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https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/dca2d9393ac32604e900802665589c88.JPG
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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.
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Detroit Historical Society
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
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en-us
Date
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10/20/2019
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I was 10 years-old when the riot started, way too young to know what was going on.
I lived on the east side of Detroit with my parents and three siblings, on Cadillac Blvd. near Canfield. Cadillac Blvd. was mainly a residential neighborhood; however, Krolik elementary school was on one corner, Mary’s Cleaners on the opposite corner and a small neighbor grocery store and barber shop on the other corner. All of these businesses were black owned and operated. I’m not sure if the store was named Kings, or we called it that because Mr. King was the owner and generally worked in the store along side his wife.
Life as a 10 year-old was going pretty well from my perspective. Although there was an elementary school within walking distance, those of us who lived on Cadillac and Pennsylvania were bused to Burbank Elementary, somewhere on the West Side of Detroit. I believe it was because Krolik only went up to a certain grade; whatever the reason was, we had fun on the bus, school was yet another story. Burbank was an all white school until we arrived, but after 2 years of integration the program was cancelled and we had to make that long walk to the closest school near us. That was my first exposure to prejudice, but that’s another story.
I wasn’t raised in a house where prejudice was taught, so my 10 year-old self didn’t understand at the time the importance or significance of black owned business. My parents didn’t make an issue of whom or where, so we never knew much about race differences until the riot. As I look back, I don’t know if not telling us was a good or bad thing.
My first memory of knowing something was wrong on that historical July date was when I overheard my parents concerns for my mother’s nephew, Robert and his live-in girl friend Jackie. They not only rented an apartment nearby where the riot started, but I later learned they were in the after-hour joint the night it all started. The only person alive now can’t remember the full details of what happen to Jackie that night, I just know my cousin moved back to his home state shortly afterwards and I never saw Jackie again.
Being the oldest of my three siblings I think I was more afraid of what could happen as I listened on while my parents would watch images of building burning, folks looting, and the National Guard patrolling the neighborhoods. My fear was of our house catching on fire. It seemed like people were burning down homes and business all around the city. As young as I was, I had enough sense to know if we had to get out of the house in a hurry, I was going to need some clothes. So I put a few items in a bag and hid the bag under my bed….just in case (smile). I don’t know if any, what precautions my parents made.
Watching the National Guard march down the street with their weapons in position wasn’t as fearful to me as it would be now. I guest I would say it had something to do with being naive. I had never witness anything like it before, real soldiers, real tanks, just like in the movies.
Back in the day we didn’t have air conditioning, so we were allowed to sit on the porch on those hot nights to stay cool, that’s how we got to see the troopers.
Although we were a distance from where the riot started I recall sitting on the porch and watching folks running up and down the street with their arms full of cloths; Mary’s Cleaners had been vandalized, and I’m guessing by someone in the neighborhood. I don’t recall if Mr. King’s store or the barbershop was victimized.
I believe the riot played a major part in changing Detroit. Most black-owned businesses weren’t in the position to rebuild because they either didn’t have insurance coverage or it wasn’t sufficient coverage for them to rebuild. Sadly so, the cost of being in business is still a major problem today for most blacks. They often have to charge more then their competition because their cost of doing business is higher. This was the beginning of the end for black ownership in the city of Detroit, and we are still struggling to gain what we once had. Oh course there are a lot of reasons not related to the riot for lack of black business owners, hopefully one day we can overcome them.
What I struggle with today is why? Why did we burn down, loot, and seek to destroy in our own communities? I’m not condoning the burning or destruction of any property any where, but once our homes and business were destroyed, there was nothing left in our neighborhoods, which is why we shop outside of them.
The 1967 riot should serve as a painful reminder that we are the ones who suffer when we chose to destroy and hurt each other.
Original Format
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Email Message
Submitter's Name
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Pamela D. Jones
Submission Date
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04/10/2015
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black business, Krolik Elementary School, Cadillac Boulevard, Michigan National Guard, looting
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Title
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Pamela D. Jones
Description
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Pamela D. Jones shares her memories as a 10 year old living on the east side of Detroit, Michigan in July, 1967.
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society
Date
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07/06/2015
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
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Text
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en-US
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Written Story
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||||osm
Cadillac Boulevard, near Canfield
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Black Business
Cadillac Boulevard
Childhood
Children
Growing Up In Detroit
Krolik Elementary School
Looting
Michigan National Guard
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https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/9688279e943cc73afec5adcb8b0c8296.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
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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
Written Story
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My name is Sandy Livnat (formally Shmuel Livnat) and I was born in Detroit on December 4, 1948. <br /><strong><br />Describe the neighborhood(s) you lived in. Socioeconomic and/or racial and ethnic demographics as well:<br /></strong> <br />At the time of the riots, my family lived in Southfield, MI, where we had moved in 1964, I grew up in several middle class/upper middle class neighborhoods in Detroit. From birth till 1952 we lived on Burlingame off of Dexter. From 1952-1959 we lived at 3359 Leslie just off of Dexter (first house my parents bought). From 1959-1964 we lived at 17586 Wisconsin in the 6 Mile/Wyoming area. There our next door neighbor happened to be Jerry Cavanagh who became Detroit’s mayor as of 1962. When we moved out of the city in 1964, I was 15 years old and in high school (11th grade). When we moved in to the above two Detroit neighborhoods, they were almost exclusively white and predominantly Jewish. My first elementary school McCulloch (where I spent K-4th grade) was comprised primarily of Jewish children though there were always several black kids in my class. My 2nd elementary school, Bagley (where I spent grades 5-6) was predominantly Jewish children and was less integrated than McCulloch. I seem to recall that in my 5th and 6th grade class, we had 3 non-Jewish students, one of whom was black. I attended Post Junior High School for grades 7-9 which, because of its drawing from (at least) 3 elementary schools, had a larger number of non-Jewish as well as black students. I began high school (half of 10th grade only) at Cass Tech, a magnet school downtown which was highly integrated, although my class (in the Science and Arts Magnet program) was highly predominantly white. I have a distinct memory of one black classmate at Cass Tech, the daughter of city councilman William Patrick. I remember her as being whip-smart, outspoken and rather sarcastic, and I felt respect and fondness for her! Within 2-3 years of our moves into the above two Detroit neighborhoods, black families began moving in. I have no personal recollections of any serious racial disharmony. I do recall a bit of tension between white and black students at Post Junior High – though these mainly surfaced in Gym class when competitive sports and physical contact were involved. What I do remember is that the “for sale” signs began appearing on the lawns of Jewish homes once the influx of black families was in progress. While my parents were not among those who rushed to move out in response to these demographic changes, I do recall hearing talk at home that property values would fall as more black families populated the neighborhood. Based on their personal experiences with such loss in value, my parents in fact counseled me against the purchase of my first home (in suburban Seattle, WA. which we knew would be for a short period). It turns out that not making that purchase would have been a big mistake financially, as the property value almost doubled in one year! <br /><strong><br />What do you remember about Detroit in the early and mid 1960's?<br /></strong> <br />My memories of Detroit in during that period were positive and happy. Not being familiar with places like La Jolla Beach in California, I thought Detroit was a “nice place” to live. In hindsight, Detroit was a perfectly good place to grow up. As a kid, I didn’t have the same feelings towards the long and difficult winters as I do as an adult. My parents (along with maternal grandparents who lived with us) were survivors of the Holocaust who immigrated to Detroit in early 1947, coming directly from a displaced persons camp in Austria because my grandfather had an older sister who had settled in Detroit many years earlier, and such displaced persons needed a sponsor in the U.S. at that time. My grandfather and parents opened a tailor shop in Detroit which eventually grew to two stores and ended up in the suburbs. I recall as a youngster being proud of being a Detroiter, in large part due to the success and power of the auto industry (more so than the status of the Tigers and Lions in sports standings – which were not terribly strong in that period). I recall joking with schoolmates that Detroit would be a major target of the Soviet Union were a nuclear war to break out, given the presence of so many manufacturing facilities that produced military vehicles, airplane engines, etc. When considering and discussing racial problems around the country, as a kid I distinctly recall having the (mis)impression that racially, all was well in Detroit, in particular because the auto industry and its related industries provided “full” employment for black people. Personally, my family was excited about the fact that our next door neighbor, a young attorney of no particular note, Jerry Cavanagh, ran for mayor in 1961, survived the primaries in 2nd place, and then defeated the sitting mayor in the general election. <br /><strong>Where were you living +what was your occupation in July 1967?</strong> <br />As noted, we were living in Southfield, about 1 mile outside the city limits. I was a college student at the University of Michigan between my freshman and sophomore years. I had attended summer courses in Ann Arbor the first part of the summer, and, in July, I was working as a camp counselor at a sleep-away camp in upper Oakland Country. How did you first hear about the unrest that became the riots/rebellion/uprising? I recall hearing radio reports (from camp, where we had no access to TV) about a police raid at a “blind pig” at the corner of 12th Street and Clairmount and the surprising result that this led to unrest and protests in the surrounding neighborhood which was predominantly, if not completely, black. I was unfamiliar with the term “blind pig” at that time and found it interesting. What was very interesting to me personally was the fact that this was a mere few blocks from the place my parents had lived when they first arrived in the United States (i.e., it had been a “Jewish neighborhood” in the 1940’s.) Consequently, as I was aware, a number of store owners in that neighborhood were Jews, as were a fair number of landlords who owned rental properties there. Our family knew some of them personally.<br /> <br /><strong>How did your family and friends react upon hearing this news?<br /></strong><br />I recall primarily feeling “disappointment” that my sense of the tranquility as to race relations in Detroit was so wrong, particularly after the L.A. Watts riots in ‘65 at which time many of us thought, “this would never happen in Detroit.” I seem to recall my parents being both angry and fearful, and it brought out various anti-black sentiments that they held. I recall fearing for those business and rental property owners whom we knew when looting and burning in the “12th Street area began and spread. I had a day off from camp during that week and was shocked by the sights I now saw on TV. My fear became more widespread, for everyone who lived in the affected areas as well as the police and National Guard troops that were brought in. I also recall feeling very sorry for Mayor Cavanagh, our acquaintance and former neighbor, that this happened on his watch and that he had to face a situation for which he (and others like him) were certainly ill-prepared. I also felt bad in the coming years that this effectively damaged his ability to run successfully for higher political office, both governor and U.S. senator. <br /><strong><br />Historians often describe this events as a “riot”, what term would you use to describe this time?<br /></strong> <br />I have no disagreement with the use of that term to describe what went on. It certainly fit my view of what a “riot” was. <br /><strong><br />Any particular moments or memories that stand out from that summer?<br /></strong> <br />My parents owned a clothing store/tailor shop in Oak Park, at 9 Mile and Coolidge. While there was obviously no geographical nexus between that location and the location of the riots, the fear of destructive activity hit us when we could see smoke rising in the distance from the area which known as “Royal Oak Township”, located in Oakland County, just north of 8 Mile Road and west of Meyers Rd, one mile west of Schaefer/Coolidge, namely, rather close to our store. We understood (correctly or not) that area to be populated by blacks and to be somewhat impoverished. I recall that these concerns of riot-like activity there were confirmed by news reports of some fires. That triggered a flurry of activity on the part of my family, at which time I (taking an extra day off from camp) and my brothers, helped board up the front windows of our store, and transport the more expensive items of clothing from the store to our house several miles west (in Southfield, near 9 mile and Evergreen Rd.). This activity occupied the better part of a day. On the following day, I returned to camp, “way far away”. It turned out that nothing happened in the area of our store. As the rioting in the city waned and ended, the clothing items were returned to the store, the windows were unboarded, and life went on as usual. <br /><strong><br />How did these events impact the rest of your life?<br /></strong> <br />These events clearly disabused me of any incorrect notions that race relations in Detroit were good or even intact, certainly not better than anywhere else. I left the U.S. and lived in Israel from 1968-1976, and the whole issue of U.S. race relations became much less salient to me than the immediate issues of safety and security in Israel, where I witnessed from various distances several terrorist bomb explosions and lived through the 1973 war (albeit not on the “front”, though in Israel, the front was not far away, and I lost a brother-in-law and several friends in that war.) So during those years, I admittedly did not pay particular attention to race issues in Detroit or the U.S. in general. I married in Israel and my wife and I returned to the U.S. in early 1976. We lived in Seattle, WA (1976-78) which had an extremely small black minority population. I was therefore surprised to learn how much racism was evident among whites who had little or no contact with black people most of the time. We, and our children, lived in the South for several years, in Durham, NC (1978-1981) when we were both employed at Duke University. During that time, I reached the conclusion that race relations in Detroit and other industrial cities of north were, in fact, worse than those in the South, maybe because the South had undergone forced desegregation – and had come to terms with it, or at least a majority of the white population had. In contrast Detroit and other northern urban areas had not gone through such a process. I also came to believe the depth of the anti-black attitudes of certain ethnic groups in Detroit were held by those whites who had worked hand in hand with black people in the auto plants; when that industry came upon hard times and suffered large layoffs, these whites thought employment of blacks came at their expense.<br /><strong> <br />What changes if any did you notice to the metro Detroit area after 1967?</strong> <br /><br />In the years following the 1967 riots, I was sensitized to the extent of anti-black sentiment in the Jewish community in Detroit, who didn’t have the excuse of the “employment competition” angle, and whose racist views seemed to emanate more from fear (rational or irrational) of black people. I hadn’t felt this as much earlier – maybe because of my age and naiveté. From a distance (Israel from 1968-76; other cities in the U.S. thereafter) with regular visits to Detroit, at least once a year if not more, I noticed increasing racial polarization in the Detroit area, highlighted by continued white flight to the suburbs that effectively depleted Detroit of white residents. This was coupled with what one might call “urban rot” with the city limits. Rightly or wrongly, I feel that part of this was induced or promoted by Coleman Young’s long tenure as mayor of Detroit and what I viewed as his “f--- the whites” attitude. I often felt that had Detroit’s black community had a strong clerical leader (not one of Rev. C.L. Franklin’s ilk) or a black mayor not from the hardscrabble labor movement like Young but from the church i.e., one who shared more views with the Rev. Martin Luther King, race relations in Detroit might not have gone downhill in the way in which they did. <br /><strong><br />You have lived all around the US; did you consider returning to Detroit and/or consciously choose to live elsewhere? If so, how and why?</strong><br /> <br />Other than during a very brief period in 1992, I never gave any thought to returning to live in the Detroit area, certainly not the city itself. The reasons for this were more organic than conscious. I cannot attribute that attitude to race relations in the Detroit area, but rather primarily to specific professional considerations (my profession having transitioned abruptly beginning in the late 1980s from biomedical academic research to patent law specializing in the life sciences). Other than distance from family, I have no regrets about not living in the Detroit area. I’ve lived in the Washington DC area since 1988, an area that is certainly not free from difficult race relations – maybe more difficult than in Detroit. So again, it is clear in my mind that this lack of regrets does not stem from anything related to race issues or connect in any way to the events of July 1967.
Original Format
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Microsoft Word document
Submitter's Name
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Noah Levinson and Sandy Livnat
Submission Date
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07/15/2015
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University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Oak Park
Dublin Core
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Title
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Sandy Livnat
Description
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Sandy Livnat was a student at the University of Michigan in July 1967. He was working at a summer camp in northern Oakland County and returned home to help secure the family business in Oak Park.
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society
Date
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07/16/2015
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
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document
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en-US
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Text
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Ann Arbor
Detroit Community Members
Looting
Oak Park
University of Michigan
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https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/f0ba6146cfb1cf54c75480bf1716676d.JPG
e075b3294f93a3299b18e16b73ba7cc0
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
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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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Marcella Barowski
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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07/15/2015
Interview Length
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00:27:39
Brief Biography
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Marcella Barowski was born on October 24, 1951 and lived on the east side of Detroit at Mack Avenue and St. Clair Street during July 1967. She attended St. Bernard Catholic School, St. Lima Catholic School and Holy Redeemer High School in Detroit. During the week of the 1967 civil disturbance and the weeks immediately following, her family was moving to the west side of Detroit.
Transcriptionist
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Alaina Kimmerer
Transcription
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<p>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?</p>
<p>MB: My birth date is October 24, 1951. I was born in Detroit, Michigan.</p>
<p>LW: What neighborhood did you live in as a child?</p>
<p>MB: I lived on the lower east side of Detroit, 3718 St. Clair. It was between Gratiot and Connor, considered the Lower Eastside.</p>
<p>LW: Can you tell me a little bit about the make-up of that neighborhood? The types of families that lived there?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: What school did you go to?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: And Saint Bernard's was a Catholic school?</p>
<p>MB: Catholic school, yes.</p>
<p>LW: And it was 50/50 by the time you ended eighth grade?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: Wow. So in Detroit in 1967, what do you remember about July of that summer?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: What do you remember about the, sort of, civil unrest during that month? What was going on?</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>LW: Yeah. Tell me about what you were doing. What your family was doing.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: Where were they?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: Where?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: And you could see that A&P from your house because it was a corner house?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: So what else do you remember seeing? Or do you remember seeing anything?</p>
<p>MB: I remember seeing first someone throwing a bottle to break the main window.</p>
<p>LW: Wow.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: And did that building burn down?</p>
<p>MB: They were able to put the fire out, but by then, unfortunately, people started coming to loot the A&P.</p>
<p>LW: Okay. So, you had mentioned in your written history that you remember people sorting through looted goods in your back yard.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>LW: Yeah.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: Now the neighborhood that you lived in was racially diverse.</p>
<p>MB: Very much so.</p>
<p>LW: So, were these black people or white people from your neighborhood going and looting?</p>
<p>MB: At the time of '67, the neighborhood was definitely more predominately black.</p>
<p>LW: Okay.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: So it was mainly young, black men and women?</p>
<p>MB: Yes. I would say teenagers, early twenties.</p>
<p>LW: And you didn't see any white people going into the A&P?</p>
<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.”</p>
<p>LW: And you were 15?</p>
<p>MB: I was 15 at the time.</p>
<p>LW: And how did she react to you?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: What about your mom at the time and the other adults in your house?</p>
<p>MB: Yes.</p>
<p>LW: Because it was your aunt and uncle as well, and your mom. What did they say about this to you?</p>
<p>MB: Exact same thing. They said, “Stay in the house. Do not participate in this. It's wrong.” And we did not participate.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>MB: The girls that I knew that went to school did refrain from the looting.</p>
<p>LW: Okay, so the black girls that you were friends with that went to Saint Bernard's with you did not?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: Do you think that it was a race riot in '67?</p>
<p>MB: I did not feel my life in jeopardy. I must say, I did not feel my life in jeopardy.</p>
<p>LW: Okay.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>MB: Yes.</p>
<p>LW: What types of things were they sorting? What types of things did they have?</p>
<p>MB: There must have been a men’s shop because I remember there was this big box of white shirts.</p>
<p>LW: Ah, okay.</p>
<p>MB: And I remember them trying to sort the things by sizes. That I do remember.</p>
<p>LW: The people in your yard?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: I see.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: I see.</p>
<p>MB: Sometimes they would nap in there or whatever they needed at the time.</p>
<p>LW: The National Guard then used -</p>
<p>MB: Used the yard. But when they came in, a lot of that jumping the fence and sorting of merchandise had stopped.</p>
<p>LW: Was anything left in your back yard?</p>
<p>MB: No. If there was, my uncle would have disposed of it.</p>
<p>LW: Okay. So, your uncle did not confront the people that were in your back yard.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: What was the name of the business?</p>
<p>MB: It was a TV and antenna shop. He did TV repair work. I would not recall the name now.</p>
<p>LW: What street was it on?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: Okay. Got it. And what was the name of your uncle's greenhouse?</p>
<p>MB: It was Wojcik. W-O-J-C-I-K. He also had a business in downtown Detroit on Grand Circus Park.</p>
<p>LW: Okay. So your family lived in that neighborhood throughout the seventies?</p>
<p>MB: It wouldn't be seventies. I moved in the neighborhood in 1953. We moved out of the neighborhood in 1968.</p>
<p>LW: You did? Okay. So tell me about your family moving just the next year after this violence that happened in the neighborhood.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: I see.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: Wow. So tell me about that. I mean, what was that like moving across the city?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: What was the address of the house that you moved to?</p>
<p>MB: On Lodge?</p>
<p>LW: Yeah.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: So this was what month in 1967?</p>
<p>MB: The riots started in July.</p>
<p>LW: So you were actually moving during that time?</p>
<p>MB: During the riots of July and during the month of August.</p>
<p>LW: Wow.</p>
<p>MB: By September we were pretty done with moving stuff out of our house.</p>
<p>LW: And did they sell the house?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: Oh, wow.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: I see.</p>
<p>MB: Because she was a west-sider.</p>
<p>LW: Was that neighborhood safer? Was 451 Lodge safer than your house.</p>
<p>MB: Yes.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: Got it.</p>
<p>MB: Very quiet. We may have been the youngest on the street.</p>
<p>LW: I see. So you lived in Detroit until when?</p>
<p>MB: I moved out of Detroit in 1988. And my mother lived in Detroit until she died in 1990.</p>
<p>LW: What about that neighborhood around the Manoogian mansion? Did that remain relatively quiet and safe?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: Does your family still own that house on Lodge?</p>
<p>MB: They sold it. My uncle and aunt sold it.</p>
<p>LW: But the house on St. Clair was never sold? It was just torn down by the city eventually?</p>
<p>MB: Yes.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: Did that street become increasingly black?</p>
<p>MB: I would say right now it's probably 99 to 100 percent.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: I see. Sure.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: What high school did you end up going to?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: What was the make up of that school in terms of class and race, et cetera.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: And these were Catholic schools.</p>
<p>MB: Catholic schools, yes.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: Where do you live today?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>MB: Being a 15-year-old girl, I thought they were very cute, so I wanted to have conversations with them.</p>
<p>LW: [Laughter] Okay.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: Do you remember the adults in your home talking about it at all while they were out there?</p>
<p>MB: You mean talking to us children about it?</p>
<p>LW: Yeah. Or going out back and talking to them at all?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>LW: Wow. Okay.</p>
<p>MB: Come and go.</p>
<p>LW: How interesting. Well thank you so much for talking to us.</p>
<p>MB: Thank you.</p>
<p>LW: We really appreciate it.</p>
<p>MB: Thank you for all you do.</p>
**
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1967 riots, riots, interviews, oral history, A&P supermarket, looting, Michigan National Guard, St. Bernard Catholic School, St. Lima Catholic School, Holy Redeemer High School
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eKlwzBekgUA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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Title
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Marcella Barowski, July 15th, 2015
Description
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In this interview, Barowski discusses growing up in an integrated neighborhood on the east side of Detroit and attending St. Bernard, an integrated Catholic school during the 1960s. She also discusses witnessing the looting of several local businesses including an A&P supermarket near her house at Mack Avenue and St. Clair Street in July 1967. Barowski also recounts how looters used her family’s backyard to sort through stolen goods and, later, how National Guardsmen used her backyard to camp during the unrest. Barowski also discusses her family’s move from the east side to the west side of Detroit during the week of the 1967 civil disturbance.
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Audio/WAV
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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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Oral History
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Holy Redeemer High School
Looting
Michigan National Guard
St. Bernard Catholic School
St. Lima Catholic School
Teenagers
-
https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/f5b759ed81338be8a4fc2011a87f2e5b.jpg
25acfe77d04a87b8143e54e454aa5d53
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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
Date
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10/20/2019
Oral History
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Narrator/Interviewee's Name
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Shirley Davis
Interviewer's Name
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Noah Levinson
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Rivertown Assisted Living, 250 McDougall Street, Detroit, MI
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06/12/2015
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00:14:14
Brief Biography
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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.
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Hunter-Rocks, Lorraine and Levinson, Noah
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<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
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p_rN8c7K_EQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
Dublin Core
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Title
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Shirley Davis, June 12th, 2015
Subject
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1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan, Downtown Detroit—Detroit—Michigan, Looting, Southwest Detroit—Detroit—Michigan
Description
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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
-
https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/24a40776431d3d067b6ccb4cc8342ddb.JPG
ae16d069e5019fb9118ad21220d05a35
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.
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Detroit Historical Society
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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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Edward Deeb
Interviewer's Name
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Lillian Wilson
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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00:33:15
Brief Biography
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Ed Deeb was born in Detroit in 1936 and lived in Grosse Pointe Park during the 1967 disturbance. Deeb founded the first food trade association in Michigan and has spent over fifty years working with retailers on how to best serve the Detroit community.
