the army reserves were on top of the building with guns, to protect the city. And Belle Isle was protected. All the people they wanted to deter were sent to Belle Isle, and they had guards down the street of Belle Isle.</p>
<p>And then that wasn't enough. Then a tank came down the street. So going to class that day was really scary. We didn't know what was going to happen. We had heard there were problems in Detroit, and so— it was quite an experience. And when I taught at Jesu, it was pretty much an all-white school, and when I left, it was pretty much an all-black school. But we had a good principal and we had good education for the children, and so that went smooth, but those years were very stressful, not knowing for sure.</p>
<p>You know, we didn't even know what caused it. We just came upon it, so.</p>
<p>WW: Did it change the way you looked at the city?</p>
<p>DC: Yeah, I would have to say yes, because it had me asking questions, like, was there a different way of teaching? And I remember one of our— we had superintendents that were IHMs, and I remember when Sister Anna May came to— she brought a new series of books with us, to teach from, and— this shows you how naive I am, but she wanted us to present them to the children, so I did. And she didn't tell us anything, and she looked at the children and they didn't notice anything. Well, those books had more ethnic groups in them. They started having more black children and Spanish, and so on. So it was an introduction of changing some of our ways of things.</p>
<p>But we just— I guess, from the very beginning of our IHM community, we believed that every person was important. And the Sister brought this education system from Belgium, and it was like everyone was ready and everyone was important and you didn't have to get all As to be rewarded. It was your character. And I think we strived to do that in our teaching. But it did carry with me. I went on to Wayne State and I enjoyed all the ethnic people, but when I got to Marygrove later I got scared, because some of those people were— I wasn't sure. And I could feel the tension in some of the classrooms. But my teacher, Sister Jackie Conn, tried to— she wasn't supposed to do this, but she'd bring in a whole chest of food that we could cook there. You could make Taco Bells and tacos and you don't have to have a lot of— we just had a crockpot and that type of thing. But I noticed that really broke the ice. We all had to bring something to eat during our class. And there's something about food. And then we had to mix with different groups all the time, so it was pretty good.</p>
<p>But it did change my thinking about things, because I never knew. I grew up and I wasn't— I didn't know about race or anything. It didn't cross my mind. But that really— that was really scary, because you didn't know how safe you were. I guess that's the whole thing. We tried to make it safe for our children.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you so much. </p>
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
7min 9sec
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
William Winkel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Diann Cousino
Location
The location of the interview
Monroe, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Diann Cousino, February 7th, 2017
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Cousino discusses her impressions of the events of July 1967.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
06/09/2017
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio/Mp3
Language
A language of the resource
en-US
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Belle Isle
Catholic Community
Clergy
Detroit Police Department
Looting
Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Tanks
Wayne State University
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/a2a28a81c0ff2448e14f707b627b090f.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/20/2019
Oral History
An audio or video resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Ann Crimmins
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Ann Crimmins taught at St. Charles School on Detroit's east side before and after the events of July 1967. During the summer of 1967 she was at Marygrove College.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
William Winkel
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Monroe, MI
Date
The date of the interview in MM/DD/YYYY format.
02/07/2017
Interview Length
The total length of the interview in HH:MM:SS format.
00:08:01
Transcriptionist
The first and last name of the transcriptionist.
Julie Vandenboom
Transcription Date
The date of the transcription in MM/DD/YYYY format.
05/23/2017
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>WW: Hello. Today is February 7, 2017. My name is William Winkel. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society's Detroit 67 Oral History Project, and I am in Monroe, Michigan. I'm sitting down with —</p>
<p>AC: Ann Crimmins, IHM.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you so much for sitting down with me today.</p>
<p>AC: You're welcome.</p>
<p>WW: Would you like to share your story?</p>
<p>AC: Yes. It's been interesting, since the invitation that I'm finding things come back. In 1965, I went to St. Charles in Detroit to teach grades four, five, and six. St. Charles, still actually, the church is still located about three blocks east of Grand Boulevard, and between Lafayette and Kerchival.</p>
<p>We had probably, the student body was about 50 percent black, from right around the neighborhood, and a significant number of white families living in Indian Village, which is about six or seven blocks away. My sense - I enjoyed teaching. I enjoyed teaching there. I enjoyed the mix of students. I wasn't real aware of racial tension. Most of us wanted to be there and then we were very connected with the Church of the Messiah, which is over on Lafayette and the Boulevard. That's an Episcopal church, where we had like an ecumenical group that met around racial questions and concerns for the neighborhood.</p>
<p>We also had a small group of students from the Chaldean community, who owned a number of small stores on Kerchival. So, when it got to be the summer of 1967, I was at Marygrove for graduate studies, for teaching certification, and that was on the outside edge of what was going on, but we could go up to the fourth floor of the residence hall and look out and see the clouds of smoke coming up. And heard about it mostly through the news: radio, TV, some pictures. It was pretty startling to see the neighborhood where I'd spent the last two years really going up in flames. And being very aware of some of the people who owned those small stores, and how much they had sacrificed to make that business go.</p>
<p>I don't - there were all kinds of stories about how they didn't treat people well, and all that kind of thing, but it was - because we knew both sides, we knew both populations pretty well. It was really very disconcerting to watch all of this happening.</p>
<p>During the time - and I can't - I have no memory of when all this happened, or how - but once things began to settle down a little bit - of course the National Guard was around and driving up and down the streets. I don't think they were tanks, but they were big trucks and there was a curfew and of course there were a lot of curfew violators.</p>
<p>There was quite a group at Marygrove that summer - of people. We were all in our twenties at the time getting classes for our permanent teaching certificate. And so we were asked to go different places, and I can't remember exact - the thing that stays in my mind is Recorder's Court, which I don't think exists anymore, but we were to go down and meet people who were being brought in. Mostly the family members of people who had been arrested. So they were - they wanted some reassurance. Of course, we were dressed in our medieval garb at the time so we rather stood out in the crowd.</p>
<p>And I remember feeling that was a really good; it was a way where we could contribute positively. I remember talking to my mother on the phone. She lived in Port Huron and she did not like that I was anywhere near the place. I told her by mistake that I was going down to Recorder's Court. Well, she just about came down and got me. [laughter]</p>
<p>I said, Mom, I'm fine. I'm fine. I never had the feeling of being frightened. Of course, we went in groups and people were very glad we were there, so they were very careful that nothing too bad would happen. And I know different groups went different places. But at least my experience of it was the whole sense of being kind of a reassuring presence to people who were in really stressful situations.</p>
<p>I went back to St. Charles in August after summer school ended, and it was really - in fact, I was just there a couple weeks ago, for something else, and drove down Kercheval and around and back up Lafayette, and down Townsend, was where the school building is actually still there, it's all boarded up. Reminisced about where my classroom was, and all that good stuff, so it was kind of fun to reconnect.</p>
<p>But that third year, from '67 to '68, things were different, and part of it was back in the really old days each parish had a high school and a grade school. And at that time we had - the parish decided that they really couldn't keep all these high schools going. So we closed the high school, and the four high schools on the east side merged into East Catholic, which was open for a number of years. I can't remember – it’s closed some time in the last ten years. And so that was different, in that we had a lot more room in the building, and the big kids were gone. They were the ones that made all the noise. And so there was a feel, that way, that was different.</p>
<p>But the other - certainly a lot of the families from the Middle East, who had owned these stores, were gone. And the - so there was - and that wasn't a huge group, but there were several families that we knew, and certainly cared about. So they were gone. But the rest all came back, including a number of these families from Indian Village, and their attitude, as I can remember one of the mothers saying to me one day, "I really think we - I think we can get past this, and I want to be part of, and I want my kids to be part of, an integrated society."</p>
<p>So that next year - and then I left, at that point, was reassigned somewhere else in '68, so I didn't get beyond that first year. But it was a very challenging time, and a very - in a lot of ways, a good time. There was a lot of good energy in the Catholic community and the Episcopal Church around the corner. And there were other churches, too, in the area, that were - came together with the idea of supporting and developing the community, and working with racial challenges in the area. So, I think that may be enough. Anything I missed?</p>
<p>WW: No, I do believe you covered it.</p>
<p>AC: Okay.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you so much for sitting down with me today.</p>
<p>AC: You're welcome!</p>
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
8min 1sec
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
William Winkel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Ann Crimmins
Location
The location of the interview
Monroe, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ann Crimmins, February 7th, 2017
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Crimmins discusses her impressions of the events of July 1967.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
06/09/2017
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit Michigan
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio/mp3
Language
A language of the resource
en-US
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Catholic Community
Chaldean Community
Clergy
Recorder's Court - Detroit
Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/4abdc02b96a2d8280d04ae47e8b11ff2.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/20/2019
Oral History
An audio or video resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Alys Currier
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Alys Currier lived in the Birmingham, Michigan area during the summer of 1967 while commuting into Detroit for school. She later taught in Detroit.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
William Winkel
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Monroe, MI
Date
The date of the interview in MM/DD/YYYY format.
02/07/2017
Interview Length
The total length of the interview in HH:MM:SS format.
00:06:13
Transcriptionist
The first and last name of the transcriptionist.
Julie Vandenboom
Transcription Date
The date of the transcription in MM/DD/YYYY format.
06/13/2017
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>WW: Hello. Today is February 7, 2017. My name is William Winkel. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society's Detroit 67 Oral History Project, and I am in Monroe, Michigan. I'm sitting down with -</p>
<p>AC: Sister Alys Currier.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you so much for sitting down with me. Would you like to share your story?</p>
<p>AC: I was not in Detroit at the time of the riots, but was living in Marian in - it's in Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham - and commuting in to the University of Detroit in order to - where I was in class when we got word of the riots. And so they ask us if we would bring down food for the people that were working to - in the churches downtown, and helping out, feeding whomever needed to be fed, and so on.</p>
<p>So we went out in the kitchen and we made an assembly line, and we made - I don't know how many sandwiches, but we made a lot of them. And then Sister Rose Ange and myself was asked to take them downtown. So we got in the car and we took other things down that they needed, like clothes and things that people might need, and we drove downtown, and as we pulled into the alley in back of the Baptist church where we were going to deliver all of our goods, all of a sudden I looked up and the car was surrounded by all soldiers and their guns were pointed at us.</p>
<p>And we just looked at them with surprise, and they came running out of the Baptist church. Said, "Oh no, no no no no, they're just delivering things." The soldiers thought we were looting. And so the helpers unloaded our car and the soldiers stepped back but they didn't go right away. They just stepped back and then we left. Went back to Marian. And that's about the substance of the story.</p>
<p>WW: Do you remember what it felt like for you driving into the city?</p>
<p>AC: No different, I mean - I didn't think a lot about it because I was not in - you know, we just heard about it in Marion, so I didn't think a lot about it.</p>
<p>WW: Did you see any smoke or anything on your way into the city?</p>
<p>AC: No, I don't remember - I have to go back - did I see? - I probably saw the soldiers and things as we were driving down the streets, but that's -</p>
<p>WW: Do you remember what Baptist church it was?</p>
<p>AC: No, I have no idea. We went into an alley in the back of the church and we didn't even get out of the car. I mean, they took everything into the church. We didn't even go in to the building.</p>
<p>WW: Did that experience - being surrounded by soldiers and such - did it change the way you looked at the city?</p>
<p>AC: No. I didn't - No, it really didn't change the way I thought about the city. I was missioned in the city later - a couple of years later - and I saw the changes, and that was different. I saw the changes, because I lived right down where much of that happened, and I think I experienced it more a couple or three years - I don't know how many years later - when I actually taught in the city. But not during the riots itself, what it did to the streets and the - it was in Twelfth Street. I think Twelfth Street was kind of hit hard, well, that's where I lived. Right down near Twelfth Street for a couple of years. And that's where I saw. But that wasn't during the riots itself. It was after the riots, so that's - you know.</p>
<p>WW: Is there anything else you'd like to add?</p>
<p>AC: Hm?</p>
<p>WW: Is there anything else you'd like to add?</p>
<p>AC: No. Except that Rose Ange said to me, "I'm glad I brought you, you're calm." [laughter] You know, I didn't react. Which is a good thing.</p>
<p>WW: Do you remember what kind of sandwiches they were? [laughter]</p>
<p>AC: No, I really don't! [laughter] I just know we made a lot of them, and we didn't go to school that day. But we - I think we went to school the next day. I went back to U of D the next day. I'm not sure, but I don't remember - the thing I remember mostly, is the driving in that alley, stopping, then all a sudden look up and see all these soldiers with your guns pointed at you. That's - it kind of, you know, I kind of think I reflected on it a little bit after I left and thought, you know, that was - not for myself, but for the people in the city. Because it didn't really bother me that much. I didn't think about - myself, that much about it. But I did think about the city after that. But before that, it was - it was kind of removed, because I wasn't living there.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you so much for sitting down with me today. I greatly appreciate it.</p>
<p>AC: Mm hm.</p>
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
6min 13sec
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
William Winkel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Alys Currier
Location
The location of the interview
Monroe, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Alys Currier, February 7th, 2017
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Currier discusses her impressions of the events of July 1967.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
06/13/2017
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio/Mp3
Language
A language of the resource
en-US
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Catholic Community
Clergy
Immaculate Heart of Mary Church
Looting
Michigan National Guard
Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/31806bbb235de88e7726c2ccd136c2ae.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/20/2019
Oral History
An audio or video resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Rose Ange Leddy
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Sister Rose Ange Leddy was living in a convent in Birmingham at the time of the unrest. She recalled her experience with police as she was trying to deliver clothing to a church.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
William Winkel
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Monroe, MI
Date
The date of the interview in MM/DD/YYYY format.
