1
20
41
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http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/b1de1c1a8d79c888ef1c0a687402e915.jpg
51742b681f4b876222af3c8be9b0e980
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.
Claxton, Joseph
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
Lillian Wilson
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Detroit, MI
Date
The date of the interview in MM/DD/YYYY format.
06/12/2015
Interview Length
The total length of the interview in HH:MM:SS format.
00:06:42
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Joseph Claxton was born September 17, 1947 in Ecorse, Michigan. In 1967 he lived on French Road on the east side of Detroit and worked for the Ford Motor Company Rouge Plant. He currently works at Rivertown Assisted Living and lives in Southfield, Michigan.
Transcriptionist
The first and last name of the transcriptionist.
Arletha Walker
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>LW: Today is June 12, 2015. This is the interview of Joseph Claxton, I am Lily Wilson and we are at 250 McDougall St in Detroit, Michigan. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project.</p>
<p>JC: Okay.</p>
<p>LW: Okay. Joseph can you start by telling us where and when you were born? </p>
<p>JC: I was born September 17, 1947 in Ecorse, Michigan.</p>
<p>LW: And where did you live in July of 1967?</p>
<p>JC: I lived at 4538 French Road in Detroit.</p>
<p>LW: What neighborhood was that in?</p>
<p>JC: That’s the east side of town, yes.</p>
<p>LW: And what were you doing in 1967 during that summer when the civil unrest took place?</p>
<p>JC: At the time I was working afternoon shift at Ford Motor Company Rouge Plant. I just was 20 years old at that time. This particular time during that period, that weekend before I had went out of town and came back in town and the riot had already started at that time.</p>
<p>LW: Where had you gone and come back?</p>
<p>JC: I went to Akron, Ohio.</p>
<p>LW: To visit—</p>
<p>JC: To visit relatives, yes.</p>
<p>LW: And while you were gone?</p>
<p>JC: The riot had exploded and the incidents had already begun.</p>
<p>LW: So describe to me how that was leaving and coming back before and after?</p>
<p>JC: Okay, coming back—well leaving, you know there was little unrest going on but nothing to that magnitude, nothing had happened. But coming back, hearing on the radio that the riot had taken place and begun. The shootings, the fires, that was kind of alarming because getting back home you just know what to expect and watching a telecast on a television, it showed the city burning and this type of thing. So we were kind of just uneasy about what we were coming into but wanted to get home.</p>
<p>LW: You mentioned that there had been a little bit of unrest before you left, how long had that been going on for?</p>
<p>JC: Well that had been going on during the year of ’67 between the police department and some of the city services—treatment of the way some blacks were being treated. They were applying for jobs and not getting the jobs and the representation that they felt that they wanted at that time in the city. So the whole situation was very unrestful, you know.</p>
<p>LW: Had that type of unrest been going on as long as you could remember or was it particularly prominent at that time in July 1967?</p>
<p>JC: I think it had kinda been ledaing up to that, but then in ’67 I think it has kind of got out of control and exploded. As I recall now, I think when those people got caught in the after hour place that was going on then, I believe there was some gunfire exchange and even maybe someone had got killed, I think that kind of ignited the whole thing and set off everything at that point.</p>
<p>LW: So when you came back to Detroit from Akron and you actually saw for yourself, right, explain to us what that was like.</p>
<p>JC: Well you saw smoke overcast in the air, you saw a lot of police in helmet gear and riot gear standing around, streets were blocked off—you had to take alternate routes to get where I was going in the neighborhood. You saw people going in and out, running about, shouting, arguing back and forth with the police and the people that were trying to keep control. At that time even I believe the National Guard were here walking the streets—matter of fact I know they were because that’s one of the main incidents I remember with my experience with the National Guard.</p>
<p>LW: So tell us about that experience.</p>
<p>JC: Well, I was sitting on the porch and while sitting there, the National Guard was patrolling up and down the streets, walking the streets—I remember they were walking the streets of our neighborhood with army tanks, also they were riding the tanks. As I was getting up to go inside the house I clicked the door handle and when I made that click on the door handle the National Guard automatic responded and pointed his rifle at me. And I immediately had to shout out, “I don’t have a gun that was the door! I’m not armed!” because there was some sniping going on back at the National Guard and so I guess he kind of took that as a signal to protect himself and pointed the rifle at me and that was a very hairy experience.</p>
<p>LW: So what happened?</p>
<p>JC: Well, he didn’t—he, he relaxed after I held my hands up and told him that was not a gun, I didn’t have any weapons and he ordered me to go into the house. Because at that time there was a curfew so you couldn’t be on the streets, you could be, you know, on your property but you couldn’t be on the streets, so he told me to go in the house and that’s what I did.<br /><br />LW: Was there any other instance like that?</p>
<p>JC: No, that was the only personal incident I had with the National Guard.</p>
<p>LW: Did you go to work during that time?</p>
<p>JC: Yes, they—if I remember right they kind of, they allowed you to go to work because I worked the afternoon shift. So they would allow you to go to and from work and that was it. You couldn’t linger, you had to be definitely going to a designated place and employment was one of the ones that they allowed you to go to.</p>
<p>LW: Anything else that you want to talk about with us?</p>
<p>JC: No, I think that’s just about it.</p>
<p>LW: Great, we really appreciate it.</p>
<p>JC: Okay.</p>
<p>LW: Thank you so much.</p>
<p>JC: You’re welcome.</p>
**
Search Terms
Topics mentioned in the story which may be of larger social interest. Put general search terms in plural form (e.g. horses not horse). All items should have: "1967 riots, riots, interviews, oral history (or written history)". Some possible additional terms might be: "Detroit Police Department, police officers, Detroit Fire Department, firefighters, mayors, Clairmount Street, 12th Street, looting".
Michigan National Guard, Ford Motor Company River Rouge plant, French Road
Video
A link to the video
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YMg8zQZo1XM" frameborder="0" 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
Joseph Claxton, June 12th, 2015
Subject
The topic of the resource
Michigan National Guard
Ford Motor Company River Rouge plant
French Road—Detroit—Michigan
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview Claxton discusses living on the east side of Detroit in the summer of 1967 and remembers an incident during which a National Guardsman mistakenly suspected him of having a gun and, in turn, threatened Claxton with a rifle.
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
Format
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audio/WAV
Language
A language of the resource
en-US
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Curfew
Detroit Workers
Ford Rouge Plant
French Road
Michigan National Guard
Tanks
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/f5b759ed81338be8a4fc2011a87f2e5b.jpg
25acfe77d04a87b8143e54e454aa5d53
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.
Shirley Davis
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
Noah Levinson
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Rivertown Assisted Living, 250 McDougall Street, Detroit, MI
Date
The date of the interview in MM/DD/YYYY format.
06/12/2015
Interview Length
The total length of the interview in HH:MM:SS format.
00:14:14
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Shirley Davis was born January 1, 1948 in North Carolina and moved to Detroit in 1951 at the age of three. She has lived in Southwest Detroit and the east side of Detroit and currently resides in the Rivertown neighborhood of Detroit.
Transcriptionist
The first and last name of the transcriptionist.
Hunter-Rocks, Lorraine and Levinson, Noah
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>NL: Today is June 12, 2015 and this is the interview of Shirley Davis by Noah Levinson. We are at Rivertown Assisted Living at 250 McDougall in Detroit and this interview is for the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project. Shirley, could you tell me where and when you were born?</p>
<p>SD: I was born in North Carolina, but we came here, I was three, when we first came to Detroit. We came by in that train station down there, the one that is no longer working. When we came through there and I was mesmerized! We moved into the, what was that area? It was like the Eastern Market area at that time, it was just like something I had never seen before because everywhere, the hustle and the bustle and the people and all you could do was just look. We lived in the flat, it was upstairs, and everything was up on that top porch. You never went downstairs for anything, because were scared to go, the lady downstairs had a dog and we thought for sure was going to eat us so we didn’t go. So, as I grew up and time progressed we went to school here. As a matter of fact we were bussed way before the bussing came along. They come in our neighborhood and pick us up so as time went on I was going to school, I eventually got married and had a son at that particular time. And when we heard about it, it was just a rumor and everybody was talking to each other we didn’t know what to think. I thought the world was coming to an end I didn’t know what to expect, you know. We saw it on TV, the unrest. And as far as Twelfth and Clairmount, we weren’t allowed to go down there, that was an area that was kind of, like, busy. And everything that was going on was going down there I had always promised myself I was going to go, but I missed it [laughter]. Then they said they were looting and tearing up things and destroying things and I was like, “oh we’re not going to have any place to live. They’re going to destroy everything”. And we watched TV and you see people smashing, and breaking, and tearing up, and running. So where I lived was Southwest Detroit, that’s where I lived, but beyond that off of Fort Street we had a let up bridge that you could cross over to come from one side to the other. They let the bridge up, nobody was able to come across and then we were sitting there on the front porch, like we did every evening, and tanks! I had never seen a tank before in my life. I thought they came to shoot us, or to blow our houses up. We didn’t know, the information that we got was very limited. They’re just coming and it’s gonna be bad. So we sat on our front porches and just prayed, hoping we didn’t get blown up. They’ll tell you, “Get back in the house, get back in the house!” Well, where else could you go? All through that night it was like, scary, because you couldn’t control anything. You didn’t know what to do. You were in your own neighborhood and you saw all of this and it was just like, is this the end of the world? Are we gonna be able to recuperate from this? And we sat around and we talked and I’m going to be truthful, we prayed, “Please God don’t let them blow us up!” Because you don’t know, you know, and at that time my husband was working and he was on the other side of the bridge and I just didn’t know if he would ever make it home. So we sat there and we prayed that night, it passed by, but the next day we saw the devastation. The people just lost it. They just tried to destroy the city, I mean, they were very upset, very upset. And seldom and rarely did we get out, but when I talk about Twelfth Street and Clairmount, I had always intended to go see what was going on, but I missed it. And when I saw it on TV it was like, oh, that’s what it was, you know. We heard rumors about why it started, and what started it, but to this day, I really can’t say what triggered it. It was just boiling and getting hotter and hotter until one day it just exploded. We couldn’t figure out where those tanks came from. I mean actual tanks. Big giant guns. And you’re sitting there and your heart is beating and you don’t know if you’re gonna live or die, but as you can see we lived and it went on and the next day on the news we saw what they had done. And to this day, I don’t think that place ever recuperated. You can see the scar wounds when you go by, buildings and businesses closed up. It was a very viable situation at one time, but they squashed it, they just really squashed it. And I don’t know if it served a purpose, I hope it did and things changed for the better but all I can remember is I just kee seeing those tanks, I had never seen anything that big on the street. “Get back in that house”—okay, okay. So, that night we went to bed and just hoped that we would get up the next day and be alright. I could go into more detail or not, but I can’t. That’s just what happened in my neighborhood.</p>
<p>NL: How old were you when this was going on?</p>
<p>SD: I think I was 19. And I didn’t know if my husband was going to get back home, if we were going to have another day, did we have to hide? What was it? Because I lived in kind of like a rural area. Right in that area we didn’t have much communication of what was going on around us. When it broke out it was like, “you said it did what? What’s going to happen?” And the TV made it look much worse. All you could see is fires and we could smell the smoke because they were burning things up. Were they going to come on the other side? Do we have to fight? Are we gonna fight? I mean, why are they so mad? What happened? That was the question. So as a child, at 19 I was, I didn’t have any answers, and I didn’t know but boy was I glad that the thoughts that I had didn’t come true because I was thinking the worst. It’s over as we know it, it’s all over. But we survived and I thank God that it changed, and hopefully the changes that they went through will make things better for the next generation that come along. Things like that don’t have to happen because all they did was destroy a lot of good decent people, their homes, their businesses. A lot of people couldn’t come back, they didn’t have nothing left. They took it all. What I did was, when I finally got a chance, we rode down the streets and saw all the devastation, just burnt out buildings and smoke. And what is the reason? Maybe I’m a little dense, but I still don’t get it.</p>
<p>NL: I think there’s lot of people who still don’t get it. You described the looting and the people that are doing that and you were saying that they’re mad, they’re very upset. What do you think was causing all that; you said you could tell that they’re very upset, so what might have led to that?</p>
<p>SD: It’s like the race, one race is a little bit higher than the other and the things they were given and I guess they just got to the point where, we’re tired of this and we want to change it, but that wasn’t the way, but when you’re mad you don’t think. Well I’m taking this, and I’m taking that and they looted and I don’t even want to say what I heard from one of my friends that was looting, I didn’t loot, I’m going to be real, I didn’t. He actually looted and only got one shoe. Why would you take one shoe? [Laughter] I said, “Why were you there?” “I was with the rest of them and look what I got—a shoe!” That’s pitiful. I guess it’s just when everybody sees everybody else out there, you know, followers and not leaders, were out there. Get it, get it, just tear it up, and fix them, and get it, and get it and I think that’s what happened. I’ll never forget that shoe—that’s all he got was a shoe!</p>
<p>NL: So a lot of people, historians and writers in particular, describe the events of July 1967 as a riot. What term would you use to describe what was going on then?</p>
<p>SD: Because I wasn’t sure what a riot was, because you had to really be in that situation, I thought the world was coming to an end. I thought it was a war. I thought it was going to be a war and what was I to do, what were we expected to do? We’re in our neighborhood, we had everything that we needed where I lived. We were kind of closed off to the outside world. Where we lived, it’s called Southwest Detroit, and we had our own markets, supermarkets, stores and whatever so we didn’t venture out but when they came in we thought that was the end of it as we knew it. That was going to be it.</p>
<p>NL: I think you described the neighborhood as being scarred: you can still see the scars today.</p>
<p>SD: Yes.</p>
<p>NL: What do you think about Detroit today, the year 2015—is Detroit still struggling with the fallout from that and recovering from it. Where do you think we’re at now?</p>
<p>SD: I think that part is gone and it’s time, even when people come in and make bad decisions for us, I think Detroit is just a strong city and given the opportunity we’ll spring up from anything. Anything can happen. I can’t even imagine there being no Detroit, I can’t even imagine it. We have such history, you know? Right here at the River, I think about the Indians used to wash their clothes down there at that river [laughter] and so anything that strong has to survive. It really does. So, when I look [across the river] over at Canada thinking to myself, I’m seeing a whole ‘nother world right before my eyes and I say they’re gonna build on this and keep it going. I feel we are coming back we are going to come back, strong. You can’t keep Detroit down. I love this place. No matter what they say I love it. I’m not going anywhere. I am staying right—stay right here. This is the place to be. If you feel afraid then you can’t live anywhere. You have to have heart, and you have to have principles and scruples and you want to be steadfast just like your being here; a new wonderful adventure.</p>
<p>NL: What is it that’s happening now or recently that lets you feel so strongly that way.</p>
<p>SD: I guess it’s because I’m older and I’ve seen some things and I know that change can be brought about if you come about it in the right way. You have to talk to people correctly, you know, and find out what they are thinking and what they’re feeling. And sometimes people don’t even have ideas so you have to plant those ideas and make sure the seed is a good seed. I see a lot of wonderful things that are been happening I just want to be part it. Because I want them to know, I was here and I did good things and my children’s children will benefit from the good things that were done. That’s what I want to do.</p>
<p>NL: That’s fantastic. Is there anything else you want to share with us today?</p>
<p>SD: Well, I see them do things that they’re doing and I’m thinking to myself, could they let old people have a little more say? And don’t think that just because we’re older we don’t know what we’re saying and what we’re doing. I try to encourage my friends around here to speak up, tell what you know, share it because down the line as we get older and we die off, we’re the last of that generation and we were there so—an eye-to-eye view is better that what you read about and think about. So let’s get out there and do it. I paint, I draw, and I sing, anything I can think of to do to make a purpose that’s what I want to do!</p>
<p>NL: I think that’s a big part of why we’re here doing what we’re doing. Thank you so much for joining us today, Shirley. It’s great talking with you.</p>
<p>SD: Thank you for having me. I know I do rattle on, but that’s what I thought at that particular time: we in trouble! [Laughter]</p>
<p>NL: Thanks.</p>
<p>SD: Thank you.</p>
**
Search Terms
Topics mentioned in the story which may be of larger social interest. Put general search terms in plural form (e.g. horses not horse). All items should have: "1967 riots, riots, interviews, oral history (or written history)". Some possible additional terms might be: "Detroit Police Department, police officers, Detroit Fire Department, firefighters, mayors, Clairmount Street, 12th Street, looting".
Downtown Detroit, looting, Southwest Detroit
Video
A link to the video
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p_rN8c7K_EQ" frameborder="0" 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
Shirley Davis, June 12th, 2015
Subject
The topic of the resource
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan, Downtown Detroit—Detroit—Michigan, Looting, Southwest Detroit—Detroit—Michigan
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Davis discusses growing up in Southwest Detroit and her recollections of the 1967 civil disturbance. She recalls interactions with looters, encounters with violence, property destruction, and the military. She also opines on present-day Detroit and her hopes for the city’s future.
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Detroit Community Members
Downtown Detroit
Looting
Southwest Detroit
Tanks
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/24201a81f1ecdbdb84fffaab8f8382e0.jpg
aa0cf8a43a0f406db73ae3bfc2bf817f
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.
Carter Grabarczyk
Nancy Grabarczyk
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
Noah Levinson, Lillian Wilson
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Detroit Historical Museum, 5401 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI
Date
The date of the interview in MM/DD/YYYY format.
06/18/2015
Interview Length
The total length of the interview in HH:MM:SS format.
00:37:28
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Carter Grabarczyk was born January 11, 1945 in Detroit Michigan. During the summer of 1967 he worked as a film soundman for Channel 2 WJBK-TV news in Detroit. His wife Nancy was born November 2, 1953 in Detroit, Michigan. Nancy’s father was a sergeant for the Detroit Police Department during July 1967.
Transcriptionist
The first and last name of the transcriptionist.
Melissa King
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>NL: Today is June 18th, 2015. This is the interview of Carter Grabarczyk and Nancy Grabarczyk. We are at the Detroit Historical Museum in Detroit, Michigan and this interview is for the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project. Carter could you tell me where and when you were born?</p>
<p>CG: I was born in Detroit, Michigan on January 11th, 1945 just shortly after dinosaurs roamed the earth. [Laughter]</p>
<p>NL: And Nancy when and where you were born?</p>
<p>NG: I was born in Detroit, Michigan—Booth Memorial Hospital which doesn’t exist anymore. November 2nd, 1953.</p>
<p>NL: Where were each of you living July of 1967?</p>
<p>NG: I was living in Detroit, the Detroit area, by Plymouth and—</p>
<p>CG: Milford Green?</p>
<p>NG: No, that was later.</p>
<p>CG: Oh, that’s right.</p>
<p>NG: Plymouth and would have been Stahelin. I remember the [unclear] – by Southfield and Plymouth, that area.</p>
<p>CG: You gotta speak up—I don’t know if that’s picking it up or not—but that’s okay.</p>
<p>NG: [unclear]</p>
<p>NL: There we go. And where were you living at that time?</p>
<p>CG: East Dearborn.</p>
<p>NL: How would you describe the makeup of the neighborhoods you were living in at that time? What was the sense of community there? What types of people were living there?</p>
<p>CG: Well East Dearborn was probably, this was the era of Orville Hubbard as mayor which is a whole other story unto itself and basically it was fifty percent Polish and fifty percent Italian. That was pretty much it in the east end of Dearborn at least.</p>
<p>NG: Where I lived it was small brick homes, all white neighborhood, we all played in the streets ‘til the street lights came on then you came home. Pretty much middle class neighborhood.</p>
<p>NL: What are your memories of Detroit and the region in the mid-1960s?</p>
<p>NG: Well my dad was a Detroit Police sergeant so, he was tied up in all of this quite a bit. I was just in junior high school so my dad was obviously part of the police crew downtown during the riots. He came home with—they wore green battle helmets like army helmets.</p>
<p>NL: You’re talking about in 1967 specifically? </p>
<p>NG: Yup. And I remember snipers were aiming for the officers so he had my mother ripping the sergeant’s stripes off of all of his clothes and he’d wear them down there so he wouldn’t be as much of a target. And we also had a sniper on the elementary school around the corner that I use to go to so I remember the whole neighborhood was just afraid. They were – nobody turned their lights on everybody stayed in the dark just in case the guy decided to take a walk and start shooting at anyplace that had lights on. And nobody, nobody went to bed until my dad came home those nights because we wanted to make sure he was walking in the door. But, that’s basically my story.</p>
<p>NL: Do you remember how long some of his shifts were then? Was it out of the ordinary compared to the usual working day, working week?</p>
<p>NG: They were, as I’m recalling, twelve hour shifts and it was rough. I remember my dad saying it was rough because the following year he had twenty five years in and he said, “That’s it I can’t handle it anymore. It’s too rough that’s enough.” [Laughter]</p>
<p>NL: So he retired?</p>
<p>NG: He retired.</p>
<p>NL: What was his name?</p>
<p>NG: Robert Steele.</p>
<p>CG: With a “e.”</p>
<p>NG: Yeah, S-T-E-E-L-E. Sergeant Robert Steele.</p>
<p>NL: Do you have any other specific recollections about growing up at that time especially—I imagine you were watching the news— </p>
<p>NG: We were watching the news of all the stuff. That area of Detroit was really safe, we never locked our doors, unless you went away for a vacation, you never locked your doors especially with a policeman in the family.</p>
<p>CG: Her dad did have to live in Detroit because at the time police officers were required to live in the city</p>
<p>NG: It was required.</p>
<p>CG: So they had these various neighborhoods where the police, fire department, you know, lived.</p>
<p>NG: Yeah</p>
<p>NL: So most of your neighbors were police and fire?</p>
<p>NG: Well actually no, I didn’t know any other police or fire in our neighborhood.</p>
<p>CG: Oh, alright. ‘Cause I thought that—</p>
<p>NG: [talking over each other] No, actually. There were areas like that when I went to high school there was an area like that just borderline of Dearborn Heights where police and firemen all lived. But no when I was growing up we didn’t, I didn’t know any other police officers or—</p>
<p>CG: I got it confused. [Unclear, talking over each other]</p>
<p>NG: Fire people. Regular middle class, played out in the streets until the lights came on, you know, folks didn’t see you all day. It was safe, real safe, nobody, like I say, locked their doors. Kids were able to run around free, you know, ride their bikes where ever, played ball in the streets [laughter] all that kind of stuff, walked to school. No particular issues until all of this came up in ‘67, snipers and that business we never even thought about it, it was a shock to us kids because we use to everything being so safe, it was our safe haven. Like I say that particular area was an all-white area and the schools were all white.</p>
<p>NL: What did your dad say about his day’s work and the police efforts at that time?</p>
<p>NG: It was rough. The looting and people lighting stuff on fire. He said it was just crazy, that people had no—seemed to have no value for human life or things. They just went berserk. He used to say maybe the heat drove them berserk. I don’t know they went crazy breaking into places and stealing and looting and burning down things, like that was gonna help anything but it wasn’t. And the police were afraid because they were aiming at them, it was like war basically is what he said it was, like being in a war. We breathed a sigh of relief when he walked in the door.</p>
<p>NL: Carter could you tell me about where you were working at this time? </p>
<p>CG: Yes, I was working at two places. I don’t know if you want me to begin at the beginning at this point or not, but basically I’ll set the stage. Ever since 1963 I was in broadcast engineering I was a ham radio operator, my dad was a radio guy, just liked radio all my life so ‘63 I started in broadcasting at local radio stations like WGPR and so on WLIN. I ended up being the chief engineer at WGPR which has nothing to do with anything. But in any event, the ultimate goal back then of people in broadcasting was to get into television and the hot TV station back then was Channel 2, CBS, WJBK-TV. They had Walter Cronkite and that was the number one station in Detroit. So, one of my ham radio acquaintances was the chief engineer there. He said, “Anybody that has a ham license and their first class radio telephone license I will give you a summer job.” It’s what they call the VRT, a vacation relief technician, which is just what it implied cause most of the full time guys wanted to go on vacation in the summer you, had college kids that said, okay fine we got a job for you. So, that was my full time forty hour a week job for the summer of 1966 and 1967. In the summer of 1967 I also had a part time job as what they called the contract chief engineer for WQRS which was the classical music station in Detroit at the time. And we were in the Maccabees Building, which I guess it is again but it was called the School Center Building at the time. That’s where the WQRS studios were and their transmitter was in that building and their antenna was in that building. So long story short I had a key to the roof to get up on the roof. So that’s—if you want to start about the riot stuff that was the beginning of the beginning I guess. Basically that Sunday afternoon I was home listening to the radio and heard some news broadcasts saying there was some kind of disturbance in downtown Detroit. They made it sound, you know little something is going on not a big deal blah, blah, blah. So this is Sunday and I called a friend of mine another ham radio buddy I said, “You know, why don’t we go downtown I got a key we’ll get up on the roof of the School Center Building and see what’s going on?” He says “Great.” He lived a couple of blocks away we get in the car in East Dearborn and drive down to the School Center Building, go up on the roof and that was—that was the mistake. ‘Cause we thought we would see some minor stuff when we were on the roof it was just crazy, it was going wild. It was to the north, to the south, to the east, to the west. You kept seeing power lines going down, power transformers lighting up, you heard burglar alarms going off, you heard breaking glass. Quite frankly, I was twenty-two at the time my buddy was the same age, we were sort of scared, we said, “You know, maybe we got in over our heads.” What started out as a school boy lark, maybe wasn’t. It looked a lot more serious than they said on the radio, a lot more serious than we expected it to be, so we said “Well, let’s get the hell out of here and get back home.” So we did. So the only problem with that was your humble narrator had to work on Sunday evening, Channel 2 had swing shift so I had to work at five o’clock or six o’clock that evening. So, bottom line, an hour or two later after my buddy and I got back I had to turn around and go back downtown only now I was – real white-knuckle trip driving back down to the Channel 2 studios which was on Second just north of the Boulevard is where they were located. I got there okay and then, as it turns out typically the summer kids had one of three jobs either you were a camera man or you ran the audio board in the master control room for the live TV broadcasts or, you were on what they called film sound. Back then they didn’t have video tape, it was actually film. The news crews were a three person crew they had a sixteen millimeter camera man, an actual film camera man, and they had the talent or the announcer or who do you wanna call it, and they had what they called film sound guy which was me. You were sort of the driver, the general gopher, and you had a maybe six or eight foot cable you hooked up to the sixteen millimeter Arkon film camera and you tagged along behind the film camera man, wherever he went you ran the sound. You had your earphones and your little audio control box. So, having said all that, he said, “Guess what boys? You’re gonna be on the film sound crew.” This was okay with us because heck we were twenty-two and we were immortal and the old guys were no fools, they said “You know, it’s probably a lot safer here in the studio so we’ll let the kids go out.” That is basically how it all started on that Sunday afternoon and once that started, by the way, all the regular shifts were off, all bets were off and basically you literally started about five o’clock each evening till about eight, nine or ten the next morning for the entirety of the whole riot. Again kids, we liked them, we got a lot of overtime ‘cause it was a union shop so if we worked overtime they had to pay us. Having said that, that is basically how it started.</p>
<p>NL: How does that compare to a normal shift during the rest of the summer?</p>
<p>CG: Normal shift was eight hours a day, and they had—swing shift, isn’t quite the right term for it. They just had a screwball shift, I don’t know any other way to describe it—you might be on days one week, you might be on evenings the other week, you might be on midnights the week after that. One week you might have Tuesdays and Wednesdays off, the next week you might have Thursdays and Fridays off. So it was just –</p>
<p>NL: Very irregular.</p>
<p>CG: It was very irregular but it was a forty hour week.</p>
<p>NL: Can you tell me about the rest of your experiences working on the film sound as the week progressed and what you observed in that time.</p>
<p>CG: Well yes, that first Sunday night – maybe it was six or seven o’clock, [unclear] the film sound or the news reel crews were directed by our news office. We had a big news office, news director that had all kinds of police radio so they knew where the action was, so then they would call on our radio, on our Channel 2 station wagon, and tell us where to head and where the action was, if you will. They wanted us to go down to a hospital and I think it was Detroit Receiving, but I can’t remember for sure, ‘cause again it was almost fifty years ago, duh. But we had a three man crew, we had the film camera man, and myself, and our so-called stand up talent was Jerry Hodak. You know as it turns out—</p>
<p>NL: The weather guy?</p>
<p>CG: Yeah, but he started out at the most lowly level at Channel 2 doing what they called film cleaning, which is literally you have the two cranks, you’re holding a little cloth and cleaning the film so not a rocket science job, but then he went to being a booth announcer, and then just at that time I think ‘66, ‘67 he was doing booth announcing and he was just starting his weather career. So he was the stand up talent. The three of us we went over to this hospital, probably Receiving Hospital, and I got all the stuff out, the lighting and the camera man got his stuff set up, put in his new film. Jerry Hodak, you know, got all spiffed up. While we’re doing this we’re outside of the door of the emergency room and here is is this gurney that they’re rolling a person on, male, African-American male, and what I noticed about him of all things was the socks he had on. Bright, bright, bright, glow-in-the-dark orange socks. So they rolled him in the doors to the emergency room closed, blah, blah, blah, and then Jerry is doing his little stand up bit saying, “Here we are at the hospital blah, blah, blah.” Then we’re just putting things back together and getting ready to leave when the door to the ER opens again here comes this gurney with a sheet over the guy’s face. And the only reason I knew it was him, because the sheet was pulled up over his face so you knew he was dead, but you could see it was the bright orange socks, so he’s got to have been one of, if not the first guy that—first, you know, casualty. </p>
<p>NL: Where else did your work take you, what other parts of the city?</p>
<p>CG: Well basically everywhere, literally everywhere. From as close as the roof of the building to wherever there was trouble, they would dispatch us; go here, go there, go wherever. One of the other film camera men, a guy named Sid Siegal, we went up on the roof of our building which was a two story building. We were on the west side of Second and on the east side of Second was a place called Annis Furs, so we just filmed these guys looting Annis Furs. Let me just check my notes here, let’s see where else did we go? Over on Belle Isle the old bathhouses it’s the same position as the current bathhouses, but those aren’t there anymore, they knocked them down and put up the current ones, but apparently the jails were becoming overflowing so they needed someplace to put these perceived trouble makers, whatever you want to call it, into these bathhouses. What struck me as odd about that was, in front of each bathhouse, they had a thirty or thirty-five foot scaffolding. They had guards on top of each scaffolding, they made it into like a guard tower with machine guns. I’m thinking, “Geez what are they going to do, machine gun somebody if they try and get out?” Be that as it may that struck me as a little odd on that. Another time, like I said it was very surreal, we were going north on 12<sup>th</sup> Street which is where the riots started, this was maybe two or three or four days into the riot. Many of the homes were burnt out, I mean literally burned right to the ground, the only thing that was left was the basement—no walls, no nothing just literally the basement. No lights cause all the electricity was out, power lines had burned down, transformers shorted out, blew up. What was just really eerie and surreal, was the gas pipe coming out of the basement wall was still on fire, it was flickering. so there was literally three or four or five foot vertical flames of the natural gas just in all these burned out basements it was just eerie as hell. Really, really spooky looking.</p>
<p>NG: And you wonder why the cops were scared. [Laughter]</p>
<p>NL: No, I don’t actually.</p>
<p>CG: This is a side story, as a professional courtesy I guess the guy from, the reporter from <em>Die Welt </em>which means “The World” in German that was their newspaper in Germany and he was here he said “Gee can I ride around with you guys?” so we said sure. So we had an extra passenger with us.</p>
<p>NL: Were there any other people from foreign press and correspondents that you had contact with? </p>
<p>CG: I’m sure there were others, but that was the only one that we had contact with.</p>
<p>NL: Do you know what brought him there?</p>
<p>CG: Well the riots brought him there obviously.</p>
<p>NL: I mean from Germany, like who he worked with.</p>
<p>CG: Like I said it’s called <em>Die Welt</em></p>
<p>NL: Oh that was the name of— [talking over each other] Got it.</p>
<p>CG: —which means in German “The World” which is their newspaper that he was from that he worked for. Another minor misadventure, we had what they call a loading dock at the back of the studio, where you stored all the flats and the scenery and so on. It had a big, maybe fifteen foot high corrugated steel door so you could load and unload stuff. Our art director was out there having a smoke. All of a sudden we heard something come rattling through the steel door, corrugated steel door, oh, look at that, and he went over and picked it up. It was a fifty caliber, stray fifty caliber machine gun bullet. So he picked it up, drilled a hole through it and put it on his key chain for a good luck charm.</p>
<p>NL: What’s the most striking visual memory of that time for you?</p>
<p>CG: Probably on Twelfth Street with the natural gas flames, that was one of the most vivid although they all were. That was another thing that was strange was they had a curfew. I think it was either eight or nine or ten o’clock at night. Our studio was up in the New Center area. Jerry Cavanagh, who was the mayor at the time, was having a press conference somewhere downtown at city hall or whatever. So we were driving down Woodward, literally other than armed personnel carriers and tanks, that was the first bizarre thing, was seeing tanks going down your home city driving down the street. The second thing was nobody else was out, we were just literally going fifty, sixty miles an hour blowing through red lights. Just no traffic which was, you know, I thought, quite weird. Then on this one sound news reel somebody asked Cavanagh if there were any snipers he said “No,” and you can hear some laughter in the background, and it was our film crew because we had been sniped at! No! [Unclear] we didn’t say anything, but…</p>
<p>NL: Did the news teams have permission to be out past the curfew because of the nature of the work?</p>
<p>CG: Oh yeah, because we were news, oh yeah, like I say, we were literally out from five or six at night until eight, nine, ten the next morning.</p>
<p>NL: And the police and National Guard didn’t harass or take issue? </p>
<p>CG: Well one time, we did have a police officer ride with us—I can’t remember the reason, but we did have a police officer in the car with us. We were going again around the 12<sup>th</sup> Street area I just remember someone was sniping at us so we all bailed out and hid behind the car. The cop pulled out his service revolver, but he didn’t shoot back ‘cause we couldn’t tell where it was coming from.</p>
<p>NL: In your travels around the city that week, do you remember coming upon any neighborhoods and parts of the city that seemed not to be affected by looting and burning and rioting, or less so than others?</p>
<p>CG: No. To state the obvious again they dispatched us, and they dispatched us to where the action was. So they’re not going to say go to this nice quiet neighborhood and take film of that, it’s like, what’s the point? Everything we saw was where bad things were happening.</p>
<p>NG: Although, I was gonna say, even in the nice quiet neighborhoods there were things happening like a sniper on the school roof, places where you wouldn’t expect it.</p>
<p>CG: Well that’s true—</p>
<p>NG: We expected it downtown you didn’t expect it in our little cove.</p>
<p>CG: I guess we did, when they brought in the National Guard or the 82<sup>nd</sup> Airborne or whoever and they were camped out at the fairgrounds so we went up there to film that, so that was – there wasn’t any shooting going on then, we just filmed all the guys, the military and the guard and everything being camped out but usually we went where the action was, matter of fact I remember one time they sent us to where a fire was, a building that had been torched ‘cause that was the big thing, there was a lot of, literally, torching going on, the fire department was there and they started sniping at the firemen. So the firemen got out and we got the hell out rather than get shot. We said oh, no. The camera man I was working with most of the time was a fella named Mike Weir—W-E-I-R. He was, I don’t know five, eight, nine years older than me. He was, talk about fearless, even more immortal than a twenty-two year old kid. So here I am with a six foot cord dragging behind this guy: I said, “Take it easy, keep us out of danger.” Literally no fear, that scared me a bit.</p>
<p>NL: Historians often use the word riot to describe this moment in Detroit’s history and you have used it a few times yourself. For each of you is that the most accurate word to describe the events of July 1967 or would you call it another way?</p>
<p>CG: Well as opposed to what?</p>
<p>NG: That’s what I was used to hearing.</p>
<p>CG: That’s what we heard.</p>
<p>NG: That’s what we heard, I mean as a kid, that’s what they talked about, that’s what they talked about on the news, that’s what my dad talked about when he came home, that’s what he called it.</p>
<p>CG: For better or for worse that’s what we called it. For lack of a better term, I guess we’re just playing semantics here a little bit, when people are throwing Molotov cocktails—</p>
<p>NG: Yeah, everybody refers to that time as the ‘67 riots.</p>
<p>CG: Yeah, you know you see tanks going down Woodward Avenue and the neighborhoods – some of the neighborhoods we saw about tanks in other places too. I guess for lack of a better term, maybe it was possibly the wrong term, but that is the term that everybody used was “The Riot”.</p>
<p>NG: In the Sixties it was one of the biggest things. You had the Kennedy assassination, which I totally remember and then you had the ’67 riots and those are the things you remember about the Sixties in Detroit. </p>
<p>CG: Oh yeah I guess one other—though I wasn’t directly related to this, we had heard this—this was right near our studio between us on Second and between the John Lodge [US-10], there was a Howard Johnson’s hotel. There was some out-of-town lady that was a visitor there and she was on the second or third story somewhere up [indistinguishable]. Bottom line, she got killed, they don’t know if it was an actual sniper or if it was just a stray bullet but she was, I wanna say Connecticut, again going back fifty years, but she was definitely out of state and definitely visiting, she was like “Look at all that’s going on” [mimics a gunshot] killed her dead.</p>
<p>NG: Not a place you wanted to be.</p>
<p>NL: No not at that time at least.</p>
<p>NG: Yeah and in our neighborhood we went from being extremely safe as kids you know, to wondering if somebody was going to come get us in our home. It was fear.</p>
<p>NL: That was pervasive throughout?</p>
<p>NG: Oh, extremely, especially, you know, there’s a lot of kids in that neighborhood, and it was – with that sniper thing, it didn’t occur to us that the stuff downtown could touch us, until the sniper thing. Then it was like, my God this could—you know, somebody could kill us out here.</p>
<p>CG: I remember when I went home to Dearborn every morning after our shift was done good old Mayor Orville Hubbard had the streets entering Dearborn blocked off with police. He had police guarding it, he was obviously a well-known racist for lack of a better term,</p>
<p>NG: Extreme.</p>
<p>CG: Extreme racist, for lack of a better term, but he literally had armed policemen at every entrance to the city. I remember specifically Michigan Avenue, Ford Road, where it crossed into the west side of Detroit. He had the roads blocked I didn’t see this for a fact, but I am pretty sure if you were black you better have a damn good reason for wanting to come into Dearborn before the police would let you go through.</p>
<p>NG: They knew you didn’t live there.</p>
<p>NL: Do you remember other instances of discrimination against non-white people either specifically as a result of the events of July 1967 or even earlier in the Sixties in Detroit, was that something pervasive in your lives?</p>
<p>NG: Well, in mine, yes, because of my dad being a police officer. It was, among the white police officers it was, you know – I used to say – I mean my dad was a good guy, but I used to tell people that my dad made Archie Bunker look like a liberal [laughter], look like a liberal, but it was because of all the experiences he had.</p>
<p>CG: Well that was, let’s face it, that’s the way it was in that era. It’s not like today by a long shot. It was literally a whole different world.</p>
<p>NG: And it was rough and you know you’re in a job like police in those areas of Detroit, let’s face it.</p>
<p>CG: Although in my case not so much ‘cause like I said, even starting in ‘63 I was chief engineer at WGPR. And they were basically a ninety-nine percent black radio station, so I never, quite frankly, never noticed it there particularly.</p>
<p>NG: See yours was different I went from a total all white neighborhood to all white schools.</p>
<p>CG: Well so was Dearborn, duh.</p>
<p>NG: Yeah, but to having my dad being right down there and then…</p>
<p>CG: Just a side story, the one of the black secretaries at WGPR, very nice lady, very pretty and that— I asked one the other guys why she was there, he said “Eye candy for the boss.” [laughter] He might have been a little sexist, be that as it may. Long story short, she was one of the people who did sadly drink the Kool-Aid down in Jonestown. Sorry, had nothing to do with the riots. Other than that I never really had much racism, my mother I guess pretty liberal and you know “don’t use the n-word” so I was pretty much brought up that way, not like her dad being a Detroit cop.</p>
<p>NG: See, I heard it all the time, it was a totally different life that I grew up in. But, I grew up wanting to be totally different from what I heard growing up. Once I actually got out into the world and was working with all these diverse people I was like, this is nuts, you know, from the way I grew up I’m totally a liberal now so—</p>
<p>CG: Your father would be so proud.</p>
<p>NL: [laughter] But that was his environment that he worked in for twenty five years, it was dangerous. It was a dangerous era, more so than when he got into the police force. You know the Sixties was just like ‘I can’t take this anymore I’m out of here’. But we did remain living in Detroit even when he retired. Bought a house in Detroit.</p>
<p>NL: So in the last year we have seen some things in the United States and the world that are sort of reminiscent as you think about events in Baltimore and Missouri that are sort of reminiscent of 1967 in Detroit.</p>
<p>NG: It’s scary.</p>
<p>NL: It is scary, and the same issues are still very real in so many people’s lives. From your vantage points, do you think that those tensions and issues regarding race in Detroit specifically in the last fifty years—has it increased, decreased, stayed the same? What do you notice that’s different and the same in that regard? </p>
<p>NG: I think it’s decreased somewhat, but now lately with all of this unrest, those of us that lived through those times worry about it happening again.</p>
<p>CG: I would agree. I would say it decreased but it’s still there, still keeps rearing its ugly head here and there.</p>
<p>NG: There is a fear of it happening again especially with you know, Baltimore and Missouri and all that, it’s like ‘oh my god, it’s not going to be happening again, we already went through this, this should be over’.</p>
<p>NL: What part of town do you guys live in now?</p>
<p>CG: Farmington Hills.</p>
<p>NL: And how long have you all been out there?</p>
<p>NG: Thirty-seven years.</p>
<p>NL: Wow.</p>
<p>CG: Yeah it was thirty-three years in Dearborn, and about thirty-seven--</p>
<p>NG: We got married in Detroit, I lived in Detroit until I got married so, we got married in ’78, got married in Detroit. It’s a really rough area right now where we used to live. [Laughter]</p>
<p>LW: What was your address in Detroit?</p>
<p>NG: 19629…</p>
<p>CG: West Chicago.</p>
<p>NG: West Chicago. It was a couple blocks off of Evergreen. That’s where people are getting shot now, down by Cody, and Cody High School and stuff. I didn’t go to Cody I went to Catholic school, Bishop Borges at Plymouth and Telegraph. Now in that area, it’s pretty dangerous.</p>
<p>NL: Is there anything else that either of you would like to add about your recollections of this time period and the history of the City of Detroit?</p>
<p>NG: Well like I said most things I remember about the Sixties have to do with music. I grew up in the Motown era—with all of that which really thrilled my father—[laughter] playing all this music.</p>
<p>NL: Do you remember at that time did—a good chunk of those recording artists are from Detroit born and raised did they take on any specific role in talking about the riots and addressing what was happening?</p>
<p>NG: Not that I really recall, I mean that’s about all we listened to.</p>
<p>CG: My contact with Motown was before the riots when I was with WGPR, like I said it was a black radio station and one of the DJs had a connection to Motown. So he got early releases or pre-releases but that was four years before the riots. [talking over each other]</p>
<p>NG: I remember I was a kid walking around with my transistor radio listening to it and I had older siblings who had all the record albums and stuff so I was playing all that stuff, everything not just Motown, but being from Motown you were proud of being from Motown because that’s where all this good music came from.</p>
<p>NL: We still are today.</p>
<p>NG: Absolutely.</p>
<p>NL: Well thank you both so much for coming in and sharing your memories and stories with us.</p>
<p>CG: Thank you.</p>
**
People
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Hodack, Jerry
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Annis New York Furs, Detroit Receiving Hospital, Channel 2, WJBK-TV, Dearborn, Detroit Police Department, looting, snipers
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CCOYeaKQOFA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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Carter and Nancy Grabarczyk, June 18th, 2015
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1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Annis New York Furs—Detroit—Michigan
Channel 2—WJBK-TV
Dearborn—Michigan
Detroit Police Department
Detroit Receiving Hospital
Hodack, Jerry
Looting
Snipers
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In this interview, Carter Garbarczyk discusses his work covering the 1967 unrest for Channel 2 WJBK-TV. Nancy Garbarczyk discusses her father’s work as a sergeant for the Detroit Police Department during July 1967.
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Channel 2
Curfew
Dearborn
Detroit Police Department
Detroit Receiving Hospital
Detroit Workers
Looting
Motown
Snipers
Tanks
WJBK-TV Dearborn
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http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/16377f5d6430bb117d4b8b1e11b4117c.jpg
c22575775335f89307cdcab01a87556d
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Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
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Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
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Detroit Historical Society
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
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en-us
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10/20/2019
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Roman Gribbs
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Noah Levinson
Lillian Wilson
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Northville, MI
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06/24/2015
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01:29:12
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Roman Gribbs was born to Polish immigrants in Detroit, MI on December 29, 1925 to Polish immigrants and Gribbs grew up on a farm near Emmett, MI and earned a degree in law from the University of Detroit in 1954. He served as mayor of Detroit from 1970 to 1974. He currently lives in Northville, MI.
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Arletha Walker
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Austin, Richard <br />Cavanagh, Jerry (Jerome) <br /> Greene, Walter <br />Griffiths, Martha<br />Murphy, Patrick V. <br />Young, Coleman A.
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Topics mentioned in the story which may be of larger social interest. Put general search terms in plural form (e.g. horses not horse). All items should have: "1967 riots, riots, interviews, oral history (or written history)". Some possible additional terms might be: "Detroit Police Department, police officers, Detroit Fire Department, firefighters, mayors, Clairmount Street, 12th Street, looting".
Capac, Michigan Detroit “Little” City Halls, Detroit Renaissance, Emmett, Michigan, Polish-American community, Renaissance Center S.T.R.E.S.S. [Stop the Robberies Enjoy Safe Streets].
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<p>NL: Today is June 24, 2015. This is the interview of Roman Gribbs by Noah Levinson and Lily Wilson. We are also accompanied by Jakub Szlaga and Paula Rewald-Gribbs, and we are at Mr. Gribbs’s residence in Northville, Michigan. Mr. Mayor, can I call you that?</p>
<p>RG: By all means, yeah. That’s a very nice title.</p>
<p>NL: Could you start by telling me where and when you were born?</p>
<p>RG: Born in Detroit, December 29, 1925.</p>
<p>NL: Where were you living when you were growing up?</p>
<p>RG: Well, mostly on a farm about sixty miles north of Detroit. It’s in the Thumb area of Capac, in between Emmett and Capac about three miles from Emmett, which was a small town. Capac, a little larger, still small, but they had a high school. Emmett doesn’t so undergrad—grade school—I went to a one-room schoolhouse, grades one to eight with one teacher. I graduated eighth grade, there were three of us. Some of the classes were just one or two. Then when I became high school age, I went to Capac High School and graduated from there in 1944. I was a good student, I was number two. Number one was all A’s—I didn’t quite make it.</p>
<p>NL: And at what point did you move to the city of Detroit?</p>
<p>RG: Excuse me, the farm, yeah, it was a one hundred acre farm.</p>
<p>NL: When did you move to the city?</p>
<p>RG: Well, I went to the service first, because my parents—my dad—always worked at Ford, because when we bought the farm it was only one hundred acres and we did make some money but not enough money to pay for a living. So my dad, who had been employed at Ford Motor for many years, decided to keep working and he’d work during the weeks and then weekends he came to the farm. Afterwards, when there were only two of us and my brother had decided that he wanted to become a priest so he went to the seminary, it was left just to me, with just the two boys and the farming, and I decided I didn’t want to be a farmer after milking cows every morning, every night, Christmas morning, night, New Year’s Eve—gotta milk the cows.</p>
<p>So I decided, that’s not for me and the folks, they sold the farm. I went into the service in 1946. They sold the farm and built a home here in Detroit, and when I left the service, came back to them in Detroit. </p>
<p>NL: Where were you living in 1967? Specifically, what part of the city?</p>
<p>RG: I was in northwest Detroit, on Indiana Street. Yeah, I married, my top daughter next to us here was about eight-years-old?</p>
<p>PG: For the--for the--?</p>
<p>RG: ‘67?</p>
<p>PG: No, I was twelve. We were in Rosedale Park by then.</p>
<p>RG: By that time? Oh, that’s right. It was Rosedale Park.</p>
<p>PG: North Rosedale.</p>
<p>RG: A different street in Rosedale Park, not Indiana. Edinborough Street.</p>
<p>NL: And what were you doing in 1967?</p>
<p>RG: I was a traffic court referee. It was a municipal judge for the city of Detroit. We had three judges of the traffic division and they had six referees would rule on municipal ordinances. So if you got a ticket, or a violation of some sort, a city ordinance violation, you’d come to the referees. By that time the city was about a million and a half—well, a little less than that—but it was just normal business activities of city violations ruled on by the referees.</p>
<p>NL: What do you remember about the city of Detroit in the early and mid-1960s? How would you describe the city?</p>
<p>RG: How much time you got?</p>
<p>NL: [laughter] As long as you—</p>
<p>RG: [Speaking at the same time] What do you mean? What I remember? What again now?</p>
<p>NL: Just about the city: what it looked like, what it felt like living there? The people?</p>
<p>RG: Oh, it was a huge municipality in my view at that time. We were then the fifth largest city in the United States. So there was anything you can think of—except the popular name was the Motor City because the auto industry began here and grew here more so than any other major city, and so we got to be the Motor City. And it was just a thriving, wonderful, all kinds of activities: baseball teams, football teams, you know, all the athletic sports, and all kinds of activities you could talk about at the end of this. There’s a river, there’s all kinds of tourist activities, and so it was just a big, wonderful municipality.</p>
<p>NL: Do you remember where you were when you first heard about the violence and the unrest in late July, 1967?</p>
<p>RG: Yeah, I woke up in the morning and I was in the—now correct me, I think it was Sunday night when the—okay, my memory’s right, then it did start Sunday night. Because the police were making a normal raid—they thought it was normal, and it was normal—as to a gambling facility that somebody had on the second level. It was so huge, I mean the participants—instead of being, a little after two o’clock [a.m.] when they raided the place as they were accustomed to do with maybe two paddy wagons because they thought there might be twenty or forty people—I guess there was over a hundred: it was just a massive, big gambling facility. When the police made their arrests—I just remember reading about this, that they didn’t have the capacity to take them promptly to the jail for facilitating because they had maybe two paddy wagons and they probably needed four or five.</p>
<p>So they were waiting outside and guiding them and the dishevel around the outside and somebody started throwing rocks and breaking windows and there were so many of the people that were around that area—because it was known, obviously, as a gambling facility—that they started apparently breaking windows.</p>
<p>Anyway, Monday morning I heard on the radio that there was turmoil in that area, in that vicinity, and I think I went downtown to work normally to traffic court where I was working, but I’m not sure. But at any rate, yeah, I did go downtown. I waited until about noon and then things were getting tough so we closed down the operation and I was told to go home and wait to see if they could use me in a judicial capacity, as things developed, because there were a lot of people in turmoil going on. So you listen to the radio. I even was asked just to stay there to be available, so I stayed there for the next several days during all the time as the riot began and it continued for several days—whether it was three days or five or seven days depending upon where they put a stop into it. But you know after a couple of days then the governor was called and of course the National Guard came in, and then I was at home, at least that afternoon. I stayed there for instructions.</p>
<p>NL: Who was it that asked you to wait and sort of be on call?</p>
<p>RG: The traffic court referees. I was a referee. The traffic judges were the ones that directed us what to do.</p>
<p>NL: Okay, and did they end up calling on you that week?</p>
<p>RG: No, because I was not a judge, a referee, and they were using judges. There were many judges and they closed the courts by that time and they were simply arraigning. They had hundreds and hundreds under arrest, and they had problems of housing the arrestees, and the judges were then asked to participate in setting bonds for those that were entitled to bonds. So they had to have hearings, and had to have the place, and as a matter of fact, because the jail became overcrowded they opened up facilities on Belle Isle for the reason that they didn’t have the buildings to hold them, even if they took them to Oakland County—there was just so many people. So they were taken to Belle Isle because the access at the bridge and that was one way of containing the people until there was some facility, some basis—a courtroom for a hearing, and a determination by a judge as to whether he should be released or post bond.</p>
<p>NL: Do you remember for how long after those events was your court dealing with all of the civil infractions that came out of that week?</p>
<p>RG: Oh—weeks, weeks. In fact, trials—because several were charged with murders, there were—what was it, forty-two?</p>
<p>NL: Forty-three.</p>
<p>RG: Forty-three, I knew it was forty-something that were killed. That took years before the trials were completed, there were all sorts of lawsuits as a result of that. So there’s no time limit other than saying it was many years for all of them to be done, but after the riots, assembling and arranging and determining who should be released or a short trial—is it going to be an hour, is it going to be three days? The numbers were so high that they—I did not participate, because again, as a referee we didn’t have the judicial capacity as a Recorder’s Court judge or a Circuit Court judge, by statute and by law. They had final authority in a lot of legal decisions and many of them were around, of course, and they didn’t need me and at that time I didn’t have the capacity as a judge.</p>
<p>NL: Do any specific courts or appeals, et cetera, stand out in your memory related to those events?</p>
<p>RG: Not really, there was so many, I read up on all of them. I remember there was a church where some people that were being hunted down started to hide in the church and there were shootings when the police went to arrest them and there were some deaths—anyway, that was one of the famous places. Now it’s a few years ago so I don’t recall specifics because I wasn’t a participant in those proceedings directly.</p>
<p>NL: I see. What are your first memories of being in the city immediately after the violence had subsided? The first time you were going around the city, or going back to work, what are your memories of what things looked like?</p>
<p>RG: The devastation was really amazing—just almost an unrealistic amount of destruction and violence. What do we have—buildings, fires, and stores broken into, and merchandise cleaned out in some stores. There was about $50 million dollars’ worth of property damage—fifty million dollars—and I don’t know how many blocks were covered, but others would tell you that but there’s got to be at least twelve, sixteen or eighteen blocks tore down--and just destroyed and it was very, very sad and unfortunate. I was just an observer like all other citizens because I didn’t have a direct authority to participate other than go back to work within about ten days when things became normal again. But, as you may recall, the National Guard had to come in here to quiet down the rioting and the violence, the destructions and the fires and the thievery—you name it—it just was wild.</p>
<p>NL: Do you think that was necessary, to call in the National Guard for that—</p>
<p>RG: As far as I’m concerned, yes. I know that the mayor, first of all, called—Jerry Cavanaugh was the mayor. He was a classmate of mine as it turns out. He was in night class at the University of Detroit, I was in day classes, but were the same graduating class. So I knew him, Jerry, and I knew that he been calling in the governor for help. The state police came in. That was inadequate, so then he and the governor decided to call in the National Guard. So the National Guard and the semi-tanks or trucks with all their uniforms came in, that quieted down the riots when they were traveling up and down the roads and it stopped the violence. The Detroit police, the state police, and any other additional police—cities that were sending over policemen to help the city were inadequate—they couldn’t do it, they couldn’t quiet the violence. So the governor and the mayor, at the governor’s request, brought in the National Guard and they quieted that.</p>
<p>Let me give you an interesting note, later years—when I went to the service I skied a little bit there because there was a hill nearby. So I later went to college, I enjoyed skiing. And about twenty years later I was skiing out West one of the first or second times, and I was lining in the chair and started chatting with a fella and he was a colonel and I said “You’re from Detroit?” and he said, “Yeah, I was there and I was in charge of the riots.” I said, “What?” and he was the colonel that was sent here and he was in command. He was telling me he was at the Book Cadillac Hotel and he took over about half of the hotel for the armed services that were coming in. And we chatted and I think we had dinner that night. It was just a shared coincidence, odd things that happened in the world.</p>
<p>NL: Yeah, small world.</p>
<p>RG: I may have been at Vail or someplace in Colorado when we were skiing at that time. Interesting.</p>
<p>NL: What were your thoughts on the race relations between the citizens and the government or the police at this time?</p>
<p>RG: Well, it was obviously inadequate because of the riots. I mean, it wasn’t just the beginnings of a handful or a dozen, or gamblers, but when you get to the level of the participants that are that large—of wrecking houses and starting fires and the looting, avoiding the police, and shooting police and with weapons, and various homicides, and it’s so vast—it’s a community problem, obviously, that has so much discontent to such a level that they do the violent things, and I think under the normal circumstances that those things don’t happen. There’s always some reason that gives them the momentary rationale to become violent and not uphold the law. It was a disappointment. It meant that the city has to review what they were doing and in some manner or fashion develop the community with the kind of responses that they were seeking. And among other things, I was looking at all those things, of course, when I became mayor and I had the responsibility then to improve the city and improve conditions for the people.</p>
<p>For example, when I became mayor and I took a hard look at the number of leadership that were black, and in the police department they had about eight to nine-percent of the police were black. Now that’s four thousand cops at that time, in round numbers, and so one of the first things I did is to hire a personnel person—that I took from one of the, maybe General Motors, and he was a talented personnel, really—to train the police. With that large number of police, every year you have to train what, three hundred, four hundred new police officers. I said to him, “Improve the academy, and I want at least fifty-percent of each that you hire to be black, but I want them competent black.” And he did and he more than doubled the black representation, we had a little over twenty-percent of the total policemen were black in that four-year period based upon that director. All that means is that the Negro community, the black community, sees people in authority that they recognize and will listen to, even if they’re inclined to be anti-white or anti-black or whatever, but it’s the mix that was warranted.</p>
<p>At that time, when I took office, about 45 percent of the people were black. And after the riots, many people were leaving—not the blacks—but there were white people that could manage to leave, that were apprehensive about their safety and kids, particularly if they had kids. Schools, schools were a problem then—they’ve been a problem since—so there were many reasons for moving.</p>
<p>Really, the very first thing I did when I took office as mayor was to appoint the deputy mayor. There wasn’t a position but I appointed it, made him deputy mayor and I made him a black man. He was a black man: Walter Greene. He was in charge of the State of Michigan [Civil Service Commission] —it wasn’t activities, I forget. He was an agency of human relations working for the State of Michigan. He was an outstanding guy. His wife was a principal at one of the schools in Detroit, so he lived here. I had heard him talking before I became mayor, I was sheriff, and I heard him talking and became familiar with his abilities. So I said, “I need someone like you, would you be deputy mayor? I’ll give you full authority if I’m out of town, you’re the mayor and you’re running it.” That was helping to the integration that should exist. So anyway, that’s one of the many things that I tried to do to bring the black community into the administrative phase of running the city. At that time, we had almost 25,000 employees. Now think of that: 25,000, 4,000 police officers and by the time I was done, I raised the police department to 7,000, because crime was the number one issue even before the riots. And crime was an issue, of course, after the riots, so what we needed was trained law enforcement people. </p>
<p>And so we got the funding and, in fact, I was in Washington a number of times and we got several grants dealing with law enforcement, and I was able to hire quickly within a couple of years, an additional 2,000 policemen and women. That helped stabilize the city and as a matter of official record, crime went down every year—somewhat—as a result of increased police officers and better law enforcement, understanding law enforcement. Now most cities were proud to have instead of an increase, that the increase was reduced. My four years, it was not just a reduction in the increase, it was an absolute reduction, and we balanced a budget, too. Those are matters that maybe you’re not interested in, but I had an accounting background among other things and it’s like anybody else: I don’t spend the money unless we have it.</p>
<p>As a matter of fact, I should tell you this little episode: within three months, my budget director and my auditor did an analysis and Jerry Cavanaugh left me with about a thirty million dollar deficit. To balance the budget, we had to lay off [some] of those existing 25,000 employees. So after an analysis and after about four months, each department head was told what they had to do to balance the budget and eliminate the deficit and they have to, by union rules, give them at least a month’s notice, so they sent out notices of layoffs in about a month. So I’m in office for about six months, page one of the newspapers: “First layoff since the Depression.” Now you know the Depression is ‘30s and the first layoffs—the Depression—that’s a terrible way to have a new mayor but that’s what I did and it worked. It worked out fine, because we balanced the budget that year, we did after that, and that’s the way it should be run. Anyway, that’s part of the job. </p>
<p>NL: Understandable. I wanted to rewind a little bit, but continuing to talk more about your professional political career, starting in the late ‘60s. Can you tell me first about your role as the Wayne County Sheriff? </p>
<p>RG: Oh, well, I was a traffic court referee and I did that for about a year and then I went into private practice. The sheriff of Wayne County got into trouble and he quit. He was charged with payola. He was, among other things, if you gave him a hundred dollars, he’d give you a badge as honorary sheriff. Well, people were using that, “I’m an honorary sheriff,” and so forth, among other things. Buback was his name, and he was a good guy, but he made some mistakes and he was charged, but he got—he resigned because he had a pension from the City of Detroit. And the Appointing Authority, appointed me as sheriff and then I was up for election and that was in early ‘68. Then in the fall I was running and I was elected sheriff of Wayne County. So I was sheriff at the time of ‘68, and I did that until—Jerry Cavanaugh was gonna run for another term, and he decided late not to run and [there were] other friends of mine, like councilmen, that I thought would be competent to run. </p>
<p>I was politically active of course and I wanted to run—and they decided not to—so finally somebody pointed at me. I said, “Well,” and let out some feelers, so to speak, and tested the waters and they looked good, so I decided to run. Had no idea before that to run for mayor, that there would be an opening, didn’t ever want to be. But having been sheriff, having seen what had happened, I figured maybe I could do it, and I was elected. And it’s interesting, that for the first time, one of the two nominees was black! So that brought up the racial matter again and consciously, if you will. And he was a good guy, he was the county auditor. He went on to state office even though I defeated him, but not by much, it was a close election! But it was a good election, and I really enjoyed the four years as mayor.</p>
<p>NL: Can you tell me more about the campaign that year with you and Richard Austin and what the mayoral campaign was like and what your platform was?</p>
<p>RG: Well, my platform was: I am sheriff. I’m experienced in law and crime so I hope to solve the criminal problem, number one. And then the economic problem, I said I’m going to balance the budget, okay. And I did balance the budget, it did a number of years but not all of them. My responding to all the questions, I’m going to bring in everybody and representation for the black community. And I did. It was the standard primary, Noah: “Are the lights working? Are the streets clean? Are the parks clean?” Well, you have 25,000 employees, the Department of Parks and Recreation probably had 1,200 employees. You know they had a lot of parks in the city and at that time we had between million three and million two people, we had a million five up until the riot and then it went downhill because a lot of people were moving. But there was still about a million two and a half or three when I took office and I hopefully stabilized the city sufficiently that people would be more inclined to stay here, and that’s the way it worked out for me. I think that we had a good four years.</p>
<p>NL: Do you remember were there specific measures taken in the campaign to attract black voters since their other choice was the first black candidate that they had seen for mayor before?</p>
<p>RG: I don’t understand your question.</p>
<p>LW: How did you appeal to black voters?</p>
<p>RG: Same as the white—you know, I treated them equal. The only difference is the skin in my view and that means nothing. Such as one of the greatest guys in communicating to everybody was Walter Greene, he was the Deputy Mayor. When he would go out to speak at churches—as Mayor, I had four invitations every night for the whole four years: because all of the churches, the organizations, there’s the Eastside, there’s the Northside, there’s the Southside, and the Westside. When you have 1,300,000 people, that’s a lot of churches and you can only go to so many. The saying kind of got: “Well, if Greene is here, Gribbs ain’t coming!” [Laughter] So I was able to send him to speak to the communities on behalf of the City and it was great to have him. When I announced I was leaving office, he then took a job with a Detroit bank, went to—was an official with one of them.</p>
<p>NL: Did you consider running for another term as mayor in ‘74.</p>
<p>RG: Another term?</p>
<p>NL: Another term as mayor, yes.</p>
<p>RG: Yeah, I considered it. But at that time, I had five kids and that’s a long time to be away from the family and the kids. So I had to develop a system, and I said to my secretary and others “I’m going to be home at least two days and I’ll try to make it three nights, at least, to be home for dinner in a week.” I’ll never forget the first July week when we had the fireworks and other events, there was always something going on. Every night I was out, dinnertime, doing something or another and I said I’m never going to do that again, because you gotta have time with kids, because you want to and you should be home.</p>
<p>That was one of the reasons. And I thought I had made a lot of changes and hopefully established, with personnel we had, I had some great people that worked with me and for me—my auditor, Bob Roselle, he went on to be the Executive Vice President for Campbell Ewald, and my attorney went on to work for Chrysler and he became an official within Chrysler’s in an executive position. My police department—because crime was the number one issue—I made a national search for a police chief. We called it Chief of Police then, and so I hired a fellow named [Patrick V.] Murphy. He had been president of the national Police Foundation. He became a cop in New York City, then went to Rochester, New York, and was Deputy Chief or something, and then he became the head of the Police Foundation. I had a search committee, they had heard that he was unhappy about doing the organizational work and wanted to get back into police work. So I interviewed him, boom, he took the job. He came over here in Detroit and he did such a good job that the mayor of New York, [John] Lindsay, called me a year after he’s here. He said, “I gotta have a new police chief. Do you mind if I talk to Murphy?” I said, “Come on—he’s good.” He said, “He is good.” I said, ‘No, go head, talk to him,” and so Murphy took it. I tell you why, because he had a department of five or six thousand police officers here and New York is 25,000 cops. And because he was initially a patrolman there, started his career there, he ended up with a full retirement. If he only worked a day as a police chief in New York, he gets full retirement. So all those benefits! Besides, it was his city, so he went back home as Chief of Police. So I lost him and promoted the assistant chief at that time.</p>
<p>NL: What was it that made him such an effective leader of the police, do you think?</p>
<p>RG: Well, he said “You want to be a command officer? Get a degree. Up to lieutenant, we’ll promote, but beyond lieutenant, I want you to get a college degree of some sort or at least a couple of years of police training, academic training.” That was just one of the things, and the integrity and the training—he’s the one that helped me pick out the personnel director that hired the cops. He was just inspirational, he was very sharp. He worked for Lindsay for I think three or four years, long time in New York, yeah.</p>
<p>NL: So before that there were no educational requirements in the police?</p>
<p>RG: No. As a matter of fact, the police chief was, I think, just a street cop. Well, a lot of them would take college classes sometimes on their own, but it was not required. Just as long as you’re a high school grad, you could become a policeman.</p>
<p>NL: Could you talk about the S.T.R.E.S.S. [Stop the Robberies Enjoy Safe Streets] units in the police department?</p>
<p>RG: Oh yeah, have you read up on that?</p>
<p>NL: A little bit.</p>
<p>RG: Well, S.T.R.E.S.S. unit was simply a law enforcement technique that went bad. Went bad in that it was not properly supervised and before I became aware of it, they had a couple of misfortunate and too-aggressive events that they became notorious and I had to change it officially. What S.T.R.E.S.S. was is a group of eight to ten policemen who would go into a high-crime area—not as cops, but just walk the streets in regular clothes—and became familiar with the business people and the community there, and get their confidence so they would help point out the criminality that would come into that high-crime and high-stress crime community. And as a result, they would learn within a couple of weeks—cause it doesn’t take long if you’re walking there every day and talking to the neighbors and the store owners and so forth—as to where the bad men were and they would circle on some of it and once they were identified, they would make the arrest. Well, there was such violence that the groups, they would resist and there were shootings in the effort to arrest. And that’s what the S.T.R.E.S.S.—I forget, what were the words for that?</p>
<p>NL & LW: Stop the robberies, enjoy safe streets.</p>
<p>RG: One in particular, but there were several of the police were very aggressive. Now, we’re talking at a time when we’ve had shootings that almost start riots in other cities where policemen killed a black man, several of them in the last six months as we’re talking. Ferguson and what other place?</p>
<p>NL: Baltimore.</p>
<p>RG: Baltimore, yeah, talk about Baltimore. So it’s that kind of event that arouse the people and it was getting the very rabid, agitating kind of community leaders that were not the best for anybody – anyway, were agitating and S.T.R.E.S.S. was then becoming a basis for the election when I decided not to run for mayor. I announced right after Christmas a year before my term was ended, so it was known that I was not gonna run again. And I did it primarily to give my good people an opportunity to find another job, really. I asked them to stay, but I said to my department heads, I said, “Hey, find yourself a job, because I don’t want to surprise you in the middle of the summer and say ‘I’m not gonna run’ late.” There was no reason to wait because I had made up my mind. We had started enough things, I thought the city was financially sound, and was improving. So I made the announcement and that became an issue during the campaign. So, Coleman Young said, “Oh, I’m going to ban them” and he did. But no big deal—it was just a police group of eight or ten cops that were put into another responsibility. It was just mismanaged.</p>
<p>NL: What made it so difficult to manage that group or to keep things organized regarding their work?</p>
<p>RG: Say again, what made it?</p>
<p>NL: You said a couple times that the idea behind S.T.R.E.S.S. is sound, but that they were mismanaged. What aspect of that was mismanaged?</p>
<p>RG: Well, you don’t put an aggressive cat in that job, because it’s too sensitive. You know you’re gonna have a shoot ‘em out, because you’re going after the shooters. You’re going after the guys with guns, you know, or gamblers or sophisticated crooks is what you’re going after, not going to the guy that steals a book from the bookstore. You’re going after the organized crime and you’re going after those that are non-organized but violent and use guns. So, you have to have the right personnel, not only in charge, but doing that kind of work. And they had a couple of guys that were quick with a trigger—cops. Like most recently, I don’t know each one but, we’ve all read about Ferguson: that they claimed the shooting was inappropriate—shot in the back—it’s inappropriate, obviously, if that’s the case. But there were others, you know, the cops were justified in shooting, and that’s always a serious question when there’s a death involved, “Did you have to pull the trigger?” That’s always a delicate matter, and you don’t have time to discuss it before you pull the trigger, that’s the problem. Bang, bang, something’s happening. Either he’s going to shoot me or I’m going to shoot him, I guess. Then those circumstances arise.</p>
<p>LW: When you left office, did you feel that—you mentioned you had balanced the budget and the police force was becoming more integrated. You felt that there was a good chance that Detroit would come back from ’67.</p>
<p>RG: Oh, I thought so, very positively. I even started a lot of programs one was called Little City Halls. It wasn’t my idea, they did that in Boston. I went up and I heard about that in Boston. At mayor’s meetings, I talked to the mayor of Boston—White, Mayor White. What you do is open a store, and here again you gotta remember it’s a 1,300,000 people. So you got a neighborhood, well let’s say the south side, and we opened a store and had a policeman and other city representatives there, so that they’re there, not 24 hours, but at least eight hours a day five days a week, where people can go there and get their license renewed or “How do I get the roof fixed?” or “How do I get a job?” So the people could tell you from a police point of view and from the other kinds of services this city would have, it only takes one or two people to run a directive to help people do what they have to do with the city. “Oh, I think I want to improve the house, what do I do? Do I need a license?” “Oh yeah, you gotta get permission if you’re gonna tear the wall off,” and so forth. “Just file the application and make sure it’s the right people” and that kind of thing and if a light isn’t working, file a complaint here instead of going downtown.</p>