Transcriptionist
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LaToya Newman
Transcription
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<p>LW: Today is June 17, 2015. This is the interview of Ed Deeb 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. Ed, Can you begin by telling me where and when you were born?</p>
<p>ED: I was born in Detroit, you want the year?</p>
<p>LW: [affirmative]</p>
<p>ED: 1936.</p>
<p>LW: Who were your parents and what were their occupations?</p>
<p>ED Parents were George and Sarah Deeb. She was a homemaker, my father worked in convenient— owned convenient stores and eventually my mother joined him in the business.</p>
<p>LW: Tell me a little bit about your job and what you were doing in July of 1967.</p>
<p>ED: In 1967, I was the President of The Associated Food Dealers of Michigan. Our office was in Detroit and we had 3,500 members at that time. All of a sudden later that day I heard we were getting phone calls and there were some problems. I asked what these problems were and they said they were having problems in the community. The police are on the way out, there has been some fires, there had been some shooting, and they just wanted you to know. And I kind of left it at that, until an hour later, I started getting a deluge with calls. So I started creating a log of who was calling and what was the damage. We had about 400 retailers who were affected by the riots, so we kept that log. That was everything from a broken window to a completely burned down store, everything in between. Then the Senate investigations committee in Washington, D.C. heard that I was creating this log and they wanted to meet me in Washington and have them hear about what I was doing. So I was subpoenaed to go to Washington, meet the Senate. I was there and I followed Governor George Romney, Mayor Jerome Cavanagh, myself and the police chief at the time. We all did our own interviews. They eventually printed this all up and sent us copies of what we said. It was a very tense moment, as you know we had the United States Army involved they were roaming the streets in their jeeps and so on. The retailers were worried they were trying to protect their property. Some were carrying armed weapons; some were on top of the roofs preventing fire and all kinds of things like that. It was a very tense and tragic moment in the city of Detroit.</p>
<p>LW: Tell me a little bit about this log you created and you started that, we are talking about July, the last week in July and this was the Sunday that you got a phone call.</p>
<p>ED: Sunday and then almost all day Monday</p>
<p>LW: Of Course.</p>
<p>ED: The reason I probably took the log is I was a Journalism major at Michigan State. The first couple of calls didn’t register I should be doing any log until they started really coming in. I remembered the first few and marked those down and then as they came in I marked them down. Eventually I had them typed up and that’s what would happen. I’m very good at keeping records and knowing what’s happened, so I’m filing in case we have to do anything with it. That was the reason.</p>
<p>LW: How did the Senate use that? What was their purpose for subpoenaing you?</p>
<p>ED: When they heard that there was a log of industry organizations and we had four hundred affected members, they definitely wanted to see me in a hurry. So I get a subpoena in the mail and I had to fly to Washington. I had no idea Governor Romney and Mayor Cavanagh were also gonna be there testifying in their own way. So when I got there they asked me a whole bunch of questions and repeated what I was telling you and they thanked me. I didn’t have to stay any longer than that one day, that two-hour period that I was with them and I flew back.</p>
<p>LW: So what kinds of questions were they asking you?</p>
<p>ED: They were asking me questions like: Were any of your members creating problems in the community? Were any of your members having any altercations with anybody? And as far as I knew at the time there weren’t any, if there were I didn’t know about them. I said no I didn’t know of any, but there may have been problems that I didn’t know about. So as a result of all of this I met with the New Detroit President Walter Douglas, and I said “Walter, you and I better get together and create some kind of community advisory group that any problems that come up that you and I will handle them and put out the fire and create the solution.” And so we did we created the Michigan Food and Beverage Advisory Counsel. From there on in any problem that came in, we would communicate with each other. One of us would go out to the store, talk to the people and the people complaining. I became a negotiator, a troubleshooter, a peacemaker, so I would go to the stores and talk to everybody and get them all together and my job was to make everybody happy at the end of the meeting and I would say goodbye, thank you then leave. That’s what happened and I did that.</p>
<p>LW: What kind of problem, especially around 1967, 1968 in this aftermath, what kind of problems are we talking about?</p>
<p>ED: Well after the rioting, within a year later, most of the food chains left Detroit. There were six food chains at the time: Chatham, Great Scott, Farmer Jack, A & P, Meijer, and Kroger. They were all operating in Detroit. We had the lowest food prices in the country, but after the riots slowly but surely they were all leaving Detroit. That left the balance of the industry— smaller independent stores. These independent stores were mainly of Arabic heritage or Chaldean Iraqi heritage. They were worried that they were operating these stores and were going to get feedback and they were gonna be blamed for something they didn’t do. It was a good thing I was the liaison, I took charge as the association of all of these people. So any problems came to me, they didn’t go to fifteen people and they all went different directions, they came to me. I met with people, I had them at our office I went to meet them at the stores and made sure when I was finished everybody was happy. That was my goal and it worked. I met also with the head of the Detroit Urban League, Dr. Francis Kornegay, and Walt Douglas of New Detroit, myself of the Food and Beverage Association and we formed a coalition that any problems would come through us so we can keep the peace. Now the smaller stores that were left were trying their hardest to provide the nutrition, the produce and whatever needs that were required in the community but they weren’t able to do as much as when they had these larger stores. So, eventually, to go down the long run here, those empty stores that were left by the chain stores were taken over by these smaller stores or they’re family operated and they moved into larger quarters, opened bigger stores and started to provide what the chains did, but it took a while to get that going, they couldn’t just do it over night and that did help. And I’ll bring you to the present time, we’re happy now that all of a sudden Meijer is coming back into the city. They just opened one last week. We’re happy that Whole Foods brought two new stores into the city. So all of these larger stores are coming back, they are realizing the potential sales and profits are there and maybe they shouldn’t have left. So I’m glad they’re coming back. I’m still involved, people call me, what happened, what should I do, how do I prevent a problem. And my basic thing is you got to treat your customers right, you got to be honest, you’ve got to be sure that they are getting a fair deal with the prices and that you are not cheating them in any way shape or form and you’ll be okay, basically. </p>
<p>LW: Do you notice that there’s relatively consistent problems from the 1960’s when you began this venture to now, are some of the problems consistent?</p>
<p>ED: Well, in the thirty years or more that has eclipsed, things are much better now. Those smaller independents have opened up large stores, they are beautiful stores and there are about seventy of them in the city now. Plus the other stores are coming back, the Meijers , the Krogers, the Whole Foods and whatever. So that is good for the consumer because they are going to have a better choice, more choice of product, meats, produce and whatever. That’s good for everybody. I think that will continue for the next twenty, thirty years.</p>
<p>LW: So more options for the consumer. In terms of the problems you get calls about, what are those often related to? Prices or interpersonal interactions?</p>
<p>ED: What do they lead to in which way?</p>
<p>LW: Well no, I was just wondering what kinds of problems are you getting phone calls about or having to go to meetings about?</p>
<p>ED: Before or today?</p>
<p>LW: Both.</p>
<p>ED: Ok, well before they were wondering what do I do, I’m getting hassled, people are picketing my stores and they are throwing rocks at the windows and whatever they are doing, they were trying to protect their property and I would try to guide them to be calm, be cool, and the police were involved at that time. But today, the questions are mainly: I’m thinking of picking up the store on certain cross streets, what do you think? And I say well it’s really up to you. I say, “That’s a great neighborhood, a lot of homes around there, if you really think you can handle it, fine go ahead. If you can’t handle it, forget it because it’s going to be a big job.” You’re going to need maybe forty, fifty employees compared to a family of three.</p>
<p>LW: And where the other neighborhood stores that you mentioned sort of came in the late sixties when all of the bigger chains left, you’re still involved with them and where are they mainly concentrated?</p>
<p>ED: This is my fifty-third anniversary of running a food industry trade association. I probably am considered in the state of Michigan as the Dean of the Association Executives, I don’t know of anybody else, that’s what they are telling me, I don’t know. What do I think about it? I think it’s very nice that they think highly of me to be able to continue to do all of this because there was a lot of work involved. I try to be as professional as I can. I’ve received numerous awards for what I was trying to do and I wasn’t asking for any, but they were coming in. I think that I had been a stabilizing force, if you will. They trusted me, they knew I knew the people in Washington, in Lansing, in Detroit if there was a problem and we would call a meeting or whatever. But hardly – today we are very happy, we hardly get any calls today or once in a while we get a call, but more calls that are coming in a: Do you have anybody you know that we can hire? They are looking for people to hire. Or the other thing is: do you of any locations that we might consider? So that’s what I’m getting today compared to years ago.</p>
<p>LW: And these are phone calls from both large chains and smaller stores?</p>
<p>ED: Well mainly the smaller stores, the chains are big operators, they got their own big staff. We work with them, we have meetings with the big chains, we have quarterly meetings with several of the larger chains. We invite them to a special meeting. We invite the food industry to a luncheon and we have one of the chain store executives be the main speaker and we get along very well today. At one time it was, oh they’re the chains and they’re the independents, but right now everybody is happy, nobody is hurting anybody.</p>
<p>LW: So there’s no worry among the independent store owners that they‘ll be pushed out of business by the big chains coming in?</p>
<p>ED: No I don’t think so, we are providing better service. We have more minority grocers who are in there and that’s helpful to the people who are minorities, they like to see that. We see more people who are reaching out to provide community service, what can I do to help your charity?, or a Salvation Army, a Red Cross, or Forgotten Harvest, or whatever. We’re getting more of that today. I sit on all of those boards, but I’m not telling them to do anything, it’s all on their own. It’s been very, very interesting. Today you have the government providing more food in the area and you have more local people acting as the liaison for the government like United Way, provide getting food and having a local group disseminate the food; like we have Youth Day at Belle Isle. That’s another thing, as a result of those riots we formed Metro Detroit Youth Day at Belle Isle and we have today 40,000 kids coming there and this is our thirty-third one coming up July 15. It’s jammed with kids who love what’s going on, we have all kinds of activity, free lunch in the middle of the day, the Lions are putting on an expo for them, the Pistons are putting on an expo, all kinds of things, free lunch in the middle of the day. So as a result of that we as an association even wanted to do something for the community and that’s what we are doing.</p>
<p>LW: So how did you sort of come up with that idea as an association, how was that inspired specifically by the riots? </p>
<p>ED: Well, shortly after the riots, Mayor Coleman Young was elected and he said, what are you guys doing for the community? He was very active about that. I said, well, following the riots we’re trying to get more businesses to come back to Detroit and get more people hired. He says, well I’m going to call a meeting in my office and keep the parents calm and some of them are edgy and nervous and I’m going to be calling about fifty organizations, talk to them about what they’re doing. That’s how we got the Youth Day started. So in the meeting, in the big conference room that the mayor has, everybody introduced themselves. He points his finger at me and he says, “Ed, what are you guys gonna do next year?” This was in November, “what are you gonna do next summer to prevent this from happening again?” I said, “Mr. Mayor are you talking to me or are you talking to everybody in the room?” [He says] “Oh, I’m talking to everybody in the room, but I want you to carry the ball.” The next day I get a call from Tom Fox of Channel 2, Jerry Blocker of WWJ radio, ‘we hear you’re looking for a project.’ How did you hear that? He said, the word gets around. I was floored really, and he said, “why don’t we meet for breakfast tomorrow morning?” So we did and we came up with Metro Youth Day. We’ve received the Point of Light Award from the first President Bush and we are the largest youth group the state of Michigan and in the Midwest. If you get a chance you go to stop by and see this thing on the 15.</p>
<p>LW: And it’s on July 15?</p>
<p>ED: At the Belle Isle athletic field.</p>
<p>LW: Every year in July?</p>
<p>ED: Every year. Remember July was the riots.</p>
<p>LW: So it’s one of the positive things you’ve seen sort of come about since 1967. Going back to July of 1967, could you just tell me where specifically you were when you got the phone calls about the stores in distress? Where were you specifically?</p>
<p>ED: Where was I? Well, remember that it was a Sunday, beginning Monday I was in my office. That’s where the calls were coming.</p>
<p>LW: Did you hear anything over the weekend? I mean, on Sunday.</p>
<p>ED: Oh yeah, we were listening to the radio and watching TV, seeing all the flames, seeing all the problems, people running. Yeah, we saw all of that. It was very, very traumatic.</p>
<p>LW: Where were you living then?</p>
<p>ED: At that time I was living in an apartment with my wife, I had just gotten married, in Grosse Pointe Park. It was very close to Detroit; I was very close to the office at the time. So I would go to the office to be sure I was there getting the calls and they were coming in. We didn’t have email at the time, we did have faxes, but most of them were phone calls.</p>
<p>LW: And as soon as you saw the news did you anticipate getting phone calls from store owners?</p>
<p>ED: At the present time?</p>
<p>LW: At the time, in July 1967.</p>
<p>ED: Was I expecting more calls? Oh yes! We were getting the calls; we started a regular flow of calls. We had a staff of six people and I finally had everyone at a different phone so if somebody was busy they could get the phone for somebody else.</p>
<p>LW: So how did you handle, you had four hundred stores at that time?</p>
<p>ED: We had four hundred that were affected, we had thirty-four hundred members.</p>
<p>LW: So with that much volume with four hundred stores that were affected, what did you tell people on the phone when they called?</p>
<p>ED: I told them to be careful, stay out of the problems, don’t do anything illegal, be kind, try to help your customers in the area, if you’re really not burned and you have extra food invite them in and offer some apples and things to the kids and whatever. You had to do something. Or they closed up completely and stood guard with the family around the store. It was one or the other.</p>
<p>LW: How did either of those tactics work out? What did you see being the most effective?</p>
<p>ED: Well I think the fact that they were – and that some of them started being interviewed on radio and television, that’s another thing. They said, “Hey look”, you know, “my family and I are in the business, I don’t know why this is happening, I’ve done nothing wrong. And I want to get open again and get going,” that kind of thing helped because at that time there were no stores really open in the center city. They couldn’t go anywhere; they had to go to the suburbs. Many of them didn’t have cars. So they had to hurry up and solve this problem so these guys can get back in and do their jobs.</p>
<p>LW: So people were leaving the city in July of 1967, driving to the suburbs to get food?</p>
<p>ED: Some of them, some of them, not all of them.</p>
<p>LW: If they had cars?</p>
<p>ED: Oh yeah, because you know this thing lasted a week or more and you needed to provide some food for your family in that time, so where do you go? You didn’t go to the normal local grocery store where the army is patrolling the streets and the fires are burning. You go somewhere where you have safety.</p>
<p>LW: So did you end up going and having to survey any of the stores that had been damaged?</p>
<p>ED: I did, yes I did.</p>
<p>LW: What were some of the things you saw? </p>
<p>ED: Well, most of them were happy to see me because they know me. And they’d say, oh there’s Ed, he may do something about it. So I did what I could, I told you I met with all these organizations; Detroit Urban League, New Detroit, Ursells, Eastern Market people .That’s another thing, I formed the Eastern Market Merchants Association and today it’s a fabulous place, it wasn’t that good at the time, but today it’s beautiful. So, I mean you know, we did what we had to do to survive, that’s a good word: survive, and not have people think we were out to get them or to capitalize on their problems. So we had to be gentlemen, we had to do what we can to show that we were a good community-oriented people. You had to do that, even today in peaceful times you have to do that. And you notice how many people now are supporting Gleaners and the Forgotten Harvest, and that’s part of the deal, Salvation Army, United Way, Red Cross and other groups that are around. Everybody’s getting a lot more support than they ever got, which I think this is an immediate effect from the riot as a reaction, it took a little longer, but they realized they had to do something.</p>
<p>LW: So you see things as having improved, as more peaceful now, at least as far as stores are concerned and people have been inspired to give back via various charitable organizations. </p>
<p>ED: Yeah, people are more comfortable today. They are comfortable because there are more stores available, good stores with good product and fresh produce and new stores coming in all the time. So they’re comfortable, they’re happy and we want to keep them that way. We don’t want to go back to those old days you know. So it’s a much better situation. The retailers are happy, they are running good stores, they got good customers and they are growing. Some are opening a second and third store, different neighborhoods. I think that a result of that we’ve learned a big lesson; you got to be good to your customers, you cannot intimidate them, you cannot battle with them, you cannot be arrogant with them, you got to be a good business person and if you are they’ll appreciate it and you will succeed.</p>
<p>LW: So do you think some of the problems that happened, that sort of erupted in 1967 were the result of discrimination against certain customers?</p>
<p>ED: Yeah, I think there were some situations, not a lot. Some people may have thought maybe a store is over charging or something like that. I didn’t hear many of that but I’m sure there were one or two cases that came along. But if that happened and they were picketing the store, I would be at that store, I would go to that store. I even had a situation right after that, you’ve heard of—who’s the Hispanic from California that’s very well popular with the Hispanic people—Cesar Chavez. I was at the store one time and one of the members, a bigger store operator, called me and he said, Ed, what’s going on here? I said, what’s happened? He said, there is a big group of people picketing my stores, they want me to stop selling grapes. First of all, I don’t hardly have any grapes and I don’t know why they are picketing me I said, who is it? He said, I think it’s Cesar Chavez. I said give me your address. I rode right out there. I saw Cesar Chavez and I met him. And I said, Mr. Chavez, you’ve got such a wonderful reputation and all that, I said, what are you doing here? [He said] Oh I don’t want them to sell the grapes. I said, well I understand that you can say that all you want, but you know when you picket the retailor and ask the retailor to stop buying the grapes so you can hurt them you are violating the law, that’s an illegal third party kind of thing and you can’t do that. [He says] “Oh no? Oh I didn’t know that.” In about three hours they were gone. They left Detroit completely </p>
<p>LW: Why were they picketing?</p>
<p>ED: Well ‘cause they knew they couldn’t do it that way. If you want them to stop, run advertising or something. You can’t go to the store and picket somebody for nothing.</p>
<p>LW: Why were they upset about the grapes?</p>
<p>ED: Because it was a – there was some type of situation in California, where the grape growers and pickers were not getting a fair wage. So he was saying to them, so let’s go to the stores and have them stop selling grapes so maybe the retailers—well they were picking the wrong guys, they should’ve picked people over there.</p>
<p>LW: What year was that? Do you remember? </p>
<p>ED: That was about a year later, about [sic] ‘78. I don’t think they were connected. I just thought I’d let you know that.</p>
<p>LW: I see, interesting.</p>
<p>ED: It’s been interesting. I helped found the Gleaners Organization at one time, and then I stepped off the board for a while. I’ve been involved in so many organizations helping the city, everything I did I tried to have the organization giving something back. Whether it be college scholarships or funding or whatever. That seems to be the trend today. Detroit is in a better situation than they’ve ever been and it should be better along the way. There is an attitude now, when we dedicated Shed 5 of Eastern Market three weeks ago it was phenomenal, the people were thrilled and packed and this is great. So I know we are doing the right thing right now.</p>
<p>LW: Long term, what is your sort of goal? What would you like to see happen with the grocery stores?</p>
<p>ED: You know as I said earlier, we had six chain stores with the lowest priced foods in the country. I don’t know if we’ll ever get there again, but I would like the retailers to have a good image, treat their customers right. They have the customers say, hey, I have confidence in where I shop. That alone, those two things would be great, I’d be happy with that and have them continue to give something back to the community, and I think we are there now. You know we have a whole big group from Iraq, which is an Arabic background, that came after the Iraq War and everything. We must have 60,000 of them today and most of them are in the food business. We have lawyers, we have doctors, we have all of them, but that is one area, well they come in with nothing. And what do you do? You open up a store, you put some canned goods and potato chips and whatever; you don’t have to cut meats or anything because you don’t know how. Just some packaged goods and cigarettes and hope you can make a living. That’s what they were doing. Well those same people today are running big supermarkets. Hard work, you know if you work hard and do good, you’ll be a success.</p>
<p>LW: Is there anything else you want to talk about?</p>
<p>ED: No, I think that – I’m so happy I’m here talking to you about it. I never thought we’d have a chance. I was so happy that the Historical Society or the museum was doing this because I thought we were all done with the ‘67 riots.</p>
<p>LW: So you think it’s worth talking about and bringing up?</p>
<p>ED: Absolutely. Let me say something to you; let’s think about today and the future. There was a big lesson here, in Detroit. The lesson should’ve been taught to the people in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland. You don’t have to have a big rioting and skip the whole community thing just to get something going that you think should happen. You do it peacefully, you don’t start burning down the stores and this and that. And I’m very sorry that happened in those communities. It’s like repeating what we saw in 1967, I didn’t like seeing that at all. I’m saying to myself, hey, what’s that matter with you people, why are you doing this? Now I know in those cases there were murders, we didn’t have the murders here at the time, but still, there are ways to deal with them. That’s all I’m saying, we should be able to respect one another, come together as a community, not everybody can have 100 percent of what they want, so let’s compromise, everybody compromise, help each other, be peaceful, good neighbors. If we do that we are going to have a great community, if we don’t do that we are going to have problems forever. And I don’t want to see that. That’s it.</p>
<p>LW: Thank you for talking to us and taking the time we appreciate it.</p>
<p>ED: I just hope I’ve enlightened you or given you some background.</p>
<p>LW: Of course. Thank you so much.</p>
**
People
List any relevant people (interviewers, interviewees, important people mentioned, etc). Please use "Lastname, Firstname".
Cavanagh, Jerry
Chavez, Cesar
Young, Coleman
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".
looting, food and groceries, trade association, Metro Youth Day, Associated Food Dealers of Michigan, consumer advocacy, fair trade,
Dublin Core
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Edward Deeb, June 17th, 2015
Subject
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1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
The Associated Food Dealers of Michigan
Belle Isle—Detroit—Michigan
Chavez, Cesar
Consumer advocate
Grocery stores
Looting
Metro Youth Day--Detroit--Michigan
United States Senate
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Ed Deeb discusses his memories of the unrest in 1967 and specifically its impact on food and grocery stores in different communities around Detroit. He also shares his recollections on being subpoenaed by the Senate following the unrest and his role as a community organizer in Detroit.
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Associated Food Dealers of Michigan
Business Owners
Detroit Workers
Looting
Metro Youth Day
Michigan State Senate
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https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/24201a81f1ecdbdb84fffaab8f8382e0.jpg
aa0cf8a43a0f406db73ae3bfc2bf817f
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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.
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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
Oral History
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Narrator/Interviewee's Name
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Carter Grabarczyk
Nancy Grabarczyk
Interviewer's Name
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Noah Levinson, Lillian Wilson
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Detroit Historical Museum, 5401 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI
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06/18/2015
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00:37:28
Brief Biography
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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.
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Melissa King
Transcription
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<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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Title
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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
Description
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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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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
Oral History
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Narrator/Interviewee's Name
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Carl Lauter
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Noah Levinson
Lillian Wilson
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Royal Oak
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07/07/2015
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00:42:49
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Dr. Carl Lauter was born December 30, 1939 and grew up in Detroit, MI where he lived and worked during the 1967 disturbance. Dr. Lauter worked at Detroit Receiving Hospital in 1967, and after being in the Air Force for two years, returned to Michigan to work at Beaumont Hospital. He currently lives in West Bloomfield, MI.
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Devon Pawloski
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<p class="Normal1"> </p>
<p>NL: Today is July 7, 2015. This is the interview of Dr. Carl Lauter by Noah Levinson. We are at the Medical Office Building in Royal Oak, Michigan on the Beaumont Hospital campus, accompanied by Lily Wilson and Thea Lockard and this interview is for the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project. Dr. Lauter, could you first tell me when and where you were born?<br /><br />CL: I was born in Detroit, Michigan, December 30, 1939 at the original Providence Hospital, which was on West Grand Boulevard at that time.<br /><br />NL: And where did you live growing up?<br /><br />CL: When I was just a little baby, first born, family lived in an apartment on a street called Pingree. Pingree was near Twelfth Street. Twelfth Street is now known as Rosa Parks Boulevard. And when I was about a year or two old, my family moved into an up-and-down flat on Gladstone. And Gladstone was also between, which was only a block over from Pingree, between Twelfth and Fourteenth street. And I lived there until I was nine years of age, when the family moved to an area known as the Dexter-Davison neighborhood. And I lived on the street Burlingame. 3012 Burlingame. That was between Lawton and Wildemere, and a block and a half on either end was Linwood to the East and Dexter to the West. And I lived there most of my childhood and young adult life and my mother and my younger brother were actually living there still in 1967.<br /><br />NL: Could you tell me where you were living and what you were doing in 1967?<br /><br />CL: In 1967 I was a second-year internal medicine resident, that is a training physician learning to be an internal medicine physician, and I was at Detroit Receiving Hospital, which was the main teaching hospital of the Wayne State University Medical School.<br /><br />NL: And where exactly was Receiving Hospital?<br /><br />CL: Receiving Hospital at that time was in the city in the downtown area, not where it is now in the Medical Campus area, and it was basically in Greektown. It was right across the street from what was originally the main police station, and I wish I could remember the street address. I think the main address was a Saint Antoine address, and it was right on, just to the west of the Chrysler Freeway Service Drive.<br /><br />NL: Can you tell me where you were and how you first <br />remember hearing about turbulence and civil unrest in the city in ’67?<br /><br />CL: Yeah. Well, maybe a little background. I had started my residency in July of ’66, so I was technically done with that second year in June, but I was slated to join the Air Force. There was an obligatory draft, including doctors’ draft and I had joined a program called the Berry Plan where you get to choose your branch of service and defer until you finish some of your training, but I was called up to start duty sometime in early September. So I had asked my chief of the department, Dr. Richard Bing at that time, since I didn’t know what to do between June 30 and September, I asked if I could keep working as a third-year resident even though he knew I couldn’t finish the year for the next couple of months and he said yes, so I was in the very beginnings of a third year internal medicine residency. I’d finished a second year and I shouldn’t have been there anymore, I should’ve been somewhere else, but I was working at the hospital. I was off on the weekend that the riots started. I was off duty, and it was a Sunday morning that I first found out that there was something going on in the downtown area. I actually had been driving my mother grocery shopping. And since I usually got bored sitting around inside the market, so I was sitting in my car listening to the Beatles music and my mother was in the market. And I listened to the news and it described that some rioting was going on in the city of Detroit they said something about, I don’t remember the exact details, but there had been a police raid on a blind pig, that when they tried to arrest people, then a crowd gathered and then there was civil unrest, and shooting and fighting and throwing things, and by ten or eleven in the morning when I heard about it, it was quite a bit of problem going on in the city. So I took my mother home and when I was at the house I called Receiving and talked to some of my friends or colleagues that were working and I said “What’s going on?” And they said, “Pretty hectic.” And I said, “You need any help?” And he said, “Absolutely.” And I said okay. But they said, “But don’t drive your car, it’s hard to drive through some of this, it might not be that safe.” So I said, “How am I gonna get there?” Not gonna take the bus, it sounded worse. So they said, “Try and see if the police will bring you.” So I called the police and the police said, “We know you’re probably needed, Doctor, but we really are too busy to do this.” And they suggested that I call a black cab company. Now you have to understand that I didn’t know there was such a thing as a white cab company and a black cab company. But there apparently were two black-owned cab companies in the city at that time and the police gave me the numbers, they knew who they were, and I called and they said yeah they’ll come and get me, and they came to my house to pick me up. At that time, now I’m more grey than blonde, but I was blonde and very fair-skinned, and I walked out of my door and got into the cab and the cab driver was a really wonderful African-American gentleman and as we’re driving toward Chrysler Freeway to get on the freeway, I could see him looking at me, and he was starting to get nervous. And he said, “Doctor, it wouldn’t hurt your feelings, would it, if I asked you to scrunch down in the back seat?” Those were his exact words. And I said, “No, no problem.” He was afraid we might be a target. So we headed down the easiest way at that time from where I was living, which was in that Dexter-Davison neighborhood. So normally you would go down Chicago Boulevard where there’s an entrance onto the John C. Lodge or US-10 and then we ended up on the Chrysler. I think he took the Davison over and we ended up on the Chrysler, somehow. Somehow we got across to the Chrysler. And we’re driving down the Chrysler and it’s dawning on me that things are happening. You can hear a lot of gunshot wounds, gunshot noise, you can see fires already and that was just Sunday afternoon. And when we get the exit to get off into Greektown area where Receiving Hospital was Lafayette exit, which is still there, and we couldn’t exit the freeway onto Lafayette because there was a roadblock set up there by the police. So they wanted to know who we were, and [I] said “Doctor, going to the hospital.” And they let us through. When we got to the top of the ramp there was another checkpoint or roadblock and there were already state police there. And same thing, we had to say who we were, and they let us through. And then the cab driver dropped me off at the front door of the hospital, and he went on his way. I had the foresight, I guess, to realize that I might not be leaving in a while, so I had packed a small suitcase with shaving equipment and extra underwear and some shirts and so on. And it turned out to be a good thing that I did that because I was stuck there for almost seven days. At first I didn’t have a car, I couldn’t get out of there, and most people felt it was not a good idea to drive in the city of Detroit at that time, especially if you were white, you might be a target of snipers or things like that. So I ended up spending the week there at the hospital, there were a number of doctors there working really hard. Most of the activities, as you could imagine, were surgical rather than medical. There were gunshot injuries and knife wounds. I can say that after this all finished and I did go into the Air Force, I was in the Air Force for two years and I never saw anything in the Air Force two years like I saw in that one week at Receiving Hospital as far as those types of injuries. I’m a medical doctor so I wouldn’t normally see the trauma type of things, that surgeons were taking care of, but we were all chipping in to take care of that. The hospital, which I think at that time was much bigger and was probably 400 or 500 beds, basically by the time the week went on, every single patient almost in the hospital was a prisoner. You know, there was so much civil unrest and lawlessness, not just people shooting other people or trying to hurt other people, but all of the looting, and so a large number of people were arrested. Police had no place to put them, so if they had any injuries they obviously went to different hospitals and Receiving was the main hospital. But the Detroit Street Railway (DSR) Busses were parked all over the downtown area mostly surrounding the police station which was across the street from the hospital, and there must have been twenty or thirty of those busses filled with prisoners because the jails were totally filled. And so they would have to live in the bus and they would only get out of there to stretch or to go to the restroom and other than that they were in the bus for several days before they were able to process them all when things settled down. Well I think as you might know from reading the history or you’ve been going through all this, the police and the state police could not handle it and then the Governor, I’m trying to remember who it was at the time--<br /><br />NL: Romney <br /><br />CL: Romney, mobilized the National Guard on about the second day and then Lyndon Johnson, a day or two later, sent in the soldiers. So the city was under full martial law and by the third or fourth days when I would make my rounds going patient to patient to see how things were going, my typical doctor rounds, I was going around on rounds with four soldiers with me, dressed in full uniform—82<sup>nd</sup> Airborne—full dress uniform, carbine on their back helmet, that’s how I made rounds every day for the last three or four days of that week. And there were soldiers all over the city and my mom told me at her house, that was in that Dexter area, that one block over on Collingwood, there was a synagogue on the corner at that time called B’Nai Moshe, which is now out in West Bloomfield somewhere, and there was a tank, the military had a tank there to use to keep peace in that area and there were troops everywhere trying to maintain order. Back at the hospital, as you could imagine, mostly they were trauma—knife and gun, or people hit on the head with different things—but the medical patients that I was mostly involved with would be people like diabetics, who would run out of insulin and they couldn’t get to the drugstore because everything was closed. So they would come in, the police would have to bring them in because of that problem. We also had injured police and injured firemen, who were being shot at by snipers. The most amazing one that I was not in the emergency room when this gentleman came in but everybody was called down [because they] couldn’t believe this, was a fireman was brought into the emergency room, he had been shot right between the eyes. The entry wound was <em>here</em> and there was an exit wound<em> here</em> and he was absolutely normal. The bullet had apparently ricocheted inside around his skull, or the calvarium, and had not hurt him. It was like a miracle. So that was like one of these crazy stories that you hear. Wayne also ran the Veterans’ Hospital, which now is downtown, of course, in the Medical Center, but at that time was in Allen Park, and some of the surgeons were going back and forth so they were riding down I-94, and that was a disaster. One of the surgeons when he arrived said, “I’m not going again.” Because he said he heard a gunshot wound and a bullet went through his car. So people didn’t want to leave anymore, no matter what they were afraid. So this was the kind of activity that was going on at the hospital. At night we would sleep in the resident on-call room, so Receiving Hospital was just a little on the east side of the downtown so we were just a couple of blocks off of Gratiot. You could look from the eighth floor where the resident sleeping quarters were, where we would go at night and was dark at night and if you looked down Gratiot, as far as the eye could see, both sides of the street were on fire. There was fire all the way down, you couldn’t see anything but flames and we couldn’t even sleep because it was so bright, it was like daytime out at night because of the bright lights from the fire. And finally, when things calmed down, one of the other doctors who had been trapped there earlier, so his car was there, his name was, I guess I shouldn’t use his name, Felix Liddell, he was a resident with me, he was leaving and he drove me home. Felix went on to practice, and I think he might still be practicing if he hasn’t retired, he became a lung specialist later. None of us were specialists in anything, we were in training. When I got home I was still surprised to find that even in our neighborhood, there were still some issues. My mom had told me that, when I would call her on the phone, and for awhile you couldn’t call on the phone either because the phones were down, and we didn’t have cell phones in those days, and she told me that my mom and younger brother were sleeping on the ground floor or in the basement because they were afraid of bullets, turned out none came into our house luckily, but they were afraid of that, or they were sleeping under their beds, you know. Even after I got home, the power was out in a lot of areas and I was watching out my window, like the second day that I was able to get home and the Detroit Edison crew came to fix the electric system and they came and it was a convoy—four Jeeps with four soldiers in each Jeep, two in the front, two Jeeps in the back and then the Detroit Edison truck. The people from the Jeeps, the soldiers, would fan out and basically control the neighborhood, so that then the Edison people could safely climb up the poles and do their work. They were afraid to go out, because they were afraid someone might try to take a pot shot at them. So it was that type of a fearful environment. Now my father-in-law, who I didn’t know at the time, was a family practice doctor downtown in the city of Detroit, his name is Dr. George Mogill. He’s still alive, he’s going to be 98 at the end of July. He had an office in the inner city and he had a lot of African-American patients and he had a lot of suburban patients, he had a typical practice of that era for many people who had offices in downtown. His office was saved, or spared, from destruction because some of his black patients actually parked themselves in front of his office with a shotgun and wouldn’t let anybody loot it or break in. He was able to actually go down a few times, I thought later this is just insanity, and when things settled down he was able to go back and see that his office was in good shape. So that was the story and then, of course, I finished up that month for a few more days and I headed to the Air Force, and I spent the rest of ’67 in a place called Rantoul, Illinois. When I got my orders I thought that is was Rangoon or something, I’d never heard of Rantoul, Illinois. Turns out it wasn’t in Myanmar or Burma, it was right here in Central Illinois, surrounded by cornfields. So I spent two years in a place called Chanute Air Force Base. C-h-a-n-u-t-e. Which has since been one of the air force bases that has been closed by our government, cost-cutting. But I spent two years there, and as I said I didn’t need to go to Vietnam or Thailand, the only war injuries I saw were people who were well enough to be air evacuated from Vietnam, which we saw them within sometimes 48 hours—amazing—so I saw war injuries but nothing like the type of thing I saw in the city of Detroit during that seven days.<br /><br />NL: I have a couple more questions especially about your time in the hospital during the riots.<br /><br />CL: Sure, oh yeah.<br /><br />NL: Are there any other specific injuries or treatments where you provided the medical or surgical care that you care to share?<br /><br />CL: Sure, well we all had to help out with minor suturing even though generally internal medicine doctors don’t do that stuff. You know, so people had cuts and bruises, so we would take turns because people in the emergency room were exhausted and they needed a break. We all went down and helped with cuts that people needed sewed up and so on, we all did that. I didn’t deal with digging out bullets, I had no idea what to do, and things like that but, mostly medical treatment. We were treating pneumonia, heart attacks, diabetics, so things that were just routine but they were precipitated or aggravated by the fact that there was no way they could get healthcare anywhere else. They had to go to a major hospital, there were no doctors’ offices to go to. There was no such thing as walk-in clinics in those days anyway, you know like we have urgent care today. And so you had to go to a hospital if you ever had anything wrong with you, and many went to Receiving, which was the hospital of last resort anyway.<br /><br />NL: What do you remember about the collective mentality of the residents and the doctors of staff there, as compared to any other time you went to Receiving?<br /><br />CL: Interestingly enough, it was mostly upbeat. And I think that there’s a certain type of nervous energy and adrenaline that you work on when you’re not getting a lot of sleep and you’re very busy and you’re not really thinking too much about what’s going on, you’re just doing stuff that you need to do. There wasn’t a lot of time, maybe at night, we would think about it, but we didn’t even know the big picture that was going on outside of where we were locked in to this sort of protected environment. We were very safe, we had soldiers and military around us, as long as we didn’t go outside, it was like a fortress. So we were very secure and we were just doing our medical work and we didn’t even know ourselves the magnitude of what was going on outside. I’d get a little inkling when I talked to my mother on the phone or if we listened to the radio, but we didn’t really know until we went home and we started to really see the details of what had been going on. So at night when we were going to bed, or sitting up for a while and looking at those fires on Gratiot, is when we would say, “I can’t believe this, I can’t believe this.” You know that type of amazing, how can this be happening. Now the funny thing is, is it brought back some memories to me because my father was no longer alive, my mom was a widow at this point, but when my father was alive, when I was a youngster, he had told stories about a previous riot in Detroit that took place in the forties. I don’t know exactly what year it was.<br /><br />NL: ‘43<br /><br />CL: ’43. And then when he told me the whole story about it because he used to work in the city, so he was very much about them at that time and he said it started with some type of melee on Belle Isle, actually. And it exploded into the city and the city was also under martial law, and soldiers had to be brought in for a period of time, but I don’t think there were the deaths, there were forty people eventually who were dead, one way or another from the Detroit riots in ’67. I don’t think they had that type of situation earlier, people didn’t have guns in those days either, probably. So this was not the only time that this has happened in Detroit, but of course what had happened in Detroit in 1967, we know that this has happening around the United States. There was the so-called “Long Hot Summer,” there was a lot of racial tension, you know Newark, Watts, Chicago, a number of other places had riots of this type. Interestingly enough, the people doing the looting, we all find out later by the prisoners we saw, were not all African-American at all. Many white people participated in the looting, which was hard to understand what was [going on], they were just opportunists. They were just taking advantage of the unrest and trying to get free shirts and free clothes or a free TV and breaking in to the store fronts and so on.<br /><br />LW: What was the function of the soldiers that follow you around during your rounds?<br /><br />CL: Well I think they felt like they had to do something and they were doing their duties and they couldn’t just sit there all the time so they were assigned to the doctors. They were also there to protect us, because not all the prisoners were actually shackled to their beds. They had to be on a certain amount of good faith that they would behave themselves. Yeah, there were prisoners that were there for serious behavior, and they were shackled to their beds.<br />NL: Do you remember every seeing what you perceived as a difference in the care provided to somebody in the hospital based on their race?<br /><br />CL: Never. That was never an issue. I’ve never seen it ever in my life. I don’t know if it ever occurs, maybe in other parts of the United States, you know where there’s more issues like that. I don’t know what people feel like in their personal life about who they want to date or who they want to go to a movie with or go to dinner with, but I can tell you, I’ve never ever seen that in the healthcare situation, where doctors or nurses ever differentiated. A sick patient was a sick patient. And I’ll tell you a vignette, since it’s about the same time frame, that had nothing to do with Detroit, but when I was in the Air Force, and here I won’t mention the name, but one of the doctors that was with me in the Air Force was from New York, and he happened to be a Jewish doctor. We had a number of other people from other militaries training at the base we were at, so we had Egyptian pilots that were at our base, and remember this was 1967 and there was the war in the Middle East, the ’67 war. And this particular doctor said, “Well, if any of them come to the hospital, I’m not gonna treat them.” We’re talking about Air Force, we’re in uniform, we’re doctors, and I said, “You’re absolutely full of baloney. Of course you’re going to treat them, and don’t say that out loud, you’re an idiot! You’re a doctor it has nothing to do with anything like that. You’re going to treat anybody who’s sick, and don’t open your big mouth and say stupid things.” You know, quite frankly. But almost never would you hear of people doing that. And we know for instance in Israel, the Israeli doctors take wonderful care of the prisoners that they capture, and so on.<br /><br />NL: Do you remember how it was that food and drugs and supplies and things were shipped into the hospital during that week?<br /><br />CL: That’s a really good question. I wasn’t really involved in that. I know that we had food, we did not run out of food. So somehow or another it was either arriving or we had a good supply. I can also tell you that the food at Receiving Hospital at that time was mostly inedible anyway. In fact one of the jokes we used to have, because the food was so bad, I used to carry a lunch because the food was just not very good, if you’d eat it, pardon the expression, and you’d get diarrhea half the time you’d eat the food. It was like traveling to Mexico, you know? Oh God, I can’t say anything bad about Mexico, I’ll get in trouble like Donald Trump. [laughter] So the big joke among us residents is if you stand out at Receiving, there was a big loading dock where things will be delivered and also there was garbage taken away and when food would be delivered and garbage was taken away, we always jokes about the food being delivered and we’d want to know if was shipping or receiving. [laughter] Because you couldn’t seem to tell the difference. But we had plenty of food to eat, you know regular food that was adequate to meet our needs.<br /><br />NL: And the medical supplies were adequate?<br /><br />CL: Yeah, generally we were fine. That’s a major hospital, major trauma center and we had all the bandages and needles and syringes. We had a good supply of medicine, so we were okay. Now I don’t know how much longer it might have lasted, but we were okay for the week.<br /><br />NL: So by the time you were able to leave it had been almost fully a week later ahead that the frenzy and the excess of patients and beds and prisoners and things, had <br />that started to decline?<br /><br />CL: Yeah, it was much better. The city was obviously much better, though there were pockets of misbehaving people. And there were still many, many hundreds, maybe thousands of prisoners. They were slowly being processed and most of them were just released because they were minor infractions but they just had to get them off the street and so it was a winding down, but of course there was major damage to the city. Many buildings were burned and destroyed and had to be cleaned up and quite a mess. And there are still some, as we know.<br /><br />NL: When did you come back from Illinois?<br /><br />CL: I was in the Air Force for two years and I didn’t return to Michigan, I actually went on to finish my residency in another city, in Philadelphia. So I didn’t come right back to Michigan at that time.<br /><br />NL: Okay. What point did you come back to Michigan?<br /><br />CL: I was in the Air Force between 1967 and 1969 and I left Philadelphia in July of ’69 and I returned to Detroit, pardon me, I left in ’70 and I returned to Detroit and I completed my specialty training in infectious disease, I have two specialties one is infectious disease, at that time right back at Wayne State at Detroit Receiving Hospital and the affiliated hospitals in that network which is Harper, Hutzel, and those hospitals for another three years and then I became part of the teaching faculty at Wayne Medical School for another six years and then I took a sabbatical year and did my allergy training at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and then after that I came to Beaumont in 1980 and I’ve been here ever since.<br /><br />NL: So 1970 when you first came back in the summer, so that’s a full three years after the riot. What do you remember at that point, physically about how the city had changed? Obviously the fires had been put out by then. What was the difference?<br /><br />CL: The city looked pretty much back to normal. The only difference was, obviously, there was an acceleration of the white flight that had been going on ever since the fifties, but had been more of a trickle over time, it had just moved very quickly. So a lot of people moved out of the city, a lot of businesses moved out of the city and it contributed obviously to the problems that eventually Detroit had to go through the next thirty years.<br /><br />NL: And how did it compare to your visions of Detroit when you were growing up?<br /><br />CL: Oh well, you know it’s very hard, when I try to explain to my own children, and to young doctors or students here at the teaching hospital or the Medical School that we’re part of, at Oakland University, you know if I try to tell them what Detroit was like in the fifties, they just can’t imagine it. And I say have you been to Chicago to the Miracle Mile? You know where all of the nice stores, the beautiful stores and high-rise department stores and high fashion, and I said well, Downtown Detroit was identical. It was identical. There were three major high-rise department stores: J.L. Hudson’s, Crowley Milner and Kerns. There were innumerable other stores. In fact, when I was in high school I worked as a stock boy in a men’s clothier called Harry Suffron, and then later there was a competing company called Hughes Hatcher. Their main office used to be right next door to where the Fox Theatre is, you know. I would work on Saturdays and sometimes after school for a few hours, unpacking pants, putting them up on the shelves, you know, stuff like this. I’d go to lunch, and if I’d go to lunch on a Saturday, I probably had 150 restaurants to choose from. And the library, which is still there, right behind where Hudson’s used to be, I used to go there and sit and read or, if it was a nice day, sit outside in one of the parks and it was such a beautiful downtown area. Of course there were fancy restaurants that I didn’t go to and there were bars and cabarets and stuff for nightlife. It was just an amazingly healthy and viable city. I would go to Saturdays sometimes when I was even younger and my mom would go shopping and she would drag me along, we would take the bus downtown, or even before that the streetcars, then they got rid of the streetcars, one of the hugest mistakes the city ever made, and here was a relatively low energy, clean form of transportation. I didn’t realize even then as a kid how extensive that Detroit Street Railway system was until when the Detroit Historical Museum reopened after they had been closed for a while, and my wife and I went down to see what it was like and there was a wonderful exhibit on the history of the Detroit Street Railway system, which you may know about. And what I didn’t realize as a kid growing up, because I lived in the city and I used it to a limited degree, I used to take that streetcar, there were two people there was a conductor and the guy that took your money, you know. And you’d get on, you’d get off, you know just like in San Francisco with the cable car, but it was a real streetcar, you know it was electrical stuff. But what I didn’t realize was that you could go up on a streetcar from Downtown Detroit to Port Huron. You could go on the streetcar from Downtown Detroit to Ann Arbor. You could go on a streetcar, I live out in West Bloomfield, and beyond me there’s an area called Keego Harbor with a lot of lakes, I was looking, I was shocked, that streetcar went out to Keego Harbor, people would go out to lakes for the day, you know, pack a lunch and they’d go to the lake. I mean it was an amazing, wonderful network where you didn’t need to rely on the automobile. And it was cheap, of course, in those days it was probably 20 cents or something like that for the whole ride. So, you know the automotive industry, are you familiar with a book called <em>J’accuse</em>?<br /><br />NL: No.<br /><br />CL: Emile Zola?<br /><br />LW: No.<br /><br />CL: You ever heard of that one? Alright, so the auto industry, <em>J’accuse.</em> I accuse you of being in collusion with the legislature, they ruined the bus system, got rid of the streetcars. Our streetcars still running in Mexico, by the way. And we were proud of having the best highway system in the world, and we did, at one time in Detroit because they wanted to sell cars. But look at ours now. We have no rapid transit, essentially, and we have the worst highway system because we haven’t’ been fixing it. So, I remember, as you say, going back, great highways and great public transportation. Clean and safe. And a downtown that was a beautiful place to visit. My mom as a treat would take me to, she’d get a cup of coffee after shopping at the Mayflower Coffee Shop, which is obviously no longer there, and I would get a glass of milk and a donut. You know, that was my treat. And, you know, there’s things you don’t forget, you know, there were just wonderful experiences growing up and, you know, when you see Detroit is coming back, you know, it’s making a wonderful comeback but it’s obviously slow and it’s gonna take a long time and there’s a lot of work to be done and there’s a lot less people there, so there’s a lot of space to figure out what do with, but the fact of the matter is that it’s very hard for people who didn’t see that when they were younger, growing up, to imagine how wonderful and viable and healthy the city of Detroit was as late as the fifties, when I was growing up. Now in 1924, I was reading about this, Detroit was not just the richest city in the United States, it was considered the richest city in the world. Could you imagine the change that we’ve seen in less than a hundred years? And the reason why I learned that is when the Book Cadillac reopened there was a lot of literature with that, and my son had his wedding at the Book Cadillac and they had a lot of reading material, so I was reading about the history of the hotel and the history of Detroit. And there’s also a wonderful book and I can’t remember the author, and I feel really bad about it, but my brother-in-law insisted that I read it. My brother-in-law is a teacher at Cranbrook Schools and one of the books that used to be mandatory reading for the middle school, he’s a middle school math teacher, is a book called <em>Arc of Justice</em>, and that book takes place in Detroit in the twenties, and it’s a true story, but the beginning of the book paints a picture, what was America like in 1910, 1920, talks about Detroit. Actually if you aren’t familiar with that book it’s an amazing book about Detroit history. And what really happens is later on after they set the stage and tell you all about Detroit, there’s the events of a black doctor, a young doctor who trains in the South and comes to Detroit and he marries the daughter of a successful black businessman and they buy a house in a white neighborhood, in the city, they were large [homes], mostly white. And they’re not accepted, and there is all kinds of turmoil and their house is surrounded and there’s some gunshot wounds, and one person is killed and one is wounded and there’s this huge trial of the century going on, not the Scopes Monkey trial, but almost as big because the NAACP, a fledgling new organization, this is all in the book [that] I learned [this], wanted to make sure to have the best representation for the black people who were being basically lynched on this because they were under attack in the first place, they were trying to defend themselves from the white crowd. So they were able to get the best lawyers in the country, they debated black lawyers and white lawyers, they debated this and they decided they’re going to forget the racial stuff, and they got the best white lawyer and they actually worked pro bono, or for minimal money, and Clarence Darrow, the same lawyer that was in the Scopes trial was in Detroit for almost two years with his whole team defending these black people because they were trying to put them up for murder. At first there was a hung jury and then there was another trial and they got everybody off. And when you read the book you realize this must have been the most exciting thing you could ever imagine, but in the meantime, it’s giving all this background about Detroit and what’s going on in the twenties, you know, in that time. The judge who presided over that was Frank Murphy, and the police station downtown and the courthouse is Frank Murphy Hall. He later became the mayor, he became governor, he became a justice, and he became a Supreme Court Justice. He distinguished himself in this trial by keeping it fair. And he was a great man obviously because he was under a lot of pressure to stick it to the black guys. It was a white city at that time, and you know the police were all white, everything was white at that time. So it’s an amazing story and if you really want a good background of Detroit, obviously not ’67, but the type of thing that Detroit was like before things changed, you read that book, it’s an amazing book.<br /><br />NL: I’ll have to check that out. Do you have any other questions?<br /><br />LW: I don’t, but is there anything else about ’67 that you want to share with us?<br /><br />CL: Well, I’m trying to think. Obviously ’67 started, I was a first year resident at Henry Ford between ’65 and’66, July to June, so ’67 started and I was halfway through that second year of the residency and you know, I don’t think there was that much eventful, at that time, you know, the Tigers were playing pretty good baseball, I wasn’t a big Red Wings fan. Basketball, nobody watched. I don’t know when the Pistons arrived from Fort Wayne, but it wasn’t a very popular sport at that time.<br /><br />NL: If they had arrived though, the NBA wasn’t really popular until the eighties.<br /><br />CL: And NFL, the last time the Lions won a championship was 1957, so that was already ten years before. So that was it. Detroit was otherwise like any other big city. When I graduated high school in 1958, the population of the city of Detroit was 1.8 million, it was the fourth largest city in the United States, and it was just a few years after that, that we were passed by Houston. Remember when we went from four to five [in the rankings], now we’re like 20. Okay.<br /><br />NL: Alright. Thank you.<br /><br />LW: Thank you so much, that was great.<br /><br />NL: Thank you for sharing your memories with us today.<br /><br />CL: I hope this was something that can help you.<br /><br />LW: Of course.<br /><br />NL: It’s tremendously helpful and we appreciate your time and willingness to sit with us and share this.<br /><br />LW: Thank you.<br /><br />CL: Thank you.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
**
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Detroit Receiving Hospital, Medical resident, U.S. Air Force, Downtown Detroit, Detroit Street Railway System
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07/07/2015
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Title
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Dr. Carl Lauter, July 7th, 2015
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Detroit Receiving Hospital—Detroit—Michigan,
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Description
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In this interview, Dr. Lauter describes working at Detroit Receiving Hospital in July 1967 and taking care of patients that were injured in the civil disturbance, some of whom were under arrest, and being followed on his rounds by a military detail. He also discusses the changes that occurred in Detroit following the unrest.
