LW: Today is Wednesday, July 15, this is the interview of Marcella Barowski 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 Marcie, can you start by telling me your birth date and place of birth?
MB: My birth date is October 24, 1951. I was born in Detroit, Michigan.
LW: What neighborhood did you live in as a child?
MB: I lived on the lower east side of Detroit, 3718 St. Clair. It was between Gratiot and Connor, considered the Lower Eastside.
LW: Can you tell me a little bit about the make-up of that neighborhood? The types of families that lived there?
MB: We moved into the neighborhood in 1953, and at that time there were — the ethnicity of consisted of German people, Italian, not very many Polish people. Basically Italian and German. And then later on it started to become more mixed with African-American people. I would say, probably, the late fifties, early sixties because most of my classmates – it was a 50/50 make up in school.
LW: What school did you go to?
MB: I attended Saint Bernard's. It was on Fairview and Mack and I attended from first grade to eighth grade. And at that time, they closed after I was in the eighth grade.
LW: And Saint Bernard's was a Catholic school?
MB: Catholic school, yes.
LW: And it was 50/50 by the time you ended eighth grade?
MB: Most of my friends from first grade on – I started in the first grade – most of my girl friends at that time – it was easily a mix of 50/50. Black girl friends and white girl friends.
LW: Wow. So in Detroit in 1967, what do you remember about July of that summer?
MB: That summer was not like today in 2015. It was a very humid July. Hot. No air conditioning in the house. I remember it being very, very hot.
LW: What do you remember about the, sort of, civil unrest during that month? What was going on?
MB: Well, when the first problem started in July, I can go back to the actual day of the event. Would you like me to go there?
LW: Yeah. Tell me about what you were doing. What your family was doing.
MB: We lived, at that time, with my aunt, uncle, and cousin, and that would consist of my mother's sister and myself, because my father was deceased. And we were watching the Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday night. And it started at eight o'clock. And my aunt, uncle, my cousin who at the time would be about 13, were visiting my aunt and uncle in Dearborn. It was about, maybe 8:05 or so that my uncle called us at the home on St. Clair and had heard on the radio there had been some rioting and fires. And I believe it would have been at the old St. Regis Hotel. That's where it had started. And he was inquiring if we had seen anything on Mack because we lived on a corner house. So we would have had full view of Mack Avenue and all the stores that would have been there. You know, we had an A&P, a liquor store, pharmacy. And at that time we had not heard or seen anything. At that time at 8:05 on Sunday night. So my aunt and uncle decided at that point to come home because they were concerned for us and for what they were hearing on the radio.
LW: Where were they?
MB: They were in Dearborn at the time. So as they were coming home – I do not recall the freeway they took home – but they were able to see some fires going on. It was maybe a couple hours after that, if I do recall, maybe about 10 p.m., there was heard a window breaking.
LW: Where?
MB: That would have been the first window, I remember looking out the door and my mom was kind of upset. She didn't want us looking out the door. It would have been at the A&P, which was right on the corner of Mack Avenue and St. Clair.
LW: And you could see that A&P from your house because it was a corner house?
MB: We were in a corner house and I could see – we had two floors and I went upstairs to my second floor, looked out my bedroom window, and I would have had a full view of the A&P.
LW: So what else do you remember seeing? Or do you remember seeing anything?
MB: I remember seeing first someone throwing a bottle to break the main window.
LW: Wow.
MB: And then someone must have thrown some type of rag, it could have been on fire, whatever. And that's when I recall the first building starting on fire.
LW: And did that building burn down?
MB: They were able to put the fire out, but by then, unfortunately, people started coming to loot the A&P.
LW: Okay. So, you had mentioned in your written history that you remember people sorting through looted goods in your back yard.
MB: It was very difficult for me as a 15-year-old because I had attended a Catholic school, knew right from wrong, and some of the children I had played with on the street – the girls I attended school with, I don't believe, or I had seen participate in the looting. But there were some neighbor kids that lived across the street and I would see them running. It was 10 o'clock at night, going to the A&P and taking the - you know, they had the shopping carts?
LW: Yeah.
MB: And loading them up and coming out of the A&P. But by then, that time it was very shortly after that the liquor store, which was kiddy-corner from the A&P, also started to be broken.
LW: Now the neighborhood that you lived in was racially diverse.
MB: Very much so.
LW: So, were these black people or white people from your neighborhood going and looting?
MB: At the time of '67, the neighborhood was definitely more predominately black.
LW: Okay.
MB: At that time. It was turning over much more quickly. And the looters I saw, I did not recall seeing any white looters. But then, of course, it would be difficult for me to say the majority were black men, young men, young women. I would not have seen a lot of the elderly men and women going into a business.
LW: So it was mainly young, black men and women?
MB: Yes. I would say teenagers, early twenties.
LW: And you didn't see any white people going into the A&P?
MB: I did not see. I do recall the girl across the street, which was – we did not attend school together, but we played occasionally. She would have been a few years younger than me and I was 15. She may have been about 12. She invited me to come loot. She asked me, she said, “Marcella,” –everybody called me Marcella–she said, “Marcella, why don't you come get some stuff?” And I remember saying to her, “It's wrong. It's not our stuff.”
LW: And you were 15?
MB: I was 15 at the time.
LW: And how did she react to you?
MB: She just kind of laughed and smiled and went about her business. I mean, there was no name calling or saying, “You're stupid,” or anything like that. She just left and went to the A&P.