<p>There’s nothing worse than—I remember working with traffic court, we had three sessions and they did a good job. When you get a ticket, they’ll tell you go to court at eight o’clock or at ten o’clock or at one o’clock, and as a referee we would have maybe ten cases at 8:00 and we’d be done with them within two hours. Then we’d get the next bunch, and what you do is provide efficiency so you don’t go there at eight o’clock and wait 'til twelve o’clock, three hours to talk about a five dollar fine I don’t want to pay, you know.</p>
<p>That was a real education for me in justice because, you see, as a traffic court referee, you see the world right in front of you. Here comes a little old lady walking and soon she’s sitting in there and she’s one of about ten people and the court officer. We wore a robe, and we’d open court, and then I’d make an announcement as to the standards, and what we look at and then the clerk would call the case and this lady would come up and she says,</p>
<p>“I don’t know what to say.”</p>
<p>“Tell me what happened” and “You’re charged with doing this—” say—not speeding—maybe a traffic light.</p>
<p>And I said, “Do you have a bad record?” I had the records. “Do you have a bad record?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I haven’t had a ticket for 20 years.”</p>
<p>“Case dismissed. Good-bye!”</p>
<p>That’s the way it should happen. You forgive them for that one violation and that’s what justice is about. On the other hand, come over here and this woman is selling whatever merchandise and parking all over improperly in downtown Detroit and other places, and well here she’s got twenty-two tickets in three months and bingo, that would add up to, well, let’s see about one-hundred seventy dollars for these tickets and boom, “One hundred seventy dollars, thank you.” If she doesn’t like what I said then she’d go right up to traffic court and talk to the judge. That’s the way the system worked and it was a good, efficient system. Anyway, you try to provide that kind of service for other municipal operations that are necessary.</p>
<p>LW: So after you left office, you had a sense that you had done some good work you had gotten the city to a place that was stable, or hopeful, and I’m wondering what happened after that, from your prospective. How did you see this as now, not mayor, but how did you see the city develop or digress?</p>
<p>RG: All forty years? [laughter]</p>
<p>LW: [Laughter] No, during the next mayorship…</p>
<p>NL: We could start during Mayor Young’s tenure, maybe.</p>
<p>LW: Yeah.</p>
<p>RG: Well, I think Mayor Young was close—he could have been a—people think he was an outstanding judge. I don’t think he was outstanding. I think he had a good term and a half, roughly two. I was watching him closely, and I think he just stayed too long. I think he was efficient, and in my opinion the facts of the first two terms, term and a half, were good. After that, things began to happen.</p>
<p>One of the worst things he did, though, is essentially say to [the] community, but also outside of Detroit, “This is my city and I’m gonna run it my way.” Okay, now what does that mean? Well I talked to other mayors and people that I dealt with and they would say, “Well, we tried to get a cooperative effort in so many things” that cities deal with each other—traffic, lights, regional facilities, water, sewers—and they’d say that “It’s okay when he deals with his people that way, but we don’t like it when he’s trying to tell me what to do.” I’m talking about the other mayors, so the cooperation was lacking and his aggressiveness went further than it should have gone, is my criticism of his.</p>
<p>There are plusses and minuses. Historians have said, “For example,” historians, “I [Coleman Young] started—the Ren Cen [Renaissance Center] was started by me in 1972. Henry Ford and I were talking about—well first of all, they started—the Chamber of Commerce—oh, think of his name [unintelligible]—said “Let’s have a group like they had in Pennsylvania. They had a Committee of [One] Hundred that helped Pittsburgh, and let me get the group together and we’ll need your cooperation” when I was mayor, I said “Oh, that’s terrific!” So he established Detroit Renaissance and the Renaissance was all the executives of the major industries here, and he added up about thirty, we ended up with about thirty-three, starting with only the executive of each organization—which meant for Ford, Henry Ford II had to be there to vote, and General Motors, it had to be Fisher, or whoever it was, Murphy was then the Chief Executive of General Motors and Chrysler was Townsend, and then the banks and then the utilities. So a committee of thirty-three and Max Fisher was the chairman. It was that committee that established the fact that we needed something new downtown Detroit. So they hired [John] Portman—is it Portman?—to establish the Ren Cen, a plan for the whole downtown area. And the announcement was made in September, 1971. Where’s the plaque? I don’t know where the plaque—anyway. </p>
<p>PG: Where is the plaque? Is it in your room?</p>
<p>RG: Maybe, I don’t know. No, it’s not there, not where it’s opened up.</p>
<p>PG: Okay.</p>
<p>RG: But anyway, we announced, and it’s covered by TIME Magazine with pictures of me and Henry Ford sitting down making the announcement. What he announced was, “We’re starting a $350,000,000 project: we’re gonna have a central hotel, four offices, another wing over here with two to four buildings, another wing over here with two to four buildings, all right in front of, right across the water and on Jefferson Avenue.” And it’s there now. When I left office, the steel was still going up—cause you had to condemn the land and all of that—but that project came about under my administration, and they suddenly started to give credit to Coleman Young because three years after he took office, they dedicated the building—it took them that long to build it. Anyway, all he did there was watch the brick go up.</p>
<p>Anyway, the good historians are giving me credit. It’s an attitude and an atmosphere that permeated the city, and the community. And the executives in the community had confidence in my administration to then announce and to build and to give money. And the announcement was that Ford, as seed money, was giving six thousand, Chrysler five, GM five, and the banks, three each. So there was about thirty million dollars. Did I say thousands? Millions—six million—so thirty million dollars’ worth of seed money to get it started and the rest was mortgage money. It took, I think by the time they were done building the hotel and the first four buildings, I think it was supposed to be about $300 million, and it went up to about $370 [million] by the time they were done for the first four, and the rest is history.</p>
<p>All you guys, pardon me, and madam—look at the buildings that are there. But I helped start it, it was my great joy. I had good leadership and department heads that could deal with their department heads that could deal with General Motors executives and the lesser ones and so forth and build confidence in the community that the city is worth rebuilding, it just needed rebuilding—let’s start with downtown. So we started with downtown, and we had a great start and it went well for a while and then it started to go downhill.</p>
<p>LW: When you say it went downhill, from your perspective, how did you see that happen?</p>
<p>RG: How’d I see it happen?</p>
<p>LW: Yeah, how did you see that, when it went downhill, so to speak, how did you see—what were the signs to you that was going on?</p>
<p>RG: I really don’t know except to—to answer the question—except to say that it really broke my heart. I think the attitude of Coleman as “My city,” which means “Hey, it’s going to be all black.” It’s not going to be that. I mean, what do people think? If Coleman says, “My way!” or use swear words, “You hit the road,”—you know. And he was very open about the cuss words and his command, and so forth. And then Dennis Archer came in and it was different, it was better. But during that time it went downhill, and that’s why I said his first two years [terms], when he had two more years [terms], it was a long time for that kind of attitude to stay in the community. What you needed is a community, “Oh! He’s a nice guy.” “Oh! That city has promise, they’re building downtown,” and “Oh, I think I’ll go to Detroit.” But if you have the other attitude and you’re gonna start a business or put a branch in Michigan, oh, instead of Detroit they’ll go to Flint or they’ll go to Westland, or whatever—Dearborn, lot of good towns.</p>
<p>That went downhill for a lot of reasons: that’s one of the reasons, and if that situation arises people leave and leave and leave, and that’s what happened—when people leave and leave. Now, one of the things that I should mention that I’ve always had a problem with is that the mayor has nothing to say about the education.</p>
<p>LW: Okay.</p>
<p>RG: The educational system traditionally has been a—not only here but throughout the United States—primarily a separate entity with a separate board and a separate command and administrative people. When I was mayor, I spoke to the school board at the beginning of the first year and I spoke to them in the last year when I was leaving office, and they were very courteous and everything, but they said “Nice to see ya” and essentially they said, “Goodbye.” I said “Thanks for listening to me.” But essentially, as you know and history has shown that over and over there are different leadership in the school system. Now, if you’re gonna have kids and you want to move someplace, what you have to have is safety so the kids can play, you have to have that and you have to have a good school system, not just a system, but a good one. And Detroit was having trouble back then forty-two years ago when I was mayor, it was not a good system. And I spoke to them directly and they hired the superintendents—two years later, boom, they hire another superintendent, three years later, another one—money and all that. I’ve been always close to education, I lectured at the university—I taught for three years at the University of Detroit—and I’ve been close to education.</p>
<p>At any rate, some cities, some major cities—I think Chicago, San Francisco, and some others since I’ve been in office—the city has given the mayor the authority to appoint the superintendent of education. [inaudible] But that’s just a thought of mine, that if an educational system is not working, the citizens should appoint the mayor and put him in charge. If you’ve got one man, it’s different because either you’ll get someone good or else you get him out of there. But if you have a committee and you change the committee, they have someone then years later you got a different committee—oh, they’ll appoint him. I don’t know if you have experience working with committees, but you know if you have more than three people—you have three people, you have three opinions, you know. If you have ten people, you have ten opinions. And you compromise. It’s always a second, or third, or fourth compromise to get somebody appointed. But that’s my view. Like I appointed an outstanding Chief of Police and they worked—both of them were outstanding. And if they wouldn’t do it, they were gone. I hired one fella that I didn’t—I made a mistake by taking not enough time to interviewing him— and I hired him. Two weeks later I fired him. I just made a mistake, but you can do that and if you find something that’s not doing right, you’re in charge. And it’s a massive responsibility, but if you do it right and he or she does the job—</p>
<p>Now, for example, Ridgeway, sure [directed to daughter, Paula]</p>
<p>PG: What? Bill, June?</p>
<p>RG: Pardon me?</p>
<p>PG: June?</p>
<p>RG: Yeah, June Ridgeway. June Ridgeway was a neighbor of ours and she helped me in my campaign. I said, “Hey, why don’t I give you something to do?” and I made her secretary to the auditors. No, not auditors. The secretary to— </p>
<p>PG: Tax assessors?</p>
<p>RG: Yeah, that’s right, yeah, the taxing department and she then became an expert by going to classes and within a year she was a Class Four Assessor. That’s the word, assessor. So she would go then and look at a plant and establish its value, and we would tax according to the value that she set, that the assessor set. And she was such an outstanding person that later on I put her in charge of other work, and she ran Cobo Hall under Coleman Young. She, uh, well whatever. And its good people like that I was able to find, and when you see them you recognize it. I really recognized it in her so I moved her up the ladder as quickly as I was able to. She became one of the assessors and—because she was trained for it and she was doing her job. </p>
<p>NL: Back tracking a little bit, you mentioned before your interactions with Jerry Cavanaugh, that you guys were classmates together.</p>
<p>RG: Yeah.</p>
<p>NL: Could you tell me your thoughts about his tenure as mayor of the city?</p>
<p>RG: Oh, I thought it was pretty good. He, in fact, was so effective that they were thinking that he’s going to go up the ladder and maybe run for senator or something. And he did try to run later on, but the riots broke his heart because that was a devastating factor in his administration. In his election, they attributed the black community to electing him because he was treating the black community—now that’s eight years before I went into office, he had eight years, two four-year terms—and because he was a thirty-three-year-old kid, but when he campaigned, he campaigned among the black community. And they liked him and he was well received by the black leadership. And he was elected mayor. And he was easily elected a second time he was doing work and he was getting acclaim nationally.</p>
<p>I got some acclaim nationally because I ended up being the president of National League of Cities, which is another chapter we could talk about: going to Lansing, going to Washington, and getting their support and their money—particularly when they needed it—both the State of Michigan and the Feds at that time. I remember Nixon was the president. I remember that Martha Griffiths was a congresswoman, she was effective in the House. And I knew Martha, she would listen and she was effective, she was a no-nonsense legislator. I got her, others too, and Ford was the leader of the House at that time, Gerald Ford.</p>
<p>I remember going there and telling them, “The Feds need to give money to the cities because the cities have the responsibility to take care of the poor, and it’s a disproportionate responsibility.” So, the city of Lansing has some poor but nowhere near the number of poor that the city of Detroit has or the city of New York, or San Francisco had. As a matter of fact, at the second meeting of the National League of Cities, there were two organizations: U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities. And the National League of Cities is the bigger one in terms of participants because they had department heads and not just the mayors, where the others, just the mayors. So anyway, I was active and I said to the mayors, “Let’s have a meeting. Why don’t you come to Detroit? If eight of you guys come to Detroit, eight of us went to New York and went to Chicago, went to San Francisco at one time and say, ‘We need these monies! It’s a federal—because we’re assuming a responsibility that’s broader than the cities, the cities should not have the financial burden.’”</p>
<p>And sure as hell, we got aid. We got aid from the Feds, about a year later. But the first meeting was held in Detroit and Mayor Lindsay here—the mayor of Chicago, he wasn’t one of the group, he was sort of an independent—but San Francisco was Alioto, and Los Angeles, I forget. Anyway, I gave each one five minutes, so there was eight of us, maybe ten of us—and, man, all the press and the TV—and we got that notification when we went to Frisco, and we told the people and the legislators in Congress about that. So federal aid—we finally got legislation passed by talking to Gerald Ford and talking to Martha Griffiths and talking to the community, by meetings with mayors and anyway, I became an officer and the fourth year in office I was President of National League of Cities. I enjoyed that very much, it’s a big operation.</p>
<p>I remember being there for the signing of the legislation and being the personal guest of Nixon and it was an exciting time. I really enjoyed being mayor, I’ll tell you, I wish I had stayed for a second term for many reasons, but for many reasons I didn’t want to stay, too. I had established a number of programs like the Little City Halls, and the police—crime went down. It was a safer community and people were starting to stay, and I was trying to get the education help to the extent that I could. But we had a good four years and it was okay for about six years, and then it started to go—more people started to move. When you have that sort of attitude, as they said, “If you don’t have safety, don’t have a school system, I’m living someplace else!” Same rent, same health costs— </p>
<p>NL: Could you tell me about meeting with Richard Nixon when he was president? You said you met with Richard Nixon?</p>
<p>RG: Yeah.</p>
<p>NL: What was that like?</p>
<p>RG: Oh, it was very exciting! It was exciting, press and all that. Washington—everything is news, cameras, and all that. No, it was very pleasant, and I was sort of surprised that he finally came—when we started this effort and we got things going in the House, cause Jerry Ford was there and Martha Griffiths, and then I spoke to Senator—Hart was then the senator, and, um, what’s the guy that— </p>
<p>PG: Reigle? Reigle? Were you looking for the other senator?</p>
<p>RG: Yeah, the other senator.</p>
<p>PG: Wasn’t it Reigle?</p>
<p>RG: No, it may have been Reigle at the time, I forget, it’s only forty-two years ago, forty-five years ago. Anyway, we got it going there and finally we had to get—cause the president was in sort of a “wait and see” [indecipherable] from his staff—we finally got him aboard, and so it was a pleasure. I was invited to—because I was an officer with the National League of Cities—I was invited to the meetings that the president would have in his cabinet room. And he appointed the—who was the vice president and then resigned?</p>
<p>NL: Um, Agnew?</p>
<p>RG: Yeah, Agnew. He appointed Agnew. In the first meeting we had in the cabinet room, he said “I want you mayors to stay in touch and I’m going to ask Vice President Agnew to be available to you people all the time.” So he was our entry into the president’s operations. And he was easy to work with except he disappeared in short order when he resigned. Once a year we were invited to meet with the president in the cabinet room and I was there starting with the first year, each time, and then the last year I was president of the National [League of Cities], so I was sitting right next to him in the cabinet room. Down there it was ex-Governor Romney, who was then head of HUD [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] and I was next to the president and he’s at the end of the table—sort of a strange relationship [laughter], I thought.</p>
<p>But anyway, it was exciting, it was a great four years really. When you think back as to the responsibility and if you do your best and it works out, then there’s great satisfaction. I was satisfied in the fact that we turned the city around for a while, anyway, didn’t turn it around for twenty-five years but turned it around for at least ten years, and it was a good place to come to live and to be a citizen. Then things started to go down when good people, good people started to move out, people that had initiatives either with businesses or getting houses fixed and all of that. But if you get just the lazy ones or the ones that don’t do anything, then the good ones move out and that’s what happened to Detroit, unfortunately. Where is it now? Now it’s about 700,000 people [indecipherable] of a million three, in less than forty years, really—</p>
<p>NL: It’s about half.</p>
<p>RG: —they’ve been going for about thirty years. And the employees: I had 25,000 employees now they have what, 7,000? No maybe ten, it’s about maybe 10,000 now because fewer people are needed.</p>
<p>NL: Well, I guess, following up on that note, in your experience as mayor and your decades living in Southeast Michigan since then, what would be sort of your advice to Duggan and to other city leaders to help, either to turn Detroit around or help keep it moving forward in the direction that some things seem to start to be moving in?</p>
<p>RG: I didn’t hear the last part—be what?</p>
<p>NL: What would your advice or ideas be to Duggan, the current mayor, and the leadership of the city to help keep things moving forward—</p>
<p>RG: [Speaking at same time] Oh, the city, it’s like running any business that has 10,000 employees—period. You start with that premise and it’s a business. Well, the business of running a city, but if you just kind of analogize with a corporation or whatever you want it to be, and you have that many people as employees, you have to run them, manage them—like department heads—and that was my good fortune. I had the good fortune to find people, that had competence, that were willing to work with me. And that makes a difference, because sometimes you have competent people and they don’t want to move. But I got, as I say, some of the people, all the ones that were my appointees—and they all knew that if they’re working at my pleasure and only to the extent, [indecipherable] “you run the city!” For example, the Chief of Police, I said “Hey, I’ve got law enforcement background, I was assistant prosecuting attorney for ten years, then I was a city judge and I was sheriff,” I said, “But you’re running the police department and I want you to keep me advised as to any serious problems or major efforts. But by and large, you hire and you fire and you’re in charge of that but do it right and that’s all I want.” And they all did. When you have people—whether it’s running 1,200 at parks and recreation or eight people with the planning department—you know the city planning department has eight or ten people—it’s same responsibility: do the job and do it efficiently. And it works.</p>
<p>But you gotta have the people and I was lucky enough to have the people that made the city turn around. Jerry Tannian, for example, Jerry Tannian was one of the people in my office—I had an office of about six assistants sitting at my right hand, and Jerry was my coordinator for my law enforcement [and] fire department. He was a former FBI agent and I hired him when I became mayor because I knew of him and his work. As a matter of fact, it was Jerry Tannian—when the police chief left toward the end of my last year around September—I appointed Jerry Tannian Chief of Police because he was familiar with it and it was only about four months left. And I made him Chief of Police and he was so good that Coleman Young kept him more than three years longer than many of the—police chiefs last about from one to two years, generally, sometimes three, and Tannian with Coleman. Then as Jerry says, the FBI was checking into some of Coleman’s activities and Jerry didn’t tell Coleman Young. And Coleman Young got wind from somebody that the FBI was checking out whatever the activities were and he called Jerry in and said “Why didn’t you tell me?” He said, “Hey, I was in confidence. They told me in confidence, I couldn’t do it.” So he fired him. But that’s the way it goes. Jerry is an outstanding guy. He’s been practicing law. I still visit with my colleagues from time to time, and it’s a pleasure to continue to visit with them all after the years where they do other things.</p>
<p>NL: Alright, just one last question for you today. Bringing it back to the focus of this project is July, 1967. Many people categorize those events as “riots”. Would you use that word?</p>
<p>RG: Yes I would, yes I would. Yeah, what other words do they have?</p>
<p>NL: Some people have called it a rebellion or an uprising or a civil disturbance.</p>
<p>RG: Whatever description says it all. How can you say a rebellion when you have forty-three murders, fifty million [of] damages, fires—blocks and blocks of fires—that’s not a rebellion, that’s a riot. Anyway, that’s my view.</p>
<p>NL: Alright, well thank you for sharing that with us and thank you for sharing all your memories today.</p>
<p>RG: Pleasure, take that off. [Speaking to Paula Rewald-Gribbs] Is there any things you want to mention?</p>
<p>PG: Hmm, the only thing is—actually I was going to ask you a question, but I don’t know—it’s up to you, whatever, whenever.</p>
<p>RG: Why don’t you turn that off.</p>
<p>PG: No, no, no, no. You know what, I was curious because when you went and were working with Nixon, how was Detroit chosen for that Chinese ping-pong diplomacy for this term? The Chinese system changed, it has nothing to do with them and the reality of ‘67, so it was just from my own point of view. Why did Detroit get chosen as the first place the Chinese would come?</p>
<p>RG: The Chinese to come? I had nothing to do with that except that at that time, I don’t know who was in charge—</p>
<p>PG: It was the ping-pong championships.</p>
<p>RG: National ping-pong contest. Somebody in that contest, in that fighting, thought that it would be great for the city. I said “Oh, by all means!”</p>
<p>PG: Yeah, but this was considered part of a larger move by the Nixon a demonstration to normalize relations.</p>
<p>RG: Yeah, relations were terrible—</p>
<p>PG: So I’m sure that wherever they were going to go, the first appearance that they would make was very strategic, and I was just wondering—</p>
<p>RG:I think it’s a compliment.</p>
<p>PG: Do you remember did it have anything to do with the federation working on the National League of Cities?</p>
<p>RG: Maybe, all I can say is maybe. I think the city was on an upbeat—</p>
<p>PG: You had a relationship so that he knew about you and he knew about the city?</p>
<p>RG: Could be, all I can say is that I became aware of it. I said “Open up all arms!” You know, of course, because this is a breakthrough—I had forgotten it—for the first time when Nixon made contact with the Chinese and had a national relationship. And so when they came I said, “Let’s have a festival. Let’s have a dinner for them at the mansion.” I didn’t live at the mansion, but I used it for events like that. So we had a dinner, and I invited all of the officials of the ping-pong contest—they had it at Cobo Hall—and then they had the event at it. And you were about twelve years old.</p>
<p>PG: Yeah, a little bit older maybe by then, no I remember.</p>
<p>RG: Yeah, maybe [laughter]. That’s right, that’s right. And, it was great.</p>
<p>PG: It all started here.</p>
<p>RG: This is why being the mayor of a city, when it’s the fifth largest, was a wonderful experience. It’s all the people that—just think of that—that somebody from China was here in Detroit for the reason that Detroit still stands out and it’s the place to go and to make a ping-pong visit--first visit in the United States! In Detroit? Wow, that’s terrific! And that’s what leadership and good governance is all about “Hey, they’re friendly people, this is the place to be! They’re not antagonistic. They did have a little problem they called a riot but way past. It’s over, it’s now four years of stability and safety—and that literally means safety.” I forgot about that, I’m up in years. I’m no longer forty-years-old.</p>
<p>PG: One other question, really fast was—‘cause I don’t know if you covered this, or I think you might have just skimmed over it—at the time that you were running the campaign against Austin, did people talk about, did you talk about with Austin—were there debates? Did you deal with the issue of the riot during the campaign? Was it a big topic?</p>
<p>RG: Oh sure, oh sure. We answered any—it was an open question usually, the two of us before a panel of questioners or a group. We had, as a matter of fact, we had seven public debates for at least an hour each, each channel, we had three. And Channel 62, I think had three more by themselves, there were six or seven altogether. So we’d ask “Any questions?” I said, “We gotta heal any problems we had that caused the riots, and that’s illegality and that’s crime.” And so crime was and is still the number one issue, and then we have to keep the school system—improve that—and just answer the questions as they were posed. But it was always out in the open, particularly since you had a black man, for the first time, one of the two nominees for the final election.</p>
<p>There were about ten people, including remember Mary Beck—was from the city council—she was running and the former—Ed Carrey, Ed—another councilman, was running. Anyway, and me was the sheriff of Wayne county, he [Austin] was the auditor of Wayne county, and the two of us were the two that got the top votes. And I forget what the primary was but in the final vote, I barely won. The margin of winning was about 7,420, something like that, out of 400,000-plus votes. So it’s a teeny margin, it’s less than one percent, but it’s a winner. And it was that close because I like to think it’s two good men and I happened to get an edge on him, that’s all. Looking at the changes in the city, I knew we were going to have a black mayor after a short period of time because the majority of the people as the people are moving out, eighty percent were white and ten percent were black moving out—because they wanted to move out, whatever reason they had to move out. And by the time I left, I don’t know what it was particularly, but it probably fifty-five percent black by that time, in the four years, percentagewise in terms of the number of whites and blacks.</p>
<p>Anyway, good question, I’d forgotten about that. That was a wonderful event when the Chinese—we got national news! Now that was a big plus for the city that nationally they know that the first Chinese ever to come over here came to Detroit. And it’s like, “Oh yeah, did you build that building?” “No, it was during my administration.” [Laughter] Detroit Renaissance. Anyway, that’s it. Anything else?</p>
<p>LW: No.</p>
<p>NL: I don’t think so, thank you so much for sharing your stories with us today.</p>
<p>RG: It’s been a pleasure! As you can see, I like to talk.</p>
<p>NL: And that’s good, we like to listen.</p>
<p>RG: It’s a pleasure.</p>
**
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oxLNf9PMTlQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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Title
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Roman Gribbs, June 24th, 2015
Subject
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Austin, Richard <br />Capac, Michigan <br />Cavanagh, Jerry (Jerome)<br />Detroit “Little” City Halls<br />Detroit Renaissance <br />Emmett, Michigan <br />Greene, Walter <br />Griffiths, Martha<br />Murphy, Patrick V. <br />Polish-American community<br />Renaissance Center <br />S.T.R.E.S.S. [Stop the Robberies Enjoy Safe Streets ] <br />Young, Coleman A.
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, former Mayor of Detroit Roman Gribbs discusses his job as a traffic court referee for the City of Detroit during the 1967 civil disturbance and the legal and logistical issues stemming from mass arrests during the disturbance In addition, Gribbs discusses the 1969 Detroit mayoral election and his four years as mayor. He shares details about his personnel policies, key appointees, creation of neighborhood city halls, his governing principles, the S.T.R.E.S.S. initiative, the role of Michigan corporations and executives in the creation of Detroit Renaissance, the construction of the Renaissance Center, lobbying for Federal funding for Detroit, and his role in the National League of Cities.
“Little” City Halls
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Capac
Detroit Police Department
Detroit Renaissance
Government
Mayor Coleman Young
Mayor Jerome Cavanagh
Michigan National Guard
Polish-American community
Public Servant
Recorder's Court - Detroit
Renaissance Center
STRESS
Tanks
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/03ea47a1306d3d8780e603e9ee95c960.jpg
494f947740fce7ca1ddca715aa4d9f77
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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
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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
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Narrator/Interviewee's Name
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Kathleen Kurta
Interviewer's Name
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Noah Levinson
Interview Place
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Sparrow Hospice House of Mid Michigan, 1210 West Saginaw Street, Lansing, MI
Date
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06/30/2015
Interview Length
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00:34:39
Transcription
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<p>NL: Today is June 30, 2015. This is the interview of Kathleen Kurta by Noah Levinson. We are at the Sparrow Hospice House of Mid-Michigan, which is on West Saginaw Street in Lansing, Michigan, and this interview is for the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project. Kathy, could you start by telling me where and when you were born?</p>
<p>KK: I was born on Valentine’s Day, 1950, in a little hospital called Brent General across from the University of Detroit.</p>
<p>NL: And where were you living when you were growing up?</p>
<p>KK: We had a little home—my dad bought a honeymoon home for my mom when they were married—and it was in northwest Detroit on Carlin Street and it was one block west of Schaefer and right in the middle between Plymouth and West Chicago.</p>
<p>NL: And where were you living in 1967?</p>
<p>KK: In 1967, that was my home. I was a junior in high school.</p>
<p>NL: So, you spent all your years growing up there.</p>
<p>KK: I did, we didn’t move once.</p>
<p>NL: What do you remember about that neighborhood around Schaeffer and Chicago?</p>
<p>KK: I remember that we had a lot of friends in that neighborhood and we got along. There were elderly people in the neighborhood; there were kids in the neighborhood. My dad always helped some of the elderly women in the neighborhood, and taught us how to do that—we shoveled snow, we raked the leaves, we took food over to them. There was an elderly lady across the street—both directions across the street—we had a corner house.</p>
<p>The thing I didn’t like about that was that I went to school off West Chicago and Mendota area at Epiphany School—it was a Catholic school—and we were a mile and a quarter away from our friends—our school friends. So—it didn’t stop us—we continued to ride bikes back and forth, but, our immediate friends from school were a little farther away from us. But, it was a good neighborhood. We liked it—we never moved—we stayed there, and it was a great place to grow up.</p>
<p>NL: Was it an integrated neighborhood very much?</p>
<p>KK: Initially no, it was not integrated. As I got older, we started to get more African American families that moved into the neighborhood. One of the elderly women that my dad used to help was one that was across the street. I remember her first name, Mrs. Hogue, and he used to do favors for her—like I said, rake the leaves, shovel the snow, push her car when she got stuck, and so on—but it became more integrated as the years went on, but not initially.</p>
<p>NL: Do you remember noticing any changes around the neighborhood as it became more integrated, or was it just that different people were living there?</p>
<p>KK: You know, I don’t know if it was because it was becoming more integrated, but what I noticed was that there was more crime in the neighborhood, and I have no idea what the—what the “why.” I can’t blame it on anything. I know that we had—a body was found in the alley behind our house; there were homes that were robbed; our house was robbed, on the corner. So I don’t know if it had to do with integration or if it just had to do with that was those were people and that was just what happened, and eventually my folks moved from there in the mid Seventies—also into Detroit—but my dad changed jobs and moved. But my dad was also an insurance salesman for a while and he worked with National Life Insurance, and his debit was 12th Street and some of the inner-city neighborhoods, and he used to walk from place to place. He loved it; the people watched out for him; but he, too, was robbed several times. Not hurt, thankfully—once he had a gun to his head and another time he had a knife at his neck. That was not our neighborhood, but it was also was one of the reasons why he got out of that job and we found him a different one, and that made them have to move from the neighborhood.</p>
<p>NL: What do you remember about Detroit in general, growing up in the fifties and early/mid-sixties as a whole city?</p>
<p>KK: I loved Detroit—absolutely loved Detroit—and when I meet people in my work here as a social worker and they’ll say “Detroit?” and they make a face, and you know when I grew up in Detroit, it was a wonderful place. I would as a teenage girl would take the bus anywhere in the city of Detroit. I went to Immaculata High School—we had a lot of research papers to do. By myself as a teenager, took the bus, two buses, three buses sometimes, down to the Main Library, down to the Historical Museum, shopped at Hudson’s, shopped at Kresge’s, loved to go to Baker’s shoes, all the stuff that was on Woodward Avenue. And I would do that myself, or with girlfriends, and so I loved it. I felt safe. My dad took us always—we lived in the summertime at Briggs Stadium, Tiger Stadium. Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays—Ladies’ Day—you could sit in the bleachers for fifty cents. And now I sound like my father, getting old with his, with all of his old stories.</p>
<p>NL: No, frankly I’m jealous. I would love to spend my Saturdays at Briggs or Comerica—</p>
<p>KK: You know, Briggs Stadium, and then it was Tiger [Stadium]—</p>
<p>But it was a great place, we weren’t afraid. We loved it. We were involved in things. You know, as a little child my mom took me on the bus, we went to Sears, we paid the bills. Went to the—we lived on the west side; my mother had friends on the east side; we would take buses to go from our northwest Detroit to the far east side, that’s just what we did.</p>
<p>NL: Tell my about your experiences in July 1967, please.</p>
<p>In July 1967 I had a summer job. I was 17, and that was the year between my junior and senior year of high school. And just to back up, one of the traditions in my family was—for years— was every Sunday morning we went on a picnic out to Island Lake. We would pack up the car the night before as much as we could, we went to 6:30 mass on Sunday morning, and by eight o’clock—it was a short mass—and by eight o’clock we were already on the road out to Island Lake, so we would have breakfast, lunch, dinner, swim, do whatever.</p>
<p>NL: Where is that place?</p>
<p>KK: Island Lake is near Kensington [Metropark].</p>
<p>NL: Okay.</p>
<p>KK: I think it’s called the Island Lake Recreation Area now. But that July—whatever Sunday that was—was a beautiful day, and my family was going on a picnic, and I could not, because I had a summer job and I had to work, and I was mad, cause I didn’t want to go to work.</p>
<p>My job was behind the counter at Greenfield’s Restaurant on Woodward in downtown Detroit. So we made salads, you know, just kept the—it was a cafeteria-style restaurant—and so my job was to keep things supplied, and mostly I was behind the salad counter and the desserts, running back and forth.</p>
<p>So that’s where I was on Sunday in that July, and I can’t remember what time in the afternoon, but somehow the managers there got word that there was a riot breaking out in Detroit, and they began to send the employees home. I had taken the bus there. My family was out on a picnic. I was not afraid to take the buses. I had taken the Grand River bus—the Plymouth bus, and I transferred on to the Grand River bus—and took that down to work.</p>
<p>What we saw eventually, was just masses of people running in front of the restaurant. Some had bats, some just were waving their arms, but it was just a huge mob of people.</p>
<p>NL: Even downtown?</p>
<p>KK: Downtown Detroit. Well, and Greenfield’s was not downtown—as you look at it, it was a little farther out, but was still considered downtown.</p>
<p>NL: Where was the restaurant, would you say Woodward and what, approximately?</p>
<p>KK: Oh, I knew you were going to ask me that. [laughter] I can’t remember, it was beyond—do I want to say, Kirby Park? It was, hmm, beyond where the museum, beyond the library—you know what, I can’t tell you.</p>
<p>NL: Like further from the river than the museums are?</p>
<p>KK: Maybe. I can’t recall the street names.</p>
<p>NL: It’s alright, we’ll do some research, why don’t you go back to telling us about, you said you saw lots of people running around in front of the restaurant.</p>
<p>KK: Yeah, you know, I was working there and they were saying on the radio they were sending people home—but eventually, it was just a huge mass of people, and the front of the restaurant was all picture windows.</p>
<p>And at the time, besides the regular restaurant manager, we also had a district manager who was visiting, who was from Ohio. And—just a little aside—if you can think of Don Knotts, and Barney Fife, and <em>The</em> <em>Andy Griffith Show</em>, that’s kind of how his personality was. So he got really excited, but as the people were going, they locked the restaurant doors, they had turned the tables over, and he was hollering in the restaurant like Barney Fife, “Hit the dirt, hit the dirt.”</p>
<p>And we all were afraid, so we were behind the tables, some of us were behind the counters—the food counters—some went back into the kitchen, but people were just laying low because they weren’t sure what was going to be happening. So, those who could go home, left. Very few had cars, but some were able to catch a bus and get out of the area. The bus I needed to catch to go home was the Grand River bus, and Grand River—according to the reports that they had heard—was the area that was mostly being affected and they were not running busses on Grand River.</p>
<p>So I was stuck—downtown—and what I learned later is, in the meantime my dad had come home, my mom and dad from the picnic, and my dad wanted to come down and pick me up. He was having a conniption at home that I was not safe. He called the police, and the police had already at that time put a curfew in effect. And they said to my dad, “If you do go down and pick her up, and we find you on the street, you’ll be arrested.”</p>
<p>And my dad just, he was a wreck at home, and my mom later said he just paced back and forth, cause he didn’t know what to do, he didn’t want me there—but he had no choice.</p>
<p>So the district manager at the restaurant—the one that was visiting from Ohio—said to me that I would have to spend the night in the YWCA. He asked me if I knew where it was, I said I had not a clue where the YWCA was, I didn’t frequent it, so I didn’t know. So eventually we got out, we went into his car, and we were going to drive around downtown Detroit looking for the “Y.” I didn’t want to go to the Y, I was scared, I wanted to go home, but he wasn’t going to drive me home. I think he didn’t know the area, so he didn’t know quite where to go with me in the car.</p>
<p>So as we drove around downtown it was—actually downtown was kind of dead—when we really got to the downtown area where Hudson’s and the other stores were, there was hardly a car on the street. But we were approached by a taxicab, and the taxicab was driven by an African American driver, a cabbie, and he came up, he kind of put his car next to us, when the light changed, rolled down his window, and he asked if we needed help. And what he said was, that he noticed the out of state license plate. He saw the Ohio license plates on the car, wanted to know if we were lost, could he give us directions. So the district manager told him that he had this young girl in his car, they were looking for the Y, because she couldn’t get home and she needed to stay someplace. And as I said, the last place I wanted to be was in the Y because I didn’t want to be by myself. I had no money. I had no transportation. I had no way, and I had no idea what was happening. So the taxi driver said to the manager, “I would be willing to take her home.” Well then I kind of inwardly panicked over that one, because they were all taking about this was being a race riot, and a 17-year-old white girl going in a taxicab with a black man at that point was not cool.</p>
<p>But I wanted to go home. So I took a chance and I got out of the car, I went in the cab with the driver. He told me to sit in the front seat rather than in the back seat, and as I did that the district manager just drove away, and there I was. So I had no chance to change my mind if I wanted to change my mind. And so he asked me where I lived. I gave him my address. I told him the cross streets and all of that, and that I had usually gone up Grand River to go home, and he thought from the reports that he had heard on the radio, that if he went up Michigan Avenue instead of Grand River, that we might be able to get to my house. So we were going to head in that direction.</p>
<p>The other thing he told me, you know he looked right at me in the front seat, and he said, “If I tell you to get on the floor, get on the floor.” I wasn’t sure why at that point. I later learned, again, that if a black man was seen with a young teenage white girl in the car, this would not be good for either of us. So as we drove up Michigan Avenue—actually he was a wonderful man, and he shared about his family—and what he told me was that he was not able to go home either.</p>
<p>He lived on West Grand Boulevard, and West Grand Boulevard was up in flames and smoke as well, and so he had no way of communicating with his wife to see if she and his family were safe, to see if his house was safe. So he asked me about my family, so we had a wonderful conversation actually on the way home, just about life, and things that were important to him, things that were important to me.</p>
<p>It was interesting because I learned that this gentleman was as scared as I was. Older, married, kids working already, you know, versus my 17 years—but he was just as afraid as I was and afraid for his family. So, he eventually got me home, parked the car in front of the house, came around, opened the door, let me out of the car, and literally walked me up to the front porch, where my dad was just standing by the door. He gave me to my dad, and my dad was so excited—he had tears in his eyes—he was happy, he thanked the guy, offered to pay him whatever he could pay him that he got me home safely, invited him in for something to eat, invited him in for a drink, but he didn’t take any of that. He accepted no money, he declined to drink, he declined any kind of food, but what he did ask my dad was, “Please say a prayer that my family is okay.” And so obviously my dad was a praying man anyways, and so he did, and we did pray for him.</p>
<p>As I look back, I wish I knew his name, I wish—he told me his name, but I don’t recall what it was—I wish even through this project, I wish there was a way that that man, if he’s still alive, would come forward with his story.</p>
<p>NL: I’ll let you know if we find any similar stories from a cab driver.</p>
<p>KK: Would you do that? Seriously, from a cab driver, you know! So he was older than me, so he might be gone already. But I learned a lot from that man: that people are people, and it didn’t make any difference what your background was, what your color was, and I think—you know, I had gone to Catholic school and we were minimally integrated in my high school, at least when I was there—but you know I was taught by the IHM [Immaculate Heart of Mary] nuns, and they taught us well, that you accept people, that you care for people, no matter what.</p>
<p>My dad worked in insurance, and like I said earlier, his debit was right in the heart of where the riots broke out. People watched out for him, but he was always very kind to them, and anybody—it didn’t make any difference who—but if they were on his debit, and that’s what we were taught by our parents, that you treat people as you would like to be treated.</p>
<p>And so, it was just—I look back, and I was thinking about this story the last few days, and I thought, What did I learn from this? And my job—I entered a religious community—and so it was the same thing you work on: you live by social justice, for everybody. I taught school, I principaled in the school, and the teachers would say, “Why did you accept that child in our school?” and I said, “Because we can help them.” It didn’t make any difference, what their disability was, what their race was, what their background was, what their religion was. It was a Catholic school, but, you know?</p>
<p>And now I do social work, and it’s the same thing here. I meet with people of all different cultures and backgrounds and religions.</p>
<p>And that man taught me well, that taxi driver taught me well.</p>
<p>NL: Do you remember any of the details of your conversation about your respective families and things while you were driving home that night?</p>
<p>KK: He talked about his wife, he talked about his children. But the biggest thing I remember and I think the thing that made the biggest impression on me, is as I said, he was afraid, too.</p>
<p>And everything in the restaurant, they were saying, “It’s a race riot! It’s a race riot!” Well, of course, as a young white girl, I’m afraid. But the experience in that taxi was the opposite. He was afraid, and so was I. And so that was basically—yeah, we talked about school, yes, and what I wanted to do—but, you know, we talked about his home on West Grand Boulevard, and that was obviously before cell phones, you couldn’t call your wife and say, “Hey, you doing all right?” There were no ways to do that, so—.</p>
<p>NL: Do you remember the sights of that cab ride as you were driving up Michigan Avenue and through different parts of the city?</p>
<p>KK: Michigan Avenue was Michigan Avenue. There was nothing unusual except that there was no traffic, or very little traffic out there. The sights I do remember is when the curfew was lifted some days later—and I still had the job, so I still had to go to work—I still had to take the Grand River bus down to work, which I did. And I think probably if I had a camera, my jaw was probably down to my knees! It was the burned-out buildings, and the broken glass, and the rubble on the street. It really—it looked like the pictures of cities I had seen after World War II in Europe.</p>
<p>The other thing I remember during the curfew, I was at a friend’s house, one of my school friends—so it must have been maybe after the curfew—but we were sitting on her front porch.</p>
<p>She lived on Pinehurst, not very far from Mackenzie High School. Mackenzie High School was one of the staging areas for the National Guard and the police. We were sitting on her front porch, and we could see police cars—Detroit Police cars—with machine guns out the window. And then there was a god-awful noise, and we looked, and there was a tank going down Pinehurst.</p>
<p>At that point we went in the house [laughter] because we were still afraid—but that’s what I remember, and that was very frightening, because we played baseball on these streets, we skated on those streets, and we did all kinds of things, and those pictures—but seriously, I try to focus on the good stuff, because he was good for me—he taught me, he taught me some things.</p>
<p>NL: How long after do you remember it sort of staying looking the same way before things started to look more cleaned up or more—less burned out?</p>
<p>KK: More normal, if you will?</p>
<p>Time wise, I don’t know. But I do remember it other times driving down Grand River while I still lived in Detroit, and I don’t think it ever recovered. I mean it was better than it was, obviously, the rubble was cleaned up and some businesses did reopen, but—I don’t think even when I was living there, even in the seventies—I don’t think it ever recovered in terms of the vibrancy and the vitality—that corridor, anyway. And there were the different scenes there, I think Olympia [Arena] was still open at that time, and so there were entities that would attract consumers there, but it was not—. You’d see that, and then you’d see an empty lot. And then you would see a decrepit-looking building. So it was very sad.</p>
<p>NL: Do you visit the city much in the forty-some-odd years since you’ve moved from the area?</p>
<p>KK: You know, I have to say I, once in a while—I have not done [so]often because I haven’t always lived in Michigan—and I’ve gone down—I go to the Tiger games, I do have to say that—but I don’t get a chance very often. Once in a while we’ll go down to the art museum, for an exhibit.</p>
<p>I have—I know—I have a friend, who actually lives in the Wayne State [University] area, and I hear wonderful things.</p>
<p>So I have not had a chance very often to go back to Detroit—and not because I don’t like Detroit—my life has taken me in other directions.</p>
<p>NL: Sure.</p>
<p>KK: And I have responsibilities elsewhere, but I pull for Detroit, I just—I love Detroit.</p>
<p>NL: What are your thoughts and memories of the last few times you’ve been in the city for games and events, and—just how the city looks and feels to you compared to the sixties when you were growing up?</p>
<p>KK: It looks very sad. When I go down, and if I take the freeway, and I look and I still see damaged buildings and glass out—you know, empty—and it makes me feel very sad. And when I get on the surface streets, and I see just huge patches of nothing—you know, fields—and I guess that’s better than a burned-out, abandoned house, but I see those as well.</p>
<p>And unfortunately, that’s the image that I hear, where I’m working now, of people—that’s their image of Detroit. They look at the bad stuff. They’ll always ask me—whenever I find anybody up here and meet families up here, in Lansing, and they say they’re from Detroit, I always [ask], “Well, where in Detroit?” cause we might have been neighbors. And they will tell me, “Well, Southfield,” or “Farmington,” or “Sterling Heights” and I say because I’m from Detroit, and they’ll say, “Well, where in Detroit?” and I’ll say “Detroit,” and they say, “Yeah, but where in Detroit?” and I’ll say “Detroit!” and then finally I just look at them and I say “Detroit, Detroit—What part of that do you not get? You know—‘City of.’”</p>
<p>What I would love to do is get a t-shirt that says “Made in Detroit.” I’m thinking they’re on the Internet someplace—</p>
<p>NL: They have those—oh yeah, there are a lot of stores around the city you can find that specialize in Detroit logos and things like that.</p>
<p>KK: So, you know, “Made in Detroit and Proud of It.”</p>
<p>But people’s impressions—you know, I lived in southern California from about 1979 to 1993, something like that—and those were the days when you had the big Devil’s Nights fires, and that was the only thing I ever saw on the national news about Detroit. I was teaching then, and it always made me very sad, because I could just tell people what I knew of Detroit, and that that’s not Detroit. That’s a piece of something that’s happening, but that was not my city. And I was always saddened because it seemed that was the only thing that ever made national news. I always tried to just counteract it and just share my experience of that.</p>
<p>I understand it’s coming back and I’m hoping, I’m hoping that it does.</p>
<p>NL: I want to shift gears a little bit, just some things you said earlier. You said that, I think your exact words were, that you used to “summer at Briggs Stadium.” So, from one big Tigers fan to another, I would love to hear about, if you have any particular memories from the summer of ’68—that was such a memorable season for the Tigers.</p>
<p>KK: I was at the World Series—</p>
<p>NL: Yeah?</p>
<p>KK: You betcha I was. [Laughter] And I’ll tell you how we got tickets: There was some advertising on some tuna fish can company. [Laughter] I don’t know what brand my mother bought, but if you sent so many labels in, you could get so many tickets. Don’t ask me, but we—</p>
<p>NL: I don’t think you can do that anymore—</p>
<p>KK: Well, I don’t think so, either! No. But however we got those tickets, I know there was something with the labels on the tuna fish. And my mother was able to get four tickets to one of the games. My grandpa, when he was living, lived in Pennsylvania, and he had played on a minor league team—he was the catcher on the minor [league], not the Tigers, but on a minor league team.</p>
<p>So we flew my grandpa out from Pennsylvania; and my grandpa, my dad, my brother, and me—</p>
<p>NL: Wow!</p>
<p>KK: —went down to one of the World Series games.</p>
<p>And then when they won, and they were flying back from St. Louis—I can’t believe my father did this—he pulled us all in the car and we went out to the airport, in a huge traffic jam on I-94, everybody trying to go to the airport to greet the Tigers, who ended up coming in at Willow Run [Airport] instead of Metro [Detroit Metropolitan Airport]—</p>
<p> [laughter]—</p>
<p>And we’re all on the field at Metro, and any plane that landed, we were on the tarmac—we swarmed the plane. But, yeah, it was a lot of fun, and I guess that we were down there all the time—my dad, my brother, myself, sometimes I’d bring a girlfriend. My mom would always stay at home and watch it on TV, and cheer for us on TV.</p>
<p>But, always we were at the ballpark.</p>
<p>NL: Do you have any particular memories of games from that season or plays or players from that [season], or from that World Series game? Or it all blends together?</p>
<p>KK: You know, I’ll tell you—I don’t know who played when, it all does blend together, but you know obviously, [Al] Kaline, and my brother’s name was Allen, so he thought he was Al Kaline. And actually my father would always get seats—I want to say it was Section 6—but it was in right field, so we could always sit behind Kaline. And then sometimes he’d get them in left field so we could sit behind Willie Horton. So, I remember that, I remember Mickey Lolich, and we just hooted and we hollered, and we would go home hoarse, and we just, we had a ball. I don’t remember plays. I think Gibson’s home run was in ’84—</p>
<p>NL: Yes.</p>
<p>KK: —so in ’84 I was elsewhere. I was in California, actually.</p>
<p>NL: What do you remember, if any, was the impact of the World Series—when the year after the devastation of 1967—on the city and people? Did that change things, that season, at least temporarily?</p>
<p>KK: Well, I think it did, temporarily, because I think everybody—everybody!—was at the stadium. It didn’t make any difference what color you were, [or] where you came from, but everybody pulled behind the Tigers. And I remember them all talking and saying, “This is what the city of Detroit needs. We need to pull together here. Bring us back together.” And they did. At least we had a common cause that everybody could rally around. And the team, as much as we could see, was an integrated team, and so we had, you know, we rooted for every player, and so did everybody else in the stands. That was fun. That was fun.</p>
<p>NL: I have just one last question for you. And that is, speaking of the events of July 1967, many people refer to them as “riots.” And you, in recalling your story, said that you recall people calling them “race riots” typically. From your experiences, do you think, and from everything you saw, is “riot” the most accurate term to describe that week in July, or would you use something else?</p>
<p>KK: I think from my standpoint, and the age I was, the memories that come to my mind is that it was a riot. I was 17—I was dumb in many ways—and so I don’t know, you know, at that age, what brought it on. It just, it was there!</p>
<p>The whole racial issue was not something that I was involved with or really aware of. I just wasn’t. It wasn’t an issue for me.</p>
<p>But the term “race riot” was what they had used in the restaurant. You know, “Hit the dirt, it’s a race riot!” Hmm, okay. And that’s what I remember, having looked at, and watching things that are going on now, maybe I would use another term for it, but in my mind as a 17-year-old, and in my memory, it was a riot cause people were rioting. They were looting. No matter what the cause, it was a riot, I think, but—</p>
<p>NL: Well, all right. Do you have anything else you would like to share with us about your memories of this time or other things?</p>
<p>KK: I just want to reiterate again, I absolutely thought Detroit was a wonderful place, and I hope for Detroit to come back, and I appreciate your doing this, because I think this is a great way to have people sharing stories, the human piece of it. And I think that’s important.</p>
<p>NL: That’s our goal. Thank you so much for sharing your time and your memories with us.</p>
<p>KK: Well you are very welcome. Thank you.</p>
**
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Kathleen Kurta is a Hospice Social Worker at Sparrow Hospice House of Mid-Michigan in Lansing, Michigan. She was born on February 14, 1950 and grew up in the northwest section of Detroit, Michigan, where she lived during the 1967 disturbance. Prior to her current career, she both taught and served as a school principal.
Search Terms
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1967 riot, interviews, oral history, Greenfield’s Restaurant—Detroit—Michigan, Grand River Avenue, West Grand Boulevard, Woodward Avenue, Mackenzie High School—Detroit—Michigan, Detroit Tigers, Briggs Stadium, Tiger Stadium, 1968 World Series, Devil’s Nights fires
Transcriptionist
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Mark Kwicinski
Video
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dB5ttFs_TDg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
Dublin Core
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Title
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Kathleen Kurta, June 30th, 2015
Subject
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1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan, Greenfield’s Restaurant—Detroit—Michigan, Grand River Avenue—Detroit—Michigan, West Grand Boulevard—Detroit—Michigan, Woodward Avenue –Detroit—Michigan, Mackenzie High School—Detroit—Michigan, Detroit Tigers—Detroit—Michigan, Briggs Stadium—Detroit—Michigan, Tiger Stadium—Detroit—Michigan, 1968 World Series, Devil’s Nights fires—Detroit—Michigan
Description
An account of the resource
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 also discusses her family’s love of the Detroit Tigers and the positive impact winning the 1968 World Series had on a city badly scarred by the previous year’s disturbances.
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
1968 World Series
Briggs Stadium
Curfew
Detroit Tigers
Grand River Avenue
Immaculate Heart of Mary Church
Mackenzie High School
Tanks
Teenagers
Tiger Stadium
West Grand Boulevard
Woodward Avenue
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http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/b5a4f20195732113fe411423cf30980e.jpg
2eaea5390230dc5d32ceb68eb45de8e5
Dublin Core
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Title
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Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
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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
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Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Felton Rogers
Interviewer's Name
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Lillian Wilson
Noah Levinson
Interview Place
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Detroit Historical Museum, 5401 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI
Date
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06/17/2015
Interview Length
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00:32:34
Transcription
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<p>NL: Today is June 17, 2015. This is the interview of Felton Rogers by Noah Levinson. We are at the Detroit Historical Museum on Woodward Avenue in Detroit Michigan. And this interview is for the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit 1967 oral history project. Felton, can you first tell me where and when you were born?</p>
<p>FR: I was born in Detroit, Michigan, 1941.</p>
<p>NL: And where were you living in July of 1967?</p>
<p>FR: I was living in Detroit on Fairview Avenue. On the east side of Detroit -</p>
<p>NL: And can you tell me what you were doing in 1967?</p>
<p>FR: Do you mean as far as employment?</p>
<p>NL: Yes</p>
<p>FR: Oh I was a Detroit police officer. I was a rookie at that time.</p>
<p>NL: So you had graduated the academe the year before and started in 1967? Can you first tell me your memories of Detroit in the early and mid-1960s? Before 1967, what the city was like?</p>
<p>FR: I, ah, I enjoyed living in Detroit. I don’t recall any major problems especially where I lived and where I grew up. I did grow up in Detroit, and left for a while to go to college, and came back, then go into the military, and I came back. So, ah, I can’t say I had any major problems in Detroit, in my community.</p>
<p>NL: And what were your impressions of downtown at that time?</p>
<p>FR: Downtown was a great place to come to. Ah, there were a lot of movie theaters and a few restaurants. It was an enjoyable place.</p>
<p>NL: Did you go there frequently?</p>
<p>FR: Sure.</p>
<p>NL: Alright, so can you tell me about your experiences on the force in the summer of 1967 and the events that were leading up to the last week in July of 1967?</p>
<p>FR: 1967, I was a rookie police officer. I had been assigned to the Fifth Precinct, which was on Jefferson and St. Jean, on the far east side of Detroit. I was a patrolman, scout car duties with a partner usually, sometimes by myself. And Sunday morning, one Sunday morning, on the 20 - I think it was actually the 23, I reported for duty for day shift. After roll call, the–advised us that there were problems on the west side of Detroit, the Tenth Precinct, and some of the officers from our station was gonna be shipped over there, which indeed happened. I think it was four of us that went to the Tenth precinct. When we got over there, we found out that there were officers from other precincts also gathering there. Okay. We had no idea at that time what really was going on, okay, just that they needed some extra manpower. We were issued helmets and shotguns, and placed on the Blue Bird bus, which was a big bus that the Detroit Police Department uses for transportation. And taken over to the Twelfth Street area. As we got closer to Twelfth Street, I remember, hearing burglar alarms going off, more than one, you know. And as we got closer they got louder and louder. Ah, once we became in sight of the Twelfth Street it was like a mess. It was like a carnival. There were people everywhere in the streets, alarms were going off, store windows were broken out, ah some stuff was scattered out in the street, on the sidewalks. And we exited the bus and our Sergeant had as form a scrimmage line. And I forget what street it was, but at an intersection to protect the violence and looting, and whatever, from going further south. We were not to shoot anyone. That was not going to be the case, to shoot anyone, unless you were shot at and you had to defend yourself, okay. And, you couldn’t arrest the looters, we just didn’t want it to go further south. Because there was just too many people, just moving back and forth. A few of them were taunting us, but most of them were just looking at us. They didn’t care. And they’re still knocking out windows, and just going on about their business. This was about, I think, probably ten o’clock in the morning, something like that. Around that time. This went on for quite a while. We noticed that there was smoke behind us, heading south on Twelfth Street. It appeared that someone, obviously, had set fire to some buildings behind us. So half of the squad was turned around, to protect anyone coming from the south toward us. The other officers remained facing the crowd. Okay, so it was like protecting our back, you know. We remained that way for some hours. There was no relief at that time. Presently, after a while, we noticed that the hardware store that was about a half a block away from us had caught on fire, and flames were coming out of the top apartment in the front. We also noticed that the windows started pulsating out, in and out, in and out, in and out, so we backed up, and sure enough, it just blew out into the street, you know the paint and the whatever was in that hardware store, you know. Um, I believe the fire department came and tried to start putting out some fires in that area. We remained in that area until night time. There was no relief. We didn’t have any relief, or food or water or anything at that time. Ah, when the night came what we did was the whole squad moved into a vacant — well a looted — grocery store. And just watched the street, you know. But, shooting started at that time. People started shooting and it was getting closer and closer. So, we didn’t know if they were coming after us or what, okay. One of the street lights, across the street and to our right, was illuminating the store that we were in, pretty much. So, I remember, one of the officers went and shot that light out, so that we could darken that area. There was no food, or anything in the store, but of course there was a restroom, and water, we could get that, but we still didn’t have any food, so we weren’t relieved, and we hadn’t heard from anyone. About two or three o’clock in the morning, we heard a growling or rumbling, type of sound. And, it got closer and closer, and so a few of the officers looked out and they said, “Come here, quick, quick.” And we stood out, came out, looked out, and coming down the darkened street, Twelfth Street, was two State police cars, side by side, with their running lights on, two jeeps, with National Guard, a tank, and maybe three or four trucks with National Guardsmen on it, okay. So, we flagged them down, and they were asking about the situation, and so we told them pretty much, you know, and they were still headed south so we ask them that they would contact someone so that we could get some relief, because – and where we were, okay. And now, that didn’t happen until approximately seven o’clock in the morning. So it was daylight, and we got a relief at that time and I went back to my precinct, and was told to go home and report back the next day for twelve hour shifts. Beginning twelve hour shifts. Which I did, went home, went to sleep.</p>
<p>Came back the next morning, day shift, and I was assigned to be put on a jeep with two national guardsmen. And myself as the supervisor of the jeep, to move around in the area to look for looters and prevent looters. You know, just move around within the Fifth Precinct. This was back in the Fifth Precinct, okay. We did find a few people that were looting and arrested a few people. It was a very hot day. I remember coming back after one journey out in the precinct and this is a Salvation Army truck sitting just inside our driveway at the Fifth Precinct, so we pulled in to get some refreshments and coffee and water and juice or whatever. We were there about five minutes, and there was some shooting again. Officers started saying “Duck, get down, get down”, and the firing was very close. What it was, was someone had got on the top of a building, a tall storage building that was across the street from the precinct. They were on the roof and they were firing at us, into our parking lot, at us, okay. So we were taking cover, and there was ‘pings, pings’. I distinctly know something like a bee went by, fairly close, and I don’t know there’s a bee in the area, I’m sure I knew what that was. And I distinctly saw one of our sergeant’s cars took a bullet hole right in the middle of his windshield. This went on for about 10 or 15 minutes, you know. So, no one could do anything, and all the sudden – Well, let me also tell you this, that, during that time, when the fire departments were showing up to put our fires, some people were shooting at them. And, at that time, a couple of firemen had been killed, okay. So, the National Guard had been assigned to protect the fire department, you know, they would make runs with them. Well, evidently, someone from our precinct called down to the fire department, which was a few blocks from us on Fairview and Mack, I believe. All of a sudden a jeep with a National Guardsman pulled up, and a .50 caliber mounted machine gun on it. And he started popping off rounds at that building and just chipping away at it, you know. And I don’t know if any rounds went over the building, or whatever to antagonize who was ever there. I distinctly saw that he was pumping those rounds off. He stopped, no more firing from that building, and then officers, some officers got together and rushed the building. And went inside and went up to the top. There was no one up there, there were some shell cases up there though, but there was no one up there. That shook us off for sure. We went back on patrol, and finished off the shift. The day after that, ah, I was assigned back to my regular scout car duty because the paratroopers had come in, Federal soldiers, airborne people had come in, and surrounded the, you know, city and we had the National Guard, so the precincts pretty much went back to what they were doing. And that’s my recollection of that time. </p>
<p>NL: As you recall, did you find that the different—the Detroit Police, the National Guard, the airborne, did they work will together, was it well organized as far as responsibilities?</p>
<p>FR: I don’t know if it was that well organized. I think the National Guard may have been a little quick on the trigger. There was just so much going on; it was so chaotic. Everything was burning. I mean, it was, you could see smoke for days, you know. And I do recall seeing a couple people that were – That had been, shot, you know, they were, they were laying in the street in my precinct, ah. So no, I don’t think it was – It was just thrown together, and people were doing the best that they could basically. </p>
<p>NL: Just trying to get as much manpower as possible?</p>
<p>FR: Manpower and suppress it, you know, suppress it. And you know, a lot of people died. Lot of people.</p>
<p>NL: Forty three, I believe.</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, yeah, okay.</p>
<p>NL: I believe. That's the number we were told. I read about.</p>
<p>FR: Yeah.</p>
<p>NL: You remained in the police department another five years or so, after this?</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, six years.</p>
<p>NL: What did you notice, both as a citizen and as a police officer, what did you notice about the city during that time following 1967?</p>
<p>FR: At that time, I think – Obviously, everything cooled down, as far as the relationship between the police officer and the citizens. It was more cordial maybe people tiptoeing a little bit, I don’t know, but it was better. I remember also that the PAL program [Police Athletic League] came into effect, and I was selected to be on it. And we started the first PAL program in the city with the kids on the east side and the west side. With basketball and baseball at that time. A lot of activities for the kids to do. It was really good. It was really good for this city at that time. </p>
<p>NL: Can you tell me more about the PAL program? What that was, and how it got started?</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, it was a copy of the PAL program that they have in New York City, where you involve your local community and the kids in activities. They can be local activities, and they would branch out to national activities. We go to churches, meetings, and ask if anyone in the community was interested in coaching a team. We provide the equipment for them. We provide the location. We provide the officials, okay, and we had the money to do that. We got very good response from both the east side and the west side. And we had kids participating in a league at fourteen year olds and up, and the sixteen and up leagues. Okay, in basketball, and in baseball. In basketball, we secured a couple of facilities, gyms, and had the officials. We had round robin tournaments during the winter time. Very successful. In the summertime we sponsored, I think, maybe four teams. One of the teams, the sixteen year old and older team, went to the national finals in Danville, Virginia, and took second place. Quaker Oats sponsored us. We were given vans from, I forget what auto dealership, but they gave us a couple of vans. My partner and I and another officer, the three of us, four of us actually, drove the kids to Danville, Virginia. It was a week tournament. Very successful. And the program is very big now I understand. I think it’s humongous and they’re still doing go work. I was proud to be a part of it. </p>
<p>NL: That’s great. Switching gears a bit, can you go back, can you tell me about the police’s undercover efforts, the blind pig that was at Twelfth and Clairmount. </p>
<p>FR: Sure. When a new officer comes into a precinct, and that precinct has complaints from the community that there are illegal activities going on in house, or someplace around, they want it closed down, they want police attention, they want it over with because it’s affecting the neighborhood, for sure. Usually, when a new police officer comes into a precinct, they ask him to do an undercover sting, because the officer is not known in that precinct. I did them in the Fifth Precinct. What you do, is you have an officer go in, in plain clothes, into the facility, get into the facility, any way he can. And he’s to identify who let him in, who sold him liquor, approximately how many people are in there, if there was any gambling, who was the one that was cutting the pot, okay. And there’s a ten minute time frame from the time when the officer goes in, to the time when the officers on the outside are going to knock on the door and say, “Police,” you know, “open the door, were coming in.” Okay. And that’s how it works. When the policemen come in, obviously, they’re going to arrest everyone there. And the next morning, there’s the arraignments of all the people that were arrested. And, they pretty much give them tickets. In this case, it appears that, there were so many people in the place that, it took a long time for them to garner transportation to get all those people out of there, which meant a crowd starting forming; that’s basically what happened in this case. And a mob mentality took over. And that’s the results of what happened, you know, later on.</p>
<p>NL: Do you know who the police officer was that first entered that blind pig? </p>
<p>FR: Yeah, I know one of them, he graduated with me from the police academy. </p>
<p>NL: Can you tell me about him?</p>
<p>FR: His name’s Joe Brown, Joseph Brown. I wasn’t assigned a precinct with him. But obviously, I knew him, we’d see each other, you, know. Black officers, saw – there weren’t a whole lot of black officers anyway at that time. So, everybody pretty much knew everybody. And I ran into him a few times over the years. Last time, I think I saw him in Hart Plaza and we talked for a while. That was some years ago. I don’t know the other officer, I knew of him, I’ve seen him, I didn’t know him personally, and I can’t recall his name. </p>
<p>NL: You said that there were not many black police officers at this point. Did you feel, either in your own experience, or sort of a perception of the city of Detroit, did you ever feel that the police force discriminated against non-white citizens?</p>
<p>FR: Discriminated?</p>
<p>NL: As far as their practices?</p>
<p>FR: Well, I was never – I don’t – I never saw any discrimination, I’m sure, obviously there were some things going on that, and it continues today, that policemen shouldn’t do, or shouldn’t be in that position, you know. So I can’t say, I mean sure things were going on, but I don’t recall seeing anything from Detroit police officers regarding a citizen, a black citizen.</p>
<p>NL: As a police officer, did you feel that they had fair hiring and training practices for you as a young black officer?</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, yeah, most definitely, everybody got the same treatment. Going through the police academy, learned the same thing, you know, yeah, I think it was definitely fair treatment.</p>
<p>NL: Do you have any idea why it might have been that there was such a small number of black officers at the time?</p>
<p>FR: I mean, it was the times. Just, you know, what was it, the sixties, it was just the times. I mean I could speculate on it, but we know it was the times, they just weren’t ready to hire more black police officers. That’s all, and there’s been some change obviously, there’s a lot more today, as it was in the military, many years ago, and now the military has many, many black officers, I mean soldiers. So it was the times, yeah. The only discrimination I ran into was when I was working a one man car, on the day shift. That’s where, basically, you’re just patrolling, and you’re taking reports, you know, somebody calls in like a barking dog or a B and E [breaking and entering], or something, and you go there, and you make a report, you know, of course you do. So there was report out, that a man wanted to make a report, obviously, so I was dispatched to his house. I went up on his porch, and I knocked on his door, he opened the door and said, “Oh, hell no. Get off my porch.” And I said, “Ah, what sir?” and he said, “Get off my porch, I don’t want your ass on my porch, and I’m going to call the precinct.” “All right, mister, I’m wearing a uniform.” This was a white guy, an older white man. [Chuckling] And that’s exactly what happened. I got of his porch, got into the car. And, when the shift was over, my lieutenant said, yeah, he said, “That guy called here and said he wanted me to send a white officer there, but I told him he better bring his butt in here and make a report if he wanted to, but I wasn’t sending nobody else.” I recall that vividly, obviously. </p>
<p>NL: Yeah.</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, sure.</p>
<p>NL: People use a lot of words and phrases to talk about the events of July 1967. A lot of historians refer to it as the Detroit Riots of 1967. What do you think, from you experiences, would be the appropriate way to refer to that last week in July?</p>
<p>FR: Riot. I don’t know if it was a riot. What’s the definition of an insurrection? I don’t know. I’ll have to look it up.</p>
<p>NL: Uprising, violence, yeah.</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, I don’t know if I would call it a riot, I would just call it a disturbance that really got out of hand and people took advantage of it as best they could.</p>
<p>NL: You have lived in south east Michigan since then, correct?</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, that’s right.</p>
<p>NL: What have you noticed most about the changes over time since then and how the city of Detroit and the surrounding area has changed since those events?</p>
<p>FR: Well, we obviously know that there’s has been a lot of flight from Detroit. The population is way down. I think it was over a million, definitely over a million when I was here, and I think it’s half of that now. Obviously, the crime is terrible. People taking advantage of people as often as they can. And I think there’s hope. Ah, the bankruptcy, they went through the bankruptcy, that cleared up some stuff, because of people in office that were taking advantage of, obviously, the city, the wrong way. I think it’s on a good path. I think the police officer and the mayor that are in charge are doing good jobs. And it will continue on hopefully. I think they’re very good, honest people, dedicated people.</p>
<p>NL: Have you had any specific or direct involvement with the Detroit police since you retired?</p>
<p>FR: No, I haven’t had any. Ike McKinnon was police chief at one time, and he and I were friends. And I just ran into him a few years ago in Ann Arbor in a grocery store. That’s about it, you know, but know, no direct relationship back to the Detroit Police Department. All the people that I knew are obviously gone at this point.</p>
<p>NL: Where has your career taken you since that time?</p>
<p>FR: My career took me to – back to college. I went back – I had a year and a half of college left. I went to Eastern Michigan University to complete that year and a half. I had originally been in Iowa. To complete that year and a half, I received a bachelor’s degree, and then a few years later I got a master’s degree in guidance counseling. I worked with people with closed head injuries for quite a while. I also worked for the Boysville of Michigan as a director of treatment for quite a while. And I wound up as a counselor in the Michigan Department of Corrections, for ten years, a little over ten years and retired from them as a human resource person. So I’ve been retired now for eight years, I think. </p>
<p>NL: What would you say, if anything, have you taken with you from your experiences in 1967 on to the rest of your career and life?</p>
<p>FR: Well, I think, people are good, and you need to give everyone a chance. You need to not hesitate to give a second chance, if the opportunity arises. And treat people the way you want to be treated. Treat them fairly, obviously. Help if you can. Pay it forward, and those type of things. </p>
<p>NL: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us about your memories of that time? Or anything else?</p>
<p>FR: No, I think that’s about it.</p>
<p>NL: Alright, well on behalf of the Detroit Historical Museum, thank you so much for sharing your stories and memories with us today.</p>
<p>FR: Thank you.</p>
**
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Felton Rogers was born in 1941 and grew up on the Eastside of Detroit, MI where he was a rookie officer with the Detroit Police Department during the 1967 disturbance. Rodgers was a patrolman with the 5th Precinct but during July 1967 was assigned to the 10th Precinct where most of the violence and looting occurred. After July 1967, he was selected to be part of the police-organized Police Athletic League (PAL) program for Detroit children during the 1960s and 70s. He has a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and a Masters degree in counciling. After his time on the police force, he worked for 10 years as a counselor at the Michigan Department of Corrections. He currently lives in Ann Arbor, MI.