1967 Arab-Israeli War
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Detroit Edison Power Company
Detroit Receiving Hospital
Detroit Street Railway System
Downtown Detroit
Looting
Medical
Medical Staff
Public Transportation
Snipers
United States Air Force
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Dublin Core
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Title
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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
Date
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10/20/2019
Oral History
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Narrator/Interviewee's Name
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Felton Rogers
Interviewer's Name
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Lillian Wilson
Noah Levinson
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Detroit Historical Museum, 5401 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI
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06/17/2015
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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
List any relevant people (interviewers, interviewees, important people mentioned, etc). Please use "Lastname, Firstname".
Brown, Joseph
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".
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan, riots, interviews, oral history, Detroit Police Department, Police Athletic League (PAL), National Guard, Blind pig, 12th Street
Video
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g6ZgZ2ZNurM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
Dublin Core
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Title
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Felton Rogers, June 17th, 2015
Subject
The topic of the resource
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Detroit Police Department—Detroit—Michigan
Police Athletic League (PAL)—Detroit—Michigan
Description
An account of the resource
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
-
https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/e6b64636e9e3cd3f642a439fc882bb1c.jpg
8221a0da98d32437a49abb44e1e6b231
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
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Girard Townsend
Interviewer's Name
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Noah Levinson
Interview Place
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Rivertown Assisted Living, 250 McDougall Street, Detroit, MI
Date
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06/12/2015
Interview Length
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00:16:09
Brief Biography
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Girard Townsend was born April 23, 1951 in Wayne, Michigan and lived on the east side of Detroit in 1967 but was visiting his girlfriend and his brother on Twelfth Street during the 1967 disturbance. He currently lives in the Rivertown neighborhood of Detroit.
Transcriptionist
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Cathy Seavoy
Transcription
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<p>NL: Today is June 12, 2015. This is the interview of Girard Townsend by Noah Levinson. We are at 250 McDougall Street in Detroit at the River Town Assisted Living Home. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project. Girard, can you tell me where and when you were born?</p>
<p>GT: I was born 1951. April 23, 1951.</p>
<p>NL: And where?</p>
<p>GT: I was born in Wayne, Michigan—Second Street and Van Born.</p>
<p>NL: Where did you live in July 1967?</p>
<p>GT: I lived on Saint Jean and Mack.</p>
<p>NL: What neighborhood would you say that is?</p>
<p>GT: Eastside.</p>
<p>NL: And what were you doing at that time?</p>
<p>GT: When the riot broke out I was leaving Saint Jean and Mack going on to 2717 Blaine and Fourteenth. I was leaving my girlfriend’s house and I was going over to my brother’s house and he lived on Blaine and Twelfth. </p>
<p>NL: How far away was that?</p>
<p>GT: That’s coming from the east side to the west side.</p>
<p>NL: What do you remember seeing, hearing, and noticing that day?</p>
<p>GT: It was 3 o’clock in the morning, I was leaving my girlfriend’s house where I was staying with her on Saint Jean and Mack. I was on the crosstown bus going down Clairmount to Twelfth. And, at the time, about three in the morning, I saw someone laying out in the street, and the guards had him covered up. And there were a lot of guards with the shields and the masks, and they had the street blocked off, Twelfth and Clairmount. And they said at the after-hours joint that they had threw the white girl out the window, from my understanding. Anyway, so when I got off the bus I just went on into my apartment because I was living on Blaine between Twelfth and Fourteenth, went on in my apartment with my girlfriend. We had caught the bus. Got up the next morning, I hear fire department, fire engine, I smelled smoke and stuff. So I came out the apartment and I looked down the street, I see people running with televisions, clothes, all kinds of clothes, pants, refrigerators, stoves, little kids carrying micro–, not microwaves, but carrying all kinds of stuff out the grocery stores. And they was looting and everything was on fire on Twelfth. So somebody said, “It’s a race riot.” It never was a race riot. It was us. Black people destroying their own property where they live and looting in the stores that they go into every day. And they was burning up the stores, they was breaking into the jewelry stores, breaking into supermarkets. Wherever we could steal at, we stole. But it wasn’t such thing as a race riot, it was everybody looting and stealing from where they lived at. That’s what it was. There was not black people fighting no white people. None of that. We used that riot to steal and loot our own place where we lived at. And I watched this because I was one of the looters. I was 17 at the time. And my wife was pregnant with my daughter which is 47, and it been 47 years ago. I was 18 — 64 now. And we just destroyed everything where we lived at. We didn’t go out in the white people neighborhood and do none of that. I’m keeping it real, everybody grown. We stayed in our neighborhoods. Tore up Twelfth Street, Twelfth Street was the worse street we tore up in Detroit because we burned out everything on Twelfth, supermarkets, liquor stores, pawn shops everything that we used every day in our normal lives the stores that we went into every day we burnt that down stole out everything out the stores. Put everybody out of business. We broke into jewelry stores, supermarkets, liquor stores, clothing stores. We just burnt up everything on Twelfth. You go down Twelfth now, I’ll tell you something, I’ll say from Clairmount all the way down to the Boulevard, all the nice stores and stuff that’s on Twelfth, none of that’s there now. Everything is burnt down. Only thing over there now is they got, little- you know how they had little shopping malls in the neighborhoods? They got that and they built up a lot of new houses from the state, and they built up the new condominiums, but there ain’t nothing over there now that there used to be on Twelfth 47 years ago cause we burned it down. We burnt down everything, every building where we used to have to go to take business or either go shopping and get food and stuff. We burnt it down. We burnt down our own neighborhoods. We burnt down the grocery stores, supermarkets, clothing stores. And we make people – a lot of people said the ’67 riots, where for white and black races, none of that, no they weren’t, never was, not like that. I don’t care where you went to in Detroit, there wasn’t none of that. It was looting. We used that riot for an excuse to rob and steal and loot where we lived at, in our own neighborhoods and that’s the gospel. The reason I know that because I was a participant in it. I was stealing too, I had clothes, refrigerators, stoves, putting them in the back of my car and all that. One time, me and my brother we stole a TV and the guards was coming, my brother got scared, he dropped the TV down and I still had it, so the television fell on top of me and the guards came past, they seen the TV on me, lifted the television off me and went on about their business, and I drug the TV in the garage and waited till night and come back with the car and got it. That’s why my back’s kind of messed up. Anyway, that’s the truth. And I got a daughter name of J’wanda. See my wife was pregnant with her during riot. And we took liquor out the liquor store. And we transferred the liquor on the bus, and we took it and sold it at the after-hours joints and stuff. And my girlfriend was pregnant which I married her, in ’67 she was pregnant with my daughter. And she had my daughter whose name of J’wanda in July and she was a ’67 riot baby. Got a daughter right now, she’ll be 47 next Monday, July, right, it’s June—yup, she’s a riot baby. My wife, I married her, in ’67. Yeah, I was 18. I know 47 years ago, that riot was horrible. And I think the guards shoot up some people’s cars and stuff like that, but it was after curfew. We wasn’t supposed to be on the street, and they were still out there stealing and looting and stuff, and the guard shot and killed some people. But it was never a race riot. Whoever told you that is wrong. The majority of the black people coming, they gonna tell you it was niggers stealing and looting and tearing up their own stuff where they live at. That’s right. That’s what we did. But it’s the gospel, I’m just keeping it real with you. Anything else you wanna know?</p>
<p>NL: Yeah, I’m curious. So I’ve heard you describe these events as a riot, but then you also said, you think they’re not a riot.</p>
<p>GT: It wasn’t a riot! It was you that named riot, like it was white and black. It was never no white and black issue like when they say “riot” it’s black against white and such. It wasn’t that! We use that name when they say, “Oh, it’s a riot out there.” So they used that to loot and steal and destroy their own property. You hear me? They used that riot to loot and steal from their own neighborhoods and property. It was never a white and black issue. So they say, “Oh, it’s a race riot.” Oh no it wasn’t. It was stealing. They used that name, “riot,” like it was a white and black riot. There was none of that. When they find out everybody talking about a riot, they start burning up, stealing, and looting. They use that riot for looting and stealing. That’s all that was about. That’s the gospel. And the majority of people that’s my age, they’ll come in and tell you the same thing. They used that riot to loot and steal because they didn’t know better. A lot of these people older than me, and I’m 64. But I was participating in that riot. I was doing that same stuff. I was in the jewelry stores and that, getting some of the fake jewelry, the supermarkets getting food, in the appliance store getting appliances. I had an apartment, it was full of every kind of stolen stuff. I was participating, I was 17. That’s what I was doing, and I saw white people doing none of that.</p>
<p>NL: What do you think, before July of that year, what was happening that sort of led to that moment? How did it get to be that extreme?</p>
<p>GT: As far as I know, they tried to say when the white girl got thrown out of that blind pig. Blind pig back in that day were after-hours joints with alcohol. So they throw the white girl out the window at Clairmount and, between Twelfth and Blaine on Clairmount. And that’s what I thought, the police had the streets blocked off. They threw the white girl out the window, and then that’s where the riots supposedly started at. They started on the west side. Some people say they started – what I saw started on the west side, on Twelfth and Blaine between Fourteenth and Twelfth on Clairmount. On Clairmount you go Twelfth and then you go Fourteenth. </p>
<p>NL: What about before that night at Twelfth and Clairmount? Before that, earlier in the year of 1967, let’s say. Was there a lot of hostility in that neighborhood?</p>
<p>GT: Are you talking about like when Martin Luther King was alive? When did he pass, when was he murdered?</p>
<p>NL: 1968, I believe, is when he was assassinated.</p>
<p>GT: Well, I think a lot of that came from Martin Luther King in the South and stuff, it resonated up here. That’s where a lot of it, I believe, came from. In Detroit, it wasn’t no race riot, but a lot of hostility came from—he got assassinated in ’68, right? A lot of that kind of originated up here in the cities. People you know, talking about the white people. You know how that shit goes, you know. I think of a lot of it came from that. But it wasn’t a race riot here in Detroit. It wasn’t that. It was us stealing and looting and burning up our own places where we liked to go and shop and live every day. We set it on fire after we stole all the stuff out [laughter]. We did.</p>
<p>NL: How have you seen Detroit change since then?</p>
<p>GT: I seen them build up a lot of low-income houses. Then the drugs wasn’t like it is now. When they built up all these low-income houses, where they tore down all the houses and stuff on Twelfth and put up all the condominiums? Here come the drugs, here come that crack shit. And when that crack shit came out, man, it just messed up everything. But it was never—I ain’t never seen a race riot. They might have had them down South; I never lived in the South. I saw a whole lot of pictures about that shit. I never seen nothing like that in Detroit. When we was in Detroit, we just burn up our own shit we used that for an excuse to loot and steal and stuff. A lot of hostility could’ve come from the assassination of Martin Luther King, and it resonated up here. You know. It’s strongly possible, I never thought about it either until you just said that. But, a lot of that could’ve been, you know. But it wasn’t no white and black thing, I can’t stand why they say riot, race riot. It was a something that – we used that to rob, steal, and all that. It wasn’t a race riot. Might have been down South in Alabama and all of them down there. You know it could’ve been that, it was like that down there, but it wasn’t like that here. Because you know black guys had white girlfriends and everything at the time. 1968, up here? Yeah. We was doing our thing, but you couldn’t do it down South, you know. It’s altogether different, but anyway, I believe a lot of the hostility came from Martin Luther King’s assassination down there. It made the people up here mad. But we weren’t killing no white people or none of that. We were stealing. Man, there were little kids running with meat and stuff in their hands! It’s horrible. We used that riot to gain profit and stuff for ourselves. That’s what we used that riot for. It wasn’t no white people and black people fighting and killing each other. If there was, we wouldn’t have been stealing and robbing and burning up that shit. I'm just keeping it real. I was in it.</p>
<p>NL: I want to ask you, so knowing what you know now, we’re looking back at almost 50 years since then</p>
<p>GT: 47 years ago.</p>
<p>NL: If you had a chance to do it all over again, do you think you still would have participated in it that way?</p>
<p>GT: I don’t know. I don’t know what to say to that. In my state of mind, like the majority of the people, they used the riots to gain. You know we getting free this, we getting free that. We can burn it down and take all that stuff. You know, we used that. We used that to loot and steal from our own stores that we lived in every day. That’s what we did. And then they do it now, all the time.</p>
<p>NL: You think so?</p>
<p>GT: Yeah, they’d do it all over again, if it’s free. Come on, let’s keep it real.</p>
<p>NL: Free is free.</p>
<p>GT: Yeah, it’s free! We’ll do it better this time. We’ll do it better this time.</p>
<p>NL: All right, Girard, thank you so much for sharing your stories with us today.</p>
<p>GT: Okay, buddy.</p>
<p>NL: Take care.</p>
<p>GT: Alrighty.</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".
looting. St Jean and Mack, Blaine Street, 14th Street
Video
A link to the video
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r1RpkZs-_Z0" 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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Girard Townsend, June 12th, 2015
Subject
The topic of the resource
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan, Looting
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Townsend recalls being on Twelfth Street in the early morning hours of July 23, 1967 and seeing the beginning of the civil unrest that occurred throughout that week. He also speaks about his involvement in the arson and looting of electronics, grocery, liquor and jewelry stores along Twelfth Street that week.<br /><br /><strong>Note: This oral history contains profanity and/or explicit language.</strong>
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Blaine Street
Curfew
Detroit Community Members
Fourteenth Street
Looting
Mack Avenue
Michigan National Guard
Twelfth Street
-
https://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
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
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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
A short biography of the Interviewee
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
Video
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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.
Format
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M4A on iPhone
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Grosse Pointe
Jefferson Avenue
Looting
National Bank of Detroit
Public Transportation
Tanks
-
https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/bd02757b393e74107cce0cb41eb4b723.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
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
Written Story
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Text
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On Sunday, July 23, 9167, we were up north, visiting our sons at Camp Maplehurst, located near Traverse City. I became aware of some disturbance in Detroit around noon and, remembering the Race Riots of 1943, decided to return as quickly as possible. We had three Todd’s Menswear stores in Detroit: Downtown, Livernois & Seven Mile Road and Gratiot & Seven Mile Road, and I was deeply concerned.
As we drove back, listening to the radio, it became very apparent that this was a Race Riot centering on 12th Street. Twelfth Street was a major business street, at one time the heart of the Jewish neighborhood, but now basically a Black neighborhood with many small retail stores, pawn shops, bars and restaurants lining the street from Grand Boulevard to just north of Clairmount.
We kept our Detroit stores closed for about a week. The riot lasted about 5 days. It overwhelmed the Detroit Police Force and later the National Guard was called in, and finally, the US Army. Fortunately, none of our stores were affected, but my friends who owned stores on 12th Street were wiped out. The entire street was a wreck of burned out, looted buildings. It was so completely destroyed that they later renamed the street Rosa Parks Blvd.
We suffered no real losses, other than the business we might have had. However, 4 or 5 of our people, who were members of the National Guard, were called into service and they spent the better part of 2-3 weeks in service as the city calmed down. On the other hand, the city was morally at a standstill. People were nervous and on edge for weeks and months later. There was a huge movement of whites out of Detroit into the suburbs. Looking back today, the Race Riots of 1967 really sparked the exodus of Whites from the City, which is only starting to recover now.
Original Format
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email message
Submitter's Name
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Philip Elkus
People
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07/27/2015
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Twelfth Street, Michigan National Guard, looting
Dublin Core
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Title
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Philip Elkus
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Philip Elkus recalls fear for his livelihood as a store owner in July, 1967.
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Detroit Historical Society
Date
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07/29/2015
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
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Text
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en-US
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Written Story
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||||osm
Twelfth Street (Rosa Parks), Detroit, Michigan
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Business Owners
Detroit Workers
Looting
Michigan National Guard
Twelfth Street
-
https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/76352a0827c216bb28e60234b4dfcead.JPG
1712b04d48161917153f367b335ca960
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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Daniel Jennings
Brief Biography
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Daniel Jennings was born September 2, 1956 and grew up in Detroit, Michigan. On July 24, 1967, the second day of the unrest, Daniel’s father, Daniel Jennings, Sr. was killed when he was suspected of looting Stanley’s Patent Medicine, a liquor store at John R and Harper Avenue in Detroit. Jennings was ten years old at the time and had 13 brothers and sisters. Jennings attended Detroit Public Schools and has worked in film production.