LW: Why do you think, looking back now as an adult, and being 15 – what is the reason that you think that you didn't go and join in the looting?
MB: Well, I knew it was morally wrong. There was no doubt in my mind because I was taught you did not steal. I was taught to respect other peoples' properties. There was way in my mind that I knew that was right. Nobody could convince me it was right.
LW: What about your mom at the time and the other adults in your house?
MB: Yes.
LW: Because it was your aunt and uncle as well, and your mom. What did they say about this to you?
MB: Exact same thing. They said, “Stay in the house. Do not participate in this. It's wrong.” And we did not participate.
LW: Do you remember any of your friends on the streets? Any of your black friends on the street? Do you remember their parents telling them similar things? Do you remember any of them refraining from going and stealing?
MB: The girls that I knew that went to school did refrain from the looting.
LW: Okay, so the black girls that you were friends with that went to Saint Bernard's with you did not?
MB: Yes. Did not do it. Because we would – you know, it was such a hectic time that there was so much going on, but I still had girl friends that I was able to call on the phone. We were all scared, including them. Because at that point, nobody was really aware that it was a – some people thought it may be racially motivated, might become a race riot because Detroit had witnessed race riots in the forties. So it was still very touch-and-go. No one really knew what was going on.
LW: Do you think that it was a race riot in '67?
MB: I did not feel my life in jeopardy. I must say, I did not feel my life in jeopardy.
LW: Okay.
MB: I was more afraid of our house starting on fire, any type of guns that could have been used, but my basic fear was that the neighborhood I loved and the kids that I hung around with and any of my property would be destroyed. That was my biggest fear.
LW: Now, when people would take things from the A&P and the liquor store, you mentioned in your written story that they sorted those things in your back yard?
MB: Yes.
LW: What types of things were they sorting? What types of things did they have?
MB: There must have been a men’s shop because I remember there was this big box of white shirts.
LW: Ah, okay.
MB: And I remember them trying to sort the things by sizes. That I do remember.
LW: The people in your yard?
MB: That had jumped our fence to go into the yard. Because we were a corner house, so we were very vulnerable because then there was an alley also.
LW: I see.
MB: And my uncle owned a greenhouse, which was on the other side of the alley. So he also had a very big yard of the greenhouse.
LW: What did your uncle or your mom or your aunt, the adults in your house — what did they do when there were people in your back yard sorting through stolen goods?
MB: Well, that happened about maybe the first night. I think it was Sunday and Monday. By then the National Guard had been called in. So the National Guard – that stopped. Okay? But then the National Guard needed areas to rest and to get some type of reprieve and my uncle offered them the yard to use.
LW: I see.
MB: Sometimes they would nap in there or whatever they needed at the time.
LW: The National Guard then used -
MB: Used the yard. But when they came in, a lot of that jumping the fence and sorting of merchandise had stopped.
LW: Was anything left in your back yard?
MB: No. If there was, my uncle would have disposed of it.
LW: Okay. So, your uncle did not confront the people that were in your back yard.
MB: He did not confront them because I think he was fearful of – you know, there's a group of men, young men. He has a wife. His nieces, his sister-in-law, my aunt, so I believe he was fearful of that. But at the same point, he was a business man and he knew a lot of the business owners on Mack Avenue.
LW: Okay. So tell me about your uncle and his business and what happened to that during this time. Did anything happen to it, the greenhouse?
MB: Nothing happened to the greenhouse during that time. It was basically properties that could be looted for merchandise – liquor, foods. I do recall a man who owned a TV store and he was about maybe three stores down Mack Avenue from the corner of St. Clair. And he took it upon himself to sit in front of his business. He was armed at the time. He was a black gentleman. My uncle knew him very well. He told my uncle he would not leave his business until this had stopped.
LW: What was the name of the business?
MB: It was a TV and antenna shop. He did TV repair work. I would not recall the name now.
LW: What street was it on?
MB: It was on Mack Avenue. I would say about five houses from the corner of Mack and St. Clair. Because our house was St. Clair and Mack.
LW: Okay. Got it. And what was the name of your uncle's greenhouse?
MB: It was Wojcik. W-O-J-C-I-K. He also had a business in downtown Detroit on Grand Circus Park.
LW: Okay. So your family lived in that neighborhood throughout the seventies?
MB: It wouldn't be seventies. I moved in the neighborhood in 1953. We moved out of the neighborhood in 1968.
LW: You did? Okay. So tell me about your family moving just the next year after this violence that happened in the neighborhood.
MB: What was the interesting part was my uncle and aunt had already purchased a house on the other side of Jefferson, around the Manoogian mansion on Lodge Street. They had already considered moving because the neighborhood was deteriorating. And in the meantime, my mother, who was originally from the west side of Detroit, wanted to go back to the west side of Detroit. So a lot of this had been kind of in the works before the riots of '67. They had closed Saint Bernard schools, so I would not be attending high school there.
LW: I see.
MB: So, we were headed for the west side. My uncle and aunt were headed for the – stay on the east side, but on the other side of Jefferson Avenue and during the riots we transitioned during those weeks.
LW: Wow. So tell me about that. I mean, what was that like moving across the city?
MB: We stayed on the east side for about another month with my aunt and uncle on Lodge Street because where we were moving to on the west side was not ready yet.
LW: What was the address of the house that you moved to?