02/07/2017
Interview Length
The total length of the interview in HH:MM:SS format.
00:05:07
Transcriptionist
The first and last name of the transcriptionist.
Justyna Stafford
Transcription Date
The date of the transcription in MM/DD/YYYY format.
05/19/2017
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>WW: Hello, today is February 7<sup>th</sup>, 2017. My name is William Winkel, this interview is for Detroit Historical Society’s Detroit 67 Oral History Project, I’m in Monroe, Michigan and I am sitting down with—</p>
<p>RAL: Sister Rose Ange Leddy</p>
<p>WW: Would you like to share your story?</p>
<p>RAL: I would love to. That summer I was going to classes at the University of Detroit, and living at the convent in Marian in Birmingham. And I’ve got a couple of stories. One was I was in Canada, when the riots broke out and I had to come back across the bridge and through town you could see where the fires were going on, it had just begun. And then, they were collecting clothing for people, and food, and we had a station wagon. So we gathered up a lot of clothes, and we had the station wagon packed, literally to the ceiling. So I can only, when I was driving, I could only see a little slit out the rearview mirror. And we went to the near Eastside, I can’t remember the name of the church, it was not a catholic church, where they were collecting these clothes. And we went to one place where we were supposed to drop it, and they said, no, we had to go to this other one. So we got back in the car and we headed to this other one which was a short distance away, and went down the alley to pull into where we needed to drop the clothes. And all of the sudden as we stopped we were surrounded by police with their guns drawn, pointing in the car. Of course I wasn’t very nice, I sort of laughed, which is a nervous reaction, but it’s also like they knew as soon as they saw us that we were sisters, because we were still wearing habits at that point. But they were under so much pressure and tension to stop the looting, so they of course let us unload the car, and that is basically that piece of the story. I also remember the National Guard on the corners, even after we started back to classes in the city. And my dad had a business in the city, on the northwest side, I don’t believe it got—it didn’t get looted, I know that, and I don’t remember even if the windows were broken, but he may have had to board up those windows too.</p>
<p>WW: Did you know about the uprising before you crossed over the bridge, or as you were crossing the bridge?</p>
<p>RAL: Yes, yes, no I already knew about it because it was already on the news.</p>
<p>WW: Okay.</p>
<p>RAL: I’m not sure; did it start on Friday night?</p>
<p>WW: Sunday, Sunday morning, early Sunday morning</p>
<p>RAL: Sunday morning, Okay. So we already heard about it on the news, because that would have been Sunday afternoon when I was coming back across.</p>
<p>WW: Did it change the way you looked at the city?</p>
<p>RAL: Did it change—? I don’t think it changed so much how I looked at the city. It changed it forever though. I have next generation family members who wouldn’t think of going into the city. I taught there in the seventies, in the city, and I always considered it my city, so if I want to drive across town, I drive across town, and if I want to go someplace I go there. But it did dramatically change things. I think that the dramatic change was combined not only because of the riots and the white flight, but it was also at the same time as the drug business started. And as some of the Scholastic Magazine, which was a teachers’ paper and kids’, talked about how they were marketing drugs just like you market jeans. Except under the table in a sense, and I think that mad— I think really the drug business made a bigger change overall in the city than even the white flight. But the white flight was due to the riots.</p>
<p>WW: Do you remember— going back to your story of dropping off supplies to the church. Do you remember the look on the police officers’ face or how they reacted when they saw and realized who you were?</p>
<p>RAL: I remember thinking they just looked exhausted and tense.</p>
<p>WW: Did you run into any issues as you were leaving the city, to go back to Birmingham?</p>
<p>RAL: No, didn’t have any problem getting, getting in or getting out.</p>
<p>WW: Okay, fine thank you so much.</p>
<p>RAL: You’re so welcome, thanks for asking. </p>
<p> </p>
Original Format
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Audio
Duration
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5min 7sec
Interviewer
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William Winkel
Interviewee
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Rose Ange Leddy
Location
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Monroe, MI
Dublin Core
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Title
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Rose Ange Leddy, March 7th, 2017
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview Sister Leddy explained her encounter with police officers, who were trying to stop the looting.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
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6/15/2017
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
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Audio/Mp3
Language
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en-US
Type
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Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Catholic Community
Clergy
police
Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/995637c5e3984060b32d6e3567a82f40.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
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en-us
Date
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10/20/2019
Oral History
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Narrator/Interviewee's Name
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Theresa Milne
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Sister Theresa Milne was transitioning between the principalships of St. Agnes School and Jesu School in the summer of 1967.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
William Winkel
Interview Place
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Monroe, MI
Date
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01/31/2017
Interview Length
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00:25:24
Transcriptionist
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Julie Vandenboom
Transcription Date
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05/19/2017
Transcription
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<p>WW: Hello. Today is January 31, 2017. My name is William Winkel. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society's Detroit '67 Oral History Project, and I am in Monroe, Michigan. I am sitting down with—</p>
<p>TM: Sister Theresa Mailne. I was stationed in Detroit, on Twelfth Street, at St. Agnes Parish at the time of the riot. However, I know some background before the riot that helped contribute to the riot.</p>
<p>It started in World War Two. The section where I lived, at St. Agnes, was really considered a wealthy section during World War Two. But when we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, the men were drafted. That left a lot of women without any man in the home. Every able-bodied man was in the draft, to respond to the Manila bombing.</p>
<p>Because of that, there was a need for us to develop an arsenal, in order to fight the Japanese and the Germans during World War Two. That meant that we had to have a place where we could do it safely and not be bombed by the German submarines in the Atlantic Ocean.</p>
<p>That necessitated having it in the middle of the United States rather than on the coastline. So Detroit was the place picked, the reason being, we had waterways that could take whatever was made there to the coastline to be used.</p>
<p>Detroit was then named the arsenal of the war, or the arsenal of the free world. Willow Run was a tiny airport at the time, twenty-two miles outside of Detroit. They had another tiny airport called Metro Airport. Wayne County Metro Airport. That later became enlarged and is now the famous Metro Detroit Airport.</p>
<p>In order to build the things at the Willow Run Airport, which was named Willow Run Bomber Plant, the women from the south came up to work at the arsenal. That meant we had to have housing. So all the wealthy homes— all the posh homes that were empty because of the war— were now subdivided, temporarily, supposedly, to accommodate housing for the women who would be taken by bus to Willow Run Airport. That's why I-94 was built, to make it a freeway, so the bus could take them with no stoplights. That was the first freeway.</p>
<p>Now we fast-forward, through the 1950s, to the 1960s. In 1966, I was appointed to be the principal at St. Agnes School on Twelfth Street. This had been the neighborhood church for the very wealthy at one time, so it had beautiful buildings.</p>
<p>On the morning that the riot started— oh— pardon me. There's one other item that I must tell you. As principal of this school, I walked into a situation where— of a changing neighborhood. And the new pastor— he was as new as I was— had decided that he was going to do something to really renovate the neighborhood. At the time, the women that had worked in the bomber plant had a lot of children, and those children were walking the streets. We had the largest population of children in the whole city, located in that one area. A half a block from St. Agnes School was a public school that was on half-day sessions, because there were so many children, and they didn't have enough schools.</p>
<p>Our school was partially empty, both grade and high school. So we decided, together, that to help the situation and get these children off the streets, that we would turn our school into a community school and take the children from not only the public school a half a block away, but from St. Theresa's, which only had a grade school, and from Visitation Parish, which only had a grade school. That filled up our high school, and it filled up our grade school.</p>
<p>We still had the problem on Saturday, with the children walking the streets. So we decided to offer fun classes on Saturday. We offered art and music to these children, and we later on got a gentleman who had retired as the CEO of Rockwell Corporation to help us out. He decided that he would do what he could to get these children a hot breakfast, so they wouldn't be drinking a bottle of pop and eating chips on the way to school.</p>
<p>And we did that. So we served a hot breakfast every single morning, and we also had a lunchroom, and we had extra food for them, so they would have proper food. For the high school girls, the teachers in the high school offered secretarial classes for the mothers on Saturday, so that they could get out of their work order, which was being a prostitute on Twelfth Street. They used to walk past our convent and click up and down Twelfth Street, and you would see the cars coming from Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills. Right across from the convent was a red light house, and the women would direct the men from these suburbs to go to those houses where they went in for the business of prostitution.</p>
<p>So we were seeing all this, and trying to do something about the situation. That's why we offered the secretarial skills for the mothers.</p>
<p>Our school was filled right away with these half-day students. They didn't have to come to our school, and we even said, if you don't wish them to go to religion classes, that's fine. They have a study hour during that period. All of the prostitute mothers wanted their children to go to the religion classes and to have— to learn about God, and they wanted their children in our school so that they would learn discipline. It was a very wonderful situation that Father Granger supported, and made sure that everything was taken care of.</p>
<p>Now we have to fast-forward to 1967. In June, after the school year was over, I was appointed to be principal of Jesu School, which was farther west, two blocks from Livernois. That necessitated my having to drive between the two schools, because I didn't have any chance to do all the principal's work at St. Agnes School. So I was trying to take care of all the files in that office, at the same time that I was trying to prepare for a much larger school with thirty-seven teachers, whom I did not know, and I had to interview each one of them, and hire new ones, and get ready for the faculty there so they could get to know me and I could get to know them.</p>
<p>I had a really big job that summer. Then the riots broke out. What was I to do? Well, we found out through Father Granger that the rioters had started on— way up— maybe about a mile up Twelfth Street, just past Visitation, and they started about two or three o'clock in the morning.</p>
<p>Then we heard— then— something that I heard, when the block clubs met in St. Agnes Hall during the year, toward the end of the year one of the women just happened to make a remark, which I didn't attend to at the time. But the remark was this: "I got word from Ohio that there will be something happening in a few days." In a few days the riots started, so I knew that they knew about it. But it was coming from Ohio. The information. I thought that was a little strange.</p>