Interviewer's Name
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Noah Levinson
Lillian Wilson
Interview Place
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Detroit Historical Museum 5401 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI
Date
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06/19/2015
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01:20:14
Transcriptionist
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Michael J. Lake and Mark Kwicinski
People
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Jennings, Daniel
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Breitmeyer Elementary School, looting, Stanley’s Patent Medicine, Mercy Hospital, Reginald Jennings
Transcription
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<p>NL: Today is Friday, June 19, 2015. This is the interview of Daniel Jennings by Noah Levinson and Lily Wilson. We are at the Detroit Historical Museum on Woodward Avenue in Detroit and this interview is for the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project. Daniel, could you start by telling us where and when you were born.</p>
<p>DJ: I was born in Detroit, Michigan, September 2, 1956 at Mercy Hospital, which is right down the street—along this way—off of Woodward Avenue.</p>
<p>NL: And where were you living in July of 1967?</p>
<p>DJ: July of 1967 I was living at 403 Mount Vernon—which is roughly three blocks—three or four blocks northwest of East Grand Boulevard.</p>
<p>NL: And what were you doing at that point? You were a student?</p>
<p>DJ: Pardon me?</p>
<p>NL: You were a student?</p>
<p>DJ: Yeah, I was a student.</p>
<p>NL: Okay, where at?</p>
<p>DJ: Breitmeyer Elementary School—I was just going into the sixth grade that summer—because this happened in the middle of that summer. Do you want me to continue?</p>
<p>NL: Absolutely.</p>
<p>DJ: As a matter of fact, I had a neighborhood job. I was ten years old, this was about a month or so away from my eleventh birthday on the day that my dad was killed which I believe was a Monday and I was working. I actually had a job at the supermarket around the corner. So I was around there working. I was a stock boy—stocking the shelves, taking the garbage out, burning the trash, stocking the return bottles. And I was back there working, matter of fact, and one of my friends—this is the second day—let me start from the first day of the riot. The first day of the riot I believe was on a Sunday. I was riding my bike—I used to ride over to Hamtramck regularly. So we was over there near the Buy-Low's store and I was riding over there and we were—friend end of mine—a couple of friends of mine—we were riding over there and what happened was that I had gone over there several times ever without incident so on this particular day we were riding the bikes, coming home and all of a sudden, the people who usually were always friendly—the guys rolled by and they were shooting bean-shooters at us and "Niggers get out of here," you know this kind of thing and I had never experienced that before so I was like, "What's wrong with them? What's going on?" So we kept riding and one guy rode by in a convertible and threw a piece of fat meat—and I'll never forget—like barbeque fat and hit my friend in the face real hard. And we thought it was funny, we laughed and we just kept on riding and wondered, what'd they do that for? And so by the time I came home—this was the first day—and then I heard about all the burning and the stuff had began to escalate and didn't pay it much attention; I was a kid. Next day I got up and went to my job at the grocery store around the corner. My dad, I think he got up and had gone to the—it's a union hall office, I forget the local number, right here on the Boulevard and John R. I beleive, or Brush. So anyway I was at the store working and then I think around two o'clock or something like that. Two o'clock, two-thirty, three, a friend of mine ran over there and said, “Well hey, Reggie”—that's my nickname—my middle name Reginald. He ran over there and said, "Hey man, we just heard on the news—your dad's been shot." And then I said, “Well no, that's a big mistake.” I said my dad should be home now because I know he had gone to the union office earlier that morning. So anyway my friend left to go out—then he came back and said, “Well no, man, it's the facts, I'm sure—your dad's got shot and I think he's dead." And so I ran home because I live right on the corner. The market was around the corner and we had a recreation center on the corner and our house is on the very next corner. Very short block, maybe about ten, eleven houses. So I get home and I see my sister just over me—and she's in political stuff—now with the president, and ran the city—Democratic Caucus—her name was Cecelia Walker. So anyway I ran into the house and she's there doing handstands on the couch and I grabbed her legs and pulled them down and I say, “Well, where's mom and them at? Where's Daniel?” We called my daddy "Daniel." She say, "Well, Daniel's been shot. Mom and them have gone to the hospital." And then at that time I say, “Well he's dead,” because I said I heard he's dead. And then at that time she jumped up and started just beating on me because they used to beat on me regular. I had six older sisters—and I had to throw this little part in but, I was the oldest of seven boys and a man that had six girls first. So, when I came along I was really spoiled. I got bicycles, regularly went to the football games, you know, wherever I wanted because I was the first son and he had to wait more than eight years before he had a son. And so when I wanted to watch the football game—they wanted to watch Shirley Temple—and we had one TV to share between all of us and my mom and them had the TV in their room. So when I went back in and told my dad they didn't let me watch the football game—they want to watch Shirley Temple. So he come in there and then say, "Turn this TV and let him see some of this football game." So when he left out the room, I got the beat-down. I got hit with four cans of pop, high-heeled shoes, telephones—and this was on the regular—but I was never allowed to hit them back. So, I didn’t—but see—I would just curl up and take the beating and then, you know, they'd turn the Shirley Temple right back. But—see that was the last time I got hit—the day that my dad died. And I told my sister then—because she used to beat me—I say you're never going to hit me again. I say because I'm the man of the house now. And they never raised a finger at me again after that. And so when my mom and them came home and I saw her doubled over, crying, you know—I knew it was true then. So I immediately stepped into manhood that day, and I was not 11 years old yet. But I knew that I had to. Maybe my dad had a premonition that his time was going to end early because he used to constantly—and still until this day I live up to it—he constantly told me "I want you to promise me that you're going to take care of your mother and your sisters and brothers because I'm not always going to be here." And see, especially the younger ones, they play on that. Because they come to me and, you know, I've had four or five brothers live with me in the last couple of years. And the baby sisters, they call me, "We out of toilet paper, we need this, we need money, we need gas, we need—" and they still to this day, in my heart, won't let me let them grow up. And I still sacrifice to do that to this day so that was something that was always there. And one other thing I appreciate what my dad did is when the snow—see to this day even the complex I live in with my mom in Taylor, Michigan—when it snows, they come and do all snow, and lawn, and everything. But I always get up and shovel the snow at mom's place and the place next door to me on both sides because he told me—“Don't you ever let me come home and see snow out there on the ground and your mother and sisters have to walk out there on some ice because he said I'll get out the grave and come whoop your tail." So I always do that. Just to be safe. But after that, like I said, I grew up and I became the man of the house. Like I said I already had a little job—and I was all for other little jobs in the area. I mean I would go around and hustle. I became a natural hustler. I would go up and down the street. I would rake leaves, I would take garbage out for people—but I had—I was a boy scout too. I wasn't old enough to be a boy scout but I wanted to be a boy scout when I was eight years old. And my dad went up there and told them, “He wants to be a boy scout. He's 11 years old," and I joined the Scouts. So I already had three years of experience by the time I was legally old enough to be a scout. And I wanted to be a boy scout not so much to be a boy scout but having eight sisters and a lot of girl cousins—and back in the sixties you usually saw a lot of military personnel walking around with their uniforms on. That was regular. All up and down the street, they would march up and down the street with their uniforms on. Something you don’t see today. So when all my sisters was on the porch and my cousins and their girlfriends scream, “Oh, look at how cute they are. Oh, they look so good in their uniforms." That's why I wanted to be a boy scout. That was my main reason so I joined the Scouts. But I have a lot of those values and morals in me. I still remember the Scout Law and things. So that was good. As life changed for the family, I always had a job. I always got little jobs at the school. When I came back to school I was already an "A" student and had perfect attendance but that really escalated because— I didn't think so then, even though I felt I was deserving of all the positions that I got because when you walked into the school the first day you saw a big picture of me: Daniel Reginald Jennings, safety patrolman of the month, first lieutenant, president of the student council, vice president of the career-study club, sergeant-at-arms in the future-teachers club. We had an explorers club where I had a rank in that, I don't remember what it was but we went swimming out of the school because we didn't have a swimming pool in our school, Breitmeyer. We used to come up here to the white school. It was over here somewhere off of Beaubien, back at St. Antoine somewhere. And so I had so many activities at school that I never got home before six or seven o'clock. And I this singing group—everyone sung The Temptations—so we practiced and sung The Temptations—and all of these things. My childhood was—I seem to have gotten a lot of special attention. I remember when the teacher—when I was in the seventh grade—the year that my dad died and the teacher asked us to write down where we wanted to sit—if we specifically wanted to sit next to someone, and the compliment to me was that there were so many people—I think it was more than half the class wanted to sit next to me that the teacher actually put me up at her desk and I had to sit down facing the class. And not that I think much of it then, but as I reflected back on it, I kind of realize wow, that was really a compliment to me. And so the brothers and sisters, we all got together and we supported one another and I kind of took care of them. I just remember working and helping to take care of the family and stuff. And one of my oldest sisters, grandparents, they helped contribute. Neighbors, they would bring over food. We didn't really have lack of. So we had gotten a lot of support from the neighbors and the community because this was a worldwide story then. Everyone knew about it; my dad with all these kids. I got a lot of handmedown clothes from my cousins and they were nice. Those are some things that I grew to remember. I think by the time I was 16—I think that next year when I was 12, it was one of the best summers of my childhood after my dad died because I took off my gym shoes and I started wearing street shoes and dress clothes because I said I'm a man now and I am not going to be playing or running ball—I still played baseball but I actually had the job at the store, I was doing that. And the lady that lived upstairs, she asked me to walk her kids home at lunchtime. And she paid me five big dollars. That was a lot of money. Because they were mixed; her husband was black and the kids—she thought other kids would mess with them. So, I would bring that money home from the store. I would get $15 a week which was good money. Because I can remember you could get a can of soda for ten cents, you could get a loaf of bread for 25 cents. I used to go to the store with a dollar and come back with a lot of goodies. I had a loaf of bread. I remember a pack of cigarettes was about 32 cents because my oldest sister always wanted some cigarettes so I would bring her some. But it was just a lot of good times. That summer we went on a lot of trips. My dad used to always take us all out to Belle Isle—and that was a horrible two years for me—that year, I think it was '66 and '67, because my favorite idol Chuck—what's his name? A hydroplane driver at Belle Isle. He drove the Miss Pepsi boat. His name was Chuck Thompson. He died the summer before on my baby brother's birthday. And that was a horrible, horrible day for me and then that was on July 12 and then almost a year later I lost my dad. And my whole world seemed like it was coming to an end. I got past those times and the next year the rec center on the corner, they took us on trips. We went to all of the local parks. One day we would go to Metro, the next day we'd go to Belle Isle and we'd get to stay out there all day with lunches and by that time I was interested in the girls—they had been chasing me a while before that, but I wasn't interested until I was 12. And we went to Stoney Creek and all of the Metroparks—Kensington—there was about five of them but we went each day of the week and we would go and we would play all day. So, to me that was the great escape for what I had to deal with when I came home. Because there were times at home when having that many brothers and sisters, my mother, thank goodness, she always looked at me as a little special I guess because she used to always hand me a little piece of chicken. Because if you weren't there for dinnertime sometimes, you'd miss out. So those are the things I remember. I was a child—I remember the city—like before the night my dad died we were sitting on the porch and I didn't really understand what was going on. I know the city was in a blaze and everything but that was something that we never ever spoke about at my house about the race relationships or anything of the political stuff that was going on. That night, I’m looking up. I remember seeing the sky bright orange and red from the fires because Twelfth Street was on fire. I used to go over there with my friends. We used to—because we were fascinated because it was hustle. You'd see pimps and prostitutes and all up and down and all the pretty colors and the nice convertible cars and they were shooting dice and playing cards and there was something for us to run over there. We ran and played at the GM building, with all the cars in the showroom. We went underneath the tunnel to the Fischer building. And this was something regular. They had a nice restaurant there on the boulevard called—it wasn't the Chin-Tiki. I think the Chin-Tiki was downtown—but they had tiki torches burning in the front and they had a nice little lake—so these were things for us—we played in the front. That's what my childhood was like the time that my dad got killed. My Easter Sunday, after we came from church, we'd get on the bus. And that's something a lot of youngsters nowadays don't do at least in the inner city. When I was seven or eight years old, I used to catch the bus all over town by myself. For Easter Sunday our thing was that after we had gone to church and colored the eggs and visited who we had to visit, me and some of my friends, like the single group that we had, we had a gang but we had a good gang. Our good gang was called the "Young Leaders." And now that I think back, the guy who had started this gang was at the barbershop. We used to go across the street and shine shoes at the shoe shop parlor. That's one thing this guy named Red—wonder if he's still around—his shop was right here on Oakland, over here near Clay Street, over in that area. We used to shine shoes and he would always tell us if he saw us coming down the street and our shoes wasn't shined he'd make us come in there and he'd make us shine our own shoes and say, "You've got to keep your appearance up." Saying that if the rest of you was looking a little tossed—keep you hair combed and keep you shoes shined. That's what he told us. So we would shine shoes but it was the guy at the barbershop—we always kept our hair as if it were cut. So the guy over there, he told us—well he knew who I was from my riot days. I didn't think about it then, but he said, "What are you guys doing?" We'd say we were doing just little kid stuff and he'd say well I want you guys—and say, “Well who is the leader?” And everybody looked at me and said, “It's him." And so—he say, “Well, you guys got a gang.” And I say, “Yeah we're the gang—we’re the North End Gang.” He said, "Nah, I want you guys to become the 'Young Leaders,' a good gang, I want you all to go around and do good things." He bought us t-shirts. He bought us all t-shirts, had them printed "The Young Leaders." And we'd come in and get a free hair cut every other week and then we'd go across the street and get our shoes shined because we were wearing the dress shoes—we was out of the gym shoes except from when we was playing basketball, playing baseball. And so those are good things so they're was a lot of people—and now that I think back he was probably doing that—and even the days when I was in school with the Future Teachers and everybody hands down voted me as president to the student council and now that I look back I believe they was trying to prepare me for the position of leadership. Because today, I got my company—I'm struggling with it right now but my camera—that's my Jim Reg Productions where I do television, video. I mean I know how to do it all. I went to the film school. I lived out in California. So I toured a lot of the studios out there, learned how to build the sets, you know, just about everything involved with the business. I went out there back in 1997 trying to produce a television show and I left away because my grandmother was sick—I didn't really go back after 2000 but my vision—it just evolved to the point of whether I wanted to build a complex here, in Michigan, to teach people film, television, because they have an idea of doing music video and TV show, film, I bring to the table what someone must have and teach them of how to go from an idea from concept to conception basically. So that's basically what I want to do. That's my vision right now. I want to get a whole school and basically turn that into an entertainment complex—because the school—I hope I didn't drift too far off the course.</p>
<p>LW: No, I think it's important to know, sort of, the positive things you’ve done over the past several decades.</p>
<p>DJ: I worked at Chrysler—I skipped over a lot of stuff. When I was 16 I worked on the parking lots down here. Right over here, next to Wayne State. I Parked cars for two or three years, worked all the lots downtown. We ran the Silver Dome parking lot when it first opened. And then after that there were little odd jobs like I was always working since I was ten. The Raleigh House, a restaurant, I'd wash dishes, bus tables. I worked at the Bed & Spring Company. I worked at other companies. And day jobs where I'd actually scrape up soot from the floor. I worked, I worked, I worked. Then by the time I was 19—when I just turned 19, matter of fact, I had just put in an application in at the UAW for all the plants—they called me at Chrysler. And so I worked at Chrysler for 20 years. I went to an early retirement in 1994this was my twenty-first year out of there. I came out of Chrysler the next year so my ex-wife and I broke-up and so I ended up traveling. The next year—I broke up in '94 with her, because I wasn't working and she was and she was feeling like she was the man—but it didn't work, so I ended up going to the Million Man March. I went to the Million Woman March because I had a lot of lady friends bordering of me and another friend buying the company—they barely had—they had a lot of products to sale and they were scared they were going to get ripped off without a guy. So I went to Philadelphia, to the Million Woman March, Washington to the Million Man March. I took my son—had one son and six daughters. And so we went to the Million Man March, Million Woman March, and after that I just traveled around the continental United States. I went just about everywhere something was happening. I've been to New York and all the surrounding states. Washington, Philadelphia, all up and down. Went to Atlanta, Georgia. Got family in the Carolinas, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, went to Florida for film-stuff down there. Went out to California, went to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Milwaukee to the Miller Brewing Company. Went to—in California I was in San Diego. I went to Tijuana, Mexico. I went to Malibu—everywhere. Everywhere I out there I just went, I was out there for a month or something and I just traveled—Texas—there's not many places—Arizona, Palm Springs—so I had a good time after I left Chrysler. I just traveled. And I met people. In California I went to the studios. I was at Spielman's set—well I can't say on the set—I was there—well I was on the set but I was not in the picture-that—<i>90210</i>—that movie—that show—we would watch them make it rain and it was interesting to see how they did that. They had tall sprinklers over the buildings. Like water sprinklers, regular water sprinklers, lawn sprinklers. And they turned them things on and turned on a big fan and it was raining. It was interesting to see a lot of stuff like that. So I had that experience. That was great. Met a guy who was friends—Denzel Washington's partner—they owned the restaurant—out at the LAX. And then a little kid that was saying the Michael Jackson movie, he was the little kid that sang, playing Michael Jackson—just met everybody. Guys who was producing the Tree Stooges movie. I was just meeting everybody. Everywhere I go I ran into people that was doing stuff. We was on the set of <i>Freaks & Geeks</i>—that was a show that came on. I went to a place. They had a show called <i>Quantum Leap</i>. I don't know if you remember that or heard of that but I was in the producer's house. He was a music producer and they kept introducing me to people that are producing shows for Keenan Ivory Wayans, the Wayan Brothers. People from Biloxi, Mississippi, they produced Eddie Murphy when he first got out to California so it was exciting because that was when I was learning TV and wanted to do this stuff so I learned so much about the industry and after I learned all the ins and outs it made me want to come back here and do something. That's why I endeavor to write today—to build a studio. And my brother-in-law is a master electrician, they carpenters, they plumbers, they learn how to build houses and so I could take any old abandoned lot or building and learn how to work them buildings that was burnt up—how they cut the old steel out—I mean the old wood out—replace the wood. So, that's why I said with me getting the studio thing down the road, that can help a lot of people. I want to give back to the city. That's my main thing because I want to be in a position where I can give back, where I can help people who have any type of goal or desire to do something positive. Because almost anyone who wants to do something positive—that's good and positive—I'll work with them. We need truck drivers, caterers, makeup people, photographers, writers, visionaries. So this is something I want to do for the city. Because it's not about the money for me, or even the recognition. I could be in the background. But the one thing, I don't know if I talked to you on the phone—is the day that they brought my daddy's bloody clothes home.</p>
<p>LW: Yeah, why don't you tell us about that day and what your dad was doing that day.</p>
<p>DJ: Yeah, well that day that he left home and he went to the—I told you a lot about me, I'm sorry. Let me get back. But that day he went to the union office—and the story that they told us is that at that time, but I learned later on because I did a CNN story and that time my dad left and went to the union hall and then they said he had got tied up with some guy that had just got of jail and they went and broke into a store. And that was an embarrassment I had for a long time because I know we didn't need any food at that time because that night before that he died, my sisters' boyfriends and some other guys they broke into a store—well they didn't break into it. Someone else broke into it but the took advantage of it—because there was a store—I remember the store. It was right here on Euclid because it sat right in the neighborhood. And they went down there because they were looking at the folks running in and out—just a little neighborhood small ma and pa store. But they went down there and they came back with baskets full of food. And then some of the other neighbor people, they came with all these baskets. They kept just bringing us food because I had all these sisters and these guys wanted to talk to my sisters. They was nice looking—they kept bringing us bags—“What y’all need?”—and I remember sitting on the porch and they brought all this stuff and we had so much food that it was in the neighbor’s house upstairs and across the street and all of that. And it was almost like a prelude to your daddy's going to get killed and you all are really going to need this. I didn't think of it at that time, but when I reflect back, it was like wow, the universe knew and it made sure we had enough stuff until the monies came in that helped tide us over. But like I said he went to the union hall, I went to my job. That was the last time I saw him in the morning when he was getting ready and I went, “See you dad," and I left and I went out and I went on, and I went to work I when I came home he was gone. And so I don't know when they brought his clothes back home. I don't know if it was that next day or whatever but I remember then in the back room and I saw his clothes I was looking at his—because he had blue jeans on and looks like a plaid shirt kind of like the style you have. They were covered with blood because he was shot in the forehead. And what happened is that he and his half-brother who I didn't know abut at that time—none of us did—he had a half-brother. And I think it was my granddad that was with them, and they was riding around by the store. And somebody else, what they said because I went over there and the guy—people who lived across the street, they told me my dad was riding—I guess they were in the area and somebody threw a brick and broke a door and broke a window but the owner was in the store. Okay, and it wasn't my dad or the guys, but they end up—they didn't break the window—but my dad like after he saw it he was going at—not at no food probably some liquor. That's probably what he was looking for. Because he peered through the door, he didn't even get in. I think he stepped the first step and then got in and got shot down right there as I heard. I did a story back in '87 that the twentieth anniversary with CNN and what they told us was that the guy who lived across the street—he was staying down the street—we had taken photos because they used the photos on the CNN interview and the World News. Front page in the newspaper, and that went all over the country to my understanding. I didn't know that at the time. The guy said, "Who are you guys, what are you doing?" I told him my father was killed here. He said, "I saw the whole thing, I sat there right across the street." And I said well I want to talk with you when we finish this photo session. So I did talk to him and he told me what had happened and we didn't know but I believe the car—because when he described the car—and he described older gentlemen. The older gentlemen was my granddaddy—that's what it sound like. My grandfather drove a white Falcon and his hair was white. Well then that is my father and then he said the time the story was said an old man was the daddy and his two sons and I kept saying that couldn't of been right because my father didn't have no brother because his brother died when my father six years old. My daddy used to remember telling us that he would remember they lived upstairs over a confectionary or something. And the story he told us about his brother was named Frank, his half-brother named Frank, he said that he saw an ambulance come—the people downstairs would never turn the heat up and the brother caught pneumonia from that. He said he remembered the ambulance came and took his brother away and he never saw him again.</p>
<p>LW: But he had a half-brother he was with the day that he died?</p>
<p>DJ: Right.</p>
<p>LW: How did they get together that day? Do you know?</p>
<p>DJ: I don't know.</p>
<p>LW: But you had never heard about this half-brother?</p>
<p>DJ: No, I had never heard of him.</p>
<p>LW: Until after you heard that your dad was dead.</p>
<p>DJ: I didn't hear about it until the day I did the interview—maybe members of my family might've known—maybe one? But he had a half-brother—I checked it out. I asked my mother, and she really didn't know about it, but I asked one of my cousins that knew something about it. I still never met this guy until this day.</p>
<p>LW: Until this day?</p>
<p>DJ: I don't know him.</p>
<p>LD: You don't know what happened to him after '67?</p>
<p>DJ: No, I don't know, I never heard of him. But I asked my cousins did they ever hear that my dad had a brother or half-brother and he said, "Yeah, I know something about that but you would have to ask your grandparents." That was the story.</p>
<p>LW: So, based on what the neighbor across the street said, your dad was with two other men—</p>
<p>DJ: Right.</p>
<p>LW: We think the half-brother and your grandpa?</p>
<p>DJ: I believe so. Just from his description.</p>
<p>LW: Based on the description of the car.</p>
<p>DJ: Because my grandfather and my grandmother have passed away—and my mom is gone—so I had nobody to substantiate that story.</p>
<p>LW: Right.</p>
<p>DJ: But as young as I was I remember at that time—and then when we did that story—I think I was in my thirties. I still say that my granddad drove a white Falcon and I was telling my sister and they was saying, "No way, no way it was him." But it sounded like him to me.</p>
<p>LW: And what do you think they were doing that day after your dad left the union office and then the store was on John R. Is that right?</p>
<p>DJ: Stanley's Patent Medicine. My only guess would be these fellas was trying to get a drink. But I don't know, I wasn't there. But that would be my only—something to try to make sense of it—I don't know what type of mindset they was in and that was them that was with them. But my thinking is that maybe they were going in there to get something to drink. The story that they came and told my family at that time is that my dad had got hooked up with someone who had gotten out of jail—which wasn't true, I don't think. Not from what this guy said. Then this guy might've been to jail—I don't know this other guy.</p>
<p>LW: The half-brother maybe?</p>
<p>DJ: Yeah. And then he said they just got into something and that's the story that I heard. I'm like some ten-plus years old. But I never heard anything else about it until the day that I did that interview. And that was in 1987. And I remember them telling me that this is going to make the front page. But I didn't know it was going to make the world news. I wasn't prepared for that.</p>
<p>LW: So at that twentieth anniversary, the story—you sort of think it was rewritten so that it wasn't—</p>
<p>DJ: I certainly felt better about the story that I had been told—that that was truly the case of what really happened. My granddad would never talk to me about it. And that may have been him, because—the reason why I think it may have been him is because that when they tried to contact him to try to get some information about the story—and my grandma—they wouldn't talk. The day that my grandfather—on the day that my daddy died, my granddaddy quit work. He used to work at Chrysler—was it Hamtramck?—Dodge Main. He retired, he never went back to work after that.</p>
<p>LW: What did your dad look like?</p>
<p>DJ: I got a picture over there if you’re ready for you to see it—it's on the computer. I had some other pictures of him. He kind of looked like a black Elvis Presley. He had his hair processed from the thing.</p>
<p>NL: Sideburns?</p>
<p>DJ: Well, I don't know about the sideburns, but, you know, back in the day, we wore the processed hair. We had all of the looks—had your hair permed and waved and that kind of thing. This thing come up—I hope my battery is good, because I leave this thing at home and someone is at the house with it. Here it comes. I don't really know what happened, but it was certainly—when I heard my dad wasn't the person who broke the window—they was going to the store, the guy that I talked to, he asked me, he told me, he was running and telling my father "No! no! no! Don't go in there, don't go in there, the owner's in there and he got a rifle, don't go in there." And so they said my dad looked back, and he just stood in and “pow!” and the shot rang out.</p>
<p>LW: Was there a lot of riot activity on that strip in that neighborhood along John R? Do you remember? Because you lived very close to there, right?</p>
<p>DJ: Yeah, we were close but I mean that's John R and Harper's right over here.</p>
<p>LW: Right.</p>
<p>DW: I lived several, several blocks away.</p>
<p>LW: So, he was driven there, because there was a car.</p>
<p>DJ: Right.</p>
<p>LW: And there—you're not sure about the amount of riot activity along that street.</p>
<p>DJ: There was rioting throughout the city.</p>
<p>LW: Okay.</p>
<p>DJ: It was on fire. The whole sky was red, black, even in the daytime.</p>
<p>LW: Okay.</p>
<p>DJ: I remember that because around me—the store—it was about three blocks up—the store they hit, someone had broken into that night and people just coming out with stuff. I saw them running because I was looking but I wasn't allowed to leave the front yard. But three blocks down you could see people running up with all kinds of stuff. I do remember hollering, “Bring me an ice cream!” [laughter]. That’s what I was thinking. But I never got the ice cream.</p>
<p>LW: What did your dad do for a living?</p>
<p>DJ: He mostly did demolition work I went on several job sites that he had—where they tear down the building and stuff, he dad that work. He worked at Ford once upon a time. We was talking about how he was bouncing out the plant; it was a Ford plant. It might've been the one out here—Wixom? Yeah, Ford Wixom. He worked there. He worked at that Wixom plant. And he also used to work on the docks. I remember he was an excellent swimmer. I remember one night he was knocked off the boat and I remember the police coming to our house. He had arrived shortly before they had got there and my dad was in the tub and when the police came they actually told us that our dad was lost and he was feared to be dead because he got knocked off the boat by a crane or something. And what he did was that he swam up onto the ship and he crawled up—and this was in the wintertime—and he came home. And then the police came. And so when the police came and they was telling us we need to talk to your mom and they was saying, "Sorry, we got some unpleasant news for you." Something about "We think your husband is missing. He was knocked off the ship, we searched for him but couldn't find him." Then my dad came out of the bathroom, towel and all, saying that everything was okay, what's going on? And they was—"Who are you?" "I'm Daniel Jennings." And they said, "Oh, okay sir, you was supposed to contact some folks,” and they went into that.</p>
<p>LW: So, when your dad did die, and the story that you told was that he had been looting a store.</p>
<p>DJ: Right.</p>
<p>LW: That what your mother was told?</p>
<p>DJ: Right.</p>
<p>LW: And what was her reaction to that?</p>
<p>DJ: She was sad. I didn't see my mom crying at all. She was just sad, shaking her head, and I remember that I didn't know what looting was. And that was the word that they used. We were like we don't need no food—they said he was just going in there to get them babies some food. And I didn't understand these patent medicine drug store. Knowing what I know now, and knowing that he did step in the door—they were probably going to get some liquor. I mean truth is truth—that's my analogy of it right now. Like I said, he did step inside the door and the guy did tell me he was trying to warn him, "Hey mister, hey mister, don't go in there!" And they said he stepped in and didn't get a step, and the shot rang out and then he told me they brought him outside, when the police came, they laid him on the sidewalk, on the stretcher. Just laid him out there for a couple hours or more, uncovered and everything. Just like they said this is what you all will get if you come and mess the businesses or something like that. Now that part was hard for me, I really didn't like that, at least they could've covered him up. When I was looking at his bloody clothes I couldn't understand why wouldn't the guy shoot him in the arm or in the leg or something, or fire a warning shot. I guess it's just the heat of the moment or whatever because the guy that had no idea that this guy had fourteen kids at home, and had been struggling that morning just to find work. That’s what he was at the unemployment office for, to register for a job. So I say why did he have to kill him, and I went up there, I went up to the store as an adult, I wanted to see the guy, I didn’t know if he was in there or not. But I would go visit that corner many times, almost once a year and just stand there and one day I just walked in the store and I just stood there by the door but this was when I was in my twenties and thirties when they was still open. And I just looked and I saw a guy standing back there, working, like it was a drug store, a liquor store slash. I think they sold liquor there. And I was looking and I was a saying, “I wonder if this is one of the guys who shot my dad?” I didn’t have any ill intentions or anything but I just—it gave me some kind of comfort and some type of closure and understanding. And I still go there. I just rolled by last week—they building a housing complex. I get this certain feeling when I go on that corner. Is this the corner that my dad took his last breath? And I got closure a couple of years ago when we were in Virginia. I did a story on Virginia, I don’t know if you all saw it on the Internet when you looked up the riot, but it WHSV, when it say, “Riot victims remember son,” ["Riot Victim's Children Remembers Father's Legacy"] and you Google that. We did an interview down there, and I was down there because they was having the Martin Luther King march. They wanted to turn one of the boulevards to name it after Martin Luther King. It was a main boulevard in Harrisonburg, Virginia. I was going to move down there so, and when they was able to change that name to the Martin Luther King Boulevard, that gave me a sense of closure for what happened to my dad. For some reason, I don’t understand it, but it did. Because I know that they died in the same type of struggle. My dad wasn’t out there marching for a cause or anything but it was just the times, he got caught up in it. That moment, I don’t know what led him to go to this store that day. I don’t know what brought that on and as I reflect back that is the only thing I can think of why would he be going in the store like that. I went down there and when I saw that it was Stanley’s Patent Medicine, but I believe they sold liquor. I said maybe he was going there to get a drink. I don’t even remember my dad drinking a lot. He liked black label beer, Pall Mall cigarette, and I don’t even remember seeing him drink any liquor. Maybe it was the other people that were with him, I don’t know.</p>
<p>LW: You mentioned that you didn’t talk much about race relations in your house—</p>
<p>DJ: Never.</p>
<p>LW: But you mentioned that your dad was sort of caught up in the same struggle. Can you talk about what that means?</p>
<p>DJ: Well, what I mean by that is the struggle of the times. I remember riding with him in the car one day and some other brothers and sisters and our house was the last house on the block. They took it out— it's the last house— and put in this Chrysler, 75 Freeway in right here. I remember they were tearing down everything in the neighborhood. I lost a lot of friends. When I say lost, I mean they moved away. I was a boy scout, I would go away to camp, I would come back and they gone, my friends that moved away. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to them. Some of them I never saw again. But I remember I would ride down the street and I remember my dad stopping and just saying— and I didn't understand why he asked the guy—“Can I get some work with you? All you’ll have to give me is 50 cents an hour.” They were tearing up, and demolition is what he did. I don’t remember what the minimum wage was, I imagine it might’ve been a dollar and some change. This was back in 1964-65, a few years before he died. And there is just so much bulldozers and construction everywhere and he was trying "Can I get some work?" and they was like “no.” He’d say, “I’m looking for work.” But that’s the one good thing I say about my dad is that he always was there. I know a lot of guys—I got kids—a couple of them outside my marriage but I always took care of them, child support, had them with me every minute, but the thing is he always was there. He could’ve easily packed. The ways the times was back then. If you remember that movie—I’m trying to think of it. You would have to leave. Back then, the way the welfare in the eighties system worked—they had a movie with James Earl Jones and Julia, Diane Kearle. You might not remember. Julia, she was the first black TV star, female. But they had a movie called <i>Julia. </i>But they did a movie in the seventies that was depicting the times, the situation. I’m trying to think of the best way to say this without it sounding—if you was on welfare, ADC, you weren’t allowed to have new stuff in you house. Like a new iron, or telephone, or car. That’s what this movie was about, I was trying to think of the name of it. I remember when my mother used to call when my dad didn’t find work and she was calling trying to get some work—saying I’ve been trying to get some assistance from the ADC and they told her—“Do you have a man there?” And she’d say, “Yeah, I got a husband here,” then you couldn’t get no help. So the only way that a family could get assistance was that the man had to leave. He had to leave the house. And that’s the only way they’ll help give you food and assistance that you need. I remember us getting the Goodfella Boxes, every Christmas, with all the little toys and trinkets in it. That’s what I’m saying. My dad didn’t leave. He stayed there and struggled through the times and went to find work and stuff. It was the riot times, is what I’m talking about. My daddy wasn’t out there marching against the cause or whatever. He did step into that store, that’s undeniable. So my thought process when I kept going over and over why would he go into this store. And the only thing that I could think of is maybe they were trying to get something to drink. I think my dad probably did take the liquor-drink. I never saw him drink liquor, but I know he drank beer, I know he loved the Pall Mall cigarettes and the what did I say—the Lucky Strike—no, Pall Mall cigarettes and Black Label. There was a beer called Black Label. Oh, that beer, I tried it when I was grew up and it was nasty. I don’t know if it’s still out there, Black Label, but I just didn’t like it. That’s what I meant being caught up in the times—Martin Luther King was caught up in the times—trying to struggle for equality and justice. And this same event that took my dad—was the people was struggling for equality and justice that he just a victim that was caught up in-between it and lost his life. He may’ve been out there just trying to get a drink or whatever. That’s what I mean by the same because it was the same set of circumstances and it was that day, you know, when people lose someone, and they don’t have all the answers. And like I said when I was down in Virginia that day, I felt a sense of closure when they gave him that. This was something the people wanted so bad. I probably wouldn’t even sense that type of feeling but since there was so many people against it in the area, saying, “Well, maybe we can put his name on such-and-such a playground way back over here behind Julio’s farm or something. And I was like, “Wow,” what is so bad about this man having his name up on the boulevard? With so many people, it would bring comfort to them and honor to them. And when they finally won it over, that’s when it made me feel good. I didn’t know I was down there—they put my picture on the front page of the paper. I mean it’s small—with my sister and then they had me on several news clips, and they kept calling me—“You’re on the news, you’re on the news, holding up a sign.” Maybe it was because I was parked right in front of the police station and so maybe they search my license plate and say well who is this guy? Dan Jennings from Detroit, maybe they put that together because they treated me like a celebrity down there, but I didn’t expect it, I didn’t know why. Here’s these pictures I wanted to show you all, together for you to see. This is little short video of my family. This is when we was doing the thirtieth anniversary for my mom, that’s my company Jim [unintelligible] Productions [music in background]. I had better pictures of him but I didn’t get a chance to get them. When he was younger he used to be a paperboy and things like that [music in background]. These are all of my brothers and [unintelligible]. Actually, my mother had one son after all of us—my other brother—last one by my father—he’s deceased—this is at his funeral [music in background]. This is my brother: he’s the one who died. We was at his funeral, the last picture you saw with all the brothers—that’s the last son of my father [music in background]. That’s my mom. I got another picture of my dad, and that’s who all the sister—down here—she died—that’s the second oldest girl, that’s when they was babies. This had to be maybe three or four years before I was born [music in background]. That’s my dad. Right there. That’s him. Again, his dad--his mother, his dad’s twin sister, he had a twin sister, another sister, he had a—my granddaddy, my grandaunt and sister. My dad, my older sister, but she died in 1971. She had a brain tumor; she was twenty-two years old. That’s my mom over here and that’s my dad’s momma—my grandma—right here. And this had to be—looking at their ages from the picture—I’m guessing this is from 1950—Donna was born in ’50. Yeah, so it was 1953-54 something like that [music].</p>