MB: On Lodge?
LW: Yeah.
MB: 451 Lodge. That would have been my uncle and aunt's new residence that they had purchased. The moving was extremely unusual because in the daylight – well, you know how cars would be. My uncle had a station wagon and he would say to my mom – we had that same name, Marcella - “Marcella, now you get the stuff you want to take in the car.” And he would say to his wife – which her name was Lillian - “Lillian, you get the stuff you want to take in the car and we're going to make a trip.” And then we would go across St. Clair Street, which would cross Mack Avenue, and you'd keep on going until you got to Jefferson. St. Clair goes into Jefferson Avenue. But knowing in the back of our heads, maybe that was our one trip only. So as a 15-year-old, I knew what I was grabbing. I was grabbing my Beatle albums and stuff that I really treasured because I didn't – I had a concept of we would come back for another trip, but what happened if the house was inflamed? Or we couldn't get back into the house for some reason? But very fortunately, our house was never torched and we made several trips back and forth.
LW: So this was what month in 1967?
MB: The riots started in July.
LW: So you were actually moving during that time?
MB: During the riots of July and during the month of August.
LW: Wow.
MB: By September we were pretty done with moving stuff out of our house.
LW: And did they sell the house?
MB: The house never sold. What happened later on, my aunt and uncle were on Jefferson. They tried to sell the house. There was a church behind the greenhouse that eventually bought my uncle's greenhouse. But they wanted it more or less for parking and an extension of the church. We did not sell the house on St. Clair. Obviously, it probably went for taxes. The city took it down and ironically, years later my sister and I - we decided to take a little trip to 3718 St. Clair. And we saw them taking down our house.
LW: Oh, wow.
MB: And we got out of the car and the demolition team very graciously said, “What are you ladies doing here?” We said, This is our house. And they offered for us to take some bricks. So we took about five bricks each as a remembrance.
LW: Was all the looting and the stealing and the burning down buildings – was that a motivating factor for the adults in your family to move your family out of that neighborhood?
MB: See, my uncle – I'm not really sure. I know the neighborhood, it was deteriorating and it wasn't because it was turning more black, because it was always a very integrated neighborhood. That's why as a 15-year-old it was very difficult for me to digest what was going on. Because my girl friends, they had the mom and dads that went to Saint Bernard's. My dad was deceased so I was one of the oddities in my school because my dad was deceased. Most of them came from two-parent families. I think it was deterioration of the neighborhood. My uncle liked the house that he had seen on the Lodge. It was a big house. And that was a factor and my mother did want to go back to the west side where her mother was still residing.
LW: I see.
MB: Because she was a west-sider.
LW: Was that neighborhood safer? Was 451 Lodge safer than your house.
MB: Yes.
LW: Okay. How was it safer? Like, what do you remember about waking up at that house versus waking up at the house on St. Clair and Mack?
MB: Well first, because the mayor lived on the corner in the Manoogian mansion, so there was continuous police going down the street. That was a given. The houses were very well maintained and the people who lived in the houses were mostly elderly. They were well-established families. So you didn't see like, a lot of young guys or young girls hanging around. It was a very quiet street.
LW: Got it.
MB: Very quiet. We may have been the youngest on the street.
LW: I see. So you lived in Detroit until when?
MB: I moved out of Detroit in 1988. And my mother lived in Detroit until she died in 1990.
LW: What about that neighborhood around the Manoogian mansion? Did that remain relatively quiet and safe?
MB: Very much so. They never had any problems in that area. My uncle stayed there, and my aunt, until they eventually retired to Florida and passed on. They stayed there for many years.
LW: Does your family still own that house on Lodge?
MB: They sold it. My uncle and aunt sold it.
LW: But the house on St. Clair was never sold? It was just torn down by the city eventually?
MB: Yes.
LW: Okay. So, what was that like going back and seeing your house that you grew up in on St. Clair being torn down, what did you and your sister talk about?
MB: Well we were sad. We were sad to see it going down. We had anticipated it because my uncle had said that he was unable to sell it. It did go for back taxes and eventually torn down, but he always maintained it, which was interesting. Even though he could not sell it, he always cut the grass, he made sure – it almost looked livable. Because he respected the people that were his neighbors and still residing in the area.
LW: Did that street become increasingly black?
MB: I would say right now it's probably 99 to 100 percent.
LW: Looking back and having some perspective now as an adult, rather than being 15 at the time, things were different, right? How do you sort of remember that time generally? Like, in terms of, sort of piecing it all together. The looting, the burning, the chaos in the neighborhood and then moving just right around that time. Do you see it now as an adult as the adults in your family were trying to protect you and your sister from sort of encountering that? Or do you think that it really was just your uncle wanted a bigger house?
MB: Well, I believe that he wanted a different house, only because more than likely, he had sold the greenhouse, so there was really no purpose there for him anymore. And he already, before the riots had even started, he attained this house on Lodge. So I believe he did want a bigger house and my mother already, before the riots, wanted to get back to the west side because that was her hood. She was born there.
LW: I see. Sure.
MB: So for her to move to the east side when my dad died was not – would not have been her first choice. She wanted to stay on the west side.
LW: What high school did you end up going to?
MB: For one year I went to Saint Rose of Lima on Kercheval. For one year. And then three years at Holy Redeemer. That's where I graduated.
LW: What was the make up of that school in terms of class and race, et cetera.