<p>Well, we then, during the riot, Father Granger— we decided with the pastor at Jesu that we needed to feed the firemen and the policemen who were working in the riot area. At first the local police took care of the riot up when it started, because there were about ten or twelve people that started it.</p>
<p>And they started it by being very noisy and fighting out on the streets. And they awakened people that were asleep. And so they came out to see what was going on, and then they joined in the loud noises and the shouting and all of this, trying to get it stopped. And the crowd just crowded— became larger as it came down Twelfth Street, and came down toward where we were.</p>
<p>About ten o'clock in the morning of the day that the riot started, Father Granger heard this noise, so he looked out the window. He was getting ready to go over for mass, but he heard the noise, so he looked out, and just in time to see a man with a huge rock in his hand, ready to throw it through the rose window of the church. And at the same time, one of our parishioners grabbed his arm— he was out there— and said, "Don't you dare touch any of our buildings!" None of the buildings at St. Agnes were touched.</p>
<p>But, at the same time, he saw that the fireman was very tired, trying to put out the fires on Twelfth Street. And so he said, "Teach me how to use the firehoses and I will put the fires out for you. And you can go to another precinct or whatever they call them, fire station, and do work there. All right."</p>
<p>In the meantime I had been moved to Jesu to be in charge of the people— of our sisters who were students at the University of Detroit during the summer. That's what I was to do. And that's why I had to travel back and forth to St. Agnes, to finish the office work at St. Agnes, and how I got into a lot of this.</p>
<p>So when I came back to Jesu, the pastor came over and he said, "I think we should help the people down at St. Agnes, at the parishes down there, by bringing them food, because they're not getting lunch and they can't buy anything in the area." So Jesu Parish became very involved in providing the food and the pastor asked me to get people to take it down in their cars.</p>
<p>And we had to mark the cars with a big red cross on the top, so nothing would happen to the drivers of the cars. And our men, from Jesu Parish, would bring food down every single day. So I was involved in organizing all of that.</p>
<p>Now after two weeks, everything died down. Seemed to be stopped. I think it was about two weeks, anyway. The first part of the riot. And I had relatives coming from England to visit my family on the Eastside of Detroit, which really wasn't touched much by the riot. So I went over, on I-94 which had been built. I could go straight to where my relatives were and visit with them. So I drove over, all the way from Jesu, which is at McNichols and two blocks from Livernois, and visited with my family.</p>
<p>About seven PM, my brother hadn't been listening to the news, but he did say that he thought it would be a good idea if I got back home while it was still light. So I started down I-94 and just about at Woodward Avenue, a Jeep appeared on either side of my car. I was driving alone in a big— I think it was a station wagon. So I'm driving alone, I had a habit on at that time, so you could tell that I was a Catholic sister. And they just appeared on either side of my car with rifles pointed upward, and just accompanied me right down all the way to the exit for Jesu, all the way up to the Jesu garage, for my car. I parked it in the garage. They stayed there until I closed the door of the convent and went in, and then they drove away.</p>
<p>Then, all of a sudden, we hear the riot has started up again. But this time, it's on Livernois, which is two blocks from us. And what I learned from the people was that— who lived near there, and came to church— was that they had marked the stores with white crosses and I am unsure whether or not that meant don't touch this store, or whether the ones that weren't marked were the ones that weren't to be touched. But I do know that not every store was torched. Not every store was looted.</p>
<p>And afterward I found out— because the mayor lived in Jesu Parish and I had a chance to talk to him— I learned that the stores that I guess were marked were the ones that were looted— rather, the ones that had "gypped" or overcharged the people who lived in the area. And in investigating that, we found out, because a lot of our parishioners at St. Agnes that were poor had jobs as maids, or servants, or chauffers, up in the Bloomfield Hills/Birmingham area— many of the women had the job of buying the groceries for those wealthy people for their home. So they went to the local stores like Kroger or whatever, and they bought the food.</p>
<p>Then they would come home and go to the Kroger's in our area, and the food would be wilted and rotten. And so they started buying their own food up in Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham. Well you can imagine how they felt, having to do that, and having found out that they had been ripped off. And so it was really bad. And that was why the stores on Livernois— which at the time was called the Avenue of Fashion— that some of those stores had done the same thing. Overcharged the people. But if they had gone to a shop out in Bloomfield, it wouldn't have been that charge. So they were an angry group of people that lived in that area, because of that. That was where some of the anger stemmed from. From the fact that they were being treated in an unfair way. That was part of— a very big part of the root of the problem.</p>
<p>WW: Did witnessing all this change the way you look at the city?</p>
<p>TM: Pardon?</p>
<p>WW: Did witnessing all of this change the way you look at the city?</p>
<p>TM: Well, I'm a native Detroiter and I love Detroit. I've never been afraid to drive there since the riots. Many people are, because they don't know what's going to happen if they drive alone. I've never had that fear, and my family lived on the Eastside, and I had to drive on I-94 all the way across the city to get to their home. But I never felt any fear. I guess I just felt— I felt safe, but I also felt that the police force was a very good police force. I had a brother-in-law who was part of it. And— oh, I should tell you that when the riot became more than just a scuffle, up at the beginning, they first used the Detroit Police. And it wasn't until later on— maybe three or four days— before they realized they were in over their heads. The police were all called from their vacation to come and take care of this, but they couldn't handle the whole thing because it was popping out, you know, in more than one place, and they couldn't work twenty-four hours a day. So that's when they called in the National Guard. Okay.</p>
<p>So now fast-forward again, to after that first part. I was at Jesu and we've already talked about the riot starting up again on Livernois Avenue. The University of Detroit is right across McNichols Avenue from Jesu Parish. And there were National Guard people on the tops of the buildings there, shooting at the looters down below.</p>
<p>But by this time— television was still relatively young— the television cameras were televising the cars that were looting the stores on Livernois. And when I looked at the television to see what was happening and where— because it was a good source of information, so you'd know where it was relative to where you were— I could see that the license plates on the cars looting Livernois were all from Ohio. The police noticed this, and the National Guard noticed it too, and that's when they closed the roadways that came from Ohio into Michigan. They closed them off and had guards there so no cars could come from Ohio. They closed that off, and that stopped a lot of the looting on Livernois.</p>
<p>Now afterward, we had the beginning of school, and I was principal at Jesu. One of the people that lived in our parish, and whose children came to our school, was the mayor of Detroit, Mayor Cavanagh. And he came to pay the book bill for his children and after that, we had a conversation about the rioting and the looting and what had happened on Livernois Avenue, because that was close to where he lived. And so he told me his version of what he had observed, just from living in the area, and as mayor having to deal with getting the National Guard and all of that. It wasn't— he went to the governor to get them.</p>
<p>So he was very much involved. I don't know if he's still living or not. No, he isn't? He was a wonderful, wonderful man, and was mayor for a while. But he had to go through all of that, and deal with it from a whole different aspect.</p>
<p>Now things continued, with my principalship at Jesu, but we were still— I was still very conscious of the needs down in the St. Agnes Parish. So there was a wonderful pastor there, whom I mentioned earlier, Father Granger, and I kind of coordinated with him, to get food down to him, and he could get it to his parishioners any way that he saw fit. And he knew who needed the help and who didn't need the help. But he was dealing with an awful lot after the riots, because so many places had been burned out. Homes had been burned out. Stores had been burned out. And one thing that I neglected to mention, was when the riots started on Livernois, they started looting in the stores. What the police were doing, and the store owners who didn't want their produce to be taken, were bringing it over to our convent. So the bottom of— the basement of our convent was all finished, with flooring and everything, and we had a very large room down there. So they brought their produce— like clothing and all sorts of things— it was the Avenue of Fashion, after all, so we had very expensive clothing and things like that coming into our convent for safe-keeping, because they knew that they wouldn't touch the convent.</p>
<p>Now, do you have any questions?</p>
<p>WW: Were you surprised by '67? By the outbreak of violence?</p>
<p>TM: Was I—</p>
<p>WW: Surprised?</p>
<p>TM: At what?</p>
<p>WW: The outbreak of violence in '67? Were you expecting anything?</p>
<p>TM: No. Except that, in hindsight, I thought back to what this woman had said. "Things are going to be happening in three weeks." I thought they know something I don't know. And then it happened, and here I am, right in the middle of it. So it was truly something. And if you can get the story about what St. Agnes Parish did, for all the people in that area— because it continued on. It continued on. And you can see why we took the time during the time I was there— you can see that what we have done, is what really protected our parish. Because we became part of the solution the year before the riots broke out, up the road a bit.</p>
<p>They hadn't done that. But we did. So our whole area was not torched. Nothing happened to it. Nothing. It was protected by our parishioners, and by people who lived in the region, because they knew we did things for them. It was a wonderful experience, in hindsight, to be able to be part of a solution, not part of the problem.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you so much for sitting down with me. I greatly appreciate it.</p>
<p>TM: You're welcome. I hope that was helpful.</p>
Original Format
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Audio
Duration
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25min 24sec
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
William Winkel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Theresa Milne
Location
The location of the interview
Monroe, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Theresa Milne, January 31st, 2017
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Ms. Milne discusses the events of July 1967.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
06/15/2017
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
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Audio/Mp3
Language
A language of the resource
en-US
Type
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Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Catholic Community
Clergy
Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/13752ffc6260e4d880baafe149ab1da9.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/20/2019
Oral History
An audio or video resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Mary Ann Markel
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Sister Mary Ann Markel was born in Marine City, Michigan in 1932. Markel lived in the city in 1955, and after being stationed in several locales throughout the country in service of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM), she returned to the city in 1969, where she lived until 2012. She was a nun and principal at several Catholic schools in the city, where she witnessed racial turmoil in the 1970's. She currently resides in Monroe, Michigan.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
William Winkel
Interview Place
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Monroe, MI
Date
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12/13/2016
Interview Length
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00:11:47
Transcriptionist
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Emma Maniere
Transcription Date
The date of the transcription in MM/DD/YYYY format.