<p>LW: Thank you.</p>
<p>DJ: I know I probably have a ticket down there because it was over with—two o’clock I think. So I just have to deal with that. So I probably left out some stuff because I’m kind of jumping back and forth. But then again—</p>
<p>NL: Do you, because you said you didn’t talk about race relations in the house where you grew up. Is it something you ever discussed with friends or people in the neighborhood?</p>
<p>DJ: I never did. Not during those times. We never—</p>
<p>NL: Were you thinking about it very much at those times?</p>
<p>DJ: No, I never had any problems. Like I said, I had the neighbors and stuff and I didn’t have a lot of dealings with the opposite race or the Caucasian race. I mean, I went over to Highland Park, Hamtramck. There was the Polish over there—but never had any problems. We had a supermarket that was around the corner—Joseph Campau and Holbrook called Buy-Low’s, and I lived over on right [unclear] and Davidson. Which was a nice, little distance. We would venture out as kids. I would ride my bike all the way from the state to the State Fair, and to Belle Isle when I was eight, nine years old. But there’d be groups of us. But we was very responsible and I didn’t have any issues with any of the races or anything. And like the first incident I ever had was the first day before my dad was killed when they was throwing at us and cursing at us and calling us niggers, I never had nothing like that happen. What did they do that for? You know, we never bothered anybody. We were kids. Like <i>Alice in Wonderland</i> and <i>Leave it to Beaver</i>—I was a boy scout and I was raised up—and for a scout, you had to do a good dead for the day. And everyday that I woke up, I had to go out and ask someone, “Can I rake your leaves, cut your grass, wash your windows, you need something from the store?” I had to do that everyday and wasn’t allowed to accept anything for it. Couldn’t accept any money. That was a condition of my parents, my grandparents, and the Scouts. I always had to say, “Yes sir, yes ma’am” to adults. That’s the way I grew up. I remember I was doing the interview in ’87 and I was telling the guy this and he said, “Man, that sound really corny.” And my answer to him was it was the corny truth [laughter]. And it was, the guy who was doing the interview for the news—when I told him that I watch <i>Leave it to Beaver</i>—he said that it sounded really corny and I told him it was corny truth though. That’s the way it was at my house. And I still have a brother to this day, and he was born 1960 so what that make him? Fifty-five years old? He still, wherever he’s at he still—if he find an episode of <i>Leave it to Beaver</i>, he’ll watch it. He will. Just like we got the computers right now, I still love my, because the music. The <i>Gunsmoke</i>, <i>The Fugitive</i>, David Jensen—I don’t know if you heard of that or remember that was a popular show. But just me hearing the soundtrack and the music to these songs it makes me, reminds me of my childhood when I was at home with my mom and dad was right there and we was all watching TV, that’s the only link I have to them right now—is to sit and watch a certain show, and I hear the music playing, like the <i>Gunsmoke</i> music. Because I know my dad loved watching Bat Masterson and <i>Gunsmoke</i> and I hear that music playing and that inside, there’s something that reminds me of home. I get that warm feeling like he’s still a part of me. I know it may sound corny but that’s the truth. It really is. But I didn’t know what they was rioting, looting for. This is the real confusion to me, because when I heard later on that it was about the races—it was white people and it was black people coming up and down the street with baskets of stuff together on my block. And my dad used to ride us downtown—a big thing for us coming up is he’ll pile us all in the car and they’ll get a couple of big bags together and fill them up with tuna fish and bologna sandwiches and jelly sandwiches. And the big thing for us was to ride out to the airport, the city airport, and watch the planes take off. Or to ride up and down Palm Street over here near the old Tiger Stadium because a lot of hippies was there, back then. I mean, you see the psychedelic colors and there be plenty of black folks over there too. So the races was always intermingled. So I didn’t have any recollection—I never was mistreated or called out my name by the whites back then. Not only when the riots started, but then it was a long time after that. I was grown almost, working over here parking cars before I had any understanding—the white races being careful—because I never heard that as a kid. We never talked about it in my house. We played and we had a good time. I did my scout stuff, did my good deed, did my chores. When I rode my bike, and I got to throw this in before we go. One day, my big thing was to come home, ride my bike, play with my football—loved the Lions. Matter-of-fact, the day that my daddy died, the night before, we was sitting on the porch and we was watching the people come up and down the street with baskets of stuff and everything. And he said—he used to call me “June-sack.” I don’t know why because it has nothing to do with who I am or a nickname or whatever. But he’d say, “June-sack, this year we going to catch every game.” He was talking about the Lions and I said, “Yeah,” and that’s why I really felt cheated. The guy who killed my father cheated me out of making every game—we had never been to every game. Those are the things we talked about. And the one thing I want to say is one day I was living on [unintelligible], the street before they tore down—and my dad—he got into the habit—there was so many of us, and we would have stuff just thrown all over the house everywhere. And he’d get up at three, four o’clock in the morning and wake everyone up. “Get up, clean up!” The boys—I was never allowed to wash dishes—because of all the sisters. That may be chauvinistic but there was so many sisters. The girls had to wash the dishes and they had to sweep up. The boys, we had to clean the yard, wash the woodworks around the edge of the floor, I think and do the windows to or something. He would wake us up to do all of that and he took me out in the backyard and said, “I want you to clean up back here in front of the garage,” took me on the side, “I want you to clean up all this trash, clean up the garbage stains.” I learned a valuable lesson that day that brought me to tears—the day we did the twentieth anniversary, because it gave me “stick-to-it-of-ness.” He said, “Have all this done by the time I get home from work and I ain’t got to tell you twice.” And I said, “No, you don’t.” When he came home, I’m outside throwing my football, just having a great time. And then my daddy call me—“June-sack, come here boy, Reggie come here.” And so when I go in the house he say, “You do everything I tell you to do?—come on, let’s go see.” So I went back to the backyard, all straightened up, all neat. “Good job son, good job.” And then he said, “You burn the trash like I said, you set the cans up on the thing like I tell you to do?” Go back there it was all done, everything. I knew I hadn’t done it so we go into the house, “I got one more thing to show you.” They used to throw away a lot of refrigerators, stoves, and washers and dryers, they had the big boxes laying on the curb. My dad had got one and laid it out all flat in our family room. My bike, which was a pretty, red, Schwinn racer. And I had all the toys. I had mirrors on it, hub-a-light, streamers, siren, saddlebag in the back—pretty. I mean all the girls wanted me for that bike. It was in a thousand pieces. He had took the chain link off my bike, the handlebars off, the gooseneck, the paddles, the spokes are loose. He just took everything off. The fork was off, and it was just laying there neat in a hundred pieces and say, “Now put it back together.” I didn’t know what to do. I was maybe seven or eight. And he gave me a pair of pliers; he gave me a crescent wrench, and a screwdriver. I never will forget them three because I didn’t know what to do with them. And he said, “You’re not leaving this room until you put this back together.” For three days, all day week-ends and after school I had<br /> to come in there and sit in that room with that bike. I’m crying, hair knotted-up, snot running in/out the nose; and he came and showed me a little piece here and a little piece there and I end up fixing the bike because it had handbrakes and he took all that lose. But that was such a valuable, valuable lesson to me at t hat time I didn’t realize it. Once I got this bike back together I became the bike repairman in the whole neighborhood. I would put the bikes together-the double bikes they had at Belle Isle that you had a seater-heater, and I’d take the front wheel off of this one and put it on the back of that one and even in my business, when I endeavored to do my magazine and no matter what type of challenges that was thrown at me and I kept remembering you better not quit, you had better stay to see it finished even if the day you finish you walk away then but you don’t quit, you don’t stop short. He taught me that and the day that we did the twentieth anniversary, you know, my picture’s in the paper and they had a little picture of him I think. I cried when I saw that for some reason because for some reason it made me think about that day that he took that bike loose. I was dealing with so many challenges at that time—they trying to force me out of business—I say negative forces. And trying to shut my office down, they had [unclear] and my car up got blown up and all kinds of crazy stuff. There was people who saw this business stuff and didn’t want it to happen. But I didn’t deter from it. I just kept going strong. That’s probably the last thing I have to say about it but it gave me strength and a sense of closure that day. The city, I want to see it flourish, I want to see it happen. Even though I’m out in Taylor, Michigan right now--’m getting ready to move back to Detroit—possibly in the next couple of months. Hopefully, or it may be a little while. I want to build a complex here. I want to build something that will help the people—just create jobs and teach people. There is a lot of talented derelicts out on the street. Not to take away from anybody, I can’t compete with any of the major studios or the entertainment complex that they’re putting down here—Ilitch and all them guys—but I want to be able to help create something that could compliment what they doing. See, if I can create something that can compliment it. The existing infrastructure, then these people won’t to worry about people coming to rob them or hit them in the head, because they got a legitimate skill. I’ve worked successfully so many times with the neighborhood gangs down here where I used to have a store down on Joy Road and Evergreen, a sportswear store. They got themselves a couple of little gang factions—they call themselves the Bloods and the Crips of all things. I had come up with an idea because they had broken into my store, broke into a couple of businesses next to me—so I started calling them guys over into my sportswear store—I wish I had brought my portfolio, showing I had my prototype magazine and was setting it up for worldwide distribution and showing them pictures with [unintelligible] and Leon Spinks and Hearns and all them guys—I had Hearns products in my store. I was telling these guys—“You all living this life out here, robbing and breaking into these stores,”—I thought of an idea, I said, “You know what you guys could do, for as little as fifty dollars, or twenty dollars, you guys could start a business. Think about it. Get you a wagon, get you a bucket of water, some vinegar, and some newspaper.” That’s what my grandma used to have us clean her windows with and say, “You can go up and down Joy Road here and get twenty businesses and they’ll pay you fifty dollars to clean they windows every other week; that’s a hundred bucks a month.” Then I say, “You can clean they awnings also.” And now I say, “What if you got twenty businesses? To do the windows and awnings. Just do four hundred dollars, starting out, that’s two thousand dollars; then if you get a mobile on Warren and over on Clement. That’s six thousand dollars, instead of you breaking into these businesses, now they are a source of revenue.” They listened. They all came to my store and then I said—I talked to all the stores and businesses around there and they was agreeing to let these guys do this instead of breaking into they place. I said we’ll design you a little logo—if you picture the Pepsi-Cola logo—it’s red and blue—that you guys—different gang members that are fighting each other—will represent one of these businesses. I said, “Instead of you going up and down the street running—imagine you being chased down the street—but not by each other with knives and guns—but being chased by people because you a celebrity. They’re chasing you with an ink pen because they want your autograph. You a celebrity now, because you was able to start that little musical group thing you was trying to do—you was able to open that little bakery for your mother—that she want a little bakery shop up here. You were able to open up a little sewing shop, because now you got money going into the bank. I’ll show you how to set up a bank account and get going.” They had all the gangs in my store—my store was no bigger than this room—a little bit—but one morning they all peeking around the buildings and—I had started talking to them and their parents started coming up talking to me—but they snatched me off the scene that day because I went into a divorce at that time. So they forced my store to close and I kind of lost contact with these kids—this was back in ’95. But they would really listen, and they would say, “We been listening to you, and nobody else talked to us like you do.” And that’s all these kids in the gangs want. They want to feel a sense of belonging, that somebody like them, or show them something because I kept talking to them. I would even give them money sometimes—four or five dollars—I’d ask, “What are you all going to do with it?” If it’s going to keep you from going and hitting somebody in the head or whatever, I’d give them twenty dollars and go—“Well come back and see me. I got a little chore I need you all to do.” And the chore was Charles Costa. You all know that name? Chuck Costa, he used to have a paint shop—he ran for mayor a few years ago. He used to have a big paint shop on Grand River. I think he still may be around somewhere but originally he was from Canada. He had a paint store it was called “The Paint Store.” He ran for mayor sometime in the nineties. He said he’d donate all the paint that we needed. I promised them kids that if they would come and paint the graffiti off the buildings. If I get the paint and you paint the graffiti off the buildings then I’ll take you to a ball game. We’ll have a car wash and help raise some money, wash the cars, then I’ll print, I was giving them t-shirts out my shop, printing nice stuff it—positive. They agreed to do the car wash, they wanted to go to the ball game, but a broke-up in my marriage and that kind of stripped everything away from me. I took years trying to get back on my feet. But that process of work, today, still, it’s still work. I talked to them about instead of you robbing the businesses and having graffiti, I say, “Think of what it would be like if your moms could sit up here at one of these restaurant-shops in an open area with chairs and at night they could come down and you guys is watching and helping patrol the area, I ain’t saying like gangsters but now you all grew up. You got on suits and ties, but now instead of you breaking in, every business you look at, you got a source of revenue coming from it, that’s helping you out. And then, up and down your block, this is the stuff you have to do. I said I could get you all, actually, to meet with the mayor, to probably sit at the White House someday. We could make this work. Go up and down the block, talk to the block club leaders, go up to Evergreen and Reynold, we’ll rent the lawn mower, and we’ll go and cut all the people that can’t afford to get their lots.” And this is the type of stuff that I’m into. They were starting to do it, and I asked each of them to write me at least a one page letter about what they wanted to be when they grew up—what you all want to start doing positive once you all start making money. And I had a stack of letters this thick. But the system took me away from all of that. I was trying to help these kids and they was starting to listen, but I know something like that’ll work. They’re still reachable—it’ll work. These youngsters out here want to do something positive; they just don’t have guidance and leadership. But I showed them success, I had my book, I had pictures with me and a lot of celebrities, pictures I had taken from traveling around the country, and pictures with mayors and all different people like that. Oh, you know so and so and you did this and that—I was driving a nice car—and I said you can have these type of things without cutting and shooting one another. But like I say, that’ll be a great feeling for me to be chased, but not by someone with a knife or gun but by someone with an ink pen—hey, can I get your autograph. They like that. That’ll work, and I’m going to make it happen one day when I get this studio. What I’m going to do when I get this studio all set up. I looked into the possibility of bringing in—back in ’95—I still got the book at home—they had to pay like all these hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits. Like the Philip-Morris Company—all the tobacco companies, right—millions. I thought about building a facility—I’m so loaded with great ideas. I thought about them building this infrastructure—this facility—somewhere in the heart of the city—and they can have their names on it as contributors of—my brothers could even build it—they got the background—journeymen, and master electrician brother-in-law—and we’ll bring in other companies too. In the center I want a place where the youngsters can learn computers—or even the elderly people can learn computers—they can learn skills. I want them to bring in the local police chief, the pastors, everyday people with businesses and talk to them. And I want then to go through a seminar—orientation—that was the word I was looking for. Like they go through an orientation for a week or two weeks. First they talk to the different businesses—they talk to the people from Habitat For Humanity—talk to people like myself that would be interested in doing a video—I was printing t-shirts. We can teach you all these different ways you can be successful out here. And then after you graduate, I’ll have a jacket printed for maybe twenty students at-a-time. I can get Pepsi-Cola, or one of the local companies help contribute to the jackets—to purchase them—and I will print them—give them a wholesale price or whatever. I would take the loss—just getting them out here. And people like stuff like that and this would help them. Because when each one of them left there, they would have a positive outlook on what they could be. If you want to do music, if you want to do writing, photography, you want to be a law enforcement officer, or pursue a career in the military. I would have all those officials and individuals come there and speak to them. I would try to have some type of incentive program, an award program, and hopefully when they left they would leave with a positive attitude toward doing something positive in the city. And if we could reach just one, that would have been a great benefit because they’ll go out and reach others. And lastly, I used to talk to these kids—when I started dealing with these gang members coming in—because all this was in me from what happened to my dad. I didn’t want him to go out there—because, you see, he lost his life.</p>
<p>LW: Mmm-hmm.</p>
<p>DJ: Maybe they probably had a few beers and they let’s go to the store—whatever the situation—was that they wouldn’t have to look for that as a resource. When they got finished in the class that we taught them constructive—no matter what was happening in society—they would always follow a positive way out of any negative or financial situation they was in. And that’s basically the message I wanted to give them—the ammunition that I wanted to give them is that you don’t have to pick up a gun or a knife. You don’t have to steal, you don’t have to rob—you can get it positively. And that’s the main message I wanted to put to them. I still see this facility existed today. I used to talk to them, I used to say, “Now, when you go to school”—I was watching this movie the other day—<i>Dangerous Minds</i>—you probably saw that. I thought that was a great system where she gave them an “A.” And it’s harder to keep it, it really is, than it is to earn it. Especially when you haven’t done the things to earn it. You really got and go extra-study—I used to tell them about the attitude adjustment. Those were the things I was teaching them. I would tell them, “If you came home one day and, say, someone tore the curtain up. Say your sister tore it up and she told them—“It was you” and you came in and told them “I didn’t do it, it was her, here’s the proof.” So the next day you come home—she took your favorite white basketball outfit or favorite white walking suit and she took it out back and she slushed it in the mud and got the basketball and dribbled all over it and then she threw it down at your door. When you walked in the door, I said, “What’s going to be your reaction to that.” When you walk in your reaction is going to be I’m going to kick her so-and-so—not there. I say, think about this, I say what if you was able to come in and you see your suit right there and your attitude was different. What if you said, “Oh, clumsy me, I left this suit out in the mud and it got all dragged and messed up.” And you picked it up and you dusted it off in front of her and said, “I got to take this coat to the cleaners, I got to go wash it, do you need anything washed sis? I could wash yours, take it to the cleaners. I’m even going to pay for it.” I said, “What do you think would happen to her mindset after that?” You just blew her mind because she didn’t get the reaction she was expecting. I say people do things because they want a certain reaction. But I said, what if someone did something to you—they hit you or they ticked you off or got you mad—embarrassed you in front of the other person? What if you didn’t react the way that they did? What if you turned around and said, “Well, yeah man”—even if they were wrong—what if you say, “You might have a point there; let me shake your hand,” and turned and walked away from it. Then maybe at a later date you came back and dealt with that person and said something positive like “That wasn’t the way to handle that.” I said, “You wouldn’t be dead, and that person wouldn’t be in jail for killing you, or vice versa. You need to think about those kinds of things—learn how to control your reaction, and you’ll live another day.” I still want to do that. Okay, I’m going to get ready to get out of here, unless you need something else.</p>
<p>LW: No, thank you so much.</p>
<p>DJ: I hope that I have answered all your questions. See, because I can go all day; we’ll be here past midnight. You got to stop me. So I’m going to get myself out of here.</p>
<p>LW: Thank you, Daniel. That was really nice. Thank you.</p>
<p>DJ: Thank you all. I was glad to say all of the memories that I have for that time.</p>
<p>LW: Good.</p>
<p>DJ: Because everything I said to my knowledge is true, and just--and that’s all I can say. It’s true, I can remember that happened.</p>
<p>LW: Thank you very much.</p>
<p>DJ: But you’ll be hearing about me, soon. Because I’m going to do this video, production company and all positive stuff. Trying to help make a difference out here. I know I talked a lot today but—it’s my dad—I just want his name to remain alive. Whatever accomplishments I make out here—they’ll ask—“Well, who is this guy? Where did he come from?” And mentioning my name they’ll have to remember him. And that’s basically what I want—his name to live. Okay, thank you.</p>
<p>LW: Thank you.</p>
**
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Daniel Jennings, June 19th, 2015
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1967 riots-Detroit-Michigan
Breitmeyer Elementary School—Detroit—Michigan
Jennings, Daniel
looting
riots
Stanley’s Patent Medicine—Detroit--Michigan
Description
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In this interview, Jennings recounts the day his father, Reginald Jennings, was killed during the 1967 civil unrest. He also discusses growing up in Detroit and attending Detroit Public Schools in the 1960s and 70s. <br /><br /><strong>***Note: This interview contains profanity and/or explicit language. </strong>
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Breitmeyer Elementary School
Childhood
Children
Growing Up In Detroit
Looting
Mercy Hospital
Reginald Jennings
Stanley’s Patent Medicine
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https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/ec289d79ae9802be902bdfc0f3a7f5ff.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
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
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en-us
Date
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10/20/2019
Written Story
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We were celebrating my next day birthday on Saturday. Mrs. Frank and I went home late in the evening and about 5:30 AM I received a call from ADT that there was a civil disturbance on 12th Street and they could not respond to the alarm nor would the police respond. I turned to my wife and said, “I think we are out of business”. I was right. We operated a very large pawnshop called the US Loan Office. Our stock included hundreds of rifles and shotguns (all gone). We had two large jewelry safes. One was rolled out of the building and pushed down the street with a car. The other, larger one was finally opened after a long time and, according to the owner of a bar in the building, the person that got it open was assaulted and knocked unconscious while others cleaned out the safe. The building had a very large rotating sign that the National Guard shot out because the light outlined them. The building, about 12,000 square feet, was totally emptied. We later went to court when a few of the weapons turned up and all the defendants were more or less known to me and my partner. We never re-opened.
Original Format
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email message
Submitter's Name
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Bob Frank
Search Terms
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12th street, pawn shop, looting, Michigan National Guard
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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Bob Frank
Description
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Bob Frank recalls the theft and looting of his business, a pawnshop on Twelfth Street.
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society
Date
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08/03/2015
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Text
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en-US
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Coverage
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||||osm
12th Street business district, Detroit, MI
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Business Owners
Detroit Workers
Looting
Michigan National Guard
Pawn Shop
Twelfth Street
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https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/d492f278f877b684448aab9ecd1cae00.JPG
5f0e7bc8e9225de42c7815860ae35c63
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
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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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Henry Stallings
Brief Biography
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Henry Stallings was born December 30, 1950 in San Diego, California and moved to Detroit as an infant. He grew up in the Conant Gardens neighborhood and has been an active member of the Detroit community. From 1994-1998 he served as a State Senator in the Michigan legislature, representing 400,000 citizens of Detroit. He currently lives in the Rivertown neighborhood of Detroit.
Interviewer's Name
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Lillian Wilson
Interview Place
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Rivertown Assisted Living, Detroit, MI
Date
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07/02/2015
Interview Length
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41:52
Transcriptionist
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Noah Levinson
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Austin, Richard
Engler, John
Stallings, Edsel
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Conant Gardens,
Detroit Pershing High School, Lansing, looting
Michigan State Senate, Renaissance Center,
Riverfront
Transcription
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<p>LW: Today is Thursday, July 2, 2015. This is the interview of Henry Stallings by Lily Wilson. We are at Rivertown Assisted Living in Detroit, Michigan. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project. Henry, can you start by telling me your birthdate?</p>
<p>HS: Twelve, thirty, [December 30], 1950.</p>
<p>LW: And where were you born?</p>
<p>HS: Where was I born? In San Diego, California.</p>
<p>LW: So when did you come to Detroit?</p>
<p>HS: In 1950.</p>
<p>LW: And about how old were you then?</p>
<p>HS: About 16 [note: Stallings was 16 in 1967].</p>
<p>LW: When you moved to Detroit, where did you live? What neighborhood?</p>
<p>HS: In Conant Gardens. The first black subdivision in the United States.</p>
<p>LW: Do you remember the street name?</p>
<p>HS: Joseph Campau. 18630 Joseph Campau.</p>
<p>LW: Awesome, okay. And what do you remember about July of 1967, when you were living in Detroit?</p>
<p>HS: Well in 1968 [sic], Detroit was a beautiful town. I remember my family and I were coming back from Grand Haven, Michigan. It was on a Sunday, I remember that. And as we’re coming back [to] Detroit I remember, when we were approaching, there was like a big cloud of smoke in the sky. Couldn’t really tell what was going on. So I said, “Dad, what’s happening? Where’s all that smoke coming from?” As we got closer to town we could smell the smell of burning smoke and everything, and my father would say that according to the radio that was going on at the time that there was a riot going on in the city of Detroit. As we approached it closer we could see the riot. Everything was aflame. Buildings were being burned down. I remember we came off on Davison Avenue and we came off on Davison Avenue and Linwood, which was right in the center of the fire of the riots. We could see people looting and burning and stealing stuff. It was a terrible thing.</p>
<p>LW: About how old were you at that time, in July of ‘67.</p>
<p>HS: About 16 years old.</p>
<p>LW: Okay, so you were about 16 years old during that summer, and your family was living on Joseph Campeau at the address that you gave us. What did your mom and dad do for a living?</p>
<p>HS: Well my dad worked for the City of Detroit.</p>
<p>LW: What did he do?</p>
<p>HS: He was—earlier he worked for the State of Michigan. For the Treasury Department. He was a treasury employee.</p>
<p>LW: And your mom—did she?</p>
<p>HS: Was a homemaker.</p>
<p>LW: She was a homemaker okay. And how many brothers and sisters did you have?</p>
<p>HS: There was six of us.</p>
<p>LW: Wow.</p>
<p>HS: A bunch of us.</p>
<p>LW: And what was it like growing up in Detroit during those years, after you moved here from San Diego?</p>
<p>HS: Well, I went to high school and everything here in Detroit.</p>
<p>LW: What high school?</p>
<p>HS: Pershing High School.</p>
<p>LW: What was that like?</p>
<p>HS: It was an awesome experience.</p>
<p>LW: Awful?</p>
<p>HS: Awesome.</p>
<p>LW: The opposite of awful, it was awesome. What made it awesome?</p>
<p>HS: It was a school where everybody appeared to challenge each other educationally, athletically. Because I ran track, played basketball.</p>
<p>LW: What was your event?</p>
<p>HS: In 1968 I was about 18 years old, so I was old enough to really get involved in sports, the Future Teachers Society. I was involved in just about every organizations in high school.</p>
<p>LW: And what did you go on to do? What was your profession after that?</p>
<p>HS: You talking about after high school?</p>
<p>LW: After high school. Yeah, what did you do after high school?</p>
<p>HS: After high school I went to college at Oakland Community College, and then I went on to Western Michigan [University] where I majored in Business. And after that I went to—I worked for a company. I worked part-time for a supermarket. And then after I got out of high school [sic] I went to work for the Xerox corporation. That was my first real, real job after college. From there I ended up being the number one marketing executive in the country for Xerox.</p>
<p>LW: Congratulations, that’s a big thing.</p>
<p>HS: And I travelled all around the world with them in corporate jets and stuff</p>
<p>LW: Wow.</p>
<p>HS: So it was a great experience. I learned business and everything.</p>
<p>LW: When did you retire?</p>
<p>HS: When did I retire?</p>
<p>LW: When, yeah.</p>
<p>HS: Well, actually I did that until it was time for me to—I went into the legislature, I ran for office and won.</p>
<p>LW: What office did you run for?</p>
<p>HS: State Senator.</p>
<p>LW: Oh wow.</p>
<p>HS: So I became a State Senator and worked in Lansing. So I had quite an experience there.</p>
<p>LW: I can imagine. That’s incredible. I want to ask you more about that in a minute, but I want to go back to the late 1960s when you were a high school student.</p>
<p>HS: Okay.</p>
<p>LW: What was your high school like in terms of the racial breakdown of students?</p>
<p>HS: Well, I went to Pershing High School, so it was like, 50 percent white, 50 percent black. It wasn’t like it was today, segregated or anything like that. Everybody got along, you know.</p>
<p>LW: Were you friends with white students?</p>
<p>HS: A ton of them.</p>
<p>LW: Wow, okay.</p>
<p>HS: I had a bunch of friends growing up in high school and we all got along.</p>
<p>LW: And did you stay friends with any of them throughout the rest of your life?</p>
<p>HS: Yeah.</p>
<p>LW: You did, okay. Do you think that was a typical experience for there to be white and black students as friends in your high school?</p>
<p>HS: Absolutely.</p>
<p>LW: In the neighborhood that you grew up in, on Joseph Campeau, how was that, in terms of the racial breakdown of the neighborhood?</p>
<p>HS: It was the same thing, you know. It was sharply divided. There was one area of town where the Polacks lived. And the other side of the town was where the Irish and Chaldeans, so it was quite interesting. And then you cross over John R—you had Jews that lived over there, you had people that were of ethnic backgrounds.</p>
<p>LW: On the other side of John R, did you say?</p>
<p>HS: Yeah, on the other side of John R.</p>
<p>LW: Other side of John R. So you noticed that there was a divide.</p>
<p>HS: And you didn’t go over there.</p>
<p>LW: What would happen if you went over there?</p>
<p>HS: Depending on what time of day it was, you could get beat up or chased back across Seven Mile.</p>
<p>LW: By who?</p>
<p>HS: By the people that lived over there.</p>
<p>LW: So the neighborhood that you grew up in was more diverse in terms of black and white.</p>
<p>HS: Oh yeah.</p>
<p>LW: And what would you describe the class breakdown. Was it mainly middle class people? Working class people? Upper middle class?</p>
<p>HS: They were all working class people.</p>
<p>LW: All working class.</p>
<p>HS: There wasn’t anybody, like, rich. If they were we didn’t know they were [laughter]. I didn’t know they were. I didn’t know that I was in poverty. I never knew that as a kid.</p>
<p>LW: Were you?</p>
<p>HS: No.</p>
<p>LW: In July of 1967, you said you were driving back from Grand Haven with your family.</p>
<p>HS: Right. When the riots started.</p>
<p>LW: So what did you feel? You had been at this very diverse—sounds like a good experience in high school in terms of racial—relationships between different students of different backgrounds at your high school. So when you were driving back from Grand Haven that day, was it really the first time that you have thought about the possibility of there being some sort of violent reaction based on tension?</p>
<p>HS: Not really. I couldn’t even understand why they was even having a riot. I was 18 years old. Why even have a riot? And then we get into town, to see tanks rolling up and down, it was really a trip.</p>
<p>LW: I bet.</p>
<p>HS: You’d see people were rioting and stealing stuff.</p>
<p>LW: So what’d you think? How did you feel?</p>
<p>HS: It was crazy. I mean, we went down Livernois and there’s a place, I always remember this, at Livernois and—I want to say—I’m trying to think of the street at the time—</p>
<p>LW: That’s okay.</p>
<p>HS: It was Outer Drive.</p>
<p>LW: Outer Drive.</p>
<p>HS: Right at the corner of Outer Drive and Livernois, somebody drove up and busted out the window at Outer Drive and Seven Mile and literally stole an organ out of the front window, at Livernois and Outer Drive.</p>
<p>LW: You saw someone doing that?</p>
<p>HS: Yeah, put it in their truck and drive off with it.</p>
<p>LW: Were you confused as to why they were doing that?</p>
<p>HS: Yeah, I didn’t even understand why they would do all this rioting. It didn’t make any sense. Stealing TVs and soap powder and stuff.</p>
<p>LW: Why do you think people were doing that?</p>
<p>HS: Well they didn’t need an organ. Yeah, I couldn’t understand why he was stealing an organ in the middle of the day. What are you going to do with it? But I wasn’t old enough to realize it. That eventually they were going to sell it.</p>
<p>LW: Why do you think people were stealing things like TVs and organs?</p>
<p>HS: Probably to better themselves, that’s what a riot is all about.</p>
<p>LW: What do you think a riot is all about?</p>
<p>HS: They were trying to rectify their economic situation by stealing from others and burning down buildings and looting all that kind of stuff, it helped them to, maybe better their financial condition. I didn’t really understand it, ‘til I got older.</p>
<p>LW: When you asked your dad about why people were doing this, what was going on, what did he say to you? How did he explain it to you and your brothers and sisters?</p>
<p>HS: He explained it to us, “Stop taking those pictures before you get us killed.” [Laughter]</p>
<p>LW: So you were taking photographs?</p>
<p>HS: Somewhere I got photographs of the whole event.</p>
<p>LW: Where are those photographs?</p>
<p>HS: I got to find them. I wish I had them. Same thing on Linwood and—busted into the drugstore and stealing stuff, I got pictures of all of that.</p>
<p>LW: You had the camera with you on that Sunday.</p>
<p>HS: I was a camera nut.</p>
<p>LW: So you liked taking pictures?</p>
<p>HS: I had all kind of pictures.</p>
<p>LW: So you had your camera with you when you were coming back from family vacation, from Grand Haven. And you took pictures from the back seat of the car I’m assuming?</p>
<p>HS: Front seat.</p>
<p>LW: Oh you got to sit in the front seat.</p>
<p>HS: Leaning out the car taking pictures. I wish I could find those pictures.</p>
<p>LW: I wish you could too.</p>
<p>HS: I’ll always remember coming up off the Davison Freeway, right there at Davison and the Lodge. Right there, broke into that drug store right there on the corner. And when they broke in, they took the windows off and would go in just stealing stuff. It was a trip.</p>
<p>LW: And there you are taking pictures. So, dad was upset that you were leaning out the car window taking pictures.</p>
<p>HS: He didn’t care. I was a photography nut back then.</p>
<p>LW: He knew. But he was worried that as time when on—</p>
<p>HS: That I might get in trouble.</p>
<p>LW: That you might get in trouble. And how far was your house from that area where you were taking pictures and seeing all this stuff?</p>
<p>HS: Well at Davison and—not that far. Because you take Davison, go all the way back down Davison and come up at the Lodge, and make a left and go straight down Joseph Campeau, I was at the last block of Joseph Campeau in Hamtramck, you know.</p>
<p>LW: Were you worried that people were going to start looting and rioting in your neighborhood?</p>
<p>HS: No. They didn’t do nothing in my neighborhood.</p>
<p>LW: Why do you think that was?</p>
<p>HS: Because there was nothing. What were they going to take in our neighborhood? A vegetable garden? [Laughter] A dog?</p>
<p>LW: So there wasn’t enough business there that they may have stolen things from.</p>
<p>HS: There’s no value to come to our neighborhood and do any rioting or anything.</p>
<p>LW: What kind of businesses were there?</p>
<p>HS: Gas stations, stores. I used to work at the Fruit Ranch at Seven Mile and Conant.</p>
<p>LW: What did you do there?</p>
<p>HS: It was a fruit market, so I worked in a fruit market, and then I worked at a cleaners. Actually, I worked at every business in that block—as a kid. I worked at a meat market, I learned how to be a butcher. I learned how to speak Serbian, as a kid, because all the Serbians that lived in the neighborhood used to come into the store, so I learned to say, “Kako si dobro,” so I speak to them, they would order a hamburger or neck bones, or some kind of food, cut it up for them and stuff—steaks, pork chops, so I learned how to make all of that.</p>
<p>LW: You certainly experienced a lot of different racial and ethnic groups.</p>
<p>HS: Absolutely. Every Saturday, I would learn how to—they would come from all around and could speak Polish, Serbian, a whole ethnic mix of people. I didn’t know at the time, their ethnicity, I didn’t really realize that as a kid, that this person is from Serbia, I didn’t even know what that was. What’s a Serbian?</p>
<p>LW: How do you think that that experience shaped your decision to go into politics later on in your life?</p>
<p>HS: Well later on in my life it helped me to understand that people are different. They have very diverse backgrounds, and they come from different ways of life, and eat different foods, and certainly had different makeups, and that no two people are alike. And then growing up, when I was in the AFS—American Field Service—in high school, they were in that organization. I didn’t realize that they all came from different ethnic backgrounds. See, when you grow up as a kid everybody is of a different ethnic background. You don’t know it, you just know they come from somewhere else, but they become friends with you and you don’t know that—you don’t know ‘til you get older that you grew up with a guy from Turkey, and that they’re at home eating different meals; they don’t even eat the same foods you eat.</p>
<p>LW: Did you ever go to your friends houses?</p>
<p>HS: All the time.</p>
<p>LW: And you ate different foods?</p>
<p>HS: Yep.</p>
<p>LW: Turkish food?</p>
<p>HS: You don’t even know what it was. All kinds of crazy stuff.</p>
<p>LW: There were a lot of interesting things you got to experience—</p>
<p>HS: Oh yeah. </p>
<p>LW: As a child and as a teenager. Do you remember, back at school, after July of '67, did the teachers or the kids in school talk about what had happened and all the violence?</p>
<p>HS: Not really, it wasn’t really that big of a deal. You know it happened, but nobody really talked about it, like we didn’t go to class and they say, “Well, we having a riot today”—it really wasn’t that big of a deal.</p>
<p>LW: So you weren’t worried about there being rioting in your neighborhood.</p>
<p>HS: No, not at all.</p>
<p>LW: What was it like living in Detroit after the riots? What did you see, what did you notice, what did you hear?</p>
<p>HS: Well you noticed everybody started having, like New Detroit became a major thrust in the community.</p>
<p>LW: What was that all about?</p>
<p>HS: New Detroit was like an organization that—see we had a guy whose father was the [deputy] mayor, Mr. Green, Gregory Green’s father was the deputy mayor. He lived over on Mitchell. So that’s how we became somewhat politically active. We knew him and so his father lived a block away from us and he’s the only one we knew that was a political figure, because he had a brand new car all the time he used to drive [laughter]. He was the mayor, I always remember that, Gregory Green’s father—Walter Green, drove a brand new Chevrolet every day, back and forth to work, we always everybody knew that, that that was the mayor’s car.</p>
<p>LW: Right, he was the deputy mayor under Roman Gribbs.</p>
<p>HS: Roman Gribbs, yeah, during the Gribbs administration.</p>
<p>LW: Did he inspire you at all to go into politics?</p>
<p>HS: Not at all, I was still young. I didn’t know nothing about politics because I was just a 16, 17-year-old kid, but we knew who he was. I don’t even know if I voted for him or not, I don’t think I was old enough to vote.</p>
<p>LW: Maybe not.</p>
<p>HS: It wasn’t ‘til I got into college that I became politically active. I became the student government president in college. I won the election there—when I was the student government president, they wrote about me.</p>
<p>LW: At Western Michigan?</p>
<p>HS: Because as student government president—I ran for Congress, in 1968, and I almost won the election and they wrote a story about me in the paper.</p>
<p>LW: That must have felt really good to get recognition.</p>
<p>HS: Yeah. That was my first foray into politics.</p>
<p>LW: After you worked for Xerox, tell me about the work that you did for the State of Michigan.</p>
<p>HS: For the State of Michigan?</p>
<p>LW: I’m really actually curious about what your race was like to become elected. What was that like?</p>