MB: The amazing part when we moved to southwest Detroit, it was, I would say, 99.9 percent white. I, in my high school, I had a couple girl friends who were Hispanic. And that would have been 1966-69, but most of my – I would say, I do not recall, my good memory, we did not have one African American student in my grade.
LW: And these were Catholic schools.
MB: Catholic schools, yes.
LW: Is there anything else that you want to talk about from that time? It sounds like it was very eventful for you. Is there anything else that we haven't talked about that you would like to share?
MB: We have pretty much covered everything. It was a very sad time and now when I look back at these riots that take place in 2015, very, very, I would say zero amount of good comes from it. Zero amount. Because if you look in Detroit, as being a Detroiter for – I'm 63 years old and I worked in Detroit from 1970, I left Detroit working in 1992 and I worked in many companies in Detroit. The neighborhoods never revived. They never revived. So it was really – nothing good comes from that. That's all I can, you know – in my final thought of a riot.
LW: Where do you live today?
MB: I moved out of – my mom stayed in Detroit until 1990. When my husband and I married in '88, he was an east-sider and I was a southwest Detroit-sider, so we decided on Downriver. So we live Downriver.
LW: Okay. Alright. One final question about the National Guard coming in and staying in the back yard of your house on St. Clair. Do you remember having any conversations with them or your uncle or your aunt or your mom having any conversations with them?
MB: Being a 15-year-old girl, I thought they were very cute, so I wanted to have conversations with them.
LW: [Laughter] Okay.
MB: But they were probably in their early twenties, most of them thirties, so I did not have conversations with them, I think only because I was admiring them from afar as a teenager. And my sister was 19, so I'm sure she was admiring them also. I remember my mom – my aunt, my mother making sandwiches for them, offering coffee. They had asked permission if they could stay in the yard. I do remember it may have been a Sergeant or whomever knocking on the front door and they were given permission.
LW: Do you remember the adults in your home talking about it at all while they were out there?
MB: You mean talking to us children about it?
LW: Yeah. Or going out back and talking to them at all?
MB: Yes, when they would give them coffee, I would look out the back door and my uncle, aunt, or my mom would be talking to them. They usually would be conversing over coffee or that type of stuff because they didn't just permanently stay in our yard. Whatever they were doing, if they had meetings or they were resting, then they would leave.
LW: Wow. Okay.
MB: Come and go.
LW: How interesting. Well thank you so much for talking to us.
MB: Thank you.
LW: We really appreciate it.
MB: Thank you for all you do.
**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.
JC: Okay.
LW: Okay. Joseph can you start by telling us where and when you were born?
JC: I was born September 17, 1947 in Ecorse, Michigan.
LW: And where did you live in July of 1967?
JC: I lived at 4538 French Road in Detroit.
LW: What neighborhood was that in?
JC: That’s the east side of town, yes.
LW: And what were you doing in 1967 during that summer when the civil unrest took place?
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.
LW: Where had you gone and come back?
JC: I went to Akron, Ohio.
LW: To visit—
JC: To visit relatives, yes.
LW: And while you were gone?
JC: The riot had exploded and the incidents had already begun.
LW: So describe to me how that was leaving and coming back before and after?
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.
LW: You mentioned that there had been a little bit of unrest before you left, how long had that been going on for?
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.
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?
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.
LW: So when you came back to Detroit from Akron and you actually saw for yourself, right, explain to us what that was like.
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.
LW: So tell us about that experience.
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.
LW: So what happened?
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.
LW: Was there any other instance like that?
JC: No, that was the only personal incident I had with the National Guard.
LW: Did you go to work during that time?
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.
LW: Anything else that you want to talk about with us?
JC: No, I think that’s just about it.
LW: Great, we really appreciate it.
JC: Okay.
LW: Thank you so much.
JC: You’re welcome.
**MB: Would you please state your name?
AD: Alee Darwish. 59 years old, I grew up here. I worked at Ford Motor Company for 32 years, I retired April 1, 2006. We originally resided in Highland Park. My father was auto worker he retired in 1963. Started at Ford’s in 1916 and we used to live in a neighborhood that was basically a melting pot: a lot of Europeans, we had Native Indians, we had Armenians, Hispanics, Middle Eastern, and we also had a handful of Jewish families.
MB: Can you tell me how old you were in 1967, when the riots occurred?
AD: In 1967 I was 12 years old, it was summer vacation from school and every day six in the morning we used to go out and play baseball. We used to call it the alley, Alley Stadium. We picked teams, get out there six o’clock, six-thirty a.m.; eleven thirty everybody’s mother would be on the back porch to call their kids in for lunch. We’d be back out in the alley in about twenty, twenty-five minutes. Six o’clock dinner, be a rerun of the mothers on the back porch again calling all the kids for dinner. We’d play outside in the alley until eleven, twelve o’clock midnight, but we had the huge street lights in the alley.
MB: So you said your father worked for Ford at the time. Would you consider yourself working class, middle class, high class, how would you consider yourself and your family?
AD: My father was a middle class. As I said he worked for Ford. He was a butcher by trade. He originally came — he had uncles on both sides of the family in Sioux Falls, South Dakota little lake. He came at 13, and he came to Highland Park in 1915 and he started at Ford’s.
MB: In ’67 you said he was already retired correct?
AD: He was already retired four years with 47 years.
MB: What do you remember about Detroit in the mid-1960s before the riots? How was it? How was the city?