Transcriptionist
The first and last name of the transcriptionist.
Cathy Seavoy
People
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Brown, Joseph
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1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan, riots, interviews, oral history, Detroit Police Department, Police Athletic League (PAL), National Guard, Blind pig, 12th Street
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g6ZgZ2ZNurM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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Title
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Felton Rogers, June 17th, 2015
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1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Detroit Police Department—Detroit—Michigan
Police Athletic League (PAL)—Detroit—Michigan
Description
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In this interview, Rogers discusses his experience as a black, rookie officer with the Detroit Police Department in July 1967. During the second day of the unrest, he was assigned supervisor of a jeep driven by National Guardsman. Rogers discusses how he and other firefighters and police officers were shot at by a sniper that day. Rogers explains how black officers were used in sting operations of blind pigs and the discrimination he faced as a black police officer in Detroit in the 1960s. Rogers also discusses the Police Athletic League (PAL) program in Detroit which he was selected to be part of during the sixties and seventies.<br /><br /><strong>NOTE: This interview contains profanity and/or explicit language </strong>
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Detroit Fire Department
Detroit Police Department
Fifth Precinct
Looting
Michigan National Guard
Snipers
Tanks
Tenth Precinct
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/758c50703cbc017bd63ba2d642a51891.JPG
2bf425c696e77dfe261e6039901b1646
Dublin Core
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Title
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Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
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Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society
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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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Michael Varlamos
Interviewer's Name
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Lillian Wilson
Interview Place
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Assumption Greek Orthodox Church, 21800 Marter Road, Saint Clair Shores, MI
Date
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06/25/2015
Interview Length
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00:47:51
Brief Biography
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Father Michael Varlamos was born in Highland Park, Michigan on August 14, 1962. . His parents emigrated from Greece to Detroit in 1959. In July 1967 his family lived on Cruse Street, off of Fenkell, on Detroit’s west side. He identifies as Greek-American. His family moved to Livonia, Michigan following the civil unrest of 1967. He earned his Master’s in divinity from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology and became an ordained priest in 1989. He is currently the priest at Assumption Greek Orthodox Church in St. Clair Shores, MI and a PhD student in the History Department at Wayne State University where he is researching the work of Greek Orthodox priest, Archbishop Iakovos and his participation in the 1965 march in Selma, Alabama with Martin Luther King, Jr.
Transcriptionist
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Ayowale Ayodele and Cathy Seavoy
People
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Archbishop Iakovos
Search Terms
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Greek-American community, Assumption Greek Orthodox Church, civil rights movement, Greece
Transcription
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<p class="normal1"><span>LW: This is the interview of Father Michael Varlamos. Today’s date is June 25, 2015, we are at the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church in St. Clair Shores. My name is Lily Wilson. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project. Father Mike, can you tell me where and when you were born?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: I was born in Highland Park, Michigan on August 14, 1962.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: And what street did you live on?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: I lived on Cruse, which was right off of Fenkell between Hubbell and Schaefer, if memory serves.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay. Who are your parents and what were their occupations?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: My parents were Nicolas and Olymbia Varlamos. My father, at the time I was born in the early sixties—I don’t know if he was regularly employed at the time. He was discharged from the army, I believe, in 1959 and as was the custom, he came back here, worked at a gas station in the area and then he went back to Greece, met my mother on June 1, engaged June 8, and married June 15. After a month of what was considered a honeymoon visiting all of their relatives they flew—actually they came by boat, back to Detroit. And my mom thought she was marrying an American who had a lot of money [laughter] and my dad was in between jobs, he was broke, so they ended up living with his parents on Ardmore which was the street right behind the street that I grew up on. So, my mother knew absolutely no English when she came and shortly after she arrived she found she was pregnant. Her first child was a miscarriage.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: She always used to tell me the stories of how she was not – the doctors were telling her that she had lost the child and she didn’t understand what they were saying to her. So she always used to tell us this story. Then after a year she had my sister in ’59. So she came in ’58. And then in ’62 or early sixties my dad had purchased a party store and was a store owner on the east side of Detroit on Mack and Lemay and he was told when he opened up the party store by a Greek sage who was very, very involved—his name was Pete Peluras—I can’t believe I still remember—I had buried him, that’s why I remember, I did his funeral. But he told my dad, because the neighborhood was in an African-American community there, and he said, “The first thing you are going to do, you are going to hire a black man to work with you.” And so, my dad did. He was really following his advice word for word. How he should account for the expenditures, and income and we can talk about that a little bit later. But that was his party store, it was a liquor store and also comic books, candies, and milk, eggs, and bread they sold there. My mom, of course, she didn’t work because she really didn’t speak English and after my sister was born three years later I was born in ’62. So for the record I’m 53. Okay?</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay. And what city in Greece did your parents come from?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: My dad was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1933 and his family had flown to Greece in ’39, I believe it was, and they went just to fix the patriarchal home there. The home where his father was from, so they were going to spend the summer and what happened is the Second World started and they were unable to leave. So, essentially right after the Second World War—so my dad grew up in Greece and they were not able to leave until 1948, ‘49 after the Greek civil war that took place right after the Second World War. So, my dad grew up in Greece ten years of his childhood. He left when he was four and he came back when he was fourteen. So, he grew up in Greece, we would say. And then he came—my grandfather had—he and his two brothers came and brought them to Detroit, put them through the schools. My dad was not known for being a very good student, he was more of a hands-on person, but he did end up going to the National Guard and served in the Army. My mother was from a small village in the central part of Greece. And it’s called the Megalo Chorio, which means literally “the big village,” and it’s near a town that is affectionately known as the Switzerland of Greece.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: And it’s called Karpenisi. </span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: But they met in Athens.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: They met in Athens. So tell me about the neighborhood that you grew up in and what it was like, who your neighbors were, who you played with?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: It was a very long time ago but I still have very vivid memories of growing up in Detroit. We were there until 1970.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Yeah.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: So, in our neighborhood, right next door to us was my dad’s brother and my two cousins, the third weren’t born yet. They lived right next door to us on one side. Across the street and kitty-corner was my dear friend Timmy and behind us on the other side of the alley was my dear friend Allen. And Timmy, Allen and Mike were always together. I mean, we used to roam the neighborhood. We were five, six years old at the time, we were very young but it was a beautiful—We used to, I remember, making piles of leaves and we used to jump and roll around in the leaves and then it was a custom back then that they used to rake the leaves into the street and set them on fire. That’s how you got rid of the leaves and we’d just like to watch the smoke and jump through the fire. There was an old abandoned car at Allen’s house, who was an African American and we used to spend an entire day just, you know, it was an old ’50 DeSoto or something a real old car. And we used to just like sit the driver seat. The windows were all broken. It was a very dangerous—now that I think of it. [Laughter] I mean it was rusted. [Laughter] We could have scraped ourselves, there was broken glass. We were sitting on top of it, you know there was a big steering wheel I remember, we used to just pretend—it was just a great—I loved my childhood, that I remember then. And then of course, two houses down from us, on the left was an Italian woman, and she—the neighborhood was pretty much—there were not very many African-Americans that I remember, early. There was a lot of immigrants, Greek, Italian. And I would just say Americans. We didn’t identify them with any ethnicity. There was a little old lady at the end of the street—her last name is Lionakis—and I met her daughter not too long ago. And she was from the island of Crete. </span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: And she used to sit in her window and she would just watch us. And I would remember everyday going to school and I would always see her up in that little bungalow, that little window that was up there. She would always wave, this frail old hand. The Italian woman she had a little child who was even younger, it was an infant, even younger than me, but I remember that she and my mother would talk a great deal but neither one of them spoke English. My mother would speak to her in Greek and she would speak in Italian and that made an impression on me that they were able to communicate. She was a young mother she was asking about advice.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Of course.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: About what to do with a baby, I’m assuming. And I’m thinking—now this is what my mother told me after the fact—I witnessed this but I didn’t know it was being said and going on.</span></p>
<p><span>My mother came to find out that her father was killed in Greece during the Second World War. He went to Greece and then she never saw him again. And at first she was very angry at Greece and at Greek people.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: The Italian woman shared this with your mom?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Right. Yes. Until she met my mom. She fell in love with my mom. So they became very good friends until they moved away.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: So the neighborhood began to change. I would say in the—well, I really don’t know. I just remember it was rather sudden. </span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay. Do you remember about what age you were then, when it changed?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Five or six I would say. So we’re looking at ’66. I just remember that I—there were more restrictions because when I was young I was able to run down the street. I could go over to Allen’s house which was across the alley and I remember that I wasn’t allowed to go into the alley anymore which was behind our house. They don’t have alleys anymore, do they?</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Well, they do. I don’t think any kids would want to play in them.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Right. But it was a very common thing.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Sure. Of course.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: That was one way of going over to someone’s house, instead of going all the way around the block.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Yeah.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: You would just go through the alley, and maybe a few yards down and then just jump the fence and be at your friend’s house as opposed to going all the way around the block.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: So you said Allen was black?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: He was black.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: What about Timmy?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Timmy was white.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: And you were Greek-American?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Mm-hmm.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: So do you remember ever thinking around those ages four, five, six when you were playing with them, do you ever remember thinking about any differences?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: No.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Or do your parents say anything? Nothing?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: No. My mother nor my father. My father worked essentially in a black community. His worker who was a black American, his name was Mike.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Mike.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: We had the same name. He showed me how to play paddle ball. We used to sit on the corner there on Mack and Lemay watch the cars go by. My dad would be yelling at him to come inside and work. [Laughter] But I learned paddle ball and there was just little things.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Sure.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: He was just a wonderful person. I never could remember difference. I would play with Timmy and next door was my dad’s brother and my cousin, named Chris and we would play together. But I was not aware of any difference. That didn’t come until much later. Even in ’67 when the riots were taking place I didn’t know that that was happening. The only thing was that we weren’t allowed out of the house.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: I remember a jeep driving up and down our street and on the rare occasion that we went on Fenkell because was a Sam’s Drug Store there, I don’t know if it’s still there, there was a Kroger—not a Kroger an A&P—that we used to shop at. And my dad—I distinctly remember my dad giving my mother five dollars to do the grocery shopping. She would walk me and then put me in the buggy and do her shopping. But I remember seeing large, I don’t know if they were tanks or not but I know they were large military vehicles. There was definitely a military presence and I was really, at that age, into army and things like that.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Of course.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: And every stick became something for me to pick up and play army with, with my friends, which I did. But Timmy, my good friend Timmy, he moved out before—that I know—before ’67, right before the riots. My uncles moved out. We were—we and the Lionakis family at the corner were the only ones. And as people were moving out the Italian family that was good friends with my mom, she moved even sooner. We just saw that the neighborhood was changing very quickly and I think I realized it when there were more restrictions put on me. I was not able to go into the alley. I was not able to go to the end of the street. I wasn’t allowed during the riots to play in the front yard, only in the backyard and not near the alley. So, it was all these new restrictions. When I happened upon my friend, Allen—and I don’t remember if I went over to his house or if I saw him in the street and I said, “Come on, you know, let’s play,” and he just kind of shook his head and I couldn’t understand why.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Oh.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: He told me—if I can remember correctly—“My dad said I’m not allowed to play with you.” And it was right around then—the only thing, Lily, I don’t know if that was before, I think that was after ’67, after the riots.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay, okay.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Because everything—when there was like a calm after the violence, there was almost like a numbing from what – my dad and I have talked about this—there was like this numbing effect, that kind of appall that hung over the city. I remember that he was not permitted—I told my dad that, “He’s not allowed to play with me.” And that’s when I remembered my dad explaining to me, not so much that, “Well, the black people and the white people in this country have a lot of things to work out.” Something like that. And I never thought—he was more of a light skin black—</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Allen was?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Allen was. But we had great—we had a lot of fun together. But if you told me he was black, if you told me he was different, I don’t remember there being a difference.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: And you were about five?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Yeah, five, six years old.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Going on six, in ’67, because you had an August birthday you said?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Right</span></p>
<p><span>LW: So, that must have been somewhat traumatic for you at that age to hear your best friend basically tell you “Well, I can’t play with you anymore.”</span></p>
<p><span>MV: What was traumatic was that Timmy left. And my uncle, well, my cousin Chris was a little too young, he was younger than I was so he wasn’t much fun at that age. And Allen was really the only one I had left but then he wasn’t allowed to play. And then I remember this was in’69, ’68 or ’69 on my way back from school I was assaulted by four black girls. I think it was in the alley.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: You were about seven? Six, seven?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Yeah.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: And what happened?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Because, I finished second grade, we left—I was assaulted. I don’t even know what started it. All I know is I was walking down the alley and I don’t know if they wanted either a backpack or lunch box that I had and I wouldn’t give it. But I don’t even remember the assault I just remember coming home and I was completely scratched up, my neck especially. My dad was fixing the fence in the backyard and when I walked up and I said “Dad!” I remember just saying “Dad!” And he looked at me “What happened?” And I just remember him throwing the hammer and he said “That’s it,” he said “we’re out of here, we’re leaving.” I remember he couldn’t sell the house that was a difficult time. So my grandparents who lived on the other block, on Ardmore, they, moved into our house and they rented out their house because their house was a brick house, so they could get more money renting that, and they moved into ours. Ours wasn’t a brick house it was essentially wood, it was not a very good home—house—it was a very nice home. Next thing I remember is that we were living in Detroit but then we were registered in Livonia schools. So my dad—or my uncle George he had just come from—so the last two years of second grade I think it was—the last two months or the last month I did it in Livonia schools.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Wow.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Because it was just – we bought a house we couldn’t afford. So my grandparents gave us – our house wasn’t really worth that much. But the neighborhood I know was changing very quickly. And I have this image, my uncle George would pick us up from school, my mother’s brother, and then we would drive, I don’t know if it’s still there but there was a McDonalds—It’s the first time I had McDonalds at Fenkell and Grand River. And I would get my two hamburgers, and small fries and a Coke, and I remember seeing a scene there were four black men that were beating up on a white man.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Wow.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: And that was like the last image that I had. It was almost—that was the feeling that this isn’t our neighborhood anymore. So we were going to school—were we living in Livonia—we couldn’t because we hadn’t moved out yet. I remember he was driving us to school—no. What I can’t recall is if we were living—did we get into the house? Were we living in Detroit—were we living in Livonia going to school in Detroit? I don’t think so, I think it was the other way around—we were still living in Detroit, so he would drive us to school and then drive us back. And then when my grandparents rented their house and then they came and moved into ours, gave my dad, you know, money, we put a down payment on a house in Livonia which we couldn’t afford but we just needed to leave because the neighborhood changed, you know, very quickly. And it really was a change that we were not welcome. So, we felt like we didn’t know what was happening. My dad took a significant loss because after my uncle left, he went to Livonia. My dad bought the house from my uncle so my uncle could leave. And so now he had two pieces of property and he took a bath on both of them.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: You moved to Livonia and finished school all the way through high school in Livonia?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Yeah.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Where in Livonia did you move to? What street?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: It was on Barkley—it was Five Mile and Middlebelt. We always kind of stayed on Five Mile going all the way. And we were there for three years. The store was vandalized, toward the end of the sixties, I think in ’69—the party store.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: The party store. Okay, so tell me about the party store during July of ’67, tell me what happened?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Well, the party store was doing very well. My dad was making—had a good reputation. There were two other party stores I know of one that was owned by a Lebanese family and my dad used to brag that he put Lebanese man out of business and the way that he did it, he hired a black man to work for him—</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Mike.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Mike. They had a very good relation—Mike would go into the neighborhood and even attract people to come he says, “Why are you going to the Lebanese person, he’s charging you an arm and a leg. Come over here to Niko’s party store.” [Laughter] That’s what it was called—Niko’s party store. My dad had the reputation that if you didn’t have enough money for bread, for milk or eggs—those three things—you know, he would see what you have and whatever you have you can buy what you need. But when it came to beer or alcohol—candy with the little kids, he was always generous. They would buy a Tootsie Roll and he would throw in a Sugar Daddy.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: My dad was always, to this day, was very generous.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: How wonderful.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: So because of this reputation he was very much admired and he would try and treat a lot of the customers that would come in—not the people who were coming in to buy beer and wine, but the regulars who were buying milk and bread or the kids would come in for a comic book and he would try to teach them Greek, right? “Kalimera, you know, good morning.”</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Yeah.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: So he tried to – it was kind of an interesting to see, you know, black people speaking Greek, or something that we only heard in the home. I guess maybe that is what made an impression on me that there really wasn’t—I didn’t see a difference Just like I don’t see a difference in people if one is a brunette and one is blonde, right.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay, I see.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: There’s different hair colors, there’s different eye colors, there could be different skin colors. So, this was my father and I think my mother both made this impression on us that there’s only one race, and that’s the human race.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Unlike my uncle, but I won’t digress into that. Because he had a very different experience. But when the riots started and there was a great deal of vandalism going on—in the vicinity of my dad’s store, the neighbors came out and they wanted to protect the store from being damaged so they had formed a human chain around – at a time that there was the most destruction going on. There were places burning left and right. The building next door did catch fire that was connected to my dad’s. But my dad’s store didn’t sustain damage but nobody came and attacked directly, my dad’s store, in ’67. There were other instances, but even the neighborhood there changed, you know, it seemed that the black American community afterwards became even more militant, aggressive—I’m searching for a word, but even Mike had turned on my dad.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Wow. How did he turn? Can you give me an example?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: I don’t know the reasons but he pulled a knife on my dad.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Wow.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: And, you know, my dad let him go. But then there were break-ins to the store. So it was almost – it was considered a high crime area, you know, even at that time. There was a railroad tracks and my dad said that someone was found dead on the railroad tracks, you know, almost on a weekly basis. There was a great deal of drug trafficking that was starting to come in, and gang violence. So, that neighborhood was changing as well. So it wasn’t, the way my dad described it, it wasn’t the poor black people that were just trying to survive, just trying to make a living, families, now you began to see a more—almost like a criminal element with again, gang violence. So they were looking at taking whatever you had.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: So the store was broken into on two or three occasions. So, then my dad, he just – I don’t think he even sold the store I think he just left.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Wow.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: You know, whatever inventory he had left he had to return it, he took a loss. He did very well up until the neighborhood—and now I’m just thinking back, if I was to analyze it, it wasn’t just like the white flight from our neighborhood that changed the neighborhood, I mean even the black neighborhood where my dad’s store was located, even that neighborhood changed, you know, from people who were working, perhaps menial jobs, they didn’t have a very strong income. But the people that came in afterwards, the black people that were frequenting my dad’s store were not the little kids who were coming to buy eggs or milk or cereal. Now, it was a different—it was more people coming in to buy liquor, more people coming in to buy other alcoholic beverages.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: And had the store been broken into before the ’67 uprising?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Maybe right before, but in the early days, like from ’60 to’66 or ’67, maybe there may have been one. And a lot of times they attributed it to drugs, people looking for drug money.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: So, I want to just talk a little bit about—well, when did your dad actually end up leaving the store? I want to get that.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: It was in ’69’ or ’70.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Wow, okay so right around that time.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: So two years, you know he stayed two years after the riot.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: And after you moved out of the city into Livonia?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Right. Which is why we ended up going into Livonia because he got a job. He just put in a job to work at UPS. They were building a new center. So, he got the job and he was shocked. So the job was on Industrial Road between Middlebelt and Merriman, and I-96 and Plymouth Road. Right in that corridor there.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: So, you were going to school, living in Livonia, while your dad was still working at the party store? For some time, for a little bit?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Very short time. Because then he left – that’s what prompted us to move to Livonia, when he got the job at UPS.</span></p>
<p><span>LM: So, big changes right after ‘67 for your family. Within a year or two your family had - your dad changed jobs, left the store, you were in a new school, new kids, new everything, new neighborhood. So I want to talk about your church and a little bit about what you do here and also the changes that happened to this congregation, or perhaps a couple generations back congregation, after ‘67. Tell me what your title is here at the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: My title in English, I’m the senior priest. That meant something when there were two other priests, now I’m the only priest. So, my title is the only priest at the Assumption Church.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: If you could just tell us a little bit about the congregation and who it’s made up of?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: The congregation is the second oldest in the city of Detroit. The oldest being the Annunciation Cathedral, which was founded in 1910 and this parish, as the Greeks were beginning to migrate away from what is present day Greektown, toward the eastern parts, the near eastern part of the city, they founded this church in 1928.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: What was the original location?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: The original location – well they did rented on top, I think, the second floor of a movie theater for a while, but they don’t consider that. The year that the church was incorporated was in 1928. So, probably three years before that they were renting various venues to have the church services. There was, you know, the cathedral downtown. So that was a full functioning – most people, that was the only church. And then as the population began to grow in the first two decades, by 1928, there was a critical mass of Greeks that you could establish a church. So, the first major church was on Beniteau and they were there, that was built, I believe, in 1933, and they were there until 1955 and then they built a church on Charlevoix. And both of these churches are still standing, the buildings, are still standing.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: And the church on Beniteau and the church on Charlevoix, we’re talking about in Detroit?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Yes.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Not Charlevoix Street here?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Ah, it doesn’t go all the way through but it’s the same Charlevoix.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Same Charlevoix, just the Detroit side?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Right.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: So, the cathedral that was built in 1910 was the first Greek parish and that is not affiliated directly with the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Yeah, it’s the Cathedral Church, which is, it’s the Church of the Bishop.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: The hub.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Right.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: And then, you know essentially the parishes are, I like to think of it as satellites of the Cathedral.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay, okay.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: So, the parishes that formed, the Greeks that kind of migrated from Greektown toward the east essentially became part of the Assumption Church. And then, on the west side there was Saints Constantine and Helen, and then along Woodward Avenue was St. Nicholas Church. So there were more Greeks moving out, where there were two churches serving the Greek community on the west side and then eventually a third, St. George—which is now in Southgate. There were three—the west side kind of splintered into three groups, where the east side everybody just came to the Assumption.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: So, the cathedral is on Beniteau? Do I have that right?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: The cathedral is on Lafayette downtown—</span></p>
<p><span>LW: In Greektown.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: And then we – the Assumption Church migrated out to around Beniteau, which is between, what—Mack and Jefferson, if you will.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: And then the second?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: The second was on Charlevoix, just a couple of blocks over.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay so two, sorts of, satellite churches off the cathedral.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Right.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay, I just want to make sure I have that straight. So after the World War I, an influx of Greek immigrant’s necessitated additional space to worship.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Mm-hmm.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Can you tell me about what those churches experienced after 1967, or during 1967?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Well, in ‘67 the cathedral, I can have you speak with a few people that were there at the Cathedral, that’s the Annunciation Cathedral, it’s a different church. The Charlevoix church—and I’ll show you photographs when we go into the church—</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Great.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: the Charlevoix church was there from 1955 until 1976. And this facility that we are at now, construction began in late seventies. So by ‘76 the Assumption parish moved out to Saint Clair Shores. </span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: It became a very – and that parish, where the old Assumption Church was on Charlevoix, where my dad’s party store was, you can see the dome of the Assumption Church. So, it was like two blocks away, three blocks. It was right across the street from Southeastern High School. And in ’67 there was an apartment building across the street from the church and there was a snipper, who was just –I don’t think it was a hate crime, or, I just think it was just a random act of vandalism. That he took a riffle and started shooting at the church. I don’t think he was – from my discussions, nobody knows why people do these things, but I don’t think it was – that the person who did this was actually targeting Greek people. But the neighborhood used to be a very strong Greek neighborhood around the church. But, the Greek people began leaving right after the Second World War. In fact, I was speaking with one of the old members of this parish at length about his – about the Greek community on the east side. And he said that the white flight began right after the Second World War. He said, “We looked at the parish roasters and saw that a lot of the addresses were already in the late forties, early fifties in St. Clair Shores, in the Grosse Pointes, in Harper Woods, so there were already a great deal of Greek people. But, you know, where the church was, there still were quite a few Greek people there. By ‘67 many of them had left and a lot – it was still an African-American neighborhood, so the person who was shooting, we don’t know if he was – was he African American? Was he white? We don’t know. It was just somebody who took a riffle and started shooting.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: And that was in July during the riots in 1967? Wow.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: So, and, there was actually, on the grounds of the church was where the helicopters would be launching—or was it at Southeastern High School? There was a vacant lot that the helicopters would be landing, so it was a landing zone where the church was.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: I believe it was at the high school, but they may have also utilized the church grounds, I’m not sure.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Well, they did, because the church filed a claim because a tank had busted one of the curbs. So in fact, I went and found the parish council minutes in ‘67 to see what damages the church had sustained in the riots and there was broken glass. There was, you know, the curb was crushed by a tank. But then, there was, apparently, a sniper who was just shooting randomly at the church, broke some windows, but had damaged an icon of the Resurrection of Christ.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Tell me about that?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Well, there was an icon that was hanging in the narthex of church, in the vestibule and one of the bullets came and pierced the icon and it was taken down, it was put in a box. It was identified as being damaged during the riots. But it was put in a box and kept in storage for the longest time. When I came to this community in 2002 we had suffered a fire. In 2003 I came but the fire was in 2002 and I found a lot of these old icons and I found this particular icon—and it even stated, there was a plate on it that says that “This icon was damaged during the riots of ’67.” There were other things I found that I said, “These should not be in boxes or in closets, they need to be displayed.” So we made an effort to display a lot of these church artifacts and that icon is one of the things that we thought should be displayed. I’m rather surprised that the church still continued to function in Detroit after that because things continued. This was not my church growing up, I only know from what people have told me. They had hired security guards, even on Sunday mornings cars were being broken into and people were being mugged. None of the evening meetings could take place, at church, you only could only go to the church on Sundays and it was only during the day otherwise people didn’t feel safe. Cars were being stolen. There was just a great deal of—the area was not very safe so they eventually decided to sell the church. They had just paid the church off actually, the mortgage. And they sold it to a black Baptist congregation that still owns the church. They still operate it but they no longer worship in the main—in the church they’re now in the Sunday school or in the community center and the church now is in complete disrepair. It’s been condemned by the City of Detroit because the dome is caved in, it’s a sad thing to see. But it’s still standing there as a monument—</span></p>
<p><span>LW: On Charlevoix?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: On Charlevoix—of what once was. But the one on Beniteau from thirties looks like a dollhouse. It’s gorgeous. It’s another Baptist congregation that has it. But the Charlevoix church, when you see it—you know, you bring any of our old parishioners—sometimes we go by it, down to our old neighborhood and you know they just start crying.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Difficult to see that like that.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Yeah.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: What was your home church growing up?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: My home church was St. Nicholas church.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay, on Woodward you said it was?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: On Woodward—at McNichols and Woodward.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: So, further up north closer to Highland Park—where you lived?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: I was born in Highland Park but I never lived there. I was born at Detroit Osteopathic Hospital, which I think has been torn down as well [laughter].</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Okay… interesting. Is there anything you want to talk about while we’re on the record? About ‘67? Or your experience as a leader in the community?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Well, in ‘67 again, I had very vivid memories. I loved my friends. I can say that I learned what friendship was and there was no color. There was no—there was nothing as far as prejudice, discrimination or bigotry. These were all words not only that we didn’t know what they meant, but we didn’t know what they felt like.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Sure.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: And I think I knew what it felt like before I knew what these words meant, after ‘67. So I think that was – not only did our neighborhood change, but we changed as well. But I think we were reacting to what we felt was being imposed upon us. So I didn’t know what it meant to be prejudiced or bigoted but I knew what it felt like.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: What do you think helped you sort of experience that feeling? Was it Allen telling you that he couldn’t play with you anymore? </span></p>
<p><span>MV: That was the first thing. I don’t know, I probably still bear a scar deep inside but I think when I was assaulted by the four girls, I didn’t know why and it was for no apparent reason. I think it was the lunch box.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: They were about how old?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Oh they were older than I was, they were in middle school. Yeah. There were four of them. I know I swung that lunch box [laughter] and I defended myself but they were on me before I could—I just remember I was just scratched up. My mom was in a panic and my dad was furious.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Sure.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: But that was such a long time ago and, you know, my mom used to always say it’s okay to get angry but never hold a grudge.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Do you think that those experiences when you were little helped shape your decision to become a priest?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Well, I’m sure they have. Because one thing, as I was trying to figure out what to do in life, I began to see there’s a lot of wounded people. I always wanted to do something that involved either protecting or healing. So, I contemplated going into the military, I contemplated going into the police department. My eyes were not good enough [laughter], so I could never pass the eye exam. I was thinking about medicine, because I always wanted to help people and then I realized to be a doctor you have to go to school for so many years and I don’t want to do that. So, I started pre-med, I shifted to engineering and I only needed one semester to get my bachelor’s from Lawrence Tech and then I gave it up. I was called to a different ministry. And that’s what I feel I’m doing—I’m healing people.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: You’re also working on your PhD?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Yes.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: And tell me about your dissertation topic for the people that don’t know?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: My dissertation topic is on Archbishop<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Iakovos<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and their involvement in the civil rights movement, and specifically in his march in Selma, Alabama with Dr. King.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: And where was that archbishop from?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: He was actually from the island of Imbros which is in the Aegean and it was—when he was born it was part of the Ottoman Empire in 1911.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Wow.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: The island was annexed by Greece, remained in Greek hands for about ten years and then it was again given back to Turkey. So, the Archbishop had to grow up in a very difficult—he was someone who was very much discriminated against. Because of his—not so much because of the color of his skin but because of his ethnicity and because of his religion.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Here in the United States?</span></p>
<p><span>MV: In Turkey.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: In Turkey. I see.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: So, this is what prompted him, he knew what it felt like to be discriminated against. He had to serve. It was compulsory military service. He had to serve in the Turkish army and to serve in the Turkish army as someone who is Greek and someone who is Christian was two strikes against you. And then when they found out he was a clergyman, he was a deacon at the time, they treated him very poorly and this is what really inspired him to get involved in the ecumenical movement and later to be a very strong advocate for civil rights and human rights.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: So some parallels to some of the conversations that are still going around about ’67 too</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Yes.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: At that time. Well thank you for your talking, on the record, about your experiences and your family’s experiences.</span></p>
<p><span>MV: Thank you for allowing me to share.</span></p>
<p><span>LW: Of course, it was my pleasure.</span></p>
**
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eSWO0xNiLCM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
Dublin Core
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Title
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Father Michael Varlamos, June 25th, 2015
Subject
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1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Greek American community—Detroit—Michigan
Assumption Greek Orthodox Church—St. Clair Shores—Michigan
Niko’s Party Store—Detroit—Michigan
Archbishop Iakovos
Civil rights movement
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview Varlamos discusses his parents’ migration from Greece to Detroit, growing up in an integrated neighborhood on Detroit’s Westside and his father’s business, Niko's Party Store, at the corner of Mack Avenue and Lemay, which was forced to close after the 1967 civil unrest. He also discusses his family’s move from Detroit to Livonia around 1970 after he was assaulted by four teenage girls in his neighborhood. Varlamos discusses the move of his current congregation, Assumption Greek Orthodox Church from Beniteau Street in Detroit to St. Clair Shores after the civil unrest of 1967. He also explains how the church on Beniteau suffered damage, including a bullet hole through an icon, in July 1967. He concludes by discussing his dissertation on Greek Orthodox priest Archbishop Iakovos who participated in the 1965 march in Selma, Alabama with Martin Luther King, Jr.
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Assumption Greek Orthodox Church
Beniteau Street
Civil Rights Movement
Detroit Community Members
Greek-American Community
Livonia
Tanks
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http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/a8928d4d38b0042a9ef7605a4fd260f5.png
db9c584602637b92c45565d09dfc1e60
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
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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
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Video
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iTTGZjZmPYg" frameborder="0"></iframe>
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
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Anthony Fierimonte
Interviewer's Name
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Ric Mixter
Date
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10/10/2014
Interview Length
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00:51:35
Brief Biography
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Anthony Fierimonte joined the Detroit Police Department at age 17. In 1967 he was working vice, and was involved in the raid on the blind pig on July 23. Fierimonte took advantage of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration programs to attend college, eventually earning a doctorate. As a professor, Fierimonte taught racial and ethnic diversity-related courses, sociology, and criminal justice. Fierimonte now resides in Florida.
Search Terms
Topics mentioned in the story which may be of larger social interest. Put general search terms in plural form (e.g. horses not horse). All items should have: "1967 riots, riots, interviews, oral history (or written history)". Some possible additional terms might be: "Detroit Police Department, police officers, Detroit Fire Department, firefighters, mayors, Clairmount Street, 12th Street, looting".
Detroit Police Department, undercover, 12th Street, blind pig, STRESS,
Interview Place
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Detroit Historical Museum, Detroit, MI
Transcriptionist
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Bree Boettner and William Winkel
Transcription Date
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02/15/16
Transcription
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<p>Ric Mixter: Tony, can you tell me first your first and last name? So I have it on tape. <br /><br />Anthony Fierimonte: I’m Anthony Fierimonte. <br /><br />RM: How do you spell that? <br /><br />AF: I was born Antonio Luigi Giuseppe Fierimonte. My mother thought I was going to be the Pope. She was mistaken [laughter]. Anthony Fierimonte. F-I-E-R-I-M-O-N-T-E. <br /><br />RM: Tell me about your folks. Your dad did what? <br /><br />AF: My dad, Pasquale Fierimonte, worked for the city of Detroit. The Department of Street Railways, which was the bus line. Streetcars and the bus line.<br /><br />RM: What was his job specifically? What would he do? <br /><br />AF: He was a mechanic and unfortunately one of his jobs was grinding brake drums that were made of asbestos and that’s what killed him. He died of —but I gotta tell you a story about my dad. When he retired – it was in the sixties – he retired and got a job somewhere else and then he retired again, but he wanted a new house. And he informed me that because the city of Detroit hired him and gave him a job for all those years, what he’s gonna do is build a new house in Detroit. So in the sixties he built a new house in Detroit. And he told me, “Son, you’re a policeman now and you've got to do exactly the same thing. You've got to live in Detroit.” So, I bought a house about eight blocks from him in Detroit. And he was so dedicated to the city, it was amazing.</p>
<p>RM: I’ll bet.</p>
<p>AF: Really, really nice. <br /><br />RM: What age was it where you thought, “I want to put a badge on.” When did you become – <br /><br />AF: Well, I went to Pershing High School and I got so many tickets from speeding and stuff. I really said, “Boy, I’m in trouble.” And there was a police cadet program that you could start at age 17 and then you worked in different police stations, in downtown and headquarters. And you answered switch boards and bank alarms and all kinds of stuff that came into the switchboard. And I said, “Well maybe if I became a police cadet I’ll quit getting all these tickets" [laughter]. But my buddy’s father worked in a cruiser called “the Big Four” and there were three plainclothes officers and one uniformed driver and he told us stories about the Big Four. And they had DeSotos or Buicks, while all police officers had Fords. So I thought, “Boy, this is great!” So that’s really what— It was Mr. Jepson. I remember his name and I applied for the police cadet program and I made it, and I started 17 in the police department. <br /><br />RM: Woah. <br /><br />AF: Right out of high school. <br /><br />RM: Now, you took it very seriously, because I saw you were first in your class when you – <br /><br />AF: Yeah, I was scholastically and that was a lot of fun. <br /><br />RM: Why was it so important for you to achieve like that? <br /><br />AF: I just – I wanted to be the best at whatever I did. And I said, “If I’m gonna be a policeman—” Oh! I gotta tell you another story. So there was an Italian inspector, Pete DeLuca, and he used to live with my dad in a rooming house. And he said to me, “What precinct would you like to go to? I can send you anywhere you want.” And I said, “It doesn’t make any difference.” And he sent me to the tenth precinct and I worked the area where unfortunately the riot started. But I said that and so, therefore, that’s where I ended up. <br /><br />RM: Describe the city at that time, what was happening? <br /><br />AF: Oh my god. Great! It was the biggest single family residential city in the United States of America. And there were probably between 1,400,000 and 1,600,000 people at that time, so vibrant. And the black community came in Detroit [during] World War II because there were jobs here in the factories and stuff. And that’s how Detroit became a terrific city to live in and I just love Detroit, it was great. J.L. Hudson’s downtown, the toy department on the twelfth floor [laughter] and we’d take the street car down there. And it was just a great place to live. <br /><br />RM: What was the department like was it becoming more integrated at that point?</p>
<p>AF: That’s really interesting because I actually became a police officer in 1962 and they just started integrating [squad] cars. So having gone to Pershing, where [it was] half black and half white, I didn’t understand this integration as being a problem. Yet, a lot of white police officers really fought it. They didn’t want to be part of the integration. Some police officers quit and I just didn’t see any problem with it. So, we got integrated and it was a slow process, but it worked. It worked because later in the ’67 era, the Federal government started having civil rights classes for police officers. Plus, the Law Enforcement Assistance Act (LEAP) started paying for college if any police officer wanted to go to school. And then when you went to school, they taught police service in the community and race relations and slowly it broke the ice. And I was so excited; I signed up for the first class and went for 16 years until I got my doctorate [laughter]. And I really appreciate the federal government. What they did and it was just wonderful. And it really helped break the ice for the police department. <br /><br />RM: And still in the city there were dark sides, where you needed a VICE team. And you kind of gravitated towards that didn’t you? <br /><br />AF: Yeah what happened, I had about 40 or 50 days on the police force and a sergeant, Gus Cardineli, pulled over one day – I was walking the beat on Twelfth Street, no PREP radio, by myself, no problem. And he said, “Hey kid, you want to go undercover?” I couldn’t believe it! I had 50, 40 days on the job. I said, “Absolutely!” So he took me under his wing and he says, “Show up. You’re going to be arresting prostitutes, going at the illegal gambling casino, blind pigs where the illegal liquor is sold, and you’re going to do that kind of stuff. And oh my god, I went home just jumping up and down with joy. It was just great. We worked every other month nine at night till five in the morning and then on days, we looked for numbers men. Do you know what numbers men–? Numbers men is just like when you go in and play three numbers. It was illegal then and the people would go around and say, “You want to bet today?” and they would give them a quarter or fifty cents and they would bet three numbers and then at a certain time, based on horse races, they would calculate different horse races and come up with a number. Now, the number was the mafia number. The Italian community ruled that. They ruled that for probably about 15 years, but half way through that there was the black Pontiac number. There was a black number and a white number and the numbers were different. It was supposed to be the same scenario [laughter]. I think when too many bets came in on a certain number, they changed it. I don’t know. But anyway, that was on the day shift and on the night shift we did the other thing and it was really exciting. <br /><br />RM: Was there a bigger crackdown when Cavanagh came into office? <br /><br />AF: No. I've got to correct something. Every precinct had a “clean-up crew” that did this type of thing: liquor enforcement, beer and wine stores selling to minors, bling pigs. Every precinct had one, white community and black community. It wasn’t singled out for just the black community at all. And I've got to admit to you, working in the black community was twice as much fun as working in the white community and I’ll tell you why. Because as we made these raids and stuff, they would go along with it and say, “Hey, you busted us. This is it.” And I did eventually go into the white community and do the same thing, and they always had a friend who was a judge and a police commander or lieutenant and “you can’t take me in. It’s going to be the end of my life,” and I said, “What B.S.” You know? It was much more fun in the tenth precinct. And that’s the true story. <br /><br />RM: Can you explain the Blind Pig, what’s the origin of the name? <br /><br />AF: Yeah, it started during prohibition because you couldn’t get booze anywhere, so people – oh I don’t know where the world started “blind pig” but that was the nickname they gave it in the prohibition days. And this is what’s happening with Detroit which was really kind of exciting. The Baptist ministers, especially the black Baptist ministers they were all tight with any administration it was, Cavanagh, Cobo. Who was the Italian mayor? Miriani. And what they would do, they would say, “Hey you've got to stop these people from doing, going drinking all night, you know, we’re the church.” And so they made sure all the bars closed at 2:30, liquor quit being served at 2 o’clock, so you got this element saying, “This is it, come to church tomorrow” then you got this other element saying, “I’m not ready to quit drinking I want to have some fun.” I always wondered what would have happened if the city would have allowed bars to be open until 4 or 5. Las Vegas of course does, some other cities, Florida allows – you buy a longer license so you can stay open till 4. But they didn’t, the Baptists were strong, so you had this dichotomy. And so we were told to enforce the law, and that was the law. You couldn’t do anything in that venue after 2:30 in the morning and you had to be licensed. And now a blind pig you could, mostly to sell liquor, then a step up there was prostitutes and you could go in a room and do whatever you wanted the prostitute to do. Then there would be dice tables and you would gamble and you could do all that stuff in a blind pig. Any time somebody took a cut of the money it became illegal and that gave us the right to break in to rescue the undercover officer that was inside the place. So we would give him, after we saw him walk in the door, we’d give him five minutes to make a wager or buy a drink and see the guy accept money, see him take his cut, gambling table take his cut, and then we would raid the place. And it was, from ’62 when I started, to the riots, the night of the riots July 23, 1967, a crowd would gather when we made a raid it was something to look at, you know. But we never had a problem. But the country was getting tense and things were happening all over, and a lot of the black community was unhappy [with] what was happening. Because they felt they were segregated and they couldn’t get employment that they wanted, and they were stuck in, apartments that had been cut up and one apartment became two. And just a few people had air conditioning in the hot summer nights and they would go out on Twelfth street and Linwood and Dexter and they would go out to see what’s happening and it got out of hand. <br /><br />RM: You sent in two officers in to the one that happened in ’67? <br /><br />AF: Yes, yes, we had a Sergeant Howison who told me he would kill me if he ever saw me again [laughter] he was a relief sergeant, he was a patrol sergeant but he was filling in for the night. I was the crew leader and we had two black officers, Charles Henry and – my mind just went blank.</p>
<p>RM: That’s okay.</p>
<p>AF: So, Charles Henry and [flipping through notes] I’m not going to tell you ever [laughter]. Joseph Brown. Charles Henry and Joseph Brown. And Charles Henry ended up becoming a commander, and he was a really, really nice guy – and I don’t know the career of the other officer. Sergeant Art Howison stayed in the patrol. But I've got to tell you a side issue, so now Congress calls the police commissioner in Detroit, I’m guessing Ray Girardin—no it wasn’t Ray Girardin. Anyway the police commissioner, the number one guy, he was an appointee, and Sergeant Art Howison went with him to Washington, DC to testify in Congress and Sergeant Art Howison was really clever on the way back I believe on the train, he asked the commissioner if he could have permission to live out of the city, because at that time nobody could live out of the city, police or fire, and he gave him permission. So I was always, wondering what if I would have gone along, I could be living on a lake somewhere, in a cottage but anyway. He was a fine sergeant, and all the guys were great, really great. <br /><br />RM: The day you went in, what was the cue that you guys could come in then? Did you have wireless? <br /><br />AF: I had an informant, and the informant, I would, he would give me stuff, you know, you work with informants and you gave him breaks because you've got to barter. And he says, “I got a hot party going on tonight at 9123 Twelfth Street, Twelfth Street just north of Clairmount, two buildings, upstairs,” and so got together with Henry and Brown, and I says, “Hey, let’s give it try, you go down there and see if you can get in.” They did and they couldn’t get in so then they came back and I says, "You know what, wait ‘til some beautiful ladies go up to the door and go in with them." Sure as heck, they got in. So then it was real simple, all we had to do was wait five minutes and they knew they either do it or come back out, you know. And they actually were able to get up there and make an illegal buy and so I says, “Hey this is easy we’re going to break the door down," so we went up and we, just four or five of us, because we had no problems with blind pigs, and we couldn’t get the door down. We couldn’t break the door down. And you know, now they have all those [gestures a ram], but then we didn’t. And the fire truck happened to come by and says, "You wanna borrow our ax?" and I says, "No, you do it," and they were able to break the door down. So we went up these tall flight of stairs and we go into the room. We expected 15 people, 20 people. There were 85. 85 in a room that fit, tops, 40. And we went in and announced, “Police, everybody calm down it’s a raid, dah dah dah dah dah.” And they started throwing cue balls at us, there was a pool table. So I grabbed my police officers to pull them out of the opening into the hallway and other blacks held onto the black police officers. "You’re not taking anybody to jail!" [laughter], they meant well. Anyway, we got them out there, we closed the door and they started throwing things out the window. Chairs, throwing cue balls and they drew a crowd so then we had a PREP – I think we had a PREP by that time, PREP radio – and I called for a paddy wagon, you know to take the prisoners in. And I says, "I think I’m gonna need two or three paddy wagons," I says, "They’re really a fight in there." I could hear them fighting. And the dispatcher says, "We don’t have enough personnel in the city,” honest to god truth I can’t believe this, “to send you the paddy wagons.” We have 204 – I learned later, we had 204 police officers working the whole city of Detroit, 1,600,000 people. And we had 5,000 police officers at that time, but it was a weekend and all kinds of people got time off. I don’t know, I don’t know. So, they had a special patrol force, these are people just out of the academy that are being trained and the sergeant that is in charge of the patrol force heard my calls and he came with the men, and then the cruiser, remember I told you about the cruiser, they pulled up and a crowd gathered and somebody broke the back window out of the cruiser, the Buick—great looking car—and it got out of hand. We finally got paddy wagons and we loaded the paddy wagons and took them into the tenth precinct, which was brand new on Livernois and Elmhurst, brand new police station. We were at Joy and Petoskey before in a building that was built around 1900. So this was such a nice improvement and I told one of the police officers, go into the deli on the corner and call us on the phone every once and a while and tell us what’s going on. And I go into the police station with the prisoners and Lieutenant Ray Good, I’ll never forget this guy loved him, older gentleman, and I says, "Boss, you better get out there. There is a big problem brewing." and he said to me, "Fierimonte, you’re always exaggerating, every time you do something you exaggerate." I said, "Boss, I’m telling you, go." He says, "You know what I’m going to 5 o’clock mass, I’ll stop out there and take a look, but you know Tony, I’m wasting my time." Half hour later he comes in he’s bleeding from his forehead, [laughter] somebody threw a stone at him, "Fierimonte, I’ll never talk to you again! What did you do, you dumbass? What the hell is going on?" Anyways, he then started the ball rolling for MO4, which means calling all police officers in. A huge crowd had gathered and they started to break in to these stores. Now what was interesting, I consider it a riot; I don’t consider it anything else, because unfortunately they broke into black businesses, they broke into white businesses, they started stealing everything out of the stores and then the mayor was notified and he went out there with Senator, god who was it, state Senator. I think he’s still a state senator. <br /><br />RM: Levin? <br /><br />AF: No, no, no, black senator. <br /><br />RM: Oh. <br /><br />AF: Conyers! Could have been Conyers. I’m almost positive. And they gave the order, don’t shoot, be cool, just let it go. That was the order they gave them, and word got out. Word got out, and suddenly there’s, you know, 50,000 people on Twelfth Street just helping themselves to everything. I think part of what they said was okay, but part of it was not, because people started dying. They got into a fight in a meat market, looting the meat and they hung one of the guys on a meat hook, and killed him. Then on Seward and Twelfth was a liquor store, and while they looted the upstairs, some guys went down to get the cases of booze downstairs and the guys upstairs put the place on fire and everybody in the basement died. And that really started to escalate, and the most – I’m jumping ahead a little bit because this was a 14-day situation. I’m jumping ahead a little bit, but picture this: when the fire department came out, they would shoot at the fire department. So on Linwood – and I have pictures of this for an eighth of a mile – on Linwood they were breaking into the stores on Linwood and then they would set the stores on fire and then they would go down Pingree to put the stuff they’d taken into their homes. Now you gotta understand, this is very important, this was probably ten percent of the people in the community. This wasn’t everybody. I mean all kinds of blacks came up to us, saying, "Please help us" and ten percent of the rioters, easily, were white. It was a festive occasion but it was deadly. Then every single house on both sides of the street for an eighth of a mile burned to the ground, and I have the pictures and everything. And it was just mind boggling. <br /><br />Now I want to lighten this up. So two guys stole a Munzt TV with a stereo and a radio. These were really long – you probably got them in the museum here, and they got into a fight. One guy split the damn thing in half and the other guy called the police. So, that was the easiest two arrests ever made. [laughter] Another thing, they went into a carpet store and stole a ream of carpeting and put it on the roof of a Volkswagen and all four tires splayed out and it was just funny and tragic at the same time. Now you've got to remember the majority of the black community wasn’t involved in this but then you've got to look at it another way, they were destroying the stores in their neighborhood that they had to shop in and a lot of people in the neighborhood – it was a poorer neighborhood – didn’t have cars and they had no place to shop to. And this lasted for years after all this fire and everything. I became an anti-sniper, working 12 midnight to 12 noon and I got that silly police car that I loved with no back window. And we put a piece of plywood under there and we put a Thompson submachine gun on the trunk and we were supposed to shoot back at the snipers. Trust me, I couldn’t hit anything with that machine gun, if I had thrown it at them, maybe I would have hit it. That thing danced all over the place, it was a .45 and it was a joke, you know. Then a company called Stoner lent us weapons that could go through brick, and they brought in a special squad, dressed in all black who – they would go out, if somebody shot out a window they’d shoot back. 47 people died during the riots in 1967, but what really stopped it was not us. The State Police couldn’t stop it, the National Guard couldn’t stop it, the 101st Airborne came in from Vietnam and they brought tanks and the tanks went down the street, and I only have one story about the tanks that I was involved in. We had somebody shooting out of a church steeple and we were at Davidson and Woodrow Wilson, and south was the church steeple, we could see the flashes. And the guy opened the lid on the tank and said, "Block your ears," and he shot the steeple right off the church [laughter] with the gun and once that started happening and, there was you know, military in there and they treated it very aggressively, everything stopped. Now if I can go aside for a minute there was something else to think about, a year later unfortunately, Martin Luther King got killed and the instructions from the police department – I was 28 when that happened – was to take enforcement action immediately and within two or three hours everything had stopped and nothing happened. There was no problems, but for the first two or three hours there were. They were looting on Grand River and everybody’s coming home from downtown Detroit out Grand River to the Redford area and everything stopped. So, you know, it’s easy to Monday morning quarterback, do you go back and say, "Well we shoulda done that," you know. But Cavanagh was feeling for the community, you know, and they were suppressed and they note they had problems with jobs and a lot of it exists today unfortunately. You know it amazes me that there isn’t even good bus service to the suburbs so people can take a bus and get a job in the suburbs, a lot of people would like to do that. Now I know Detroit’s making a comeback and I love it and the community, it’s going to be strong and great but it’s going to take time. I went on to become an adjunct professor at Wayne State University and I taught Police Service in the Community and some race relation classes and when they put my name on the syllabus they would say police officer and I’d get 98 students because what police officer could say anything about race relations? We had a ball. We had a ball. We did a lot of role reversals and all kinds of really neat things and it was so much fun. And when I got my doctorate, I had retired, and I started helping troubled police officers. I worked with a physiatrist in St. Clair Shores and then when the patients would not show up, because police officers have a tendency to not show up because they don’t want to deal with the problems they have. I started investing in real estate and that became my third and final career, I have a Fierimonte Street in Clinton Township, we built a couple hundred condos, I was a small partner —25 percent— shopping centers, built a restaurant called Tony Pepperoni’s and retired from there moved to Florida and now I buy condos on the intercostal, fix them up and sell them. I’m on my twenty-ninth one. <br /><br />RM: Wow. <br /><br />AF: I did volunteer work in Broward County, Florida, which was really really nice, it was in a major crisis situations I worked with the families of the deceased. And I’m also on the Pension Board for the City of Deerfield Beach and three other organizations. I don’t wanna bore you to death. <br /><br />RM: No, you’re not. <br /><br />AF: But, I’m 74 years old and the police department was the greatest job I ever had. Really the greatest <br /><br />RM: Tell me a little more about when the tanks rolled in. What did the Police Department feel? What was the feeling of this massive military force was coming in? What were you feeling? <br /><br />AF: Great relief, really great relief. It was, we needed it. We couldn’t handle it, it’s just sporadic shooting and you’re driving down the street and suddenly somebody’s shooting at you from a window and they came in. Now, there was a Lieutenant Bannon, he retired as I think a deputy chief, now he could hear radio communication between people. The Panthers, you remember or have you ever read about the Panthers? So there were groups and they’re organized to do the shooting and everything. And I always wondered what did they think it was the end of the world? Now the flip side of that was there were some police officers, I know one that got fired, who thought it was gonna be the end of the world, who thought we were gonna rule the community with, you know, all force. But the Black Panthers were a big issue with the sniping. <br /><br />RM: Let’s talk about once the tanks came in, you said you saw the one steeple get blow up? <br /><br />AF: Yes <br /><br />RM: Did you see that it was starting to calm down at that point? <br /><br />AF: Yes, it really calmed down quickly, in a matter of I think three or four nights. <br /><br />RM: Wow, and then what happened? How did—? <br /><br />AF: Everything got back to normal, it just ended. And that’s how they happen that way today. They just end. You know the Rodney King thing in California, they do 3-4 million dollars’ worth of damage and then it ends. And, did Rodney King deserve to be beat up that night, you know? It’s up to the courts, that’s the court’s decision to make not a policeman’s. That’s how it goes. <br /><br />RM: Was there a grudge by the police then because of what had been happening?</p>
<p>AF: Yes, after the ’67 riots there was a grudge, and that’s when the Federal government came in and there was some great reports, the Kerner Report on the riots and all kinds of instructions of how to quell – how to improve the relationships between the police departments and the community. Now, I gotta tell you an interesting story, when Coleman Young became mayor in 1974, the black community was seventy percent of the population and in the police department they were thirty percent of the population, so I mean something to think about. I had the honor of working for Deputy Chief Frank Blount, who is deceased now, and he became one of my best friends, and he wanted to make that right. I proposed to him and the mayor at a meeting that we hire – they were laying off at Chrysler Corporations in ’74, the gas crisis and everything – I said, "Let’s go after the black community those people that worked at Chrysler for 5, 10, 15 years, let’s hire them as policemen." I says, "You know they’ve got a proven track record and everything," and the mayor said – it was his call – "I got elected by the people of the City of Detroit and I don’t care if somebody was arrested once, let’s lower the qualifications, let’s hire the people off the street, that’s the people who voted for me," and I always think that was a problem because why not go for the best? But he felt we’re going to hire black people that live out of Detroit? Should we do that, shouldn’t we do that?’ And he made it clear we’re not doing that. And I got involved – if I can go for a minute – I got involved in Boston Bussing, Judge DeMaso ruled that they had to cross district [bus] in Detroit. So they sent me to Boston with Deputy Chief Frank Blount, Sergeant Vivian Edmonds and two other officers and we talked to the police department there, how did it go, what problems did you have? And one police officer that was on a motorcycle between buses as they were being crossed district, somebody threw a brick out of a window. It didn’t hit him, but he died of a heart attack and so the Boston Police Department was up in arms a little bit. But, Boston is segregated. The Italians, the blacks, and the Irish, they’re segregated geographically because there’s water between the neighborhoods, and there was a third way. And I’ll never forget this as long as I live, I went up to an Irish superintendent, I mean he was like number one, and I says, “How do you feel about blacks being cross district into your schools and your neighborhoods?" He says, “Blacks? We don’t even want the Italians!” [laughter] I thought this is great, you know when I teach college, this is going to be great. You know, it was a great response. It brings back a lot of memories.</p>
<p>RM: I’ll bet. What happened right after the riot?</p>
<p>AF: They decided they had enough of me at the tenth precinct. I don’t know why. [laughter] So they sent me to the fifteenth Precinct on Gratiot and Connors and there —<br /><br /> Oh I've got to stop for a minute. So, my mother was from the old country and my dad, and my mother didn’t want me to be a policeman. So I told my mother because I took business in high school, and I knew how to type, I’m a clerk in a police station. [mimics Mother] “Bless you son, bless you. You have this wonderful job, don’t go outside. You could get hurt. You can get hurt” And then the riots broke out [laughter, mimics mother] “I should spank you like I used to when you were young!” But I got transferred to the fifteenth precinct and I worked plain clothes, I was a patrolman still, I applied for a job as Chief of Police of Clinton Township, MI and I came in number two and there was an inspector in the police department that didn’t get accepted and nobody could believe it. Anyway, I didn’t take the job, I had no choice. But interesting how I didn’t get the job, there was a black constable working the black community in Clinton Township, this is a good lesson, and they says he’s been there forever, we’re going to become a police department, would you make him a police officer and he’s really good with the community. And I had been reading managers associations on police departments and how to organize them and everything and I say, "Yes, I definitely would, but he’s got to pass the basic test." And I didn’t get the job because of that answer, they wanted me to say, "Of course I’ll make a policeman out of him." What I should have said is, "Yes, let me train him, let me talk about how to pass the test, let me work with him, and we can get him through, once he qualifies." I made the wrong answer. And they told me why I didn’t get the job and that was why. They hired a Police Sergeant from Grosse Pointe who ended up stealing from the property room, you know where evidence is stored. He lost his job. I then applied for Chief of Police in Lighthouse Point, FL and I came in number one. 300 applicants. I was a Lieutenant and came back and I told them I’d accept the job and I hired an attorney to do the negotiating, Calkins was his name, and they started calling me at the Detroit Police Department. I was Head of Staff for Deputy Chief Frank Blount, and somebody cut out an article in the Sun Sentinel and sent it to the Chief that I had accepted this job and Frank Blount got wind of it. Oh my god, between him and my mother! My mother: "You can’t move, you can’t leave, you’ve got two sisters here to take care of. This is terrible how can you do this!" I says, "Ma, come to Florida it’s a great place, you’ll love it down there." “No, no, no. You can’t go.” I turned the job down, but I got two more promotions from Coleman Young, I became an Inspector and then a Commander. So I was number 3 out of 5,000 men. That wasn’t bad. But there was a lot of Commanders, it’s not. But, I went to the fifteenth precinct and suddenly they asked me if I wanted to work white rackets, clean up, morality, or whatever you want to call it. And I said sure. But it wasn’t as much fun like I said previously. Everybody, "You can’t do this to me I’m important,” you know, “I’m this, I’m that.” But I did it there, then I was sent to research and development as a writer and I stayed there a year and a half and I became a detective and got transferred to the fifth Precinct. Then three months later I became a sergeant – you had to take tests for this. And sure enough, they put me back in morality in charge of this crew and then I became a lieutenant of special operations which included all that stuff. Then I went to work for Deputy Chief Frank Blount, then I went to the FBI Academy, I did three months there, session 112 they call it. That was an honor. And that’s about it.</p>
<p>RM: How about the police department itself in ’67 did you see a big change? You mention all this stuff coming from the federal government to kind of change the mentality a little bit? <br /><br />AF: It was a very slow process. Very slow process. <br /><br />RM: What did you see? <br /><br />AF: When affirmative action started, they would take an exam. People would take an exam, and if you were an officer in the first ten then they would pick an officer that was 40 and promote him over you it became embitterment, really, really — you know. And Frank Blount used to always say, “I got all my promotions by being on top of the test and I earned them” but the mayor had a point because we gotta get supervisors of the black community as supervisors to even out the score card because every time somebody called the people it was all white. So it’s a tradeoff, and it was a slow process. Let me ask you a question, what do you think of the police department now? <br /><br />RM: It’s tough for me because I’m from Saginaw, I don’t follow this close.</p>
<p>AF: Oh are you? [laughter]</p>
<p>RM: Yeah, I’ve got family members that are officers. <br /><br />AF: Do you?<br /><br />RM: Yeah, so I guess I’d be a little more jaded. Do you think it could have been done different? Would you have done anything different during that blind pig or during the time that you were there? <br /><br />AF: Well, we made a raid, a crowd gathered like always, but suddenly they started breaking into windows and stuff and stealing, and they never did that before. So how can you do anything different, you know? And when we made raids after that, it was totally different. There were a lot of police at the raid and – we didn’t even have uniformed policemen when we made the raid. There was nothing to it, just nothing to it. It was just a "hey you’re drinking, you got caught, you’re running a blind pig" and we would normally take the engagers to court, the ones running the place. <br /><br />RM: A lot of the same faces then? Would you see a lot of the same people? <br /><br />AF: Yeah, mostly in the numbers rackets you’d see a lot of the same people. And, I was working with a guy nicknamed Harry the Horse and we caught a guy with a stash of numbers and money and stuff. And he says, “Hey you can’t arrest me I know Harry the Horse” and he was talking to Harry the Horse [laughter] stuff like that, you know. We had great cooperation, remember, all of our information was coming from the black community, so they wanted these places closed down because they couldn’t sleep at night and it was in residential neighborhoods, with the exception of the one on Twelfth Street, but still there were houses right behind it, you know.<br /><br />RM: People might think that riots are inevitable, if you look at what’s happening in Ferguson. What are your thoughts on that? With people and all the studies you’ve done. <br /><br />AF: You know that’s a good question and that’s one I don’t have the answer too. I really don’t. Now there saying that the Ferguson Police Department is too white, you know, but how many black citizens applied for a job to be a policeman. That’s another way to look at it too. And can you pass the qualifications? <br /><br />RM: Do you think the police are under fire? <br /><br />AF: Oh! [nods head] <br /><br />RM: Do you see that at once every kind wanted to be an astronaut, a cop, or a firefighter? Do you think that’s true today? <br /><br />AF: No, not at all, it’s dangerous. Not because black or white, because of dope. You get people on drugs and they need a fix. I mean they kill you even though you start to give them the money, they’re so jittery they’ll kill you. And that’s the biggest problem. You know, forget about race. In Detroit the crime is high, Flint is higher, right by where you live in Saginaw and it’s the drug issue over and over and over again. I always wondered if we would legalize this stuff in some kind of orderly way so they can get it, would it really make a big difference and stop a lot of these crimes, it’s an interesting issue. <br /><br />RM: Tracy mentioned, when I first started talking about you, that you came to the museum and said, "I started the riot!" How do you fit into all of this, what do you feel? <br /><br />AF: I was sitting at home flipping through my scrapbook for the first time in ten years and I says I wonder if anybody would be interested in hearing my story” and I went to — I forgot where I went. I was talking to somebody and he says, "Go to the Detroit Historical Museum. They’re really down to earth and nice people, and they’d like to hear it." So I called and I talked to Adam Lovell and suddenly they were interested because they were going to do this presentation in 2017 and I met them with Joel Stone and we talked for an hour until they got sick of me and they says, "We’ll get in touch with you." <br /><br />RM: Why do you think it’s so important to preserve this, this piece of our history? <br /><br />AF: Well, to learn from our lessons, of course that’s always the case and we gotta put all these civil disturbances all together and come up with a way to put a stop to them. Because the end result: nobody wins, nobody wins. Communities are destroyed, businesses are gone and nobody wins. And that’s why I’m here.<br /><br />RM: What did I miss? Is there anything else, I mean what’s the number one thing I can’t miss when we tell this story? What do you want, I guess you kind of put it in a nutshell right there. <br /><br />AF: Yeah, don’t forget the comedy part, because there was a lot – Oh! I got another one but I don’t think you want to tell it. [Laughter] <br /><br />RM: Well, let’s hear it! I’ll be the judge of that. [Laughter] <br /><br />AF: We were, there was an African Antiquities place and they broke in and as I’m running down the alley after one of the guys he turned and threw a spear at me [laughter] and I still have the spear! [laughter] Course it was funny at the time but I felt sorry for the business owner, they had destroyed the place, and it was a black owned business, you know<br /><br />RM: It’s hard to put any kind of, I guess any kind of reason, into a lot of that isn’t it?<br /><br />AF: No, it is. They’ve – all the fires, you know. The fires have been a big thing in Detroit, at least the day before Halloween it’s kind of subsided, you know. And everybody loves this new mayor, so I think if he tears the burned out houses down —and look at the renaissance of the Grand Boulevard area and Downtown and its exciting, you know. <br /><br />RM: So you think something was learned in ’67? <br /><br />AF: Well, it never happened again. Never happened again. Wait let me knock on wood [laughter, knocks head].<br /><br />RM: That’s awesome.</p>
**
People
List any relevant people (interviewers, interviewees, important people mentioned, etc). Please use "Lastname, Firstname".