05/19/2017
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>WW: Hello, my name is William Winkle. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society’s Detroit 67 Oral History Project, and I am in Monroe, Michigan. I am sitting down with Ms. Mary Ann Markel. Thank you so much for sitting down with me today.</p>
<p>MM: Thank you. Glad to be with you.</p>
<p>WW: Can you please start by telling me where and when were you born?</p>
<p>MM: I was born in 1932 in Marine City, Michigan.</p>
<p>WW: And what brought you to Detroit?</p>
<p>MM: Actually, I’m a Sister, and I was in the community and my first teaching position was at St. Mary’s of Redford. I think it was 1955. I was there for two years, and then I went to other places. I went to Chicago and Albuquerque and Auburn Heights and then I came back to Detroit in 1967 and I was principal at Queen of Hope’s Grade School and St. Suzanne, and then I was IHM Leadership, and I lived in Detroit until 2012, then I moved to Monroe.</p>
<p>WW: How old were you in 1955 when you first came to the city?</p>
<p>MM: Probably about twenty-five, I think.</p>
<p>WW: Had you heard anything about Detroit before you came?</p>
<p>MM: Oh yes. I had a couple aunts that lived in Detroit, and I’d go down there for summer vacations. Yes, I was familiar with the city.</p>
<p>WW: Well, when you came to live in the city to work, did you feel comfortable in the city?</p>
<p>MM: Oh absolutely, yes.</p>
<p>WW: Are there any experiences you’d like to share from your short time there before you moved away again?</p>
<p>MM: Well, St. Mary’s of Redford was a very active parish. People generally loved Detroit, people were active, participated in the city. I know people that would get on the bus and ride downtown to work and come back. I would say things were, people were happy and healthy and it was expanding. The parish actually expanded. They had two schools form the parish, so it was a growing population.</p>
<p>WW: After you left and you came back in ’67, did the city seem different to you?</p>
<p>MM: It was a time also of excitement, because so many things were happening in the city. Probably the most things were happening in the Church because the Vatican II had happened. And people again were excited again about the new things that were happening in the Church. I don’t think I was aware of things that different in the city at that point.</p>
<p>WW: In ’67, what month did you come back?</p>
<p>MM: I think I came back, probably in August.</p>
<p>WW: Okay. So you arrived after?</p>
<p>MM: It was ’69, so it was after the riots.</p>
<p>WW: Oh you came back in ’69?</p>
<p>MM: Yes. But actually I was studying at Marygrove in ’67.</p>
<p>WW: Okay.</p>
<p>MM: In the summer we would go– I was doing a Master’s Degree– so I was at Marygrove in ’67.</p>
<p>WW: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>MM: And I was still living in Albuquerque at that point.</p>
<p>WW: Gottcha. Were you in town for the uprising?</p>
<p>MM: Actually, I was what we call a home visit. We had just been able to go home, we used not to be able to do it. I was home all day, so we didn’t have any radio on or anything. And as they were returning me to Marygrove, we saw— I said, “What’s going on?” So we turned on the radio, and realized there was a riot going on.</p>
<p>WW: Uh-hm.</p>
<p>MM: And my brother dropped me off at Marygrove, and he was gong back to Marine City, and as he was going back, he was on Livernois, and folks were looting those stores. He was very frightened, he said, he moved as fast as he could to get out the city at that point. It was such a surprise because we had been so involved in family things that we weren’t even listening to anything. So it was like, oh my god, what’s happening?</p>
<p>WW: As he was dropping you off, was there sense of, “I should just go back to Marine City with him?” Or were you like, “I’ll be fine.”</p>
<p>MM: Oh no, I knew I’d be fine. At the campus, I was not frightened at all.</p>
<p>WWL: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>MM: I guess I didn’t even know enough to be frightened.</p>
<p>WW: During the rest of that week, did you see anything else, or did you stay hunkered down?</p>
<p>MM: Oh no, we were not hunkered down. They decided to cancel classes, and at Marygrove that’s a big deal to cancel classes [laughter]. I think there was a debate at one point. Anyhow, we laughed because as they cancelled classes, they also gave us some work to do. On that Monday they made sure we got something to do. But then we were asked to go help. I went to St. Agnes, I think I went two or three days, and we were just giving out clothing and all that. And I said to someone— this is one thing I remember— I said to somebody, “How do you know how much to give?” And one of the black women said to me, “The people that need, really are in need, will only take what they need.” She said, “The people that are just here for whatever, will take as much as they can get.” Which is such a wise statement.</p>
<p>WW: Uh-hm.</p>
<p>MM: For me to hear. I guess kind of the frightening things, I can’t remember–we must have gone on a bus or something to help–I don’t know how we got there, but seeing the tanks in the city was like, oh my god. This is serious. What’s really happened here? So, that was my big impression of seeing the soldiers.</p>
<p>WW: Did ’67 have a lasting impression on you? Did it change the way you looked at, say, the world?</p>
<p>MM: I think it made me very aware of what white privilege is. At that time, in ’69 when I came, I was at basically a white school, and during the eight years I was at Queen of Hope, the population changed from white to black. So, I had that experience of knowing what that was. For me, I think what helped me is to know that when the school was about 50/50, it was such a good situation because people felt pretty equal. And then when it tipped the other way, it changed again. The same thing happened when I was at St. Suzanne’s. So I had those two experiences of going from basically a white school to an integrated school.</p>
<p>One of the things that, at St. Suzanne’s at one point, one black woman came in, one parent came and said, “I’m going to move my children back home, it’s too black.” In other words, she wanted her child in a more integrated situation. So I think having had that experience helps you understand what the progression was. For me, it was kind of like a progression. They would be a St. Cecilia’s, and then you would come to at St. Suzanne’s, and then move out of the city. So to see that pattern, you know.</p>
<p>WW: Uh-hm.</p>
<p>MM: I think that the pieces— like at St. Mary’s of Redford where I was at one point, and I was close to Queen of Hope, they had so many things going, and yet they couldn’t hold it either. I mean, they held an integrated situation for quite some time, but eventually it does change.</p>
<p>WW: Did the Catholic Church and the greater Catholic community in Detroit, were they affected by Father Cunningham’s work throughout the city?</p>
<p>MM: Oh yeah, I think so, yeah. I think he was very instrumental. I used to go to Focus: HOPE walks, I did one that was ten miles, now I’d consider walking about three [laughter].</p>
<p>WW: Yeah, they turned it into a 5K.</p>
<p>MM: Yeah. I think his work was very instrumental and made people aware. And then we ended up doing some justice work and protesting and I think at that time we always talked about social justice as a community, I think we became more active— put our bodies there instead of just our words. And I don’t know if you know this, at that time Marygrove was basically a white women’s college, and our president at that point sent out to all of Detroit Public Schools a scholarship for us to get— it was “68 for ‘68”— so we wanted 68 students from those schools to be at Marygrove. Did you know that?</p>
<p>WW: Yeah.</p>
<p>MM: Okay, yeah, okay.</p>
<p>WW: I was thinking, did U of D do the same thing?</p>
<p>MM: I don’t know that.</p>
<p>WW: Okay.</p>
<p>MM: Yeah.</p>
<p>WW: After you left to go back to Albuquerque, did you say to yourself, “I’m gong to go back to Detroit,” or was it just happenstance that you got to come back?</p>
<p>MM: Well in those days, we used to get like assigned. So I was assigned to Detroit.</p>
<p>WW: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>MM: I would not have been afraid to be in Detroit. Actually, I lived in Littlefield probably about five years, I was the only white woman left there. I lived with somebody else, another, we were the only two white women, and I was fine.</p>
<p>WW: Uh-hm.</p>
<p>MM: I was fine, in my neighborhood, you know. Three streets over, I wouldn’t be fine, but I had been there thirty-some years, so they knew me, they watched out for me. I had a couple break-ins, and my family was getting too nervous. Then they asked me to come here, so that’s why I did. I loved being in Detroit.</p>
<p>WW: How do you feel about the city today?</p>
<p>MM: I think it’s doing well. I just hope they do more for the neighborhoods. I mean business is fine, and I’m very concerned that we don’t take housing from poor people to get the rich people in, that’s one of my concerns.</p>
<p>WW: Alright. Is there anything else you’d like to add?</p>
<p>MM: I don’t think so. I just think, just the whole race thing, you never know when it’s ever going to— people work with each other, but until they’re friends with each other, I don’t think we’re ever going to solve the race problem. I mean, we’ve got to socialize more. I man we can work with each other, and that seems to work out okay, but until there’s a socialization, it’s not going to change, I don’t think.</p>
<p>WW: Uh-hm. One follow-up question that I did miss. Earlier, you called it a, ‘riot,’ is that the common word you use, or is that how you interpret what happened?</p>
<p>MM: I guess that’s how you hear it, the ’67 Riots, that’s what I’ve basically thought of. “Uprising” could be just as well. I think it was fermenting. The police activity, that was— I mean some of the same stuff we’re seeing today.</p>
<p>WW: Yeah.</p>
<p>MM: Absolute same stuff. At that point, the police force was basically white I think.</p>
<p>WW: Uh-hm.</p>
<p>MM: At least that’s my memory of it.</p>
<p>WW: It was about ninety-five percent.</p>
<p>MM: Yeah, yeah.</p>
<p>WW: Well thank you so much for sitting down with me. I greatly appreciate it.</p>
<p>MM: Okay, thank you.</p>
Original Format
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Audio
Duration
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11min 47sec
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
William Winkel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Mary Ann Markel
Location
The location of the interview
Monroe, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Mary Ann Markel, December 13th, 2016
Description
An account of the resource
Markel discusses her experience of the unrest, which she refers to as a riot but concedes may also be categorized as an “uprising.” After being dropped off on the Marygrove campus in July 1967, her brother drove out of the city as quickly as possible after witnessing looting on Livernois. Markel distributed clothing at St. Agnes during the unrest, and recollects that seeing the tanks and soldiers impressed the seriousness of the incident. As a former teacher and administrator at Queen of Hope and St. Suzanne’s parish, Markel reflects on the impact of integration and systemic racial turnover from all white to nearly all Black schools. While she believes the city is doing well today, she is concerned with the state of race relations, gentrification, and the needs of Detroit’s neighborhoods.
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society
Date
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06/15/2017
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
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Audio/Mp3
Language
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en-US
Type
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Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Catholic Community
Catholic Education
Clergy
FOCUS: Hope
Immaculate Heart of Mary Church
Race Relations
Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Tanks
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/c141b94aa1704ed8de9e69c5626334f5.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
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en-us
Date
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10/20/2019
Oral History
An audio or video resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Muriel McBeth
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Muriel McBeth had eight children and lived in Detroit during the events of July 1967.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
William Winkel
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Monroe, MI
Date
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01/31/2017
Interview Length
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00:05:46
Transcriptionist
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Julie Vandenboom
Transcription Date
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05/19/2017
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>WW: Hello. Today is January 31, 2017. My name is William Winkel. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society's Detroit '67 Oral History Project, and I am in Monroe, Michigan. I am sitting down with—</p>
<p>MM: Muriel McBeth. And my story is going to be a short one, but I thought I'd like to share it with you. We were a family of eight children— they were my children— and were coming home from the lake. Everything seemed—the lake was about sixty miles from our home in Detroit. And everything seemed a little too quiet, and we weren't quite sure, and the information that we could get on the car radio was almost nothing, but it was an extremely hot summer and that Sunday was an extremely hot day.</p>
<p>So when we got home, we noticed there was hardly any traffic. It was sort of an eerie quiet all through our neighborhood, which seemed a little strange. And we knew something was wrong, but we really couldn't figure out what it was. But this is my true story.</p>
<p>My daughter, who was about twenty-one at the time, was engaged to an East Indian gentleman named Hari, and he was a doctor at Henry Ford Hospital. They were engaged, and they were coming from Chicago. And as they approached the freeway there were police there that stopped them, and they asked them what their business was in Detroit. So of course Hari could explain that he was a doctor, and had been called from Henry Ford Hospital, to please get back because they needed his help, and my daughter was his fiancée, and she just said, “I live in Michigan so I'm going to go home after I drop Hari off.”</p>
<p>So they went down the expressway and when they pulled up to Grand Boulevard, where the hospital is, there was a whole group of— would it me militia? Or National Guard perhaps? National Guard? And they had guns, and they said to Hari, What are you doing here? And he said, "Well, I was called to the hospital to work because they're having so many emergencies." And he could prove this, of course, so they gave him an escort into the hospital, and then they said to my daughter, And what are you doing here? She said, “Well, I'm going to take his car home to my house— we're out at the Six Mile, Grand River area." And he said, quote, unquote, "Get the hell out of here." And so he said they'd watch her until she turned around and came back on the expressway, so they could see the car, and then she came home.</p>
<p>And she was just almost overwhelmed with what she had seen. So many National Guard and guns and police, and she said as they approached Detroit, they could see fires off of the expressway, and smell smoke. So whether that was gun smoke, or smoke from people burning things, I don't really know.</p>
<p>One minute! What else would you like to know? I'll skip to about three weeks after the riot. And my two young sons were seven and nine. And I wanted them to see what a riot would do to a city, but I also lived down, when I was a child, lived down close to where there was a lot of confusion and rioting. So we went down to Joy Road and Dexter area, and by that time, everything had been pretty well cleaned up. Now I could see all the empty buildings, but they were not familiar with the neighborhood, so they didn't realize what was missing.</p>
<p>And then one more small thing about later on. A year after the riots, another daughter of mine got a job down at Henry Ford, and that year there was some concern that there might be some more rioting, so she had to get a special pass for the bus, to say that it was legitimate, for her to ride on the bus. And so they were concerned for a long time that that might happen.</p>
<p>I think that's just about the end of my story. Wait a minute, I'll take a look.</p>
<p>WW: Did '67 change the way you looked at Detroit?</p>
<p>MM: Yes. In a way it really did. It made us feel much more vulnerable to what could conceivably happen at any time. But it also made our family realize how disadvantaged the colored people were, and how they truly were discriminated against. And when we looked at the whole situation, we probably thought rioting, with the hot weather, was the only thing they knew how to do— or chose to do.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you so much.</p>
<p>MM: Okay, thank you for having me. Bye bye!</p>
Original Format
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Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
5min 46sec
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
William Winkel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Muriel McBeth
Location
The location of the interview
Monroe, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Muriel McBeth, January 31st, 2017
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Ms. McBeth discusses the events of July 1967.