AD: Downtown Detroit, it was like a metropolis. There was a lot of heavy foot traffic, not only during the week, but also on the weekends. There was festivities, there was old Olympia Stadium. There was the old Tiger Stadium which was referred as Briggs Stadium, Walter Briggs Stadium. And in the summer time the Tigers would play there, in the winter time the Detroit Lions football team franchise would play there.
MB: And how was the city life? Like where would your family shop? Was it more into the city or more into the suburbs where you lived?
AD: Everybody shopped up and down Woodward between Manchester and Davison. You had clothing stores, you had shoe stores, you had hardware stores. You had women clothing stores, Winkleman’s. We also had Sam’s, which, basically, catered to men, to kids, people who were too tall or if you had a heavy waistline, I mean they had all kind of stores. In fact one of the first Coney Island’s, not the first, was on Victor, it was called Red Hot’s, it was there in 1921, and once a month my late father would take us for a haircut, and on the way back we had a choice; either go to Red Hot’s which was a Coney Island, or there was a place called Red Barn Restaurant which was on the corner of Davison and Woodward and we’d go there and have a big party. So we’d kind of switch every other month.
MB: During the time, in the sixties, how would you describe the relationship between the people in your community and neighborhood and the city government?
AD: City government at the time I guess it was an easy flow, I mean, we didn’t have a whole lot of crime. I mean, even now, every now and then you probably have a minor incident but in terms of the community as a whole collectively, whether your ethnicity was European or southern American or Middle Eastern everybody knew everybody’s kids and all the parents knew everybody’s family. And if one of the parents seen somebody else’s son or daughter doing something wrong, or using vulgarity, they would bring in the house wash their mouth with soap. And you wouldn’t dare go home and say, “So- and-so’s mother took me in washed my mouth out with soap because I used vulgarity.”
MB: How’d you feel about Mayor Cavanagh? How would you say the community felt towards him? Before the riots, how did they feel about him?
AD: Before the riots, Cavanagh was a very young mayor. He had a good administration. There was a little bit of tension between the African American community and the white community, but it wasn’t major until the ’67 riots erupted. In fact that wasn’t the first civil disturbance, they had a first riot in 1943.
MB: Did you feel before the riots that the African American community at the time were being treated unfairly?
AD: Yeah. They were treated unfairly. There was no such thing as equal opportunity back then, and the police department at the time, I think was roughly 80/20 or maybe 70/30. The majority of the police force, the supervisors, the deputy chiefs, all your department heads were basically white.
MB: And what was the living conditions like for an African American family in an area of segregated housing and school?
AD: Well, we all shared the same schools, there was a handful of families that were Catholic that could afford to send their kids to private schools. Most of the melting pot children in our community we all went to public schools, we all went to public parks, we all played together collectively. After school, during the week, when you’re done with your homework or on the weekend, and a lot of times if the alley was taken, we would walk to Ford Park which was between Manchester and Six Mile on Woodward, right next door to the Ford Motor Company Model T assembly plant.
MB: Do you feel that their living conditions were any different than yours, or do you feel like it wasn’t as segregated as people may think?
AD: In terms of living conditions I think that the non-African American households back then weren’t, in terms of upkeep, as good as the rest of the homes in the neighborhood. I’m not saying their lawns weren’t always mowed and manicured and clean, but everybody else in the neighborhood, their homes were much better. Now we had a handful of African American neighbors, which, their lawns were manicured the grass was watered, it was fertilized in terms of lawn nutrition and so forth .
MB: How did you first hear about the civil disturbances that became known as The Riots?
AD: Well that Sunday, in July, we were coming back from a mosque on the south end of Dearborn. We had two routes, usually since we lived in Highland Park we would take Davison all the way down to Oakman, make a left on Wyoming from there we went to the mosque. And sometimes on the way out, we’d take Vernor all the way downtown, hit Michigan Avenue, go north and that would take us to Highland Park. That particular afternoon, my Ma decided to take Woodward, which was a good thing, because otherwise if we would have took Wyoming to Oakman via Davison, we would’ve been caught right in the middle of the civil disturbance, which detailed rioting, looting, and burning down stores.
MB: How did your family react to what was going on as a whole? How did your parents deal with the events that were unfolding?
AD: Well after we got home and we found out, what had happened, it kind of startled the family. But in terms of kids in the neighborhood, the parents first top priority were the kids: stay in the house, don’t go outside”. And then they implemented a curfew. They called in the National Guard and they thought that the National Guard could handle the civil disturbance. They thought wrong; they had to call in the 82nd Airborne Division. And when they called them in, they really clamped down: five o;clocl, nobody on the street and if they found anybody on the street they would take them in. They would ride up and down Woodward with halftracks, tanks up and down the neighborhoods, and jeeps with .50 caliber machine guns on the hood. They also had helicopters roving the skies too.
MB: As a kid, it must have been pretty cool playing in the streets, walking out seeing National Guard members and members of the 82nd Airborne . Can you please explain some of your memories of witnessing all this first hand?
AD: Well as a kid, you’d think it’s cool because you see the army and military equipment being used on certain TV shows like Combat, but this was live. You would see the army people at the gas stations, you would see them at the stores, you would see them patrolling the neighborhoods, but as of five o’clock, you better be off the street. So every parent made sure their kids were off the streets. You could sit on your front porch or back porch you’re not gonna go out in the street, and you’re not gonna go out and play in the alley.