Cavanagh, Jerome
Girardin, Ray
Duration
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51:35
Interviewer
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Ric Mixter
Interviewee
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Anthony Fierimonte
Location
The location of the interview
Detroit Historical Museum
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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Anthony Fierimonte, October 10th, 2014
Description
An account of the resource
Former Detroit Police officer Anthony Fierimonte discusses his experiences on the force--including his role in the raid on the blind pig at Twelfth Street and Clairmont Street on July 23, 1967.<br /><br /><strong>NOTE: This interview contains profanity and/or explicit language.</strong>
Subject
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1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan, Detroit Police Department—Detroit—Michigan
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
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MP4 video
Language
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en-US
Type
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Moving Image
101st Airborne
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Blind Pig
Detroit Police Department
STRESS
Tanks
Tenth Precinct
The Big Four
Twelfth Street
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http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/6be74890476e5d87cbb959cda575ad24.JPG
2f9f3cc574214cb36d80f77423cf13f0
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
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Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
William Chope
Brief Biography
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William Chope was born March 23, 1949 in Detroit, Michigan and was raised in Grosse Pointe. Chope was 18 years old in July 1967 and worked for the National Bank of Detroit and Keans Detroit Yacht Harbor. He currently lives in Grosse Pointe and is president of Crest Automotive Inc.
Interviewer's Name
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Lillian Wilson
Interview Place
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Detroit Historical Museum, 5401 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI 48202
Date
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07/25/2015
Interview Length
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00:14:34
Transcriptionist
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Lillian Wilson
Transcription
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<p>LW: Today is July 25, 2015 this is the interview of Bill [William] Chope by Lily Wilson. We are at the Detroit Historical Museum in Detroit, Michigan. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project. Bill, can you tell me where and when you were born?</p>
<p>WC: Yes, I was born in Detroit, Michigan on March 23, 1949—right here at Harper Hospital.</p>
<p>LW: Okay. And tell me a little bit about your family and how they came to Detroit.</p>
<p>WC: Well, my great great-grandfather came here in 1856 from Bitterford, England and he was a blacksmith by trade but he started a wagon manufacturing company that was E. Chope and Sons and it became quite successful. And by the turn of the century he was asked to be on the planning commission that helped design Grand Boulevard. In fact, he was township commissioner of Greenfield Township at that time and as a politician and a Republican he got together with Hazen Pingree and developed the idea to build a beautiful boulevard that would surround the growing city of Detroit at the time. And because of his involvement he was written up in the Burton History of Wayne County, Burton History of Detroit so we were able to find out a great deal about our family and our great-grandfather because of his participation in that. When I’m thinking in terms of what happened in 1967, I like to note that my great-grandfather, Charles Henry Chope, served during the Civil War during the Iron Brigade, the Detroit 24th, which a lot of people may not realize but Campus Martius, the statue there, is dedicated to the Iron Brigade and they were a critical part of the war at Gettysburg and Michigan was an important part of defending and bringing the Union back together. And a true national hero back in those days was Abraham Lincoln.</p>
<p>LW: Right.</p>
<p>WC: Kind of a lot of background there. Also, as a side note my mother Dorothy Schuler was living in Indian Village and was living on Iroquois just a few blocks away from the race riots of 1943 which were centered at Van Dyke and Kercheval in Detroit so when you think in terms of 1967 versus today, here we are 50 years later but back then 1967 was really just a few years—20 years or more since World War II.</p>
<p>LW: Yeah.</p>
<p>WC: It was very much a different time in Detroit, a different place. In 1967 Detroit was a vibrant city with well over almost two million residents, and a real booming metropolis.</p>
<p>LW: Now what were you doing in July of 1967?</p>
<p>WC: In 1967 I graduated from Grosse Pointe High.</p>
<p>LW: Okay.</p>
<p>WC: So I had two summer jobs.</p>
<p>LW: Okay.</p>
<p>WC: So one summer job that weekend, I was a dock boy at Kean’s Detroit Yacht Club on the Detroit River. But my other summer job I had been hired as a part time employee by the National Bank of Detroit. There was a wonderful personnel manager there, Medina Caesar, and I had interviewed with her in the spring so that I would have a summer job and I had worked for her the previous summer doing surveys at National Bank of Detroit branches around the Detroit area and basically was counting the number of people in line at various teller stations—</p>
<p>LW: Ah.</p>
<p>WC: Which eventually developed the rope system we’re all used to today where we stand in line and then go one at a time. But believe it or not people had not thought of that and we were part of a study, or studying that, in 1966. In 1967, when I applied with Medina again for a summer job I was asked to become a large deposit teller and I actually worked in the headquarters of National Bank of Detroit the building is now the Chase Bank Building in downtown Detroit. But two stories below the ground was a large cash vault. And what would happen there is armored trucks would bring in bags of receipts from cash registers at Wrigley’s Supermarket or Borman Foods was a huge customer of the bank as well as Clark gas stations—Clark gas stations were pretty popular back then, as an independent gas company.</p>
<p>LW: Okay.</p>
<p>WC: Gasoline company. When it came to July of 1967, I would take the bus from Grosse Pointe—the Jefferson Avenue bus—from Grosse Pointe down to NBD and our family was pretty disciplined, my parents were disciplined about work and you never missed a day of work and you certainly always got to work on time. So while the riots had started that weekend and were peaking or being developed—a lot of the incidents you read about happened even that first Sunday evening. Monday morning I walked to the bus stop and took the bus down to NBD in Detroit. When I got there, found out that very few people came to work in fact, I think there was just 18 of us that came to work that day.</p>
<p>LW: Wow.</p>
<p>WC: Security was there security was present at any bank, that wasn’t unusual but the security people brought us inside and locked the doors behind us. And fortunately, or just as a side note for getting paid, I was actually there most of the day, down in the cafeteria area and also near the cash vault. Towards the end of the day, around four o’clock, security said it seemed to be nothing—not a lot had gone on that day, at least not in the downtown core, so they brought us up to go home. And I was stunned when we came up, out of the building, right there at Kennedy Square, there was a whole series of tanks and troop carriers, much like a scene that you would see in World War II, turning around Kennedy Square and heading north up Woodward. And it really was an unforgettable scene to think of our city of Detroit looking like Berlin at the end of World War II. And we were able to get over to the bus and I took the Jefferson Avenue bus back home and it was somewhat surreal to be riding on the bus because it was like you were looking out of a—at a TV screen of a dramatic scene going on. And one of the real memories is when we got to oh, I think, around the St. Jean area—and keep in mind Detroit at the time—Jefferson Avenue was just bustling with people. Certainly as you headed towards the east side and it was a very much an integrated community and then by the time you got to the Jefferson-Chalmers area, certainly more white and then at the time Grosse Pointe—the five Grosse Pointes—were almost all white. So we’re traveling down Jefferson in a very surreal scene we sat there at a stop light as a young man picked up a trash can, he was black, off the street corner, and hurled it through the plate glass window of a drug store. And while there really wasn’t much of a crowd, maybe a half-dozen people from the neighborhood, they kind of all cheered and jumped up and down. I don’t recall seeing any looting but we were just stunned to see a thriving business with that kind of destruction taking place while we were right there at a stop light on the bus. The next day, coming back to work—again, that work ethic, not wanting to miss a day of work [laughter]—a real surprising event at the time, again at St. Jean and Mack—this was before the new Chrysler plant—but at St. Jean and Mack was the relatively brand new headquarters called the Fifth Precinct. Again, the east side being a thriving area, close to the water, the Fifth Precinct was kind of the pride of the Detroit Police Department. And here right out on the front lawn, the National Guard had created a sand bag .50 caliber machine gun nest just like you would see during the war, and they were defending—or there to defend—the Fifth Precinct, from this machine gun nest. So again, here we are in traffic, on the bus, seeing this scene that you would never expect to see in Detroit or even in America.</p>
<p>LW: Wow. So how old were you at the time?</p>
<p>WC: I was 18.</p>
<p>LW: You were 18. So sitting on that bus, can you tell me about the other people on the bus? Were they black? White? What was their racial makeup?</p>
<p>WC: You know, I don’t know, but I would say it would have been a majority white at the time.</p>
<p>LW: Okay. And do you remember talking to anyone else on that bus? Or anyone else’s reaction?</p>
<p>WC: You know it was interesting. My recollection is there wasn’t a lot of conversation or alarm. Again, it was like you were just sitting at home watching TV and the surreal stuff was going on and the bus driver didn’t really say anything. He’d stop and the light and just continue on. So, very unusual from what you would expect. Again, it just felt like you were watching this stuff on TV but of course it wasn’t TV, it was very, very real.</p>
<p>LW: And what were the cross streets, do you remember, for Jefferson where you saw this young man throw the garbage man through the window?</p>
<p>WC: It would have been there on the east side very close to the St. Jean area.</p>
<p>LW: Okay.</p>
<p>WC: Not far from the police precinct of course.</p>
<p>LW: So as an 18-year-old, what were your sort of feelings--sort of deep down about what you were seeing?</p>
<p>WC: You know I thought of it as an unfortunate incident. There was some interesting things going on in Grosse Pointe. My parents were never gun owners, my dad never hunted. Yet neighbors were literally coming around on Sunday and Monday and offering my dad a shotgun and actually talking—at the time as a teenager I thought it was crazy talk—they were talking about, “The blacks were going to be coming, they were going to take us, and we better have guns to defend our homes.” And of course, “blacks” as a terms didn’t really—I don’t think it really existed very widely. That came years later with Black Pride. Of course everyone was “negroes” or “colored” or of course—</p>
<p>LW: The n-word.</p>
<p>WC: The n-word. That’s what I always like to say was the more popular word of the day.</p>
<p>LW: I see. So a lot of fear in your neighborhood anyways, at least.</p>
<p>WC: Yes, fear among people my parents’ age, not so much among myself as a teenager. In fact, as a side note, being a teenager and it being summer and dating at the time, one of the things my parents had said was you’re not to go into the city of Detroit at night. And as any good teenager of course I violated that every single night of the riots.</p>
<p>LW: Wow.</p>
<p>WC: In fact, a woman who’s still a friend to this day, we joke about our one and only date and I don’t recall if it was Monday or Tuesday night, but at the time, a group of friends and I had an apartment down in the Wayne State area on Prentis Avenue that our parents didn’t know about. But this was a place we could take dates and at times drink beer and enjoy ourselves without worrying about police or parents. So, here I drove that Monday evening down with this gal down to the apartment on Prentis and Detroit was pretty quiet. Coming down [I]-94 I can recall going over I-75 bridge to get to the Woodward exit and there were virtually no cars out there. Which should have been a real sign that this was a bad mistake. [Laughter]. We got to the apartment on Prentis and we’re sitting in there having beer and talking and listening to music. And there was no air conditioning so the screen windows were open and after a bit of time we could actually smell smoke of the city on fire, not really that many blocks away. And we kind of looked at each other and said, “You know, this is a really bad idea being down here right now.” So kind of my parent’s words echoing in my ears. We got back in the car and drove back to Grosse Pointe and again very little traffic around very little signs of what was going on just a few blocks away.</p>
<p>LW: Wow. Is there anything else you can remember about that time that you want to share with us?</p>
<p>WC: Well, one thing and this was kind of unfortunate but again it was of my parents’ generation but going to work part time back at Kean’s Yacht Harbor, which was gated and a boat harbor right there on the river, I can remember Louis Kean and older gentleman standing out by the back gate with a shot gun. At the time there was no security so you took care of things yourself. And just again, I never felt any fear or panic it just seemed unusual that people we acting this way.</p>
<p>LW: Wow. Well, thank you for sharing this.</p>
<p>WC: Well, thank you for having me.</p>
**
Search Terms
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Grosse Pointe, Kean's Detroit Yacht Harbor, National Bank of Detroit, Jefferson Avenue
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SLW2yb7vt4w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
Dublin Core
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Title
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William Chope, July 25th, 2015
Subject
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1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Grosse Pointe—Michigan
Jefferson Avenue—Detroit—Michigan
Kean’s Detroit Yacht Harbor
National Bank of Detroit
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Chope discusses taking the Jefferson Avenue bus to and from his home in Grosse Pointe to work at the National Bank of Detroit during the 1967 civil disturbance. He discusses the destruction of property he witnessed and the reaction of some members of the Grosse Pointe community to the civil disturbance.
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M4A on iPhone
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Grosse Pointe
Jefferson Avenue
Looting
National Bank of Detroit
Public Transportation
Tanks
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http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/95b4f8de27daaac4435830e0b2055c1c.jpg
5aa9809d636dbefa7de5271316f1a7e3
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
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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
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Renee Giles
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Renee Giles was born on April 30, 1956 and grew up on west and northwest neighborhoods of Detroit. In 1967, when she was 11, Renee and her family were living in a home on Fourteenth Street and were forced to evacuate. In 1970, her father purchased a home on Birwood. Today, Giles still lives in the northwest Detroit neighborhood.
Interviewer's Name
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Noah Levinson
Interview Place
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Detroit, MI
Date
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08/03/2015
Interview Length
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00:30:48
Transcriptionist
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Tobi Voigt
Transcription Date
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10/23/2015
Transcription
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<p>NL: Today is August 3, 2015. This is the interview of Renee Giles by Noah Levinson. We are in Renee Giles home in Detroit, Michigan and this interview is for the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project. Renee, could you please first tell me where and when you were born?</p>
<p>RG: I was born in Detroit Michigan, April 30, 1956.</p>
<p>NL: What neighborhood do you first remember living in when you were growing up?</p>
<p>RG: I would say on Burlingame.</p>
<p>NL: Do you know near what other streets?</p>
<p>RG: Burlingame and Dexter. </p>
<p>NL: And how long did you live there for?</p>
<p>RG: We lived there for approximately—probably three years.</p>
<p>NL: So that’s in Northwest Detroit. Did you live in any other neighborhoods of Detroit when you were growing up?</p>
<p>RG: Yes, we stayed on Fourteenth Street, and that was between Virginia Park and West Euclid.</p>
<p>NL: So also Northwest Detroit.</p>
<p>RL: On the west side.</p>
<p>NL: On the west side. So, what can you tell me about your memories of those neighborhoods when you were young, growing up in the 50s and 60s?</p>
<p>RL: On Burlingame, it was just fun. A lot of kids on the block, everybody just having fun, riding bikes. Parents looking out for other children; you now, as they say now, it takes a village to raise a child? That’s what they did back then. When I was still living on Burlingame, my father’s brother, he stayed on the corner of Burlingame. So it was like everybody was still close together, you know, during that time. And we ran from his house to a neighbor’s house to our friend’s house, so it was just nice back then. Then we moved on Fourteenth Street. That street, it was OK. It was different, you know? It was more traffic because we stayed on the main street. And the schools, they wasn’t far, because I went to Thurgood Elementary and I also went to Hutchins Junior High School during that time. And that was basically it for staying there, but I do remember across the street from us, well, category [kitty-corner?] from us across the street, it was like some older guys would stay there. And my father, he worked at Ford Motor Company during that time. And since he had more girls, it was like he knew he couldn’t live there for a long time. That’s when we moved over this way. He bought the house down the street from where we at now.</p>
<p>NL: Where was that at?</p>
<p>RG: 19318 Birwood.</p>
<p>NL: Oh! Right on Birwood, too.</p>
<p>RG: Yes, the next block.</p>
<p>NL: And when was that you moved to this neighborhood?</p>
<p>RG: We moved down in 1970.</p>
<p>NL: 1970</p>
<p>RG: Valentine’s Day. That was my mother’s Valentine’s present.</p>
<p>NL: Pretty nice present.</p>
<p>RG: Yes.</p>
<p>NL: You said your dad worked at Ford. What kind of work did he do?</p>
<p>RG: He worked in the steel department at Ford Motor Company at River Rouge. I remember that. But one thing I did like, I never will forget: My father every Saturday, he would leave money on the dresser. He told my mother to take me and my oldest sister on the bus to show us how to get downtown and back. So she did that. And every Saturday he left money on the dresser for us to go shopping. So that was fun.</p>
<p>NL: Can you tell me about some of your memories? What part of town would you go shopping in? What stores?</p>
<p>RG: Oh, downtown. We went to Lerner’s, back then. And also, J.L. Hudson’s, back then. [laughing] And Whitney’s. There was a Whitney’s store on Woodward also.</p>
<p>NL: And, what do you remember about—what did that look like or sound or feel like when you were downtown?</p>
<p>RG: Beautiful. Ooh, downtown, everything—it was just people everywhere; I would say it was like Chicago. The way Chicago is now. That’s how downtown Detroit was. People everywhere. All the stores was open. No vacant buildings. You know, you can go from one store to another store. All different shops: stockings or wigs, everything. Everything was just so nice downtown back then.</p>
<p>NL: What kind of work did your mom do?</p>
<p>RG: My mother, she didn’t work. She stayed home with us during that time.</p>
<p>NL: Can you tell me a little bit more about the neighborhoods that you were growing up in on the west side and Northwest Detroit. When you were living there, was it mostly black families in the neighborhood? Was there a mix of people to some degree?</p>
<p>RG: No, all blacks, I do remember that. And those are the two neighborhoods basically I kinda do remember, that I can really talk about, you know. And it was just really, yeah, all black neighborhood for those two.</p>
<p>NL: And was that the case in your schools, too?</p>
<p>RG: The schools? Yes.</p>
<p>NL: So, in 1967, you were living on Fourteenth Street. Is that right?</p>
<p>RG: Yes.</p>
<p>NL: Ok, can you tell me, Fourteenth Street and what?</p>
<p>RG: Ok, Fourteenth Street is just like Seven Mile, okay, a main street. And it would be like Birwood and the next street there were the two side streets. They would be Virginia Park and West Euclid. That’s how we lived. The street behind us was Twelfth Street. Okay?</p>
<p>NL: Gotcha. Can you tell me about you first heard about or how you first noticed the disturbance on Twelfth Street?</p>
<p>RG: Me and my sister—we are 11 months apart–we walked to the store on Twelfth Street. And as we was coming back home, we was coming down West Euclid. And it was a lot of people outside just screaming and yelling, and we was like, we didn’t know what was happening. So we just continued to start walking and—I never will forget, it was a little three-wheel—a tricycle on the ground. This guy picked it up. It was a checkered cab driver, and he took the tricycle and he just was banging, breaking all the windows out in the cab. And the guy, he was a white guy that was inside and he was just all cut up. And me and my sister just looked at each other and we ran home. And my mother told us we needed to stay in the house. And so, you could just hear people outside. Just a lot of noise. And then, about a few days later, the National Guards came and we had to lay on the floor in our bedrooms. And my father told us do not go to the windows at all and look out, period, at all, at night time, do not look out. And one day, one of the National Guards came and he knocked on the door and they told us we had to leave our house. It was too dangerous where we was at, because we was too close to Twelfth Street, right then. So, it was six of us. There were six kids and then my mother and father. So, during that time my father didn’t have a car, so we got up and went to the closest relative's house, which was my mother’s cousin. She stayed on West Grand Boulevard. So we all walked there and the first night everything was fine, you know. The second night my mother was sitting outside with one of my sisters, the younger sisters. She had to be like one, no, less than one. A few months, I would say about eight or nine months. They was sitting outside. It was hot. A car came by and shot at them. The bullet missed them. It went inside the brick wall. So after that, we left there. My uncle came and got us. He stayed on West Philadelphia, off of Linwood. He came and picked us up, we went over to his house. And we stayed there. And over there, it was like those two family flats, okay. So, you can hear everything that’s shooting at night you know and everything. It was real bad, I mean, real bad. And you could see during the day people was looting. They had TVs, furniture, walking down the street and everything. So this one particular day, it was a gas station on Linwood and Philadelphia, on the corner. And it caught on fire somehow. I don’t know if someone started the fire there or whatever, but it was on fire. And the first house next to it coming down the block, the fire jumped over that house and burnt down all the rest of the houses in a row. Now, in the middle of that block, we was on the opposite side of the street and we can see how the fire is just burning all these houses down, one after one.</p>
<p>NL: Just keeps spreading.</p>
<p>RG: Just keeps spreading. You know, the fire department, they couldn’t come out. And this one particular house, the roof was like this [gestures], it was about to collapse. But the man that stayed upstairs, he was in a wheelchair and he couldn’t come down. But we didn’t know that he was in a wheelchair at that time, so it was people in the neighborhood, they knew he was in a wheelchair. And they was hollering whatever his name, you know, I don’t know his name. But they were hollering that he was in the house and he was in a wheelchair, he wasn’t able to come down the steps. My father ran inside. I told my father, “Don’t go in!” because I’m looking at the roof about to collapse, and I’m hollering and screaming, telling him don’t go inside. And my father went inside and brought him out and saved his life. And as soon as they made it out, the roof came down. But it was like 10 houses burned down in a row.</p>
<p>NL: Wow.</p>
<p>RG: Sure did</p>
<p>NL: That’s incredible. Did your father continue any kind of relationship with that man after that?</p>
<p>RG: No. He just brought him down to safety and that was that. And so then after a while everything had calmed down and we was able to go back home. Then in 1970, that’s when my father moved and bought the house down the street and brought us out of that neighborhood.</p>
<p>NL: How long do you think it was that you were out of your house before you got back to Fourteenth Street?</p>
<p>RG: Probably about, I’d say five days.</p>
<p>NL: Okay, and there was no damage to your house?</p>
<p>RG: No.</p>
<p>NL: What about your neighbors on the block?</p>
<p>RG: No, because the National Guards were on our street. You could hear the tanks before we left. We could hear the tanks when we laid on the floor. You could hear the tanks coming down the street: boom-boom-boom-boom-boom, like that. They were so heavy. They were on our street. That’s why there was no damage or anything to our house. Because that’s what they was like, on every block.</p>
<p>NL: Do you remember anything else specific about when the National Guard came to your door and talked to your dad and said you guys need to move out of here right now?</p>
<p>RG: That’s the only thing I remember is that when he came, he told my father “Be sure to tell your kids do not look out the windows at night.” That’s what he said the first day that he came. And the next time he came was when he said we had to leave because things was getting real bad.</p>
<p>NL: Okay. Did they help you at all when you were moving to your relative’s house or they just say, “You need to go.”</p>
<p>RG: They just said we had to go. And that’s what we did.</p>
<p>NL: And by the time you got back, were all the National Guard and the tanks gone already?</p>
<p>RG: Uh-huh. Everything had basically calmed down.</p>
<p>NL: What do you remember—actually, first, so I know you had the order from the National Guard and from your dad to not to look out the window. Did you ever sneak a peek?</p>
<p>RG: Oh no! The way the shooting was over there, you could hear all the shooting and it was just terrible. You wouldn’t dare look out the window.</p>
<p>NL: Okay. It was all around the clock?</p>
<p>RG: Yes. It was just shooting, especially at night time. You just can hear it, especially at night time just shooting everywhere. So you dared yourself to look out that window. And we just made sure we was on the floor. We made our pallets and laid on the floor every night until we left there.</p>
<p>NL: What do you remember that next week after you’re back in your house on Fourteenth Street, the next time you went around the neighborhood, what did you notice?</p>
<p>RG: A lot of things was destroyed. I mean, it really looked bad. Twelfth Street really looked bad. Really, like, Fourteenth Street? I guess because it was basically houses, like the duplexes on that street, it really wasn’t bad like that. But Twelfth Street, bcause they had a lot of stores and everything, that was the hardest hit of the neighborhood, was Twelfth Street. </p>
<p>NL: Was there still any fires or looting or gunfire at that point?</p>
<p>RG: No.</p>
<p>NL: It was all safe?</p>
<p>RG: Everything was settled down then. </p>
<p>NL: And then you stayed living in that neighborhood for almost three years after that? Can you talk about what was the neighborhood like after all of that?</p>
<p>RG: You know, basically, it went back to the same. It’s just that the buildings were burned down or everything was just tore up on Twelfth Street. People was trying to cleanup over there, but basically everything just went back to normal. We went back to school, people went back to work. You know, trying to get their lives back together and that was basically it.</p>
<p>NL: Do you remember, in three years that you were still living there, had they started rebuilding any new things on Twelfth Street?</p>
<p>RG: Oh no. No. Everything was still burnt down. Nothing was rebuilt.</p>
<p>NL: And then, you were in middle school by the time you moved to this neighborhood here, is that right?</p>
<p>RG: Yes.</p>
<p>NL: And you went to high school around here as well?</p>
<p>RG: Yes. Mumford High School.</p>
<p>NL: Mumford High School. Can you tell me about your experience in high school?</p>
<p>RG: Oh, yes. Oh, I loved it over here, when we moved here. It was like a whole different environment over here, when we first moved in 1970. Mumford? Just wonderful. The teachers was nice, principal, you know. They made sure that you learnt. I just really enjoyed myself there at Mumford.</p>
<p>NL: Was it an integrated school at that point?</p>
<p>RG: There was some whites still there, during that time. Not a whole lot, but there were some. It was still majority African Americans, but it worked. There was still some whites there. </p>
<p>NL: Did you know anyone personally who took part in any of the looting and thievery in 1967?</p>
<p>RG: No. [laughing]</p>
<p>NL: Do you still – today, 2015 – do you go back and visit downtown or your old neighborhood very often?</p>
<p>RG: You know, this is what I did. I took my children over there so they could see where I lived at and grew up at, and just to show them the different houses I had stayed in. And that was basically it, you know. Nothing too much. But really, to really drive down Twelfth Street since I’ve really been over here? No. </p>
<p>NL: What about downtown?</p>
<p>RG: Downtown? I’ve been downtown and it’s not like it used be. It’s a few stores still open, but not like it was. I don’t even shop down there anymore because it’s not even enough stores open down there.</p>
<p>NL: So where do you go to shop instead?</p>
<p>RG: I go to Fairlane or Oakland Mall.</p>
<p>NL: Does anything besides shopping—I guess you do shopping elsewhere. Is there any other things you do when you are downtown?</p>
<p>RG: I go to Hart Plaza. It’s beautiful there.</p>
<p>NL: Does Hart Plaza is still feel or look the same that it did when you were growing up?</p>
<p>RG: Oh no. It’s much better now, especially with the walk? You know it’s beautiful now. I love how it is now downtown. It’s like it’s more relaxed downtown at Hart Plaza.</p>
<p>NL: Do you see the city continuing to make those kind of improvements to bring people downtown?</p>
<p>RG: Oh, yes! I really do. You see what Dan Gilbert is doing. He’s making that railroad or whatever on Woodward?</p>
<p>NL: Sure. Right in front of the museum.</p>
<p>RG: Yes, yeah my daughter works for him. So, this—Downtown is really going to be nice. I think in time, I think that people are going to buy more business downtown, on Woodward, to bring more business back there, you know. I think it’s going to happen in time. It’s gonna be the old downtown it used to be back in the 60s.</p>
<p>NL: That would be the dream, I think. Thinking back again to 1967: I know you were young then, but did you think at the time – or even now, looking back –what are your thoughts about what caused all of that to happen? All of the violence?</p>
<p>RG: From what I was told by my parents and what I was told by older people, they said that on that night, early in the morning on Twelfth Street – and I think it was Twelfth and Tuxedo [Clairmount] – but it was a blind pig, which they call an after hour joint. And the police went in; they said it was all white police officers went in, and they threw some black girls down the steps. And that’s what started the race riot during that time. That’s what I was told.</p>
<p>NL: Do you have any thoughts about how—because that’s what started it all, for sure, but everything that was happening really spread around these different parts of the city. Did you have an inkling as to why it got so big?</p>
<p>RG: No, I didn’t. I never understood that. Because it seems like it just would have stayed there, but it went everywhere.</p>
<p>NL: Yeah. Some people that we’ve talked to have talked about discrimination by the Detroit police at that time, you know, racial discrimination and profiling. Is that something you ever remember experiencing when you were growing up?</p>
<p>RG: No, maybe because I was too young, you know? My parents, I would say – they wouldn’t allow me to just wander off. I would never be by myself anyway. It was like me and my sister might walk to the store and come back, but that was basically it. We was always around the house.</p>
<p>NL: So you had good trust in police officers at that time, growing up?</p>
<p>RG: To be truthful, yes! Because I didn’t have any other reason not to. To me, it was like, I didn’t know about black or white, or a race thing or whatever until it was told to me after the riot. But I had trust in all police officers. It was, like, they were there to help me if I needed help, you know. That’s how I looked at it.</p>
<p>NL: Did you see – once you were out of your house and you were at your relatives’ houses, did you see a lot of police and National Guard and fire interacting with people to help calm the riots?</p>
<p>RG: No, none. Basically, my father he didn’t allow us, from my uncle’s house once we got there, because things were so bad, we basically stayed in front of the house. We wasn’t allowed to go on Linwood where all of the looting—there probably was police officers down there, or whatever, or National Guards, but we wasn’t allowed to go down there at all. We was just in one place, in front of the house. The only thing we saw was people coming with furniture, TVs, you know, stuff like that they were taking into their house. And then we just saw when all the houses burnt down in a row.</p>
<p>NL: Can you tell me about the picture of your aunt?</p>
<p>RG: Oh, yes. My auntie – a very sweet person, very sweet, you know. But she meant everything she said; she was firm. [laughing] I had asked her about—this is my second time seeing that, I had saw it once was before, but it was a very long time ago, and I asked her and she had told me, that she—I guess she was trying to bring her bed down, you know, just her and her husband. And my niece, when my niece was younger then, and she just was tired of bringing stuff down from upstairs—because back then the steps was steep, going up like that. And she said she just rested. She just was tired, and somehow they took her picture.</p>
<p>NL: You don’t know who took the picture, then?</p>
<p>RG: No.</p>
<p>NL: To clarify for the listeners, there is a picture that ended up being of Renee’s aunt, lying on a mattress, and that was shared around Facebook and that’s how she first found out about the project. </p>
<p>RG: Yes, and her name was Emily Jane [unclear]</p>
<p>NL: What neighborhood was she living in?</p>
<p>RG: On Linwood.</p>
<p>NL: Okay, so she was right in your neighborhood when you were growing up, pretty close.</p>
<p>RG: Well, she was close by. I would say from my house to where she was at, no more than 15 to 20 minutes away, from Fourteenth Street to Linwood. But she was close to her brother’s house, the house we had to go to and live at during the riot. But as I said, she lived above the restaurant that she was working at, or running –manager or whatever you want to call it she was doing then for someone. And she lived upstairs.</p>
<p>NL: Do you remember the name of the restaurant?</p>
<p>RG: No, I don’t remember the name of it, but that’s where she worked at. She worked downstairs from her apartment. </p>
<p>NL: Did it stay intact and keep running after the riots?</p>
<p>RG: Oh, no. That was tore down also.</p>
<p>NL: Do you remember, during that week—so you and your siblings were staying put under strict orders – were the adults coming and going from the house, though? Were they going to work, anybody?</p>
<p>RG: No. It was just: no work, no school, everything was just shut down, everybody was home.</p>
<p>NL: What about getting food and things, in the house?</p>
<p>RG: If you didn’t have food in your house then, that was it, because -- My uncle and my father, they didn’t go out to the stores. It was just too bad. But it happened so my uncle had food and he had a freezer also, so there was enough to hold us over.</p>
<p>NL: So you didn’t have to worry about that.</p>
<p>RG: No, we didn’t have to worry about it.</p>
<p>NL: That’s fortunate.</p>
<p>RG: Because if you didn’t have any food, that means you gotta be out there in the looting and in the grocery market, because there was nobody really that you could give the money to. That’s how bad it was.</p>
<p>NL: So the only way would have been to take the food. To just take it.</p>
<p>RG: [talking over each other] Yes, take it, right.</p>
<p>NL: Fascinating times. Is there anything else you’d like to share with us today?</p>
<p>RG: Well really, you know, I just hope and pray that Detroit never have a riot like they did in ’67. Because to be truthful, and I also told my children, if that ever happens, I will have to leave Michigan. Because it’s impossible to rebuild after something like that. Look how long it’s taking to rebuild from the ’67 riot, from Twelfth Street, Linwood, you know, a lot of things still probably aren’t up completely from where they were then. So, I just hope that Detroit stays on that forward, positive move that they’re trying to do now, because a riot is something that Detroit definitely doesn’t need. At all.</p>
<p>NL: Would you like to see that same area on the west side rebuilt, or do you think it’s better or easier for Detroit to focus on rebuilding downtown and other neighborhoods?</p>
<p>RG: Oh no. You know what? I think they should rebuild over there and downtown, you know, all different areas of Detroit. They need to go around and rebuild different places. Because people still have to live in different areas.</p>
<p>NL: How do you think we can get people involved to do that, because the city does not have much funds, unfortunately, to do those kinds of projects. </p>
<p>RG: And you know what, and that’s the thing. A lot of people will not get involved in doing any type of development to bring Detroit up like that, you know, because the first thing they will say [is that] the city has the money. Just like the roads, they feel the city has the money. Because we already voted no for the roads, because they felt the city has the money. So to rebuild Detroit, they wouldn’t do it. Because they figure, “I’m not going to waste my time doing that because downtown they have the money to do it.”</p>
<p>NL: Is there anything else you care to add?</p>
<p>RG: No, that’s basically it.</p>
<p>NL: Alright, well thank you so much for sharing your stories and memories with us today, Renee.</p>
<p>RG: Okay, thank you so much.</p>
**
Search Terms
Topics mentioned in the story which may be of larger social interest. Put general search terms in plural form (e.g. horses not horse). All items should have: "1967 riots, riots, interviews, oral history (or written history)". Some possible additional terms might be: "Detroit Police Department, police officers, Detroit Fire Department, firefighters, mayors, Clairmount Street, 12th Street, looting".
arson, 12th Street, 14th Street, Burlingame, Linwood, National Guard, looting, gunfire
Video
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zsnIZiLOWmE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
Dublin Core
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Title
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Renee Giles, August 3rd, 2015
Description
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In this interview, Giles discusses her experiences as an 11 year old living on Fourteenth Street near the origin of the unrest in July 1967. She and her family were evacuated by the National Guard and stayed with relatives. Her father saved a wheelchair-bound man from an arson-induced house fire, she and her sister witnessed a cab driver assault his passenger, and her mother and baby sister survived a drive-by shooting.
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Detroit Historical Society
Date
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10/23/2015
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
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audio, image
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en-US
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Arson
Burlingame
Childhood
Children
Fourteenth Street
Growing Up In Detroit
Linwood Street
Looting
Michigan National Guard
Tanks
Twelfth Street
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/ae1da288e24ad6040205794e7d368a0f.jpg
b15dd21bf41e3e9a267d5f50e39e4018
Dublin Core
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Title
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Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
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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
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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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Richard Rybinski
Brief Biography
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Richard Rybinski was born in Detroit on April 22, 1940 and grew up in the Warrendale Neighborhood on the far west side of Detroit. He attended Wayne State University and was working for the City of Detroit Housing Commission and living in the Midtown neighborhood at the time of the 1967 civil disturbance.
Interviewer's Name
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Noah Levinson
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Detroit Historical Museum, Detroit, MI
Date
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07/25/2015
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49:43
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Mark Kwicinski
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11/07/2015
Transcription
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<p>NL: Today is July 25, 2015. This is the interview of Dick Rybinski by Noah Levinson. We are at the Detroit Historical Museum in Detroit, Michigan, and this interview is for the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project.</p>
<p>Dick, thanks for coming in today. Could you first tell us where and when were you born?</p>
<p>
RR: Detroit, Michigan, couple blocks over from here at Women’s Hospital.</p>
<p>
NL: And when was that?</p>
<p>
RR: April 22, 1940. Women’s Hospital is now Hutzel Hospital.</p>
<p>
NL: And what neighborhood—what part of Detroit were you first living in growing up?
</p>
<p>RR: In Warrendale. In southwest Detroit right at the border near Rouge Park, about a mile and a half from Henry Ford’s Fairlane Estate. I am, was not one of Henry Ford’s [laughter]—so it was a working class neighborhood.
</p>
<p>NL: Working class neighborhood. And about how long did you live there?</p>
<p>
RR: From 1940 to about 1963.</p>
<p>
NL: Could you describe your memories growing up in that neighborhood?</p>
<p>
RR: Yeah, Warrendale was a good place to grow up and escape from. Okay? When I was a little kid I could go out my front porch, and if I turned my head just a little bit I could see all the way to Rouge Park. There were no houses. Mine was the last paved street except for Evergreen and there were scattered houses here and there, mostly along the Warren Avenue spine, which was known as the Crosstown Line. And then after the war it was developed because, you know, my brother came back, and all of his compatriots who won the war came back, and they needed a place to live. So just about all the vacant land was developed for the first time, with housing. And I lived, as I said, I lived there until about 1963.</p>
<p>
NL: Did it remain a middle class neighborhood after that postwar development?</p>
<p>
RR: Yeah, it was—first of all it was a white neighborhood. It was primarily Polish, although there were other ethnic groups—Italians, Jews—no blacks, okay? And people lived there, raised their families, did their shopping there. The whole shot.</p>
<p>
NL: Do you have any inkling of, if the whiteness of the neighborhood, was that something systemic, or something cultural? As to just where individuals —</p>
<p>
RR: Both. It was systemic because, you know, Detroit and America were primarily white, was segregated. I mean, America was founded on two things: slavery, and genocide of the Indians. I mean, the only reason we imported the blacks after we stole the land from the Indians was because we couldn’t enslave the Indians. So we wanted to wipe them out and we used the blacks as cheap slave labor. Okay? And we still are struggling with that problem. I mean, America really has a true dilemma in that if you are white, you look at black people as a threat, and if you’re black, they look at us as the oppressor. Okay? I don’t want to talk about that too much, but you asked the question.</p>
<p>
NL: Sure. Where did you live after 1963?</p>
<p>
RR: In this neighborhood.</p>
<p>
NL: In Midtown, where we are right now?</p>
<p>
RR: Right. I moved out of my home because I was going to Wayne State University. I first moved to 800 Prentis, where I lived with my girlfriend. My parents didn’t like that particularly, but you know, that’s tough. And then from there I moved onto Forest Avenue, onto Hancock Avenue, onto Forest Avenue again. Then for a brief period of time I moved up on East Grand Boulevard over where the streetcar used to make the turn to go to Dodge Main, where my father was working. And then I moved back to 700 Prentis, and then to 665 Hancock, where I lived for a long time, and then I moved to 667, which is part of the same building, and I lived there for a long time, until my first marriage, and then I moved out to Palmer Park.</p>
<p>
NL: Could you describe the Midtown neighborhood during the first years that you were living there, I guess before the Wayne campus got built up?</p>
<p>
RR: Oh, no. Wayne University was—</p>
<p>
NL: One building?</p>
<p>
RR: No, more than one building. It was started at Old Main, you know, old Central High School, but the state had it—it had gone from being Wayne University to Wayne State University, and then Wayne State University fought off the University of Michigan, which wanted to assimilate it, because they wanted a campus in Detroit. But Wayne was going its own way. Wayne State already had Old Main—</p>
<p>
NL: A new—</p>
<p>
RR: One, yeah, it had Old Main; it had the Medical School. It had, let’s see, State Hall; the Science Building; it had the library; it had—I mentioned State Hall—it also had the Science Building right at Woodward and Cass; and it had the Engineering Building, right over on Third Avenue. And it had a lot other buildings that it inherited. And Wayne State was in a growth mode, if you will. So—eventually it closed Second Avenue. Second Avenue was a main thoroughfare, and I think it closed Second Avenue right around 1965. I was already here, living here, when they closed Second Avenue, and diverted it—the traffic onto Hancock, where I was living by then, and then over on Third Avenue, which became Mad Anthony Wayne Drive.</p>
<p>
NL: Glad you said that. I don’t know anyone else who calls it Mad Anthony Wayne Drive. I think that should be the official name. It’s more fun [laughter].</p>
<p>
RR: Yeah, right, right. It’s a more colorful name, and Mad Anthony was in many ways mad.</p>
<p>
NL: Yup. That’s a little further back in history than we’re talking about today. Could you talk a little bit about the diversity of the neighborhood in Midtown while you were living there? Was there diversity?</p>
<p>
RR: White and black, yeah. I mean, it was mixed. It was whites living next to blacks. Hancock at that time, not so much in my building, but the building right next door had black people in it. You had Yono’s down the street. Yono’s was the little convenience store of the neighborhood, or of that. And there was Sharkey’s down the way. Both of which were Chaldean businesses. There were Jewish people. I mean, it was “the hood,” as some people referred to it.</p>
<p>
NL: And how did living in that integrated neighborhood affect your life and your livelihood as compared to Warrendale?</p>
<p>
RR: It was different. I mean, it truly was different. I mean, in Warrendale, except for the mailman, and a few delivery people, we didn’t have black people. I knew of them, because my dad didn’t have a car—even though he was working in the auto industry, he just did not have a car and we used the bus to get downtown. Took the Crosstown Line to Grand River, and Grand River downtown. And if you are ever on the Crosstown Line, you find yourself sitting right next to black people. Didn’t bother me.</p>
<p>
NL: You said that your dad worked at the Dodge plant—</p>
<p>
RR: Right, at Dodge Main.</p>
<p>
NL: What type of work did he do?</p>
<p>
RR: He was a core maker, a skilled laborer. Worked in the foundry. Before that he worked for Henry Ford, knew him personally.</p>
<p>
NL: Hmm!</p>
<p>
RR: There was a little bit of a dustup with him, and he moved up over to Dodge Main. And he worked there all through the Depression, through World War II, up until the day he retired from Dodge Main in the early sixties.</p>
<p>
NL: Did you ever go visit him at the factory there?</p>
<p>
RR: No, I never went into Dodge Main, but my cousin, who came back from World War II, for a brief while was working at Dodge Main, and he wanted to see his Uncle Al. So, on his lunch hour he asked his foreman, “Hey, my Uncle Al is working in the foundry, can I go see him?” And he got permission to go, and, “How do I get there?” And, you know, “You go dup, dup, dup, dup” through the various turns, and it was a maze, “and you’ll get to a door, it will say ‘Foundry’—open the door and go down.” My cousin Ray found the door, opened it up, the blast of heat that came out, he said it was like opening the doors of hell. [laughter] He closed it, and he never went down to see my dad.</p>
<p>
I mean, the conditions down there were hellish. I mean they truly were! In the summer, if the temperature got over 93 degrees, they let the men off, in the foundry, because—
</p>
<p>NL: Dangerous!</p>
<p>
RR: How danger was—you know, they lived with it!</p>
<p>
NL: That’s true.</p>
<p>
RR: I mean, when the bells went off, you had to make damn sure your head wasn’t in the way of the bucket going overhead with the molten steel. And it was my job to make the cores of the engines, which were made down there. I mean, he made the molds, and all that, and then they poured it, the molten steel, into the core. It was skilled labor. I used to like to go down into the basement in Warrendale and watch my dad, who had a small thing down there, and he would make castings—molten metal castings—for various people that needed a casting.</p>
<p>
NL: Did your mom work?</p>
<p>
RR: Yes, my mother worked—well, for a while, during the Second War, she was one of Rosie the Riveters. She worked at the Cadillac Plant on Michigan Avenue. She was a fine—she used to drill castings for aircraft engines which were made at the Cadillac Plant. And she’d use a—the drill bits were so fine that a hair was too big. And she worked as a factory worker up until 1945—when we won the war, and the men came back, and she was laid off. And then she became a cleaning woman downtown. Every day she’d get on the bus—she’d leave about 4:30 in the afternoon—she would get on the bus: Crosstown to Grand River to downtown, and she worked there in the Lafayette Building. And she worked—you know, she got off around midnight, one o’clock. But by then my dad was home. Well, come to think, my dad was working afternoons. Yeah, that was the period when I was more or less on my own, but my sisters had—in charge. My sister Mary was older, she was in high school at the time, and my sister Rita was six years older than I. So, they were supposed to watch me, but lots of luck [laughter]. So anyway—does that answer your question?</p>
<p>
NL: It does. Could you tell me about your career, since college?</p>
<p>
RR: Since college? Okay—</p>
<p>
NL: Yeah, or, well, starting as far back as you care to share.</p>
<p>
RR: Okay, my first job was as a—about six years old, and I used to sweep the sidewalks at the drug store right on the corner at Warren and Piedmont. And then I had a number of other jobs—the best job was working as a junior usher at Briggs Stadium—</p>
<p>
NL: Wow.</p>
<p>
RR: —at that time. Well, it became Tiger Stadium, you know, blah, blah, blah. And my job was to basically take peoples’ tickets, run like hell up the steps, clean the—and you know, we were just working for tips, but on a good night, I mean, tips might—you might come out of there with 25 dollars in quarters.</p>
<p>
NL: Wow.</p>
<p>
RR: I mean, that was a hell of a lot of money back when I was doing it</p>
<p>
NL: Absolutely.</p>
<p>
RR: And I was used to having—</p>
<p>
NL: [speaking at same time] That’s the definition of deep pockets!</p>
<p>
RR: That’s right. Like a friend of mine who worked right next to me said, “Yeah, I’ll always have money jingling in my pockets”—during the season. I mean, during the football and baseball season. Yeah, I used to love to go see Ted Williams hit them. I mean that guy—when Ted Williams was in town, I would go there deliberately just to see him do batting practice.</p>
<p>
NL: Wow.</p>
<p>
RR: I mean, Ted Williams would take five swings, and four out of five would be line drives into the upper deck. And if he missed, it was a line drive into the lower deck, but they were all line drives. I mean, Ted Williams was something else.</p>
<p>
NL: I’d love to hear more about Ted Williams, but another time.</p>
<p>
RR: Yeah, right. We’re getting far afield [laughter]—</p>
<p>
NL: How many seasons or years did you do that for?</p>
<p>
RR: From the time I was able to get work and paid, from I think about age 12—I probably lied—until I was18. I mean, that’s what I did. I had paper routes.</p>
<p>
NL: OK, So it’s throughout much of the fifties.</p>
<p>
RR: Right, right. Throughout the fifties, that was my—the big source of money.</p>
<p>
NL: And then what other jobs did you have?</p>
<p>
RR: Since then?</p>
<p>
NL: Yes.</p>
<p>
RR: I mean, I worked for a very long time while I was going to undergrad school at Sanders. I was, at first a busboy, and then became stock boy, and I worked at a number of locations in the Sanders chains. It was—hey, it was good money. I mean, from my standpoint. I think I still have a paycheck but for 36 hours. I was clearing—you know, must have been getting two-something [dollars] an hour then. I mean, that was a lot of money. But still, everything is relative. Hey, but that’s how I was paying, paying the nut for 800 Prentis, where I was living. And I had a car. Having a car was a big thing back then.</p>
<p>
So anyway, then after that I got a real job. I went down, filled out a form for the city of Detroit for the civil service. And after they didn’t call me for about two weeks, I called them, and they came down, and they said, “Well, you’re going over to the Housing Commission.” “Where’s that?” “2211 Orleans, right across from St. Joseph’s Church on Gratiot, and you report to Mr. Smith.” So I did that the next day. And I worked—the first assignment that I had was to Eight Mile–Wyoming, which as an urban renewal project that had been stopped because we were being sued by the residents of Eight Mile because they didn’t like what we were doing, which was basically spot clearance in some areas and making other improvements, you know, improving the street lighting. Eight Mile–Wyoming was the black community out there in northwest Detroit. It was surrounded by the white community. I mean, it was the—</p>
<p>
NL: So this was before the major suburban sprawl had begun?</p>
<p>
RR: Yeah, right. Eight Mile–Wyoming was concurrent with the Lafayette Projects, the urban renewal projects which cleared out Black Bottom. It’s current, modern day Lafayette Park, which was centered around the Housing Commission because the Housing Commission was the—even though the Housing Commission was operating the public housing units around town, they were given the responsibility to also do the urban renewal projects, do the clearance projects. The Housing Commission was an interesting place to work, because it was a totally integrated community: primarily white, a lot of black, and we had Jewish people, we had a couple Chaldean people, and Armenians, and—you know, the whole schmear.</p>
<p>
Anyway, I was out at Eight Mile–Wyoming, which was a great place to work. That’s where I met people that I still know today, including Ron Hewitt, who figures later in my story. Ron Hewitt eventually came over at, came up out of the housing project where he was working, and Bob Knox, who was the director at that time, was doing, you know, a circle. And Ron Hewitt was—he was stuck there in Herman Gardens. And he, you know, piped up when he saw Bob Knox, he said, “Mr. Knox, when are you going to take me downtown?” And Bob Knox—who was an interesting character in his own right—looked over, “Who is that guy?” And he was sent back downtown. He was vetted by Uncle Frank downtown, and they took him out from that and said, well, yeah, go out to Eight Mile–Wyoming, which is where I met him.</p>
<p>
So anyway, Eight Mile–Wyoming was an interesting group. That’s where I met the first Armenian that I ever met, Frank Kachigian (?), who—Frank Kachigian had a real thing about the Turks. I mean, he did not like the Turks. I mean, the Turks had basically tried to wipe his people out in Armenia. He was the son of immigrants from Armenia, so, anyway, and that’s where Stan Lewin was. Stan Lewin was a true gentleman. Anyway, from Eight Mile–Wyoming I worked my way out of there into the neighborhood conservation group downtown; was sent out to Jefferson–Chalmers, which is at the extreme southeast side of Detroit, right on the Grosse Pointe border. And from there I worked my way back downtown, where the action was. And it was there that I was working in 1967. I was working downtown. I was one of the people that they had decided was pretty goddamn smart. And I was working for Uncle Frank by then. So anyway—</p>
<p>
NL: Well that’s a good segue. Can you tell us about your experiences in July 1967?</p>
<p>
RR: Okay, right. In July 1967 I was living on Hancock, right where Second Avenue curved over onto—for that one short block—over to Third Avenue, and then it went north again. Ahh, it was hot! July 1967 was hot! It was hotter than hell. Not as bad as the foundry, but pretty hot. [Levinson laughs] My recollection is, it had been hot for at least a week. And, except for the fact that I was living in a basement apartment at 665—I mean, all the other people were suffering because that was not an air-conditioned building. Not too much air conditioning around at that time anyway, unless you were middle class and we were mostly students and, you know, except for others. But there was no air cooling at that time.</p>
<p>
On that Sunday, the first Sunday of the action, I got a call in the early morning hours. The sun wasn’t up yet. It was from Ron Hewitt. He called to tell me that there had been a disturbance the previous night. Didn’t go into details, but it was at Twelfth and Clairmount. Okay? Ron Hewitt knew that because number one, he was the manager of the Virginia Park project, which was stalled at that time, just like other projects were stalled because the Feds weren’t funding them. And he was living then, I believe on Woodrow Wilson, but maybe he was living up around Clairmount at that time, because I moved him from one location into another. I helped him move, okay? Twice. And Ron Hewitt was about ten years older. He was a family man. And I asked him, “Okay, Ron, is there something you want me to do?” He said, There was a disturbance last night and it’s still going on. Those were just about his exact words. And he said, No. And I thought, you know, okay, hung up the phone and went back to sleep. I mean—</p>
<p>
He didn’t want me to do anything. Then about midmorning, comes a banging on my door, go to it, and it’s George Brenner. He’s there, he wants to borrow my brand-new, 1965 Volkswagen Bus, so he could take his kids out, because he was separated from his wife at that time, and he was going to take his kids out somewhere. So yeah, he can use it. “Where you going?” “Ah, to the zoo.” “Hey, can I come?” because I hadn’t been out to the zoo in years. I hadn’t been out to the zoo since I had been there with my dad when he took me and my sister on the bus out to Woodward Avenue, and to the Fairgrounds, and then to the further bus out to the zoo.</p>
<p>
So we get into the bus, and we go out to the far east side where his kids were living, and along the way we ran out of gas. But no problem in the 1965 bus at that time, they had a foot lever where you could reach down with your foot and just kick it over, which gave you about a gallon or so of gas, so you would be able to get to a gas station—about 30 miles you could get if you were real careful. And I remember telling George, “Well, remind me, goddamn, to get some gas.” “Okay.” We went and picked his kids up, went out to the zoo. The day was like all the other days. Promised to be a real scorcher. And that’s how the zoo was, hotter than hell. The sun was up and there was not a cloud in the sky. We did the usual walk around the zoo, because George didn’t have too much money at the time. We caught the show at the Joe Mendi [Holden Amphitheater]. I was taking pictures at this time. And at the Joe Mendi we then went back to the parking lot, got into the bus, dropped his kids off. And we’re coming back to Detroit—you know, coming back—but coming back from the zoo into Detroit, you could see in the sky lot of black smoke. There was some kind of action going on down there.</p>
<p>
NL: You were heading straight down Woodward at that point?</p>
<p>
RR: Yeah, we were coming straight down Woodward at that point. And we knew something was up, okay? And I remembered the call from Ron Hewitt that morning, and then, you know, I immediately suppressed it.</p>
<p>
We went and dropped his kids off, came back to my place on Hancock. And I no sooner got in, but the telephone rang again—it was Mary Lee Benucci, she’d just come in from New York, from the airport. She was now living on Kercheval near Van Dyke, and she said,</p>
<p>
“Richard, I’m scared. They’re looting and burning down here.”</p>
<p>
“What do you mean?”</p>
<p>
“Well, they kicked out the windows, and you know, set a couple places on fire—I don’t know, I’m scared”</p>
<p>
“Well, you want to come here? Yeah, you can. George Brenner is down here.”</p>
<p>
So she came down. And by then it’s getting toward evening. And we went up on the roof of 665 and there were other tenants up there already. Flat roof, three-story building. It was hot up there, okay? It was hot up there. But it’s a good view. We could see over towards Twelfth Street. We couldn’t—you know, there were plumes of smoke coming up here and there. You could see Jeffries Homes, which was to the south. In fact, later that night it got even more spectacular because we could see the flames. And in fact one of the buildings at Jeffries, one of the upper stories of the high rise, had flames coming out of the windows. Okay. For the rest of the night we sat up there on the roof, having a good time. I mean, all of us, we were having a party! We were safe. There was nobody that was shooting or anything like that, but we could hear alarm bells all around us. That was the thing about that first night, the alarm bells. Anywhere you were, you heard the alarm bells going off. And they kept on going off for the rest of the night, because nobody was responding to the alarms. Along about two o’clock, the party was winding down, we went down to the, you know, down to the steps to my apartment. George appropriated the couch, Mary Lee went into the bedroom, got into bed, and I was sitting there, I was wide awake.</p>
<p>
So I thought, well, what I should do is go for a bike ride, which is a good way to get around the neighborhood. So I rode my bike up the steps, got on it, and set off. First place I went was across the expressway headed towards Jeffries, and early on there was a store that had been looted—a convenience store—alarm bells going, lot of smell of smoke in the air. And there was a kid—I don’t think he was even a teenager at that point—but he was pulling a wagon, a little wagon behind him, and it had a big TV, bigass TV. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t think to—I knew what had happened. I knew, you know, where the kid got the TV, probably—but, you know, I wasn’t, hey, I wasn’t no law—</p>
<p>
NL: How old was this kid, would you guess?</p>
<p>
RR: He wasn’t a teenager yet.</p>
<p>
NL: Okay.</p>
<p>
RR: He was maybe 11, 12, something like that. I mean, he was old enough to be out—of course, you know, shit. He was a black kid, okay. He was probably living in Jeffries Homes at the time. So, you now, I asked, “Hey, kid, you got a cigarette?” He said “No.” Then he stopped and said, “What kind you smoke?” I said, “Camel.” He said, “Wait a minute. Watch my TV.” He stepped through the window of this convenience store. He obviously knew his way around it. Went over to a counter, came out, had a couple of packs with him, and he handed me a pack of Camels. “Thank you.” I went that way and the kid went that way. I continued on my ride. I was pointed towards Grand River at that point. I was specifically going to I think was called [Garrick’s ?] at that time. It was a big outfitter for cameras and stuff. I got there. The place had been looted already. You know, windows broken out. More alarm bells. There was actually a guy sitting there, and I think he was probably a fireman, maybe he was a watchman. But he was just sitting there. And he was exhausted. I mean—so anyhow I continued on down, probably, yeah, down Grand River to go downtown.</p>
<p>
I went to the front of J.L. Hudson, and there were armed guards in front of J.L. Hudson. The windows were intact. But those armed guards were there for a specific reason, to protect the J.L. Hudson Company. I turned to go back home. It’s getting to be light by this time, okay? The alarm bells are still going all over the place, and going up Woodward, I don’t think there was a plate glass window that was intact. Alarm bells going on, and at one point in front of a pawn shop, there were two white guys in a car, and that was unusual because there was no traffic up to this point, and the traffic people are the two white guys who were from Ohio. So I asked them, “What are you doing up here?” And they said they heard about it, and they came up to see what they could get. Okay. “Thank you, keep on moving.” [sigh] I made it back to Hancock, and by this time I was bushed, exhausted. Brought my bike down into the basement, because you had to do that, because if you left your bike out, it was going to be gone. Okay? George was snoring on the couch. I tried to crash in my bed, and that woke up Mary Lee. “Wait. What’s going on, Richard?” That’s what she called me. It was always “Richard.” So, you know, “A hell of a lot, I mean, it’s bad out there.” And she said, “Let’s go look!” If you knew Mary Lee, you knew there was no way you could say no to Mary Lee. Okay? So, “Alright, come on, let’s go.” Along the way, George Brenner had woken up, so, “Where you going?” “Hey, we’re going out to see the world.” And, “Okay, I’ll come with you.” So Mary Lee got into the passenger seat of my Bus, George got in the middle seat behind me, and we set off to try to go to Twelfth Street. I mean, that’s where we, you know, we’re going to. To make a long story short, we got through the barricades. And we were driving right up Twelfth Street.</p>
<p>
NL: Were there personnel at the barricades?</p>
<p>
RR: No, no personnel. Nobody. And nowhere did I see a policeman. They’d been there. Somebody had been there, because they had put barricades across the street with—I don’t even think they were using tape at that time. Here we are, three honkies driving up Twelfth Street. You know what Twelfth Street looked like, or if you don’t—</p>
<p>
NL: Would you like to describe for us that would be great, on that day?</p>
<p>
RR: Most of the buildings had been looted. Most of the windows were broken out. A few had “Brother” written on the windows. Those windows were intact. The alarm bells were going off all over the place. Heavy smell of smoke. By this time it was early morning. I mean, the sun was up, so there wasn’t too much action going on. We got up to Twelfth Street, we got up to Twelfth just south of Philadelphia, when the worst thing that could have happened: I ran out of gas—again. But this time I didn’t have a lever to kick over. We were out of gas, in the middle of Twelfth Street. Three honkies. Okay, so we put Mary Lee behind the wheel, and it so happens right at Twelfth Street there was a gas station. And we weren’t thinking. So George and I pushed my Volkswagen Bus up into the gas station, which was intact, and there were two guys sitting out in front of it. One of them had a shotgun in his lap. They were both brothers. And they looked over me and said, “What do you want?” “Can we get some gas?” And the guy just said, “Man, we’ve been shut down. You can’t buy anything out here.”</p>
<p>
So I asked the guy, “Can I buy some gas?” “We’ve been shut down, no, no you can’t.” I don’t know who shut them down, but probably the governor. So, okay, we got out, and we started walking. And the guy said, “Where the fuck you going? You can’t leave that Bus here, get it out of here!” So, we pushed it out back onto Twelfth Street, right around the corner on Philadelphia, and fortunately the curb was open at that point, and we—that’s it—we parked it real close to the curb on the southwest, or the southeast corner of Philadelphia at Twelfth; locked it; and we started heading east toward Woodward Avenue. We’d gotten about maybe from here to that wall when coming from behind me—a big crash. And I looked back and they tipped the goddamn bus over. I wasn’t going back! I just figured, well, you know, I wrote it off mentally, and said, “Keep on moving.” And that’s what we do. We kept on moving all the way to Woodward. We determined that, no, there was no bus service on Woodward then, so we turned south, walked past the Algiers Motel—which was not at that point infamous—</p>
<p>
NL: Right.</p>
<p>
RR: But it became infamous, and we went down all the way to Hancock, and I crashed out at that point. I don’t know—I’m sorry, that’s what I did. I crashed. When I woke up, I got on my bike again, and drove around. This time I went to the DIA [Detroit Institute of Arts], right across the street. There was a paratrooper from the 82nd Airborne, and his job was to guard that institute, okay? And you know why. So I knew the 82nd had just been shipped back from Vietnam. So I asked the guy, “Hey, you know, how’s this compare to where you were?” And he’s laughing and said, “Piece of cake, man.” So later that night, I’m back up on the roof, couple of other tenants—most of the tenants there had split, they had abandoned that area—but we were up on the roof when we hear something on Second Avenue, and it’s rounding the corner, and it sounds like a bigass truck with no muffler. And there’s a goddamn tank down there. And it comes down the street, down right in front of us on Hancock, and turns on Second, and it’s going somewhere. Hmm, I’d never seen that before. Where it was going was to the staging area up at old Central High School, north of Ground Zero.</p>
<p>
The next day I go into work on my bike—still don’t have a vehicle. I go in and they say, Rybinski, your job today is to go out with George Post and do a survey of the following project areas: Forest Park, which was my area; Virginia Park, which was Hewitt’s area—I think they had probably already called, Hewitt was probably sent to Washington by that point to brief whoever he was talking with—Virginia Park; and there were a couple of other projects along the way. “And take your camera.” Okay, so, you know, I got in the city car, went to—did what they told me to do. Went and picked my camera up, made sure it was loaded. It was a pretty good camera so I could rewind the film, because I knew I was going to take a couple of pictures. Didn’t think anything further of it, and took a lot of pictures at that point.</p>
<p>
Took Twelfth Street. Wanted to see—see, I expected the thing to be burned out. And goddamn the bus is tipped upright. The neighbors had tipped it upright because they didn’t want it burned. And I understood that. And I would have been very grateful and telling people, “Thank you very much.” So we then used the city car to push it from Twelfth and Philadelphia all the way back home to Hancock between Second and Third. I think that what I did with the bus later that week was I—since the battery acid had all leaked out, and ruined the paint on one side—I refilled the battery with fluid; refilled the gas, which I was able to buy out in the suburbs, couldn’t buy in the city anymore; started it; and drove the bus, after the worst of the action was over, to a friend’s garage on the far east side and painted the thing flat black, renamed it “Simon,” and drove it for probably the next ten years.</p>
<p>
NL: Wow.</p>
<p>
RR: And that’s how I won the war. [laughter] Thank you.</p>
<p>
NL: Dick, thank you so much for sharing your story.</p>
<p>
RR : Yeah, right, right.</p>
**
People
List any relevant people (interviewers, interviewees, important people mentioned, etc). Please use "Lastname, Firstname".