<p>HS: Well, it was interesting because, I know I was real popular and well-known, I never thought that I could win a seat like that, but I did and then I took office and that was really an experience—working in the legislature, you know making laws every day that affected people. That was quite an experience.</p>
<p>LW: What were the race relations like in the state government? Can you tell me about how many black people were there, how many white people, how many women, how many men?</p>
<p>HS: When I worked in the legislature there was 98 members of the legislature, and we fought every single day just to try to make sure that the laws that would pass would not impact the people that were in government. It was a sad thing because the Republicans were really in charge, and a guy named John Engler, to me one of the craziest governors that Michigan could possibly have, was in place, but we survived. I passed a bill, the Renaissance Zone, I remember him telling me, “Yup, we’re going to pass this bill, but you can’t have it. It’s too nice of a bill.”</p>
<p>LW: What did he mean by that?</p>
<p>HS: We were gonna have to have some co-sponsors that were Republicans that would benefit from the bill we wanted to pass. So I went on and agreed to a lot of co-sponsorship and they passed it.</p>
<p>LW: This would have been in the late 1980s?</p>
<p>HS: Right [sic].</p>
<p>LW: When were you elected?</p>
<p>HS: In 1994. From 1994 to 1998.</p>
<p>LW: So you served a four year term. Do you remember there being, at that point, any tension based on race?</p>
<p>HS: Yes.</p>
<p>LW: How? Can you tell me about that?</p>
<p>HS: Well it was all based on where you lived and—because you have to remember as a Senator you represented about 400,000 people. And when we passed the bill for the Renaissance Zone, certain Senators got certain areas, like I got Southwest Detroit, and Eight Mile and Mack [sic] where the Medical Center was, and the school that’s right there the—I can’t think of the name of the school right there at Mack and—they benefited from it because that was a Renaissance Zone. There was a school there. The [Max ?] Theater, had a school around the corner, was the one of the benefits of the Renaissance Zone, and the Medical Center, they benefited from it.</p>
<p>LW: From the bill that you passed, to make that a Renaissance Zone, and part of the Renaissance Zone was getting funding?</p>
<p>HS: Yeah. That’s how they built the school.</p>
<p>LW: From the State of Michigan?</p>
<p>HS: Yeah.</p>
<p>LW: Now, when you say that it all depended on where you live, what do you mean by that?</p>
<p>HS: That certain people got certain areas for the Renaissance bill legislation. I mean, that’s just how they divided it up. There was no reason or rhyme, it’s just that, it’s not who you know, but how successful you were in getting your piece of the pie in your area. I’ve seen people all around the state got their slices, you know. That’s just how they break things down in government. They still do it like that today. Right now today, you can rest assured that, like they’re trying to fix the roads, you better believe that only certain areas are going to get their roads fixed, based on how that money gets divvied up. Don’t think for a moment that your little area’s going to get some kind of road development, because it’s not going to happen. If you got a pothole, that pothole is not going to get fixed, unless the government, and the guys that you represent, are fighting for you. If your people are not fighting for your representation, it’s not going to happen. I don’t care what you do.</p>
<p>LW: When you were working for the State of Michigan—you were an elected representative—what was the most difficult thing that you had to deal with?</p>
<p>HS: Everybody. You fought every single day. There was never a day that went by that you didn’t find yourself fighting for your people. And if you didn’t fight or learn how to deal with them and your legislative friends—if you didn’t have any friends you could forget it, and I had a lot of friends—different people I could call on. There was no shame in my game, to be able to go across the aisle and negotiate with them. And they loved me because I would go around and play cards with them.</p>
<p>LW: The Republicans you mean?</p>
<p>HS: Yeah, the Republicans. I had a ton of Republican friends. I made a lot of friends and they loved me and I loved them. So whenever I needed something, I could just go across the aisle and get it.</p>
<p>LW: You think that’s the way to an effective government.</p>
<p>HS: Yup. I remember there was a guy that was there, Coleman Young, who had been there for a long time and he was my dear friend. I can remember a lot of times we’d be in the legislature, and if I had a question about how to deal with politics, when I’d go on break I would go upstairs and call him. He lived in the Riverfront at the time, as the mayor. I had another friend, Jackie Vaughn, who was in the legislature. He was my neighbor. He lived above me. I used to live right across from the Capitol when I was in the legislature. I lived in Richard Austin’s old apartment.</p>
<p>LW: Oh. What was the address? Do you remember it?</p>
<p>HS: The address? Where Richard Austin—I don’t know, it was right across the street from the Capitol.</p>
<p>LW: In Lansing?</p>
<p>HS: In East Lansing, right. The Lincoln Tower, I want to say.</p>
<p>LW: So you lived around a lot of people who were elected officials, I assume?</p>
<p>HS: Yeah. Well Richard Austin lived—I took over his apartment when he left office, and he left all his books to me, and his furniture and everything. It was raggedy, but it was still his apartment [laughter]. He left all his books, so I learned to read all of his books and stuff and he was a real learned man I found out. He knew the election process backwards and forwards—had every book you could think of about dealing with elections.</p>
<p>LW: When you were living in East Lansing, where was your home in Detroit?</p>
<p>HS: It was in Detroit. I lived at the Riverfront.</p>
<p>LW: You kept an apartment here at the Riverfront and then had your apartment in Lansing.</p>
<p>HS: Yeah. Riverfront Towers.</p>
<p>LW: So how often were you staying in Detroit—how often were you staying in Lansing?</p>
<p>HS: Back and forth. Almost weekly I would be back in Detroit, visiting with my constituents. I had an office in the Renaissance Center at 333 East Jefferson.</p>
<p>LW: That must have been soon after the Renaissance Center opened?</p>
<p>HS: Well, no. It had sold a couple times. Because Ford owned it, and Ford sold it to somebody.</p>
<p>LW: Got it.</p>
<p>HS: And I used to lease an apartment there, in the Renaissance Center.</p>
<p>LW: An apartment and an office?</p>
<p>HS: My State Senate office was inside the Renaissance Center on the skywalk going across Jefferson. It was nice.</p>
<p>LW: It sounds nice. What was your favorite part about being an elected official?</p>
<p>HS: Elected official? Being able to help so many people. I enjoyed the heck out of that.</p>
<p>LW: Okay.</p>
<p>HS: Because you got the ability to pass legislation at your whim or caprice, to help different segments of the population, and I enjoyed that. I enjoyed going out and meeting with constituents and then making things happen like when they were trying to decide to build those properties off of Mack, off of the side of the freeway, right there by those tall high rise apartments. They wanted to tear those down and everybody was fighting like—they had all these community meetings. So I met with them and told them it was the best thing for them to do, was allow them to tear those buildings down, because they were going to come through there and build something totally different and unique, and if you go there today, and go to the Lodge [US-10], to the left, or west of the Lodge, you got those beautiful buildings there. It’s just amazing to see the transformation in ten or fifteen years, you know.</p>
<p>LW: What do you think the biggest challenge is for Detroit today?</p>
<p>HS: Detroit has to be rebuilt. I would love to participate in the rebuilding of those buildings west of the waterfront, you know where Rivertown is and the boardwalk and all that—tremendous area to develop.</p>
<p>LW: Along the Riverwalk—the new Riverwalk?</p>
<p>HS: Oh yeah, because that’s coming now. People are moving in there, building those apartment buildings up. If they get the right people to come in and develop, that would be an amazing transformation for Detroit.</p>
<p>LW: Around the Ren Cen?</p>
<p>HS: Yeah around the Ren Cen—east of the Renaissance Center.</p>
<p>LW: East of the Renaissance Center, that’s right.</p>
<p>HS: That’s a tremendous area, and that’s the waterfront. I dream that one day you’ll be able to drive down Jefferson, and go over a bridge and end up on East Jefferson and they’ll start to build property around there. It’s coming, one day it’s going to be so beautiful.</p>
<p>LW: How do you think they’re going to do that? How do you think the city can be rebuilt?</p>
<p>HS: Well you got, first of all, to have access to the land. The people that own that land got to be willing to give it up to the surrounding area so people can build homes and convert all those apartment buildings into residential living. And that could take some doing. That’s why the Detroit Land Bank Authority has to really be involved in the process. The mayor has to be involved in the process. He has to have the same kind of dream. He has to have people who’ll buy into it. I think he’s there, but he has to have a vision, I don’t know what his vision is, but—sometimes I wish I was the mayor, and maybe I will be one day, I don’t know.</p>
<p>LW: I don’t know either. Maybe I’ll be the mayor one day.</p>
<p>HS: You could be, but you just remember what I said.</p>
<p>LW: What’s that?</p>
<p>HS: Rebuild Detroit.</p>
<p>LW: Rebuild Detroit, that’s right, that’s right. Do you have anything else you want to share with us about your experiences?</p>
<p>HS: Well, I could share about the fact that I never thought I’d be in this situation, you know.</p>
<p>LW: What’s the situation?</p>
<p>HS: The situation of being a stroke victim, a person who had a stroke. You know, they found me, I was coming back from Connecticut. I went into my closet to hang my clothes up and—two days before that happened I was driving around on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.</p>
<p>LW: Whoa!</p>
<p>HS: And then next thing I know I’m laying in the closet. It was four days before they found me, and when they found me I was dehydrated, probably one day away from death according to the doctor. But look at me now, I’ve come back.</p>
<p>LW: Coming back.</p>
<p>HS: I’m back.</p>
<p>LW: [Laughter] You’re back.</p>
<p>HS: I’m in my right mind. I’m clear. I guess I’m clear. I guess once you do this interview, you’ll determine—[laughter].</p>
<p>LW: We’ll determine that.</p>
<p>HS: Whether you can remember the words or whatever.</p>
<p>LW: I’m so happy that you survived that, I’m so sorry to hear that.</p>
<p>HS: But I’ve been through a lot. You talk about Detroit—I’ve been shot three times.</p>
<p>LW: When were you shot?</p>
<p>HS: About a year after I left the legislature somebody tried to rob me at a bank, and shot me three times.</p>
<p>LW: Oh my goodness.</p>
<p>HS: But I survived that, I’m back</p>
<p>LW: You’re back. When was your stroke?</p>
<p>HS: Two years ago.</p>
<p>LW: And what were you doing in Connecticut?</p>
<p>HS: I went to a convention; a bishop board meeting. I’m an ordained elder in my church.</p>
<p>LW: What church do you go to?</p>
<p>HS: Greater Grace on Seven Mile and Schaeffer.</p>
<p>LW: Okay.</p>
<p>HS: I just lost my uncle.</p>
<p>LW: I’m sorry.</p>
<p>HS: Yeah, he was the first black Marine. That’s one of the things that I highlight—you know he was a Marine, so he taught me what it meant to be a man of impeccable integrity ‘cause of how he was. But at ninety-three-years old he was a—he got a Congressional Gold Medal from Obama, for being the first black Marine.</p>
<p>LW: What was his name?</p>
<p>HS: Edsel Stallings. If you Google it you’ll get a nice article on him. He’s quite a man.</p>
<p>LW: What did he tell you growing up? How did he impact you? What was one of the things that he said that you remember?</p>
<p>HS: Well as a member of the United States Marines, he taught me that character and—‘cause he was also Assistant Secretary of State, for the state of Michigan just before I came into office. That’s how I got to knew Richard Austin. Richard Austin was the first [black] and longest serving Secretary of State. He came in under the Reagan admin—not Reagan, but—the guy that used to be the governor</p>
<p>LW: The governor of Michigan?</p>
<p>HS: Yeah. One of the worst governors of Michigan—John Engler—that wasn’t hard was it?</p>
<p>LW: No. [laughter]</p>
<p>HS: And I used to work for Engler. He was a trip.</p>
<p>LW: Yeah, you said that it was difficult to work with him.</p>
<p>HS: Oh, beyond difficult, ‘cause he wasn’t trying to do nothing for Detroit. If you mentioned Detroit, you might as well be in another part of the state.</p>
<p>LW: So you had an interesting experience working with other lawmakers.</p>
<p>HS: Oh yeah.</p>
<p>LW: As you mentioned, you felt the governor didn’t have a real high regard for Detroit, but you were representing people in Detroit—your constituency was in Detroit.</p>
<p>HS: Oh yeah. I had River Rouge, Southwest Detroit—it was a challenge because you were fighting every single day just for one little crumb. We were at the bottom of everything in the city of Detroit—infant mortality, crime, whatever it was we were on the bottom rungs of the state’s economic society so we had to fight every single day just for one little crumb, to help the citizens of Detroit. And they didn’t even realize it, that was the hard part about it—they didn’t realize that you were fighting for them, and no matter how hard you fought, they didn’t care because they were definitely going to pass legislation. Because that’s what they’re all about, to help their friends, that’s why they call it passing a bill. They would sit up there and pass bills all day long to benefit their friends and by the time you realized that, it’s time for you to leave office. It’s terrible. I’m hoping that one day I’ll get a chance to go back.</p>
<p>LW: I hope you do.</p>
<p>HS: I do too, because I got some people I got to jack up.</p>
<p>LW: Okay. [Laughter]</p>
<p>HS: And now that I know the process it should be a lot more fun.</p>
<p>LW: You know the process. Well, we really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.</p>
<p>HS: I appreciate talking to you.</p>
<p>LW: We appreciate your perspective too. Very interesting. Thank you so much, Henry.</p>
**
Video
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u8yOxPmSMuI" 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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Henry Stallings, July 2nd, 2015
Subject
The topic of the resource
Austin, Richard
Conant Gardens—Detroit—Michigan
Detroit Pershing High School
Engler, John
Lansing—Michigan
Looting
Michigan State Senate
Renaissance Center—Detroit
Riverfront—Detroit—Michigan
Stallings, Edsel
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, former Michigan state senator Stallings discusses growing up in Detroit and shares details about his integrated neighborhood and schools growing up. In addition to recounting his memories of the unrest in 1967, Stallings speaks at length about local and state politics, including details of his tenure in the state legislature. Finally, Stallings shares his hopes for Detroit’s future.
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Conant Gardens
Detroit Pershing High School
Government
Lansing
Looting
Michigan State Senate
Public Servant
Renaissance Center
Riverfront
-
https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/7b2ce405840af7e3af6ed3a6042d59fb.JPG
ee207f855f2b7035a97bf45c1e2df2ca
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stories gathered to commemorate the summer of 1967 in Detroit.
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society
Rights
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Language
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en-us
Date
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10/20/2019
Oral History
An audio or video resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
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Dwight Stackhouse
Brief Biography
A short biography of the Interviewee
Dwight Stackhouse was born November 4, 1947 in Richmond, Virginia and moved to the North Corktown neighborhood of Detroit in 1948. Stackhouse, who was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, was 19 years old and evangelizing with his mother at Twelfth Street and Blaine Street on July 23, 1967 after violence had broken out in that area. Stackhouse is a home inspector and currently lives in Detroit. In 2013, Stackhouse wrote an autobiography titled <em>Mother’s Milk</em>.
Interviewer's Name
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Lillian Wilson
Interview Place
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Detroit Historical Museum, 5401 Woodward Ave., Detroit, MI
Date
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07/31/2015
Transcriptionist
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Lillian Wilson
Transcription
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<p>LW: Today is July 31, 2015 this is the interview of Dwight Stackhouse 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. Dwight, can you start by telling me where and when you were born?</p>
<p>DS: I was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1947, November 4. </p>
<p>LW: And when did you come to Detroit?</p>
<p>DS: 1948. January of 1947—1948.</p>
<p>LW: Okay. And what brought your family here?</p>
<p>DS: The whole up south movement—jobs, et cetera. My parents, neither of them in fact landed in the factories but they both came for the rest. This was the place to be, it was the destination spot in the late forties and fifties, even into the sixties.</p>
<p>LW: So what did your parents do for a living?</p>
<p>DS: Both were chefs. Now it’s interesting, chefs, given what they were consigned to—being African-American, it may be too lofty a term. My dad cooked for one of the institutions here in the city of Detroit, I want to say it was a juvenile home. But he was the head chef at a very posh hotel in Richmond, Virginia. Left there because of racism. And my mother for a long time did domestic work. Again, not much else was available to people of African-American descent in the early fifties anywhere in the country. But you know, all of the accoutrements, all around, there was enough to draw from, enough leavings, if you will, for people to benefit.</p>
<p>LW: I see. And what neighborhood?</p>
<p>DS: I was born—not born, I was raised roughly at the corner of Twenty-Third [Street] and Michigan. Actually on the corner of Twenty-Third and Butternut which is just one block north of Michigan Avenue. A wonderful, idyllic place, beautiful place.</p>
<p>LW: What was the neighborhood like in addition to being idyllic?</p>
<p>DS: Well, it was a wonderful mix of ethnicities and nationalities. It was equal parts Slavic, Asian-Chinese, Hispanic-Mexican and Afro-Americans and poor whites up from the south. You know when I say idyllic that’s really what I mean, the mix more than the wonderful trees and greenery.</p>
<p>LW: So you interacted with all of these different families, I assume, in your neighborhood?</p>
<p>DS: Seamlessly, seamlessly. There was no sense of racism in our little enclave. All of the children played together. The adults on the other hand they come with their own traditions. The Chinese tradition is very different from the African-American, which is very different from the Slavic and so on. So the adults sort of stayed within themselves. But the children, we were up the trees, up the mounds, running up and down the alleys, shooting marbles. It was absolutely wonderful. It will live forever in my memory.</p>
<p>LW: I was going to ask--</p>
<p>DS: Such a wonderful time.</p>
<p>LW: How did that shape you as an adult?</p>
<p>DS: I’m kind of a pan person. I don’t understand what I call the stupidity of racism or ageism or sexism or any of the -isms. That level of nonsense I have no precedent for it and I don’t get it. And I think that holds me in pretty good stead in a world that’s becoming one, you know. I don’t come to the game with prejudices and apprehensions. To me, a human being is a human being.</p>
<p>LW: What do you do for a living?</p>
<p>DS: I am a master builder and a master carpenter but I actually inspect homes. Have knowledge will travel. I’ve left the tools alone.</p>
<p>LW: I see.</p>
<p>DS: So if you’re going to buy a house and you want to know what’s wrong with it, you call someone like me. But more than that I’m a writer of books and novels and plays and such. Published a couple of books.</p>
<p>LW: What are the subjects of your published material?</p>
<p>DS: Well, the book is called <em>Mother’s Milk</em>. In addition to what I have said, I’m a mama’s boy. And I lost her when I was 29, and I may as well have been nine. Because when she died so did I and I stayed dead for 15 years. So the book is about the saga of redemption, of forgiveness, you know, of love.</p>
<p>LW: Who did you feel like you needed to forgive?</p>
<p>DS: I needed forgiving.</p>
<p>LW: You needed forgiving.</p>
<p>DS: I obliterated a loving family, my wife, and my boys. Just ruined it. It is difficult to be father when you’re dead.</p>
<p>LW: So as a result of your grief, losing your mother, you feel that you were destructive in your own family unit.</p>
<p>DS: Oh, I was absolutely that. It is incontestable.</p>
<p>LW: Okay. So what’s happened in your life since then?</p>
<p>DS: Oh, many things, many things, I mean goodness – you should buy the book [laughter]—it’s 500 pages of what’s happened.</p>
<p>LW: The abridged version for the record, please [laughter].</p>
<p>DS: I’ve done so many things I don’t even know how to abridge it. I’m an actor, I’m a poet, I’m a carpenter, I’m a grandpa, I’m a great-grandpa, and I’m a good brother, good uncle, I am in love with my city and I do it under the radar, I don’t need accolades to bring the love to the place that I love. </p>
<p>LW: Tell me about your love for the city of Detroit—where does that stem from and tell me about your perceptions of the city.</p>
<p>DS: When anybody loves a place or a thing, it has to do with the relationship—the formative relationship between you and that place, that thing, that person. And for me Detroit was always sunshine and blue sky, even in the snow. I’m one of those persons who--I’m into the spiders and the sparrows, the blooming and the falling and the leaves and so on. And had it happened in Minnesota, I’d probably feel this way about Minnesota but I was here, it was here.</p>
<p>LW: Yeah.</p>
<p>DS: I remember clean alleys, I remember people communicating with one another, the whole conversations at the fence post, that was very, very real. When I talk about—if you saw the video—pies cooling on window sills, that was real. There’s so many stories. I literally have many more than my siblings who were raised with me because I paid attention. I can remember—gosh—so much. The smell of the place, all of the animals I remember their names—all of the little pets in the neighborhood. I was one of those persons who – I didn’t challenge the rats any more than I did the cats—they’re God’s creatures too and welcome here.</p>
<p>LW: So did you see a change happen in Detroit in the 1960s, or in particular 1967?</p>
<p>DS: Yeah, yeah. 1967 of course was absolutely traumatic. July 23. At that time—when I was a little boy, my mother decided to become what is called a Jehovah’s Witness. I don’t know if you know much about them but they’re evangelizers, that’s – they knock on doors and try to convert people. And so part of my nostalgia has to do with having knocked on literally thousands of doors, been on nearly every porch between the [Detroit] River and Buchanan, West Grand Boulevard to Tiger Stadium. I was on every single porch—that’s thousands of homes. Now I’m on the porch as a kid, just kind of hanging out with mom but I’m feeling the place. Fast forward and I’m now a young adult and I’ve embraced this religion, simply because my mother did, I’m certainly not Christian, not very religious at all but for her there was nothing I would not do. And so on July 23 I was knocking on doors at Blaine and Twelfth Street which is the epicenter of the riot. And when I got there we could see cops, and barricades and people bustling about but it was too early to know what was going on. And they of course disallowed it—you can’t knock on doors here, “Get out of here.”</p>
<p>LW: Because of the violence?</p>
<p>DS: Well, because of what they perceived to be the violence which at that time so far as anyone knew, there was a blind pig, an after-hours joint where some corruption had taken place.</p>
<p>LW: Okay.</p>
<p>DS: And I think someone was hurt or shot or killed. And an investigation was going on so we had to get the hell out of there. But before that day ended smoke was rising all over the city. And within days I remember the tanks rolling up and down LaSalle Boulevard, Linwood, even Dexter. I remember the shooting—I mean really they opened up the guns on tanks and bam, bam, bam, bam, bam [imitating gun shots] all over the place. I can take you now where bullet holes still remain in residential houses. And the anger, the uproar of the people it just broke my heart, and overwhelmed the community. It simmered and smoked for days, many days it seemed. That was the first time I spent the whole night up and awake, you know, none of us could sleep so we were awake throughout the whole night.</p>
<p>LW: How old were you?</p>
<p>DS: 1967 July--I was 19—19 years old.</p>
<p>LW: So, what kinds of things, in addition to the tanks, do you remember seeing at Blaine and Twelfth when you were out evangelizing with your mom?</p>
<p>DS: Wow. Some of it—much of it is not so pleasant. There were whores still walking the streets. And I remember a particular whore whose name I didn’t know of course but I remember she was disgusting and she came up to the car—and I want to say that I was on Twelfth Street, or Fourteenth—and she said, “What can I do for you boy? I’m selling ass and head. You want some? $5.Ass and head.” I didn’t even know what it meant. At 19 I had no idea what that meant.</p>
<p>LW: And you were with your mom?</p>
<p>DS: No, I was not with my mom at that moment but at some point I told my parents what I had experienced and of course they explained to me what that was. Part my upbringing is that I remained utterly naïve well into my twenties.</p>
<p>LW: Got it.</p>
<p>DS: Unlike my older brother and my younger brother who were very streetwise, I was just tugging on mama’s skirt, I was the good boy in the family type of thing. And another thing I remember – not that day but later that day or later in the week – was watching the looters. And I can remember being frozen by a moment when there was an old, white, almost certainly Jewish merchant. And we used to, you know, buy candy and potato chips and so on from this guy, from his store there on Linwood. And he was trying to protect his store and the lunatics dragged him out of the store, they threw him to the ground and I remember some guy standing over him with some very sharp, very heavy piece of concrete and he <em>threw it</em>, right at this man’s head and <em>missed</em>. How he missed I have no idea how he missed because he was standing right above him. But otherwise that would have been—and in my mind, I saw it landing. I mean it did not, but in my mind it was as if this man’s head was crushed. And he was certainly bloodied and scarred from all else they did to him but he survived that day. And then of course people simply left, they took nothing, they simply left. All non-brown or black peoples just left. You could buy, at that time, and this goes to the conditions that we have now, you could buy a house that I could not build—and I know what I’m talking about because I’m master builder—I could not build the house for four million dollars and you could buy it for thirty-thousand because nobody wanted to be here. They just— get the hell out of here.</p>
<p>LW: What do you think sparked that violence? You mentioned that things were simmering afterwards, what was simmering before?</p>
<p>DS: Well the question is a bit trite you know because systemic racism in America almost goes without saying.</p>
<p>LW: Of course.</p>
<p>DS: And so you have people who are simply disentitled, they have access to nearly nothing. It is not unlike the storming of the Bastille in the eighteenth century, it is very much like that. Except then it was the poor against the rich and it was more that in 1967 here in Detroit than it was whites against blacks it was just that the blacks were predominately the poor. So when you have disallowed access to the most basic entitlements, the most <em>basic</em> entitlements, well that simmers and it simply boiled over—I mean in the ugliest manner possible it boiled over. But the storming of the Bastille, that historical episode was pretty ugly too.</p>
<p>LW: Sure. So you think that it was a lack of access?</p>
<p>DS: It was rampant, systemic, indifferent prejudice. It’s almost impossible for you—I think—to even imagine it.</p>
<p>LW: Why?</p>
<p>DS: Well, because you’re a white woman in America. In 1957, there was a bowling alley on the corner of West Grand Boulevard and Michigan called Hall’s Bowling. I was not allowed in there except to shine shoes and deliver papers.</p>
<p>LW: Did you do that?</p>
<p>DS: My brother and I did that, yes. But you see at the time, this is my heritage I don’t really quite understand—this is all I’m allowed to do. My brother at the time is 15, I’m nine or ten. And so we don’t understand that we’re at the bottom of the totem pole, we’re bewildered. Why do these people—because remember I’m playing with kids that looked like them all the time.</p>
<p>LW: Exactly.</p>
<p>DS: This doesn’t make sense to me. And the other places where you couldn’t go in, Kresge’s, downtown on Woodward Avenue. The whole "colored only" thing, it simply could not make sense to me because I’m having dinner with the Canfields and they’re white folks. The Perezes are coming over and we’re making tacos together, you know. It just made no sense. And I didn’t ponder it, not then.</p>
<p>LW: Because that was all you had access to.</p>
<p>DS: It was all we knew. But I ponder it now. And that’s my next book, by the way, yeah.</p>
<p>LW: What other types of things do you remember not having access to?</p>
<p>DS: Well, you know, in the North I did not have to sit on the back of the bus as it were. I don’t remember having such a moment. I think—I never felt deprived because I was from such a loving, gifted family that I never felt that. I do recall when my family decided to move from Twenty-Third and Butternut to Linwood and Pingree—which was "movin’ on up"—the whole red lining thing presented itself.</p>
<p>LW: Explain that.</p>
<p>DS: Well, you know, it was legal to not sell houses to black people in the way that it was legal to not allow us to read in the nineteenth century. And you know when you’re born into that you grow up with that most people of any color of any age and time, most people simply accept it. You just accept it. Now you do have your—how shall I say—your leaders from Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass to James Baldwin and Maya Angelou, who kick up the dust, who draw the attention to the insanity. But you have, on the other side, a group of people who are not about to give up privilege—not about to give it up. And allowing you privilege—the most ordinary kind—they feel (they seem to feel) as if they’re losing something, they have to give something up to give you ordinary rights. And of course none of that is true. But again, they’re born into something too. And they’re born into a belief, and it is real for them, that they are superior to me in intellect, physically, obviously economically. And they don’t understand that this earth is one place and it belongs to everyone. It’s just not something they understand, they’ve never been taught that in the way that the Native Americans and the Inuits understood that. It’s not understood by them. And so I can remember being a young minister amongst these Jehovah’s’ Witnesses and one of the great muckety-mucks from the headquarters shows up and they decide—well, you know how religious organizations are, there’s always prayer before everything. And so he got the idea, and I’m 19, maybe 20, and public speaking was something I was good at because my mom had me doing it since I was seven. He says, “I think we should have one of the colored brothers offer prayer.” Now what is implied by that is heretofore you weren’t even allowed to pray, not in public.</p>
<p>LW: And your church was mixed?</p>
<p>DS: Absolutely mixed. Jehovah’s Witnesses are global. One of my great memories is being at what they called an international convention in 1958 in New York City and people came in their original regalia from Iceland, from South Africa, from Australia, from Italy. And it was awe-inspiring for an eight-year-old just to see that. And it mimicked, in my mind, in my young mind, my neighborhood. So I’m seduced now, and I think wow, this is where I belong. Now the dogma is a whole other thing. I honestly believe that if you think about any religion—any religion—you will dismiss it. But we’re not allowed to think about in that faith.</p>
<p>LW: Are you still a Jehovah’s Witness?</p>
<p>DS: Oh, god, I’m not even Christian. I believe that religion in all of its forms is the most grievous thing wrong with humanity. Religion is the problem.</p>
<p>LW: What church did you attend with your mom growing up?</p>
<p>DS: The Jehovah’s Witnesses. She was a Baptist and she left that to become a Jehovah’s Witness.</p>
<p>LW: Was there a particular congregation or building that–</p>
<p>DS: It was at the corner of Grand River and Henry where Cass High School is.</p>
<p>LW: Got it. How do you think that that some of the—in addition to religion—but also the lack of access to basic things, as you mentioned—how do you think that has persisted today? Do you think it has?</p>
<p>DS: Oh, absolutely.</p>
<p>LW: How so?</p>
<p>DS: It’s less glaring but it certainly remains true. And this is not sour grapes this is more a happy statement than a sad one. The current gentrification in the city, those houses were left to people—the great houses I mentioned earlier—they were, I mean, you could spend thirty grand and have a four million dollar house. But the level of ignorance in buying a house meant that it never even dawned on you that you’d have to fix a leak or put a roof on it or repair the porch. So those houses have decayed essentially because there were people in them who could not afford them. The people who left the houses were brain surgeons and politicians and lawyers. The people who inherited them, who bought them for thirty-thousand, they were school teachers, post office employees and factory workers–could not begin to afford these homes. So, we have the decay. The gentrification which I see up close and personal because I inspect six-hundred houses a year and I see it happening. The people are coming now who can afford them. They’re simply returning. The children and grandchildren of the people who fled are returning and they return with the parents because the parents and the grandparents are my age we talk from time to time about what was and sometimes we talk silently. It’s just that recognition—I know where you were, you know where I was and depending on what their point of view is, the discussion is a silent one. But there are many who really want to, “Let’s have a glass of wine, you know, let’s talk.” And we do that. I think this current movement of suburbia, primarily millennials, not entirely but primarily millennials, back into the city, is one of the more glaring pieces of evidence of this heritable insanity, the madness.</p>
<p>LW: Why is it insanity?</p>
<p>DS: It insanity to think you are superior to another human being. It makes no sense.</p>
<p>LW: How do you think that—you think that gentrification breeds this particular –?</p>
<p>DS: No, I think gentrification, the final analysis, which is a tribute to the millennials, if you will, is the best hope we’ve got. Because this generation of young people remind me, in some way, of what I was like as a little boy. They don’t understand racism, it doesn’t make any sense to them. Because they grew up with the Michael Jordans, the Oprahs, the Huel Perkins and so on so racism just doesn’t compute, they don’t get it—it’s like what are you talking about until it’s time to share. You see they don’t understand the advantages of simply being born white. Simply being born, an accident of birth, that’s all it is. In the same way my color, my heritage, is simply an accident of birth. Which is the same case with the Muslim population that is now being so utterly denigrated—just an accident of birth. Had they been born in Cleveland that is to say without Islamic parents, they’d be Catholic or Jehovah’s Witnesses.</p>
<p>LW: So while you see there being a problem, stemming from the fear of sharing resources, there is still an advantage to some of the gentrification that is occurring in the city.</p>
<p>DS: Yeah. There’s nothing new about humans not wanting to share. That’s as old as we are. But I do think, because there are the Lilys and Noahs on the planet now who see the world differently, that we have a chance—we have a chance. And, by the way, the Lilys and Noahs come in every single color.</p>
<p>LW: Right.</p>
<p>DS: Every single color. You’re the hope we have. As I said during one interview, not unlike this one, Detroit is acres of diamonds that is about to be restored. But it is restored by the Lilys, the Noahs, the Skips the people who give a damn who can see through shroud of madness, you can see through it, you see the stupidity.</p>
<p>LW: And you think that the last hurdle is overcoming this ignorance about being born a particular color and the inherent privilege or disengagement from access that may come with that?</p>
<p>DS: Say that again please.</p>
<p>LW: Do you think the last hurdle to overcome is if I have to share something with you I am thereby dis-privileged.</p>
<p>DS: Yeah. You’re diminished and deprived if you have to share. That means you’ve given something up.</p>
<p>LW: And you think that that is the last—one of the last hurdles that even millennial have to overcome.</p>
<p>DS: My dear, you and your grandchildren will not be close to the last hurdle. Because what will happen is there will be a new classification of people. If I may put it this grossly, they’ll be new niggers And the new niggers will have nothing to do with color. “These sons-of-bitches think I need to share my shit? Fuck them.” You know? I mean that’s—there are people who simply don’t want you to have— There was an expression when I was a young man, that I can remember my grandparents or older aunts and uncles saying, “The only thing worser than a nigger is a nigger lover.” So if you’re perceived to side with the underprivileged, you become worse than the underprivileged. Now, that population has grown by leaps and bounds, people who give a damn, people who don’t understand the insanity. They don’t see a difference between me and Noah or you and Noah for that matter.</p>
<p>LW: Yeah.</p>
<p>DS: And that group is almost certainly—I don’t know what the new name will be—probably not nigger but something—something defaming. Some ugly name will be assigned to people like us by the powers that be. And we will be diminished, we will be deprived, we will be opposed by the powers that be. The madness that exists because people in power want it this way, it works for them, around the globe not just here in the city.</p>
<p>LW: Do you think that things have improved since 1967?</p>
<p>DS: You can’t deny that there has been improvement—there certainly has been change. We will have to await the tale of history to see if in fact it deserves to be called improvement. But certainly there’s change. See, I can now buy a house anywhere I want it. But it doesn’t really mean that we’ve improved it just means it’s different. Because there’s a new group, loosely shaped now, that will probably be opposed and I’m probably in that group.</p>
<p>LW: Can you tell me about your neighborhood today?</p>
<p>DS: Well, it’s a very nice neighborhood. I live in an Albert Kahn bungalow that was built in 1900 and I’m refurbishing it as we speak. And there’s a lot of good activity in my neighborhood, people who care. The millennials have shown up. When I bought the place–check this out, I live in a small house, mine is the smallest house on the block because it was the first, it was just a cottage out in the woods in 1900, but if I were building that house today it would cost around six-hundred grand. I paid seven-thousand dollars for it.</p>
<p>LW: For an Albert Kahn?</p>
<p>DS: For an Albert Kahn. Because no one wanted to be there.</p>
<p>LW: What year was that?</p>
<p>DS: 1993. The guy across the street from me paid a hundred dollars for his house, it’s the prettiest house on the street. My brother lives a block away paid a thousand dollars. Now all those houses, all of them, are worth in access of one-hundred grand, some as much as two-hundred-and-fifty grand. But you see that’s the power of this insanity that I was telling you about. The house—no matter who live around it, the actual value, bricks and mortar, or in my case cedar shingles, is still the same, that’s unchanged. So the value is inextricably connected to who lives next door. And that was people that looked like me. We say—it’s a rather sad thing to say—but if I could lift that house, my house, and take it just five miles into Royal Oak, suddenly it’s worth six-hundred grand.</p>
<p>LW: Or more.</p>
<p>DS: Or more. Because I don’t live next door. Have I clearly defined madness, the insanity?</p>
<p>LW: The insanity? I think so, I think so.</p>
<p>DS: This is crazy, this is crazy. And see I won’t even bother to get to know you because you’re white, goddammit. White son-of-a-bitch I won’t bother to know you. Because if I see your skin I know everything I need to know about you! See how crazy this is? This is crazy.</p>
<p>LW: Sure.</p>
<p>DS: Now we’re doing it with the Mexicans. We’re certainly doing it with the Middle Easterners. We must stop this insanity, we have to stop it. And it’s folk like us who’ll do it.</p>
<p>LW: What do you think the key to stopping that truly is? Do you think it’s education? Do you think its community outreach?</p>
<p>DS: [Laughs] Well, yeah, but it’s so much more than that. If we would embrace the tenants of the so-called founding fathers, if we would embrace the tenants of the so-called founding gods, or demigods, Muhammad, Christ, you know, "do unto others" blah, blah, blah, it’s so simple, it’s just so simple. But in doing it I have to give up something and sometimes what I have to give up is just too sacred. “I have to give up what my mom did, my family’s been doing this for year”—you know? That kind of insanity. Like the madness around the flag. I mean how stupid can you be to behave as if you don’t know the origins of that flag?</p>
<p>LW: Sure—the Confederate flag you’re talking about?</p>
<p>DS: Yeah, the Confederate flag. C’mon. We who are Southern whites have given each other permission to give each other to be willfully ignorant slash stupid. “And in my little group it’s sanctioned. They’re stupid, not us.” So when I say that you and your grandchildren, and even their grandchildren are not near last hurdle, c’mon, that ilk is still out there and they’re growing not shrinking.</p>
<p>LW: Is there anything else that you can remember about ’67 in particular that you’d like to talk to us about?</p>
<p>DS: Gosh—I have to go to work but I have so much to say about 1967. And that is the year my heart was broken. That day my heart was broken.</p>
<p>LW: Seeing that violence?</p>
<p>DS: Seeing that violence. And knowing in the most naive sense of knowing what it meant, but my knowing now is not naive at all, it’s mature, it’s well thought out. I know what it has meant. I simply am out of time.</p>
<p>LW: Thank you so much for talking to us.</p>
<p>DS: No, thank you.</p>
<p>LW: It was great.</p>
<p>DS: I appreciate it.</p>
**
People
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Kahn, Albert
Search Terms
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1967 riots, riots, interviews, oral history, 1967 riot, Hall’s Bowling, Kresge’s Five & Dime Store, North Corktown, 12th Street, looting, racism, gentrification
Interview Length
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00:37:17
Video
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/D49aL2DSKBo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
Dublin Core
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Title
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Dwight Stackhouse, July 31st, 2015
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12th Street—Detroit <br />1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan <br />gentrification <br />Hall’s Bowling <br />Kahn, Albert <br />Kresge’s Five & Dime Store <br />looting <br />North Corktown—Detroit <br />racism <br /><br /><br /><br />
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Stackhouse discusses growing up in the integrated North Corktown neighborhood of Detroit during the 1950s and 60s. Stackhouse, who was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, was 19 years old in July 1967 and discusses evangelizing with his mother at Twelfth Street and Blaine Street when looting and violence was taking place. Stackhouse also opines about gentrification in Detroit and racism in America today.<br /><br /><strong>***Note: This oral history contains profanity and/or explicit language.</strong>
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Corktown
Gentrification
Jehovah’s Witnesses
Looting
Race Relations
Teenagers
-
https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/f301289388e27b655eb1d07888d6f25a.JPG
16b9400f6e0e54d0801c3bb976305952
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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Alan Feldman
Brief Biography
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Alan Feldman was born September 29, 1947 in Detroit, MI and grew up in the nearby town of Oak Park, MI. Alan was a student at Michigan State University and was home for the summer of 1967 working in a shoe store at Twelfth Street and Clairmount. Feldman is a retired Detroit Public Schools teacher and currently lives in Pontiac, MI.