MB: Growing up only three blocks away from the riots did you hear any of the rumors of police brutality going on or any of the unfair treatment of African Americans?
AD: I’m assuming that they were treated not with justice, not with fairness or not with discipline, whether it was from the shopkeepers or to the police department and it kind of got out of hand and the African American community — which I don’t blame them— they started to rebel, they said enough is enough.
MB: And did you, your parents or any of your siblings witness first hand any of the events that occurred during this disturbance?
AD: If you walk out in the alley and you look towards Davison and Hamilton, you can see clouds of black smoke, you can hear the gunfire, you can hear the sirens during the day and sometimes in the evening.
MB: As a child, it must have been pretty scary hearing the stories of looting and burning down buildings. Can you tell me how you felt back in the day, as a child, hearing rumors of possible violence reaching the suburbs? How you felt and how your family must have felt?
AD: Well, it never reached the suburbs because in conjunction with the Airborne Division and the State Police and the Michigan National Guard they contained the violence they contained the area so it was limited it didn’t go outside the boundaries.
MB: So, did you notice an immediate migration of the whites from the city of Detroit to the suburbs, or was that something that happened slowly?
AD: Whether it was Detroit or Highland Park at the time, after the riots, the area started to go south. Most of your white Anglos, predominately Catholics, started to move out of Detroit, started to move out of Highland Park. Tax base shrunk, cities were in the red, and what really put the icing on the cake is years later when Chrysler moved out of Highland Park, they were on the verge of bankruptcy. No tax base, no industrial tax base, was available because they took care of the bulk of the tax base. Ford Motor Company had a limited production facility they were making the jeeps for the military back then. And they had a test rack on the corner of Manchester and Woodward. And as kids we would go there and hang on to the side of the fence watch the jeeps go around the agility track. The would have fast stops, sharp turns and they would check to see if the jeep was durable and that it could handle that type of terrain once it was shipped overseas.
MB: Being a Muslim American man, how was the Muslim community at the time in Metro Detroit during the sixties.
AD: Muslim community back then it wasn’t a tenth of what it is today. You had certain pockets and certain areas and certain neighborhoods. We had basically maybe 30, 35 families that was it. And they were not only Lebanese, they were Lebanese they were Palestinian, we had a handful of Jordanians. And back then everybody was known as Syrian. Syrian bread, Syrian cheese, Syrian food. It’s not until the late nineties all the sudden everybody all the sudden Lebanese. I eat Lebanese food, et cetera.
MB: Leadership-wise, how did the leaders in the Muslim community react to what was going on in ’67? Was there any planning any rejoice —
AD: They were concerned about the health and welfare of the family, the kids getting to and from school safely, but back then everybody walked to school, you had a handful of families that were very apprehensive that they would take their kids to school and they would drive them back. But the riots were not directly towards the ethnic melting pot, it was between the white administration and the African American and how they were treated. Did we have a plan? Not to my recollection but we had very few politicians back then. We had Mike Barry who was the Wayne County Road Commissioner, we had Jimmy Karoub which was one of the most effective lobbyist in the State of Michigan, he represented all the major sports teams and the car dealerships.
MB: Would you consider all these very prominent names, would you consider it a tight knit group or was it more broad spreading out through Metro Detroit.
AD: It was a tight group because they were a minority. And when you’re small you gotta stay intact versus what we have today, just in our area between Dearborn and Detroit, businesses, residences, law firms, medical doctors, cardiologists, you got about 250,000 people—that comes a long way going 50, 55 years back.
MB: Was there any instances of violence coming from members of the Muslim community? Did any members see themselves facing any backlash whether it was the storeowner who owned the store in downtown Detroit or violence reaching their areas?
AD: Most of the storeowners back then, yeah, you had a handful of Lebanese, you had a handful of Palestinians. But most of the party store owners and the liquor store owners were Chaldean. They’d come from Iraq. They are a Christian, Catholic minority that basically come from a town called Telkaif and Baghdad and they have other pockets.
MB: Do you remember any instances of one of their stores getting burned down or robbed during the riots?
AD: There was a couple robbed back then, I can’t remember their names but my father knew them and his friends knew them too.
MB: A big role you could say coming court of these riots was a group called the STRESS [Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets] unit.
AD: STRESS was a decoy unit of the police department—average guy was probably six-foot or better—and they were supposed to make the streets of Detroit safe. How did they make them safe? They would pose as vagrants, homeless people, sitting on the corner, and they would wait for somebody—whether they were African American or white—and when they came to try to rob them or beat them up there was other scout cars in the area, and when they seen this particular action taking place on one of the STRESS members they would come and beat them up, a lot of them got killed, and they were incarcerated.
MB: Did you know or your family know any STRESS officers personally or was it something where they had to hide their identity?
AD: Personally my dad didn’t know any STRESS police officers but he knew a lot of police officers in Highland Park, detectives, sergeants, patrol people but not in the City of Detroit.
MB: How do you feel about them, how do you feel about the STRESS unit, do you think that the way they did their job was a little too extreme at times, do you think they were always fair, or were they a little radical in their approach?
AD: Well, they were radical and the purpose of STRESS was to clean the streets of Detroit and make them safe and that was—STRESS was in action until Mayor Young ran for mayor I think, in 1973, ’74. The first thing he did when he took office and he took that oath was abolish and dismantle STRESS which he did. Not only did he do that he integrated the police department and the fire department which is—if we look back now you gotta say the police department in Detroit is about 75/25, 75 African American and 25 percent are a little bit of everybody else.