Hewitt, Ron
Video
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SjdxjUIDowA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
Dublin Core
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Title
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Richard Rybinski, July 25th, 2015
Description
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In this interview, Rybinski discusses growing up in the Warrendale neighborhood in Detroit as it grew during the post–World War II housing boom as well as his parents’ employment histories in Detroit during the forties, fifties, and sixties. He also discusses his experiences touring Twelfth Street and other streets impacted by looting and arson after the 1967 civil disturbance broke out not far from his apartment in the Midtown area of Detroit.
</p>
<b>***NOTE: This interview contains profanity and/or explicit language</b>
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
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audio/WAV
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en-US
Type
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sound
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
82nd Airborne Division-US Army
Central High School
Detroit Zoo
Dodge Main
Government
Looting
Michigan National Guard
Midtown
Public Servant
Public Transportation
Tanks
Twelfth Street
Warrendale
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/84d64d8e7c38ff1192a75dbc15c2c6fa.jpg
099b001eac064395ecda5957fb0caa45
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/492317b094c685bf453b7cc61350a04f.jpg
cf0af06adfcd5afde02dd99619295a36
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
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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
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Narrator/Interviewee's Name
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Juanita Harper
Brief Biography
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Juanita Harper was born March 13, 1956 and grew up in Detroit, MI where she lived during the 1967 disturbance. Harper is one of eleven children and the events of 1967 had a profound impact on her family. She is married and currently resides in Pontiac, MI.
Interview Place
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Tobi Voigt
Date
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08/15/2015
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50:53
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Andrew Grauzer
Transcription Date
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11/22/2015
Transcription
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<p>Tobi Voigt: Alright, we’re recording. It is Saturday, August 15, 2015. My name is Tobi Voigt and I’m with the Detroit Historical Society. We are recording at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum. And I’d like to introduce our interviewee.</p>
<p>Juanita Harper: Yes. My name is Juanita Harper</p>
<p>TV: Alright, so I guess we’ll get started. Tell me a little bit about you. Where and when were you born, and a little bit about your family?</p>
<p>JH: Okay. I was born March 13, 1956 in Detroit. And I am the oldest girl of eleven children. I have — well technically I have nine brothers and one sister. My sister is seven years younger and there are four boys in between us.</p>
<p>TV: So you were born in Detroit?</p>
<p>JH: Yes.</p>
<p>TV: Where did you grow up? What neighborhood or street?</p>
<p>JH: Originally we lived on Thirtieth Street, which is like, I guess, northwest. No, southwest, I believe it is, and lived there until I entered into the first grade. And then we moved on to Calvert. And we — as a matter of fact my sister still lives in the house that we grew up in on Calvert. And I’ve been in Pontiac ever since my husband kidnapped me [laughter]-in ‘76.</p>
<p>TV: What was it like growing up in Detroit in the Fifties and Sixties?</p>
<p>JH: I liked it. You know, I would hear — and actually for a long time, until I met my husband, I heard a lot of negative things from people who didn’t live in the city, but that was where I lived and that was where I grew up and that was all I knew. But it was interesting. It was an interesting time, I think, just historically, and overall. Not just in Detroit, but it was quite interesting. And it’s ironic that I’m here talking about this because I always felt comfortable. I always felt safe. We were able to pretty much do everything and everybody in the neighborhood looked out for us so it wasn’t just our parents it was all the people down the street so we knew what we could and couldn’t do. But you know there were a lot of us and we were raised with a lot of big families around us, as well. So we were all close and, as a matter of fact, some of us are still close primarily because we still kind of have like, the family home.</p>
<p> TV: Talk to me a little bit about what happened or how you first heard about the unrest that became the rebellion or the riots.</p>
<p>JH: Okay, so we lived on Calvert, between Fourteenth and LaSalle, which is – we were kind of in the middle of the block so I say about a block and a half from Twelfth. I was eleven at the time, and we didn’t know why what happened happened. But we were kind of like right in the middle of everything. And honestly, I don’t know how we found out. I don’t know if it was the TV or just because were just like right in the middle. Because we would sit on the porch sometimes and things were going on and you know Twelfth and Fourteenth are both one way streets. So Fourteenth is one way going south, Twelfth goes north, and people were going the wrong way on the streets, you know rioting, you know, just, it was just people everywhere. People were-if they weren’t driving, they were running and you see people with — carrying all kinds of things. My husband and I had this joke we talk about color TV. I have kind of a weird sense of humor and I kind of look at things in a little different way sometimes. But prior to that, I didn’t know anybody that had a color TV, for instance. And that was a time when a lot of people got color TVs. Because they were expensive so nobody I knew could afford one. However, when the riots broke out you can just go take one. And the police were out, but they really weren’t stopping anyone from looting, for instance, as long — this is kind of strange to say — as long as you were somewhat orderly and not putting anyone in danger or anything like that. They just kind of let you take what you wanted. So a lot of people got color TVs and that’s kind of – you know we say that when you see things in black and white it’s not as real as when you see it in color.</p>
<p>TV: You’d mentioned when you submitted, you told me a story, a profound story about your family and an event that happened. Would you mind sharing that with us?</p>
<p>JH: Absolutely not. And you know I go through periods where it’s really fresh and it became really fresh to me again recently with Trayvon Martin, because there are a lot of parallels. So what happened is that, like I said, when the riot broke out you know it’s just, crazy things were-people were everywhere and doing all sorts of things and, to this day, I have, what I call, an irrational fear of fire because it was like every day, all day long for the riots last, what? Eleven days? It was fire, sirens, and smoke, and fire everywhere. So still that kind of stays with me. But anyway so that was going on, my brother, George — and it’s “Tolbert”, “T-o-l-b-e-r-t”, instead of “t-a”, because I have seen articles where they spell it incorrectly. Anyway he and a friend were out of town, I want to say, they were fishing or hunting. Hunting doesn’t sound right, fishing sounds more accurate. But they were out of town when this broke out. So when they came back to town it’s like- what’s going on? The other thing is that George is married. He was married and had two kids. He had married when he was seventeen. And he had two daughters. And I think he had come to town and went home and that’s when he found out what was going on. So he came to check on us, my mother, and everything. And actually, he and his friend kind of went up to Twelfth Street to see what was going on. They did some looting, like everybody else, but they just got food. And the house we live in is a big two-family, brick home. And it had a few additional rooms in the basement so actually my mother started a pantry at that time because he brought-I mean they got gobs of food. And they brought food to us and he, you know, took food home to his family. And then we would hear stories about what was going on, where- and some areas were worse, obviously, than others.</p>
<p>So my mother’s best friend had a daughter and her name was Joyce Anne. And she and George were very close because they were really close in age. They were just really good friends. And she, at the time was — I believe she was separated or going through a divorce but she also had two children. She had a boy and a girl. And she lived on LaSalle Gardens between Dunedin and I forget the other name, the name of the other street. So we had heard that it was really bad there. So he was concerned. And he knew she was there by herself with her kids. So he decided he was going to go and check on her and see if she was okay, if she needed anything, or anything like that. So he and his friend left to go see her. And there were curfews, but the curfews didn’t start until evening. Maybe like six or something like that. But in some areas where it was really bad they weren’t allowing people out at all, regardless of curfew. So in that area, because it was worse, they weren’t allowed out but a lot of the people would just sit on the porch. Like in our neighborhood, Calvert is right around the corner from at the time, there were three schools, now it’s just two. But it’s Roosevelt Elementary, Durfee Junior High, and Central High School. And it’s right there on LaSalle and it’s real wide. And because three schools were there they had a huge field. There’s a baseball diamond, a track. I want to say a football-so the National Guard camped there. So we would sit on our porch where we were and see tanks and things rolling up and down the street and for a kid that was fascinating. But we were still able to be out until curfew.</p>
<p>So anyway, George went. He and his friend, and I don’t recall his friends name — they went over. They parked the car. They got out of the car. Never made it to the other side of the street. A Guard came, from what we understand, between two houses and just shot. Bullet went into his right chest, through him, lodged in his friend’s arm-left arm because he was walking behind him. And as far as I know, they were never able to remove the bullet from his friend because, I guess, it probably would have done more damage to try to remove it than to, you know just leave it in there. And there were eyewitnesses because, like I said, everybody was sitting on the porch. And that’s how we know exactly what happened because everyone was saying, “Well, he wasn’t doing anything, he just was coming across the street.” Nobody heard the Guard say anything to him or tell him to stop, halt, or anything like that.</p>
<p>There was actually a gentleman who he held some kind of office in the city, I think. His name is Julian Witherspoon. He wrote an article that was in the newspaper about this because he witnessed it. He lived there. He witnessed it. Joyce Anne also witnessed it-didn’t realize at the time that it was George. So, like I said, there were a number of witnesses. They all saw what happened. My mother, at the time, was pregnant with my baby brother. So that was number ten. She actually had twelve pregnancies. She had miscarried two, but he was her last. And I assume he was due in September because his birthday’s September, 29. So anyway when she got word that he was shot, of course she went to the hospital, her and my father. Then they pretty much had to put her in the hospital that day or the next day because she became toxemic and her blood pressure was just way out of control. He lived about seven or eight days. </p>
<p>TV: Your brother?</p>
<p>JH: Yes. And my mother was still in the hospital when he passed. So she saw him the day that he was shot and she didn’t see him again until he had passed away. My understanding is that George had been-he had TB [Tuberculosis]. He had TB when he thirteen or fourteen. And back then if you got TB you were in the hospital for months on end and quarantined. And so my mother always said that she felt that had she not been in the hospital herself then they would have been able to get a more complete medical history on him and he may have lived. So he eventually got pneumonia as a result of the wound and so I don’t know if you say he died from pneumonia or if he died from the gunshot.</p>
<p>TV: Wow. Now they said it was a National Guardsman or a Detroit police officer?</p>
<p>JH: It was a National Guardsman.</p>
<p>TV: National Guardsman-coming between the two houses?</p>
<p>JH: Yes. We were never told his name. We always thought that he was protected. No one was ever charged or anything for killing him.</p>
<p>TV: Was there any investigation at all that you’re aware of?</p>
<p>JH: Not that I’m aware of. You know when you talk about that time-with civil rights and demonstrations and things like that – so, you kind of have to know my mother. I always say she was a crazy lady but [laughter] he’s laughing [referring to husband] – but she had really strong convictions and things. If she felt something was not right, she was going to do whatever she could. I think that’s a trait I’ve picked up on. But I recall going to the — I think he was a prosecutor at the time, his name was Cahalan. I recall- because she would call and he wouldn’t talk to her. So one day she said, “Come on. We’re going down there.” So she took me and, I want to say, my sister-in-law- her name is Barbara, George’s wife, and his two kids. And we went down to his office and he wouldn’t see her. So she was like well I’m going to sit here until you see me. And we sat, literally. I mean we sat for hours and hours and hours. And he wouldn’t see her. She would go down there, she would call, she would write letters. Nothing.</p>
<p>TV: And you were up at the county?</p>
<p>JH: He was the county prosecutor, I think.</p>
<p>TV: And he was Caucasian? White?</p>
<p>JH: Yeah, he was white. And you know the thing is-sometimes when this comes up I tell people, I say, “Do you know who the National Guard is?” The National Guard can be me, you. It’s just everyday people who go through this training and most of the time they are not called to do anything like this. So when something like this happens, when you throw them out there, when it’s real to them, stuff like this can happen. We just always felt like, whoever he was, he was being protected and obviously nobody really cared about George’s life or the impact that his death had on his wife and his children and our parents and us. And then, one of the things I had indicated when I was Googling things and went through and saw like two articles where it said he ran past the guards. No. No, he didn’t run past anybody. When you read articles, and some of it is really concentrated. I know you can’t say a whole lot when you do that but I think about — it says he was a TV repairman. It just really minimizes. To know him — he was amazing to me. I just really used to look up to him. For instance, he just seemed like he was really tall. He may not have been as tall as he seemed like, but he just seemed really tall to me. And thin. But he had an appetite [laughter]. He would literally —most of us we eat, and we want more we go back for seconds. No, George got his seconds all at once. So he would get two plates of food to start with and he’d eat both plates of food and then he might go back for what we would call thirds at that point. He had this, you know he was sweet — now trust me in our neighborhood and within my family I can definitely say that they’ve had some issues and [laughter], to put it mildly, you know kind of thuggish, but that was not him. Like I said, he was married and had two children. He was looking out. He looked out for his family. He was looking out for my mother. He was going to look out for his friend.</p>
<p>Our grandson, he lives in South Carolina and they’ve been down there about four years. So every summer he comes to stay with us and he just went back today, as a matter of fact. But it was about a week or so ago, I don't know why but he just started grilling us [laughter] about how we grew up, and what we did, and what kinds of things we had, and what we played with as opposed to things now and things then. Just all kind of things. And one of the things, he loves cars and so he was asking about cars and I was telling him, for instance, my father always drove a station wagon. And I had to tell my grandson what a station wagon was because he didn’t know [laughter]. But during the course of that conversation I thought about George.</p>
<p>Well, we had this ‘56 Buick. Okay. So we’re talking ‘76 [1967 ?], right? We had to fit ‘56 Buick, green — it sat in our garage for like the longest time. I vaguely recall my parents driving it. But mainly, I remember it sitting in the garage. And we had a two car garage and it would sit there, we would sit on the car and sometimes we’d sit in it but it didn’t drive. It didn’t go anywhere. So our oldest brother lived in New York at the time. So George asked — he went to my mother and he said, “Ma-,” we called her “Ma. Ma dear.” He said, “Ma, could I have that car? If I can fix it and get it running, can I have it?” And he just had a knack for being — so the TV repairman thing just kind of bothered [me ?]-because he could fix just about anything. So she’s like, “Okay. If you think you can get it running, take it.” So he took it, he got it running, he drove he and his family to New York to visit his brother. And sadly, that was the last time our brother saw him alive. But that was him. You can call him for anything. I think he was twenty when he was killed. He was special. And then like I said, it became really fresh to me with Trayvon Martin, only because I just really feel that justice wasn’t done. And you know, I see a lot of parallels, you know, like he saw someone who he perceived to be dangerous and went on and did what he — and he hasn’t been fully held accountable.</p>
<p>TV: Are you talking about George Zimmerman, in particular?</p>
<p>JH: Yes. Right. And that’s why I see those parallels because George is our Trayvon. Or, I’m sorry, Trayvon is George because nothing ever happened. And then I see how the impact it had on my mother was huge —</p>
<p>TV: That's what I would love to hear about.</p>
<p>JH: — and on one of my brothers, in particular. I have all these brothers, but my father was my mother’s third husband. And George and I had a different father although we knew him, they were all really close. We kind of grew up with him too. But George and — there’s a brother between George and I. His name is Jesse. Jesse and George had the same father. So Jesse never really felt close to my father because his father was always in his life. He was always present. So he would say, “Well that’s your father, he’s not mine.” But after this happened with George, he was just devastated. He spent most of his juvenile years locked up. He had issues with drugs for many years. Just a lot. He, at one point, had made it his life’s mission to find out who it was that shot him. And I believe he did at one point get some information, like a name, and where he lived. I got to a point where I figured nothing was going to happen and it didn’t make sense to kind of dwell on that.</p>
<p>TV: How does that impact you and your family over time? I’m trying to find a non-leading question but I just —empathy says I can’t imagine living the rest of your life without justice.</p>
<p>JH: Okay. When you said you wanted to interview me, I was talking to my husband and my daughter and I was telling them what happened. I said I was going to tell my siblings and they said, Why? So I said, “Well, just so they know.” And they were saying, “No, they don’t need to know.” Only because — well one, they might want to do it themselves and I honestly feel that I’m probably the best person to tell this story. Because I know Jesse couldn’t tell it without being really angry and he probably wouldn’t — and we have a different point of view. Everybody else was younger, pretty much.</p>
<p>But I can look at, for instance, my mother. Like I said, she was pregnant at the time. And when I look back I believe that after she had my brother that she went through postpartum depression. In 1967 nobody knew what that was [laughter]. No, I mean, there wasn’t a name for that, other than, “oh, she might be a little crazy.” You know I’m not saying that. But you know, really, in ‘67, I don’t think – when did that term come about? But what happened, how it manifested, the reason why I say that that’s what I believe it is that once she had the baby she couldn’t do anything with him. And I think he sensed. I don’t know if she was just dealing with so much grief she couldn’t handle having a baby to care for.</p>
<p>My father worked, pretty much. He worked twelve hours. He was off Tuesdays and Sundays. Sunday was spent watching sports and always something in front of the TV. And then my grandmother lived with us for as long as — I don’t ever remember a time that my grandma didn’t live with us. But she wasn’t a grandmotherly type. So the long and the short of it is my baby brother just sensed that my mother couldn’t handle dealing with him so I kind of took on that role. So for, I’d say probably for the first couple years of his life he was my baby. Of course I went to school and stuff, but I took care of him. I took care of everybody, and I guess I still do. It was funny, there was a time when you didn’t see me without seeing him and people were like, “There’s that girl with that baby on her hip again." And then my father, he was an old school daddy. He worked. My mother worked too. But he did what he had to do and he wasn’t a hands-on kind of father but with my baby brother he had to be. And we used to tease him, it’s like, “You would have never—” But if my mother couldn’t do it and, of course, I was eleven, but whatever, somebody had to.</p>
<p>TV: You talked a little bit before right when we were just talking before we recorded about how — the difference of your brother growing up after the rebellion and how that was kind of a different perspective than you had.</p>
<p>JH: Yeah. And that’s the other thing. With all of the unrest that’s kind of going on across the country, that’s the other thing that kind of keeps it fresh because you talk about people rioting and things like that — but you don’t recover from it. You absolutely do not recover from it. Before the riots, for instance, on the corner of Twelfth and Calvert was a five and dime. Do you know what a five and dime store is?</p>
<p>TV: Yes. </p>
<p>JH: But there was a five and dime. I forget the name of it, but I know it’s a five and dime. And we used to go up there all the time and you can buy anything at the five and dime. Next to the five and dime was a little park. And we used to go up there and just sit in the park. Then there was a little party store right there and there was a grocery store and then across the street there was a store owned by a couple, an older couple. They were the McNeals. I think that was the name of their store. And there store was similar to the five and dime. They just kind of carried some things. They were more kind of homey. You know what I mean? So we would go up there and there was a bakery. All up and down Twelfth, just anything you wanted, just keep walking and it was there. Gas stations and there were some bars you know, a Dairy-well it wasn’t a Dairy Queen then, but something like a Dairy Queen. They were all up and down Twelfth Street. And actually the McNeals, they had a smaller store on the opposite side of the street. And then they moved into a bigger store, a larger store.</p>
<p>They knew everybody in the neighborhood and everybody knew everybody and we would go up there and we could leave home and say, “We’re going so and so”. We can be gone all day; our parents didn’t worry about us. We walked everywhere. Not a big deal. We had friends up and down the street. But after the riots, gone. All of that gone. There was a party store that tried to hang on for a few years on the corner, but-[laughter]. And then there was one gas station and they tried to hang on too. And then the homes in that area, the neighborhoods, they were nice, big, most of them two family brick homes, really nice. And we knew a lot of people going down — actually after the riots because we did this when I was even through junior high, we would walk to Highland Park. So we would leave home, we’d walk all of the way down Calvert to Woodward. We’d pick up friends and some more along the way. Then we’d walk on down to Highland Park, down to Sears, and sometimes we’d go even further almost to Seven Mile. Yeah, but we could do that.</p>
<p>So what I was telling my brother, I said — him and his friend would go and hang out on Twelfth Street but not like we did, because most of that was gone. The park was gone. Most of the stores were gone. Some of the same people that we would hang out, they still continued to hang out up there but the whole environment was different. And there was nothing to draw you there. You didn’t want to be down there, it was just so desolate. Who would we go down there-? [Harper’s husband responds] Yeah right, and then like just a few weeks ago – and it still continues to deteriorate. We’re talking almost fifty years. So it hasn’t recovered. Not only has it not recovered but it just continues to deteriorate. So when you look at what’s going on across the country, it’s like you’re not helping. It’s not going to turn out well. Bottom line. It’s just not going to turn out well. But yet you still have to live here. And like I said my sister still lives in the house that we grew up in. She actually lives between Detroit and Florida. She’s back in Florida now. She just went just a few days ago. So she’ll be there. But you know we maintain the house and it was at that time a two family flat so there were times when — and that’s another kind of historical thing about our house but you don’t want to hear all that. She’s just turned it into one big house.</p>
<p>TV: That’s great.</p>
<p>JH: Yeah. So when I was talking to my brother I was saying, You don’t know what it was like before. All you know is this desolation. Prior to us — I guess I will tell you this really quick story. Do you know Jack’s Carwash?</p>
<p>TV: Yeah. Yeah.</p>
<p>JH: Okay, so, Jack’s Carwash was started by Jack Milan. And Jack Milan’s real name is Jack Milanski. Okay, he cut off the ski. So my father — actually, the very first Jack’s Carwash was built on the corner of Six Mile and Meyers. My father was the manager. And my father worked with Jack until my father retired. Now the house that we live in, Jack grew up in. And the area, for many years, was primarily Jewish. So we were one of the first black families to move into that neighborhood. One of the main reasons we moved there was because Jack’s father was living in the home by himself. He lived downstairs, his name was Mr. Milanski. So he was getting older and they had some concerns about him living there by himself. Then in the meantime, my parents were looking for a place for us to move to so we moved to the house and we lived upstairs and we would kind of keep an eye out on Mr. Milanski. We would go down there; he was a little old man, I mean he seemed really tiny and frail. But we would go down there and just spend time with him as kids. He had one of those little change purses that kind of popped open and we would sit down there with him-we’d sit down there and talk to him and he’d have us do something, he’d give us a dime or a quarter or whatever. So that’s how we got to that neighborhood.</p>
<p>TV: Did the family own and they rented to you?</p>
<p>JH: Yes.</p>
<p>TV: And did your family end up buying the house?</p>
<p>JH: Yes. And then eventually Mr. Milanski got to the point where they really didn’t want him to be there alone. He required more care. So they removed him from the home and put him into like a nursing facility. Like I said, my father worked for Jack until he retired. He managed the one on McNichols and Meyers. And then from there, occasionally he would go to the one in Birmingham, but he actually retired from the one in Southfield. And then Jack’s sons eventually took over. Tony, I think. My husband actually worked for my father for about a year when we first got married.</p>
<p>TV: I have read a bit about, at least in Detroit, and national history a lot of times, it works like that with the Jewish population moving into a neighborhood that previously had been inaccessible to them and they kind of making doorways accessible for African-Americans. So what was it like being one of the first African-American families to move into this neighborhood that was predominantly Jewish? Did you even notice?</p>
<p>JH: Honestly, no.</p>
<p>TV: No?</p>
<p>JH: No. We really did not notice. It was a non-issue. It could be because I was a kid, but in our neighborhood it was a non-issue. Because, even like I said, Mr. Milanski was kind of like our little old grandfather. We’d go down and he’d like having the company. I think he appreciated having kids around. He was just a sweet, little old man. We’d just sit down there so it was nothing for us. I guess when I think about it, the neighborhood was pretty diverse. It really was pretty diverse. And then a lot of the families that are there now were there. Some of them have been there for many many decades.</p>
<p>TV: So folks that are living in the neighborhood now are still folks who’ve been there for generations?</p>
<p>JH: Yeah. Like my sister lives in the house that we grew up in. And there was another large family that lived across the street from us. They moved in quite a few years later. They actually had more kids than we did. They had, like twelve. And they actually lived in both parts of the house because there was so many of them. [Husband says “We did too”] Yeah but not initially. Yeah, we did too. Yeah, we did turn it into a big — and then also use the basement. My brothers, their bedrooms ended up, at some point, being in the basement. So the people across the street, their parents moved and they bought a house on Chicago and then the kids stayed there. So they’re still there. [Husband: “And buying up property”] Yeah right, and they are, they’re buying up property on their neighborhood, on the street, on the block. And they’re buying it, and renovating it, because that’s what they do. They do like, construction work and stuff like that. So they’re buying up property, and I forget how many houses they own on the street now. So they’re reinvesting and trying to stay there. But that’s kind of what it’s going to take, if it’s going to come back. But when you look at Twelfth, and even just the next block at Fourteenth — the block where our house is it still pretty much looks the same. But when you kind of venture past that there were two that were on the corner of LaSalle. There were on each corner there was huge houses. They’ve been just kind of let go. One of them caught fire. But when you drive down the street, it’s like nothing like what it used to be.</p>
<p>TV: Wow.</p>
<p>JH: Yeah, it’s really been through some things. I tell people sometimes, we all have some purpose. And sometimes I think it’s sad if we go through our life and we don’t realize what our purpose is. Or we realize and we don’t accept it. Sometimes I think one of my purposes, not my only, but I think one of my purposes is that maternal thing. One of my brothers said to me when our mother passed — she passed in ‘97. [Husband: “I forgot”] Yeah, she passed in ‘96. [Husband: my mother passed away I forgot, I try and remember those dates, (unintelligible)”] But one of my brothers said to me, he looked at me, he said, “Well I guess you the momma now.” [Husband says, “Yeah”] Yeah. I said, “Yeah, I guess that is one of my purposes.” I always felt that I didn’t really have a childhood. Not much of a childhood. And it’s not a complaint. I wasn’t an unhappy child or anything like that. But I always had a lot of responsibility. And I used to tell people, I said, my mother, her philosophy was if you want something — most people say, “if you want something done right you do it yourself.” Ma always said, “If you want something done right have Nita do it.” Like she didn’t buy a dishwasher until I moved out of the house. You know, she had all these other people in the house, she knew they weren’t going to do it right. So that’s when she decided to get a dishwasher when I wasn’t there anymore. And I actually graduated from high school at seventeen and I’d been gone pretty much ever since. Because he and I met when I was seventeen, I was in college. He didn’t realize I was seventeen.</p>
<p>TV: That’s great. Anything else you can think of that you want to share? This has been absolutely fantastic.</p>
<p>JH: I don’t know. When I think about George I don’t — I believe that what the Bible says-the Bible says “Vengeance is mine saith the Lord.” So I have tried to live my life with that. You do all you can do. If you can’t do it then you have to leave it alone. And you leave it to God’s hands or like our daughter would say, Karma. So I don’t know. I can’t dwell on what happened, if anything happened to who took my brother’s life. We just have to move on. For instance, my brother Jesse. I really believe that his — everything that has happened in his life, the path that his life took, is a direct result of that. Because he really felt that when George was taken that was really a part of him because they had the same father and they had that bond that kind of set them aside. Even though we were all raised together, it’s just impacted his life in such a negative way over practically his whole life.</p>
<p>Our youngest daughter is biologically his. We raised her. She was abandoned by her mother when she was two. My brother was in prison at the time. So my mother took her in, although I really didn’t want her to do that because she was ill a lot. She had raised all these kids and I just really didn’t think she needed to take on a two-year-old. But she promised my brother she would so she took him. And then when she passed away Jessica, you know she’s our baby-she was eight. [Husband: “Eight years old.”]</p>
<p>TV: Wow. [Husband: “Got her through college, man”] [laughter].</p>
<p>JH: So we raised her. Jesse is there, but we’ve raised her. At one point I had a couple of conversations with him about adopting, we never adopted her. And actually it worked out better because when she went to college, we weren’t held responsible. So we didn’t even have to pay for her college. We didn’t know that going in. But we talked about adopting and you know, he didn’t want her to be – and I told him I said, “Okay, is she ever going to live with you?” She’s always going to be with us. We’re going to be the ones who send her to college even though we didn’t. You know when and if she ever gets married that’ll be on us. She’s graduated college and living her life. And then she even talks about – you know she’s made comments about how different she thinks her life would have been had we not taken her when my mother passed. But yeah I guess I’m the matriarch and both our parents are gone. I think we’re kind of the matriarch and the patriarch of the family, period. [Husband: “Holidays we try to keep everyone together, you know, dinners, Thanksgiving, Christmas, you try to get the family together but…”]Yeah because it’s kind of like if we don’t, nobody else takes the initiative to. Like today our daughter is at our house and her friend’s setting up a carnival birthday party for her three-year-old, like good, we should just come do this and it’ll be done when we get back to the house.</p>
<p>But yeah, I just – I don’t know. At this point I don’t know what justice looks like, who knows? But I can’t dwell on that. But I hate to see it continue to happen. And I also hate to see him minimized, if that makes any sense. You have these stats: there were 43 people killed in the riot in ‘67 over eleven days, blah blah blah blah blah, and you know I just hate to see him minimized. And he doesn’t mean anything to anybody — to a lot of other people — but he meant a lot to us. And you know I was talking, I said, “God, it’s going to be 50 years.” But sometimes it just still seems so fresh.</p>
<p>And his wife, she never remarried, which is unusual because she was twenty, as well. She raised her daughters, they’re beautiful. They’re beautiful, they’re smart. She became a social worker. And I won’t say that we’re not close. It’s just we’re not close in proximity. She lives in Detroit, I live in Pontiac, and we don’t talk a lot but because of what we do for work — and I think she actually retired last year or this year. But yeah, she worked for the state as a social worker and so we’d run into each other at certain events and conferences and things like that. So we stay in touch. But like I said, she never remarried. I think George was the love of her life. It’s unfortunate he was taken from her so young. I think they had gotten together we they were like fifteen. And then — my mother, she was different. She was progressive but then she had her old school kind of thing. Barbara got pregnant at seventeen, my mother said, “Well you’re going to marry her.” And he didn’t fight it. I don’t think he had any issue with that. You know he was probably going to marry her anyway. But my mother took him to Leo and they got married. So I know that that really devastated her. And that kind of loss at that age-and there was a period in later years where she actually went through a hysterical pregnancy. But these things happen and when you kind of look back on it, it’s just kind of like a snowball, or a domino, or whatever. However you want to put it. I have a picture of him, would you want to see a picture?</p>
<p>TV: I absolutely would. I was going to ask you that. [unintelligible: both talking at once].</p>
<p>JH: This picture is actually from — this is his high school graduation picture. Sometimes I look at this picture and I think, he was very attractive [Voigt laughs]. He was [Voigt Laughs]. Anyway, he had an incident when he was in school, I think it was probably like junior high or high school. He had really long, curly eyelashes. He had a teacher that came and stood over him one day. And was just kind of looking at him and she said, “You know, boys don’t wear makeup.” And he’s like, “What are you talk-” [both talking at same time]. “Boys don’t wear makeup. They don’t wear mascara.” And he’s like, “I know that. Why are you telling me this?” Well she thought he had mascara on [both laughing].</p>
<p>[Husband: “You never told me that, (unintelligible)”] I never told you that? Yeah [Husband talking] I actually need to go through here and delete some of these, I know [Voigt laughs]. [Husband: “You think?”]Yes, I think. Yeah this particular picture, I think this is probably — well it’s not the only picture I have of him but it’s the best picture I have of him. It was his graduation picture, I think. But he gave it to my grandmother. He wrote it, signed it, I think. And put the year on it. She had it in a frame. Why is it when you’re looking for stuff you can never find it? Oh, there it is.</p>
<p>TV: Oh wow. [Husband: “How old is he there?”]</p>
<p>JH: He was probably seventeen. [Husband: “Seventeen years old. Huh, okay.”]</p>
<p>TV: Well if there’s nothing else you want to, I’m going to shut this off. I want to talk to you for a minute or two after.</p>
<p>JH: Okay.</p>
<p>TV: Alright, thank you.</p> **
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LMdgAea9kcE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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Juanita Harper, August 15th, 2015
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Juanita Harper's husband is also present during the interview. He was accidentally not introduced.
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In this interview, Harper discusses growing up in Detroit including life before, during, and after the 1967 disturbance. She tells the story of the death of her brother, who was shot by a National Guardsman, and the lasting effects of the event on her and her family.
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Detroit Historical Society
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11/23/2015
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
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audio/WAV
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en-US
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1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Calvert Street
Central High School
Childhood
Children
Curfew
George Tolbert
Growing Up In Detroit
Hamtramck
Looting
Michigan National Guard
Tanks
Twelfth Street
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http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/99a10c4f4ab52bd7e7b29570442f9d25.jpg
7f0f3ff0321b0bdd3ca2d461c049abd0
Dublin Core
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Title
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Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
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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
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Narrator/Interviewee's Name
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Kenneth G. Hafeli
Brief Biography
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Kenneth Hafeli was born on June 6, 1952 in Detroit, Michigan. Growing up on Rolyat Street, Hafeli spent his formative years growing up in the city, where he witnessed the effects the 1967 disturbance. Hafeli has a Master’s Degree in History and currently lives in Westland.
Interviewer's Name
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Joshua Cochran
Interview Place
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Rocky's Family Dining, Westland, MI
Date
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10/12/2015
Interview Length
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41:16
Transcriptionist
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Joshua Cochran
Transcription Date
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11/15/2015
Transcription
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<p>JC: Today is Monday, October 12th, 2015. We are at Rocky’s Family Dining here in Westland, Michigan and I’m speaking with Kenneth Hafeli, Ken?</p>
<p>KH: Ken.</p>
<p>JC: Ken Hafeli, who lived in Detroit, grew up in Detroit in the 1960s.</p>
<p>KH: Correct.</p>
<p>JC: Thank you very much, Ken for sitting down with me today.</p>
<p>KH: You’re welcome. This will be fun.</p>
<p>JC: Okay [laughter]. I wanted to start out with a little bit of background information. If you could give me a little bit about where you grew up in Detroit, maybe where you lived in July of 1967. Do you remember your street address?</p>
<p>KH: [Unclear] I was born in Detroit, June 6, 1952 and I lived on the same street, Rolyat (R-O-L-Y-A-T) for the first 26 years. First at 8181 Rolyat, then when I was nine months old, we moved to 8055 Rolyat. Both houses were built by my grandfather, when he had a truck farm at Seven Mile and Outer Drive and Van Dyke and that became the Hafeli subdivision in about 1915. He built most of the houses on Rolyat and the street next to it, Sirron. He also sold property to the Archdiocese, well it was the Diocese of Detroit back then, and the church I grew up at was Our Lady Queen of Heaven, was four houses away from our house. He sold five acres to the Diocese to make the church. The church opened in 1929. That’s kind of — well, I went to grade school at Our Lady Queen of Heaven, High School at De La Salle in Detroit when it was still out by City Airport, and after that I went off to college. I moved out of Detroit in 1979 when I got married.</p>
<p>JC: What did your father do?</p>
<p>KH: My dad was a federal employee. He worked at the Detroit Tank Arsenal from 1952 to 1982. He also owned a gas station which was right on the corner of the street that I lived at. The gas station was razed in 1970 and replaced by a restaurant in 1972 where I worked as a dishwater and a short order cook for about two years.</p>
<p>JC: In ’72?</p>
<p>KH: Yes, actually not even that long, about a year.</p>
<p>JC: What do you remember, let’s backup, before we get to 1967. What do you remember about growing up in Detroit in the 1960s, the early-mid 1960s, as a young man, a teenager? Do you have any recollections of what that?</p>
<p>KH: It was a lot different. I mentioned going to church right down the street. There were 57 houses on Rolyat. I would guess 50 of them were Catholic and attended church at Queen of Heaven. We had six masses on Sunday, so our house was always blocked in every Sunday until about 2 o’clock when the 12:45 mass ended. Definitely a white neighborhood; the nearest black neighborhood would have been south of Six Mile, which is a mile and half away from us. Every day during the summer we went to Lipke Pool. There was four swimming periods, each about an hour and half long, with an hour break in-between so they could clean the pool, and we there probably from 9 o’clock in the morning until 7 o’clock at night. Our parents always knew where we were, because we were at the pool, or playing baseball.</p>
<p>JC: Or, playing baseball, I remember you telling that story.</p>
<p>KH: So, then we always had place on the corner, across Outer Drive and Conner, which we, my brothers and his friends, had dubbed “Eagle’s Nest” many, many years earlier and if we weren’t swimming at Lipke Pool, we were playing army and there would be six or seven of us out there. The place was pitted with foxholes and you couldn’t walk without danger of falling in something, some booby trap or some sort. That was right across from Holy Cross Hospital, which is no longer — the hospital is still there, but it’s not what it was when we were kids. The same thing for our street was about the same for the streets on either side of us. It was an area called “Polish Grosse Pointe.”</p>
<p>JC: Polish Grosse Pointe?</p>
<p>KH: Polish Grosse Pointe, because it was where all the affluent Polish lawyers and doctors all lived before they could afford to move to the real Grosse Pointe. It was part of the Van Dyke/Seven Mile area. I know you want me to tell the story of Northeast Detroit Polacks versus the Warren Hillbillies, we were a half-mile from Warren, so at Lipke Park there was softball games occasionally between groups from both sides of Eight Mile. The stigma of Eight Mile wasn’t the same in the 1960s as it was later.</p>
<p>JC: I’d like to come back to that too, later when we talk about—</p>
<p>KH: Sure, although when Coleman Young was elected in 1974 he did, that’s when the Eight Mile stigma really began. It was a very quiet neighborhood. Everybody had their windows open in the summertime, no one had air conditioning, you could walk from one end of the street to the other and never miss a pitch on the baseball game because all of the windows were open and Ernie Harwell’s voice was coming through every window down the street. And we were on our bikes all day long, if we weren’t swimming. When the streetlights came on, the neighborhood got really quiet because everybody went home. Detroit back then was so much different, people — when I went to De La Salle, I hitchhiked every day. I would walk from our house about a mile to my friend’s house and we would stand on the corner of Outer Drive and Seven Mile Road and hitchhike to get to De La Salle, which was like three miles down the road. Well Outer Drive turned into Conner and it was right across from the airport. We were fortunate that we got picked up by the same people all the time, so we never felt threatened by anybody and then on the way back we would have to walk about two blocks to where Outer Drive again turned into Conner. Conner went straight and Outer Drive came off from the right and there was a stop sign, because people would have to stop and it made it easier from them to pick us up.</p>
<p>[Noise from the restaurant staff]</p>
<p>JC: Okay, there we go</p>
<p>KH: A lot of the time the same people would pick us up.</p>
<p>JC: So you were hitchhiking to school every day?</p>
<p>KH: Yeah, one other hitchhiking story, this is right after I graduated from high school. We were going up to Metro Beach/Metro Park. I was going to meet my friends. I was standing on the corner of Eight Mile and Van Dyke with my thumb out when a Detroit police car pulled up. I’m thinking, “Oh, geez, what did I do here?” and he just said, he rolled down, this is when they had two to a car, maybe they still do, I don’t know, but the one on the passenger side said, “Where are you going?” I said, “I’m trying to get out to Metro Beach,” he said, “Get in, I can give you a ride to Groesbeck and Eight Mile,” which is like three miles up the road. It was sort of weird, in those days even the cops picked you up when you were hitchhiking and gave you rides.</p>
<p>JC: I was going to ask you about that, it also speaks to what I wanted to talk about. You described your neighborhood at the time as predominantly, or exclusively white —</p>
<p>KH: Exclusively. White Catholic</p>
<p>JC: White, Catholic, middle class, upper middle class. What was the relationship with police officers in the community? I mean, pick you up and give you a ride.</p>
<p>KH: Well, besides, the doctors and lawyers, we also had police officers. Three doors away from us was Mr. Griffin, who was known in the neighborhood as a policeman, who at one time was head of the Detroit Motorcycle Unit, or was heavily involved in it. I remember one day we heard the rumble of motorcycles and there must have been twenty of them coming down our street and parked in front of his house, so it was — my uncle was a Detroit police lieutenant, as nice as Mr. Griffin was, my uncle was not the kind of person a black person wanted to meet at any time of the day, so he would — so, that’s kind of what, I think the relations with the police department in our area were very good. “Redlining doesn’t exist” they say, but our area code was 48234, our zip code, and you — oh that’s one of the good ones — so that’s kind of how the neighborhood was. Baseball games back in the 1970s started at 8 o’clock. We were 14 - 15 years old would take the Van Dyke/Lafayette bus down to downtown Detroit where we had to transfer to another bus to get out to Tiger Stadium. It was just kids, 14 - 15, no adults, and we would come out, because the game started at 8:00, it didn’t end until 11 or 11:30 and you walk out of the stadium there would be so many people waiting to get on the Michigan bus to go back downtown, we would walk from Tiger Stadium back downtown to, I guess, right now it would be Campus Martius area, it was where the Gayety Theater, the Monroe block was where we stood for the bus. It was torn down in the mid, in the Seventies, and then ride the bus back. So we would get home at 12:30 and my mother would be waiting, reading a book in the living room, didn’t matter when we would get home, my mother would be up reading a really good book.</p>
<p>JC: This is a very good transition to what I wanted to get into, you’re 14 - 15 years old, you and your brothers, your friends, take the bus down to Tigers Stadium, to move into July 1967. You’ve just turned 15 years old, went to De La Salle High School, I guess you’re on summer break at this point. What are you doing that summer? Are you working? Other than going to Tiger baseball games?</p>
<p>KH: Right after, I was a freshman that year, I had just finished my freshman year and right after that we went to, I was in French Club because one of the requirements at De La Salle was foreign language and I took French. The French Club went to Montreal for Expo ’67. So part of June I was, for maybe a week, ten days, we were gone. We took the Brooks Line Bus. Brooks Line was based at a terminal at Harper and St. Cyril, which was actually where my great-grandfather had a house at St. Cyril and Hafeli Street, for that matter, just north of Harper. We went to Montreal for a week and went to Expo ’67 and a few other places, Quebec City and St. Anne-de-Beaupre, because after all it was a Catholic trip, we had to go up there too, which was a pretty cool place anyway. We had 35-40 kids on the bus, every one of us had $20-30 worth of firecrackers stuffed in the bus — which were illegal in Michigan —we came back, we had great fear of what’s going to happen when they search the bus and we’re all going to be busted. Since we had a Christian Brother sitting right up at the front seat of the bus, the customs guy come on and said, “You got anybody on the bus you didn’t have when you left?” and he said, “Nope” and he said, “Okay, you’re free to go.” Totally different experience than you would have fifty years later. About a week after that, I went up to Port Austin for a week with my cousin. After that, not much going on during the summer, we were still hitting the pool, but when you’re 15, you’re almost too cool to do that kind of stuff, because there are so many little kids in the pool. We didn’t have cars yet. Too old to play army, so I don’t know what exactly we did, probably just hanging out. I can’t really recall what exactly we did during the weekday. I do remember Fourth of July we shot off all those fireworks. We had shot a cherry bomb with a slingshot straight up in the air and you could see it sparkling, and my friend is walking, this is right next to Queen of Heaven Church, it would be a vacant area that was part of the church landscape. You could see that sparkling come down right over my friend, and we yelled to get out of the way and the thing blew up about ten feet above him.</p>
<p>JC: Despite being illegal, there was no—</p>
<p>KH: You didn’t see the police around, nobody was complaining, we were only shooting off firecrackers, these days, everybody is shooting off $300 worth of rockets.</p>
<p>[Restaurant background noise]</p>
<p>JC: So, when did you first learn about the riots, the unrest?</p>
<p>KH: It was a Sunday night, as I recall, that things really started turning for the worst. We had a little black and white TV, our only TV was a little portable one in the kitchen, and I’m sure we’re watching Channel 2 News back then. I can’t remember what they called it, but basically it was a minor disturbance when it first started.</p>
<p>JC: This is not long after the Blind Pig?</p>
<p>KH: The Blind Pig, right, which I believe was on a Saturday night. Then by Sunday afternoon, things really started picking up and my brother was at, my other brother, I was talking to him about this yesterday, about what I was going to be doing today, and he said he was at the ball game that day, and you could just look out beyond the stadium and see the smoke all over the place, but that was just the first Sunday. It was later, the next few days, as it escalated, that I was more aware and more involved in one way or another.</p>
<p>JC: Let’s talk about it. In what ways were you involved? What do you recall about—</p>
<p>KH: Well, I can’t remember what day it was when President Johnson called in federal troops to help the National Guard, but they would fly into Selfridge, back then it was still an Air Force base, and then would helicopter to the State Fair Grounds, which was their staging area. Because of where we were at, just south of Eight Mile Road, they basically followed a route that ran south down I-94 to Eight Mile Road, then west, because we would see a dozen or so Hueys flying. It was nighttime, but you could definitely hear them and you could see the lights flashing out as they were heading to the Fair Grounds to get everybody together there. The other thing we would notice during the day, since my dad worked at the tank arsenal, I would be up there every day with my mom, just about, to go pick him up. We used to pick him up on the Van Dyke side of the plant. Although he was an electrical engineer, an electrical engineering technician, he wasn’t involved in the manufacture, per se, rather than the design end of it, mostly reading blue prints and things. On the east side of property was a tank test ground. We used to watch them, while we were waiting to get over to the Van Dyke side, we would just watch those tanks running around the course, going up ramps and things, so I was very familiar with the sound of an M-60 tank and an armored personnel carrier, for that matter. I can remember one day, all of the sudden, we hear this rumble of tanks and armored personnel carriers.</p>
<p>JC: While you’re at home?</p>
<p>KH: Yeah, at home. This is the part that kind of embarrasses me now. All of us kids, and most adults, all race down to the corner of Rolyat and Van Dyke to watch the convoy racing down and of course, we were cheering, and saying some rather nasty things, that, “Go get ‘em” and all that kind of stuff and so —</p>
<p>[Restaurant background noise]</p>
<p>KH: So, “Go get ‘em,” “Go get those guys,” well we didn’t use “guys.” You could look down toward Six Mile Road and there, up to Six Mile Road, now and you could look down Van Dyke and there was a line of smoke roughly from the whole horizon. Most of it seemed to happening on the west side. Well it started at Twelfth Street, not far from the Tiger Stadium, the area, but it did spread to the east side too. It seems to me most of it was west side stuff, but there was a lot of smoke down there. Of course, not being old enough to drive there, we kept our distance, and life seemed to go on pretty much. I mean the pool was closed. There was a rather large sporting goods store right across Van Dyke from our street, Dee’s Sporting Goods. Dee’s was closed because, and actually had guards around it, because they had enough weapons in there to arm a small army. That was one of the cool things, you walk into Dee’s and just see the gun room and all that kind of stuff. So that’s how it really affected our neighborhood.</p>
<p>JC: Do you remember any other reactions of your family, your neighbors at that time?</p>
<p>KH: We were all pretty much the same back then.</p>
<p>JC: What about your parish? You said everybody went to the parish? Do you remember any reaction within the church?</p>
<p>KH: No, not particularly. Again, we were a Polish group, and Polish had their own set of detractors, so if we could find somebody who we thought was farther down the pole than we were, then that made it that much — we were all cheering for the police, we were all cheering for the army. That was the way it was then.</p>
<p>JC: What about in the aftermath of what you saw, what you experienced? Did you find yourself, your family, your neighbors starting to change habits or attitudes? You said you were going down to the ballpark, to the Tigers game.</p>
<p>KH: I think things had changed considerably — When it was over for us, it was over. Even the next year, I think life went back pretty much too normal. Even next year, right after the assassination of Martin Luther King, there was not as a big a flare up, but there was another flare up, right after the assassination. But, even that was April 4, that was right around opening day, and we still went. I went to opening day ’68 and I went to another game, because it was Easter Vacation. I went to another game during that time, and we took the bus both times and even though there was some violence, we were careful, but I don’t think, the danger seemed as great as it had seemed in 1967. Now I was going to talk about my epiphany.</p>
<p>JC: Okay, go ahead.</p>
<p>KH: I mean I had my attitudes, but they changed in 1969. I was between junior and senior years of high school and I had to go to summer school for math, which is not surprising. I went to Osborn High School, a Detroit public school, not far from where I used to hitchhike. That’s in what is now a 48205 zip code, which was considered one of the more dangerous areas of Detroit in 2015. But anyway, it was me, and one other white girl, and about fifteen to twenty black kids, and we got along really well. I mean, I had friends come out of that group and so this isn’t so bad, we can get along, I mean heck, I’m in summer school with them, that doesn’t make me any better, I’m there. So my attitudes started changing, and then when I worked at K-Mart on the east side of Detroit in 1973-1974, most of the crew there was black kids my age, and we all got together, and those two incidents really changed my attitude. When we got married, we moved to Romulus and we bought a house, right after we moved in, the house next to us, moved out in the middle of the night. We’re going, “Uh-oh, there must be a black family moving in next to us,” and I said, “Well, if they can afford to buy a house that I can afford to buy, what’s the problem?” So by the end of the Seventies, I had probably done a 180-degree turn on how I felt, and I think that has continued. One of my best friends in choir is a black guy, wouldn’t have much a choir without him either, he’s a real deep bass, but anyway, so I’ve had friends from here on out. The riot kind of started changing my attitudes more than you would have thought.</p>
<p>JC: So the aftermath of ’67 was almost an awakening for you personally?</p>
<p>KH: Yeah, it was. There are certain people in my family who that hasn’t happened yet, but for me it was quite easy and with my kids’ attitudes are pretty same as mine.</p>
<p>JC: What do you think, you spoke about the legacy of the unrest, the riots of 1967 were personally — what more historically, community-wise, how would assess the legacy more generally for Detroit?</p>
<p>KH: There are a lot things that have happened in Detroit since then that make me sad. I don’t like what’s happened to the inner-city areas. I drive though past the abandoned auto plants and wish that I was born fifty years earlier than I was. When all this was going on, I have a Master’s degree in history, so that’s kind of where that comes from, but we took a tour several years through Henry Ford Museum where we went to Ford sites around the city. You get to Livernois and Warren, and this was where the Lincoln Plant used to be, and you go to Hamtramck and this is where the Dodge Main Plant used to be, and you drive past the Packard Plant and it’s just a derelict, that kind of stuff is hard. The southwest side, the same way, I did an interview with a priest down there, we’re driving down the Clark Road area down there, the southwest side of the city and all the auto plants are gone and so I’m probably wandering off the question, so you should repeat it again.</p>
<p>JC: Well, just to follow-up, so you see some of the racial tension and economic decline or problems that Detroit has faced as intertwined, then?</p>
<p>KH: Well, yeah, because the neighborhood I grew up in, which was 100 percent white from anywhere, almost north of Six Mile all the way to Eight Mile, is now heavily a black neighborhood. Granted, it’s a very stable neighborhood.</p>
<p>JC: Did your parents continue to live there?</p>
<p>KH: They lived there until 1991. That bothered my dad to even move then, because the house he grew up in was right on the corner of Van Dyke and Lance, which is one street over from us. That house was built by his dad. When we were kids, it was owned by J.J. Knapp’s Photo Studio. It’s still there now, although I think it’s empty and another thing, I mentioned earlier my great-grandfather’s house down on St. Cyril and Harper, in 1997 or 1998, I guess it was, for my parent’s fifty-seventh wedding anniversary, we rented a bus and we went down to places where they had grown up. We went to, my mom grew up at Miller and St. Cyril and every time we drive down St. Cyril we’d see the house, well went by there in 1998 and it was gone. My great-grandfather’s first house, which was on Hathon Street, just off of St. Cyril was built in the 1880s and every time we’d drive by we’d see it. 1987, we were down that way, we took our kids to go see their great-great-grandfather’s house, it was gone. My great-grandfather’s beautiful brick house was occupied in 1998 and the people who were there, sitting on the porch, it was a black family, they were perfectly happy to have us come and take pictures on their front lawn, and Hafeli Street is right there, so were telling them the story of Hafeli Street and they knew how to pronounce it after that, but two years ago, Josie, my wife, and I went up there. We were coming back from Belle Isle and we said, “Let’s go up through the old neighborhoods,” and all that was left of my great-grandfather’s house was a shell. The floors were gone. Everything was gone. The only thing that was still there was the front door and the glass on either side of the front door. Why didn’t they take that? So, it was just, everything, that really, I took pictures and posted on Facebook and my sister posted pictures of the way it looked in ’98, and I said do not like this post, do not push like, there is nothing to like about this picture. I was really angry. Can’t blame everybody, but looting is something that happens. We actually took a tour of a copper mine, when my son was starting at Michigan Tech in 2003, and the guy said, “There is 90 percent of the copper is still left in the mines of the Upper Peninsula, but as long as there are people stripping copper out of houses, there is no need, there is no industry for it, there is no reason to open the mines.” That is one of the saddest things about Detroit, is that kind of economic destruction for those kinds of reasons, that’s what bothers me the most about driving around down there.</p>
<p>JC: Despite that, you still say you see yourself as a defender of Detroit; you encountered people, when you went up to college in the UP, when you have traveled extensively?</p>
<p>KH: Always, always</p>
<p>JC: You’ve encountered the negative perceptions of Detroit, but you—</p>
<p>KH: Even the job I have now, I’ve worked for the federal government for 38 years, but about two years after I started working there, before I got married, I was living at home from 1977 until I got married in 1979, and in early 1979, I saw an ad for a job at the Detroit Historical Society. It was to work out at Fort Wayne and I thought, this is what I want to do. This will be fun. I got interviewed by the head of the Society, or the Historical Museum, I think his name was Weeks.</p>
<p>JC: Weeks?</p>
<p>KH: Yeah, I think that was his name. They asked me for ID and I pulled out my driver’s license and because I had just moved to Romulus, there was a sticker on the back of my driver’s license that said I no longer lived in the city of Detroit. Sorry, this interview is over. I was heartbroken; I really was, because I would have moved back to my old neighborhood in a flash. Even though I had a nice house in Romulus, but I could have got a much nicer house in Detroit for less money or about the same about of money, and I wanted to save that neighborhood, because it was my grandfather’s neighborhood. I’ve always wanted to move back to Detroit. As it turned out, I knew the guy who got the job, and he got laid off after about a year, so I guess I made the right — so I was fortunate that it happened the way that it did, because I’ll be retiring in another 230 days, and it’s the only job I ever had out of college. I have to be happy with that.</p>
<p>JC: We can wrap up here, I wanted to know: is there anything else that I didn’t touch on, any memories, or thoughts, or ideas, or things you would like to discuss that we didn’t get to?</p>
<p>KH: Oh, there’s tons of memories, but I’m not sure they apply to this, and plus it’s get a little loud, we can mosey over to my house. We covered a lot of it. I will always be a Detroit defender. My mother still goes down to Queen of Heaven once in a while.</p>
<p>JC: The parish is still there?</p>
<p>KH: Oh, yeah, it will stay now because it’s the only Catholic parish in the Eight Mile corridor between Grosse Pointe and Redford. So the Archdiocese will do what it can to keep it going. The only problem is that it has no parking, as I mentioned earlier. We were pretty much boxed in on Sundays because everybody parked on the street and parked on three streets around it, six masses on Sunday. We had a Rolyat Street reunion about three years ago. Now, I found it funny that you had to, if you lived on Rolyat before 1970 was the cutoff. I found that a little suspicious. To me, it was no black people allowed, basically what it was. I don’t know if it was conscience or not, but that’s when we grew up, so that’s the kids we knew. We didn’t want the kids that none of us played with, none of us hung out with. The motive may not have been that, but that’s the way I saw it, well I don’t think it was, because my brother organized it and my brother’s probably more liberal than I am, but I just found it funny. We met in the gym at Queen of Heaven and there was about thirty of us were there, it was great, and we did pictures. If you want pictures of Detroit, eastside of Detroit, I will be happy to provide that to Society at some point.</p>
<p>JC: Okay, I can get you in touch with the staff there.</p>
<p>KH: It would be copies, because, I just bought a scanner.</p>
<p>JC: We can wrap up and talk about this, but Ken thank you very much for taking the time today. I really appreciate you spending time and recalling the memories from the period.</p>
<p>KH: And introducing you to Rocky’s.</p>
<p>JC: Yes, that’s true. Thanks, Ken.</p>
<p>KH: You’re welcome.</p> **
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Michigan National Guard, Army, Tiger Stadium, Rolyat Street, Our Lady Queen of Heaven, Lipke Pool, Detroit Police Department
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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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Kenneth Hafeli, October 12th, 2015
Subject
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82nd Airborne Division—US Army
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Polish-American community—Detroit—Michigan
Northeast—Detroit—Michigan
Description
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In this interview, Hafeli recalls the mood in 1960s “white” Detroit. Growing up in an exclusively white neighborhood, Hafeli describes the community-police relations and the racial attitudes of his community. Hafeli describes the how his personal beliefs and opinions were altered by the disturbance and its aftermath.
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society
Date
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11/25/2015
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
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audio/WAV
Language
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en-US
Type
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Sound
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Catholic Community
Detroit Police Department
Michigan National Guard
Our Lady Queen of Heaven
Tanks
Teenagers
Tiger Stadium
United States Army
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http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/2633f37d8d77845a650fab896d0fb902.JPG
c68fd09b1c4f3c05a41319012bd9d4c9
Dublin Core
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Title
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Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
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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
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Narrator/Interviewee's Name
The current first and last name of the person speaking or being interviewed.