Source
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Detroit Historical Society
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
06/15/2017
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
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Audio/Mp3
Language
A language of the resource
en-US
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Clergy
Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/b31ba46a707463183c37c28cef345b5b.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/20/2019
Oral History
An audio or video resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Madonna Oswald
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Sister Madonna Oswald was born in Detroit in 1927. She recalls her love of Detroit and experiences during the 1967 unrest while she was stationed at a Grosse Pointe convent.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
William Winkel
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Monroe, MI
Date
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02/02/2017
Interview Length
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00:03:34
Transcriptionist
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Justyna Stafford
Transcription Date
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05/18/2017
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>WW: Hello, today is February 2, 2017 my name is William Winkel this interview is for the Detroit Historical Society’s Detroit 67 Oral History Project, and I am in Monroe, Michigan. I am sitting down with…</p>
<p>MO: Sister Madonna Oswald, IHM Immaculate Heart of Mary sister.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you so much for sitting down with me today, would you like to share your story?</p>
<p>MO: I’m a Detroiter, I was born in Detroit back in 1927, and I love Detroit. I lived in Windsor for a while, and I was very glad even though our wonderful neighbor is wonderful I was glad to get back to Detroit. Because my father was doing very well in his job we moved a lot in Detroit, so we were on the Eastside and Westside and so forth. We finally build our home in St. Mary’s Parish, and loved Detroit continually. We’d go downtown Detroit, with a place to go, meet under the clock and so forth. On the day that we are speaking about though— even as I think of it now so long ago I have great feelings of sadness that this wonderful city with these wonderful people had to come out with such anger and such destruction, because of all the inequities that were going on at the time. In our convent at Star of the Sea in Grosse Pointe where I was stationed at that time, we heard many calls coming in from our sisters some who were in actual Detroit, downtown Detroit area and beyond, telling us about all of this and what they were trying to do. Some sisters who were closer even made sandwiches and took them out to people and did whatever they could. We were not able to do that, but were in prayer and understanding of what was happening. Detroit has continued on to grow from that time, but I don’t think we should forget what some people, the price people had to pay for where we are today. And, the pictures are coming across my mind at this point of watching the stores being crashed into, and people yelling and all of that anger, I can feel it at this moment and that is quite a few years back.</p>
<p>WW: So you had to stay hunkered down in Grosse Ile, ah, Grosse Pointe?</p>
<p>MO: I don’t know if it was hunkered down, we were about 40 minutes from downtown at that area.</p>
<p>WW: In Grosse Pointe?</p>
<p>MO: Yeah, isn’t it about 30 minutes right down—?</p>
<p>WW: No.</p>
<p>MO: Little farther, half hour at the most, maybe.</p>
<p>WW: Oh, no worries. When did you head back into the city after ‘67? Did you avoid the city for a while, or did you go back in?</p>
<p>MO: No, I think we kept pretty much the same contact with the city. However, I’m sure that we were all told to be careful, and to be our best and to show that.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you so much.</p>
<p>MO: Well good. </p>
Original Format
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Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
3min 34sec
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
William Winkel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Madonna Oswald
Location
The location of the interview
Monroe, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Madonna Oswald, February 2nd, 2017
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Sister Oswald explained her personal experience during 1967 unrest while she was stationed at Star of the Sea covenant in Grosse Pointe and her communications with other convents in Detroit.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
06/15/2017
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
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Audio/Mp3
Language
A language of the resource
en-US
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Catholic Community
Clergy
Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/0decdbe88c55cdb17cfb19f98fa31ba9.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/20/2019
Oral History
An audio or video resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Josephine Sferrella
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Sister Josephine Sferrella was a nun in Detroit during the unrest in 1967.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
William Winkel
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Monroe, MI
Date
The date of the interview in MM/DD/YYYY format.
01/31/2017
Interview Length
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00:10:08
Transcriptionist
The first and last name of the transcriptionist.
Justyna Stafford
Transcription Date
The date of the transcription in MM/DD/YYYY format.
05/19/2017
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>WW: Hello, today is January 31, 2017, my name is William Winkel. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society’s Detroit 67 Oral History Project, I’m in Monroe, Michigan and I am sitting down with—</p>
<p>JS: Sister Josephine Sferrella.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you so much for sitting down with me today.</p>
<p>JS: I appreciate what you are doing. I think it is marvelous, that 1967 was sort of a benchmark, a culmination of many things of the city of Detroit. I was at Holy Trinity, which is not too far from Twelfth Street, and then later taught in Boniface which is right on Twelfth, near seventy-five. That Sunday morning we knew nothing about it, but as a group, because we have been so tired working hard in the inner-city, we decided to treat ourselves and we were going to go out to Meadowbrook and watch the concert and have a lunch there and we did. We came back, it must have been about three o’clock, three thirty, and we got to the city borders and we were stopped by a jeep with three or four soldiers in it. And we didn’t know what was happening and we looked at each other curious at first and the a little bit concerned, and the soldiers wanted to know— first of all, they said, You can’t come through. So we said, But we live— how we can get to our home. So he asked us where we were going and we told him. So he said, “We have to escort you, because we had some civil disturbances in this area today.” So we followed him to Holy Trinity, we parked our car, and he said to us, “Now lock the car very well, and when you go into the house make sure that you are not standing near a window or where a light can indicate from the outside that you are there. Just stay clear of windows, we don’t know who maybe around and we want to make sure you are safe.” So that was the Sunday. Then on Monday we began to work with Lou Murphy at what they call the Dorothy Day workhouse, and they cooked the soup and the meat and we served them to all the homeless in the area, and it was interesting and sort of sad and pathetic. And we had to be very careful because the homeless men were trying to steal the Sternos, the little can of Sterno we had. So we did that several days to make sure that they were fed. The soldiers were on the lookout for us every day, and we go to Boniface, which is not quite a mile west of Trinity, they would be parked at different areas, so that we knew we were safe going back and forth. I know that we were in fear, we really weren’t sure what was going on but then we read about it and people called us. It was summertime so the sisters were not really working on the mission, but were living there and going to school at Wayne State, University of Detroit, and so we were assigned at different places.</p>
<p>But I can recall, I think it was either that Monday or Tuesday, it didn’t dawned at me how serious it was until this one morning I heard this big rumbling sound and I looked out my bedroom window and here comes an actual tank. I had never, never, seen one up that close, with a gun on a turret, the soldier that was seen on it, he saw me on a window and he saluted me. But at that moment I really was frightened. It dawned on me that this was really serious business, and I could not believe that here in the sixties in Detroit, the United States, that we had tanks on our ordinary streets, you know, and soldiers were on them. So it made me very much aware of the situation around. I knew there was a great problem with the police department because, working with my students at Boniface and Trinity, we always had a hard time with our black students. If they were out of school, like if they were at mass serving mass, they come over late to school, but if the cops saw them, they would stop them, and they would want to arrest them because they were supposed to be in school and they would not take their word from them. And I remember that I called the city, and they told me to make sure I took the number of the police numbers badge and let them know, and they would take care of it, and I did. It was the only way I could stop the police officers from sort of verbally abusing some of our kids just because they were black.</p>
<p>So I knew we were in a situation that was not— it was not great. It was not good. And I felt sorry for the mayor, Cavanagh, because he was just beginning in his term. As far as the rest of the riot situation, I felt badly, that it took the city many, many years to even help clean up some of the wooden buildings, some of those that were— I had a dear parishioner who had a grocery store on a corner of Twelfth— I think it was near Atkins— and it was burned to the ground. But that made me very much aware, threw me more into the civil process, and to the needs of the city than I had ever been before. But, I sure do not want to go through that again.</p>
<p>WW: Did it change the way you looked at the city?</p>
<p>JS: Yes, it did. I have always loved Detroit; I spent quite a few years there. As a congregation one of our directives is to work with the city in whatever way we can. And so we have been doing that. And early on before the early sixties— well I’d say the seventies— we had many, many schools in Detroit. Our congregation had more schools than any other group. So we really were committed to the city. I know it changed my fact that I needed to get more involved.</p>
<p>WW: Did you become uneasy in the city afterwards? Did you still feel comfortable walking around?</p>
<p>JS: I felt comfortable, not after, not during that week because the soldiers were around and the snipers were still around. But after that, I have never had any fear of walking the streets of Boniface or Holy Trinity. First of all, the people knew me, they knew we were sisters, they knew me by name. And we would help them, when they needed it, and they knew we took care of them. So, I felt that they would save us, they would protect us, they wouldn’t do anything against us now. Maybe I was naïve at that time, but I may find it a little hard now after so many years away from it, and not being familiar with it. But at the time I had no fear, other than that first meeting with that unbelievable tank. That really— it just jolted me.</p>
<p>WW: Is there anything else you would like to share?</p>
<p>JS: No, again I want to thank you for doing this, I think this is important to get people’s I would hope you would be able to find some of the people who were hurt by the riots. Only they can really tell you what their actual experience. They lost their homes, they lost their clothes, and some of them lost their own sons and daughters, I mean there were over 40 that were killed in that riot. So, I am very happy, and I’m thrilled and privileged even though I don’t have very much to say. I’m very happy and thrilled to be a part of it, and I wish you great luck on it.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you so much.</p>
Original Format
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Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
10min 8sec
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
William Winkel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Josephine Sferrella
Location
The location of the interview
Monroe, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Josephine Sferrella, January 31st, 2017
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, sister Sferrella explains her experience of the 1967 unrest in Detroit. She was shocked to see a tank rolling down ordinary streets in Detroit. She also explained the problem with Detroit police verbally abusing her African American students.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
06/16/2017
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
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Audio/Mp3
Language
A language of the resource
en-US
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Catholic Community
Clergy
National Guard
police
Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Tanks
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/fcc05e7e84f0c81f61187ed52d371c19.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/20/2019
Oral History
An audio or video resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Latitia O’Connell
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Latitia O’Connell was at a convent in Detroit in July 1967.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
William Winkel
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Monroe, MI
Date
The date of the interview in MM/DD/YYYY format.
02/07/2017
Interview Length
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00:14:55
Transcriptionist
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Julie Vandenboom
Transcription Date
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05/18/2017
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>WW: Hello, today is February 7, 2017. My name is William Winkel. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society's Detroit '67 Oral History Project, and I'm in Monroe, Michigan. I'm sitting down with –</p>
<p> </p>
<p>LO: My name? My name is Latitia O'Connell. Okay?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>WW: Thank you for sitting down with me today. Feel free to start your story.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>LO: Okay, this is my story. The Sunday that this happened rose beautiful and sunshine and not much humidity, and it was beautiful and hot. And so some of the sisters decided to go over to the cathedral for mass, which they did. Now, they didn't come back, so we were afraid that something had happened. Finally, they got back, and they said that when they went into mass, everything was quiet and beautiful. When they came out, everything was burning and they could not get home, so every road they tried to take to get home, they were blocked by fire.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So it took a long time to get a detour around all the fires and get home. And if we wanted to see the fires, we should go up on our roof, right then, and we would see Detroit burning. So some of us went up on the roof and sure enough, you could see black plumes of smoke coming up in sort of a circle, all around Detroit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So then we came back and everything was quiet where we were. So we ate our supper and we cleaned up and came in to sit down where we had what we called recreation—where we gathered in the evening. And now I'll have to stop for a minute to let you know geographically how this goes. If you were to look up, you would see Fenkell, which was like a big top of a T, and the stem of the T, about a block down, was where we were. Now also, between our house and the house next to us was a rather narrow alley, but an alley people could go through.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Okay, so we sit down for a nice quiet evening when suddenly we hear the crackling of shattering glass. And not too long after that, people start bringing the furniture that they had looted from the furniture store on the corner— I never will forget there were two or three older people carrying a beautiful new, great big sofa. And so they took all the furniture through the alley.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Now when that was over, they threw Molotov cocktails in all of the buildings, I don't know how far down, but at least a block. And they all went up in flames. So by two o'clock in the morning our convent was so full of smoke you could hardly breathe. And naturally, we didn't go to bed because we didn't know whether they were going to come our way or not. So enough for the night.