MB: Some folks like to refer to the incident that happened in July 1967 as a rebellion or a revolution—how do you see it, do you see it as a riot, rebellion or a revolution?
AD: I see it as a civil disturbance. I see it—people being rebellious, we shouldn’t have to be treated like this. We pay our taxes, we go to work every day, why are we treated as second hand citizens?
MB: After the civil disturbances were over, what did your family do? How did they react? Did they have to rebuild? Did they consider moving?
AD: We didn’t have to rebuild and we didn’t consider moving. We just mind our own business. The kids have to be home by a certain time. We could play in front of the house, we could play in the back of the house, we had a handful of kids, which we always got together collectively and if we went to the show our parents dropped us off to the show, and if wanted to go to at park the parents took the kids and by such and such a time they would say well seven-thirty, eight o’clock, that’s when the street lights went on in the summer time, roughly eight o’clock, they would come pick up the kids. We’d play shuffleboard, we’d take sandwiches, and we’d make a picnic out of it.
MB: Did you notice a difference within the City of Detroit after the riots were over?
AD: Yeah, there was still a lot of tension, I mean, people were killed, a lot of people were killed, they were hospitalized, terrorized, it just was horrible and a lot of feelings got hurt, I mean you don’t forget if you lose a family member or someone got incarcerated or someone lost a limb during the civil disturbance.
MB: Experiencing both incidents do you see any similarities between what happened in ’67 and what’s going on now in Ferguson and New York City, et cetera?
AD: What’s going on or what went on in New York or Ferguson is a little bit more extreme today, and not only is it extreme it’s getting nationwide media coverage. Let me add something: it’s getting worldwide media coverage not just locally, not just nationally. I mean I read foreign correspondence every day and when these incidents took place you could read them on European correspondence German, Russian which are all translated in English.
MB: But police-wise do you notice any similarities between the unfair treatment of African Americans then and now? Do you feel like we’ve gotten better, or stayed the same if not gotten worse towards how we treat minorities?
AD: You’ve had a few major incidents if you read the news, you read the paper sometimes you got cops getting killed, you got white cops terrorizing African Americans, you got a couple of cops get shot in Ferguson, you got a few in New York. Some were fatal and some weren’t. So basically this world is changing. It’s not changing for the better. But the police departments should have guidelines, which they probably do, but they got to enhance them. Because the responsibility of city government is to protect their citizens. Once the public loses interest in the police department and then they feel they have to take matters into their own hands: the violence, the guns. Things are not getting better today. They should be getting better because we live in a world of technology. More people are going to school, they’re getting educated, they’re being professionals, they’re sending their kids to college. We should be going north not south.
MB: As a movement, the African American movement nowadays. Do you see any similarities with them back in ‘67 to how they are nowadays. You know, standing up for their rights against, what’s the unfair treatment of their people? Do you see any similarities movement-wise?
AD: Movement-wise, they are much more organized. You’ve got the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]. I don’t know what kind of headcount they had back in ‘67, but now they’ve got NAACP chapters all over the country. And then you’ve got another guy, you don’t hear much about, Louis Farrakhan, he was very militant and, and he was the type that taught “the white man is evil.” The white man is not evil. There is good and bad in everybody.
MB: So would you say we’re more organized now where they were more radical back then, or?
AD: They’re more organized now. Yes, you have a few radicals. You have people like Al Sharpton. You got people like Jesse Jackson. And power is in numbers and they have the numbers. And the African American community as a whole, they’re starting to go to school now. They’re starting to get educated. They’re starting to educate their kids. Which everybody should be educating their kids, because at the end of the day they can’t take education away from them.
MB: Is there any particular memories that you remember, you know, from what happened back in ’67. Anything that you’ve taken with you til today?
AD: As I said, we were three blocks away, but we never shared any civil disturbance with the other side of Davison or with the other side of Hamilton. We always got along. Yeah, there was a little bit of tension in the neighborhood with the other African American kids. However, but, as I said, the parents knew each other. And you would have a couple of scrimmages, arguments, maybe a handful of fistfights, but next day you’d be playing ball in the alley.
MB: And, you mind me telling me a little bit about your father? I’m sure working at Ford, he did work with a lot of African American men. Did he hold those same relationships as he retired, while going through on the riots. Do you remember any stories he would tell you about how they were being treated and what not?
AD: My father- Let’s backtrack. Henry Ford, when he started production in 1903, there wasn’t a whole lot of people here in this country. He went to South America, he went to Europe, and he went down South. That’s why the majority of the African American communities that work for the Big Three, they still to this day they got family down south. Whether it's aunts or uncles or grandparents. There’s still a connection to states like Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas. One example is when somebody dies up here from the African American community, which I have experienced, they keep the body out for one week. The reason behind that, so they can all drive up here and express their condolences. But the base for most of the African American people here in these northern states, or the Midwest, all came from down South.
MB: So, they held a very very prominent role. Can you just give me a little background knowledge about your father, you know, what type of man was he?