Judge Victoria Roberts
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Victoria Roberts is a Federal Judge who serves in Detroit. She has a long history, and many memories, of her time growing up in the city of Detroit with her parents and siblings. She explains her childhood during 1967, while also offering unique input on what she hopes the Detroit community will grow into.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
Kalisha Davis
Interview Place
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Detroit, MI
Date
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01/15/2016
Interview Length
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01:11:45
Transcriptionist
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Bree Boettner
Transcription Date
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04/01/2016
Transcription
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<p>KD: This is Kalisha Davis. I am interviewing Judge Victoria Roberts on January 15, 2016 in Detroit, Michigan. You’re a Detroit native, right?</p>
<p>VR: I am.</p>
<p>KD: And were you born here in Detroit?</p>
<p>VR: I was.</p>
<p>KD: Okay, so where were you born exactly?</p>
<p>VR: I was born in what was Women’s Hospital and I lived on the east side of Detroit then. I lived on Joseph Campau. I was born November 25, 1951.</p>
<p>KD: Awesome, so did your parents reside on the east side also?</p>
<p>VR: They did, my parents came from the South, and they were part of the great migration of blacks from the South. My dad is from New Orleans, Louisiana. My mom from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and they both worked in a defense plant in Tennessee. I understand from talking to them that there was a facility that was opened in the Detroit area, and so they moved and continued working in those jobs for a short period of time. My father ended up working at Great Lakes Steel and my mother was a domestic worker; she took in ironing, she cleaned houses and she had six children along the way.</p>
<p>KD: That’s what I was going to ask you. Where are you in the line up? How many sisters and brothers do you have?</p>
<p>VR: I have six sisters and brothers, but only six of us not seven of us grew up in the same household.</p>
<p>KD: Okay.</p>
<p>VR: And, I have two brothers who are older than I. I have one sister older than I that I grew up, and then I have another older sister and then I have two younger sisters.</p>
<p>KD: So you fall somewhere in the middle?</p>
<p>VR: I’m sort of in the middle, the peacemaker.</p>
<p>KD: The peacemaker? [Laughter] I can imagine. Now what are your parents’ names, and your sisters' and brothers' names?</p>
<p>VR: My father’s name is Manuel Roberts. My mother, her name is Grace Roberts. They’re both deceased. My oldest brother, named after my father Manuel Roberts. I understand my parents came to Detroit around 1943, '44, and my oldest brother was born here in 1945 and he is deceased. Then I have a brother who was born in 1946, Ronald, and he now lives in Pasadena, California. My sister Patricia Roberts was born in 1948, and she’s deceased. I came in 1951, my sister Joanne Roberts was born in 1955 and my sister Teresa Roberts was born in 1958. And then the sister I did not grow up with, her name is Doris Jennings and she lives in Maryland. But everybody else who is living, with the exception of my brother who lives in California, is in the Detroit area.</p>
<p>KD: Okay, so they stayed here for the remainder of their —</p>
<p>VR: Yes, my brother is the only one who migrated, he went west and I went to law school in Boston and came back, but everybody else stayed here.</p>
<p>KD: Okay, and what types of work do your siblings do?</p>
<p>VR: My brother Manuel was a mechanic at Ford Motor Company. Started doing that right out of high school. He didn’t go to college, although he was very smart, and he stayed there for 30, 35 years, retired from Ford Motor Company. My brother Ronald, ended up going to Eastern Michigan University, and then went out to the University of Southern California and got an MBA, and has worked in a number of positions using his masters degree, comptrollers of companies and he is retired now. My sister Patricia worked for the Department of Social Services, which is now DSS, I think, and she graduated from Wayne State University with an, I think her undergraduate degree was in — you know what, I’m not quite sure. Maybe it was social work. I think it was social work. So she worked for the Department of Social Services for many, many years before her death. And then there’s me, and my sister Joanne is a manager at AT&T right here in Downtown Detroit and she did get her masters from University of Michigan-Dearborn, I think in management. And then my sister Teresa is a court reporter and she’s working for a judge now in Wayne County Circuit Court. So that’s us. My sister Doris, who lives in Maryland, got a PhD in education and she was an educator. She’s retired now also.</p>
<p>KD: That’s awesome.</p>
<p>VR: Yeah.</p>
<p>KD: So what did you – because it sounds like, well most of your brothers and sisters have college degrees and are educated and even graduate degrees. Was that something that was emphasized by your parents, by your family, like where did the motivation —?</p>
<p>VR: Where did that come from? You know, I had this conversation with my sister not too long ago. My sister Joanne, because she has a son that just graduated from Adrian College and she called me early in the morning and she was talking about, she says, “You know, our generation,” talking about our sib ship, “was the first that graduated from high school,” and most of our children have all gone on and graduated from high school and college and gotten advanced degrees. My dad finished the ninth grade only in Louisiana, my mother finished the tenth grade only in Tennessee and so they were not formally educated, although both very smart. My mother eventually got her GED but that was after all of us were in school and it wasn’t until the mid-sixties and then after she got her GED she ended up working for the J.L. Hudson Company in their warehouse as a merchandise checker, all those little tags that you seeing hanging on clothes, that’s what she used to do. That was her job after she stopped doing domestic work. But my parents, my dad particularly, was quite emphatic about education, you know even though they themselves were not educated, they knew the value of education. My father worked in a steel mill, he worked at Great Lakes Steel, he worked at Zug Island, which is a filthy place, and would come home filthy. Ended up, his hearing was very affected because of the noise in the plant and he was there for 35 years. And he would always say that he didn’t want us to work as he did; he didn’t want us to come home dirty. So education was very important to them. They didn’t know a lot about helping us with applications to college, didn’t know the first thing about it. I know that I navigated that all on my own. But I knew that it was important to them and I think we all got a very strong work ethic from our parents and a very strong sense of the value of an education. So somehow, some way, you know we all managed to do it, they didn’t have any money and so we were all on our own and some of us got scholarships, some of us didn’t but everybody managed.</p>
<p>KD: That’s what it sounds like. That’s pretty awesome.</p>
<p>VR: Yeah.</p>
<p>KD: Now where did you live in July 1967?</p>
<p>VR: I grew up on the East side, I was born 1951. In 1960 I lived in the same house on Joseph Campau for the first nine and a half years of my life. In 1960 my parents moved into what is known as the Boston-Edison Community. And we lived on Edison, we lived between Linwood and LaSalle, and in fact, my parents are both deceased. My dad died in 2006, my mother in 2007, and we still own that house. We’ve been trying to sell it [laughter] but we still own it and you know my mother, my parents both got quite ill later in life, but we did not put them in nursing homes. And we kept them in their home and we had people coming in to take care of him, and take care of them. But I say that to say that my mother died in 2007 which is when we went through the economic crisis, the mortgage crisis, and the house when we had it appraised in 2007, appraised at about $40,000 and we were not prepared to just give it away.</p>
<p>KD: Right.</p>
<p>VR: And so we've held on to it and rented it out with some success. So we moved in 1960 to that house on Edison and that’s where I was living in July of ’67 when the riot happened.</p>
<p>KD: Okay.</p>
<p>VR: And it started just a few blocks from where we were living.</p>
<p>KD: Right, exactly, yeah on Twelfth and Clairmont.</p>
<p>VR: So we were between Linwood and LaSalle then it was Fourteenth and then it was Twelfth and Edison was two blocks from Clairmont. Atkinson and Clairmont, so we were about four blocks away from where it started.</p>
<p>KD: So you were in middle school?</p>
<p>VR: In ’67? No, I was actually in the — I had finished the tenth grade and was going into the eleventh grade in the fall of ’67.</p>
<p>KD: So you talked about your parents’ occupations, you talked about your siblings. What do you remember about the city during that, not even that period of time but maybe mid-1960s. What was the norm for your family, how did you interact with your neighbors, what kinds of things did you all do normally?</p>
<p>VR: Yes. Well my family was a blue collar family, my dad in a steel factory, my mother doing domestic work, but we were in what was considered to be, you know, a middle class neighborhood. And I attribute that to my mother primarily, she tried to scrape and save as much as she could and somehow they managed to come up with a down payment for a house in Boston-Edison. And I do believe that at that time they paid about, that house cost about $13,000, which was nothing but a lot to them. And our neighbor, our neighborhood was changing then, you know it had been a white neighborhood primarily, like most neighborhoods in Detroit and it was becoming, it was shifting, and there were a lot of black middle class families moving into Boston-Edison. And so our neighbors were school teachers, they were doctors, and there were not a lot of blue collar people. I think we felt that. We felt the class difference living on Edison. And I didn’t have a word to describe that, I just know that I felt it.</p>
<p>KD: What high school did you go to?</p>
<p>VR: We were at, I and my young sister were at Visitation and when we were on the East side we had been at St. Elizabeth. My father was a fallen Catholic but it was still important to him that we get a Catholic education. And I believe at St. Elizabeth, at the time Catholic schools have always had tuition but I think at the time it was $50 a family. So we were all able to go to St. Elizabeth. When we moved, I and my younger sisters ended up at St. Elizabeth. My sister went to, let me see, I was in the fifth grade. My sister went to Durfee in the middle school and Durfee was on that campus with Central High School, Durfee Middle School and Roosevelt Grade School. So she was at Durfee, my brothers -- I think they stayed at Northern on the East side for a period of time and then they ended up at Central.</p>
<p>KD: Okay.</p>
<p>VR: So the three oldest were at a public school just a block away from Visitation, and then the three youngest were at Visitation. So that’s where I was in school in July of ’67, had just finished the tenth grade. But you asked me about being in that neighborhood and how it felt.</p>
<p>It felt a little isolated because we were in a minority, being a blue collar family. At Visitation the makeup of the school was primarily white even though the neighborhood was not that, and I think the reason for it was that it was a very good school and a lot of people whose families had lived in the area for a long time continued to come there, even though they were coming there on the bus, even though they were coming from suburbs now. They continued to come in and be part of the Visitation community and that was true from fifth grade on, I remember it was still true when I was in the ninth grade, when I was in tenth grade. The high school was predominantly white until the riot happened. And dramatically, in September of ’67, when I went back to school following the riot the school was overwhelmingly black.</p>
<p>KD: Where were your friendships? You talk about issues related to your class?</p>
<p>VR: Yes.</p>
<p>KD: Compared to the majority in your neighborhood. Were your friendships at school? Were they in the neighborhood? Were they somewhere else?</p>
<p>VR: That’s a very good question. I certainly had friendships at school, people I regarded to be my school friends, and there were people on the block also that we socialized with, that we played with. I have to say as I reflect back, probably my closest friends in high school were people that I went to school with, rather than people in the neighborhood.</p>
<p>KD: And so you talk about them being majority white, did you feel any sense of tension coming from them?</p>
<p>VR: I didn’t. I didn’t feel, I didn’t feel any tension that way. I think the tension we felt more was a class tension than a race tension.</p>
<p>KD: That’s interesting because your family moved to the city just after or before the race riots?</p>
<p>VR: You mean to the west side?</p>
<p>KD: Your parents you said they moved here in 1943, so the race riots in the city, I believe were in 1943.</p>
<p>VR: Yes, you know I didn’t have any knowledge of that; it wasn’t anything my parents ever talked about. I could tell you when we lived on the east side on Joseph Campau it was pretty close to Hamtramck and it was a very mixed neighborhood. St. Elizabeth, when I was there in the grade school, that was a predominantly white school also. But I can’t remember feeling a lot of race tension then. I can tell you a story and it is unfortunate, we had, we lived in a wood frame house on Joseph Campau and I had — there was a white neighbor next door to us. Then two doors away a black family and there were kids in that family that we played with all the time. I can remember the boy’s name being Junebug and the girl, she will go unnamed, right now, but I can remember and they were a family of brown skinned black people, right. We were light, you looking at me now, my father was from New Orleans and was a quote “Creole”.</p>
<p>KD: Okay.</p>
<p>VR: And you know "good hair," and I say that in quotes also. And he was very light skinned, in fact I had relatives in New Orleans who had migrated to California and were actually passing for white. And he married, almost to his regret, because he would say things that were quite regrettable about my mom, who was a brown skinned woman from Tennessee. And she had quote “nappy” hair, and so he ended up with these children who were, you know, light, most of us, and with different grades of hair. I happened to get “nappy” hair. My sisters had, depending on who you are and what your view of hair is, some people would say that they had a better grade of hair. But I can remember, and my mom, so I had nappy hair, but my mother pressed it all the time and it was long so we had, I had long pressed hair. And I can remember walking home from lunch, for lunch from St. Elizabeth on the east side and it was only two blocks so we came home for lunch my mother was always home, because she was doing laundry at the time, she was doing ironing for people. And we would come home for lunch. I can remember walking home and this girl who lived two doors away from us, walking behind me and taunting me and telling me, “You think you’re good, you think you’re better than everybody because you’re light skinned and because you have long hair.” And she actually attacked me a couple of times as I walked home from school.</p>
<p>KD: Wow, even with your siblings around?</p>
<p>VR: No! I don’t know why but the time she chose to attack me I was by myself.</p>
<p>KD: Oh, she knew.</p>
<p>VR: And so she knew, and she would just walk behind me, she would taunt me and this was long before we had a name for it; today it’d be called bullying, right. But that was it, that was the taunt, “You think you’re better than everybody because you’re light skinned and because you have long hair.” And so I remember that, I remember that. That sticks out in my head more than anything, more than anything that could be categorized as racial tension in the late-Fifties, early-Sixties, before I turned 10 and before I moved to the west side. And then after the move just feeling that class tension when I was in Boston-Edison</p>
<p>KD: I can imagine. So, we talked a little bit about norms, but what kinds of activities did your family do together? Did you all shop anywhere in particular? Was there any sort of entertainment that you remember or maybe the family looked forward to?</p>
<p>VR: I can remember that we would on many Sunday afternoons drive around Belle Isle. Just drive endlessly around Belle Isle, and my father liked to drive. And so we would get in the car and we’d drive. Another driving activity I can remember is at Great Lakes Steel, he’d get two weeks of vacation and every summer until, I’d say ’61 ’62, we would all pile in the car and we would drive to New Orleans and spend my father’s two weeks of vacation in New Orleans. I remember that. There were not a lot of family activities that we — things we did as a family. My father was a troubled person, and he was an alcoholic. He had, I think, a lot of regret about how his life had turned out, he certainly experienced the — I think, for the lack of better word at this moment, experienced the madness that a lot of blacks did during that time period who didn’t have the benefit of being able to complete school, or have opportunities open to them, even though he knew he was -- he was a very smart and very capable man and I think he felt pigeon-holed and felt he didn’t have a lot of opportunities available to him. And I think he felt trapped also, as I said earlier, about knowing that many of his relatives were passing for white and having a better life, as he regarded it a better life. And he was not able to do that once he married and had these children that he couldn’t pass off as being white people. So he was a very troubled, very troubled person, and I think that, I don’t know all of the reasons why he became an alcoholic but I do think that that contributed to it. And I think that, as I talk to a lot of my friends my age who came from blue collar families, black families, so many of our fathers were alcoholics.</p>
<p>KD: I can imagine, because did he have certain experiences even on the job? I know having read a few things about discrimination that, workers faced among, you know, and that is what kind of stemmed or led to the race riots [in 1943]. You know that black people weren’t given the same leadership opportunities and be earning the salaries they deserved. You know there were systems put in place to create some barriers to—</p>
<p>VR: Yes.</p>
<p>KD: to really—</p>
<p>VR: I don’t really know the answer to that because he certainly never talked about anything that had happened on his job.</p>
<p>KD: Okay.</p>
<p>VR: I think to the contrary my father was a member of the Great Lakes Steel Workers and at that time unions were incredibly strong and it feels like they were striking all the time. Because I can remember, you know, they provided food for the families of people who were on strike so we would have powdered eggs, we’d have powdered milk and canned meat and stuff that was really nasty. But I can just remember them being on strike a lot. But I say that to say that he was a member of a union and he would often go to work drunk and probably today it would never have been tolerated. But he was a likable person and people, I think, did a lot to protect him and would find a place for him to sleep, a corner for him to sleep so that he wasn’t working and endangering himself or others. And I can just, I can just remember him talking about that and as years went on he became even more troubled. We had more interaction with people that he worked with and who were in the union and who did a lot to protect him and protect his job. They knew we had a big family and they protected him; he never lost his job. Got suspended [laugh] but he never lost his job.</p>
<p>KD: So I’m thinking about a question related to how your family may have understood city government. You had brothers, how they may have related to law enforcement. Thinking about like, leading up to what happened July 1967. What was your family’s perception of city leadership and the ways in which they were interacting with particularly the African American community in the city, but, any other—</p>
<p>VR: I know that my brothers as young teenagers in the city had several encounters with the police. That didn’t seem like they should have happened. For example like I can remember my older brother had a drop-top, red, red with a black top, a convertible and he had a girlfriend. I remember, and this one particular incident he was telling us about, he was driving, he had the top down, it was in the summer, he had his arm around his girlfriend and he was stopped for that and pulled out of his car for that.</p>
<p>KD: Oh wow.</p>
<p>VR: And given a ticket for that. I remember him being just exceedingly mad about that. My other brother, I can remember him just telling us about times when he had been stopped by the police and it just didn’t seem that there was any reason for that. My brothers were never arrested, they were never in any kind of trouble. But I do remember that kind of discussion about police harassment and didn’t have a sense of how widespread it was probably until the riots did happen. But I think that, you know, we were fairly insulated. I mean I can remember just being on my block and playing, you know, and a few people that we were in touch with on the block during the summer, and I don’t really remember a lot that was going on that precipitated the riot. My information came later and has come even later than that as I find out more about the history of Detroit but then when I was, what 15 years old, didn’t have a lot of knowledge about what was going on in the city and my parents were not – they were not engaged in community groups, community activities, so I didn’t have that perspective either. They were just working people, they didn’t go to meetings, community meetings in the evenings. It just didn’t happen.</p>
<p>KD: So, how did you end up first learning about what was happening?</p>
<p>VR: I can remember that night just hearing a lot of gun fire, I mean we were that close to it and then on the news, hearing that the police — just conflicting stories, I think. There was one story that the police had invaded a blind pig, I think that was what we were hearing more than anything else, and that shots were fired and people were killed and it just kind of escalated from that. So I remember, I don’t remember much about anything that precipitated it and I don’t remember anything other than the news accounts in the first few hours following it. I remember being told you know we just need to, you just need to stay in your house and then the gun fire just continued, I remember that. And I remember us being just on the floor, for what seemed like hours in that day and a couple days after that. The other thing I remember about it is that we were at Edison and Linwood, was Sacred Heart Seminary — and it’s still there — and that was used by the National Guard as a headquarters and so, another vivid memory that I have is of tanks just rolling up our street all the time. There were tanks and they had men on them who were standing up with guns, rifles poised and they were on all sides of these tanks and they were just rolling up this residential street. I remember that. I remember also that we lived near Joy, well Clairmount, Clairmount when it got to Linwood became Joy Road, and Joy Road intersected with, I think, the Boulevard, if I’m getting this right — or, intersected with Grand River — and that was a commercial strip there and that’s where we shopped, that’s where a couple of grocery stores were, that’s where the post office was. There was a cleaners there that we used. And I can remember once we finally ventured out, all of those commercial places with their, you know, the windows smashed in and at the grocery store people just streaming out with cartfuls of food and people streaming out of the cleaners with handfuls of clothes and I can remember [laughter] I was just a child, a child, right? I remember my mom had bought me this really nice pink suit for Easter in 1967, at the time the riot had broke out, that pink suit was in the cleaners and so were up there and I’m thinking, you know, somebody probably took my pink suit and I’m crying about my pink suit. And of course everything was stolen from the cleaners and I never got the pink suit or anything else that had been put in there. But that’s — those are my memories: the tanks rolling up, people looting, taking things from the grocery store, taking things from the cleaners, taking things from all the other commercial establishments and just, you know, sporadic gun fire, I remember that. And once we went out it wasn’t for long, I mean we came back and I can remember pretty much being barricaded in the house and only going out to sit on the porch and to watch these tanks roll up and down the street.</p>
<p>KD: Right. I can imagine how chaotic something like that must have felt especially for your parents trying to manage these six children. Because what – like how did they react? Was there certain rules? Like you said you really weren’t allowed to leave the house. Like, did your dad – was he going to work in that period or was everyone pretty much hunkered down at home?</p>
<p>VR: No, my dad was still, I believe that he was still going to work. I don’t remember him being hunkered down. I remember him going to work. My dad always went to work, I remember that about him and I think that’s part of where our ethic came from. He might be drunk but he was still going to work. He may have stayed up all night and come in at four o’clock in the morning but he was getting ready to go to work.</p>
<p>KD: He was going to be there.</p>
<p>VR: He was going to go to work. So I don’t remember him not going to work during the period of the riots.</p>
<p>KD: Okay, let me see.</p>
<p>So there’s this discussion, like, even as we are working through the exhibition and the project itself where there’s a discussion around how to refer to this period in time. So I’ve heard you a few time refer to it as a riot. Some people call it a rebellion or an uprising. Like, is there a term that you think is best to describe this time in history and if can you share the why you think it?</p>
<p>VR: Yeah. You know I haven’t given a lot of thought to what to call it. I know that it has historically been dubbed "the 1967 Riot" and I think that was a term that caught on, that stuck, and all of the uprisings that were happening across the country, I think were referred to as a race – as a riot, as race riots. So, you know, I don’t know what to call it and I don’t know if it’s so important. We know that it happened and we know that it happened for a reason and that at least in Detroit it was an incredible turning point for the fortune of this city, for the direction of this city, for race relations. It was, you know I think we hit bottom. I think we hit bottom. What is so — what was so incredible to me, and I mentioned it before, was just the mass exit of whites from Detroit in such a short period of time. My school — not a lot of white families still living in the area but a lot of white students commuting to the school because it was a great school and they didn’t come back in that short period of time, they made a decision that they were just not going to enter the city of Detroit. And those who were still living here put their homes on the market and they left. That was so dramatic to me. To be sitting in a classroom that only four months before I had left and it was pretty integrated and then I come back and it’s 95 percent black. The other thing that happened was that the Archdiocese of Detroit, and maybe it had been in the works before the riot happened, but the Archdiocese made a decision to consolidate a lot of schools. And so that consolidation coincided with the Fall of ’67, post-riot. So I went back to school, I was no longer at Visitation, I was at St. Martin de Porres High School, and it had consolidated, three or four, I think, Catholic schools. Small, losing population I guess I’m not sure about the reasons why. But I went back and did my two years same location but at St. Martin de Porres and that’s where I graduated from.</p>
<p>KD: So, this actually, this question actually, this is a great transition to this question as far as how this affected your life, how did things change for you? How did it impact your family? Were there thoughts and feelings about what had happened, that maybe led to some decisions that your family made or that you made? Maybe pursuing a career in law? Or is there anything?</p>
<p>VR: I was actually very interested in journalism and I got my undergraduate degree in journalism and had always been a writer. I wrote poems, I wrote short stories, I wrote a play in Latin. So that didn’t change, I still wanted to be a writer. It felt like not a lot changed within my household. As I said, or eluded too, there were a lot of other things going on in my household that were far more important than, at least to us, than what was going on, on the outside. There were very significant issues that we were dealing with. My mother was very distracted, if you will, from what was going on on the outside. So we had significant things going on inside my home. But I do remember, so that was in ’67, and Martin Luther King was killed in April of ’68, I think. That hit me hard. That hit me hard. I think that there were a lot of discussions at school about race relations immediately in the Fall of ’67. I think those came about because of who the principal was of this now consolidated school. And my principal was Joseph Dulin who was the first black principal of a Catholic school in the United States and he was militant, he was militant. At one point — I think I had graduated already — but at one point Dulin and others had taken over and barricaded and chained because they felt the Archdiocese was not paying enough attention to education, now that, in the city of Detroit, now that all these white people had exited. So Catholic education in Detroit following the riot had a very different population and Dulin was very aware of that, you know, because he was the first black principal to a school that comes into a high school that was all black. And so I think that he, he more than anybody else in my life at that time, really caused me to start thinking about race and about discrimination. And he made us feel that we were being discriminated against in our education by the Archdiocese of Detroit because the population had changed and there just wasn’t the same attention going to be given to our issues.</p>
<p>KD: So when you think about how he may have inspired you to consider those disparities and look at, and I know this is a whole other conversation, so I don’t want us to spend too much time, only if you want to. But the education system now in the city of Detroit and what young people are facing and all of the problems and how like academic achievement is not even on the checklist as far as what has been achieved. Which in my mind, especially as a youth advocate, gives me a sense of rage to know that our young people can’t even depend on having a decent education on their way out so they’re not prepared for life in the 21<sup>st</sup> century.</p>
<p>VR: Yes.</p>
<p>KD: So how? I’m trying to think of how to relate the two, because I think there is definitely a link between what was happening for you and where we are today. What would you say about that? Like how, how have things kind of progressed or regressed in a way that now, you know, on the other side, you know, we have thousands of young people that are impacted by decisions that are being made within the education system. Does that make sense?</p>
<p>VR: No, I understand exactly what you are saying and I think it is regrettable what has happened in education because in some ways it doesn’t feel much different than 1967, ’68, ’69. I think there was a time where it was possible to get a very good education in the city of Detroit. My –I’m 64 years old, my contemporaries who grew up here most of them went to Detroit public schools. They got great educations, they did well in college, they were competitive. You can’t help, you cannot help but accept, I think, that there is a real racial component to the quality of education. I think about for example the fix of cross-district bussing that people were talking about. As if, as if, you are not going to be able to improve education unless it is with white people.</p>
<p>KD: Right, right.</p>
<p>VR: Bring the white people back into Detroit and quality of the education is going to improve, ship us out to the suburbs where education is already of high quality. But there is that racial component to what happened in Detroit in the decline of the public schools and it’s directly connected, I think, to the exit of whites from the educational system. They exit and we can no longer depend on a quality education for our kids, and that began then and it is continuing. You know, we have teachers — and I have a view but I won’t express it — we have all of these teachers on strike right now and a lot of it has to do with class size and conditions in the schools that they say are deplorable that children shouldn’t be exposed to and that resonates; it has merit. But why are we talking about those things? Why are we taking about not having running water, faucets, shower facilities, rodents, not having adequate supplies; I mean, those things are just so basic. And they’re not available and they’re the same kinds of things we were talking about in Sixties, in the Seventies, and it hasn’t been sufficiently addressed. And it is going to be, I think, the main hindrance to attracting middle class families with children to this city. When you can get all the young millennials and people who are not interested in families and starting families that you want, but that’s not – but they’re going to be a transient population. You want to get people here who are invested, who care about education because they’re going to have children and who want to stay here, who want to be part of a community. That’s what you want and it’s going to be hard to get that unless there is some serious attention and investment given to education and public education. We can talk forever about charter versus public and what that has done to the public school system, and I don’t get that either because the Detroit Public Schools operates charter schools and that is all very mysterious to me. But there’s so much to be said about education. Once I started practicing law and I moved into Rosedale Park and I lived there and I raised two children there, and lived there from 1977 to 1997 and my daughter went to the Open School out on Telegraph and Seven Mile from K to eighth grade and then she went to Renaissance for high school and it was a great education and I would always monitor what friends, what the education was like for friends who had their kids in private schools and I felt that she was getting a very competitive education, but the Open School was a unique experience.</p>
<p>KD: Yeah, it was excellent.</p>
<p>VR: And we had to stand in line to get her into that school and it was just totally unique. It had a race balance that it tried to maintain. Parents were required to come in and put in X-hours a week or your kids couldn’t stay in the school. And it was just a wonderful, wonderful experiment and I had no complaints about Renaissance. But we were part of a, you know, we were part of a community and we were part — we lived in Rosedale Park and people — there were families, people were very concerned about education, they were immersed and that’s what you want. That’s what you want in all of the areas of Detroit in order to, for it to experience the kind of renaissance that everybody is hoping for. That’s not going to happen without the education system being overhauled.</p>
<p>KD: So we have a few more questions left and I think we’re ok with time.</p>
<p>VR: Okay.</p>
<p>KD: So I guess my first question is along the lines of, what would you say to future generations about your memories of Detroit before 1967, during and after? I think that’s the first question. Like what would you want them to know about that time in our city’s history? What’s most important?</p>
<p>VR: Um, I think it’s important for people to know that things are cyclical and that history is very informative. And for many of us who think that what is going on today is brand new and no one else has ever experienced it, it is, you know, it’s just a false sense of reality. And, so we have a history here, some of it very rich, some of it very, very troublesome, and I think it tells us there are some problems here that are endemic that need to be addressed or we’re going to remain in this cycle. What I don’t like that I’m seeing now — I love the resurgence, I love the renaissance, what I don’t — but there are problems in it, there are some problems that are very troubling. I don’t like that enough attention – I believe that there is not sufficient attention being giving to affordable housing. I do see all of the companies that are in the Detroit area that are coming back to downtown Detroit and hiring, I look at the makeup of the work force, and it looks very, very white to me. I go in all of the restaurants, to the entertainment venues and it looks very white to me. In some of our communities, they’re being transformed and I think that there certainly was a wish that whites be attracted to live in Detroit, to shop in Detroit, to use all of the entertainment venues and that is certainly happening. But my question is, at what cost? And I don’t know that – I think that a part of what — something else that needs to be a part of the discussion though is this, and that is the effect of the so called “War on Crime” that coincided with the riots that started in the mid Sixties. That “war on crime” decimated the black communities, it really did. And so now we have all these families that lost fathers to prison, because of some severe and harsh law enforcement policies and severe and harsh sentences and it really, it just tore our community apart and when do we recover for that? One of the affects now is that, we have so many black men with felony records and they can’t get jobs because of that. What are we going to do about that?</p>
<p>KD: It's not clear.</p>
<p>VR: So, all of these parts, they’re absolutely related, race riots, race uprisings, whatever you want to call it, the “War on Crime,” the exit of whites from communities — all of those things are related and they all need to be addressed in a way that is going to somehow repair — they just have to repair what has happened in the black community, or Detroit is not going to experience the kind of renaissance, the kind of inclusive renaissance that so many of us hope will happen.</p>
<p>KD: So this is my last question, and, because I didn’t want to sit down with you and not talk at least for a moment about your experience as a mediator in regards to the bankruptcy. Because that, that within itself, is another important turning point for the city. And I know, like, a number of people, and rightfully so, believe that, you know, the bankruptcy is a result of dysfunction that has existed within the city for, not just ten years, but, you know, forty and fifty years. Going back to this period in time, that you know, that we’re talking about today. Are there ways to maximize opportunities, like we talked about some of the ways in which there are some imbalances already, you know, the bubble of diversity among residents and work force development particularly for African American men, problems within the justice system and those imbalances. Like, how do you, on the other side, you know, of something like a bankruptcy for the city that had a great impact, how do you begin to move in a direction that is – that creates more inclusive opportunities for more people?</p>
<p>VR: Well, certainly I think that, I think that educational opportunities, and not just for higher ed in the university sense that we’re accustomed to thinking about, but educational opportunities to develop workforces need to be expanded. I know for example that, now we’re seeing just this resurgence of building and construction and because that was something that didn’t happen for a long time here, people were not interested so much in going into the skilled trades, the building trades, and that used to be a place where people could made a really solid living and raise a family, you know, and live in Detroit and have a very good quality of life. And now on a lot of these construction projects, as I understand it, they’re unable to find Detroiters with those kinds of skills. And so if there is a real commitment, I think, to making this an inclusive city and a city that tries to employ as much of its residents as possible, I think that that is one area that employers need to give some attention to, developing some apprentice programs, not so much — the focus doesn’t always have to be on a university education but creating other opportunities. I think also that I think that something has to be done to address the criminal records that are a bar to employment, and I know that in some instances an employer can get a credit or a tax break if it hires people who have criminal records. I don’t think that a lot of potential employers know about those tax breaks and I think that they have to be, they just have to be marketed in a different way. And I think employers have to feel like it is, this is someone that we could take a chance on because just getting that foot through the door is the hardest part, if somebody can get their foot through the door and, you know, as a federal judge and somebody who sentences people all the time, it’s one of the hardest things that I do. I just know that employment opportunities and a lack of them are a primary reason why people are recidivists and find themselves back in prison. And so what, what can we do? What can we do first of all to stop sending so many people to prison in the first place, and then what can we do to get them back integrated into their community, integrated into their families so that they’re not headed back to a prison as their next place to live. So I do think that employment opportunities and making it possible for people to create their own wealth in a legal way, they don’t have to engage in criminal activity for their wealth, is huge in this city, just removing the barriers to employment, maybe making it easier for people to expunge their criminal records if they don’t have violent crimes, and if they have otherwise shown that they’ve turned their lives around. So I think that that is – I think that that is going to be, I think that that is big. I think the other thing is housing and affordable housing and I know a lot is being done to remove the blight in the city. But I do think we have to make certain that when developers come in, that they are required, they are absolutely required to devote so much of their space, a certain percentage of it, to housing that is affordable. Affordable for, you know, a family that has a mother and a father and children. Affordable to a single parent with children. Affordable to people who are only making ten dollars an hour. There just has to be, what is affordable? And you have to look at your population, and it’s going to be a different number depending on what your population is. I know that there are cities that have made a decision that We’re going to wipe out homelessness within a certain time frame. I don’t know if I’ve heard of that kind of initiative in the city of Detroit and I think it would be a worthy initiative; there should not be people living on the street in this day in age.</p>
<p>KD: I agree.</p>
<p>VR: We have, I belong to a church that every winter there are a number of churches that set up what they call a rotating shelter and so for a week period, people who are homeless rotate from church to church to church, and it gives them a place to sleep and gives them three hot meals and we do entertainment and things in the evening but I’ve been doing this for about five years now and it is just very sad to see the same people showing up. You know sometimes people, you know, events happen in their lives, circumstances develop, they find themselves homeless but four years later?</p>
<p>KD: Right.</p>
<p>VR: They’re still rotating through shelters.</p>
<p>KD: Right.</p>
<p>VR: And so many of them, you know, are mentally ill and don’t have adequate treatment. There are just so many things that have to be attacked on so many levels, and, new buildings going up and new arena and that’s great and it’s glitz and it attracts a lot of people to the city and it does provide a lot of jobs. And all of those things are good and should continue but the real hard stuff, the stuff that isn’t glitzy, needs to be addressed.</p>
<p>KD: Where does the responsibility lie for that? For addressing those issues, like we can — I believe in personal responsibility, I believe in, if there are ways that I can help someone, if I can create an opportunity for someone, then it’s my responsibility to do that. Right? But how do you impact that? Create that kind of connection or make an impact on a larger scale where you are actually seeing that kind of result, you know. Is it policymakers, politicians making decisions, is it community members coming together? And there’s been, you know, because there’s so much division, you know, right now around things like water and education and everything that’s happening in Flint, how does a community come together? The way, and you know, it’s just a question I’m throwing out there I’m not expecting you to have the answer.</p>
<p>VR: Well, I do think that many pieces of this are part of a big picture that policy makers and leaders need to have. But there are so many small items and pockets in that big picture. You know I think about communities like Rosedale and Sherwood, where you have people that are very, very engaged in their community. And sometimes when you look at that big picture it seems absolutely overwhelming and I know, as having been the leader of a number of organizations, even in an organization which is doing something not on a grand scale, you have to break it down and break up and you have to find somebody who is interested in your pieces, and it may be just a little piece but if I can get somebody to do that little piece then they’ve contributed, and they feel they’ve contributed, and they haven’t been overwhelmed and you know a lot of people are not big picture people. They live in a community and they want their community to work, they want their community to function. Figure out how to break this big picture down into those kinds of concentrated focus efforts that can engage the entire community but in their space. The other thing, you know, is certainly money. Detroit needs a ton of money. I think about, I think about all of the wealth that is in this country, all the wealth that is possessed by people who have Detroit connections, you know the entertainers, the sports figures, and you know, just millions and millions and millions of dollars, I would love to see, you know, them come together and maybe, you know, school by school, you know, We’re going to make sure that this school has sufficient recreation, we are going to make sure that this school art programs, we’re going to make sure this school has a physical ed facility. That can be done on a school by school, case by case basis. I think that, you know, so many people — it’s easier not to think about things like that. It’s easier to just, you know, live your little life and not think about other things that have to be done and other people who may need help who aren’t as fortunate as us. And there just, I think, has to be a way to attract that wealth, to have people say, This is how I’m gonna use my money, and to know there is something, a small piece of the puzzle, that they could devote their wealth and attention to. And make a difference. But a place like Detroit which has so many issues, I do think the efforts that we see in so many communities and community groups, it’s huge, it’s big, it needs to be done and we can’t always depend on the politicians. And we can know, you and I sitting here can look at the city, and we can know what needs to be done but then where do you start?</p>
<p>KD: Right, Right. Well is there anything else you would like to share that I didn’t ask?</p>
<p>VR: No, that was a lot. That was a lot.</p>
<p>KD: I appreciate it. That was awesome.</p>
<p>VR: Thank you. Thank you</p>
**
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Kalisha Davis
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Judge Victoria Roberts
Location
The location of the interview
Detroit
Video
A link to the video
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/44E_r0YF4cw" frameborder="0" 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
Victoria Roberts, January 15th, 2016
Description
An account of the resource
Victoria Roberts is a Federal Judge who serves in Detroit. She has a long history, and many memories, of her time growing up in the city of Detroit with her parents and siblings. She discusses her memories of the Catholic education system in Detroit and her time serving the city of Detroit through the bankruptcy process. She shares her views on the state of the city today and the work that still needs to be done.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
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05/23/2016
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
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WAV
Language
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en-US
Type
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Recording
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Boston-Edison
Catholic Community
Detroit Public Schools
Ford Motor Company
Great Lakes Steel
Looting
New Orleans
Sacred Heart Seminary
Tanks
Teenagers
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/8fd91e4a6b3ed2e91d706671e6cbb79f.JPG
56e61c06649580f2142d5a977af8ccdf
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.
Robert Garvin
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Originally from Decatur, Illinois, Robert Garvin recounts his experience being a new resident to Detroit days before the unrest in 1967 began.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
William Winkel
Interview Place
The place where the interview was conducted.
Detroit Historical Museum, Detroit, MI
Date
The date of the interview in MM/DD/YYYY format.
12/10/2015
Interview Length
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00:23:47
Transcriptionist
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Bree Boettner
Transcription Date
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04/01/2016
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>WW: Hello my name is William Winkel I’m with the Detroit Historical Society and this interview is for the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project and I’m here with Robert Garvin. Thank you for sitting down with me today.</p>
<p>RG: You’re welcome.</p>
<p>WW: Can you tell me first, where and when you were born?</p>
<p>RG: Yes, in Decatur, Illinois. May 8, 1926.</p>
<p>WW: When did you first move to the city of Detroit?</p>
<p>RG: Well I’m not sure of the date, but it would be around 1946. It may have even been 1947.</p>
<p>WW: Who came with you? Was it just your parents and you, or did you have siblings?</p>
<p>RG: No, I came alone. [coughing] I was transferred which brought me to Detroit and I knew nothing about Detroit. Absolutely nothing. I didn’t know it was supposed to be a bad place to live [laughter]. And it isn’t.</p>
<p>WW: What transfer brought you here?</p>
<p>RG: I was with Jacobson’s and they transferred me to Dearborn where I was the General Manager for the two stores there.</p>
<p>WW: And back in Decatur what did your parents do there, what was your childhood like growing up?</p>
<p>RG: My mother was a housewife, my father was a master painter. Now that’s a term that would be misused today. But he did commercial and residential, not house painting, interior. With the union in those days they had different terms, he was a master painter.</p>
<p>WW: Nice. When you first moved here in the late 1940s, what were you initial thoughts of the city?</p>
<p>RG: First of all, it was the largest city I’d ever lived in other than Milwaukee and I was just really impressed with the buildings that I saw in a very short length of time. I felt great about living in the city.</p>
<p>WW: What street did you live on when you moved to the city?</p>
<p>RG: On Edison between Woodward and Second just next to the Henry Ford Mansion</p>
<p>WW: Nice, nice. That’s a great first house! [Laughter] What were your initial thoughts about the community besides, the way the city looked? The community involvement? The community interaction?</p>
<p>RG: Well, I wasn’t here long enough before I think to have any opinion about that. I had no chance really for any interaction. I decided that while I’d be working in Dearborn I chose not to live there. So coming into Detroit, looking for an apartment, in those days you could not have a pet in any apartments in Detroit, and I would refuse to give up my dog, so I had to buy a house. It was the only choice I had since I wouldn’t live in Dearborn [laughter]. So that’s what happened, that house was available and it suited my needs and I’ve lived there ever since.</p>
<p>WW: Did you just want the big city feel, or did something about Dearborn strike you that you didn’t want to live there?</p>
<p>RG: When I had to leave Kalamazoo, where I was previously in Jackson. I went to Dearborn and I went to a real estate agent and said, "I’m interested in an apartment," and he said, "Well, the city has much wider list of what’s available so I recommend you go to City Hall and they will assist you in finding something." So I went to City Hall and found when they recognized that I was white they called a few realtors [laughter] and told them that I was available for looking for something. And I just chose not to live in a community like that. So since I couldn’t live there I had to come to Detroit.</p>
<p>WW: So you were living on Edison in 1967 as well? What were your initial thoughts about was happening and how did you first hear about the unrest?</p>
<p>RG: Well, I had moved into the house about two days before. It was on a Sunday. And someone had told me about Eastern Market and on Saturday I went to Eastern Market and I bought some flats of ivy to plant. So on Sunday afternoon I was on the west side of the house planting ivy. And I kept smelling smoke and I kept hearing sirens every place. So I said to whoever it was who lived next door, "There must be the damnedest fire that anyone has ever seen." [Laughter] After I had finished planting the ivy, then I went around to the front of the house and I looked down towards Woodward which was only less than a block away. I saw people milling around down there, going into the liquor store on the corner, running out with liquor, and running away. And I even saw people getting off the bus, go into the liquor store, come out, and then get on the next bus and head north. [Laughter] So I knew this wasn’t the normal thing that was happening. I got on the radio then and found out a lot more about it. My initial reaction was just kind of stunned.</p>
<p>WW: How would you interpret that week in July? Because there are people in Detroit that exclusively call it a riot, there are people who call it a rebellion. What are your personal thoughts on what it should be categorized as?</p>
<p>RG: Well, to me it was riots. I couldn’t think of it in any other fashion. Shortly thereafter I suppose like many people I got more information, and I was able to kind of reach a decision. While I don’t approve of riots, I also understood the reasons.</p>
<p>WW: Given your two days living in the neighborhood, how do you believe the neighborhood changed after that? Or did it change at all?</p>
<p>RG: Well, it did change. Because it was just – at that time it was just the start, the beginning of the exodus of white people from Detroit. And that really pushed it forward. So when I moved in I think there was on the entire block there was only one black family. But by three or four years later it was 80 percent black. The real estate values dropped drastically. A lot of people who couldn’t afford to live in an area like that previously were able too. But living in the city I find that people in most residential areas don’t associate much with their neighbors for various reasons.</p>
<p>WW: After that week in July did you think about packing up and leaving to or were you committed to your new home?</p>
<p>RG: No, I don’t frighten easily and I’m stubborn [laughter]. I liked the house, it was 15 minutes to any place being between the Lodge and the Chrysler. And I-94 was that close, and I really was 15 minutes to any place in Detroit. So, in particularly working in Dearborn, it took me 10 minutes going to work in the morning because everyone was coming into the city. In the evening, when I was coming home everyone was leaving the city and it took me 10 minutes to get home. So 20 minutes of driving a day for work is really not that bad. It was advantageous as far as I was concerned.</p>
<p>WW: You said in the initial five years, the street increased to 80 percent black families. How has the neighborhood changed or shifted over the last forty years?</p>
<p>RG: Over these last four years?</p>
<p>WW: Forty years.</p>
<p>RG: Oh forty years. Well it’s changed drastically because when I first moved in, there was a very large home on Edison and Woodward, that had, roughly, I think 25 men living in that house. I don’t know if it was a public situation or a private situation, I don’t know. And then in another house on the block, a woman had rented about eight rooms to men. So that has vanished in the last forty years. First of all since it became a historic area, that’s not allowed. And that just can’t happen, because of that. Also, I think because of the convenience a number of people in the entire Boston-Edison area are professional or semi-professional people. In the last ten years there have been a lot of white people moving to the Boston-Edison area.</p>
<p>WW: Shifting back to Dearborn, you worked in Dearborn your entire career while you were here?</p>
<p>RG: Oh yes, until I retired.</p>
<p>WW: Going back to what we were talking about earlier about how you did not want to live in that type of city. How has Dearborn changed since your initial "bad taste"?</p>
<p>RG: [Laughter] Well, when I moved there if you were different in any way and that means ethnically, or Jewish, you weren't welcome in Dearborn. Now they’d take the money if you chose to shop there [laughter] but that was the way it was. After Orville Hubbard died, there was a trickle of black people moving into the area, there wasn’t much available, and then the Arabic population, I have no idea how that happened, it just boomed. So that was major, major change. As far as city management is concerned I think that the principles that Hubbard had have continued; they have marvelous services in Dearborn as far as snow removal and keeping the streets clean and it’s just—it’s excellent service.</p>
<p>WW: What do you think of the current state of the city of Detroit? What are your thoughts? Do you think it’s coming back? What is your opinion on the state of the city?</p>
<p>RG: Well, I think that state of the city is very exciting. If I were five years younger and if I didn’t own my home I would move downtown in an instant. I would love to. I find the whole city kind of interesting. I find the pockets of poverty are interesting. Because I’m out and about constantly. I love living here and I go every place, so, I maybe see changes happening more rapidly than a lot of people who don’t travel around the city as much as I have. I think it’s just terribly, terribly encouraging. Now, long range, I think that the present administration in Detroit is a thousand-fold improvement over what it has been as long as I have lived here. It was absolutely deplorable and unfortunately those people managed to get voted back in constantly, and I don’t understand it myself but I think it’s very I remarkable improvement and I just pray it continues.</p>
<p>WW: Very nice, is there any other thoughts you’d like to add?</p>
<p>RG: Let me just glance at this to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Well yeah, sure I think so. During that time, a few days after the riots, just adjacent from where we live there is Voigt Park and it’s about a two block square park right in the center. It’s a walking park; that’s all it’s ever been. So I don’t know how quickly but within about a week that park was filled with tanks and military personnel. We heard shots pretty frequently. I chose to keep my house dark at night I didn’t even keep the lights on because frankly that was kind of frightening. I bought a police radio because I wanted to find out what was happening and I stayed up all night listening to see if there was anything I should be concerned about.</p>
<p>It was just kind of an interesting thing because you couldn’t really go out and purchase anything. My neighbors across the street asked me if I had any gin. They were out and they were martini drinkers. I said, "Yes, I have gin but I’ll trade it for your beer if you have some." and that’s what we did. [Laughter] It worked out well.</p>
<p>Then driving to work on the Lodge, the first at least week was very interesting because there were shots crossing the Lodge, near the area where Henry Ford Hospital is across the other way. That was a little unnerving, until I got on my way to Dearborn.</p>
<p>One night, my dog was carrying on and I got up and peaked out and there were some soldiers — or at least people in uniforms — that were pushing bayonets into the bushes in front of my house. [Laughter]</p>
<p>I became acquainted with, after things had quite down quite a lot, with a black doctor who lived in Boston-Edison but far down at the other end, closer to Fourteenth, I think. He went out at the end of the height of the rioting that first day. He was concerned for himself even though the rioting was black people so he strapped his camera around his waist and wore a rain coat. So he had a film of what he saw during that period of time. Not many people saw that and it was a good reason not too but it was fascinating to see that.</p>
<p>Also, I had no idea until it was all over that the burning of buildings was not just in the area where I live but also on the east side and I think perhaps that might be Oakland but a lot of buildings were burned going over about five or six blocks on the east side of Woodward.</p>
<p>The people who lived next door to me, was a black couple there, charming people, owned the Alhambra Market on Woodward just at the end of Edison next to the old Alhambra Theater. They were extremely frightened, and both he and she spent every night in their grocery store with guns. They had a "Soul" sign in the window and they didn’t have to use it but I thought that was interesting.</p>
<p>And I don’t think of anything else in particular unless you have some more questions.</p>
<p>WW: I have some questions based on what you just said, yeah [laughter]. How long did the military—was it the National Guard or the Army?</p>
<p>RG: I think it was the National Guard.</p>
<p>WW: And how long did they stay in the park?</p>
<p>RG: I’m going to guess about ten days.</p>
<p>WW: Then did you hear anything peculiar on the police radio?</p>
<p>RG: Oh yes, I sure did. But nothing that concerned me for my own personal welfare.</p>
<p>WW: And, the soldier stabbing your bushes. Was that an every night thing? To clear —</p>
<p>RG: No, it wasn’t every night. That was a one-time thing but that was certainly unnerving. I never saw anyone run out. I don’t know whether it was a false lead for them or what.</p>
<p>WW: That’s insane. [Laughter]</p>
<p>RG: But one time when the shots were really loud I hit the floor.</p>
<p>WW: And who was living with you at the time? Was it just you?</p>
<p>RG: The gentleman I bought the house from had rented a room to someone. So I inherited the tenant. I don’t know his last name, his first name was Walter, and he was a real night-Detroit person. So after this started and I saw Walter, I said, "I would urge you to use some caution as far as keeping your lights on," because the room he had was on Edison. He said, "Oh, there’s nothing to it, nothing is going to happen," about that time two shots rang out, he hit the floor like that [clap] and in two weeks he moved out [laughter].</p>
<p>WW: [Laughter] Wow.</p>
<p>RG: Some things are funny. [Laughter]</p>
<p>WW: Yup [laughter], “and in two weeks he moved out”.</p>
<p>Alright that is all the questions I have for you.</p>
<p>RG: Okay.</p>
<p>WW: Alright, thank you very much for sitting down with me and coming in.</p>
<p>RG: You are very welcome.</p> **
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
William Winkel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Robert Garvin
Video
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s6DtQjtSFD0" frameborder="0" 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
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Robert Garvin, December 10th, 2015
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society
Date
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05/23/2016
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
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WAV
Language
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en-US
Description
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Originally from Decatur, Illinois, Robert Garvin recounts his experience being a new resident to Detroit days before the unrest in 1967 began. He also briefly explains the changes of the Boston-Edison area along with some changes to the Dearborn area where he worked.
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Boston-Edison
Dearborn
Detroit Community Members
Michigan National Guard
Tanks
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/69a1f8ecadd898d826f007760ddc5d64.jpg
20ba87d0842b420d7a60129dd9a41232
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/9ff4e8d193149082b4762ba446abf9bf.jpg
41d1c6018a6aa67c70b0608a811176c1
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
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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
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Narrator/Interviewee's Name
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Brenda Perryman
Brief Biography
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Barbara Perryman was born in South Carolina in 1948 but came to Michigan six weeks later and considers herself a native Detroiter. A playwright, author, and former teacher, she graduated from St. Theresa's High School in 1966 and then attended Eastern Michigan University. She was present in Detroit for the summer of July 1967, and her brother went missing during that time.
Interviewer's Name
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William Winkel
Interview Place
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Detorit Historical Museum
Date
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03/19/2016
Interview Length
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00:45:54
Transcriptionist
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Julie Vandenboom
Transcription Date
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04/25/2016
Transcription
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<p>WW: Hello, my name is William Winkel. Today is March 19, 2016. We are in Detroit, Michigan. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society's 1967 Oral History Project, and this is the interview of Brenda Perryman. Thank you for sitting down with me today.</p>
<p>BP: Pleased to be here.</p>
<p>WW: All right. Can you tell me first where and when you were born?</p>
<p>BP: Okay, I was born in Kingstree, South Carolina, and I was just there for six weeks, because my grandfather was sick and my mother was living in Detroit – my parents were – and so that's how I ended up in South Carolina. But basically I'm a native Detroiter and I was born in 1948.</p>
<p>WW: Can you tell me about your childhood growing up in the city during the Fifties?</p>
<p>BP: Well, it was very interesting because I grew up over near Dexter and the Boulevard — West Grand Boulevard — and I started kindergarten over there at public school – at Marr — and at five – it was a little different in the city because, you know, we lived in a duplex, and we felt pretty safe, even – it was an interracial neighborhood at the time. And going to Marr, I was about four blocks from it, and we felt so secure, I guess. I think about my mom and dad, they felt so secure. There was a furniture store named Charles Furniture that was up on Grand River near the Boulevard, and my mother would send me up there to pay bills at five years old. I always had a key to the house.</p>
<p>WW: You said the neighborhood was interracial. Was it that way the whole time, or did it get increasingly more interracial as you were growing up?</p>
<p>BP: Well, more – one race. Well, I was only there until about the fifth grade. And yes, people started moving out and so forth, but it still had some white people there. White and black, everybody kind of lived harmoniously for the most part. The one incident I remember – well, two incidences, really – it was across Dexter, we'd walk up, if we walked up across Dexter for another block or so, we were at Grand River. And if I walked – Hogarth, I lived on a street named Hogarth – and there was this one white man who kept on calling me to his porch. And I went over, I said, “Yes, yes, yes,” and it just didn't seem right because he bent down like he was trying to kiss me and I ran home, seriously, and my mother called the police.</p>
<p>Another thing that happened in that neighborhood: I was pushing a wagon down Dexter — I had a friend in a wagon – and this man came. He was a white man, and he knocked against me, and I fell on the ground, and the wagon was going and it dragged me, and I still have that mark on my thigh. And then I found out later on, because I was doing research on Dr. Ossian Sweet, for a play that I was commissioned to write, and found out that in that particular neighborhood, there over near Tireman and other streets, there were – there was like a Tireman Improvement Association. And they were running like – black doctors who used to move over there, I guess it was a decent neighborhood. They would go in and start moving the doctor's furniture out and everything and make the doctor sign over the house to them. So they – blacks weren't really – they didn't really want them to live in that neighborhood. But anyway, I went to Marr School until third grade, and then transferred to St. Theresa's, which was right on Pingree area. I'm Catholic, and so I started going to that Catholic school I went there fourth and fifth grade, and then we moved further down Dexter, and maybe that's a little bit of dealing with that flight, we moved to a street named Clemens, and I went to St. Gregory's, for up until the tenth grade, and then eleventh grade we ended up moving back over near St. Theresa's and I graduated from St. Theresa High School in 1966. Which at that time, more than half our class was white, so it was still in the neighborhood so people were still coming. It was an interesting dynamic that was going on at the time, I think.</p>
<p>WW: What did your parents do for a living?</p>
<p>BP: My mother was a licensed practical nurse, and my father worked at Ford Motor Company until he was fired for running numbers. And my mother – the interesting thing, too, was my mother could always go over to Ford and ask him – ask could they give him his job back. She did that three times, and they did.</p>
<p>WW: What was it like growing up and going to a private school in Detroit at that time?</p>
<p>BP: Well, at that time it was – we had a good time because we didn't notice certain things. But you have to understand, I ended up graduating from college with a degree in speech and dramatic arts and dealing with theater and stuff like that, and in – at the Catholic school – which I enjoyed it – but when there was a little play, we just got little roles. And a nice girl, Mary Zukowski she would always be the Virgin Mary in the play, she would always – you know, they'd always pick – well my mother told me something very interesting yesterday, and something I had never heard. But – it makes sense now. In 1965, I think it was, I went down to Hudson's. My mother is darker-skinned than I am, and she went to get a part-time job because she was already a nurse at Henry Ford Hospital. And another friend of mine, she was darker-skinned, she went, and I was the only one who got the job, and my mother said, because I was light enough to work at Hudson's. And I never thought about – I never put it together that way. And my mother was one, my mother – she's never a person to play the race card. For her to say that —;</p>
<p>But then, too, she had an experience. She came up in South Carolina. She went to college at South Carolina State.
</p><p> [background: Sorry.]</p>
<p> She took a – she took a test – a civil service test to work at the post office, and she got the highest – they sent her a letter, she had the highest grade on this test. So she got her suitcase, and everybody said goodbye to her so she could go to Charleston for the job. She got there and she told them her name, showed her paperwork, and they said, “You’re Pearlie Burgess?” She said. “Yes.” “Oh, it's another Pearlie Burgess.” So she had to get on to that bus and go back home. It was – you know. It – but she never carried that with her. That's what I noticed about my mother. Because up here, she had white friends and black friends, and so I kind of grew up like that also.</p>
<p>And so, I wasn't looking for racism, you know. Oh yeah, that's going to happen. First - my first idea of what racism could be was watching the Little Rock [Nine]. I was – it was on television. My mother was watching that, and I said, “What's going on?” She said, “They don't want the colored kids to go to school with the white kids.” I said wow. I thought that was strange, because I went to school with white kids. You know, I said it's not like this?</p>
<p>So, growing up, the — what was so good about growing up in Detroit was the fact that you could – we felt free to go anywhere. And when I come over this way, I think of the fact that I used to take, as a grade schooler, I'd take the Dexter bus down to Cass and I guess it's Putnam or whatever this next two – second – next street after Kirby, just before you get to Warren. I think it's Putnam or something. I'd take the bus and then I'd walk down here and right next to the Maccabees was the Detroit Conservatory of Music and I took piano lessons there. Mind you, I said, I would get on the bus, I was like eight, nine years old. And I'd come down here and I'd – and I'd go back with my music book. And I don't know why – you know, like I said, I always had the key to the house and my mother – my parents would be home but – that's what they raised me, to be pretty independent and navigate pretty well.</p>
<p>WW: So you said your first experience with racism was watching the Little Rock —</p>
<p>BP: It was noticing that there was supposed to be a difference, yeah, that's right.</p>
<p>WW: Did you begin to see racial problems in the city after that, or –</p>
<p>BP: Not initially, because — my best friend's name was Andrea Sarkisian, you know we went to St. Theresa's, and we were just best friends. She was white, I was black, and we just kind of never talked – noticed – well, talked about it. And our role models were people on television, and there were very few people on television of color. There was a show called <em>Beulah</em> with a black maid, at that time, when I was a little girl, but most other shows, like the <em>Life of Riley</em> and all these shows, they didn't show a black family, it was always a white family, and kind of getting into the drama piece – Disney. Disney was like a salvation to everybody. As far as growing up in Detroit, we had the Thanksgiving parade, everybody wanted to go to Hudson's to see Santa. I mean, things just seemed sanitized in a child's eye.</p>
<p>WW: Throughout the 1960s, being a teenager then, how did you experience social movements that were going through the city?</p>
<p>BP: Well, my first initial social movement was my love of Motown. I've got to be honest. I have to be honest. I'm like an aficionado, and just hearing – well, I need to talk about radio, because it was really important to hear music and all this and then, as a grade schooler, American Bandstand was on, so that was a cultural phenomenon, watching kids dance and all of that. But then as the Sixties went on and progressed, the music was beautiful, we weren't feeling really in it – we were teenagers having fun, that's basically it, and going to Belle Isle and Tanglewood Drive, which was down there at Belle Isle.</p>
<p>But we never – I'll never forget going out to Sterling Heights, though. Bunch of us jumped – we went out to Sterling Heights to this park and we were all just sitting in the cars, and all of a sudden, we heard, “Let's get 'em!” It was a group of white men, they started chasing us. We had to crank up the cars and go.</p>
<p>But as far as the movement, we heard – started hearing about Martin Luther King and all that, and he was in town, but didn't – still didn't know much about it. But I did – one day, I was walking from – to the bus stop – a different bus stop, I was downtown, went to Baker Shoes to buy some shoes. And there was a crowd from around the Book Cadillac, and I asked a man, I said what's going on here? He said, “President Lyndon Johnson is here. Would you like to meet him?” I said, well why not. I went up there, and I said, “I'm Brenda,” and you know, he said “Pleased to meet you,” and he shook my hand. He had the biggest hands! And I have large hands, for a lady, but he had the biggest hands, and he was so bow-legged, it was like you could put a basketball through his legs, and just very friendly, very, very friendly, and that was just a weird thing. I said I'm the humbug – here's the president of the United States.</p>
<p>Another thing, in the Sixties, I worked in the Ford hospital in the summers, because my mother worked there so I got a job. One day I heard Governor Romney was up there, in the hospital, I said, “Hm, I'd like to meet him,” and I remember having a little white bag with some gumdrops in it. So I went and knocked on the door, said Governor Romney. My name's Brenda, I work here, but can I come in? He said, “Yes.” So I came in, I sat down, and he asked me, “What school do you go to?” We were talking, I was eating my gumdrops, and I spent my lunch hour with him, just talking. Isn't that something, though? When I think about it in these terms, I say wow, how did that happen? But I was just talking, and then he asked, “Can I have some of those gumdrops?” Sure. Next day I got a call, down to where I was working, saying, “You gave the governor gumdrops!” I said, he asked for them. “It messed up his barium test,” she said. I said, Oh my god. I – but I don't – what do I know of barium? All I know is the governor of the state of Michigan asked me, could he have some gumdrops.</p>
<p>But as far as movements, I wasn't in any movement until I got to college. And when I went to college, well, I guess I had a little something to – to prove to myself because I remember telling, Sister John Damian, a nun, I said, “I'm going to Eastern Michigan University,” and she said, “You won't make it a year.” I – you know, I taught for 39 years, and I never told a student they won't make it. But I guess – so I went up there, and when I went to Eastern, and I guess I’ll get into the activism. I went to Eastern, and was up there three weeks – I couldn't believe a community of kids, and no parents. You know, the freedom I felt, even though we had to be back in the dorm by a certain time. But there were not – not a whole bunch of black people on campus, but it was enough of us to party, and sit in the union, and do all those good things.</p>
<p>But after three weeks, I went to a dance, and my boyfriend, who was here, he'd gone to St. Cecilia which was another Catholic school in the area – and he said, “Listen, if you get a ride –“ because people would come up from Detroit to go to the parties – he said, “If you get a ride down here, to Detroit – I'll give you a ride back to Eastern.” I said, “Oh, that sounds like a plan.”</p>
<p>So these people would come up – they were going back – I asked, can I get a ride. They said sure, so I got in the backseat of the car. It was an Oldsmobile Spitfire or Starfire – it was a nice car, but it was a convertible, but the top was up, and I got in the backseat and when I was in – they got lost getting out of Ypsilanti, so they said Brenda, get in the front because you probably know the way. I didn't know the way, but I said oh, a little more leg room. Got in, and so there were three people in back, two in the front, and we were going down I-94, and when we got towards Rawsonville Road, all I remember, because I was looking out the window – I remember the car kind of going off the road and then I looked to the driver. I think the driver fell asleep. And he woke up and he took the wheel over to the left, and we went across the road, turned over three times on – in the embankment in the middle. And after – I remember that so vividly because as we turned over, I said to myself, well, this is it. And then when we landed, when the car stopped, I couldn't believe I was still alive. I heard the other people in the back moaning, the driver was kind of moaning, and I remember feeling my tooth. I said, well, god, all I have is a chipped tooth, I feel pretty good, but I was on the floor between the glove compartment and the seat. And as tall as I am, my knees had hit the glove compartment and everything in my back backed up there. And I was on the floor, as tall as I am, I'm in this area, and I said get me out of here!</p>
<p>And they got me out, and you know people pulled over to the side of the road, too. They got me out, and as I laid there, I said, lay my legs down. They said, “Your legs are laying flat.” I said no they're not, because I felt like I was laying on the ground in a sitting position. And they kind of lifted my head a little bit so I could see and I saw my legs and my knees bloody – both knees, bloody. And I said oh my god. So what – a guy came over to the side of the road. He said, “Look, you live across the hall from my girlfriend at Eastern. What's your mother's number, I'll go to a phone and I'll call her.” Do you know I actually thought twice about calling my mother because I was sneaking home! And I said – so I finally gave him the number, and they took me to Wayne County General, and then, after a while my mother came. And I remember saying, “Mother,” she said, “Shut up.”</p>
<p>She told me to shut up because she was getting me out of that hospital and having me sent to Ford where, once I got to Ford they gave me the Last Rites. And I was kind of messed up – I was really messed up. Because it felt like I was laying on big boulder, and anyway – I ended up having an eight-hour operation, and when I woke up I saw my family, and I also saw – I remember saying, I'll teach you to dance. And so, anyway, time went on in the hospital, and after a few weeks, I had surgery – surgery all down my back, because my spinal cord was compressed and wrapped around several vertebrae that were knocked out of whack, and all this caused for the paralysis, and so during the operation they had to pick everything out around the cord and let the cord slither back into place. What an operation, isn’t it? So they didn't think I was going to walk again.</p>
<p>One doctor came out of the room with his fingers crossed, another one said all we can do is wait, and another one said, “Do you have somebody who could push her around in a wheelchair until she gets familiar with it?” So, I was kind of halfway given up, gone. But, as time went by my cord started to heal, I guess, or something started to heal, because I moved my big toe. The doctors started jumping around, and they started the therapy.</p>
<p>And I would say that accident happened like October 1, I was able to get out of the hospital Christmas Eve, so I went to midnight Mass and I could barely walk. I had a steel neck and back brace on. I remember going to Communion and I could hear people crying in the church, because I guess they thought I was never going to come back, and I did. I knew it was time to take things a little more seriously, that's why I told that story, that little piece of story, because I lived for the day. I didn't live for the future, I didn't live for the past. I had an excitement about life, but I needed to put it somewhere. And so, I – in fact, I recorded everything about that accident, the person I became in a book that I finished called <em>She Who Limps is Still Walking</em>. And anyway, so, while I was on campus, okay – the riots started – okay, to make up that time, of missing school, I had to go to summer school, summer of '67, and I happened to be home a weekend. My activism really started the next year, with Martin Luther King's death. But that accident helped me to be at Eastern summer of '67 but be home the weekend of the riot. So I mean, is there another question about -</p>
<p>WW: Oh yeah. Where were your parents living then?</p>
<p>BP: Well, my parents had separated. Both lived – living in Detroit. My mother lived on South Clarendon, over near Grand River and Joy Road area, which is funny because the Grande Ballroom was two blocks from us, and the Grande Ballroom, around '69 or so, Janis Joplin would be there, and all these people. Before that, we had - the Temptations would be there – we had to get fake ID, because we had to be 17 to get in. Fake ID was really easy – we were erasing stuff. It was a real – it wasn't real sophisticated, but – just to see the artists. And at the time, also, I remember St. Cecilia in the earlier Sixties, Dionne Warwick came to perform there at a sock hop and the white kids threw pennies at her. Yes.</p>
<p>WW: That's sad.</p>
<p>BP: And she became a star.</p>
<p>WW: How did you first hear about what was going on?</p>
<p>BP: As far as what – the riot?</p>
<p>WW: Yeah.</p>
<p>BP: Ironically, my boyfriend and I were at the Fox Theater that Saturday night, on a date. We always came back home, driving down Twelfth. Twelfth was the most interesting street in the world. You see the colorful individuals, the – the pimps were – we just – I mean, it's like living vicariously but safely in a car, and going down – we said look at this. You know, you could kind of slow down but it was – it seemed like it was 95 degrees that night. It was so hot. That's what I remember, it was hot and muggy. And he said, “God, if a riot ever started, it'll start over here.” I said, “Yeah, I guess you're right about that.”</p>
<p>So we went on home. Six o'clock in the morning, the next morning, the man who was supposed to take me back to college – because I was home for the weekend – a friend of my mom, who lived on Twelfth, above Dr. Perkin’s office, he said, “I don't know if I can get over there because there's a little riot going on over here.” Now this is like six o'clock in the morning. Six or so hours after we had just driven down there. And so I kind of waited around – my mother told me – until about eight so I could call my boyfriend, you know, I said – there's a riot on Twelfth. He said, “You're kidding.” I said no. He said, “I'll be over to get you.”</p>
<p>So he came over. And as we got closer, we had to park a few blocks away. Wow, this is something, so I remember the dress, and everything I had on that day too. Just a little sundress. But we walked up to Twelfth, and we started walking down the street, and as we walked down the street, they had already broken some windows out, and all of this, and I remember passing a record shop. And you know, we had the 45 records. And I picked up a record, wow, this is my jam, you know. I said, I better put it down.</p>
<p>And so we keep on going, walking down, and then the National Guard was standing at Virginia Park, they were standing straight across Twelfth like that, so we were coming this way, this side of the street. And, see, I'm using this – so imagine yourself coming down – and – from where you are sitting. Anyway, the National Guard was – so we said we'd better stand around. So we just standing around watching people – some people still, they're breaking windows out and all, and I couldn't get over this, and then milling around. I said, the cops are out here, the National Guard is out here. Nobody's doing anything to anybody.</p>
<p>So I turned around and looked in the grocery store. I said, “God, look at all those cookies on that shelf. Sure would like to take some cookies back to school.” So anyway, kept looking. Next thing I know, some guy I did not know came up to me. “Here are your cookies!” Look at those Fizzies. Fizzies were little – they were like the size of Alka Seltzer tablets. And you drop them in a glass of water, and they create a little fizzy pop. You know, soda. I said, well I could have gotten some Fizzies. Next thing I know, somebody else came - “Here's some Fizzies.” Then everybody starts running in this store, but I didn't run in. I said oh my god, even my boyfriend ran in. I said, “Gee, what's happening? They're going to get it. They are going to get it.” They didn't get it. And we ended up with four grocery bags full of stuff. He said, “Come on, let's go.”</p>
<p>So we had to walk, and I remember the helicopters above, and it was such a thing, and people just wave – we waved to the helicopters. It was – it was something so surreal, I can't even – I really can't. What was this we were doing? So he took me home and he took the stuff to his house. I don't think I got anything I took up there. I don't even know if I took the cookies. But some man told me, said, “Look what you started.” I said, “I didn't start anything. I was just saying it.”</p>
<p>But anyway, that was – so, he took me back to school, and it was hard being back to school knowing what was going on down here, because my brother, who – he worked at – he had a little part-time job, he's two years younger than me – he took his car – he and a friend of his went out to Inkster. He asked my mom, “I'm going out to Inkster.” He goes out to Inkster, so the next day I get a phone call in my dorm room. My brother hadn't returned home. I said oh my god, what is going on? Because he went to Inkster. So my mother called my father, and everything. My mother started looking, trying to call people, see if they’d seen him. “No, no way.”</p>
<p>And I remember, too, another thing, the tanks were going down Davison. I mean, they were all over – it was just so surreal, do you get – it was like a war zone, in a way, in the summer. And you know what amazed me too? I don't think it rained that entire week. I know it didn't rain at Eastern and Eastern was only thirty miles from here, but I don't remember any rain. Every day seemed sunny. The police got serious about it I guess by that Sunday night, they got serious. People had to stop this, and because my boyfriend – he and his brothers went back over there and one of his brothers got hurt. He was trying to loot and put his hand through a window or something.</p>
<p>But anyway, I was away from all that. My main concern was my brother. Where was he? They're out searching, searching, and then that Wednesday my mother – and I stopped going to school – I told the teachers, I cannot come in here. I've got to wait to hear from my mother, about my brother. And my mother called, and she said – oh, and another thing, she was still working at Ford Hospital, and one day there was a sniper on one of the roofs of Ford Hospital or something like that. I remember hearing that on the news, and as far as media is concerned, Bill Bonds was the one who kind of – we were – we could be voyeurs, kind of listening to him, or we thought, so we'd watch him every day. It seemed like he was on all day, all night. All day, all night he was on, talking about the riot and showing and say, “Oh look what's happening.” He started kind of editorializing. “Look what's happening.” But he was the face of the riot.</p>
<p>So, my mother called. I said, “Mother, what's up?’ She said “I just came from the morgue.” I said oh god, I just fell on the floor, I was – I just – oh – and so my girlfriend who was there, she picked up the phone, she said, “Miss Louie what? And oh, okay, Brenda, he wasn't there.” You know. I – [laughter] I totally fell apart, I fell apart. And, as I said, they were searching. Finally, that Friday, now remember this was Sunday night he went missing – that Friday, my mother was on the steps. She and father – I think it was Father Moran, the priest – just passed away within the last two years – they were sitting on the steps of 1300 Beaubien, where the police department was, and she heard a big mouth coming out of there saying, “I sure am hungry,” and it was my brother.</p>
<p>She beat him down the street. She just went – and they said the prisoners on the bus were just laughing, they were just having a – what – oh, in the middle of this, just before all this happened, and she discovered him – my dad – I think it was that Wednesday evening or something – he found the car. Just the car. Right, right. And that scared them too. Because you find the car and not the occupants. And he was picked up for curfew. But the bad thing about that is how you going to pick someone up and not let them call? He and his friend were in a cell with about twelve other people, twelve or fourteen other people. Not only black people – white people too, and they were about to get into it at different things, and they were given bologna sandwiches. I mean, it was real cramped quarters, and everything- they had so many people. Now some people got locked up for serious – more serious offenses, but yeah. He was really hungry. My mother said, “I got your food for you.”</p>
<p>So that – that was – I'll never forget. I'll never forget that. And the city – you watched the difference in the city right after that. And then, when Martin Luther King died in April of '68, I was in class at Eastern, was in an evening speech class, and somebody came to the door, asked if they could see me – and I said yes – I was the only black person in the class, and they said, “Martin Luther King just got assassinated, blah blah blah,” so I turned to the class and the teacher said, “Martin Luther King just got assassinated” and one white boy in the class said “That's just like someone getting hit by a car to me. I don't give a damn.” And I said what? The teacher said “Brenda, go on, go on.”</p>
<p>That night we kind of galvanized. Everybody just kind of marched around, and there was this one little guy we called Cricket and Cricket got up on the car, he said “Don't march! Don't do anything!” Somebody knocked Cricket off the car. But, so Eastern canceled classes for a couple of days. And I noticed another thing, when I was going back to Eastern that Sunday, the day of the riot, there were people coming from Ypsi or Chicago or whatever on I-94 and they had trailers hitched to their cars – empty trailers. And then there was someone down the street from my mother then – they burned their old furniture, they took it all out in the back, because we burned things in the alley then. The garbage was burned in the alley – our trash, paper trash. In Detroit, that's where it was. They had the garbage cans, but the paper trash, they had, you just burned it. And they burned their furniture, moved new furniture in, then the cops raided the house, took the furniture out. Yes. It just seemed like people from miles around saw what they called opportunity.</p>
<p>WW: We've heard a couple other stories like that.</p>
<p>BP: Huh?</p>
<p>WW: We've heard a couple other stories like that.</p>
<p>BP: Right. And so, from then on I became active. I even was kind of active in the SDS, I guess, the SDS – is that the Students?</p>
<p>WW: For a Democratic Society.</p>
<p>BP: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was. And because it was coming a time, when Richard Nixon started rearing his head, and they were talking about the silent majority. I said, what is this all about? I had a new discovery of what it was to be black. You know, I said, let me pay attention to this, something I hadn't really paid as much of attention to, and I got into Nina Simone real heavy. I was the first girl on campus to have an afro. And I'll never forget the day I wore that afro. Everybody was looking – looking at me. I mean, it's just – and I said I've got to dress cute every time I wear this afro – you know, I was real self-conscious of the afro, I said I don't want to look like a boy, you know, but I wore that afro and I remember my cousin – he was going to Harvard at the time – and he said, he said, “Are you militant?” I said, “I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not.” [laughter] I just said that.</p>
<p>But yeah, I started getting involved. That's when I started getting involved with things. And I was – it's funny now – and I was telling somebody this – or mentioning it on my show yesterday – that you would have thought I was – you know – if Bernie Sanders would have run at that time, I had the same philosophy. I had – I guess – a lot of socialist philosophies for a minute, and – but, you know, things evolved into something else as time went by. And my whole thing with all of this is injustice. I never quite knew, though, why I wasn't feeling that tension in Detroit, that people said was there, when the riots started. I think it just started – didn't they bust a blind pig or something?</p>
<p>WW: Mm hm.</p>
<p>BP: And I just thought that people just started fighting and protesting and it kind of evolved into something else. I don't think, initially, it was meant – see, people call it, and I have discussions with my friends, who say “Well, the rebellion —” I said, that wasn't a rebellion, that was a riot. It was a riot. I was there. I saw it. A lot of people – they weren't talking about injustice. I was talking to everybody on the street that day. I can't tell you about what they were talking about, but 40-something people got killed during that time. Mmhmm. I remember that so vividly, and my mother had to take the bus to work, I was so worried about her, too. And I mean, she would – she missed a day looking for my brother but still, you know, she had to go to work, and – Detroit was a city, too, that when she worked afternoons and get off at 11 at night, she could still take that bus home and walk home, and she did not – she never was robbed, she never was accosted. But the fear was in us, from the Big Four. You've heard about the Big Four? STRESS [Stop The Robberies Enjoy Safe Streets], all of a sudden, the – huh?</p>
<p>WW: STRESS was afterwards.</p>
<p>BP: After – yeah, it was after the Big Four. I'm just going on - just thinking – and the thing about it was, I had an encounter with the Big Four but my encounter was because in 1969, I got married, I was just 21. And we lived – my husband, he was in the Army Reserve, and we went to – so I lived in that part, with that flat – upstairs flat – of Dr. Perkin’s office. That's where my mother's friend lived who was on Twelfth. And we kind of rented it out from him, we kind of sublet it. And I'll never forget this – this – it seems like drugs started exploding. I mean, you heard more about drugs, and all of that. And I was taking the bus – I was still at Eastern – I was taking the bus from Twelfth, where I was – I had to take a couple of buses so I could get to Telegraph and Fenkell, and a girl would pick me up at Telegraph and Fenkell and all this, but one night – I think Johnny Carson was on, I'm pretty sure – and I heard at the – remember, I'm over a dentist's office – I heard boom! Boom! Against the back door downstairs of the dentist's office.</p>
<p>It was kind of winter time; it was icy. I said oh my god. I've got to call the police because the dentist's office had been robbed for drugs before. I called the police, I said somebody's trying to get in, and I gave them the address. And so I went downstairs to the front door so I could see the police when they came. Well, I don't know what happened. I didn't see the police, but all of a sudden I see these men coming down the same stairs to my living room, and it was the Big Four. I said, “Ahhhh!” They said, “We're the cops.” So they said, “We want you to go downstairs with us.”</p>
<p>Apparently the people had gotten the back door open, but then they ran. So I said okay, I will. So I went downstairs – we went downstairs. Took me through the dentist's office – how would I know what was missing? Anyway, as we came back out of the dentist's office to get ready to go back upstairs to my house, I heard what I felt was a little crackling of something. I said you didn't check the basement. And nobody was down there, but I – it was crazy. My - Oh! The sound I heard, I know what it was. When my girlfriend – she was my roommate at the time, because my husband was gone and I needed someone to help with the rent. The – I let the Big Four out the back door and there was a big thing to put over the back door and everything. So we were going upstairs I hear this crack – I said, they didn't check the basement, run! And I pushed her, and she said “damn, you didn't have to push me!” I said get upstairs, get upstairs, and we locked the door, and I ran to the window, and I remember going to the Big Four – they were out there and they jumped out the car, all four of them – I let them in the door. What I heard was really the crackling of the ice on the side of the house as they were walking. It was crazy.</p>
<p>But the tension – because at that time, also, so many people were getting killed around us. I mean, this – Detroit totally changed. It was totally changed. You could be at a place where – you could be an innocent bystander. Everything changed. Everything changed after the riot. And maybe reality was striking or something, but I was seeing a lot more than I ever knew. And then people – and so, at one point, I remember writing – well, I wrote a play that my students performed, it was called <em>Sixties Girl</em>, and in the play, I have a white young lady and a black young lady who had grown up together walking down the street, and she said “You're moving?” the black girl said. “Yeah,” and the white girl says “Yes, I'm moving to some place called Southfield.” And she says “Southfield, I've never heard of that.” And see, at that time, and it was interesting because the play I was doing was at Southfield High, because I taught 22 years at Southfield High – and I wanted to let people know what was going on in '68 Detroit and all. So – we were still – oh, and as far as socially, before all this we were having the waistline parties, all kind of parties in the basement. It wasn't shooting – just everything changed. Even the music changed. “War, What is it Good For? Absolutely Nothing.” “What's Going On?” The music changed. Everything changed. Our so-called innocence was gone. We had to really look around.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you very much for sitting down with me. Do you have anything else you'd like to add?</p>
<p>BP: No. No, I don't think so. You know, if there wasn't a question, I'm good, I believe. I'm good, I believe. But it just – I hated how it changed. That I didn't feel the safety anymore. Because we used to go on bus dates, before – say the boyfriends had a car – the boy would walk over to our house, we'd get on the bus, come down here to the movies, then go back on the – get on the bus. I mean, it was – I never felt unsafe. It just changed.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you very much for sitting down with me.</p>
<p>BP: I'm sorry I made the story so long.</p>
<p>WW: No problem at all.</p>**
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
William Winkel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Brenda Perryman
Location
The location of the interview
Detroit Historical Museum
Video
A link to the video
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YLRDsmKcEmA" frameborder="0" 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
Brenda Perryman, March 19th, 2016
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Perryman discusses growing up attending multi-racial parochial schools in the Detroit area, as well as a life-changing car accident and her role in the events of July 1967.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Detroit Historical Society
Date
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05/24/2016
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
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en-US
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Catholic Education
Curfew
Detroit Community Members
Eastern Michigan University
Fox Theater
Governor George Romney
Henry Ford Hospital
Hudson's Department Store
Looting
Marr School
Martin Luther King Jr.