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next morning, we found out— now, here, the chronology of the actual dates is a little bit fuzzy, but it's exactly the way— the way it happened. We first heard that the court in Detroit had taken in more than two hundred people, and they couldn't keep all of them, and obviously not all of them were guilty, so they wanted as many typists as they could get who were skilled typists and could do legal documents. So a number of our sisters— this worked out of Marygrove, so I don't know any more about it, except that I do know that a number of our sisters went. Meanwhile, in our place, Governor Romney had called out, by this time, the National Guard, so there were tanks strategically placed all around from our place downtown, and there were also armed National Guardsmen, and always had their guns at the ready, to shoot. The tanks had their guns sticking out over the street and the Guardsmen had their guns cocked, ready to shoot, if anybody came near. So it was kind of dangerous.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But anyway, about this time, Sanders called us up and said, We did our big baking just before the riots started, and we have all this merchandise and we can't deliver it. So if you would like any of it, you're free to come down and take any and as much as you want, and it's all free. So we were actually willing to go, and I volunteered, and some sister drove with me, I don't know who she was, but anyway— we drove down to Sanders, through the tanks. I can still remember those big guns sticking out. But nobody stopped us. We went to Sanders. We filled the car with Sanders merchandise, like cakes and everything. And came back, uneventfully, and put the Sanders things in a deep freeze that we had down in the basement, and came back and had our supper. Now that was that day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next day, or thereabouts, the court wanted a survey of all the people that were still living in all the burned out places, to see what the situation was, so they wanted some volunteers that would go from house to house in these burned out areas and see what the situation was. The questions were about how burned out the house was, are you safe, are you well, do you have enough food, and so on. So it was rather uneventful until we came to one house, and this poor old African American woman, about middle age, was so scared, she opened the door about one inch and was scared to even talk to us. But after we convinced her who we were, and what we were doing, she opened it up and she started talking to us. And she told us that the roof of her house was burned out, but she was still going to live there, because she didn't dare show her face. Did she have any food? No, she didn't have any food. Did she have any way to get any food? No, because if she showed her face, she was afraid that she would be shot. And worst of all, her son had disappeared on Friday evening. He had left, and he never came back home again, and she didn't know whether he was alive or dead. And that was worrying her more than any of the other things.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So we took all the data down, amongst other data, and sent it in to the court, where we were supposed to send it. And what they did with it after that, I don't know. So that was one day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So then, the next day— this was Thursday by now— we still couldn't go outside unless we were pretty sure. So we had a late mass that was over about four o'clock, I think, in the afternoon, and a sister was just ready to clean the sacred vessels when a knock came at the door, and it was one of the National Guard, armed, of course, and he said take cover immediately, there are snipers all around. And don't leave until I give you the clear sign.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So we went to a little tiny place, like a little hallway between two parts of the house, and we sat there until he came back and gave us the all-clear that the snipers had gone. So that's really the major things that happened in my personal story.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Now my second story has to do with a manuscript— did you get it? A manuscript that Sister Mary wrote about a family that she knew and she kind of tried to make it into a story, but it's absolutely true, and the people in it were personal friends of hers, so it's a rather, I think, good summary of what happened during the riots. And there probably is quite a bit of information in the general archives of any of our convents that were open that summer, because most of them were in the midst of where the riots occurred, I think. But you'd have to check this out with the archives.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>St. Benton, where we were, was open, and Holy Trinity was open. St. Agnes was open, I think. And St. Rose. You'd have to check. And maybe some more convents. And most of those convents were in areas where the riots were. So you probably would find quite a bit of information there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Now that's pretty much the end of my story. Do you have any questions?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>WW: Did what you see during '67 change the way you looked at Detroit?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>LO: I suppose, subconsciously, it did. I didn't realize it at the time. But not Detroit, so much. It made me very, very much interested in the race problem, which I've been studying even until today. And the other thing that really, as I look back on it, was that Detroit was one of the only cities where this was so throughout the whole city. Most all of the riots that have occurred since, and even the ones that occurred this year, in Baltimore and New York and all these— they were localized. They were localized to the place where the injury happened. But the Detroit ones were all over the city. And another irony was that I don't know what they were doing, exactly, because I was not in on it, but there was a group of activists in Detroit, and I think some of our sisters were in on that— you might look up Shirley Ellis's file, she probably had some things, and some other people— but they had been working on this problem. They knew that it was a very volatile problem, and that something could happen at most any minute. But nobody that I ever talked to realized that something would trigger it like it did, and as far as I can see, from what I've read and studied, nobody has ever found out exactly what was used to trigger it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>WW: To trigger it?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>LO: To trigger it. To start it off.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>WW: It was a raid on a blind pig, on Twelfth and Clairmount.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>LO: Was that it? And they've definitely established that now? And okay. So that's established. Any other questions?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>WW: No. Is there anything else you'd like to share?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>LO: I think— I think about all the people of Detroit, would be good people to begin to study the race problem as it still exists today. I just finished two articles, one in the <i>America</i>, and then the conclusion to a very good book called <i>When Race Meets Real</i>, and it's right up to date. Has people we all know in it. And the conclusion from both of those— I'm putting the two together— is that we are never going to solve the race problem, until the white race realizes its own sin in the way it has treated the blacks, and is humble enough to admit that we are no better than the blacks. That we're brothers and sisters, and that's going to take a lot of doing. It's not going to happen overnight. At least that was the conclusion. In this one article, in <i>America</i>, on conscience, Europe has already come to its knees and seen its sinfulness that led to the Holocaust. But America seems never to have realized the guilt the white man has because he always feels superior, even today. And until he stops feeling that superior, we can't solve the race problem. Does that answer your question?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>WW: Can you ask me a question?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>LO: No.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>WW: I thought that's what you said. That was perfect! Thank you so much.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>LO: Really? And it came through okay? </p>
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
14min 55sec
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
William Winkel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Latitia O’Connell
Location
The location of the interview
Monroe, MI
Video
A link to the video
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mlYMO5LGZmw?rel=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Latitia O’Connell, February 7th, 2017
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Latitia O’Connell discusses what she experienced during July 1967.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
06/16/2017
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
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Audio/Mp3
Language
A language of the resource
en-US
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Catholic Community
Clergy
National Guard
Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Snipers
Tanks
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/b933f356763d78aa9e161c5b35eb7c94.jpg
070cb8d4db9b0af2692818b3a07d67d5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/20/2019
Oral History
An audio or video resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Margaret Sweeney
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Margaret Sweeney was born in Detroit on August 9, 1940. She grew up, lived, and worked in Detroit as a teacher.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
Maddie Dietrich
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Monroe, MI
Date
The date of the interview in MM/DD/YYYY format.
12/06/2016
Interview Length
The total length of the interview in HH:MM:SS format.
00:11:02
Transcriptionist
The first and last name of the transcriptionist.
Justyna Stafford
Transcription Date
The date of the transcription in MM/DD/YYYY format.
05/19/2017
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>MD: Good afternoon, it is Tuesday December 6, 2016. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society ’67 Project. I am Maddie Dietrich, and I am sitting down with Margaret Sweeney in Monroe, Michigan. Thank you so much for sitting down with me today.</p>
<p>MS: You very welcome, Maddie.</p>
<p>MD: When and where were you born?</p>
<p>MS: I was born in August, August 9, 1940, in Detroit, Michigan.</p>
<p>MD: Okay, did you grow up in Detroit?</p>
<p>MS: I did, I went to— well, I lived in Detroit all my life until I went off to college, and then I came here to Monroe, Michigan, for my college. But I grew up and went to school in Detroit.</p>
<p>MD: Okay, what was your neighborhood like growing up?</p>
<p>MS: Our neighborhood was a blue collar, but totally white neighborhood in northwest Detroit.</p>
<p>MD: Okay, and how did you first hear about what was happening that week, July, 1967?</p>
<p>MS: Okay, at that time I had been assigned to teach and work in the city of Detroit at St. Cecilia’s school, which was located on Livernois, a few miles, like two or three miles, south of where the initial outbreak or— I don’t care to call it a riot, but the unrest happened. And I was, though I was assigned there, for the summer I was going to school at Wayne State University and so I was in another location because we were grouped together for transportation purposes. So, I was actually— that was a Sunday I believe that the unrest occurred, and I was very concerned knowing that I had so many of the people I served and worked with were right in the midst of the unrest, and that there was gunshots and violence breaking out in the street. So, I was near the city, not right at that location, but then we quickly came back to where we were living and teaching, because we wanted to be with the people and understand the struggle that they were going through at that point.</p>
<p>MD: So, what were the communities that you worked with? What did you do?</p>
<p>MS: I was a teacher, so I was teaching in an elementary school, and I was working with the parishioners and a parish, and our parish at that time was working very hard to become an integrated community. The Catholic Church traditionally was pretty white, so at that point the neighborhood was changing, and the leadership of the parish was working very hard to include and invite participation by the African American community that was moving and living in the parish grounds, or in the parish boundaries, but not feeling welcomed. Prior to that time they have not felt welcomed to be a part of the parish. So, our effort was to invite and include, and we were very concerned that this whole movement would somehow set us back from that goal.</p>
<p>MD: Okay. What was it like during the week of the unrest?</p>
<p>MS: It was scary. It was fearful for the families; children had to stay in the houses. At our particular church, we had a very bell tower, and some had gone up in order to kind of see what was going on in the city, and whether it was people who were part of the unrest or it was police who were thinking that these were snipers going up there, were a lot of shots at the church tower, which still are there.</p>
<p>MD: That’s scary.</p>
<p>MS: Yes, yeah.</p>
<p>MD: Do you think that what happened in ’67 still affects the city today?</p>
<p>MS: I would hope we’d moved passed that. I think there is still— because Detroit for a long time was so segregated, I see today a move towards more integration, which in some of the areas like Corktown and places that are coming back, Downtown areas, that there is more openness for people to be connected with each other. But I don’t know how much of that is part of the actual revolt of ‘67 that’s still influencing, or of its influencing. Certainly, in recent times with the unrest with the police department and all over the country, some of that obviously is still happening. And that was big part of what was behind the revolution at that time, as far as we I was concerned, or as we understood it, or interpreted what was going on, it was a lot of that.</p>
<p>MD: Okay, okay. What kind of terminology would you use to describe what happened, and if you don’t use a terminology, why?</p>
<p>MS: So, I think you’re getting at whether it was a riot or whether it was a rebellion. I guess I really don’t know why I would say it wasn’t a riot. It was certainly referred to by many people that way. So maybe it was, maybe we just were trying not to describe it quite so. But it certainly was revolting against the establishment and whatever way people knew how to do that. And that was unfortunate, in that it did set a lot of people back in terms of their businesses and trying to move forward. But, I guess I don’t really have an answer of why I would use one term over another.</p>
<p>MD: Okay. Do you have any other pieces about what happened in 1967 to add to the interview?</p>
<p>MS: I think it certainly put a lot of fear into people, and that was the unfortunate part. It gave a name to Detroit that wasn’t deserved, but it was somewhat understandable that people became fearful of coming into the city. Where people who lived and worked there, as I did, and so many of the people I worked with at that time. We were not fearful of living in the city, or on the same streets where all this had happened, because we knew the people we were working with, and we knew we were trusted and accepted as a community by that community. And so, I think it made for— looking back it’s like could we had moved faster, if this hadn’t happened? Maybe, and maybe some of the things that were changed wouldn’t have changed if they hadn’t been getting everybody’s attention, by those violent acts. I would not want to ever think that that’s the only way we can achieve a goal. But I think it did bring about some changes that needed to be changed, and it would have been better to do it a different way, but that’s not what happened.</p>
<p>MD: Okay, all right, is there anything else?</p>
<p>MS: I don’t think so.</p>
<p>MD: Okay, thank you so much for sitting down with me today.</p>
<p>MS: You’re very welcome, and thank you for bringing attention to our city. </p>
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
11min 2sec
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Maddie Dietrich
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Margaret Sweeney
Location
The location of the interview
Monroe, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret Sweeney, December 6th, 2016
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Margaret Sweeney recalled living and working in Detroit. She talked about the leadership of her parish wanting to include the African American community.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
06/16/2017
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio/Mp3
Language
A language of the resource
en-US
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Catholic Community
Clergy
Race Relations
Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/c94611467cadf410deac0d01358dfcd4.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/20/2019
Oral History
An audio or video resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Rosalind Naebers
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Rosalind Naebers, a student at Wayne State University in 1967 discusses her experiences during that summer.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
William Winkel
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Monroe, MI
Date
The date of the interview in MM/DD/YYYY format.
02/07/2017
Interview Length
The total length of the interview in HH:MM:SS format.
00:08:01
Transcriptionist
The first and last name of the transcriptionist.
Julie Vandenboom
Transcription Date
The date of the transcription in MM/DD/YYYY format.