Interviewer's Name
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Noah Levinson
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Pontiac, MI
Date
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06/16/2015
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28:27
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Noah Levinson
Transcription
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<p>NL: Today is June 16, 2015. This is the interview of Alan Feldman by Noah Levinson. We are at 1599 Marshbank in Pontiac, Michigan; the home of Mr. Feldman. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project. Alan, could you tell me where and when you were born?</p>
<p>AF: I was born in Women’s Hospital on September 29, 1947. The Yankees beat the Dodgers in seven games.</p>
<p>NL: And where is that hospital located at?</p>
<p>AF: I have no idea. I think it was incorporated with something else.</p>
<p>NL: Okay, and where did you live in July of 1967?</p>
<p>AF: I was going to Michigan State University, but I came home for the summer to my parents’ house. They lived in Oak Park.</p>
<p>NL: So you were home in Oak Park during the summer. And what were you doing that summer?</p>
<p>AF: I sold shoes at Name Brand Cancellation Shoes, on Twelfth and Clairmount. I don’t recall if I went to the other store. The owner, “Uncle Harry,” his name actually was Hoffenbloom, I believe, but I always called him Uncle Harry, much to his chagrin, he also had a store on West Warren—he’s eating Nikita’s food, or he’s eating Sally’s food I’m sorry [referencing pets].</p>
<p>NL: What do you recall about Detroit’s—and Oak Park and the general area, in the mid-1960s, about the neighborhoods and the community of the city?</p>
<p>AF: Well, I was very lucky to grow up in Oak Park. Oak Park was really the first, I guess you’d call it a “bedroom community”. The people came from Detroit and moved to Oak Park, there was Birmingham and places like that that were established already, but Oak Park, we had a beautiful high school, brilliant students—I think we were third in the state, our ranking. I was an idiot, but I went to school with a lot of very brilliant people; and we’re having our Fiftieth Reunion, October 3, in which I will display history from the 1960s. Well, you want to know about Detroit?</p>
<p>NL: Sure.</p>
<p>AF: Well, Detroit – you know I really wasn’t aware that Detroit was disintegrating. Like the governor of the state says, when we went bankrupt, that this has been going on for sixty years—I don’t know where he came up with this ‘sixty years’, it seems pretty extreme, but it was the same way it always was. White people lived in a certain area of Detroit, black people lived in another area; white kids went to high school basically together, black kids went to high school. I taught in a place called Nolan Middle School and—in the mid-sixties, this is before I taught, there were some black kids going to Pershing High School, but still most of the neighborhood was white. After the riot, then many white people moved, so I guess that’s the onset of white flight, but Detroit had high crime. It was a factory town, a huge factory town.</p>
<p>NL: So, growing up even as a child, it sounds like you were aware of the segregation that was happening in the city, at that point.</p>
<p>AF: Oh yeah. My dad owned a store on Woodward and Alexandrine and on Woodward and Canfield, cleaning plants. Everybody that worked for him was black, everybody, and then most of his customers were black, although there were some whites in that area, but not very many. We used to have – I was telling somebody this the other day -- we used to have pimps drive up in their pimpmobiles, for the day, you know, [Buick] Electra 225’s, big Cadillacs—am I supposed to say this?</p>
<p>NL: Sure. Everything you remember.</p>
<p>AF: It’d be a guy, the pimp, was in the front seat just like Mr. Turner—he’s got to be passed away by now—Mr. Turner would be in the front seat and he’d have, like three girls in the backseat, all three beautiful girls, and he’d come in and he’d have this big order of women’s dresses and his clothes. And my father would say to me, “Alan, go help Mr. Turner out with the clothes.” And I’d go outside and they’d all go, “Honey, honey, Hi! You grew over the winter, haven’t seen you,” because he’d have a convertible, so the top would be down, they’d, “Oh Alan, you so handsome!” I’d be like, thirteen, fourteen, I’d be like, Oh my God! That’s when I realized that –see when you live in an area where the only black person that you see, basically, is your maid, okay? When you see women like that you go like, whoa! What’s going on here? I mean, when you’re fourteen— I’m a guy, you look at girls, that’s your one thing. You play baseball and you sleep with the ball, and then you look at girls. So, it always kind of shocked me that there were so many beautiful black women. And in our store that burned down, I used to stand—you want me to put them back out? [referencing pets]—I used to stand, the place was, on the left-hand side there was a window, on the right-hand side there was a window, and then you’d walk into the store. On a hot day when we wouldn’t do very much business, I would stand out on the sidewalk, and people would be walking by all the time. Some of the women knew me after a while, I’d be standing there, “Ooh, you so handsome, why you wearing that? Why you wearing that today? That shirt don’t fit you right.” They get to know you, and in the drugstore, and in whatever, it was amazing. You were one of the community.</p>
<p>NL: So, Detroit was already an obviously segregated city in your estimation by the mid-sixties. Do you remember seeing or hearing about incidents of discrimination against black or non-white people?</p>
<p>AF: In newspapers I remember seeing things, which I have—I’ll show you, I’m pretty sure there’s some in there, but also, Eight Mile Road and Schaeffer, as a little boy, I might have been eight, nine, ten -- right at Eight Mile-Schaeffer there was a hamburger place, I think it was White Castle, and all these black people would line up every morning, right on the curb of Eight Mile and Schaeffer, and white people would come by—I presume they were mostly all white people, and they’d say, “You want to do yard work?” You get in the car, you go do yard work. They’d pick up a woman, “You want to clean the house?” This is how employment was gained. I remember asking my father, why are those people lined up. I couldn’t have been more than six or seven probably. He told me they were they waiting for jobs. So that’s what they did. There were no white people there, there were all black people.</p>
<p>NL: What do you remember thinking or feeling at that time when your dad was explaining that to you? How did that scene strike you?</p>
<p>AF: I don’t know really. It didn’t really affect me very much, but you know what affected me the most was going downtown—I mean I wish I could give you an answer for that, but I don’t really feel like there was an answer it was just like, I wanted to know, who are those people and what are they doing there? And the fact that he pointed out that they were basically black people didn’t really move me—but I saw a black man in downtown Detroit, I couldn’t have been more than five, and this is during Christmas when people—there was no Northland or Eastland [Malls], people went downtown to shop so the streets were jammed with people. There was a policeman and he had this black man up against a wall—I was with my mother—and he had two hat boxes. This is not something I’m dreaming about; this is something that was real, and the policeman had a gun on him and he had his hands up and he was like this [motions], and that’s one of the first remembrances of black and white. I presume he stole hats.</p>
<p>NL: Wow.</p>
<p>AF: And we had a maid for a long time, named Grassie. I never did go to Grassie’s house, so I never did know what her kids were like; I’d hear about them, but I never saw what her house was like or what was going on in her house. It was like, well, Grassie just went home, but I don’t know what she was doing, you know what I mean?</p>
<p>NL: She left work and went home; we all do.</p>
<p>AF: She made great tomato soup and tuna fish sandwiches. Now there’s something to say about that though, but I don’t know how to express it. When you work for a family and then you go home to your own family—because you’re not working for a family, really.</p>
<p>NL: How do you mean?</p>
<p>AF: Well, it’s like they’re part of your family. Grassie was like my second mother. I could come home for lunch and if my mother wasn’t there then Grassie would feed me; and she’d sit down and she would tell me about Louisiana. Baton Rouge. She would tell me about –what is that—a gumbo. This is how I knew about these things. She was so nice, so sweet, and she had little hairs growing out of her chin [laughter], but, you know, that’s my growing up process with African-Americans. And I did know that African-Americans grew up in a different area than we did because of Joe Louis. My father told me the story when Joe Louis beat Max Bayer in 1935. My mother and him went for a ride to celebrate, to see people on the street, and, you know they were honking their horns and everything. Joe Louis was a huge hero in Detroit. I’ve got the greatest Joe Louis collection. They’ve been to my house ten times; the African-American Museum. I won’t give them my stuff. And they threw garbage in his car. So my dad said, it was down on Hastings—have you heard the name of that street, Hastings Street? He said he’d never do that again, ever.</p>
<p>NL: That was 1935?</p>
<p>AF: 1935. And I’ve got a picture in the newspaper of the crowd of African-American people after he won, and they’re going crazy. He was the biggest hero.</p>
<p>NL: Switching gears a little bit, I want to ask you about 1967. First off, how did you first hear about or become aware of the civil unrest in July 1967?</p>
<p>AF: I was listening to the Tiger game at home. I don’t know what I was doing before then. And I needed gas; I was going to a friend’s house named Joe Kass, K-A-S-S, we’re still friends. I went up to Eight Mile Road and Schaeffer; there was a Sunoco station, and gas was 19 cents. I had a car, a Pontiac LeMans that was like a year or two old, it was like brand-new. And back then where you had the license plate, you’d pull it down and the gas cap would be. So I took the thing off and I was putting the gas in, and I just happened to straighten up and look and I saw the whole sky was full of smoke. The entire sky going south, I was like, “Wow! What a fire that must be.” You know? So I get back in my car and I got the ballgame on. They were playing a double header; back in those days you played double headers. Now the [dog barking] players won’t do it unless it’s really a catastrophe.</p>
<p>NL: Yeah, if there’s a rain delay [dog barking] from yesterday or something.</p>
<p>AF: Yeah, right. So they won’t do it, but [dog barking] I turn it on and it says—they’re doing the news and then at the end of the news, I think it was the end of the news, the guy said, “There is a civil disturbance going on in Detroit. Do not go to Detroit; stay out of Detroit.” So, I went home and I said to my dad, “Civil disturbance. I think, Dad, that means a riot; they’re having a riot in Detroit,” and he said, “Yeah, I heard that on the radio,” because my father had a transistor radio, and like a lot of men back then, they had their own chair—did you ever see <em>All in the Family</em>?</p>
<p>NL: Sure.</p>
<p>AF: I swear to God, I swear to God, they came in our house late at night.</p>
<p>NL: [Laughter]</p>
<p>AF: And they saw my father with a cigar hanging out of his mouth, asleep, with the transistor like this. I come home at two o’clock on the morning he’d be like that. I’d say, “Dad, get up!”, and he’d go “[grunts] Ehhh, what do you want from me?” That’s what happened. I went over to my friend Joe’s house and now everybody knew. Like, if you were my neighbor I’d go over and I’d say, “They’re having a riot in Detroit. Did you hear this?” So, everybody knew and you had to be off the streets I believe by 5:30 or 6:30, something like that. I’m not sure; I think it was 5:30, 6:30. So I left Joe’s house and went home, and that night—we lived in a really beautiful apartment complex—people took their TV’s and put them on the porches. We had a celebrity talk show guy in Detroit then, his name was Lou Gordon, if you ever heard his name, and Lou Gordon was on with his wife, Jackie Gordon, and that’s all they talked about was the riots; you know they had people on talking about it, and they were saying it was just terrible. And my father was just praying that they burned down his store; he was praying, he was, “Alan, I want them to burn down the store so bad.” Because he had had a tremendous business, and then, you know where the medical center is there? Like off of Woodward and Alexandrine, that’s the area. They tore down all these houses in that area, and that was my father’s walk-on trade. He had a tremendous route that he did, but that was his walk-on trade; and there were no houses there anymore [laughing] so he was losing a lot of money you know, so he was praying they’d burn down his business. It didn’t happen. We went downtown on Tuesday and the entire city down the Lodge [US-10] smelled of smoke. Everything. I mean, when you got down past, like Eight Mile Road, the entire city smelled like smoke; like fire. So he’s like, “Let’s go to the store. Let’s hope it burned down.” [laughter] Because of insurance, you know?</p>
<p>NL: Right.</p>
<p>AF: So it didn’t burn down so he was very disappointed. Then we went for a ride. I never was sure if my father should have done this, but we went for a ride all over the western side. And what I recall mostly is, right near – I think it was near Northwestern High School in Detroit, they had a gun store. And on top of the gun store were all kinds of police and state troopers, I guess they were, National Guardsmen, one of them was Mickey Lolich of the Detroit Tigers; he was a National Guardsmen, and they surrounded this place; they weren’t about to let anybody get in that place. They’d kill them. If anybody tried to break in there they would kill them. There were troops all over the city, like army trucks, and there’d be like four guys in a Jeep, and three guys would have their rifles pointed out. You probably heard this already. They’d have their rifles out—the driver didn’t obviously, and this went on for a long time, you know, the city was in chaos. </p>
<p>NL: You said that the store that you were at this summer was near Twelfth and Clairmount?</p>
<p>AF: It was on Twelfth and Clairmount. It was on Clairmount.</p>
<p>NL: What happened to the store?</p>
<p>AF: Oh, it burned down. Uncle Harry had that store and one on West Warren, they burned down. The tale is this: Uncle Harry never left the store on the weekend with any money, because the weekend was big. It was like New Year’s Eve, for a lot of people, every weekend on Twelfth and Clairmount. You can’t understand unless you were there. It’s like, during Christmas and Easter, everybody had to have a pair of shoes; you had to have a pair of shoes. And I’ll deviate just a little bit; when I first started working there, people would come in and—you know it was a men’s shoe store, so guys would come in and they’d say, “I need a pair of Stacy Adams,” so I’d say okay. Now I’m like, seventeen, sixteen, I don’t even know what I was, but I was the guy that they kept because I had a way, a natural bullshit way. So I’d say, “Well, what do you wear?” and they’d say, “Oh, I wear like, ten triple-A,” and I go, “Ten triple-A? No, let’s measure your foot,” and it’d be like seven and a half. So I’d say, “Well, what makes you think you wear a ten triple-A?” He says, “I want you to give me a ten triple-A.” I said, “Why?” He says, “Well because that’s what I want to wear, is a ten triple-A.” I said, “You wear a seven-and-a-half,” and then it dawned on me what was going on here; they wanted their feet to look longer. They wanted to look more like a grown-up man or something like a big guy, you know. So I’d get them the ten triple-A, and their foot would stop like right here, and then there’d be a point here, and this is what they’d wear; this is what they wanted. [Dog whimpering] and then we’d go up to—[to dog] ‘Kita! Shhh! That’s a trait of a pointer, by the way; they cry. That’s what she does. –I’d say to them, “You need some socks?” and they’d go like, “Yeah, give me some thick-and-thins, thick-and-thins.” They have, like, a lisp for this. Thick-and-thins are like, the bottom part is a regular kind of sock, and then the part going up, you can see through. So they were thick, and thins. Anyway, I was really good at doing this, and Uncle Harry, who honestly spoke like my father, like this deep voice; he’d say, “You work for me”, so I’d say, okay, so I’ll work for you. The other guys were afraid. So where were now?</p>
<p>NL: You said that the store at Twelfth and Clairmount had burned down.</p>
<p>AF: Okay, so he would never leave the store with the weekend’s receipts. He would go in the basement, and he had a special box I didn’t even know about. He totally trusted me. [deep voice] Alan!” [laughter]. He had a box down there; so supposedly the story was—you know, they burned down the whole neighborhood—he went down in the basement; this is what I heard from my best friend Richard, who was his nephew, and he walked, I guess in the water, I hope the electricity was turned off otherwise he’d be dead, and he went to this box, it was all mushed up, reached in and there was three thousand dollars. </p>
<p>NL: Wow!</p>
<p>AF: There was three thousand dollars. He never worked a day in his life again. He had insurance on, obviously, Twelfth and Clairmount and West Warren; I don’t know what else he owned, he was very wealthy. He grew to depend upon me, because I was an idiot, basically where they would get robbed in the middle of the night. So what you had—remember I told you, you had a window here full of shoes and a window here and they walk in? So all the shoes were left shoes, okay. You never put in a left and a right; because you put in a left and a right, then they have a pair of shoes. So they’re only left shoes. So he calls me up one night—this happened, I think, four times. And this time my father, after he said it, “Okay, pick him up,” he said to me, “You ain’t doing this no more.” So I said, “Okay, I’ll tell Uncle Harry.” We get in the car and we go to the store and the window thing is there, they’re fixing the window, but all they did right then was put up a board, and they were gonna come back and put the glass in, because it was, like, 6:30 in the morning I guess. I don’t know, I can’t recall that much, but I do know that about 11:30, 12:00, this guy comes in—and I’m behind the counter, there’s no business, and Uncle Harry is doing something with the shoes upstairs. He had shoes downstairs; thousands and thousands of shoes. The guy comes in, “Man what’s wrong with you? I want to know what’s wrong with you?” So I said, “What do you mean what’s wrong with me? There’s nothing wrong with me.” And he says, “I came in here yesterday, I bought a pair of shoes, you only gave me the left!” So I said, “Would you say that again?” He said, “You only gave me the left shoe, where’s my right shoe?!” I said, “[loudly] I only sold you a left shoe?” So Uncle Harry turns around with fire in his face, I mean he is really angry. And, the guy looks at Uncle Harry, he looks at me and [clap] he’s gone, he gets right out of there. So Uncle Harry says to me, “Alan, follow him.” So I said, “Follow him?! I’m 18 years old; I’m not a detective! I’m not following this guy.” He says, “Follow him. Just go see where he goes.” So I went outside and I watched where he went, I went down like a block and he walked across the street into an apartment building. I came back, I told Uncle Harry, and he called the police so I think the guy was arrested. They might have found a lot of left shoes. [laughter] You know what I mean? So this is the type of stuff that went on, and there were pimps and whores all over the sidewalk all the time. This was the neighborhood; there was a lot of crap going around, but it was actually fun, a fun kind of place to be. But after the fire, there was nothing left, so now the people—just like in Baltimore and other places—when you think about it, these people think they’ve accomplished something. What they’ve accomplished is, you got to get in your car now and drive someplace else to shop. You haven’t accomplished anything. I hate to say it, it makes me sound like a racist, but it’s the truth. You haven’t accomplished anything; nothing has taken place that is going to be helpful to you. A bunch of rhetoric by a bunch of politicians who really could care less.</p>
<p>NL: What do you remember about the first time that you went back to the neighborhood after the store had burned down?</p>
<p>AF: That’s what I thought about. I was with my dad and my dad really brought it up. It was like, “Well I won’t be buying shoes from you anymore, I wonder where they’re going to have to go.” Nothing really dawned on me, I was like 18 years old or 19 and, you know, you don’t think about these kinds of things; you’re not that deep, generally. And it took years for them to rebuild that area, Rosa Parks Boulevard?</p>
<p>NL: Mm-hmm.</p>
<p>AF: It’s never been the same because it was like the hub of the West Side of Detroit, this area. Like I’m saying, you’d walk down the street and there would be just tons of people, and everybody seemed to know one another. It seemed like bullshit, but it really wasn’t. Of course you could be friendly with somebody and they might shoot you later in the day but, there was a lot of crime.</p>
**
People
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Gordon, Lou
Louis, Joe
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12th Street, 1967 riots, Clairmount Street, Detroit Tigers, domestic work, interview, Joe Louis, looting, Oak Park-MI, riots, West side of Detroit
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ec-quDvoUis" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
Dublin Core
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Title
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Alan Feldman, June 16th, 2015
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12th Street—Detroit—Michigan
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Clairmount Street—Detroit—Michigan
Eight Mile Road—Detroit—Michigan
Joe Louis
Looting
Lou Gordon
Michigan National Guard
Oak Park—Michigan
Schaeffer Highway—Detroit—Michigan
Woodward Avenue—Detroit—Michigan
Description
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In this interview, Feldman discusses growing up in the suburban community of Oak Park and his experiences on Detroit’s west side, where he worked as a shoe salesman, and where his father ran two cleaning stores. Feldman discusses segregation in the city and its role in precipitating the civil unrest of July 1967. He also recalls some of Detroit’s athletic heroics including the Detroit Tigers baseball team and boxer Joe Louis.<br /><br /><strong>***NOTE: This interview contains profanity and/or explicit language</strong>
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
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audio/mp3
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en-US
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Clairmount Street
Detroit Tigers
Eight Mile
Hastings Street
Joe Louis
Looting
Lou Gordon
Michigan National Guard
Oak Park
Schaeffer Highway
Teenagers
Woodward Avenue
-
https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/283706807aab5f5ab63dadf3d41b0ca4.jpg
3f2c6a4a0551ae87bdb2c17c8b11a5e4
Dublin Core
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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
Oral History
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Frank Rashid
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Frank Rashid was born in Detroit in 1950. He grew up in the near west side of Detroit in the Linwood and West Grand Boulevard area near the store that his family owned. Rashid studied at Sacred Heart Seminary, worked with Focus Hope, and eventually earned his BA and PhD in English at the University of Detroit. He has been a professor at Marygrove College since 1980, where he helped to create the Institute of Detroit Studies. He currently lives in Detroit.
Interviewer's Name
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Noah Levinson
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Detroit Historical Museum, 5401 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI, 48202
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07/30/2015
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56:10
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Kwicinski, Mark
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10/06/2015
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<p>NL: Today is July 30, 2015. This is the interview of Frank Rashid by Noah Levinson. We are at the Detroit Historical Museum on Woodward in Detroit, and this interview is for the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project. Frank, could you first tell me when and where were you born?</p>
<p>FR: I was born in Detroit at Harper Hospital in December of 1950, and I grew up on the near west side on Lothrop between LaSalle Boulevard and Linwood, one block north of West Grand Boulevard, near my father’s store, which was on Linwood.</p>
<p>NL: Could you tell me a little bit about that neighborhood when you were growing up?</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, it was a real interesting neighborhood. As I remember it, it was very diverse, it was—and in my studies since I found out why that was so. It had a strong Catholic—an Irish Catholic—presence, because there was a Catholic parish not far away, St. Agnes Parish, on Twelfth [Street] and Bethune, and it has a strong presence of a remnant of Jews, many ethnic groups of Catholics, and then an increasing number of African Americans. The reason for that as it turns out is that in 1948 restrictive covenants were ruled illegal in the United States and the existing African American communities west of Linwood and east of Twelfth Street started to move into that immediate area on Lothrop. And so there were increasing four or five families of African Americans whose children went to school with me or walked to school with me or played ball with me, along with Asians and other Arabs and other Irish and Polish Catholics. It was a very ethnically diverse area.</p>
<p>NL: Was your school at that time—it was ethnically diverse, as you said—did that contribute to any tensions among the student body there?</p>
<p>FR: The students generally did not. There were some tensions. I’ve talked to my African American classmates about this since—and they said those there — because I was oblivious, I think, to a lot of the racial tension that might have existed. And I said, “How was it, how did it go?” and they said, well, there were certain groups or certain students that they felt tension from and others that they felt no tension from.</p>
<p>I certainly noticed—I didn’t notice anything until I started not getting invited to parties with my African American friends and their birthdays and things like that, where before it just seemed like a natural thing. I think as tensions increased in the neighborhood and as the Civil Rights Movement gained steam, people became more conscious, as least the children became more conscious of race. And, of course, we were growing up, so we became more aware of what had affected our adults, our parents, and their generation. So there was that, and also the area became increasingly African American. White folks were moving out, in part because of race, in part because of the segregated subsidies for suburban housing that the federal government provided for whites only to move to places like Dearborn and Royal Oak. So, Detroit was – the white population of Detroit was moving out, because there were incentives for them to move out. One historian, David Freund, points out that it was possible for a white middle-class family to own a house in Royal Oak for less money than it would cost to rent a home in Detroit, because of the subsidies that the FHA [Federal Housing Administration] and VA [Veterans Administration] provided for white families only—not for African Americans.</p>
<p>So the reason that Detroit became segregated, and that that neighborhood became so, rapidly so African American, was that this was a period when the federal government was subsidizing suburban growth at the expense of the city and it residents. So that was something, of course, I discovered much later, but it explains what happened. My first grade class at St. Agnes school was probably about 25% African American, and by the time that class graduated from the eighth grade, it was probably 25% white.</p>
<p>NL: You said that it was federal policies that sort of promoted that suburbanization. Either in your memories or in your studies since you were a kid, did the city and local governments make any response to that to try to limit that amount of flight to keep more families in the city?</p>
<p>FR: Well, unfortunately during that same time, the city was led by rather reactionary and racist mayors. Albert Cobo was a – you know, got elected by opposing open housing, by opposing public housing, by doing race-baiting in his campaigns, and so and he was the powerful voice in the 1950s. And so, at this very time after World War II, we had leadership in the city that was—and this was true on the city council as well; there was certainly tension, there were strong progressive voices on the city council—but there were also real strong reactionary forces that tried to divide the community and increase its awareness of race and its spreading of all kinds of rumors and lies about what it meant when an African American family moved into your neighborhood. So that increased tension in some areas around the city.</p>
<p>And I certainly – and in addition there was blockbusting. There was a lot of real estate blockbusting going on, which I remember, I remember very well that it was not – I remember specific incidents when an older white couple lived down the block in the middle of the evening in the summer when everybody was out, there were kids who came running through—African American kids—came running through and threw a brick through their window, at a very visible time, and then they ran off. Well, that was a tactic that real estate agents would use, they’d pay these kids to go do this thing, and then they would show up the next day, you know, offering to take this house off the couple’s hands, and that would cause all kinds of movement in the neighborhood.</p>
<p>So, in my studies since, I’ve seen that this is a common practice. At the time it was just very puzzling that this sort of thing would happen. In the literature you see that you know, a common practice was for—on an all-white area—for a real estate agent to pay an African American woman to walk down the street with a baby buggy. Very kind of blatant practices that are supposedly illegal now. But they had their impact. They certainly had an impact and, along with the incentives for moving out provided by the FHA, increased that kind of movement out of areas—the very rapid movement—out of otherwise very settled, pleasant, middle-class neighborhoods that were getting along, at least from my perspective back then, fairly well.</p>
<p>NL: You mentioned a few minutes ago that your father owned a store in the neighborhood where you grew up. Could you tell me about that business?</p>
<p>FR: Sure, actually he owned two stores. He and his brothers owned two stores. The first was on Linwood between Hogarth and Lothrop—the street that we grew up on, at Lamothe and Lothrop—and it was at 7525 Linwood. It was a grocery store. It had been one of the original A&P stores.</p>
<p>My dad, his father, and his brothers bought that store, they moved from a store near Sacred Heart Seminary on Longfellow to that store in 1935. And it was, for the time, a market—Rashid’s Quality Market—and it was a fairly large grocery store. This was before the era of the supermarkets which then became the era of Meijers and the big Kroger stores and the big supermarkets we have now. But it was for its time a fairly large store, and it was a fully equipped grocery store with fresh vegetables and meats and canned goods and—a regular grocery store.</p>
<p>NL: And there was another location too?</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, then in 1954 my dad bought a little corner drug store on Lothrop and Fourteenth [Street], on the other side of where we lived, and turned that into what we euphemistically referred to as a “party store,” but which we would now call a liquor store.</p>
<p>NL: Right. And how long did those businesses stay intact or in the family?</p>
<p>FR: [Speaking at same time] Yeah, the grocery store we lost as a business in 1967. My father sold it temporarily to the Black Star Co-op, which was run by Rev. Albert Cleage from the Shrine of the Black Madonna, one of our neighbors, who wanted to make it a co-op, an African American co-op, for groceries for the area.</p>
<p>It didn’t work out. Co-ops are very hard to make work. And then that store sat abandoned until it was torn down about ten years ago. My dad and his brother ran the liquor store until 1976. Both of those stores were looted in 1967, but not burned.</p>
<p>NL: When did you move out from that neighborhood?</p>
<p>FR: We didn’t. My family still lives on Lothrop in the house that I was born in. My mother died there about three years ago, and my sister and my brother live in adjoining houses, next door houses, on Lothrop between – in that very same block. I lived there until 1983, when I was married and we outgrew the upper flat on the house next door, and I now live in the University District, not far from the University of Detroit and Marygrove [College].</p>
<p>NL: Okay. So, speaking of 1967, you were living at Lothrop and Linwood at that time. Can you tell me about your memories of that time, starting with how you first heard of or noticed the civil disturbance?</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, it was a “notice.” The rest of the family was away for the summer, and my father and I used to—when I was in high school, I would spend the summers with him, working in the stores. And my family was up north — the rest of our family was up north, and so we decided on—we were running some kind of an errand. We were going somewhere on Sunday morning. And we drove down from our house on Lothrop, we turned down Fourtheenth and then turned left on the Boulevard, and as we crossed Twelfth Street, we looked down and we saw—actually that famous image of Twelfth Street completely covered with smoke and crowds of people—and we knew something was going on.</p>
<p>We knew what was going on because there had been some disturbances in the previous couple of years. This was not completely surprising. It was the era of a considerable number of important riots and rebellions that took place in cities around the United States. So we knew what was going on. We continued with our errand and then went over to Chicago Boulevard, where my grandmother lived and her family, my father’s mother. Chicago Boulevard and Woodrow Wilson. And we got a call there from one of the customers at the store that the store was being looted—the store on Linwood was being looted.</p>
<p>NL: From a customer?</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, one of our neighbors, the neighbors who lived across the street, just at the corner of Lamothe and Linwood. So we ran over there, my dad, my uncle, and I, and—foolishly, as it turned out—parked across the street. There were all kinds of people milling about. The store, which had nearly ground-level to ceiling-level windows, was completely broken into. We went over there; the folks scattered when they saw us. We decided, again foolishly, that we would clean up the store. And we had four or five of our neighbors and customers helping us, and in a way, protecting us; all of them were African American. And so we started to sweep up the debris and all the stuff that was taken off the shelves and we’d put it in baskets and boxes—which of course made it easier to take out later. But we did that and we were cleaning it up. My dad was not going to leave, he was going to stay in the store. And these other three men were helping us, sort of watching out for us, because the traffic was moving down Linwood from the north to the south, and there were catcalls, and there was some—it felt tense. We heard that a man who ran a shoe repair shop down the street had been killed. As it turned out that wasn’t exactly true—he did die a few days later. But, he was one of the few white victims in the riot. But he is someone who kind of—it’s very interesting to go to the Rutgers University site on the both Newark and Detroit riots and read about what happened in this particular case, because he decided to go fight and charged out of his store with an old sword. And people were kind of—it’s a much more complicated and nuanced story. But we did hear about it, and I started to get scared, and one of the men who was watching us said, “You better tell your dad it’s time to leave; we can’t hold this off too much longer.” The folks who were coming down Linwood, by the way, were not predominately the residents of the area, they were coming from elsewhere because it was—you know, the events were moving very fast, and people were congregating and coming from other parts of town. At least that’s the way I saw it.</p>
<p>So, this customer of ours said, “We can’t hold this off too much longer; you better tell your dad to leave.” So I said to dad, “You know, you’ve been around for 56 years, I’ve only been around for 16. I’d like to hang around a little longer.” And that convinced him finally that maybe we should leave. So we, I mean, my dad had a thing about locking the door, [Noah laughing] even though the windows were wide open. So we locked the door to the store and these four guys surrounded us, walked around the three of us as we sort of, as we walked across the street—because we had to go through this kind of crazy, all the stuff that was going on—so that we’d be okay. And really—at considerable risk, I think—they did this.</p>
<p>NL: These are the people who had been helping you protect the store?</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, had been helping us and they wanted us to be okay. You know, it was not the kind of climate where folks who were protecting white folks were necessarily going to be okay themselves.</p>
<p>NL: Yeah.</p>
<p>FR: And so they got us to the car and we left, and as we left there was a brick thrown at the car, it hit us, hit the car, so I know there was some animosity there, and that these guys were facing that as well. I’ve never forgotten that and it had a real impact on me, what these men did. They were—I knew two of them by name, at least by nickname, but I didn’t know two of the others. I mean, I recognized them but I didn’t know them by name. And so it has been very important to me to remember that sense.</p>
<p>NL: Of course.</p>
<p>FR: The next day, on Monday, this was the 23; Sunday was the day that the rebellion that began. On the 24, the store on Fourteenth was broken into and looted. And again, we were helped out by customers who sat with us and helped us to kind of work on things and then eventually the National Guard showed up and formed—used that location as a kind of place to set up. So it was protected. And so those were the two main events of the day, of those days.</p>
<p>I do recall before that happened, before the Fourtheenth store was looted, my dad and I went to Central High School, where there was an encampment of the National Guard. The tanks were all there, and everything was – and we went and talked to the—we tried to find who was in charge and told them that there was this store with a lot of liquor in it, and my dad was really concerned about it. But finally they—and they did show up after it was looted, but I don’t know if that was in response to our attempt to get them to come or whether they just got a lot of calls from people in the neighborhood.</p>
<p>NL: When did you next return to the store later in the week?</p>
<p>FR: Probably within a day or so, and we reopened it, and—</p>
<p>NL: Any idea what day that would have been?</p>
<p>FR: Probably Wednesday, it may have been Tuesday, it may have been as early as Tuesday. It wasn’t completely looted, and we were able to get resupplied fairly quickly because there weren’t a lot of stores open, so there was, you know, an incentive for our wholesalers and others to get us stuff, and my dad always ran around and got us a lot of groceries and things. In addition to beer, and wine, and liquor we sold a small line of groceries in that store. We didn’t reopen the Linwood store. It was too badly looted, and it wasn’t—it was still—and too hard to secure.</p>
<p>NL: I’m sure there were still fires and things like that?</p>
<p>FR: Oh yeah, there were fires, there were still fires, but the intense activity was on Sunday and Monday.</p>
<p>NL: Right.</p>
<p>FR: Some degree Tuesday, but by the time the federal troops came in replacing the National Guard, or augmenting the National Guard, things pretty much had slowed down.</p>
<p>NL: So, after this had happened, you said your family still lived in the neighborhood where the stores were—</p>
<p>FR: Uh-hmmm—</p>