Michigan National Guard
President Lyndon B. Johnson
Tanks
The Big Four
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/417a09168e24a0d4ab4e5b1e4a6568f2.JPG
dfbae43c234129fee1d70da918af78e2
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
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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
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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.
Jackie DeYoung
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Jackie DeYoung was born in Detroit, MI where she lived during the 1967 disturbance. DeYoung spent 35 years with the Detroit Police Department. She currently lives in Detroit, MI.
Interviewer's Name
The first and last name of the interviewer.
Bree Boettner
Interview Place
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Grosse Pointe
Date
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04/05/2016
Interview Length
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00:46:50
Transcriptionist
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Danail Gantchev
Transcription Date
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5/11/2016
Transcription
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<p>BB: This is Bree Boettner with the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project. I am sitting down with Jackie DeYoung today at her home in Grosse Pointe. Thank you Jackie for sitting down with us today.</p>
<p>JD: Oh you’re welcome.</p>
<p>BB: If you could start by telling me when and where you were born.</p>
<p>JD: I was born in Detroit at the old Providence Hospital on East Grand Boulevard. At the time my parents lived at 3010 West Chicago Boulevard. It was an apartment building between Wildemere and Lawton.</p>
<p>BB: Did you have any siblings?</p>
<p>JD: No, I’m an only child.</p>
<p>BB: And what did your parents do?</p>
<p>JD: My father was an attorney. My father was born in Detroit in 1904 in the middle of the Eastern Market on St. Antoine and Winder. My mother was born in New York, came through Cleveland, and settled here. My father went through Detroit Public Schools. He went to the Bishop School in the Eastern Market area. Then he went to what was Central High School, which is now on the campus – well it was Forest — what is it called — Old Main. That was Central High School and my dad went there. When he graduated, which must have been about 1918 or 1920, it became part of Wayne, which wasn’t a state university at the time. So he went to Law school there, same building.</p>
<p>BB: Okay, wow.</p>
<p>JD: You did not have to go through [an] undergraduate degree at that time; you just went to law school. So he graduated before he was able to become a member of the bar. He wasn’t twenty-one yet.</p>
<p>BB: Oh wow, high achiever. Awesome, okay. Just to preface your parents and you lived on Chicago?</p>
<p>JD: Yes, in an apartment building.</p>
<p>BB: Explain your childhood growing and living in the Detroit area.</p>
<p>JD: Well, it was a very good childhood. My mother and I – my mother didn’t drive until much later. She learned to drive probably when I was in school, [when I was] five, six, seven. So we took buses everywhere. All over downtown, wherever we had to go. You could walk anywhere. We had accessible shopping on Dexter Avenue. It was a very easy childhood. There were very few security fears, or crime, or anything like that.</p>
<p>BB: Do you remember where you went to school in the area?</p>
<p>JD: I went to Brady School.</p>
<p>BB: For all grades or?</p>
<p>JD: I went there until third grade. Then we moved to Manor and Seven Mile, which is on the northwest side, near Meyers Road. After that I went to McDowell school to the eighth grade. And then I went to Mumford High School through graduation. At the time the school system had started an advanced, sort of like an AP program, but they were only running it at Cass Tech. My mother and a group of parents who were active in the PTA did not want us taking the bus down to Cass every day. So they petitioned the school board, and the board opened the program at Mumford because there were so many students in the neighborhood who would have qualified for it.</p>
<p>BB: What year did you graduate from high school?</p>
<p>JD: 1961 I graduated from Mumford.</p>
<p>BB: And was your school integrated? Was it strictly white?</p>
<p>JD: My grade school was very integrated, as was Mumford. The black population at the time lived closer to Eight Mile, but they lived on the same streets we did. Manor, Monte Vista, just further west toward Eight Mile North.</p>
<p>BB: What’d you do after high school?</p>
<p>JD: Then I went to the University of Michigan for four years. I graduated. I came home and I was living with my parents on Manor.</p>
<p>BB: Okay.</p>
<p>JD: I got a job with the city of Detroit, which was a little interesting because at the time, I don’t know if you know this, they had a general entry level job for college graduates called Technical Aid. And at the time I applied, they were divided into Technical Aid Male and Technical Aid Female. The only difference was you had to pass the same test, but the females had to be able to type forty-five words a minute. So the first time I took the test I failed it because I can’t type. [Laughter] By the time I went to take it three months later when I was eligible again, they had taken away that requirement because the Civil Rights movement had started and they were trying to equalize all of the positions. Then I got the job with the city. I had worked for Wayne County several summers while I was in college. They hired me when I graduated, so I had a job with Wayne County until I got the job with the city.</p>
<p>BB: What’d you do with Wayne County?</p>
<p>JD: Oh, I had a number of different jobs. I worked for the road commission for a long time and in the summer I would relieve people in the accounting division who wanted to go on vacation. So they would teach me their job. I would do it for two weeks and then somebody else would teach me their job and I’d do that. That’s how I spent my summer.</p>
<p>BB: Wow, the Jackie-of-all-trades.</p>
<p>JD: Yeah, exactly. [Laughter]</p>
<p>BB: Interesting.</p>
<p>JD: I learned about a lot of Wayne County systems by doing that: the parks, and the airport, and everything that the county ran, highways.</p>
<p>BB: Tell me about your city position. What’d you do for the city of Detroit?</p>
<p>JD: Well, when I was hired in August of 1966, I was assigned to the housing department. I was sent to a field office on Grand River and Grand Boulevard. And we were relocating families from the right-of-way of the Jeffries and the Fisher freeways which were just being built.</p>
<p>BB: That’s right. Okay.</p>
<p>JD: I liked the job, but it involved a lot of social work. My parents were really concerned because I was so involved with some of the families that I was trying to relocate, that I’d be going down to the area at night and taking them food, and money, and blankets, and things they didn’t have. So they said you’ve got to find something else. The other thing was that all of the Edison people, the utility peoples, were all out there in pairs. And I was out there by myself, which my parents didn’t think was real safe. Although, I must say, all the people I worked with did a good job at protecting me, but there were a couple of minor incidents. I went down to the civil service commission and said I’d really like a transfer. They sent me to a couple of different offices. In February of ‘67, the police department had formed a research and development unit. Maybe sometime in ’65; it was pretty new. They were putting personnel in it. They were looking for people. They absolutely did not want a woman. They told me that.</p>
<p>BB: Really? How’d you get the job?</p>
<p>JD: Well, They got desperate [laughter].They had to have somebody. It was a little awkward at first because I say that I worked in the men’s locker room for 35 years. The atmosphere before civil rights and sexual harassment was just incredible. I mean I know young women like yourself find it hard to believe what some of us went through, but the office reported directly to the deputy superintendent of police. He was as much a male chauvinist as the rest of them, but they needed the help badly. And he knew I was going to Wayne at night to get a master’s. He was going to get his bachelor’s degree. And I think in a way he used to send me out to pick up his books or assignments and things like that.</p>
<p>BB: (laughing) Oh goodness.</p>
<p>JD: So I had a lot of interesting assignments at the beginning. The office answered his—it was a commissioner at the time, commissioner of police—all of his correspondence. So it could be very serious from a citizen complaining about something, to the commissioner saying to me, “Write my mother a Christmas letter.”</p>
<p>BB: Gotcha.</p>
<p>JD: We also – the police department operates on the system of general orders that are written. We wrote all those orders and kept track of them, and so forth. Also, at that time, the federal government began the Office of Law Enforcement Assistance and began giving out federal grants to police departments, and we wrote those grant applications. Detroit was probably one of the first five in the country to receive one if I recall correctly. We had people coming in from the police executive research forum and other research organizations. Detroit was a big city at the time. We had a fairly large force. I was once asked to figure out how many blacks were on the job and I think at the time I did it, it was about five percent of the force.</p>
<p>BB: Okay, because at one time, if I remember correctly, there was almost what, 5,300 police officers?</p>
<p>JD: Yes, exactly.</p>
<p>BB: Okay.</p>
<p>JD: And we were pretty modern. We had the first traffic lights here. We had a lot of firsts. There was interest in the department. I also did things like, made center pieces for the Women Who Work Luncheon when some woman from the women’s division was being honored.</p>
<p>BB: Aww.</p>
<p>JD: Things, little tasks. I never knew what the job was going to be on any given day, but it was very interesting. So I was able to learn a lot about how the department operated. You know, I certainly knew all of its rules and regulations because I wrote a lot of them. [Laughter] That’s about it.</p>
<p>BB: At that time in ‘67, you know ’64 when you received this position, how was the city? Had it changed from what you had perceived it when you were child growing up? Had it changed in any way beyond you know the civil rights movement? How was the feeling?</p>
<p>JD: People were starting to move out to suburbs, but not for any particular reason other than you could get a newer house. Some of the jobs were moving. They weren’t all downtown anymore. But, it was pretty much the same city that I grew up in, you know I don’t recall. Our neighborhood started to change a little bit. When we bought our house in 1952 on Manor, my father had to break a restrictive covenant that didn’t allow Jews. We were a Jewish family. Those were outlawed by the Supreme Court subsequently. My father had a case of one of his clients, Orsel McGhee, who lived on Seebaldt Street, who wanted to buy a house on Seebaldt. And my father broke a restricted covenant at that time to get him the house. That case became combined with the cases that Thurgood Marshall eventually argued before the Supreme Court that struck down those restrictive covenants. They’re still in deeds but they can’t be enforced.</p>
<p>BB: Wow, I never knew that. That’s amazing. Leading up to—</p>
<p>JD: So we were the first Jewish family or maybe the second Jewish family on our block.</p>
<p>BB: As I’ve done this project I have not heard of that. That’s amazing. Kudos to your father (laughing). So leading up to the summer of 1967, obviously there’s reports of more civil unrest. How did you perceive that summer and then how did you learn about the event of the blind pig?</p>
<p>JD: Well, I got a call on Sunday night. Must have be what, July 23, from my office, saying there’s been some disturbances. They weren’t sure whether they wanted me to come into work on Monday or not, but they would send a car because I took the bus to work. Usually a Hamilton bus or there was an Imperial Express that ran down James Couzens, what is now the extension of the Lodge Freeway; that wasn’t built yet. So I just waited to hear from them and they said come on in. I went in. The men in my office, the sworn officers, it was a combination. The only other woman was our secretary. They did not have her come in for a few days. But the sworn officers were detailed to the roof of police headquarters with rifles.</p>
<p>BB: Oh wow. What happened?</p>
<p>JD: So I was the only one in the office a lot of the time except for our boss. They asked me to start clipping articles, any newspaper magazine, anything I saw that mentioned what was going on, to cut it out, and then we had this huge scrap book. Big, like, art-size paper, and I pasted these articles on it. Finally it was put together in a book and I hope it’s in the Burton Historical collection.</p>
<p>BB: Okay.</p>
<p>JD: I’ve never looked for it, but I assume that’s where it went.</p>
<p>BB: When we received your notes, that’s one of the things were going to look for next.</p>
<p>JD: They did make smaller copies of it. They shrunk it at some point. I thought I had one but I don’t. Anyway, then I understood that there were fires and looting, and things going on. It wasn’t like I wasn’t affected by it. I realize now that I had to travel through it to get home. Went right through one of the areas, but it just wasn’t anything in my experience that there had been a Kercheval incident but the year before. It was quieted down pretty easily. I knew that an officer had gone into a blind pig and that’s what started things going, and I heard about some of the people I knew in headquarters going out to the scene to try to calm things down. They were standing on trucks in the middle of the street with bullhorns, trying to get people to go home and so forth. Somehow it just didn’t seem real to me until maybe day two or three when the Army showed up, and there were tanks downtown. I used to walk to Hudson’s or Crowley’s for lunch, and there were tanks sitting there. And I thought, “This is silly,” you know, “There’s nothing happening down here. What are they doing?” They were sleeping on cots in various offices in police headquarters. When they first arrived they had no place to put them. And another interesting thing that I remember is that people were bringing food down to headquarters because the officers were on long shifts. It never occurred to us in a million years not to eat it. It certainly would today but back then no. We just accepted it, thanked the people. So it was sort of normal in a way. I mean it was weird watching TV or listening to the radio. You knew what was happening in those areas, and I had worked for the housing commission in the part of that. And some of it was the old neighborhood where I grew up around Chicago Boulevard. But it just never seemed quite real and then things started to escalate. We had the incident at Reverend Franklin’s church. Aretha’s father’s church. And then the Algiers Motel. I was keeping track of how many casualties there were, and officers injured, and things like that. I had all kinds of statistics. I also had all the utilities, Edison, and the gas company, and AT&T were headquartered in our office. Getting updates on where we needed them to guard their own facilities, where we couldn’t handle. The department did what it could to guard their facilities, but they had to put people out. So, we were keeping them apprised of where incidents were occurring and what was happening. It seemed to kind of be contained maybe within a week or ten days.</p>
<p>BB: What was the atmosphere because you did work with cops and deputies? How was the atmosphere with them coming from the scene to the office? Did you hear anything in particular about what was going on from them or did you just get most of your information from news clippings and TV?</p>
<p>JD: Well you heard a lot of racial animus. Some of the black officers on the department were out trying to do what they could to help. Also, black council people and, church reverends, and so forth. Everybody was pitching in trying to help. We couldn’t quite understand and I couldn’t, why people would, if you want to protest something, and maybe the department had been. I don’t know, and of course it never happened to me. But I’m sure they were probably hard on black people. But, if you want to protest something, why burn your neighborhood down? Why hurt yourself? That’s why when people call it a rebellion; it’s hard for me to use that word. You know I know people were angry, but what do you gain by chasing all the merchants out of the city? People who’d run businesses in those areas for years, and just were burned out. It was unthinkable.</p>
<p>BB: Yeah it’s hard. That’s actually my next question. How do you do you perceive the event? Do you see it as a rebellion, do you see the civil unrest, or do you see it as a riot? How would you classify what happened?</p>
<p>JD: I think the Kercheval incident was probably civil unrest, but I think what we had got in July '67 was big enough to be a riot. It was kind of contained to one or two areas, but it was spreading pretty quickly. The police department didn’t seem to be able to stop it, so it was a good thing that we got the National Guard and the Army in here to help. I don’t even know if the department had enough, I mean the officers wore side arms. There might be a rifle in a scout car or two, but I don’t believe we had enough rifles to handle any major disturbances. And there were discussions I heard about you know, "Should we pull everybody back? Is it worth risking police officers, or must we be out there trying to arrest as many people as we could." The other thing was, they didn’t have place to put them. They were bringing them to the garage of police headquarters, which prior to that, I used to walk through to get into the building but they closed it off, took all the cars out of it, and they just had people down there. There were no bathrooms. I mean it was horrible. And finally, Judge George Crockett from recorders court, one of the first black judges, came over and started holding arraignments right in the garage because the people couldn’t get processed fast enough. I don’t remember how long that went on, but a good probably the first week at least. They just didn’t have place to put the people.</p>
<p>BB: Yeah I’ve heard of locations like Belle Isle was used, and I believe the fairgrounds were used so, I’m not surprised. That’s amazing.</p>
<p>JD: They were housing people every because they were just sweeping anybody who happened to be—I mean I guess you could be innocently walking down the street, although, I don’t know why you would be.</p>
<p>BB: Yeah (laughing).</p>
<p>JD: There were curfews and there just were areas where you wouldn’t go.</p>
<p>BB: You say you remember the National Guard and the Army coming in through, do you remember working with them at all, or seeing police officers work with them?</p>
<p>JD: Yeah, I know police officers worked with them. I did not have much to do with them. I was really sitting in an office answering phones and trying to get information from here and there and collate it and get it to the people who needed to have it.</p>
<p>BB: Gotcha.</p>
<p>JD: My office was on the second floor of police headquarters and the executive floor was three. So I would just run up and down the stairs all the time, taking stuff up and I’d see them, pass them in the corridor. But I didn’t have anything to do with them really.</p>
<p>BB: Gotcha, gotcha. So after the event and the days following, how did you perceive your neighborhood and Detroit in general after that, after the event happened?</p>
<p>JD: Nothing happened where we were. My parents had been wanting to sell our house. I think it was August or September of 67’, they were able to sell it and we moved down to the Jeffersonian. It never occurred to any of us to move outside the city. They wanted an apartment. They didn’t think I’d be with them that much longer I guess. Although, in those days if you were a single woman you just did not go out and get an apartment. So we moved to the Jeffersonian. It was a pretty much brand new building at the time. There were very few tenants. I could take the Jefferson bus down to work. So you know I still wasn’t noticing much. Some of the areas that were involved in the Kercheval incident, I would pass on the way to work. But, they’d gone pretty much back to normal. I mean, there were still houses in all those vacant lots that you see today. People took care of their property. They were cutting their lawns. Life was pretty normal for me.</p>
<p>BB: When would you say that things changed?</p>
<p>JD: I won’t say the election of Coleman Young. I think it was before that. Would it have been 1970, or ‘69? Richard Austin ran for mayor against Roman Gribbs. I was kind of a smart mouth, running around telling people that if you voted for Austin, we’d have a reasonably competent black mayor who could perhaps gain the trust of some of these citizens who didn’t trust the government any longer. I didn’t quite understand why they didn’t, but I mean I knew why. It’s just that it wasn’t in my personal experience. I understood their point of view. I lived in a pretty white world. And police headquarters was a very white world, and city government was too. Anyway, Roman Gribbs won. Things started to change during his administration. But Coleman Young’s election was a real flash point, I think. And I think if he had served for two terms, he would have been the greatest mayor Detroit ever had. He served too long. But when he came in he made everything half and half. If he appointed a black department director, then the deputy was white, and vice versa. He made some excellent appointments. He started really pushing the police department to integrate. Other departments too, but police particularly. And they needed pushing. You know, the civil rights laws helped because I don’t think without that the department would have ever—he could have done whatever he wanted to and they would have sat there and said, “Well you’ll be gone and we’ll be here.” They had their own little culture. You know, for the most part the policemen that I worked with were very good people. They wanted to help the community. They didn’t want a bad reputation. The ones I knew weren’t out there beating people up. I heard more, and more, and more about that as I went through my career, because in 1983, at that time I was in charge of the department’s budget, which was about 350 million dollars. I was getting bored. Michael and I were married. He came home one day and he said, he was in the personnel department, “You know you can’t do personnel work anymore without being a lawyer. And I said, “Well if you want to go to law school,” – I tried to go to law school when I graduated from U of M [University of Michigan]. They were only taking one or two women per class at that time. And I could not get in. My grades at U of M weren't that good. I just forgot about it. But when he said that we decided we would go to law school. We both worked our full time jobs and went to law school at night for four years at Wayne and got our law degrees. When I got my law degree, the department put me in their legal unit.</p>
<p>BB: Okay.</p>
<p>JD: There was a high turnover in the unit, so at some point I became the head of it.</p>
<p>BB: Wow.</p>
<p>JD: Just longevity.</p>
<p>(laughing)</p>
<p>BB: You stuck through. You stuck through.</p>
<p>JD: [Cough] As a lawyer for the department and looking at the procedures we had from a little different perspective, when I was writing them, I was writing them for efficiency of operation. We had lawyers review them of course, but there just weren't that many – We could pretty much do what we wanted. By the time I became a lawyer, there were so many statutes and restrictions. We had to check a million different things before we made a rule. [Coughing] And we didn't know if it would conflict.</p>
<p>BB: Okay, so you had gotten your law degree and you were working with the budget and doing more human resources. So after you got your law degree, what did you end up using it for in the department specifically?</p>
<p>JD: Well I worked in the legal advisor section, and we were responsible for reviewing all the orders to make sure they were legal. We taught the legal curriculum at the police academy.</p>
<p>BB: Okay.</p>
<p>JD: There's a big portion of the recruit training that's legal training, naturally. We're liaisons with the attorneys who are defending the cases against the police department.</p>
<p>BB: Okay. What had changed when you were brought on to review policies and things with police officers? What had changed while you were in that position either policy wise or other?</p>
<p>JD: There was a lot of, kind of what's happening now. A lot of protesting about the way police treated citizens, and wanting to make it less confrontational. I know when I taught at the academy [Coughing] they would laugh at me. [Coughing] But I would tell the officers, if you just practice this, "Please, sir, cooperate", instead of saying you know, "MF get down on the ground, assume the position" or whatever. But, like I said, they laughed at me. We had so many lawsuits being brought, and so many citizen complaints [Coughing], that were going to bankrupt the city, which they [Coughing] helped to do. I kept trying to advise people [Coughing], let's do it this way, not that way. [Coughing] I was sent by the department various times to places like New York and Chicago to study how they were doing things. They're trying to modernize, neutralize I guess [Coughing]. I'm going to get some more water. [Coughing] I don't want to make it sound like—I certainly empathized with members of the community. [Coughing] I knew about the amount of prejudice [Coughing] that there was. When I say it didn't affect my life, I did a lot of academic research [Coughing] into what had happened. The causes and so forth. So intellectually I understood it, but I still couldn't understand how burning down your own neighborhood accomplished anything.</p>
<p>BB: Yeah, it's hard.</p>
<p>JD: And when you look at what's happened to Detroit. Now to my mind the, the worst thing, worse than the riot, was the threat of cross district bussing. L. Brooks Patterson was an attorney for a woman named Irene McCabe out in Pontiac. They were fighting the idea of cross district bussing. But that was the thing, when people thought that [Coughing] their kids [Coughing] were going to neighborhood schools with neighbors, that's one thing. But when you're taking white children and trying to integrate them into schools in the black neighborhood, it was a whole other story. I think that did more damage than anything. And probably, people were pretty predisposed to hate Coleman Young. [Coughing] He was, I think thought to be uppity, and he wasn't going to stand for anything. And he didn't. So he made a lot of changes but a lot of people's lives were affected and they didn't like it. I personally think the amount of racism was just, on both sides. Couldn't be overcome. Still hasn't.</p>
<p>BB: Yeah, It's still prevalent for sure. Where do you see Detroit going? Well you’re still in the area, so [Laughing].</p>
<p>JD: I'm glad to see it's coming back. Nobody would like to see it come back more than me. [Coughing] I lived in Detroit for what, [Coughing] more than fifty years. I would still be there, but, we wanted a condo and we weren't able to find anything. Where we are now is about twelve blocks from where we lived in the city, and it didn't seem like I was crossing that big of a line. Although Grosse Pointe has its own connotations. But, the thing – I lived on East Outer Drive [Coughing]. We had our own neighborhood snow removal, neighborhood police patrol [Coughing]. The only thing you can't hire is EMS. And that's what started to scare us. We were getting up there and we thought if we need an ambulance [Coughing], we’re not going to be able to get it. Because we thought a lot about moving downtown, which we lived in when we first got married and we would love to do that. Maybe we will be able to again sometime, but, the services just weren't there. And we’re paying very high taxes. We don't have children so we didn't have the school problem.</p>
<p>BB: Yeah, but you have positive hopes for Detroit?</p>
<p>JD: I do, yes. It was a great city. It is a great city. [Coughing] It has a great history. My family’s been here more than a century. I'm pretty tied to it. Did everything I could, working for it to try to make it better. But there are a lot of other outside forces [Coughing]. Oh my god, it just won't quit.</p>
<p>BB: Yeah I know. Well I know I don't want to make you suffocate here. I know coughing kind of gets to you after a while. One last thing. Is there anything you would like to add that I didn't cover with you in regards to before, after, during, or any advice you have for the younger generation coming in hoping to make the city great again?</p>
<p>[Laughter]</p>
<p>JD: Well, I hope people can get along with each other better [Coughing]. I never understood the divisions. I wasn't brought up to them. I didn't know what the differences were. I always try to get along with everybody and I don't understand [Coughing] why we can't all get along. And maybe the younger generation didn't grow up with all this stuff that can bring it about. I think Mayor Duggan is doing a great job and working at it, but you know it's a working process. It's going to take a long time. I drive around the neighborhoods all the time. I'm in Detroit a lot. It's so sad. [Coughing] But I don't know, I'm sure I'll think of a million other things later.</p>
<p>BB: Well if you do think of anything else, you've got our email address. Please don't hesitate to email me again or give us a call. We can always add your written transcription to this. Because I know you're sick so I really don't want to [Laughing] bug you a little bit more. I really do appreciate you letting us come in and sit down with you guys and getting your story. We appreciate it.</p>
<p>JD: I'm pleased to do it.</p> **
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Recording
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Bree Boettner
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Jackie DeYoung
Location
The location of the interview
Grosse Pointe, MI
Video
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aKRRlMM-M7M" frameborder="0" 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
Jackie DeYoung, April 5th, 2016
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, DeYoung discusses her experiences of the 1967 disturbance and how it affected her life. Additionally, she speaks about her 35 year career at the Detroit Police Department and how the department, and the city, operated and changed before, during, and after the 1967 disturbance.
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Date
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05/24/2016
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
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en-US
Type
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Sound
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Curfew
Detroit Police Department
Government
Kercheval Incident
Mayor Coleman Young
Mumford High School
Public Servant
Tanks
University of Michigan
Wayne State University
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/fff59707b51dd24e875b2d827226687a.JPG
599e1ebfc6d6e81ba7c958bc52135301
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
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Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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.
Michael Kasky
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Michael Kasky was born September 19, 1943 in Detroit. He attended Wayne State University and worked for the city of Detroit during the summer of 1967.
Interviewer's Name
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William Winkel
Interview Place
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Grosse Pointe, MI
Date
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03/24/2016
Interview Length
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00:53:16
Transcriptionist
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Julie Vandenboom
Transcription Date
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5/24/2016
Transcription
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<p>WW: Hello, my name is William Winkel. Today is March 24, 2016. I am in Grosse Point, Michigan, for the 1967 Oral History Project, interviewing Mr. Michael Kasky. Thank you for sitting down with me today.</p>
<p>MK: You're very welcome.</p>
<p>WW: Can you first start by telling me where and when you were born?</p>
<p>MK: I was born in Detroit, on September 1943.</p>
<p>WW: And what was your childhood like?</p>
<p>MK: Excellent. I mean, I lived – my parents lived in a neighborhood around Clairmount and Joy Road, and I went to elementary school at Brady. Did a year at Hutchens Junior High, then the family moved to northwest Detroit, where I lived on Woodingham between Puritan and McNichols. Transferred to Post Junior High, graduated from Mumford, and then started college.</p>
<p>WW: What did your parents do for a living?</p>
<p>MK: My father was a self-employed electrician and my mother was a housewife.</p>
<p>WW: Any significant experiences growing up in the northwest?</p>
<p>MK: Perhaps the one experience I'll share with you was – when I was going to Brady School, that neighborhood was starting to integrate, and the first African American person I really got to know was a girl my age, in my class, and we were taking clarinet lessons together. And the school could only afford one clarinet for the two – for the two of us. So we had our individual mouthpieces, of course, but we had to trade back and forth the clarinet. I lived with my parents in a one-bedroom apartment. And the first time I had to go to Laura Mosley's house to swap the clarinet, it was on Longfellow in Boston Edison. Her father was a dentist, and it was by far the wealthiest house I had ever been in in my entire life. So my first impression of African Americans was a very positive one – a group of people I would want to emulate.</p>
<p>WW: Was Mumford integrated when you went there?</p>
<p>MK: Very much so.</p>
<p>WW: Where did you go to college at?</p>
<p>MK: I went to Highland Park for two years, and I transferred to Wayne [State University].</p>
<p>WW: What did you study?</p>
<p>MK: My undergraduate degree is in history, with a minor in accounting. I have an MBA in industrial relations. I also have a J.D. - all three of my degrees are from Wayne.</p>
<p>WW: And what year did you go to university again?</p>
<p>MK: I started college in 1961, and graduated – received my bachelor's degree in 1965.</p>
<p>WW: Growing up in the city during the 1950s, did you notice any growing tensions? Or was the city harmonious?</p>
<p>MK: The city was very harmonious, in my experience. In fact, when I went to Hutchens Junior High – do you know where Hutchens is?</p>
<p>WW: Mmhmm.</p>
<p>MK: I would say the school was easily ninety-nine percent African American in terms of the student body, and I had no problems.</p>
<p>WW: You enjoyed your time in DPS?</p>
<p>MK: I had – I mean – I got a very, very good education, despite the fact that not all of my teachers were wonderful. A lot of them were retired on full pay. But I found to my amazement that when I started college, the work got easier. Mumford was an excellent, academically successful school. Only Cass Tech and Mumford had an arts and science program, which was an enriched program in those days.</p>
<p>However, I will tell you an interesting story. At Hutchens, the students were classified by intelligence scores, or something else that had been done on us. So I was in probably the top seventh grade class, at least this is what I was told. And even though the school was ninety nine percent black, my class was about fifty-fifty, white and black. And we had a math teacher who had a southern accent, and he kept going over the same material over and over again, until one of the black students, a young girl, spoke up and challenged him, saying, “We've already learned this material. Why are you trying to hold us back?” And when I transferred from Hutchens to Post – in fact, my principal transferred at the same time, to the same school – I discovered that I was a little behind and had to catch up. So clearly, I was being given a watered-down education at Hutchens. Whether that was the curricula fault, or the teachers' responsibility, I really don't know.</p>
<p>WW: Your time at Wayne State – was there – given the social movements of the day, was there any strong feeling either way on campus?</p>
<p>MK: I knew that some of the black students were expressing unhappiness. And it was difficult to say – or for me to determine – whether or not that was something that was very much held sincerely, or whether or not it was some kind of ploy to manipulate the professors into getting themselves out of work, or getting better grades.</p>
<p>WW: How would you describe your time at Wayne State?</p>
<p>MK: Much more enjoyable than high school. I was more mature; I had much better instructors. Wayne State had an incredibly good history faculty there, but I also had experiences like – I remember taking an accounting class – and that curriculum was pretty white at the time. And there was a black student in there, and the first day of class, the teacher asked everybody to get up and state their name, and he said his name was Blackberry, and the teacher looked and said, “Oh, we have a Blackberry in this class.” No – his name was Barry. And the teacher made a joke about a “blackberry.” But nobody seemed to take offense at that. Now, I don't think that would happen.</p>
<p>WW: Probably not.</p>
<p>MK: The other thing that I saw was, there was a history professor there – this was now getting towards – I can't remember if this was during my undergraduate or graduate courses – I did a lot of graduate studies in history also – thinking rather naively that, if I got a PhD in history, I'd be employable – which I realized was not true, and switched things. But a number of students – of black students – who were, by that time, self-identified as militants, came up to him, and demanded to know why he wasn't teaching any black intellectual history in his class on American intellectual history. And his response was, “When the blacks develop an intellectual history, I will teach it.”</p>
<p>WW: Wow.</p>
<p>MK: On the other hand, I had another history professor who was teaching nineteenth century European intellectual history, and the reading was all original sources – this was a graduate class – on economic theories of the nineteenth century – primarily English labor economists. And a couple of the African American students came up to him and said, “We're finding this reading too difficult. Can we use the textbook that they're using in Economics 101?” And this professor, who was very liberal, leaning very – had socialist values – had worked his way through college working at the Ford assembly line – turned to the students and said, “Of course. All you have to do is go to the Registrar's Office, tell them that you want to drop out of my class, and enroll in Economics 101.” And they stayed, and they struggled with the material, which was quite difficult. But that was the kinds of manipulation that one could see taking place at that time.</p>
<p>WW: What did you do after graduation?</p>
<p>MK: I had started working for the city of Detroit as a student technical assistant in early 1965, in what was then the Civil Service Commission. And I found the work challenging and pleasant, the people very, very bright. And I found that I had skills that allowed me to do this work, and so, after I graduated, I sat for the exam and became a professional with the Civil Service Commission. The title was then called Technical Aide. And because I was working in the Civil Service Commission, I did not know when I would take the test, and when I was suddenly told one morning, go into this room, we're giving you the test today, they did not use the existing test, but went into the archives, to a test that I had never seen before, to make sure that this was all objective and I had no unfair advantage.</p>
<p>And the thing was, that when I was growing up, my father struggled to make a living. And when I started college, I was looking for part-time work. A number of my friends' parents either could employee them in their businesses, or had friends who could employ them in their businesses. And I asked my father if he knew of anyone that he could recommend me to, and he was very apologetic, and said “I really don't know anyone – there's really – I can't do anything for you. I just don't have that kind of influence.”</p>
<p>So the fact that I was able to sit down and take the civil service test, with no regard whatsoever to who I knew, or what my economic status was, made a significant impression on me, and I became a very, very devoted advocate of the merit system.</p>
<p>WW: No doubt. Working in the city government in the mid-1960s, was there a feeling that there was tension in the air?</p>
<p>MK: Yes and no. I mean, our department had some African Americans working in it, including one senior staff member – a professional. And we were hiring more and more black people – I still have lifelong friends from the blacks I started working with in that period of time. John Eddings – I don't know if you know the name – he was a city Ombudsman for a number of years. He and I still have – get together every now and then. There was another woman who – a number of our people went on to either law school or medical school — they just used this as a way to earn money to go to professional school. I delayed that, primarily because I still remembered my earlier experience with my father not having any connections, and I felt that as someone who is Jewish, and being aware of the fact that there were a lot of the white-stocking law firms at the time did not employ professional Jews, that it probably was a fool's errand to go to law school at that time. I was better off working for the city, doing something that I enjoyed – something I felt I was being reasonably well paid for. But it was clear to me – it was not official policy, of course, but I was told through the grapevine at that time that there were departments that were Catholic, there were departments that were Protestant, and don't even think about going to work there. And that there were some departments that would employ African Americans and some that would not. And the Civil Service Commission was one that did have a cross-section of people. There was no – I saw no discrimination there in terms of hiring staff. Had black cohorts, Catholic cohorts, Protestant cohorts, so it was a very good group of people. But I had been told by other people, don't even think about transferring here or transferring there because they won't take you if you're Jewish.</p>
<p>WW: Wow.</p>
<p>This is before the Civil Rights Act, by the way. And I can tell you, for example, that there was pressure, for example, I remember one time I was assigned to a unit that hired white collar professionals – business-type professionals, industrial-type professionals, administrative professionals, and also recreation titles – people who worked for the recreation department or the zoo. And one day the head of the recruitment division came in and said, “We're not passing enough black people – revise the exam and put more basketball questions on it.” Which showed the level of his sophistication.</p>
<p>A lot of people thought that I was a Communist. And I'd gone to Wayne, and that was considered, you know, by people who were older, to be a hotbed of radical studies, and I can remember one example when they were interviewing a recreation instructor, which is a professional title – one required a degree to have this job – and a woman came in, and I was told to come in and take notes. I worked for one of the few senior professional women at the time, and she was interviewing – and she was white, Protestant – and she was interviewing with another woman from the recreation department who was a very high senior-level person – and I was told that my job was to take notes and say nothing, unless it was imperative. Unless it was imperative. And the applicant we were interviewing was a woman who had worked her way through university – Wayne State – in the post office. One could tell that she came from a lower middle-class background, was very, very nervous, and uncomfortable in the interview. And at one point, I heard her say, “I believe in the necessity of perpetual revolution.” And I saw the two senior women's pens starting - moving furiously – and I thought, this was inconsistent. So I turned to the lady, and said, “Have you taken any philosophy courses?” And she said, “Oh, yes!” So I said – thinking to myself, well I can't ask her about Marx, that's too obvious – so I asked her about Hegel, because Marx relied on Hegel's structure. So I asked her what she thought of Hegel, and she said, “No, I don't like him, I don't care for him, I think he was wrong.” So I went back to Rousseau, and asked her what she thought about Rousseau, and she said a similar thing. So then I asked her about Voltaire, and she said, “Oh, Voltaire is my favorite philosopher. He really sums up what I want to be.” I said, “Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Voltaire say he believed in the necessity of perpetual <em>ev</em>olution?” And she said, “Yes, isn't that what I said?” And I said, “No, you said, ‘perpetual <em>rev</em>olution.’” And she said, “Oh my god, I apologize! I'm so nervous!” At which point I stopped talking. And the next day I was summoned into the division head and told if I wanted to chit-chat about philosophy, to do it on my own time. They could not see what I was doing, or why I was doing it.</p>
<p>But again, that led to my being seen as somewhat suspect. It never affected my career, but the older staff people did have – were wary of my background and my politics.</p>
<p>WW: Wow. Before we move on to 1967, are there any other stories you'd like to tell from your early years in the civil service?</p>
<p>MK: Well I'll tell you one story, and I can't remember when this occurred, but the structure of the office was such that the director and deputy director of recruitment had glass-partitioned offices right off the waiting area for people being interviewed. And the director at that time – I can't speak for his earlier accomplishments, because I don't know about them – but at this stage of his life, he tended to imbibe a great deal, at lunch time, and we all knew not to bother him after lunch. And I walked out there, and I was talking to an applicant, and I heard him on the phone, saying, in a very, very loud voice, “If I want a gardener, I'll hire a Tony. If I want a garbage man, I'll hire a nigger.” This was overheard by everybody in that waiting area. So that told me, in no uncertain terms, that once he lost his controls over his speech – his censors – that those were his attitudes.</p>
<p>WW: That's sad. Where were you living in 1967?</p>
<p>MK: In 1967 I was still living in Woodingham, with my parents.</p>
<p>WW: And how old were you?</p>
<p>MK: In 1967, in July, I was 23.</p>
<p>WW: Twenty-three? How did you first hear about what was going on that Sunday morning, Saturday night?</p>
<p>MK: Well, the interesting thing was, I had – I had gone to Amherst, Massachusetts, just before the riot broke out, to – I had been offered a fellowship to get a PhD in history. And I heard on the news what was happening. One of the interesting things was, after ten o'clock – I learned this later so we won't even go into it – it's not relevant – but I found out about it, and I called the office and said, do you need me back? And they said “Get on a plane and be back as quick as you possibly can.”</p>
<p>So I was flying a commuter flight and when we took off from Buffalo, I realized there was only one other passenger on the plane beside me. And as I looked out the window as we went into our landing pattern over Detroit, I could clearly see the outlines of Dexter, Linwood, and Twelfth Street and Grand River – that was a unique geography – all lit up in flames. And I was very, very sorry I didn't have a camera with me at the time. But that told me how serious this was and there also had been a disturbance on the east side the year before that I knew of, so I landed, and I had left my car at the time with my father, and asked him to pick me up. And I never found out why he did this, but instead of driving back from the airport on the Southfield Freeway to Six Mile Road, which would have been a route that avoided the riot area, he decided to go through downtown. And we were stopped by a very, very nervous National Guardsman, who pointed the business end of his M-1 rifle at me and my father, and fortunately I had a) white skin, and b) City of Detroit identification. But that was a little scary also. And then I went into work the next day and I was told I would be lent for the time being to a unit called Riot Intelligence, which I had never heard of before.</p>
<p>WW: What day did you get back?</p>
<p>MK: It was probably a Monday, but I – I'm not certain, that's a long time ago.</p>
<p>WW: So what was your work on the Riot Intelligence Committee?</p>
<p>MK: Primarily, handling concerns of various businesspeople and utilities in the City of Detroit. For example, I got a call from a radio station or television station, it was on East Jefferson near Mt. Elliot. And they were having a problem getting [Detroit] Edison to come out and do some work for them. So I called up Edison and was able to persuade them that there were very slight risks and if they wanted, I would get police protection for them. So I was doing just basic – I wasn't getting involved with the community or anything like that, I was just basically trying to deal with short-term problems that were arising as a result of the fear and violence in the city.</p>
<p>WW: What was the mood behind the scenes? Was there a calm to the work, or was it anxious work?</p>
<p>MK: Well, the head of the department was a man named Malcolm Dade, who was very, very powerful in the black community, and his number one was a woman named Katherine Edwards, who was a very vivacious white woman who also had a great deal of political clout. And they were the ones who, when I dealt with them, were always a very calm presence. So I didn't really sense anything that was panic – I mean I still was able – I felt safe taking either – I can't remember which days I drove and which days I took the bus downtown – but I never felt like I was in any danger.</p>
<p>And I think I told you over the phone, the story that on one occasion, I was asked to either pick up or deliver some papers to the police department. And I offered to just walk over from the City County Building, and they said, “No, it's too dangerous.” And told me that a police car would pull up to the building and I should take a ride in that car. And it was an older, white police officer who was driving, and we were driving northeast on Gratiot. And as he went to make the turn to go east on Clinton, there was a young black man walking across Clinton, minding his own business, not projecting any harm, or any threat to anyone, and the police officer floored the car, and aimed at him. Now whether he was just trying to scare him, or whether he was trying to actually hit him, I can't say. Fortunately, the young man was nimble enough to jump out of the way.</p>
<p>WW: Did the cop say anything, or no?</p>
<p>MK: I can't recall if he said anything or not. I have an impression that he may have grinned, or said something, but I can't be certain of that. Again, it was just too long ago.</p>
<p>WW: In working with the police department during that week, was there – was that the common attitude?</p>
<p>MK: I didn't really deal with them on a one-to-one basis. I did notice that they had the khaki uniform police cadets surrounding police headquarters, each holding a rifle in their hands, and I later learned that there were police snipers on the roof. I did not know it at the time. But because the Civil Service Commission only dealt with civilian employees - the police department had their own employment section for sworn officers – I had very few interactions with the police department.</p>
<p>WW: Who else made up the Riot Intelligence Committee that you worked on? Was there various agencies?</p>
<p>MK: I really don't know. I know that Malcolm Dade and Katie Edwards were the two people I dealt with. There was probably a board, that I never had any access to. And basically I just stayed – other than that one experience with the police department – I just basically worked in the office and worked on the telephone.</p>
<p>WW: You spoke about driving home from work or taking the bus. What was the atmosphere of the city on your commutes to work and back home?</p>
<p>MK: There was a certain tension, but where I lived – on Woodingham, between Puritan and Six Mile – the closest thing that happened was the torching of a furniture store on Livernois just north of Fenkell. And that was at least three quarters of a mile, if not farther, from my house. So I didn't feel any real threat. I mean, my neighborhood was thoroughly integrated at that time, but I perceived no threat, or people were still walking along the street, and I think people had a feeling of safety. I did not see any military in my neighborhood. I mean, I had friends – I had a friend who lived on Clairmount, between Twelfth Street and Hamilton, who woke up one morning to find a tank parked on his front lawn.</p>
<p>WW: Working in the city government, what was the mood when the National Guard came in, and then when the Army came in?</p>
<p>MK: We felt that that was probably a positive. Again, I saw the nervousness of that one National Guardsman who stopped my father and I, so when I saw them bringing in the 82<sup>nd</sup> Airborne, I understood immediately why they needed people who were more professional, and who were not likely to – pardon – no pun intended – trigger an incident that would create more violence. But we – the black employees and the white employees in the Civil Service Commission continued to work together. I saw no animosity, no self-segregation at that point in time. Everybody seemed to recognize that we all knew each other, we all trusted each other, we were all professionals, and we just continued to do the best we could.</p>
<p>WW: And you stayed on the Intelligence Committee until the end of the disturbance?</p>
<p>MK: I think I was there for a week. I remember it was the only time I ever got paid double-time for working in my entire career with the city. I worked on a Sunday. But by Monday everything had calmed down to the point where I could go back to Civil Service.</p>
<p>WW: What was the mood of the city following the disturbance?</p>
<p>MK: People were really reluctant to talk about it. I think that – at the time I was taking graduate level classes at Wayne – and I could see some hesitancy there for – and a little bit of self-segregation. But I didn't see any threats. I didn't see any violence. And of course I can't remember if the DRUM movement, the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, started before or after the riot, but I certainly knew of its presence on Wayne's campus, and I understood what they were trying to accomplish.</p>
<p>WW: Did you have any more interaction with DRUM, or the League of Revolutionary Black Workers?</p>
<p>MK: I never had any interactions with DRUM. There were not people who sought me out, or I sought them out.</p>
<p>WW: Was there a sense in the behind-the-scenes in the city government that we need to move past what happened?</p>
<p>MK: Very definitely. I mean, I'll give you one example that happened during that period of time. As I told you, my father was an electrician. And he did a lot of work for people who owned income properties in the city. A lot of what was then the inner city. And I would occasionally work with him, and help him. And I saw a lot of damage that had been done by people who lived in these rental properties and I got a sense from the owners, whom I met, that they were not malicious people or evil people, but they were simply just trying to make a reasonable rate of return on their property. And the damages that I saw were extensive, and very expensive, and they couldn't really charge rents that would give them enough cushion to continually repay for the kinds of damage that were done to these units.</p>
<p>And I remember, I was taking an Urban Sociology class at the time, and people were talking about how the landlords were just making scads and scads of money off the backs of poor inner-city residents, and I spoke up to say that was not my experience. That these people were very – the landlords were – that I dealt with were not extensive, they owned maybe two or three units – or houses – and they were trying as hard as they could to provide a reasonable living place for their tenants, and it was costing them a great deal of money every time somebody started doing damage to the building. And I said, you know, these people are not making a great deal of money. It's a very thin margin of revenue, and if they're really constrained, and this continues, they're just going to abandon the property and walk away. At which point I was greeted with howls of laughter. They say, “Oh no, these people are making so much money – obscene amounts of money – that this will never happen.” Unfortunately, history proved me right.</p>
<p>WW: How did the city – or did you have any – did you have any interaction with city officials that were dealing with the exodus – that was leaving the city after the riots?</p>
<p>MK: No.</p>
<p>WW: Mm kay. In the years following 1967 – lost my train of thought, sorry.</p>
<p>MK: Let me give you some more information.</p>
<p>WW: Okay, sorry about that.</p>
<p>MK: The woman for whom I started working as a professional – she and I bonded. And her – she had a business background and at that time I had at least a minor in business, and I was able to understand and be able to do the work necessary for the people in the city who were accountants and auditors and budget analysts and tax assessors, and people in those kinds of professions. So my talents were specialized enough that I stayed in that area, and other people got involved with the departments that were more socially oriented.</p>
<p>WW: You continued your work with the city government and Civil Service after the Civil Rights Act was enacted.</p>
<p>MK: Yes.</p>
<p>WW: Did that change the culture that was dominating the civil service at that time?</p>
<p>MK: Yes. Until the Civil Rights Act was passed, occupations were classified male and/or female. For example, a bus driver had to be a male. The position – hiring position professionals – for professionals – was technical aide male, was a specialty, or technical aide female was a specialty. And now that had to come to an end. It could no longer classify based on gender, unless it was a job like a locker room attendant or a correctional officer at the Detroit House of Correction. Those were the only exceptions. So there was some resistance at the senior levels to this, because they could no longer say. “I insist on a man,” or, “I insist on a woman.” And Jackie had a lot of experience with that, that – it's being written down right now – but I can remember the same head of recruitment, who had got – who had expressed those comments when he was drunk one afternoon – came into my office one day. My boss was at lunch – and he turned to me and said, “Too many damn women are passing the technical aide exam. Put a mechanical comprehension section on the test.” And I looked at him and said, “I don't understand the relationship of mechanical comprehension to what this test – for the positions this test is designed for.” And he looked at me and says, “Kasky, if you don't want to do it, just walk out the door now.” And much to my amusement, and much to his despair, his stereotype proved wrong, and the passing grades of females actually increased with that mechanical comprehension test! And I realized – because I was directly involved with hiring professionals – entry level professionals – that the quality – the average quality of the female applicant was far superior to the average quality of the male candidate, not for any gender-related reasons, but the fact was they had limited opportunities. Men had access to jobs in the corporate world that women couldn't access, and if they didn't want to go into teaching or something like that, government was really one of the few places where they could access. So we hired a number – a large number – a high percentage of very, very talented and high-quality women who I certainly enjoyed with – for the rest of my career.</p>
<p>WW: What was the mood of the city in the – moving into the 1970's. Trying to put '67 behind them, with the renaissance city and New Detroit?</p>
<p>MK: I could see that those attempts were taking place – I, again, did not have any direct involvement with them. But one of the things that the Civil Service Commission did was, we rotated our employees. And many of them were assigned to work in hiring activities involved with the poverty program – started out as TAAP – Total Action Against Poverty – and then became the Mayor's Community Commission for Human Resources Development. And those were not really jobs anyone looked forward to, because you worked in the inner city in very dingy quarters, and somehow I was saved by that. Again, I think it was my unique skill set, that they – when they came to my boss and said, “It's time for Kasky to rotate,” she said, “Over my dead body,” or something like that because when she moved, I moved, because she had a reputation as – a well-earned reputation, and a well-merited reputation because she had suffered enormous discrimination in her career, being a woman. So people – she had – she wouldn't take much guff, and dealt it out, so the administration did not want to ruffle her feathers, so she protected me for many, many years, and then there was a position that opened up in the Model Neighborhood Agency in 1969, where they needed an auditor to enforce the government requirement that no contractor's – no private sector contractor's total compensation could exceed that of a comparable government worker. So I went out to the department in 1969 and at the time, we were housed in the Architect's Building, in the middle of the then Cass Corridor, and because I was from a management department, and this was a socially conscious department, I was kind of looked at as the enemy, and there was a story that I heard from a number of people that one woman would hide under her desk whenever she saw me coming, because I was considered part of the running – I was a running dog of management.</p>
<p>But a very interesting thing happened while I was there. There was a program, a recreation department program, called the Metropolitan Arts Complex, run by an African American woman who had come from the recreation department. And her reputation was enhanced by the fact that her husband, who had been a professional boxer, once punched out the director of the Model Neighborhood Agency, after which he always had two police officers guarding him. Well I – that was one of the departments I had to audit. And I went out there one morning and met with the woman, and I did just what I normally did. I acted exactly as I normally acted. And I came back that afternoon, and all of a sudden the PA system announced, and saying “there's going to be a staff meeting. Everybody must come. Everybody must come to the meeting.” And the director, Sylvester Angel, who was African American, came in and said, “I've just gotten a very serious – I've had a very long, angry call from the head of the Metropolitan Arts Complex.” And I'm thinking, okay, my career is now going up in smoke. And he – Sylvester Angel continued and said that, “She said, "In all of her dealings with this department, she's only dealt with one person who dealt with her as a true professional, and that's Mr. Kasky sitting over there.”</p>
<p>Well, you know, there were gasps all among the room, but I realized then, that my presumption was correct – that if I treated people with respect and focused on work-related matters, that that was the way to succeed in government – that I was not bigoted, they were not bigoted, and as long as they felt that I was treating them with the respect due them, and I wasn't trying to screw them, that we could get along just fine. And that was later demonstrated when I finished that assignment in 1973, I had been promoted twice and came back as a principal and headed a unit. I was assigned a black female employee. There were a number of young people – nobody ever started out what was then called classification, but after a few years they were all rotated in there. And she came to work for me and there was a black male who went to work for another principal, down the hall. And again, I just explained things to her, and showed her what to do that would work, what wouldn't work, what her job was, and answered all of her questions. And when it came time for me to leave the city, at my farewell lunch, a number of black employees came up to me and thanked me for all I had done for them.</p>
<p>And I said, “Well, you know, I don't quite understand because you never worked directly for me.” And what they said was, “You don't understand. What you taught Cathy, she in turn, turned around and taught to us,” because their white supervisors were not teaching them what I was teaching her.</p>
<p>WW: It's amazing. What – you spoke about leaving the city – leaving the civil service. What year did you leave the city and the service?</p>
<p>MK: I left in 1976.</p>
<p>WW: Was there a particular reason why you left?</p>
<p>MK: Let's go off the record.</p>
<p><break in recording></p>
<p>WW: The next set of questions will be about – talking about your role in the Jewish community. When you first moved in to your neighborhood, was your neighborhood primarily Jewish?</p>
<p>MK: The neighborhood that I grew up – which is the same neighborhood where Jackie grew up – we went to the same elementary school, the same high school – was predominantly Jewish, yes.</p>
<p>WW: As – as you grew up, did more of the community – you said it became integrated. Did most of the Jewish community leave the city?</p>
<p>MK: It started off by moving to the northwest. This was a time – this is something that I do in my tours – I explain that starting in the 1910's, 1920's, the population of the city of Detroit more than doubled every ten years. Strong, strong pressures for housing. A lot of housing was being built, and the Jewish neighborhood – the original Jewish neighborhood, on Hastings Street, was built in the 1830s and 1840s – wooden clapboard houses, slapped together to house the German immigrants who were coming to Detroit – the Jewish immigrants came to Detroit in the 1830s and 1840s to settle – really, the first Jews to settle in Detroit and form a community spoke German, it was only natural that they would choose to live in the German-speaking neighborhoods, and there were very little friction, from what I can tell.</p>
<p>But as the neighbors – as the people here accustomed themselves to living in America, and started to prosper, they started looking for better housing, and they moved north along the Hastings corridor. The people who did very, very well went into business, primarily the clothing business – and the Civil War came and they were in the uniform business – started living in Piety Hill. They had beautiful homes along Woodward and the rest of the Jewish neighborhoods started moving north along Hastings and streets parallel to it.</p>
<p>Now at this time – so when the blacks started to come to Detroit – they quickly learned that the people who would hire them, and the people who did not threaten them, was the Jewish community. And if you read Thomas Sugrue’s work – I don't know if you've ever read that – he confirms that point. So they tended to follow the Jews, because they were a), familiar with the neighborhoods and b), felt safe moving there. The Jews might not be happy about it; the Jews might decide to move on to greener pastures; but they would not employ the same kind of violence that was taking place in other parts of the city – you know, like Ossian Sweet's experience – and Jackie's father represented black people who were trying to move into the Grand River Grand Boulevard neighborhood, and restrictive covenants were enforced, and that kind of thing.</p>
<p>So that was the progression. And one of the strongest characteristics of the Jewish community is an emphasis on education. And anything that would water down, or threaten the quality of education is a reason for moving out of the neighborhood. Plus, these were people who had grown up at a time when Jewish kids were routinely harassed by non-Jewish kids living in the neighborhood, whether they were black or white, Irish, Polish – it was common knowledge that Jewish kids learned to run very fast to avoid them. So, given these apprehensions, given the fact that they had sufficient money to move into better neighborhoods, they chose to do so, and the black population followed them, because they wanted the buildings. And unlike, for example, the Catholic denomination, where people are assigned to a parish, synagogues are congregationally based. There's no hierarchy. So people felt very comfortable moving and for the Orthodox, who tended to walk to synagogue, they had enough money to sell their buildings primarily to black churches, and then rebuild as the community progressed in its northwestern progression.</p>
<p>And a historical fact that you might not know, was the first building bought by a congregation in Detroit to be a synagogue was actually bought from a black church.</p>
<p>WW: Ah, I didn't know that. You spoke about the limitations on Jewish employment in the city government before the Civil Rights Act.</p>
<p>MK: Yes.</p>
<p>WW: Was that widespread throughout the city in the early 1960s and 1950s?</p>
<p>MK: There were certain departments I knew I should not apply with. The water department was one; budget was another – they had a token Jew in budget – but I knew – first, I really liked the work I was doing in the civil service commission, but most of the Jews who worked for the city worked in the social action programs – housing, model neighborhood, the poverty program, community relations, those departments.</p>
<p>WW: Thank you for that. To tidy this up, what are your feelings on the city today? How do you think it has progressed since 1967?</p>
<p>MK: Well, the city has undergone some terrible experiences. I can tell you, with my experience working at the model neighborhood program – I don't know how much you know about how it functioned – but it tried to – it was an experiment in the Carter administration, to see whether or not empowering the people of poverty-stricken neighborhoods to make their own decisions, would lead to better and more acceptable decisions. And twenty million dollars a year was assigned to these programs. And I was then – well, I audited every department, so I certainly saw and experienced what was going on. And while it was a wonderful idea – this is my personal opinion – to – for the people to identify and prioritize their concerns and their needs, it was a mistake, in hindsight, to also give them the authority to decide how they were going to be implemented. I saw a lot of people who could talk a good talk but really didn't have any substance getting programs and running them into the ground, or stealing the money, absconding with it. So this is not race-based, it's experience-based, but you just can't come from being a community activist and suddenly being in charge of a department where you don't know – or business, what's involved. And they were never given that transition. So as I saw in more and more of the city, administration being given to people, who lacked experience. Now, I was very, very impressed with Coleman Young. And to this day, when someone says Coleman Young ruined the city, I strongly disagree. Coleman Young was not a racist. He knew how to employ racist language to inspire and manage the black community. But he, personally, was not a racist. Jackie and I worked on his campaigns every year – his fundraisers. And we had a lot of respect for the man, and he did things that no white mayor could ever have accomplished, such as when he became mayor, there were three employees assigned to every garbage truck. He put through – with James Watts, his black, union-experienced director of public works – they implemented the one-man packer, firing two thirds of the predominantly black garbage men. I can't imagine a white person having been able to get away with that at that time, but Coleman Young was able to accomplish that. So it – I have the greatest amount of respect for him. I saw other mayors follow him, who didn't have the respect of city employees. They thought that anybody who worked for – they thought the government and city government was the employer of last resort. They didn't realize what high-caliber, well-educated people we had – tended to disregard the advice we gave them to the city's disadvantage, and they employed people. Dennis Archer was certainly one of them – who made maybe one or two good appointments but some of the appointments he made were just terrible. Turn this off.</p>
<p>[break in recording]</p>
<p>WW: Thank you very much for sitting down with me today and for taking time out of your schedule.</p>
<p>MK: You're very, very welcome. I enjoyed this.</p>
Interviewer
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William Winkel
Interviewee
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Michael Kasky
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bTt5h-vNzsI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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Title
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Michael Kasky, March 24th, 2016
Description
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In this interview, Kasky discusses growing up in Detroit, his time at Wayne State University and his employment with the city of Detroit during the summer of 1967 and during the period immediately after.
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Date
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05/26/2016
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
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1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Civil Rights Movement
Civil Service
Detroit City Government
Detroit Police Department
Government
Jewish Community
Mayor Coleman Young
Public Servant
Tanks
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a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
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Title
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Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
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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
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.
Reverend Wendell Anthony
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Originally born in 1950 in St. Louis, Missouri, Reverend Dr. Wendell Anthony’s family moved to Detroit in 1958. The church was a big part of Rev. Anthony’s life and he later went on to graduate from University of Detroit with a degree in black political theology. He is currently the pastor for Fellowship Chapel in Detroit, Michigan.
Interviewer's Name
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Zachary Shapiro
Interview Place
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Fellowship Chapel, Detroit
Date
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11/19/2015
Interview Length
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00:54:35
Transcriptionist
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Zachary Shapiro
Transcription Date
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12/16/2015
Transcription
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<p>ZS: Okay. My name is Zachary Shapiro. Today is November 19, 2015 and today we will be interviewing Reverend Wendell Anthony for the Detroit Historical Society’s 1967 Oral History Project. We are holding the interview at Fellowship Chapel in Detroit, Michigan.</p>
<p>Can you please start by telling me where and when you were born and when you moved to Detroit?