05/19/2017
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>WW: Hello. Today is February 7, 2017. My name is William Winkel. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society's Detroit '67 Oral History Project, and I'm in Monroe, Michigan. And I'm sitting down with—</p>
<p>RN: Rosalind Naebers.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you so much for sitting down with me today. Would you like to share your story?</p>
<p>RN: Yes. Okay. During the riots, I was studying at Wayne State, so I was living up Woodward, at where Blessed Sacrament Cathedral is, on Woodward and probably Boston Boulevard, in that area. And there was a group of sisters there. The Sunday morning of the riots, we were not aware that that was going on. And even the pastor, who was Bishop Walter Shaner, who is now deceased, he was not aware, and he was a member of the National Guard, and he, after mass, said, "Well, bye bye, I won't see you for two weeks, I'm going up to Grayling for my two weeks of National Guard duty, so bye bye."</p>
<p>The next day he was back. And there were tanks and troops coming down Woodward at that point. And during this time, while he was there, he would bring some guys to the rectory, to the priest house, and give them a good meal. So I put that in, because I don't think many people would realize, you know, the National Guard bit, on a human side.</p>
<p>Okay, that's there. Some of the sisters that were staying with me volunteered to work at Henry Ford Hospital, in the, probably, emergency room, and they did mostly records, stuff like that. I'm not very good at stuff like that, so I stayed home, and there was one of the sisters who was sick. So I took care of her and also I cooked supper, and there was about one or two other sisters that stayed there. And it was sort of eerie, because you really couldn't do much, all right. That's all the little things that happened.</p>
<p>I don't kow if anybody else told you, there was a curfew. And one night, it was fifteen minutes before the curfew, we were outside. And we were still in the long habits at that point. And a helicopter hovered up above until we got inside. We still had fifteen minutes! Good grief. [laughter].</p>
<p>But at night we could hear the machine guns. We didn't see action, but we could hear a lot of action. And I thought I weathered it all pretty good and in— probably was October, I went back to where I taught, which was at the corner of Evergreen and Ford Road, and there was a whole line of churches along there. And one of the churches, a community church, was having a festival, and they had helicopter rides. You know, they talk about delayed action. I was a mess, until those helicopters stopped. I'm very emotional, so don't worry about this. But anyhow, that whole Saturday afternoon, I could not concentrate on anything. It was just the sound of helicopters. Now, if it affected me that way, what about some of the people that were in the midst of the action?</p>
<p>I know some of the other sisters will say they saw looting going on and everything like that. And I didn't have any of that. And some of the people said that the store owners went to the sisters to come and take all their stuff and hide them in the convent basements. You know, like TVs and things like that, that were being stolen. So some people, some of the convents were used for that. So we missed, of course, about— Wednesday or Thursday we went back to school, I don't know. But Wayne State closed, because they were in the middle of it, and of course, that would affect where I was studying.</p>
<p>So it wasn't too bad, but I'm glad the experience was over. And my mother lived sort of near Van Dyke and Mack, in that area, and she did not feel very safe, and she and my brothers went and stayed with my sister who lived a block away from St. John's Hospital. And then after— she had been talking about moving— but after the riots she did move and she said, "I just feel safer." And in fact, she moved just two or three blocks away from my sister, in that area.</p>
<p>But I think a lot of people did decide to move to other parts of the city that they considered safer.</p>
<p>WW: Did it change the way you looked at the city?</p>
<p>RN: No, I don't think so. No. Because I grew up there, and I always felt very safe there. And I lived at various places in the city when I taught, too, so, how much of the riots affected me? It wasn't. But I would say people who lived near Fourteenth Street, where they really saw the looting and heard more, and saw more of the shooting. We just heard it at night, because we could hear the helicopters and the shooting at night. But when we went back to Wayne State, it was almost a really funny feeling to go down Woodward, and then going to class and some of the people in the class had been really right on top of all the action, so— But I always felt pretty safe.</p>
<p>WW: Is there anything else you'd like to add today?</p>
<p>RN: Let's see. I tried to make notes. I think I covered about everything.</p>
<p>WW: Thanks so much for sitting down with me.</p>
<p>RN: You're welcome.</p>
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
8min 1sec
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
William Winkel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Rosalind Naebers
Location
The location of the interview
Monroe, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Rosalind Naebers, February 7th, 2017
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Rosalind Naebers discusses what she experienced during July 1967.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
06/16/2017
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio/Mp3
Language
A language of the resource
en-US
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Catholic Community
Clergy
National Guard
Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Tanks
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/05614364b10cb256d44636d0cc736589.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/20/2019
Oral History
An audio or video resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Mary Catherine Quick
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
In 1967, Mary Catherine Quick was a Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and a graduate student at Marygrove College. She recalls the chaos, police presence, and lack of clear information during the unrest.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
William Winkel
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Monroe, MI
Date
The date of the interview in MM/DD/YYYY format.
01/31/2017
Interview Length
The total length of the interview in HH:MM:SS format.
00:10:20
Transcriptionist
The first and last name of the transcriptionist.
Emma Maniere
Transcription Date
The date of the transcription in MM/DD/YYYY format.
05/19/2017
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>WW: Hello, today is January 31, 2017. My name is William Winkle. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society’s Detroit ’67 Oral History Project. And I am sitting down with—</p>
<p>MKQ: Mary Catherine Quick, IHM.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you so much.</p>
<p>MKQ: I was living at Marygrove, at the college, in the summer of ’67. I was doing some driving for the community, and I was in the master’s program, so I was getting my master’s in education on summers. I did that for ten summers, and ’67 was somewhere in the middle of that [laughter].</p>
<p>On the Sunday that it all started, I was driving. I was going down to our summer home in Crofton just outside of Essex, Ontario, and picking up several sisters who had been down there for some vacation time, and coming home. So I left relatively early in the morning and there wasn’t a whole lot of upset in the city, because I went down and I went through the tunnel to go to Essex to Crofton and pick up the Sisters. So I was coming back sometime in the afternoon, and I had no knowledge of anything going on in the city at that point. We came out of the tunnel— and I’m a relatively young Sister, fifty years ago [laughter], with three or four elderly Sisters— I mean, that I would have considered elderly at that point, probably about my age now. And there was chaos when we came out of the tunnel. There were squad cars and pylons and everything, and as we came out, there was a policeman coming at me and I stopped and rolled the window down, and he said, “Where are you going?” And I was going to two different convents up on the Eastside of Detroit, and I told him I was going to the Eastside, and he said, “Turn right on Jefferson, and drive. Don’t stop for lights, don’t stop for anything, drive down the middle of the street.” So, that’s what I did, and that’s all I knew that was going on at that point.</p>
<p>So I got the Sisters home, and I got back to Marygrove, and by that time there was a whole lot of upset on the Marygrove campus. I mean it was Sunday, we weren’t in class, so people were milling around and didn’t know what was going on, and we didn’t have a whole lot of news broadcast going on, we didn’t have cell phones and all that good stuff. It was a little hard to get to really know what was going on, but people had radios, so we knew that there was a riot going on downtown, but we didn’t know how extensive it was.</p>
<p>So, Monday, we had classes, okay? The college went on during the week, but by Monday afternoon, we had armored cars, armored personnel-carrier kinds of vehicles parked at the main entrance and the side, the back entrance of the college, and we had armed— what would you call them? Militia posted at both entrances.</p>
<p>By Tuesday, they came onto the campus and asked for volunteers to go down to Tiger’s Stadium to register and to do the paperwork for the people that they were arresting because they were taking them to the Stadium and they needed clerical workers down there. So there were people who didn’t have classes who volunteered and they went down, and they would come back with war stories. But those of us that were in class, we went on with classes. Because there wasn’t any upset. The upset was coming up Livernois, we knew that, that there were crowds coming up Livernois and smashing windows and setting fire and looting and all of that kind of stuff was going on. We had heard from the community that some of the Sisters who were in convents downtown were huddled in their basements because there were snipers down there. But, we didn’t have any of that kind of upset on the campus, so we just went on with classes. We kept in touch with what was going on on the radio and on television, but we didn’t— the worst thing I had to deal with was I was living on fourth floor of <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Madame</span> (?) Cadillac with no air conditioning and it was a hot house [laughter.]</p>
<p>So that’s pretty much it.</p>
<p>WW: Being that you were in the city, were you surprised by the outbreak of ’67?</p>
<p>MKQ: Well, I was certainly startled and I was frightened. I was very frightened because there were stories of terrible things going on in terms of looting and burning and all of that. Since then, I have friends who were in the thick of it, and they were very frightened, they were very frightened.</p>
<p>Was I surprised? I’m not real clear on the dates when Martin Luther King was assassinated—</p>
<p>WW: That was a year later.</p>
<p>MKQ: It was a year later. Because I was more frightened when Martin Luther King was assassinated, because I was in Chicago and CVS cleared out and they were just rampaging down Eighty-Seventh Street and breaking windows of all kinds.</p>
<p>But I wasn’t— was I surprised? I don’t think I was surprised. I mean, I had been in Chicago for a while, and we were working hard to keep a neighborhood integrated, which was getting harder and harder to do. There were sit-ins and there were the bus rides, so all of those kinds of things were going on and it was a tense time, but I don’t know that I would say I was surprised.</p>
<p>WW: Did seeing all the violence of ’67 change the way you looked at the city?</p>
<p>MKQ: Detroit?</p>
<p>WW: Uh-hm.</p>
<p>MKQ: Not really. I hadn’t been in Detroit very much. My teaching career had taken me outside of the city. I was in Chicago, I was in Benton Harbor, which was a bad place to be. But I lived in Benton Harbor and we were never bothered. The Sisters were not bothered much.</p>
<p>It was one of those things that the tension was rising, but it was the whole culture that was in tension. We were very much in favor of the demonstrations and the marches and all of that, and we had IHM Sisters involved in that all the way right from the very beginning. So, I mean, I was never really involved in any of the marches but I knew Sisters who were, and who had ended up in jail and being arrested and that kind of thing. So, there was a lot of tension in the country, but I wouldn’t say I was surprised.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you so much.</p>
<p>MKQ: You’re welcome.</p>
<p>WW: Appreciate it.</p>
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
10min 20sec
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
William Winkel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Mary Catherine Quick
Location
The location of the interview
Monroe, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mary Catherine Quick, January 31st, 2017
Description
An account of the resource
Quick remembers driving several Sisters from a summer home in Canada back to the East Side of Detroit on the Sunday the unrest broke out. At the border, she was greeted by a “chaos” and a strong police presence. As a student at Marygrove, she also encountered state authorities, and was asked to volunteer at Tiger’s Stadium to undertake clerical work to help process people who had been arrested. Quick was not surprised by the unrest, and understands it in a larger context of broad cultural tensions around race in the 1960s.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
06/16/2017
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio/Mp3
Language
A language of the resource
en-US
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Clergy
Marygrove College
police
Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/6ce8fae7457fd4d084dbfefa7900c9b5.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/20/2019
Oral History
An audio or video resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Pat McCluskey
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Sister Pat McCluskey was born in Detroit in December 1941. She was raised on the east side of the city, in the Jefferson-Chalmers area–which was then a predominately Irish and Italian neighborhood. She attended St. Martin’s Catholic School. After graduating from high school she entered the Immaculate Heart of Mary Convent and became a teacher at St. Catherine High School. Sister McCluskey also works as a psychologist. She currently resides in Monroe, Michigan.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
William Winkel
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Monroe, MI
Date
The date of the interview in MM/DD/YYYY format.
12/06/17
Interview Length
The total length of the interview in HH:MM:SS format.
00:13:21
Transcriptionist
The first and last name of the transcriptionist.
Emma Maniere
Transcription Date
The date of the transcription in MM/DD/YYYY format.
