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Oliver Cole, April 21st, 2017
In this interview, Cole discusses growing up as a teenager in the city of Detroit. He remembers the city in the summer of 1967 but at the time was not aware of everything that happened. As he grew older, he realized the implications of that summer.
Mary Jo Johnson, April 28th, 2017
In this interview, Johnson remembers her childhood growing up in Dearborn, Michigan and how her family’s view on racial relations did not align with the public views of that community. She mentions a letter her father wrote to the editor of the…
Peter Waldmeir, March 24th, 2017
In this interview, Peter Waldmeir share his memories of growing up in the city of Detroit and waiting for his older brother to come home during the 1943 Race Riots. After he graduated high school, he briefly attended Wayne State University and talks…
Karl Mantyla, September 9th, 2016
In this interview, Mantyla discusses growing up in Detroit, the racial situation of 1967 and his feelings about Detroit today. Also, he speaks of his time as a reporter, focusing on the fatal shootings at the Algiers Motel in Detroit.
Jay Levinson, August 9th, 2015
Levinson describes his neighborhood in Northwest Detroit as an ideal place to raise a family and free from racial tensions. Levinson’s next door neighbor was Mayor Jerome Cavanagh, whose children he befriended. During the unrest he recalls the smoke…
Mary VanDerMaas
Mary VanDerMaas was 12 years old and the daughter of a Detroit Fireman. He had a sense something was about to happen and stayed home from a family picnic to be near the phone. When the rest of the family heard what was happening in the city, they…
Paul Sgriccia, July 23rd, 2016
In this interview, Sgriccia describes what it was like growing up in Redford Township and tells the story of attending the Tiger’s baseball game the day of the unrest, followed by attempting to take the bus home but getting lost.
John Crissman, July 11th, 2016
In this interview, Crissman tells of being called in to Detroit Receiving to work as a trauma surgeon.
Fred Fisher
Fred Fisher was a teenager at the Detroit Tigers game when the unrest began in July of 1967. He remembers the situation in the city in the days that follow and some of the long term effects of that week.
Michael Krotche, June 15th, 2016
In this interview, Krotche discusses growing up in a Polish community in Hamtramck and his experiences as a Detroit police officer on duty during the summer of 1967,
Cecile Jenson, July 16th, 2015
In this interview, Cecile discusses growing up in a tight-knit, Polish community on the west side of Detroit and her recollections 1967 disturbance, including the ensuing white flight. She also discusses her work in the Polish community of metro…
Norm Innocente
Norm Innocente recalls his experiences being in the city from Windsor to see the Tigers play the Yankees the day the unrest began.
Alan Feldman, June 16th, 2015
In this interview, Feldman discusses growing up in the suburban community of Oak Park and his experiences on Detroit’s west side, where he worked as a shoe salesman, and where his father ran two cleaning stores. Feldman discusses segregation in the…
John Spence, Jr.
John Spence and his younger brother were at the Tigers game on July 24, 1967. They were 15 and 10, respectively, and rode the bus home after the game to find their anxious parents awaiting them.
Kathleen Kurta, June 30th, 2015
In this interview, Kurta discusses growing up on the west side of Detroit in the 1950s and 1960s and her intense personal experiences during the 1967 disturbance while working at Greenfield’s Restaurant on Woodward Avenue near downtown Detroit. She…