</p>
<p>WA: Originally from St. Louis, Missouri. Was born in St. Louis in 1950 and I moved here with my mother in 1958. Went to Detroit Public Schools — Central High School, Durfee, Roosevelt — and joined the St. Marks Presbyterian Church and the rest is history.</p>
<p>ZS: Why did your family decide to move to Detroit from St. Louis?</p>
<p>WA: My mother did. I stayed in St. Louis with my grandmother. I didn’t want to come to Detroit so I stayed, all my cousins, relatives, friends were there. My mother remarried. She came to Detroit so naturally I had to come with her.</p>
<p>ZS: Would you like to briefly describe your parents and family?</p>
<p>WA: Well, I have a great family. As a small boy I was raised by my grandmother in St. Louis in a small town called Kinloch, a lot of relatives. We were not middle class. We were kind of poor economically, but rich spiritually. I don’t regret any of my childhood experience. I wish my own kids could have experienced some of what I experienced as a child because I enjoyed every moment of it. My cousins and I lived in a little red house on the hill down in the basement and we had a very good life. So that’s where I got a lot of values. Church being a part of that all day experience and then coming to Detroit later on when my mother remarried and meeting a guy by the name of Jim Wadsworth. She joined the St. Marks Presbyterian Church and I followed that and connected with him. He was very much involved in the community. As a matter of fact he was president of the NAACP, back in the middle-sixties and was instrumental in helping Coleman Young become the first African-American mayor. So, that was a part of that. I used to come up here on the train. My grandmother would give me a shoe box filled with food — pound cake, pie, chicken — and with a note "Wendell Anthony for Detroit," pocket full of change, so I could get some pop. We called it soda on the way. And then when I stayed up here, my mother would, when I went back to St. Louis in the summer she would do the same. Put a note on my chest, "Wendell Anthony St. Louis," shoe box of food, pocket full of change. My grandmother and cousins would be waiting on me and that’s how I spent my summers and school time period so for me it was a great learning and growing experience.</p>
<p>ZS: Alright. Could you talk about where exactly you grew up at in Detroit and describe what living in that area was like while you were growing up and what the neighborhood was like and everything?</p>
<p>WA: Two areas basically. When I first came in we lived in an apartment over on LaSalle and Elmhurst near Central High School, near Tuxedo. Apartment life was good although there wasn’t a whole lot of play space, but I had a few of friends over there and then we moved to Linwood and LaSalle to West Buena Vista near Davison. I remember going to the old Avalon Theater, which used to be at Linwood and Davison. I used to go there every Saturday basically at that time. I used to go in the show for fifty cents and I would take bags full of goodies and you have two movies, cartoons and previews and we would stay in movies all day basically. So, Linwood I went to McCulloch elementary over there and nice neighborhood a lot of trees played running, football, baseball in the streets and on playground. There was a time period in which folks could sit on their front porch and you could do what you want to do until the street lights came on. Street lights come on everybody had to be at the house. So Linwood, LaSalle, pretty much in the Dexter area.</p>
<p>ZS: Dexter area, alright. Could you talk about where you went to college and what you studied in school and why you decided to study that?</p>
<p>WA: I went to Wayne State University from Central High School. Met a guy by the name of Noah Brown Jr., who was the first African American vice president at Wayne State. He was very much committed to young people. He got me in school, gave me a job helped me to go to Africa. My first trip to Africa was in 1970. I was not quite sure what I was going to study. I wanted originally to be a lawyer because at that time period Ken Cockrell Sr. was the preeminent lawyer around here and every young brother who was thinking about anything wanted to be like Ken. Ken was so brilliant in terms of his articulation of issues and his use of the king’s language and he bamboozled so many people by his wit and his brilliance so we all wanted to be like Ken. I thought that’s what I wanted to do. But then I was always in the church. I was with Reverend Wadsworth and I did not know how strongly that was weighing upon me but the church seemed to be able to give me everything. The church really helped me to go to Africa. We raised money — we were originally gonna go to Africa in '70 through university, but the trip fell through.</p>
<p>ZS: What country?</p>
<p>WA: We were going to go to East Africa we were going to go to Tanzania and Kenya but that trip — and Wayne State University was planning that trip — Brown was going to send us but the university could not — something happened and that trip fell through, but Noah Brown said, “Y’all still going,” Talking about me and Ron Massey, a guy that came through school with me. I was president of the student council at Central High School. He was president of the senior high class. We graduated together and so we were very close and we also got involved and we went to Wayne State. We were in Project Fifty at that time. Came in in the summer worked and all of that. So he said, “Y’all still going,” so he called all his friends he said I want thirty dollars from you, thirty dollars from you, thirty dollars from you. Talking about that time was like Horace Sheffield, it was Judge Wade McCree, it was Blaine Denning, it was used-to-head-of-the-Urban-League; I’m looking at him and his name will come to me: Francis Kornegay. All those guys gave us thirty dollars and then the church Rev. Wadsworth raised the rest and so we got binoculars, we got tape recorders, and some friends over here contacted some people over there and instead of going to East Africa we went to West Africa. We went for a month. It was the best experience I ever had. I’m so glad that Wayne State’s trip fell through because we went to Ghana and to Liberia for a month. That trip was only two weeks, Wayne’s trip, but this trip was for a month. We had a chance to stay in the homes of the poorest to the the mansions of the president of the country. And so we were really hot on Black activism back then, because this was in '68, '69, '70. We graduated in '68 right after the rebellion and so we were still talking about Black history classes and Black folk needed to be a part of everything that went down and we needed power and economic — the same thing folks talking about today. And so to be able to go to Africa and to see all of this was mind blowing for us. And so that was a part of it those were the countries and that experience really has mirrored this experience.</p>
<p>ZS: Did you say what you studied, what your major was?</p>
<p>WA: What I majored in was political science. Originally I was going to law school, but having met Wadsworth I decided to go into another law, this law, His law, which is higher than that other law and so I decided to go into the ministry because the church was doing everything. It’s where I learned how to speak publicly. It’s where I first met my wife. They supported me in school. They did everything and so it just seemed that no matter which way I turned there was a church and that’s why — let’s see I went to Wayne State, I went to Marygrove college, majoring in pastoral ministry. I have a master from Marygrove and I also went to the University of Detroit [for] advanced studies in black political theology.</p>
<p>ZS: Great. Okay, so again what year did you say your family moved to Detroit?</p>
<p>WA: Fifty-eight</p>
<p>ZS: Fifty-eight, okay so —</p>
<p>WA: Well, that’s when I moved here. My mother I think she came maybe in, I would say '55, '56 and then I settled here because I stayed in St. Louis. She came, started working and got remarried and then I came maybe three years later. Because I mean, I was still coming up here, but I didn’t come to live until 1958 because I didn’t want to come here. I wanted to stay in St. Louis but had to go where mama went.</p>
<p>ZS: And how old were you roughly?</p>
<p>WA: I was eight.</p>
<p>ZS: So I guess from 1958 through the sixties we’re talking about now, can you just describe what you observed as the relationship between the city of Detroit, your community, and the city government and the police?</p>
<p>WA: Well, it was a rocky relationship obviously because I grew up under the “Big Four.” You familiar with the “Big Four”?</p>
<p>ZS: I’m not.</p>
<p>WA: Yeah you probably wouldn’t be. The “Big Four” was four big burly white police officers that would ride around in a big black car, a or blue car and they would tell you to get your ass of the street and they would beet down Black people. And we would call them the “Big Four” because that’s who they were. You didn’t have a lot of Blacks on the police department — basically none back in those days, fire department same way. And so you didn’t have a lot of ownership of Black folk. So it was a trying time. Plus it was the sixties, fifties and sixties, era of Dr. King, you know, Civil Rights, voting rights back in that day we would see the Civil Rights marches and dogs biting folk on TV every day. Vietnam was popping and kicking and so it was a real activist time. Motown was strong. Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," Stevie Wonder, 4 Tops, Supremes and all of that. So it was really hopping in Detroit and a lot of people had come and migrated to Detroit, Black people, for obviously for economic relief. So we were here, saw all of that. We wanted more Black history in our schools. Because I remember when I first started Central High School in '64 protesting about the fact that we didn’t have Black history, Black studies, like we should. We did walk-outs. I was a part of walk outs, which is a part of the reason I was matriculated to the student council.</p>
<p>ZS: Because they weren’t teaching about Black history enough?</p>
<p>WA: Not the way we wanted and they weren’t — It was not emphasized. And the sixties, that was a time when all of this going on like what you see going on at the colleges, Living Out, MSU [Michigan State University] and Howard and Mizzou, that was going on back then because the same thing you see going on now was going on then. Sit-ins shutting down universities; this is not new. It’s almost like reliving what we went through back in the sixties, which is a good thing because it shows this generation of young people ain’t dead, ain’t oblivious to what’s going on, that they are paying attention that they are in it and now it's their turn, so they going to make their own mistakes, their own gains, but it’s their time, so do something with it. So, that’s what was going on at the time and which propelled us to the — I guess moving us towards ;67 and —which should not have been a surprise for anybody. Because if you couple what was going on with Dr. King, his assassination, his march in Detroit in '63, Detroit being the first place where he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech downtown, and birthplace of the labor movement, UAW [United Auto Workers] and I can remember the excitement around that, and John F. Kennedy being president, I mean, which gave us some new hope and insight that maybe here’s a guy that’s going to come in and change some stuff, which he tried to but he didn’t live long enough to really effectuate change. And when you saw all the things that were going on down South it affected us and so being up north, it was no bundle of joy because we had our issues to: Detroit, Chicago, New York, California. So, a lot of issues were happening in cities all around this country, not just in the South, but here too so all of that impacted what we were going through.</p>
<p>ZS: Could you talk specifically about your memories of the events that took place in the summer of 1967?</p>
<p>WA: I remember seeing the smoke, the streets with tanks coming down them. I’ll never forget that I saw the corner stores — we lived on Linwood and Buena Vista near Davison. I remember the curfew and all of that and burning up on Twelfth Street because our church, St. Marks Presbyterian Church, was up on Twelfth and Atkinson and I had friends that lived over there who were right kind of in the thick of all of it. But I remember seeing the tanks come down Linwood. I remember Governor Romney and I think [Mayor Jerome] Cavanagh on Linwood. I remember Romney coming down with his sleeves rolled up — not his son, the daddy, his son was totally different than the daddy. I had a lot of respect for his father, because his father, former Governor George Romney, had a sensitivity. As a matter of fact, he started the HUD [Housing and Urban Development] program, he was the governor that helped initiate that and I think when he went to DC. And he started the Michigan Civil Rights Commission. So he was very sensitive, unlike Mitt; I don’t know what — he didn’t fall of the tree; well, he fell off but he might have fallen off on his head or something, I don’t know what the hell happened to him. But at any rate, his father was much more sensitive than he is, appears to be. So I remember seeing them comedown Linwood.</p>
<p>ZS: They were giving a speech or what was it?</p>
<p>WA: They were trying to calm, just being out there showing that they were concerned, telling people to kind of calm down, just their presence I think was demonstrative of the fact that they were not oblivious to what was happening, because you had these police officers with real long guns. I remember them standing out in front of stores because people had broken windows and they would get out of these cars and I guess trucks and stand in front of the doors. I remember because we had a curfew and I was looking out of my window over at 2683 Buena Vista, it was the address of the house, and I was looking out the window to see what was going on and I remember this officer, this police, taking this long gun and he turned it and he pointed it right at me and I immediately closed the curtains because I didn’t know if he was going to shoot me or not. </p>
<p>ZS: Was it a police officer or the National Guard?</p>
<p>WA: It was a police officer. He had a long, long gun. Different than the kind of gun they have today, I don’t know what kind of gun it was, but it was just a long-ass gun and he was pointing it at me. I will never forget that. And that came as a result of discontent and folk called it a riot, others called it a rebellion, to us it was more of a rebellious in terms of what was going on as opposed to just riots for the sake of riots and out of that it emerges a new Detroit to address some of the economic social ills in the community and I think the following year, the next year, the year that I was graduating from Central, and being a part of that and having experienced that, that heightened my level of consciousness to the degree that I began to focus in on the social economic needs of our community.; I remember in '68 Reverend Wadsworth asked me to do a youth day at Fellowship Chapel. Our church had split in 1966. St. Marks. He was a pastor at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church; that church split. I went, we went, my family went with Reverend Wadsworth. It split over his activism in the community. People didn’t like him being active with the NAACP. Interesting. And they didn’t like the way he related to the community. Because Twelfth Street was real popular; you had Twenty Grand, you had all these black businesses, you had pimps, prostitutes. He didn't have a problem talking to the pimps prostitutes, but the Presbyterian church in those days was very conservative. And everybody couldn’t get with that. And but he was his own man, and so it split eventually and so we went with him and Fellowship Chapel was formed in 1966 and he and I were very, very close and as a result of that I began to be more and more in tune with the church and all of that. The way that happened was he would give us tests. I was in his Sunday school class. He would give us tests like, you know, who was this character? What’s this person’s name and how do you spell this? And one Sunday he asked. “Who in the class can spell Nebuchadnezzar?” and so I was the only one I raised my hand and I spelled it and he was so excited and was like, “How did you know that word?” Because you know Nebuchadnezzar isn’t an easy word and so he gave me a little gold cross with a metallic base and I thought that was the end of it. Well, during the service in worship he said, “Before we leave today I just want to tell you all something, Wendell Anthony,” I was sitting there with my mother and I was like what did I do? Because I thought I had done something. “Wendell Anthony” and so he said, “Stand up Wendell.” and so I stood up and I was what in the world, he said, "We had a test today and Wendell Anthony spelled Nebuchadnezzar and you all know that’s not an easy word, give Wendell Anthony a hand.” And everyone the whole church I was blown away from that one word from that moment on we were like this together for 28 years. My point on that is that you can never know what you can say to a young person or someone else that’s going to make a life changing difference and it did, because from that point on there ain’t nothing you can tell me about Jim Wadsworth, he was the man. And so we continued to grow together and there was a group of us that kind of hung with him but I would walk to church and walk home in the winter from Linwood and Buena Vista to Twelfth Street and Atkinson, which is a little ways. My mother would sometimes go with me, drop me off, we would come together. She would leave and I would stay until the end of the service just to be around him and that continued when we split and he said we going to have a you know our first youth day in '68 and I want you to be the youth day speaker. Well, my theme was the Black church in revolutionary times. Dovetailing off what had happened, dovetailing off Dr. King had been assassinated and all that and my thing, was the NAACP wasn’t really as relevant as it should be. And so I remember that and so I spoke and some people left the church when I got through and because I’m 18, I’ve got fire. I’m throwing the stuff out there. I used to wear a leather dashiki and a bullet in St. Louis and that was my M.O. and so but on that Sunday I wore a black suit and a white shirt but I didn’t change my dialogue and so when I got through some people left the church. I never knew that until years later Reverend Wadsworth and I were having a conversation and some kind of way it got on the early days of the church and he said you know, “Remember Dr. Smith,” I said “yeah” he said, “You know he left the church back then,” and I said, “Yeah, I knew he left him and his wife and his family." He said, “They were big donors,” I said, “Yeah” and he came to me and said and he wasn’t the only one who said, “Either him or me.” “What you mean either him or me?” Meaning he said, “That young man that you had in the pulpit here, he said some things that kind of disturbed me and Jim”, that was what they called him “Jim, either he’s got to go or we going to go," meaning they wanted me to get out the pulpit and never have nothing else to say. And so the Rev said, “Well, you know the church is a place where I think young people, even though we may not agree with them, should be a foundation, a platform, for them to speak and to be raised up and I know we don’t always agree with what they say or how they say it, but I think that it should be something where they’re able to come and do that and therefore I think Wendell is going to stay.” So, they left. I never knew that until years later. Now, if he had eaten chicken and said, “Oh, I didn’t know he was going to say it. I ain’t going to never have him up there again because I don’t want to lose you all as members and certainly the ties and offerings that you bring,” you and I would not be sitting here today, but he didn’t eat chicken he stood up, and as a result of that we’re here and now I’m president of the NAACP, which I used to be twelfth term, 24 years, which I never thought I’d be doing.</p>
<p>ZS: Going back to something you mentioned a little bit ago you talked about how you called the events of 1967 a rebellion as opposed to a riot. Can you talk about why you would refer to it as that?</p>
<p>WA: Because it was a response to what many folk felt. The only way you can get certain folks' attentions is to do things of that nature and it was now some people might have used it for their own means, but other used it for means of expression. It’s interesting because back in that day there were — when Dr. King was having his marches in various cities and a news person asked him, “You know, Dr. King, you are having all these non-violent marches and then you see these riots.” The press called them riots. Rebellions places like Detroit, LA, Chicago. There were 125 cities that went up in flames during the time King was having his stuff. And so he said, “you know,” Dr. King response to that was, “Yeah, I understand that and I still believe that peaceful non-violent assembly is the best way to do this but it would be contradictory or hypocritical for me to talk about non-violent protests over economic issues if I don’t at the same time talk about the root causes of why they occur. So riots are really the language of the unheard." That’s what Dr. King said and I think that’s the way many of us view the rebellions, the language of the unheard. You’re not necessarily getting at the — by having a press conference the attention of folk that will make a difference because as a result of that New Detroit was created, structure with business people, political people, community people to address the social, economic, and political concerns of the city of Detroit. Funds were created to do economic development. Race relations were then beginning to be talked about. The whole issue of police controlling the city being an occupying army. And as you know that’s what certainly lead to the propelling of Richard Austin to run as — you may not know — as the first black mayor for the city of Detroit. I remember wearing a button saying “Black Mayor 1969.” We wanted Richard Austin, who was the Secretary of State, first Black Secretary of State for Michigan, real good guy ran but unsuccessfully, but that’s who we wanted. And then a few years later you have Coleman Young. We move from the “Big Four” to S.T.R.E.S.S., Stop the Robberies Enjoy Safe Streets. That was the decoy unit that was formed by the police department. They killed about 19, 20 people and they were decoy units set up to trap Black folk and community people into criminal behavior and in most cases they would have folks guns were planted on the people they would have folks in certain positions where they had to make certain moves and then they could take them out, so it was a very detonating unit. And Coleman Young came in vowing to eliminate S.T.R.E.S.S. and to integrate the police department and the fire department and to make Detroit much more representative of the community in which it exists and a lot of us support it. That’s how he became mayor, he rode that horse into public office and so that’s why.</p>
<p>ZS: You mentioned viewing the police as an occupying force. Were the police viewed that way prior to the rebellion?</p>
<p>WA: Absolutely. Yes. Totally. That’s part of what led to it. And most of them don’t live here. Didn’t live here. The sad commentary in all of this is that we are going back to that. Residency means something. Residency means that you have a stake in the community. Well, the police were white for the most part. They came in in the morning and they left in the afternoon, meaning you didn’t see them and so they didn’t have no stake in the community. They would view us as like folk they had to control and contain not citizens or people or neighbors or friends or Mr. Jones' children or Mrs. Smith’s daughters. These were just indigents that they had to contain and control. So that’s why residency was so important and it’s interesting that the Kerner Commission report that came out 60 years ago in that time period says that residency is most important and we’re losing that. Now we don’t have residency, so what we fought for we fought for affirmative action. We don’t have that anymore to the degree that impresses upon the community and the police department in that those things are good but the president’s commission twenty-first century policing now says that we should have that, that it’s important for police officers in a community to have relations through the report following the situation in Ferguson where they oppose a board of police commissioners. Now they say they want a board of police commissioners controlled by the local people and so we go through these circles. On one end we saying we shouldn’t do it and were saying we coming back to doing it. The Kerner Commission also stated that the police should not be utilizing these militarized equipment and looking like they are on patrol in Beirut or the West Bank or in Syria, because these are American citizens, these kids don’t have no bazookas and tanks. I mean they had rocks and most of them ain’t even doing that and so we’re simply saying that and they didn’t follow the edict of the Kerner Commission report. It was not forced. President Johnson did not push it like that. It was done most folks didn’t read it. But we’re repeating the same stuff in it. And unfortunately we’re going back now and so things changed and things remained the same, so that’s my response to your question.</p>
<p>ZS: Alright great and you also mentioned what was the unit?</p>
<p>WA: S.T.R.E.S.S. (Stop the Robberies Enjoy Safe Streets).</p>
<p>ZS: Yeah and you said they were setting people up planting weapons on people and things like that.</p>
<p>WA: They was killing people basically.</p>
<p>ZS: And this was a very well-known thing in the community?</p>
<p>WA: Oh yeah everybody knew it.</p>
<p>ZS: You think that this was a factor that led to the rebellions for sure?</p>
<p>WA: Well they had the decoy units, the “Big Four.” All of that. The lack of African American involvement and representation in the police department, in the fire department, Black business, the fact that you had folk who felt that they were being exploited in their own communities, the high prices, a lack of jobs, all this all these factors led to this. It was not just one, but it was several factors that had a piling on effect and so at some point it’s like water behind a dam and there’s a crack in it. Pretty soon the pressure is going to bust the whole thing wide open and that’s what happened here.</p>
<p>ZS: Now I guess switching over to after the events of 1967. Could you talk about what you think were the effect of 1967 on the city in the years after and even leading up to today?</p>
<p>WA: You said after '67? I think — well, after '67 there was a heightened sensitivity on the part of some that we needed to do some things in Detroit that we had not done before. That there was great division between the races, that the leaving, the exiting from the community, the lack of economic empowerment was a factor and it coupled with that — and you still got all of this stuff going on in the country. You still see the lack of opportunity for Blacks, the demonstrations, the lack of voting, capability and access, so all of those are still factors, national factors, that weighed in on the city of Detroit, it’s no different. You had King coming here, you had the fact of his death, his assassination and what that meant to a lot of people. You had [John F.] Kennedy’s assassination, you had Robert Kennedy’s assassination. So all of those were things like saying and you know who ever is standing up seems to be taken out by certain people and so all of those are factors and I think with Coleman Young’s election that certainly changed some things in Detroit because he began to build a coalition of people and the first thing he said is I’m going to have an administration that’s going to be fifty-fifty. Fifty percent white folk, fifty percent Black folk. Now it’s interesting, no white man ever said that before. Coleman Young said and that pissed of a whole lot of Black people too. “Like man they ain’t never said that why you coming at it like that?” So that’s what he did and so a lot of folk forgot that he said that and he did that which, you know, saying that all of us should partake in this, unlike his predecessors. And things began to happen: the police department began to be integrated, S.T.R.E.S.S. was eliminated, economics began to develop, later on the Renaissance Center began to emerge, up until the time I think he called Reagan “prune face” and then stuff kind of went south because we didn’t get a whole lot of development from funds from DC. He had to go through his friends Max Fisher and Al Taubman and those guys. Coleman had a great relationship with Bill Milliken, who was a former governor, republican, and a lot of us supported Milliken. He was a very fine guy, different than these guys today, these Republican governors I mean they’re off the chain, but he was reasonable. I mean I voted for Milliken because he was a good man, he <em>is</em> a good man; he is still with us. And he was a good governor and they don’t make them like that too much today unfortunately.</p>
<p>ZS: I know you touched on this a little bit earlier, but you just explain again how and why you became involved in the NAACP?</p>
<p>WA: Well, a lot to do because my mentor Reverend Wadsworth was a part of it. We used to sell tickets for the Freedom Fund dinner we used to sit out there in the audience with my mother from the church we had a table see the big fellows up there on the stage and it just matriculated. Joanne Watson, who lived next door to me on Buena Vista, she was head of the Central High School NAACP and I was head of the student council, we used to argue all the time about the relevancy about it and she used to tell me all the time, “You ought to get involved and join it.” And I said “I don’t want to do all of that because you all are a regressive organization and all of that,” but Ernie Lofton came to me and he used to be — he was with the NAACP in Detroit, and he came to me because of stuff we were doing in the community. He came to me because I was a very active minister. We did a campaign called “Detroit is Better than That” when the <em>Detroit News</em>, when the <em>Detroit Free Press</em> was really writing bad stuff about the city all the time and so we had a boycott of the paper and sometimes the <em>Free Press</em> seemed to be writing better than the <em>News</em>, sometimes the <em>News</em> writing better than the <em>Free Press;</em> I mean it’s so you can take your pick depending on the time and so we had a boycott and wore pins that said “Detroit is Better Than That” we started that and Ernie knew of my activism along with other and so he came to me and asked if I would consider running. I had been recognized by then Arthur Jeffery Johnson, who was the president of the NAACP, he and I were friends. And I had friends in the organization they gave me the key, gave me his President’s Award, and I said, “Well, you know Arthur is president but if he don’t run then I might consider.” And they said, “We don’t think he is going to run.” So I wrote him a letter certified Art Johnson, saying, “If you are a candidate, I will not run and therefore I am just letting you know.” He didn’t respond. I know he got the letter, certified and all, but they didn’t respond and soon enough they start announcing that a guy named Charles Wash was going to run. But I had made no commitment to him; I didn’t know him so I told Ernie and them that I would run, that I’d be a candidate. And so the rest is history. We ran in 1992, they changed the election — the first time that ever been done. They cancelled election nationally did Ben Hooks, William Penn in conjunction with the local people here because they knew we were going to win and they had more votes than them. They did their best to postpone the election to give them more time which we knew, but so it was postponed until I think February of '93 and we had that election and we won. And that’s how I got involved and I’ve been president since that time period.</p>
<p>ZS: Alright, could you share some of your knowledge of the history of the Detroit branch of the NAACP and I don’t know if you have anything to say about its involvement with the 1967 events too?</p>
<p>WA: Well, I don’t know if it was involved with the '67 events, I know—</p>
<p>ZS: Just a general history then.</p>
<p>WA: Well, the Detroit branch is obviously been around a while. It came in around 1912, I believe. The Ossian Sweet case was a very prominent case. This was about an Ossian Sweet who moved into a certain housing area and he fired and his house had been attacked by white folk who didn’t want him to live there and shots were fired he was arrested and all of that. Clarence Darrow, the great lawyer, was retained to deal and defend him and that’s how the NAACP Detroit really began to get on the map. The NAACP Detroit through its Fight for Freedom Fund dinner began to grow and to expand and this year was its sixty-first year starting way back in the mid-fifties and I think that through the work with the Fair Banking Alliance, which comes out of NAACP in Detroit to get banks to do more banking with this community, working. We also had champion issues like Affirmative Action are folk lead that coalition, I led a coalition, a few years ago a governor’s task force for a new beginning education committee in Detroit. We had 150 folk creating a document and now we’re doing it again with regards to the Detroit coalition feeding Detroit school children with the Skillman Foundation. We did — when I first came in, I wanted to do a tribute to Dr. King, the march in 1993, celebrating the first march in 1963, which the NAACP by the way opposed, they did not support his original march in '63, there was a lot of folk who didn’t support it. We were one. They though first of all that he would take all the money raise the money and go take it South. He was a little militant; they didn’t really understand. Now everybody supports Dr. King. But in '63 they didn’t. Now at the last minute they did come out. I’m talking about Detroit. They did come out they had signs and all of this, but they were not really supportive of his march. That was through Reverend C.L. Franklin, James Del Rio, the Reverend Albert Cleage, Walter Reuther the UAW, Tony Brown at the <em>Detroit National Black Journal</em> — those were the people in Detroit — the Human Rights Coalition — those were the people that really helped to bring Dr. King here C.L. Franklin because they were friends and what I did and what we did in '93 was have a tribute to the march. We had 250,000 people in the streets of Detroit in June of 1993. So we celebrated the thirtieth anniversary and then the fortieth anniversary and in 2003 we had about 50,000 people and then we did the fiftieth anniversary to Dr. King in 2013 and again 200,000 people in the streets of Detroit. So I think we more than made up for the lack of support that we did not give him in '63. I was not a part of the NAACP then but those are some of the things. The whole “Take Your Souls to the Polls” campaign — you may have heard that term used — comes out of an idea that we had, I had. I wanted to get the hip hop community involved in the elections and so over — it’s probably been about twelve years now, I asked a young lady to design me a flyer, a poster, that would appeal to the hip hop community, young people, put some gym shoes on it and a cap. “Take your Souls to the Polls” and soles was on the back of the shoe, so S-o-l-e and then take your souls, S-o-u-l-s, or the church community and the faith based community, so sole for the secular, soul for the spiritual. That campaign comes out of right here and so that’s gone all over the country now but it comes out of Detroit a lot of people don’t know it but you’ve heard that term?</p>
<p>ZS: Yeah.</p>
<p>WA: But that’s your looking at the originator.</p>
<p>ZS: That’s interesting.; Could you talk about your thoughts on the state of the city of Detroit today and how it compares to the 1960s?</p>
<p>WA: I think it’s moving in the right direction. I think that Detroit’s best days are still in front of us. Downtown is going to be fine, Midtown is going to be fine; it’s the neighborhoods. That’s why we’re doing housing development right here. That’s why when Kevin Orr came here I had him here at the church and I told him, the emergency manager, that “Your job don’t mean nothing if it don’t benefit the community here.”; And I said “What do you hope to leave here? First of all you got a lousy job.” As a matter of fact I used some other language that I won’t use on your tape and he laughed and I said, “I wouldn’t want your job, but you know you’re a nice guy, but it ain’t about that. When you leave here what do you hope to leave?” And he said, “That’s what I got to figure out, that’s my challenge.” And I said, “Well, if all you do is sell all the assets, cut, slash and burn and sell, it ain’t helping us. If you don’t move into the neighborhoods it’s of no benefit.” He said, “I agree.” Well, he has not moved into the neighborhoods. He has opened the door through the bankruptcy process forced on us. So, we’re trying to absorb the benefits of that and eliminate out of this lemon that we’re left with. And so I can see certain things happening. I think we’re doing more to emphasize the neighborhoods now. I think that city council and the mayor are starting to emphasize that. I think some of the business people are starting to see that they got to spread this out, because you can’t build a moat around Detroit and say you can’t come in, because this is our city, too. I tell people all the time, “Don’t move, just improve” right where you are, because obviously we have a stake in it we have to act like it and let’s take advantage of it.</p>
<p>ZS: Well, so you kind of talked about it there, but do you have anything else to say about how you see the future of the city turning out?</p>
<p>WA: No, I’m optimistic about it. I think that I see a lot of young people who want to do something significant, both Black and white, but I think we all have to be around a common table, it can’t just be one group, one segment. I think the business community has to do more in terms of partnering and in terms of building like bridges, providing incubators for economic development and for opportunities. It cannot just be the downtown. If Detroit is really going to have a renaissance, it’s got to be a renaissance that involves all the people not just some.</p>
<p>ZS: And one thing that I wanted to ask you before we wrapped up pretty soon is you mentioned the Human Rights Coalition. Can you talk about that a little?</p>
<p>WA: That was something that was formed by Del Rio and [C.L.] Franklin and folk back in the day. Tony, Brown, they were part of that, because that was the group that helped to facilitate bringing Dr. King up here. Because there was no other [unintelligible] to do this. Preachers weren’t going to do it. So they formed that kind of coalition basically to address that issue and to address issues in the city of Detroit which the other institutions weren’t. That was before New Detroit, that was before some of these other coalitions that you see. That was an adjunct outside of the NAACP because a lot of people had issues with the NAACP at that time period, so they didn’t see it as moving in the direction that they wanted, so they formed the Human Rights Commission back in the day through those preachers and some labor folk.</p>
<p>ZS: Well, do you have any other additional thoughts that you would like to share?</p>
<p>WA: No, I just think that from '67 to 2015 we have come a long way. I think the hope of our city and really our nation is going to be people who are going to think beyond themselves and willing to take certain risks and do some stuff that’s different. And you’re not going to make everybody happy. You are going to make some people unhappy. But if everybody is happy that means you’re not doing nothing, so somebody got to be unhappy. Just like your granddad, I mean he was a hell of a man. Which I’m sure you know and he made a lot of people unhappy, but Nate spoke truth to power he didn’t give a damn who it was and he was the same no matter who he was talking to. That’s why I loved him. That’s it.</p>
<p>ZS: Thanks Reverend Anthony, I appreciate it.</p>**
Interviewer
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Zachary Shapiro
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Reverend Wendell Anthony
Location
The location of the interview
Fellowship Chapel, Detroit, Michigan
Video
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P7lbFSwlIrw" frameborder="0" 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
Reverend Wendell Anthony, November 19th, 2015
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Anthony discusses moving from St. Louis to Detroit, Kenneth Cockrel Sr., and the Big Four. He also discusses the challenges of activism within the church and his role working with the NAACP.
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Date
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06/01/2016
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
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WAV
Language
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en-US
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Central High School
Coleman Young
Community Activists
Curfew
Detroit Police Department
Governor George Romney
Kenneth Cockrel
Kerner Commission
Linwood Street
Martin Luther King Jr.
Marygrove College
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
STRESS
Tanks
The Big Four
Wayne State University
-
http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/c95ce49bc21df037f23137beab169712.JPG
cd18d928d764597497748bd5571f7a4b
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
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Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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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Richard Powell
Janice Powell
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Richard Powell was born in February, 1942 in Detroit. Janice Powell was born in May, 1947 in Ferndale, MI. Both of them spent a large part of their childhood in the city of Detroit. They also attended schools within the city. They moved to Ann Arbor for a number of years but returned to live in Detroit in the years before the unrest. They moved away again and now live in Southfield.
Interviewer's Name
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Giancarlo Stefanutti
Interview Place
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Detroit, MI
Date
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06/23/2016
Interview Length
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00:42:32
Transcription Date
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10/28/2016
Transcription
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<p>[INITIALS OF INTERVIWEE:] RP, JP</p>
<p>[INTIALS OF INTERVIEWER:] GS</p>
<p>[REPEAT INITIALS EACH TIME EACH PERSON SPEAKS]</p>
<p>GS: Hello, my name is Giancarlo Stefanutti. Today is June 23, 2016. We are in Detroit Michigan at the Detroit Historical Society, and this if for the 1967 Oral History Project. Thank you for sitting down with me today.</p>
<p>JP: Nice to be here Gian.</p>
<p>GS: So can you start by telling me both you names?</p>
<p>JP: I’m Janice Powell.</p>
<p>RP: And Richard Powell.</p>
<p>GS: Okay. And Janice, where and when were you born?</p>
<p>JP: I was born in Ferndale Michigan, and it was back in May of 1947.</p>
<p>RP: Detroit Michigan, February of 1942.</p>
<p>GS: Okay. So what were your childhoods like?</p>
<p>RP: Standard childhood, I grew up here in the city. Spent a lot of time doing various things around town. Was not a very athletic kid, but we did spend a lot of time out at Belle Isle canoeing, ice skating in the wintertime, out at Rouge Park, swimming, hanging out with boy scouts out there. Just the normal average kid. That was back when you could, of course, ride a bicycle without a helmet. You know, you could jay walk with impunity. Some of my earlier memories revolved around riding streetcars, and at that time, a streetcar may have been electrically powered. I remember riding the Woodward line out to the end of it, which was at Palmer Park, and then the conductor would get off the back of it and pull the cord that held the electrodes up to the wires, and actually physically turned the car around for the trip back downtown.</p>
<p>GS: Wow.</p>
<p>RP: We lived out for a while on the Southwest side of Detroit, we used to ride a trolley car again up over—I forget what the railroad tracks were called—but it was over the Rouge River, etcetera, etcetera, in the area of the Detroit Salt Mines, and it was kind of neat because where that freeway now bridges all of that, there used to be an actual railroad track that went up there and the trolley car would you know, sway and bump and whatnot. It was great fun for a kid. I remember waking up and hearing thumps in the middle of the night, very dull thumps, and it turned out that they would be dynamiting down in the Detroit Salt Mines, which were active underneath the city.</p>
<p>GS: Oh wow.</p>
<p>RP: So it was a quote “normal” growing up. [laughing]</p>
<p>GS: Very normal. How about you Janice?</p>
<p>JP: Well the first eight years, I was in Ferndale, and that was just fun fun fun, back when Ferndale was still quite country, not populated like it is now and the downtown was nothing like what it is now. But at eight, we moved into the city, we moved over on West Side of Detroit, and me and my brothers, we all attended school here in Detroit. They graduated from McKinsey, I graduated from Cass Tech, the old Cass Tech, the one with seven floors, the warehouse, lots of steps, and then I met this guy. We got married, it was kind of funny because at the time of our marriage was the time that the riot began. So I was actually having a wedding shower in a backyard, just off Twelfth Street and LaSalle Gardens South, and we could hear the noise, the commotion, of the people on Twelfth Street as they ran up and down, because it had started the morning of, and we had to end our shower. We had to grab all the gifts, throw them in the car, and everybody went home because we were afraid, we were hearing gunfire and we were just afraid of fires and things like that. So it ended that wedding shower. So right in the thick of things, we were planning our wedding.</p>
<p>GS: Wow that is crazy.</p>
<p>JP: Very. [laughing]</p>
<p>GS: What were the professions of your parents growing up?</p>
<p>JP: My mom was a stay-home mom, she took care of us. Dad worked at General Motors, he worked at the Cadillac Plant.</p>
<p>RP: My dad worked for Michigan Bell Telephone back then, he also had a small janitorial business that he ran. My mom was pretty much stay-at-home, although as I hit teenage years, she did some interviewing for the University of Michigan.</p>
<p>GS: Oh, wow.</p>
<p>RP: Yeah.</p>
<p>GS: Do you have siblings? Either of you?</p>
<p>JP: Yes. I have three brothers.</p>
<p>RP: I’ve got two sisters, one here in Detroit, one in Chicago. I did have a brother, but he died back in 1985.</p>
<p>GS: I see. And where did you two go to school growing up?</p>
<p>RP: I went to David Mackenzie, 9275 South Wyoming, Detroit Michigan.</p>
<p>GS: Oh wow.</p>
<p>RP: I started off—I guess I should be honest and tell you I started off at Boynton Elementary off in Southwest Detroit. And then later on, I spent some time here at Wayne State, and ended up at University of Michigan up in Ann Arbor, which I enjoyed greatly.</p>
<p>JP: I started off of course the eight years, through third grade, in Ferndale, Harding Elementary. Then we moved to Detroit, I was at Ruth Ruff Elementary, and from there I went to Tappan Junior High—and all of these schools are gone now—went to Tappan Junior High. From Tappan Junior High, I came downtown and I went to Commerce Business School. It was a school mostly of girls back then, it was right across from Cass Tech, and they eventually tore it down to make the freeway, so we had choices of where to go, so I ended up at Cass Tech. That’s where I graduated from, then I did some time at Wayne State, I did community college in Ann Arbor when he was in Ann Arbor, and that’s pretty much it.</p>
<p>GS: I’m assuming that’s when you two met?</p>
<p>JP: No, we met here. We met at the old Fairground. They used to have ice skating out and they had ice skating every fall, and I would go with my brothers and we would skate—and I didn’t know him then—and he would go with his friends and it took me about three years to finally meet him. [laughter]</p>
<p>GS: Oh wow. [laughter]</p>
<p>RP: Well, there were a bunch of us that skated out there rather rigorously until the outdoor natural waters froze, so we skated at State Fairgrounds and when it froze up, we’d go down to Palmer Park which had a concession stand there, etcetera. We always made it a goal to help out the kids who were new to speed skates, the guys that I hung out with—and there was one girl in the group—were all speed skaters. So any time we saw somebody on speed skates, we’d give them some tips and pointers, but we did not spend a lot of time with them. And I saw this young lady on a couple of occasions. One occasion, she showed up with a pair of speed skates and I think I told her something like “If you don’t look around over your shoulder, you won’t stumble into the curves,” and that was the first thing I ever said.</p>
<p>JP: First thing you ever said, yeah. And he didn’t know it, but I was really looking for him so it was kind of cute what he said. And of course I told my girlfriend “He spoke to me! “And that was that.</p>
<p>RP: She’s a stalker. [laughter]</p>
<p>GS: So with your school experiences, how racially integrated were they?</p>
<p>JP: Back then. Ferndale, where I first started—and I was only there until I was eight, so I got limited—it was not too many blacks, the school I went to. It was mostly white. I think the few blacks that were there were probably all my cousins, me and all my cousins. But when we moved into Detroit, well it was pretty much the same thing at elementary school. It started out pretty much all white, but then slowly blacks started to move to the West Side of Detroit.</p>
<p>RP: Yeah, we were over in—of course Southwest Detroit at Boynton Elementary—Southwest Detroit, to me, does not mean Vernor. It means where Ecorse and Lincoln Park bought out against Detroit, and I lived right in that corner. I was half a block from E Course and about three blocks away from Lincoln Park, so we’re really Southwest. Boynton Elementary was primarily white at that time. There had been a nice development of homes over in that area, primarily for the benefit of factory workers. A lot of Poles lived in the area, some Germans of course, but mainly Caucasian and everybody who lived over there worked pretty much. It was a fairly isolated existence. You were very much aware that there were black and white and it was pretty separate. Kids played together like kids always do. We would go down to a place called Pepper Creek and catch tadpoles and that sort of thing. School yard, you’d play in the schoolyard and it was fairly well-integrated, and we had a Boy Scout troop there—I think it was troop 762 I think—and we all got together pretty well and did the camping thing and all that normal sort of stuff. As kids, I think we were fairly unaware of racial divisions, but we did know that there were more of them than there were of us. Then in high school, at Mackenzie, there was a rat pack of kids, maybe 15 or 20 kids or so, who kind of hung around together and we were all black, white, Latino, kind of mixed up. But we were a distinct minority within the school at the time. All of the teams were primarily white, all the activities were primarily white oriented, so you were aware of the division. It was back in the days where you had the rockers, the rock fashion and whatnot, the Beatles and all that sort of thing. You had the jocks, sports, captain of the football team—I knew him—I knew the girlfriend who he later impregnated, she was the captain of the cheerleader team, and I remember their names but I’m not going to say them out loud. [laughter] But again, we got along, but we weren’t great boon friends and life just kind of proceeded.</p>
<p>GS: Did this sense of racial division become more apparent as you got older?</p>
<p>RP: I think so. You started to go out to get your first job and you were aware that there were some jobs you were probably going to get a little easier than other jobs. I was frankly really lucky. My dad worked at Bell Tel, and he made it possible for me to get an entry into Bell, Bell had no slots to hire people so I ended up working for Western Electric and I got a pretty nice job there. I was making pretty decent money, got my first car, my dad cosigned for me. But again, if you didn’t have somebody to get you in, either at the plant or in some other apprenticeship or something of that nature, you were pretty much out there, and it was pretty much along the racial lines at that time.</p>
<p>GS: Okay. And what year was this would you say?</p>
<p>RP: Boy oh boy, you’re going to date me like crazy here.</p>
<p>GS: You don’t have to say anything. [laughter]</p>
<p>RP: Back in the sixties. Yeah, I would say ’55, ’55 through ’60, yeah.</p>
<p>GS: So kind of moving towards the sixties, pre-riot, could you sense a level of growing tension within the Detroit community?</p>
<p>JP: I really couldn’t. I don’t know if it’s you know, call me naïve or not, but I was very surprised by the riot.</p>
<p>RP: Well it was a surprise that the riot jumped off, but I think I was aware of folks like Angela Davidson and the Black Panthers and Carmichael and things like that, but those were things that happened over there, out there. They weren’t in my community. We became aware of course of you know, kids being unhappy locally and to me as a kid at the time, it seemed to be along class structures, you either had or you had not. And so things broke down that way rather than racially and it wasn’t until a little bit later that I was able to say “Yeah, the reason you don’t have that is because you’re black and you’re getting disenfranchised and shit’s happening that you don’t like,” you know, and so you’re unhappy about it. But at the time, it was awareness, but not deeply involved in it.</p>
<p>JP: And in the sixties, when I think drugs really entered the seen for Detroit, I noticed things changing in the area where we lived over on the West Side of Detroit. When I was a kid, I mean it was a beautiful area to live in. but by the time I graduated from Cass Tech, that was ’65, it had started to change. I was still very naïve to drugs, I mean I had no idea what was going on, but I could sense change around me, but I had a job, I worked, I did a co-op deal where you go to school half a day in your twelfth grade and you work half a day. So I got a job with the S.S. Kresge Company over at the Olde Building(??) over at Temple Avenue—Temple Avenue that way—and anyway, so I was working every day, and I really was just kind of focused on that. You know, going to work, doing my job, coming home, still lived with the parents, the slowly like I said met him in that two year period from 18 to 20. But that’s when I really started noticing the big change that seemed to be happening in Detroit.</p>
<p>RP: Of course around that time you had the Ann Arbor Hash Bash, it like pretty much jumped off. Cops there, if you respected and you treated half way differentially, you got the five dollar Ann Arbor ticket. If you were a prick about it, you got the more severe state ticket, which wasn’t too cool. It was kind of a fun time. And Jan’s right, drugs really started you know, to kick off back then—</p>
<p>JP: In the sixties, after ’65.</p>
<p>RP: —free love you know, Post Street(??) jumped off here in Detroit, psychedelic music and stuff like that, and there was a whole awareness that there was a counter culture. There were people out there who were different than us, whether you called them hippies, you know, druggies, whatever you wanted to call them, they were different. They didn’t get up at the crack of dawn and go to work and slave for 12 hours and come home and you know, want their dinner on the table at a certain time, meat and potatoes, etcetera. Things are starting to change and we were aware of it.</p>
<p>JP: Yeah. And by the time we were married, we got married in ’67 and by then, yeah. Things had really—well, there was all the movement for the blacks to march with Martin Luther King, and I remember us participating—</p>
<p>RP: Shrine of the Black Madonna.</p>
<p>JP: —yeah, I remember us participating in some of those marches and being at some of those speeches, but you could really see, from when I graduated in ’65 to ’67, Detroit did a major change. And then beyond ’67, you know, after the riot.</p>
<p>RP: And it may have been a change it was some time coming, but we just weren’t aware of it.</p>
<p>JP: Yeah.</p>
<p>RP: The kids started wearing afros when we moved up to Ann Arbor, she had her fro—</p>
<p>JP: Angela Davis’s.</p>
<p>RP: Yeah.</p>
<p>JP: So, it was coming, it was just—</p>
<p>RP: That was also the time when, literally, you talk about drugs literally, most drugs were of recreational nature. They had LSD back then, but I remember that a kid could walk down the street literally with a pipe full of herb and people thought it was an aromatic tobacco and nobody said very much about it. [laughter] But that was also during the time of “Stop robberies enjoy safe streets,” STRESS, I myself got put on the hood of a squad car by the Big Four.</p>
<p>GS: Wow.</p>
<p>RP: That was an interesting experience. I don’t understand people that stand and argue with the guy with a gun and a taser, that’s bad politics. That sort of thing went on and I think it was probably more in nature of growing up, becoming more adult moving into another area of life and becoming aware that “Oh, that’s a little bit different than I thought it was,” you know you had to look at things very differently.</p>
<p>JP: And then you worked some during the riot, I mean you worked—didn’t you do some riding around with a—</p>
<p>RP: If he wants to talk about that now—</p>
<p>GS: Sure.</p>
<p>RP: During the riot itself, when the riot actually broke out, I was working for a drug store down on Linwood Avenue, just south of Clairmount, owned by a guy named Marvin Middledorf, and I’ve often thought I should look around to see if he’s still around. Marvin Middledorf was the owner and a pharmacist, and a guy named Robby worked for another pharmacist and his store was subsequently burned down, so I had no job to go to. So I think I got somebody to take me down—my folks took me down to the tenth precinct out on Livernois Avenue, down near Euclid I think it was—I could be wrong about the cross street but it was down on Livernois, tenth precinct—and I volunteered for the emergency police reserve. They put me in a squad car and took me over to the Bibwack(??) area which is behind Herman Kieffer Hospital over here on John Lodge and Claimount, and there I helped stand guard duty while they had National Guardsmen, police officers, state police, they could come in there and park their vehicles, rest, get a bite to eat, take a nap, whatever the case may be, we stood guard outside, and we got rather aggressive about it after the curfew period. Things were not pleasant if you were driving after curfew, and I just thought it was part of you either did something or you took part in something, and so I did something, and I didn’t realize how involving it was until I got a chance to take a break and they took me home. I lived up near the University of Detroit up on Six Mile and Livernois. Squad car took me home so I could take a break, and I went the house and my parents later told me that they dropped me off at about three in the afternoon, I did not wake up until eight or nine o’clock the next night.</p>
<p>GS: Oh wow.</p>
<p>RP: So I slept 24 hours. Then they picked us up, and we went back to the area. But it was a very intense time. We had gotten married around that time—</p>
<p>JP: Remember the tanks going down Livernois—</p>
<p>RP: And it was thunder, thunder, “What the hell is that? I’ve never heard thunder like that.” I get up to look and see and our bedroom window overlooked Livernois, in the area of Livernois and Finkel. And we look out and there’s a line of tanks moving down the middle of Livernois Avenue—</p>
<p>JP: And I thought “Wow, you know, this is too much like war,” you know? But that’s what was going on. Even just before we got married, I was still living on the West Side with my parents, I’ll never forget us turning off the lights maybe after ten o’clock at night, and just going up and looking out Mom’s windows—her bedroom windows because they faced the street—and watching street lights being shot out too. Now I can’t say they were all by good guys, some of them could’ve been the bad people too—</p>
<p>RP: The good guys shot out a lot of street lights so that you couldn’t take aim at them—</p>
<p>JP: So it was dark, yeah. So it was dark and you had to be off the street. So it was a Detroit I had never imagined. Never.</p>
<p>RP: They gave me a twelve gauge shotgun, a riot gun. They gave me a helmet, they gave me a nightstick, and when you came by and you were after curfew, we would stop you and ask you did you have permission to be out? Did you have a letter or what kind of job you had.</p>
<p>JP: Why are you out?</p>
<p>RP: “Why are you out here?” And if you did not give the proper response then things happened and they weren’t always very pleasant things, won’t go into that here, but you end up paying a price for it. People learned that you needed to follow the laws. In fact, after the immediate need was over and they sent the National Guard home and I think the 101 Airborne was here and somebody else—another Airborne unit was here—after they sent them home, I was working at a local FM radio station, WCHD right down on [inaudible] Forest, and I literally had a letter that said what my shift was, I worked midnight to six a.m., and the letter gave me permission to be out and about at that time of the night. It was a crazed time, did divisions and did things change after that? It was rather intriguing, my personal observation that again it was haves and have nots. However you came to be one of those two classes of people, that was it, because I saw many instances where the storefront would be open and there would be some black guys and some white guys both going into the store and both looting, no animosity between them, they might argue over who’s going to get this TV or not, but other than that they’re both ripping stuff off down the streets and whatnot.</p>
<p>JP: And just so many burned out stores, you know. Really, the area I lived in, I mean it was great. You could walk up to Grand River and everything you ever wanted was on Grand River. After the riot, everything was gone, and they either burned it down or the storeowners closed up and left Detroit. So, it really was devastating.</p>
<p>RP: To me, a lot of white flight seemed to be accelerated after that period. A lot of the Jewish communities that lived in the area of Dexter and Davidson began to move out, and they built the Sharrey Zedek out there at the Nothwestern Highway out near Telegraph Road.</p>
<p>JP: Yeah.</p>
<p>RP: And of course, all of these things made other possibilities happen, Jewish people moved out that opened up some housing potential and some blacks and other people who didn’t have adequate housing would move into those areas and that worked out pretty well for them.</p>
<p>JP: East Side kind of moved more to the West Side, because when I was a kid, East Side of Detroit, for most blacks—the side of Grosse Pointe, was not a nice place to live. It was pretty rough and I think they lived quite differently than we did. So we always sort of talked about the East Side. Well once the riots happened, those people, houses burned out and everything, now they’re starting to move, so West Side, North Side, Southwest Side, so things changed.</p>
<p>RP: And ballpark around that time, you also had the introduction of the freeway system, which of course in downtown Detroit ended in the tearing down of Black Bottom, so a lot of black businesses went by the board, a lot of the low- cost land went by the board, because that’s where they build these freeways, where the land is cheap and where the black people were living, the land was pretty cheap. I actually remember over on John Lodge and Warren here, when they were building that, literally crossing the street at that point. I stopped and took a leak in the middle of what is now the freeway. [laughter]</p>
<p>JP: Well 96 did that too, because it really came through where I lived at that time, and a lot of people you know, had to move away or for whatever reason. So it really divided Detroit a lot.</p>
<p>RP: So personally, I still think it’s a question of you know, have and have nots. However you come to be in one class or the other, there does not seem to be an awful lot of interaction or crossing between the groups. In some social institutions, The Art Institute, The Historical Society, the libraries and whatnot, you will find some crossover for lack of a better term. But outside of those accepted areas, I don’t think there’s very much at all. I think it still remains very segregated. We live out in Southfield now and it is rather interesting to see that you can still tell by terms of who shows up in your kid’s school—</p>
<p>JP: Where they come from.</p>
<p>RP: —where they come from, and you can still identify by what their car looks like, etcetera, etcetera, where they came from. You might get to know the person and you might find something very different than what you expected. But you do have some preconceived notions and in many cases they’re born out, and it’s kind of a sad thing. I’m not sure if Detroit will ever be the—</p>
<p>JP: The Detroit we knew.</p>
<p>RP: — the homogenous society we would like it to be, but it’ll get there.</p>
<p>JP: Well with the school system too, you know you can get a lot of young, professional, career-minded people moving back to the city now to enjoy the downtown area. But the minute they decide to raise a family, out they go, because of the Detroit public school system, you know?</p>
<p>RP: True. When they built the really nice condos up here at Woodward and Boulevard, a lot of urban guys and gals came in, it was close to work, etcetera, and same in downtown. It had a lot of good housing, a little on the expensive side, and so the blacks who did move outwards to take advantage of housing opportunities and jobs, they vacated land which is now being refurbished, and [inaudible], you know? The white guys and gals are coming in to take advantage of the jobs you’re starting to get downtown. Illich and the guys and gals that are building the great places downtown, and Gilbert, are going to make some great opportunities for people. But again, I see the whole thing working as a big churn if you will. The cycle going from downtown cheap, moving outwards and then eventually, you need service people, so you have some service people who come back downtown to service the [inaudible] that are downtown. But remaining through the whole thing is this schism between us and them, and it’s always there. East Side/ West Side, black/ white, ethnicity, everyone call it—</p>
<p>JP: Spanish.</p>
<p>RP: —Spanish, Polish. In fact when you think about it, I think about in the old days, I think there was more homogeneity. You can still run into black guys and gals who speak beautiful Polish because they grew up in Hamtramck.</p>
<p>JP: Hamtramck.</p>
<p>RP: You can still find some blacks who grew up in the more modern version of Southwest Detroit around Vernor who speak beautiful Spanish, but you don’t find an awful lot of them, and to me that’s kind of a sad thing in this city, which really has a possibility of being a very cosmopolitan area.</p>
<p>GS: Just to backtrack a little bit, I should’ve asked this earlier, so you said you heard about the riot celebrating your wedding—</p>
<p>JP: Wedding shower.</p>
<p>GS: Wedding shower, and so where was that exactly?</p>
<p>JP: Where was…?</p>
<p>GS: Where was this wedding shower?</p>
<p>JP: We were in the backyard of my girlfriend’s aunt. She lives on Lasalle Gardens South, right by Twelfth Street, which is now Rosa Parks Boulevard, and the riot had happened earlier that morning, I think two a.m., but in that area.</p>
<p>RP: Linwood and Clairmount.</p>
<p>JP: Yeah, Linwood and Claimount.Yeah, so everything in that area was pretty noisy. You can imagine we’re outside in the backyard and we’re listening to police cars, sirens and shooting and we kind of said “Oh okay, we need to go.” So you know, we just grabbed everything and left the area.</p>
<p>GS: And just going back, you mentioned you’re run in with the Big Four, I’m not sure if you would like to talk about that but you’re welcome to share that experience if you wish.</p>
<p>RP: Oh that was right after we got married. We lived in the area of Wyoming and Finkel at that point, it was right along the side of the John Lodge Freeway, about four doors off of the freeway, and there was a pedestrian crossway, you could cross over and go to this little supermarket and some businesses down in the area. I’d gone to the store, and I left the store and I’m coming back up this—I can’t even remember the name of the street—Washburn(??). The street was named Washburn(??), coming up Washburn(??), and this car swoops around a corner and whips to the curb and it’s the Big Four. Uniformed driver and three guys in plain clothes. They jump out and “Come here.” Said a couple of rude things actually. Put me on the hood of the car, literally spread eagle, pat you down front and back, stand you up, “Where you coming from, where you going?” I had some groceries in my hand and a bag and I said “I just left the store over here, what’s this about?” And they stopped me because they had a robbery in the area, and the guy fit my description. I said “What kind of description was that?” Tall, slender, black male. Well, I weighed about 185 pounds, I was six foot four, and while I could be a little bit darker you know, I guess I fit the description close enough for them. So they rousted me and they ran my name and information, told me “Thank you and have a good night.”</p>
<p>JP: Just doing their job.</p>
<p>RP: Just doing their job, and I [inaudible] the hell out of there and got home. Never had really many run ins with police, spent my time out in Belle Isle, foolin’ around, fartin’ around, never—you know, back when I was a kid, you knew to keep your nose clean, you knew when to answer and how to answer which was the more important thing. That was the subtotal of it, never came of it, you know. Don’t know if they ever caught the guy either.</p>
<p>JP: Yeah, right.</p>
<p>GS: Kind of thinking about this schism you were talking about, how do you think we can get rid of this schism to help Detroit? That’s a big question but I’m just curious.</p>
<p>JP: Well, I’m glad to see Detroit moving forward. This is what I wanted to see for a long time. But, when I listen to the problems that we’re having right now with Detroit, number one is schooling, probably transportation, reliable transportation. A lot of people that choose to live in the city still don’t have maybe quality transportation but they rely on buses. And this city ran so well before on buses. I spent a good majority of my working years and school years taking buses back and forth. So they need that, and until they can provide it, I just keep seeing these divisions between the masses of people.</p>
<p>RP: I would agree. In part, I would think of public transportation and public education. If the person can’t get transportation to the job and can’t elevate himself, can’t get a little better car, can’t live in a little better place, then he is continually made aware of by the things that go on around him of that disparity.</p>
<p>JP: Exactly.</p>
<p>RP: You see the Tigers games going off downtown, you’d like to get there but your car can’t make it and you can’t afford that game either. You need to stay in and watch it on TV. And every other thing that you do, it’s constantly in your face that you’re a little bit less. The educational system I think could do a lot in mitigating that, providing you could bring in quality teachers into functioning buildings with a hierarchy and a structure that actually functions, because there are enough kids from enough ethnic groups in the city I think, to make it a very intriguing and worthwhile experience. A kid can learn all kinds of foreign languages here within the city. You can learn Russian, you can get German. You can get Farsi, you can get Arabic, certainly Spanish, etcetera. If you could have a building where you could bring these kids together and bring those parents together in a PTA or some kind of parent group, etcetera—</p>
<p>JP: Right.</p>
<p>RP: —where the barrier is socially broken down by people who have the financial means, employment, to come together meaningfully, then we would find out that we are not so much different as we would like to think. We’re more alike than we’d like to be maybe. You’re needs are the same as my needs.</p>
<p>JP: Right.</p>
<p>RP: You’re ability to meet them is a little different than my ability to meet them, okay? And as long as we are continually made aware that we’re different—no. We need to be aware of the similarities and we need to make it such that there are less and less dissimilarities through education and through employment as possible, so that we can do this come together thing again. The Beatles said “Come together,” yeah.</p>
<p>JP: That’s very true.</p>
<p>RP: She was at the Beatles when they were at [inaudible].</p>
<p>JP: I sure was! Yeah—what was I going to say—Mr. Duggan, I think he’s probably one of the best things that has happened to Detroit in a long time, I would say since Mayor Archer because I feel he was a good guy. But then after Archer, things started, you know, go down, so it’s good to see Duggan on the job now. I worked with him at Detroit Receiving Hospital, I worked there for 30 years, so being in the city every day—part of it I was living in the city but then being in the city every day, and watching his positivity, you know, within the medical center and then wherever he went, I’m very happy that he’s, you know, the mayor now for sure. So I think it’s off to a good start, but just lots of work to do.</p>
<p>RP: And there remains a lot of work in the area of cleaning up what had gotten into a very, I don’t know what you want to call it, but “Me, myself, and I” mentality, where I’m going to get all that I can get, I don’t give a damn what it costs you, but I’m going to get mine.</p>
<p>JP: Can’t have that.</p>
<p>RP: And all that crap has just got to go and the more they can do to clean that sort of thing up, take a look at the school principals. What? You got how many of them indicted? This is ridiculous. Until these things get cleaned up and people believe they are being cleaned up in a meaningful and structured way, then we’re going to continue to have people not having faith in the educational system. I surely ain’t going to bring my kids in the city of Detroit if that’s what you got educationally, and if I could bring them here into the city and live in the city safely, and I thought I had to educate them outside of the city, I’ll send them out to Roeper, you know, or someplace like that. Then obviously why the hell am I going to move into the city? Why don’t I just move out to West Bloomfield or Southfield or wherever, you know, the suburb might be and educate the kids there. So much has to happen I think, in my mind, public transportation and public education I think are the biggest things.</p>
<p>JP: Yeah.</p>
<p>RP: We’ve got one of the better colleges right here in town.</p>
<p>JP: Yeah, Wayne State.</p>
<p>RP: Wayne State is probably one of the few institutions in the United States where the guy that you work beside the line in the summer for your summer job, he might be the guy that’s your history professor in the fall, you know? So people have a wealth of knowledge and a wealth of feeling and wealth of emotion about the city, and I think that can do much to carry us forward.</p>
<p>JP: My three brothers still live in the city of Detroit, they’ve never left. We left originally because he was going to University of Michigan and so we were in Ann Arbor for a few years. Then when we came back, we came back to the city. That was a real eye opener because the city had really taken a dive while we were gone and you know, looking around where we lived ,we still put our two sons at that time in Detroit public schools, but we knew that you know, things in the neighborhood, things we were seeing right outside our windows, we thought “No, we need to make a move.”</p>
<p>RP: And that move didn’t come very quickly, our sons finished up their high school educations here in the city of Detroit.</p>
<p>JP: In the city of Detroit.</p>
<p>RP: I have always felt that in any school in Detroit, you could probably find students who turned out on the top of the heap.</p>
<p>JP: Exactly. We all do.</p>
<p>RP: Our two sons turned into United States marines.</p>
<p>GS: Oh wow.</p>
<p>RP: They served, they’re out of the corps, one of them married a marine. So it’s very possible—we didn’t move out of the city until two things happened, at the point in time we were living in the area of Grand River and Lahser Road, I got a phone call one day and the neighbor said “I don’t want to scare you, but there’s a cop car sitting on your lawn and the doors are open. And they’re running around your house waving guns around.” “Oh, really?” I called my alarm company and it turned out that a bird had gotten into the kitchen vent. It was a motion alarm that got set off. That was cool, but the neighbors knew that I had an alarm system. Shortly after that, I got a call at work and one of the boys was calling me and he said “I don’t want you to get scared,” and he said—he named this kid—he says ran down the middle of the street with an AK-47.</p>
<p>JP: And we’re like “What?”</p>
<p>RP: I said “What?”</p>
<p>JP: Time to move!</p>
<p>RP: So at that point in time—</p>
<p>JP: That was ’99. 1999.</p>
<p>RP: We did move, it wasn’t just the fact that this kid had an AK-47, there was a known problem in the neighborhood—</p>
<p>JP: Drugs.</p>
<p>RP: —and everybody knew exactly where the problem was and who the problem was. Why nothing was getting done about it, I don’t know. But we started moving after that, and we ended up moving to Southfield. Otherwise, we would’ve still been in that area—</p>
<p>JP: Still have been here.</p>
<p>RP: —which was a really neat area, it was called the Old Redford District. The Old Redford Theatre is still there.</p>
<p>JP: Is still there.</p>
<p>RP: They bring back the old movies, they have the organ in there that plays, John George and the Motor City Blockbusters are out there and do some neat things in the area.</p>
<p>JP: Your sister is still there.</p>
<p>RP: Yeah my sister went to school in Wayne State, she went to work for the board of education, she retired from the board of education. She worked at one job in her entire life, just one career and one employer. I have a sister that lives in Chicago, she went to school here, I think she went to Wayne for a period of time. I’m not sure.</p>
<p>JP: Yeah. Detroit was a great place. It really was. You got a good start here.</p>
<p>RP: I’d start here again if I had to start all over again.</p>
<p>GS: Was there anything else you two would like to add?</p>
<p>JP: I don’t think so, I think we told our life story pretty much. [laughter]</p>
<p>RP: It has been fun watching Detroit Institute of Arts grow and change. We’ve seen most of the modifications that have taken place there. We’ve seen many of the changes that have taken place here at the Detroit Historical Society, it’s been watching Belle Isle transition from city-owned to state-run.</p>
<p>JP: Yes. Yes. It’s a beautiful place.</p>
<p> RP: My mother and dad met on Belle Isle, they used to play softball out there, it just fell into disuse and disrepair, disreputable, over a period of years, but now it’s really made a change. We like going out there and we’ve driven around there many times. Other institutions here like the Pewabic Pottery down on Jefferson that I’m currently taking classes at of all things.</p>
<p>JP: We like Detroit.</p>
<p>RP: Yeah, we like Detroit.</p>
<p>JP: We just like to see, you know, the move is happening, we want in to continue. That’s for sure.</p>
<p>RP: Right and you’re going to make it happen. [laughter]</p>
<p>GS: I’ll do my best. Well thank you for sitting down with me today.</p>
<p>JP: Thank you.</p>
<p>[TIME STAMP END OF INTERVIEW 42:32]</p>
<p class="Normal1">[End of Track 1]</p>
Original Format
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Audio
Duration
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42min 32sec
Interviewer
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Giancarlo Stefanutti
Interviewee
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Richard Powell
Janice Powell
Location
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Detroit, MI
Video
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PU-PPGUGGGI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
Dublin Core
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Title
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Richard and Janice Powell, June 23rd, 2016
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, the Powells discuss Detroit during their childhoods and their perception of Detroit at the time. They then move to discuss the changes they noticed in the city in the years before 1967, such as the increased popularity of drugs as well as the racial compositions of neighborhoods. They also discuss their stories during the unrest, including Richard’s experience as a member of the emergency police reserve. They then talk about the issues facing Detroit after the uprising, even in present day.
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society
Date
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11/01/2016
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
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Audio/WAV
Language
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en-US
Type
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Oral History
Belle Isle
Curfew
Detroit Police Department
Shrine of the Black Madonna
Southfield--Michigan
STRESS
Tanks
The Big Four
Wedding