5/19/2017
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p class="paragraph"><span class="normaltextrun">WW: Hello. Today is December 6, 2016. My name is William </span><span xml:lang="EN-US">Winkel</span><span xml:lang="EN-US">. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society’s Detroit 67 Oral History Project, and I am in Monroe Michigan, and I am sitting down with—</span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1699962153" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{172}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: Pat </span></span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="spellingerror"><span>McCluskey</span></span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US">, IHM. [Immaculate Heart of Mary] </span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1744205591" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{180}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: Thank you so much for sitting down with me</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>today.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="546542176" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{188}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: Mm</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>hmm.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1217328996" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{192}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: Will you please start by telling me where and when were you born?</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="332495209" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{196}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: I was born in the city of Detroit, 1941 on Christmas Eve.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="355867777" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{200}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: What neighborhood did you grow up in?</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1302342463" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{204}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: I grew up on the east side of Detroit in what’s now referred to as the Jefferson-Chalmers area. I lived right across the street from the Fisher Mansion on Lenox Avenue, two blocks from the river.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1034312317" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{210}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: What was growin</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>g up in that neighborhood like?</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="800247300" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{214}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: I enjoyed it thoroughly. I grew up right across the street from the St. Martin’s Catholic Church and school, and that’s where I went to school. I was involved in all kinds of activities. There was a playground right the next street over and I was involved in sports a lot and whatever else was going on during the school years.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1580345570" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{218}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: Growing up in the city, did you tend to stay in your own neighborhood or did you venture around the city?</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="2114411790" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{222}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: I would say that we ventured around more into the downtown area. I remember going to J.L. Hudson’s, the basement store. We worked in some visiting because of being on the basketball team, some of the Catholic schools that would have been St. Rose, St. Jean, Annunciation, St. Charles</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>. S</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>o I was in all of those areas. I was quite comfortable.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="901399225" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{226}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: What schools did you go to growing up?</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="133537180" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{230}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: St. Martin.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="2064952081" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{234}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: The whole time? There was a high school too? Oh, okay.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1840456246" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{246}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: There was a</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> high school too. Uh </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>hm</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>m</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>, yeah.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1575586956" paraeid="{3f303a24-86c0-4b24-90d8-b25ce3adca00}{254}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: After you gradua</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>ted, did you stay in the city o</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>r did you go out of the city for college?</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1998755350" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{11}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: I entered the Sister Servants of the Immaculate High Mary, the IHM Convent, and I became a teacher initially. I taught high school. My first place of mission was St. Catherine High School, which then be</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>came East Catholic</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>—</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>St. Catherine right off Van Dyke. From there, I left and I went</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> to Puerto Rico for three years</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> and then I was in Brazil working as a missionary for </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>12</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>years. Then I came back, and I got my PhD and I’m a psychologist now as well.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1167812047" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{17}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: What year did you leave for Puerto Rico?</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="2141629455" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{35}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: In September of ‘68. So it was ‘67—was the riots—and then we had ‘</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>68, and that was when Martin Luther King died. We were right down the road from Barber School. We were–</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>and </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>this is where sometimes misperception</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>s happened of what was going on. P</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>eople will talk about, or they talked about, it was an amalgamation of schools that occurred at that time. So, people from St. Charles came to</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> our schools. T</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>hose who had come from the suburbs stopped coming; they decreased in number. We walked to the bus up to meet them at the bus stops, those kinds of things. They used to call them Sister Mary Conrad’s boys</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> Sister Mary Conrad taught Home </span></span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="spellingerror"><span>Ec</span></span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="normaltextrun"><span>, and she had been at St. Charles, and she knew these guys who had come over and were then part of our school, and people, some people, talked about them as, </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>Oh yeah, they were looting during the riots,</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> and everything</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>A</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>nd it was her boys who stood and protected the school when Martin Luther King died, and the students from Barber marched down and were throwing rocks into our school. So it kind of</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>—</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>it’s the question of stereotypes.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1692464668" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{43}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>Mm</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>hmm</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1581608457" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{47}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: So a lot of them were broken that day. But there was a definite change in that area once the riots occurred because you had a lot of the white people moving out and those who had come in</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>—</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>bussed in</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>. T</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>he numbers decreased.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="475778942" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{51}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: Backing up to the early Sixties, going through the </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>s</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>ixties, did you see the city changing?</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="915697276" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{55}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: Did I see the city changing? Well</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>—</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1273935298" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{59}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: Or did you feel tension growing in the city?</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="676790410" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{65}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: You know, I’ll tell you something. I was beginning a Master’s in sociology at U of D</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> [University of Detroit]</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> I and in fact–this was shortly before the riots–but anyway</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> I was in this intensive summer course and all through it there were riots going on in other cities. And </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>everybody in this course of the leaders said, “Oh, that’s not going to happen in Detroit.” And we finished the course on Friday, and on Sunday the riots broke out. So there was a lot of people who maybe thought there wasn’t tension, but there was. There were underlying dynamics.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span><span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="630955680" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{69}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">A lot of segregation, even in the area where I grew up of St. Martin’s</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>. T</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>hose who were black lived primarily three streets over. In our school, we only had at that time in the high school, I think there were three black students. I talk about it somewhat as it was an Italian, Irish ghetto, and that was the east side. But I would go over farther up in Girl Scouts and that up in the Chalmers area, and it was a gradually changing neighborhood. And tensions were increasing, which is actually what led my own family</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>,</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> after I had left, they moved from there in </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>'</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>71. That was after one of my sisters was dragged down the street by a black teenager, and that scared them. So there was growing tensions</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>. Y</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>es.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="126559267" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{77}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: So how did you first hear about what was going on</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> July 23?</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1249601873" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{81}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: Phone calls. Actually, I had been staying out</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> I had left the actual school for the summer and I was living out at Marian High School, the convent out there, and then got the phone call. Then was asked if I’d be willing to come in. So I came in</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>,</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>saw the tanks, everything down Gratiot Avenue and was there to be available at the school.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1339902784" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{85}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: Were you surprised like your professors were?</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="921747510" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{93}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: I don’t know that I ever thought it would actually break out into the extent that it did. I wasn’t down on Twelfth Street</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> St. Catherine is a little bit more distant from St. Agnes and that whole area down there. So in that sense, being this young</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>—</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>I was </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>27 </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>years old, 26 years old, and it was my first two years out teaching. I had kind of believed what I was hearing at U of D</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>S</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>o in that sense</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>,</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> I was surprised, and yet on the other hand I wasn’t because I saw what was going on </span></span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="spellingerror"><span>on</span></span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="normaltextrun"><span> TV</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> Watts had occurred</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>—</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>a lot of the other places.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="697957571" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{97}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: Aside from your drive in, did you have any other experiences?</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="684367102" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{101}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: During that time?</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="47396381" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{105}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: Yes.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="161088938" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{109}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: Well, we were placed where we visited some of the neighbors and that went walking in the area, just talking with people</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>M</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>any of them were our parishioners from St. Catherine Parish. It was more talking with folks</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>. S</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>eeing how they were feeling. Some of them were very frightened. And these were your African American people and your white people</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>S</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>o it wasn’t just white people who were fearful. It was the African American as well. They were fearful.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span><span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="620300780" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{117}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">Then of course down in the St. Charles area, there was more looting down in that area. So there was fear. Is that going to come up where we are? </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>you</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> know? It was mainly being a presence. And then there was some food distribution, that kind of thing</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>W</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>hen that was needed we helped with that too.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="276335614" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{121}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: Is there anything else you’d like to share today?</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="447629319" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{125}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: Well I think it’s kind of an interesting projec</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>t</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> and I look forward to reading it. I think, I know from my own experience that where you stand depends on how you see</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>A</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>nd so if you’re interviewing people from a lot of different places, I’m sure you’ll get many different perspectives.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="689799982" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{129}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: Just a couple final follow-up questions. How do you interpret what happened in </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>'</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>67? Do you see it as a riot</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>? D</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>o you see it as a rebellion? Uprising?</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span> </p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="794337063" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{133}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: How do I interpret it? I’ve never named it as such. I’ve worked </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>on</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> Undoing Racism for many years now</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> I’ve been on committees and all that kind of stuff and I know that there’s cumulative forces that happen and I think that started with the raiding of a blind pig</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>,</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> if I recall</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>I</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>t’s been a long time</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>—</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>I didn’t come prepared for this</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>. </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>I’m just drawing out of my memory. I think there’s mass</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> mob psychology that got involved. Kind of a release of tension and frustration, cumulative frustration with the systems. I don’t name it. Everybody else names it as, </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>a </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>riot</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> I don’t. I just see it was a combination of forces that was provoked</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>,</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> also</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>,</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> through the interaction with the police</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>,</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> and then it blew up. That kind of simmering tension of the injustices that were present</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> and in many cases continue to be present, contribute.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1845078758" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{137}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: How do you feel about the state of the city today?</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1943523543" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{149}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: The state of the city today</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>T</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>he focus is on more the center city</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>I</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>t’s going through gentrification process. There’s a lot of good development that has occurred. There are, depending on where you go in the city, </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>it’s</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> many cities in one</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>I</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>t’s not one city. And the neighborhoods have not received the attention that the center city has. So</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>,</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> I told you I’m with </span></span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="spellingerror"><span>Marygrove</span></span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="normaltextrun"><span> College</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>.</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>A</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>nd so we hope that some more attention will be given to the neighborhoods because until we get the neighborhoods stabilized, you’re going to just continue to have this process of gentrification and then people being shoved out and moving and the problems continue. So I’m hoping cautiously, but I also know that there’s a lot of good stuff going on too.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="1555853196" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{153}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">WW: </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>Alright. </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span>Thank you so much for sitting down with me today, I greatly appreciate it.</span></span></span><span><span class="eop"> </span></span></p>
<p class="paragraph" paraid="428959926" paraeid="{3e97f976-e138-4e80-bc68-cdadb97fc96c}{157}"><span xml:lang="EN-US"><span><span class="normaltextrun">PM: I’m glad to do it, William.</span></span></span><span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
Original Format
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Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
13min 21sec
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
William Winkel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Pat McCluskey
Location
The location of the interview
Monroe, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Pat McCluskey, December 6th, 2016
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview McCluskey discusses her memories of growing up on Detroit’s east side. McCluskey also discusses her community work with the IHM sisters immediately following the events of 1967.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
07/18/17
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit MI
Format
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Audio/ Mp3
Language
A language of the resource
en- US
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Catholic Education
Clergy
Gentrification
Martin Luther King Jr.
Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Tanks
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/529f23ecc368dcd30ff3a9c8c2c7f842.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
A language of the resource
en-us
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/20/2019
Oral History
An audio or video resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Lurana Sankovic
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Sister Lurana Sankovic was raised in Detroit and became a nun and a teacher. She currently serves with the Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
William Winkel
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Monroe, MI
Date
The date of the interview in MM/DD/YYYY format.
02/07/2017
Interview Length
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00:05:10
Transcriptionist
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Julia Westblade
Transcription Date
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06/27/2017
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>WW: Hello, today is February 7, 2017. My name is William Winkel.. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society’s Detroit 67 Oral History Project and I am in Monroe, Michigan and I am sitting down with –</p>
<p>LS: Sister Lurana.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you for sitting down with me today.</p>
<p>LS: Pardon me?</p>
<p>WW: Thank you for sitting down with me today.</p>
<p>LS: Oh, that’s alright. Very good. Glad to come down for what I can share with you.</p>
<p>WW: Would you like to share your story?</p>
<p>LS: I was doing my masters work at Wayne State and we came to work this day and I had heard something about it on the radio and when we got to the property there, you saw these military around all over the place with guns drawn and everything. And you wondered what on earth really was going on because they didn’t tell us too much before we got there. And so then, of course, school was called off. We had to turn around and go home but you noticed so many things. The park that was not very – well, about a block or two away from the university itself, had become a home for the soldiers. They put up all tents and buildings for them. And it really was a scary feeling to see so many military around. And we turned around and went home but we found out that some of our sisters that were living in convents very close there, wanted to get them away from there. We didn’t know what was going to happen. So we picked up some from St. Boniface and some Holy Trinity and other places and gave them a place – they came to the convents. We gave them our beds, let them have some decent sleep, you know. So we didn’t have any classes for another day but when we went back after a day to see these huge trucks with military on each - four of them with guns at the ready, delivering big cans of milk to children in different places. It kind of dawned on you what it really meant. People couldn’t get out anymore. Couldn’t get to the stores or food couldn’t get to them and they were trying to supplement what they couldn’t get. Let’s see. Is there anything else?</p>
<p>WW: When you drove to Wayne State –</p>
<p>LS: Pardon?</p>
<p>WW: When you drove to Wayne State that first day, did you see anything going into the city? Any soldiers? Any smoke?</p>
<p>LS: Yes, you see, they were kind of spread out because that’s quite a busy area there. And along Woodward and along Lafayette and all those places, yes, they were really spread out and trying to quell anything that might start because there were terrific riots and it was a scary thing. I don’t know if I can remember any more. Pretty much, I don’t know too many details because we had to get out of there. But it took a while to settle down and of course they stayed there for quite a while and I know I, myself, had a pupil that was in that and, in fact, I said, “You’ve got two little children; you better get out of there if you could get into something else.” But, of course, that was their job.</p>
<p>WW: Did it change the way you looked at the city?</p>
<p>LS: Well, I always loved Detroit. I was raised there and this just seemed to be something that - well, we had problems once in a while. Let’s face it. Like any place does. But this kind of brought home to you that we had to start understanding who people were and what they needed and what the problems were so that they could be tackled. You can’t let things go like that. I think they were coming to a head there. But otherwise I don’t think I know much else about it. But it was just seeing – trying to get into buildings and all that, you had to almost show that you belonged there. It drove home a point about security and how it can be taken away from you very quickly.</p>
<p>WW: Well, thank you so much for sitting down with me.</p>
<p>LS: Pardon?</p>
<p>WW: Thank you so much for sitting down with me.</p>
<p>LS: Okay, but there wasn’t that much to share but -</p>
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
5min 10sec
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
William Winkel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Lurana Sankovic
Location
The location of the interview
Monroe, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Lurana Sankovic, February 7th, 2017
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Sankovic remembers driving into the city to teach and having to turn around and go home. She and the sisters of her convent offered shelter to sisters who were located closer to the center of the activity.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
09/29/2017
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio/WAV
Language
A language of the resource
en-US
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Clergy
Michigan National Guard
Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Wayne State University