AD: My father had a very dear friend. I never knew his real name, but he was African American and his name was Cadillac. And a lot of times Cadillac would give him a ride home. My dad didn’t have that sense of prejudice or bias. My father got along with everybody. As I said, he worked 47 years, his last 25 years he was a relief man. Weekend recreation, they would go out to coffee house. We had a coffee house for basically all the foreign people. Whether you are Armenian, Lebanese, or Palestinian, Italian. They played backgammon, they played Rummy, they played Gin, they played Pinochle. It was just something for them to do. Never had a problem at work. My dad was a very respected individual, in the neighborhood and in the community as a whole.
MB: Culturally, did you notice a difference with the times, as early on in the sixties where, you know, music, fashion would be one way, whereas towards the later parts where the riots happened you see any of the changes culturally where the music became more radical, the clothing became more radical. You know, or was it steady through on?
AD: I remember back in the sixties going to school, we wore dress pants and jeans, but the African American kids, I mean, they dressed up like they were going to a banquet, like they were going to a party. I mean, they were clean, thick and thin socks, pinstripe slacks, silk shirts. And then later in the seventies, if you recall, you had the platform shoes, you had the huge bellbottoms, you had the big disco hats, you had the baseball shirts, you had the fluffy shirts, the button-downs, the pullovers, the fancy colors on the cars, the spokes, the horns of a bull on the frontend of a Cadillac or a Lincoln. Yeah, there was a culture-change in terms of music. The music back then you can comprehend every word, every note. Yeah, that was something. In this day and time, the only thing you recognize is the lyrics, which are all four or five letter obscenities.
MB: So there wasn’t really a big difference in the style of music or lyrics from the beginning of the 1960s towards the end, there wasn’t a big change?
AD: No, up until 72, 73 it was okay. In the eighties and nineties then rap came along. And rap came along and I guess if you knew how to curse, you knew how to sing.
MB: Is there anything you’d like to say about how the Muslim community was structured back in the day? Clergy-wise?
AD: Clergy-wise, you had a handful of clergies. You had an Imam, which is clergy in Arabic. Back then I remember an Imam by the name of Kalil Bazzy, he was from south Lebanon, God bless his soul. You had Imam Shaykh Karoub [sp?]. He was the first one here, he came here in 1912. In 1962, they had a fiftieth anniversary commencement for him. Later on in the sixties, you had Shaykh Chirri who originally came to Michigan City, Indiana, and then he came up to Michigan. Today, you got 10, 15 different clergies and you got X number of mosques, masjids as we call them, or you call them house of worship.
MB: In the sixties, how were they organized clergy-wise? Was there, leadership-wise, was there just one main Imam everyone would come to or was it spread out?
AD: Back then, we had two, three masjids. We had the Hashmi Hall on Dix which is south end of Dearborn. We had the other mosque down the street. And then we had the mosque on Joy road and Greenfield in the city of Detroit. That’s the only mos- Oh, and the Albanians had one over on 9 Mile and Harper off of I-94.
MB: Would you say, how were these funded through the community? Was it organized where there would be a board? Or was it just a community effort?
AD: Every house of worship, whether you’re Muslim or not, they had a governing body, they had a board of directors, they had a women’s auxiliary, and they had a men’s auxiliary, and they also had a youth club. Board members consisted between six and eight, and you had a member from the youth, so it was basically between seven and nine members totally. Most of the funding came from the worshippers, but a lot of times you would get money that came from overseas. You know, from Muslim countries.
MB: Finally, overall, how do you feel that the riots affected Detroit? Do you feel like it ultimately held us back for 50 years or is it something that just had to happen in order for Detroit to move on?
AD: I think the city of Detroit is still scarred from the riots. Because you still have a lot of people who are citizens of Detroit, and the outskirts, who still remember the riots. Who knew somebody who was killed, brutalized, locked up, or abused. Detroit is upcoming now, but I think we still lack behind in terms of being a major player. What made Detroit, or Detroit wouldn’t be where it is today, if it wasn’t for the Big Three. The Big Three pay a heavy tax base in the city of Detroit, whether it’s a manufacturing facility, or administrative, or whatever. But I think we’ve still got a long way to go. Affirmative Action, I’m totally against it. It should be based on your qualifications and your education, not your background, not your skin color, not your faith, or religion, or ethnicity.
MB: How long after the riots did you live in Highland Park? And what did you and your family do afterwards?
AD: We moved out Highland Park in 1969. My mother feared that she would lose us to the integration of the American society and we would end up marrying outside our faith, our ethnicity, so we all moved to Lebanon. That was my mother’s idea. My father didn’t really want to move back because he had no family left. He had many nieces and nephews and cousins on his mother’s side and his father’s side, but he had no siblings left. His mother and father died back in the twenties and thirties. And I said, he came here over, what 1913, he came over here 114 years ago. But after we went, we moved back, we realized we had grandparents. There was a culture behind us. There was a culture that we can create an appetite for, learn our faith. We never knew we had all this family there because we lived here all our lives. So when I moved back here, I had the best of both worlds. I’m American-born and I can just infiltrate society, but at the end of the day I’m an Arab of Muslim descent.
MB: Alright, thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.
AD: You’re welcome.
**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?
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.
NL: How old were you when this was going on?
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.
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?
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!
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?
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.
NL: I think you described the neighborhood as being scarred: you can still see the scars today.
SD: Yes.
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?
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.
NL: What is it that’s happening now or recently that lets you feel so strongly that way.
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.
NL: That’s fantastic. Is there anything else you want to share with us today?
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!
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.
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]
NL: Thanks.
SD: Thank you.
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