<p>NL: Which I think is unusual for people who were business owners in that Twelfth Street district right there, that encouraged a lot of flight and a lot of fear in people. Do you remember your dad talking about that and his decision to keep your family in the neighborhood right there?</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, we’ve thought about it a lot of course in the years since because it is not usual. We are among the very, very few families that weren’t African American who stayed in the neighborhood. And we were, even for store owners at the time living in the neighborhood—you know, people were absentee store owners—but we always, my dad did believe in being in the neighborhood. But I will say, we weren’t untouched by all the movement out, and my folks used to—on weekends, on Sundays when the store was closed—my mom and dad, for fun, went out and looked at other houses, looked at homes, for many, many years. I don’t know whether it was inertia or just their attraction to the neighborhood that they stayed. But I will say, that really stopped after 1967. And we’ve often wondered why. I mean, we don’t know why, what was in my parents’ interests. there may have been other reasons for us to stay in that neighborhood.</p>
<p>I will say for myself, shortly after 1967, I went through tremendous soul searching. I was a student at Sacred Heart Seminary at the time, which was a very progressive institution. And there was an awful lot of strong civil rights activity. Father Bill Cunningham, the founder of Focus: HOPE, was on the faculty there. And I remember—</p>
<p>NL: At the high school?</p>
<p>FR: At the high school, yeah he was an English and Speech teacher at this high school. And later that year, in 1968, they founded Focus: HOPE, and I was around for that. And I remember feeling somewhat challenged by being the son of a white storeowner in the city, and really thinking about what was our role and responsibility for what happened in 1967. I remember my dad was a committed Detroiter and an honest businessman, and he followed the rules, and he did—you know, that was not it.</p>
<p>And yet I was concerned about, a real concern about price gouging, and about “other-ising” the customers, and making sure that—you know, really treating people fairly, and all of those things—which my dad basically did. I mean, he was a very good steward for the business and for the neighborhood. But I really challenged him. Every time I put a price on a jar of mayonnaise, I challenged him. I said, “Why is this 39 cents? Why is this—,” you know, all of those kinds of things. I mean, we really had a lot of discussions about that. And he was a strong FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] Democrat, and was a very strong believer in civil rights, and yet adults of that time had attitudes that were condescending and patronizing, and I challenged him on those things. And of course I had to outgrow a lot of that myself.</p>
<p>A lot of that happened as a result of what happened in 1967, because what I’ve studied since, of course, and really what happened in 1967, built in me an interest that I later translated when I became a scholar and a professor into a real serious interrogation of the city of Detroit and what has happened there. And a real interest in its history, a real interest in the racial and social justice issues that I grew up surrounded by. And so in 1967, that became kind of that turning point, that thing that forced those questions in my adolescent mind, and my challenges to my dad and to my family and to the status quo, and my interest in Detroit’s history and politics ever since.</p>
<p>NL: I do want to talk about your professional career, but I have a few more questions about 1967 first. As the neighborhood began changing afterwards into being more predominately African American—</p>
<p>FR: I think it’s important to trust Thomas Sugrue on this—that neighborhood had pretty much changed, was in the real strong process of change, well before 1967.</p>
<p>NL: Well, after the riots, do you remember there being a presence or an increase of any anti-white sentiment by the community, and if so, do you feel like that affected your family and your living there fort the next decade?</p>
<p>FR:I would say that there was an increase in all kinds of activity, in crime, in all that in the years prior to 1967, and in retrospect that was the case. Actually crime declined fairly soon after 1967 for a lot of very logical reasons: I mean, there wasn’t as much business; the whole area—Twelfth Street, Fourteenth, Linwood—the commercial districts became much less vulnerable to crime because there wasn’t as much there. So those kinds of things, those kinds of social problems that accompany radical racial change, which was going on in the 1950s and early 60s, those things kind of diminished after 1967.</p>
<p>White flight continued, certainly, and the movement out to the suburbs continued, and other areas of Detroit. But the idea that 1967 was the turning point for the city is something that should be challenged. Thomas Sugrue challenges it in <em>Origins of the Urban Crisis</em> very persuasively. Because all of the things that were going on in Detroit from after World War II, and you can arguably well before World War II, and into the 1960s had an effect on all of the frustration and anger that erupted in 1967. And so, rather than 1967 being the turning point, it was a culmination of a lot of social problems and injustice that happened up to that point. And certainly things intensified in the neighborhood. We lost our commercial—the businesses; the area became less populous; it became more African American—yeah, all of those things happened at increased speed after 1967.</p>
<p>NL: You mentioned Sugrue’s book a couple times. And that’s of course extremely an important text about the subject, about the history of Detroit, any way you slice it. One of the things that I noticed from it I really liked that it ties in all of these big ideas and talks about the confluence of forces that shaped this city in the middle of the twentieth century—related to the riots, not related to the riots—you know, a really 20, 30-year period. You’re a historian, you’ve studied these things, too: Is Detroit such a unique case there that you have such a confluence of forces, or is that a part of urbanism that you could tell that same story in other cities, just with their own separate results?</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, we’ve dealt with this a lot. I teach a course called “Detroit and the Contemporary Urban Crisis” with a historian—I’m a literature professor, but he’s a historian and a sociologist and an economist. And we’ve really dealt with that. We’ve hashed that out quite a bit. I think these forces were present in other cities, and they had an impact on other cities, but they hit Detroit with greater intensity because of the particular makeup of its population, its strong blue-collar work force, its ethnic population, the strong influence of Polish Catholics, and southern whites and other Europeans and Jews and all of these, all of this population, and their differing responses to the African American presence in the city, and sometimes their very vitriolic response to African Americans in the city well before 1967, as integration happened.</p>
<p>So because of the automobile industry, this particular combination of populations in Detroit felt the presence of African Americans, of the sizable African American population, and the increasing African American population in very, very, intense ways. So I think the vehemence of the response to integration in Detroit was a product of the makeup of the population that started in the nineteen-teens and twenties, with the strong industrial economy that we had. It was exacerbated by that industry’s decision to basically abandon the city after World War II when,as Sugrue points out, a period when these huge vertically integrated plants like the Rouge and Dodge Main—that Ford and GM and Chrysler decided to decentralize and move their operations elsewhere to the suburbs, to other parts of the United States, and the world. And that hit Detroit’s economy particularly hard. African Americans were still moving to the city for these good automobile jobs which were declining. And so you had a larger and larger proportion of African American young people who were unemployed, who had felt they’d been promised something that didn’t happen. In the meantime the city’s tax base was declining rapidly because of the movement of white folks to the suburbs which was, as I said earlier, subsidized by the federal government.</p>
<p>NL: So with that in mind, do you think it would be accurate to say that the urban crisis Detroit has experienced has been inevitable in some ways?</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, it was a manufactured crisis in retrospect, not intentionally manufactured—certainly the auto industry didn’t leave Detroit because of race; it left because they changed their structure. Yeah, the logic of capitalism, they followed that. They followed the logic of the bottom line. They decided that vertical integration was no longer the most profitable way to build cars, so they decentralized. They had this huge highway network that facilitated that, and this rail network that facilitated that. So they moved their operations elsewhere. The population shift in other ways was racially motivated, because the federal government’s policies were racist. Not always intentionally racist, but they were racist. The followed the sociology of the time, which said that healthy neighborhoods are segregated neighborhoods, are racially homogeneous neighborhoods. So when they built new neighborhoods in the suburbs, they said, Well, they have to be racially homogeneous, we don’t want integrated neighborhoods, and we will redline those neighborhoods that are. We will not subsidize people who integrate neighborhoods, which meant effectively that they were not going to subsidize African Americans. We will only subsidize new construction, we want new neighborhoods, we will build new places, which meant effectively that most of the city was not going to be—people within the city were not going to receive FHA and VA loans. So basically, this city in particular, because of its particular population makeup, and because of the deindustrialization that was occurring simultaneously, it was—as I think Sugrue demonstrates really persuasively—an absolute conflagration of forces that—and combination of forces—that led to the city’s crisis that happened that started in the 1950s, proceeded and gained steam in the 1960s, and has been, we’ve been feeling it ever since.</p>
<p>In fact, sometimes it’s amazing to me that we still have a really functioning, viable city when you think about how many forces combined at that period to basically attack the city in really compelling and forceful ways.</p>
<p>NL: What do you think is needed for a successful effort to rebuild the neighborhoods of the city?</p>
<p>FR: Well, that’s a huge question. I mean, federal policy contributed dramatically, and federal policy also encouraged the auto industry to decentralize, because they didn’t want—fearing the atomic bomb as they did—they didn’t want all of its, all of the war industry to be concentrated in single locations. So they facilitated that movement out of centralized areas. So the federal government—basically, federal policies created this inequality, and created this crisis, and federal policies really have to play a part in restoring our cities, and Detroit in particular. So, what America has not had ever is a comprehensive urban policy, a comprehensive set of social policies that basically address the forces that concentrate social problems in cities.</p>
<p>We have all kinds of ways of making sure that cities, and in particular Detroit, is going to be the place where poor people live, where people have housing issues, where crime is concentrated, where all of the things that are concentrated because of racial and social injustice, those things have all happened, and we’ve basically create gated communities, and restricted communities in the suburbs. We’ve got, as John Powell, another great Detroit-born scholar, says, We’ve got civil rights laws, but we’ve created white space elsewhere and created concentrations of poverty and inequality in the cities.</p>
<p>You even see this in areas like insurance redlining. The way, if you live in the city, you have to pay more for car insurance, just to have a car. Because the insurance industry assumes that you’re guilty based on where you live. You know, you are—there’s somehow, something wrong—you can have the same driving record as somebody in Birmingham, but you’re going to pay twice as much for car insurance, just based on where you live. That’s not just, because the problems that Detroit and Detroiters live with are national in scope; they are not Detroit’s problems. They are concentrated in cities by all sorts of forces that make sure that people elsewhere will not have to live with the problems that our economic system and our social system have created.</p>
<p>NL: So what do you think would need to be included in an effective federal-level comprehensive urban policy?</p>
<p>FR: We have to address, we have to undo the impact of racial segregation in housing, by resubsidizing people who live in cities, to be able to restore their homes and renovate their homes. We have to make sure the banking regulations prohibit the kind of foreclosures—and first of all, the insanity of the early 2000s when people were given homes they couldn’t afford, and then were chased out. The devastation of neighborhoods that followed in the wake of that has been dramatic. All of this, as David Freund shows, is related to the kind of housing policies that happened in the 1930s and forties and fifties. Fannie Mae is a descendant of the FHA programs that happened back then. And so we have to really rethink housing policies. There has to be a tremendous investment in our schools, and a rethinking of our schools. We have to stop the kind of really misguided policies that have happened at the state level. The takeover of the Detroit schools—not that the Detroit schools didn’t have terrible, terrible problems—but because of the way we fund schools with property taxes, as the property tax basis declined in Detroit, its public schools have suffered dramatically. And so we have educational inequality that happens as a result. All of this has to happen at a bigger level than local and even state level, even though we need the support of our state government and we should regionalize. There’s got to be a kind of comprehensive vision for cities in America and we have to attack the social problems that are national in scope. We’re not going to do that in the current political climate. But that’s what it would take in order to really address Detroit’s social problems.</p>
<p>NL: But you can’t see a time in the foreseeable future when the federal government would look to address that?</p>
<p>FR: I never say “never,” but I don’t see it in the immediate future. I don’t see the present political climate addressing that. I’m very concerned about the investment in certain areas in Detroit locally by the state and local governments that are being repopulated by young white professionals. I think that’s great, I’m all in favor of folks moving back to the city, but not to the furthering the inequality against African Americans who live in Detroit’s neighborhoods. We have to reinvest in our people, and we have to address the longstanding inequality that has affected Detroit’s black residents and continues to affect them.</p>
<p>NL: So what are the issues, as you see them, that affect that? There’s, as you said, young—white especially—professionals moving back into the city or choosing to move into the city from out of state and elsewhere, and I’m guessing you’re talking about Midtown, Corktown, neighborhoods are identified as revitalized in the last few years. What’s not working with that plan?</p>
<p>FR: Well, it simply means that police protection is going to go down there. Neighborhoods are still going to have problems with, you know, they’re still going to wait 20 minutes or a half-hour or an hour for a police response, where downtown on the riverfront you’ve got a real strong police presence. You’ve got that kind of thing. We’re not investing, we’re not addressing the problems of schools. We’re cutting back on schools, we’re cutting back on education in the city, we’re disrupting terribly the school system, because we’re letting finance people determine educational policy instead of really looking at what do we do with this underfunded, underpopulated school system that we have. How are we going to create and further educational equality for Detroit’s kids? How are we going to invest in repopulating and solidifying Detroit’s neighborhoods that have been so devastated by the foreclosure crisis in recent years? Those kinds of things have to happen, and that’s happening in neighborhoods on the west side, in the east side, the farther reaches that are more heavily populated by poor folks, by lower middle-class people, and by African Americans. Then Corktown, and what is called Midtown, and all of those kinds of areas.</p>
<p>NL: It seems like race is still the underlying, pervasive issue in all of this when you talk about education and police response.</p>
<p>FR: I think it’s absolutely still a factor. We have not outgrown this, as recent news stories have indicated. You know, a lot of the anger in Detroit in 1967 was based on the strong police response to African Americans. The intense response: Detroit was notorious for recruiting police officers from the South, from elsewhere, who had a longstanding antipathy toward African Americans. And Detroit’s police department was notoriously understaffed by African Americans until Coleman Young became the mayor. In the 1960s, Jerry Cavanaugh as mayor tried to attack the embedded, entrenched racism within the Detroit Police Department by appointing George Edwards, this longstanding racial progressive, as police commissioner in the city. And he was police commissioner through Jerry Cavanaugh’s early administration. He worked very hard to try to address the racism in the Detroit Police Department and ultimately threw up his hands. By 1967, Ray Girardin was police commissioner. There was enlightened leadership that recognized the problems embedded in Detroit but 1967, I mean the tinderbox—the problems were longstanding, the injustice was longstanding—but the tinderbox was lit by police actions as happened on the early morning of July 23. That those kinds of things were moments in time in which all of the frustration and anger erupted because the police presence was the focal point. The community met—the African American community met—the systemic racism and the systemic injustice in the presence of the police department. That was their most intimate connection with societal injustice. And so when the police acted as they often did—unwisely and without regard, without sensitivity to the situations of the neighborhoods—explosions happened.</p>
<p> NL: I’d like to backtrack slightly. You said a little, short while ago that there were some smaller civil disturbances prior to 1967—</p>
<p> FR: [Speaking at same time] Yeah—</p>
<p>NL: —that you can remember. Of course, in the 1960s there were many disturbances all over the country. Could you talk about your memories of those other ones in Detroit, pre-67?</p>
<p>FR: Yeah, they’re a little fuzzy, but I think in 1966 there was an event on the east side, if my memory serves me, that could have blown up, could have become a 1967, but was contained. There was always tension in the neighborhood. There were tensions in the neighborhoods that were there. And it wasn’t unexpected that that these things would erupt.</p>
<p>Of course 1943, before I came into the world, set the stage. 1967 was really not a race riot—it was kind of economic rebellion. But 1943 was a race riot. It was hand-to-hand combat in the streets, it was blacks versus whites, on Woodward Avenue burning cars, attacking streetcars, going into neighborhoods, and that was absolutely racial.</p>
<p>By the 1960s it was much more complicated. Race was certainly a factor, but it was also economics. We may have been visible on Linwood because of our race, but they weren’t attacking people based on race, they were attacking stores and store owners. It was much more economic.</p>
<p>NL: I’m so glad you shared that with us. I think there’s a common misconception of people who haven’t looked into it that it was a true race riot in 1967 when really there were just—</p>
<p>FR: [Speaking at same time] No, it was—</p>
<p>NL: [Speaking at same time] Like we talked about, there were just so many factors over at once.</p>
<p>FR: Yes, I mean when you look at the—Sugrue had some wonderful tables in his book, wonderful charts, that examine unemployment, the way disinvestment was happening in the city at this time—and if you really look at those you can see, this is, you know, you have large numbers of unemployed young men who thought they were coming to Detroit, whose families came to Detroit, because it was going to be better here. They were going to have jobs here. There were high-paying jobs here. And those jobs disappeared. This is economics, not race. It’s race in some ways, but from their vantage point, they’re not thinking of it in terms of race, they’re thinking of it in terms of lost opportunities, of broken promises. And so that’s really, really strong—and a strong, intense reaction can be expected when you see this kind of thing.</p>
<p>NL: Would you care to add and talk about your own research in history and in literature that you’ve done as a professor?</p>
<p>FR: Sure, yeah, I—and also my decision to be here, to stay here, kind of to not just study but to live here and observe what’s going on—I was in the seminary and I was studying for the priesthood. I left the seminary in 1970, and continued my study at University of Detroit. Went on to graduate school there and studied literature—which was my passion and my love—and I studied nineteenth century American literature, did my dissertation on Emily Dickinson.</p>
<p>So my scholarship went in that direction for quite a while, even as I was very involved in what was going on in the city at the time, and very involved in several political and social causes. When I finished most of my graduate work, I went on and worked for a short time at Focus: HOPE because of my connection there. But I really did miss the classroom and I was thrilled to get a job in 1980 at Marygrove [College], which has a strong social justice commitment and a strong commitment to the city of Detroit. It’s the institution I always wanted to work at as a result of that. And it allowed me to follow up my secondary passion for study of Detroit. And it has, I have, colleagues who share that passion in other disciplines—a historian, as I mentioned; a sociologist; an economist; music professors, other artists who also are intensely interested in the city.</p>
<p>And we built a curriculum, really, around that, and that has encouraged my own branching out into study of Detroit literature, using what I learned in studying nineteenth century American literature, in studying Detroit poets and Detroit writers; and creating a literary map of Detroit to emphasize Detroit’s significance as a literary site in American literature; and teaching courses with these colleagues on contemporary Detroit. So it’s been, for me, the passion that I have for the city, and the interests that I have in the city, I’ve been able to fulfill and to use to serve my academic interests, and I found the exact right institution to allow me to do that. In 2001, during Detroit’s Tricentennial, we had a series at Marygrove called “Defining Detroit,” which is a series of lectures and exhibits and performances and readings, all based on serious interrogation of the common myths about Detroit. And then we established the Institute for Detroit Studies, which is our attempt to look seriously at Detroit and the many issues connected with it. And really trying to look at the common understandings, common ideas about Detroit and interrogate those, think critically about the common myths about the city of Detroit.</p>
<p>NL: When was that institute established?</p>
<p>FR: We founded that in 2001. We started the Defining Detroit series, we planned for the Tricentennial starting in 1998, and as we were doing this we decided to combine all of our curricular efforts, our classes on Detroit, our research in Detroit, and our other Detroit-based projects into something called the Institute for Detroit Studies. We also have at Marygrove an Urban Leadership Curriculum initiative that is intended to infuse community engagement with serious analysis of the city of Detroit in our classes and serious community engagement on the part of our faculty, staff, and students.</p>
<p>NL: Does Marygrove serve—I’m guessing it serves primarily in-state and [unintelligible]</p>
<p>FR: [Speaking at same time] Yeah, we do have international students and we do have students from elsewhere, but we are still 70 percent African American; we are about 70 percent Detroit students. We are really unique in that way in the Detroit area in that most of our students come from the city. We have a significant population of students from elsewhere, but this is our undergraduate student body. Our graduate students are from elsewhere, and we have a distance learning program that is in four states. But, we have a real strong Detroit presence and a real strong—I think for a college that is not a historically black institution—we have one of the largest African American percentages of students of any college in the United States. And that’s by design. That’s something that the sponsoring order, the IHM [Immaculate Heart of Mary] sisters, who have a longstanding commitment to the city of Detroit and to minority populations, that’s something that they have encouraged and that the administration and faculty have embraced. So that’s something that I think is really distinctive and one of the reasons I’m really happy that I’ve been able to make a career there.</p>
<p>NL: That’s so great to hear, you can just see why you’re proud of that—</p>
<p>FR: Yeah.</p>
<p>NL: I have no more questions at this moment. Is there anything else that you would care to share with us about your memories of 1967 and your researching career?</p>
<p>FR: Just that it’s been—it’s a fascinating study. Sometimes people say it must be so depressing to watch what’s happened in Detroit, in your lifetime. Detroit reached its height of population the year I was born, and it’s in a sense, the story of my life has been a story of social and economic decline, but it’s not just about decline. Detroit—as its automobile production declined, its artistic production has increased dramatically. Detroit’s great writers and artists and musicians—their production has increased dramatically, partly in response to the urban crisis. And so we really have, Detroit has a real strong and vibrant artistic and literary community that I think is really worth studying. So it’s not completely depressing. And also—as an academic, just watching what has happened in Detroit, understanding what’s going on—there’s a kind of reward in that, in understanding what it would really take to rebuild and regenerate a city, and how complicated and challenging that task is, and how exciting it is as the same time.</p>
<p>NL: Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and memories with us today, Frank.</p>
<p>FR: Thank you, it’s been fun, Noah.</p>
**
People
List any relevant people (interviewers, interviewees, important people mentioned, etc). Please use "Lastname, Firstname".
Cleage, Rev. Albert; Cunningham, Father William; Sugrue, Thomas; Freund. David
Search Terms
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L:othrop Street, Marygrove College, Shrine of the Black Madonna; Cobo, Albert; 1967 riots, riots, interviews, oral history, economic rebellion, looting
Video
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8g2mZ2aBLmk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
Dublin Core
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Title
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Frank Rashid, July 30th 2015
Subject
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1967 Detroit Civil Disturbance
Albert Cobo
blockbusting
David Freund
Federal Housing Administration Loans
Focus Hope
Institute for Detroit Studies
Literary Map of Detroit
Marygrove College
John Powell
Rashid’s Market
Rev. Albert Cleage
Sacred Heart Seminary
Shrine of the Black Madonna
St. Agnes School
Thomas Sugrue, Origins of the Urban Crisis
University of Detroit
Veterans Administration Loans
Description
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In this interview, Rashid discusses social changes that occurred while growing up in his near west side neighborhood of Detroit as well as his own family’s experience during the 1967 civil disturbance, during which his father’s store was looted. He discusses his early involvement in Focus Hope and his scholarly interest in exploring the causes of the 1967 civil disturbance in the broader context of economics and federal urban policies and also discusses his role in establishing the Institute for Detroit Studies at Marygrove College.
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
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10/13/2015
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI, 48202
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en-US
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||||osm
West-side Detroit, Lothrop
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Blockbusting
Economic Rebellion
Father William Cunningham
FOCUS: Hope
Looting
Marygrove College
Reverend Albert Cleage
Teenagers
-
https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/95b4f8de27daaac4435830e0b2055c1c.jpg
5aa9809d636dbefa7de5271316f1a7e3
Dublin Core
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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
Date
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10/20/2019
Oral History
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Renee Giles
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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
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Detroit, MI
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08/03/2015
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00:30:48
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Tobi Voigt
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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
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zsnIZiLOWmE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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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
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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
-
https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/caea15d6804545618340b75e202f17e8.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
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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
Date
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10/20/2019
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I was a young, pregnant bride. I lived with my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law and my sister-in-law. We heard a ruckus one Sunday afternoon, so my brother-in-law said, “Let’s go see what all the noise is about” because we heard fire trucks and we heard police cars. We went up to Linwood and Gladstone and all we could see was fire, looting and just pure chaos. Up around Blaine, I think, and Linwood there were five brick houses that were destroyed. And as far as you could see, there was nothing but destruction. And at night it was like a war zone. You could hear shooting. You could see the fire from the guns being shot.
My husband was with the 82nd airborne division from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. They brought the troops in and he was stationed at Eastern High School to keep the order. That was a very long time ago, but those are some of the things I remember.
I also remember, over on Livernois. My parents lived in the university district over there. And I remember when Gorman was right there on Livernois between the Lodge and Puritan. All those stores moved away because of the destruction from the riots. All our wonderful furniture stores. Kauffman’s. I can’t recall the store that was there at Dexter and the Boulevard, but people had trailers, just moving furniture out of the store. All along Grand River there were beautiful furniture stores. The same thing happened. And as of today, I notice that Linwood has never been completely restored between Joy Road and the Boulevard. Well, that’s part of my story. Thank you.
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D67 voicemail message
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Darlene Simonds
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07/25/2014
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82nd Airborne, federal troops, Eastern High School, Linwood,
Dublin Core
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Title
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Darlene Simonds
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Darlene Simonds remembers 1967 as a young pregnant bride. She recalls names and locations of multiple impacted furniture, grocery, and fashion storefronts in the area.
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Detroit Historical Society
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10/23/2015
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Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
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Written Story
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||||osm
Around Livernois, Grand River, Linwood, and Gladstone
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
82nd Airborne Division-US Army
Blaine Street
Eastern High School
Linwood Street
Looting
United States Army
-
https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/files/original/3b3719285ae7236f224d9b93e46a7b83.jpg
a1af5fc6830e3cb021c88546b07e18ed
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Detroit 67: Looking Back to Move Forward
Subject
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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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Sharon Gant
Brief Biography
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Sharon Gant was born February 14, 1952 and grew up in Northwest Detroit, MI where she lived during the 1967 civil disturbance. Gant worked as a social worker and an attorney for three decades. Gant currently lives in Detroit.
Interviewer's Name
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Lillian Wilson
Interview Place
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Dossin Great Lakes Musuem, Belle Isle, Detroit, MI
Interview Length
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28:38
Transcriptionist
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Joye Clark
Transcription Date
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11/14/15
Transcription
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LW: Today is August 15, 2015 this is the interview of the Sharon Gant by Lily Wilson. We are at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle in Detroit Michigan. This Interview is for the Detroit 1967 Oral History Project and the Detroit Historical Society. Sharon, can you start telling me where and when you were born?
SG: I was born in Detroit, Michigan 1952. February, Valentine’s Day.
LW: Oh okay, February 14, 1952.
SG: Yep.
LW: And, what neighborhood did you grow up in?
SG: Grow up in? Well, the earliest neighborhood I remember is the Jeffries Projects. I guess that is Midtown now a days and then and maybe started 12, 10 years old we moved to Stoepel and Fullerton which is Northwest Detroit.
LW: So, the Jefferies Projects is where the freeway now is?
SG: Canfield and the Lodge Freeway, I think they call it Woodbridge Estates now.
LW: Okay, so it does still exist?
SG: Two of the buildings are still there.
LW: Okay, I see.
SG: I had to go to a meeting in one the other day, it was nostalgic.
LW: Oh wow, what was the meeting for?
SG: A homeless project, there is a HAN — Homeless Action Network— of Detroit is housed there now, their offices, and there was a meeting.
LW: And that is an organization that you are involved in?
SG: I work with Legal Aid and Defender Association and I a meeting with the homeless and, yes, our agency works with the homeless legal services.
LW: So you work with Legal Aid?
SG: Yes.
LW: Okay, so your job, you are employed by Legal Aid today, and we may go back and talk about that and your efforts there, but I want to go back to your growing up. What do you remember about your childhood in Detroit?
SG: School, playing outside, running, I don’t know, and Popeye on television, Soupy Sales.
LW: Was the neighborhoods you grew up in relatively safe?
SG: Did I feel, I think, I mean, I don’t want to look — at that time, I felt protected by my parents. I didn’t, I wasn’t afraid, I didn’t remember being afraid and so I remember being worried about getting into fights and be careful on your way to school so we had to be careful so I don’t know if I have an opinion on if it was safe. Okay, so I felt comfortable enough I don’t know if I felt carefree, la la. I was always doing the right thing so that I would be safe.
LW: And your parents instilled that in you?
SG: Yes, do what you are supposed to do and you will be ok.
LW: What did your parents do for a living?
SG: What they do? Well, I had my mother for a long time; I got my stepfather when I was 10 when we moved out of the projects.
LW: I see.
SG: Yeah, my mother took care of us, when she married my stepfather, she did part time manager at an apartment complex like and then she took care of us the rest of the time and then my stepfather worked at a Ford Motor Company as an overhead crane driver.
LW: So in July of ’67 you were still living in the Jeffries Projects or had you just moved out?
SG: No, by ’67 I must have been 15 so that was five years later so we were at Stoepel and Fullerton, which is like not that far from you know Dexter and Linwood and Twelfth Street. You know this Livernois and Davison is that vicinity. Grand River and Livernois. In ’67, I was I think that must have been my first year at Cass Tech [High School], it must have been, it must have been the summer after because in the old days you could start school in January. So I started Cass in January of '67. So it must have been my first summer. I wasn’t driving yet and the neighborhood was a nicer neighborhood. There were still kind of mixed when we moved into that neighborhood there were two little white girls across the street and those were the people who taught my sister and I how to drive our bikes that they bought for us. They were like you know come on —those were our friends at that point and I remember and I don’t know and there was a lot of mixed race and sort of I guess in transition, I don’t know. I almost remember hearing something about a lot of moving in and moving out in that neighborhood anyway. When we moved in it was nice it was green I don’t know, there were tree. And then right around ’67 when the riots happened— we were in the car. Is that what you want to know? When it happened or, before? Before it was nice enough, the neighborhood was nice, the school was nice. We walked to school, to the elementary school and to the middle school and then high school, I took the bus and that was nice enough. As far as I remember, I was doing the right thing. The only thing someone worried about was getting in fights, you know. “I’m beating you up after school” type stuff, you know. It seemed liked in middle school the worst thing that happened was that somebody might say, “I heard so and so had a knife!” What is that? Rumors. I never saw anybody get cut or hurt or heard about anybody getting cut, but that was the big scary thing that could happen.
LW: Ok.
SG: So, I think it was a safe enough neighborhood as far as I know. And, then you know, the riots happened. I just remember being in the car and there was a lot running and people running and we were like, “What’s going on, we got get home, we got get home.” It must have been my mother driving. I wasn’t driving then, my sister is younger than me and then when we got home people were running between the houses with stuff.
LW: Near your house between Stoepel and Fullerton?
SG: Yes, we were at an intersection at Fullerton, Fullerton is like a major end of road that goes through a long way and then Stoepel is the first residential street this side of Livernois which is the big three lanes on either side. So people were running and there was not a whole bunch of people, but every so often somebody would run by with some jackets or something. And this guy had a chicken and this one little guy, I can’t remember his name, but he was like, “I got chickens!” “What this is happening? You need to get in the house.”
LW: And you recognize some of the people?
SG: Mhm.
LW: You did? They were neighbors?
SG: Um, yeah in the neighborhood, not on the block but from school or something. I remember that one guy with the chickens. I was like what is he doing? Huh, he is like all happy I got chickens, what?
LW: So he had been looting?
SG: Apparently. Or, maybe somebody gave him some chickens that they got or how do I know? I don’t know, but he had chickens. He was running and then someone else had — And then when we were on Joy Road, when people first started running around, there were televisions, someone had a television running across, this does not look good. We need to get home. We got to get home; we've got to get in the house. I remember that.
LW: Where were you driving from? Do you remember that day?
SG: No, nope. All I remember, it was Joy Road, though, near Grand River that we were on. And it had to have been my mother because I didn’t get my license until the following year.
LW: Because you were about 15, you said?
SG: Right, right.
LW: So, in addition to wondering why people were running around with jackets and chickens and TVs.
SG: Yeah, strange, and it was scary. Because, obviously people were kind of out of control. It was like, “Okay, let’s get home. We've got to get home. Something is going on.” I don’t remember what my mother said. but I remember looking around and saying it was looking kinda crazy so.
LW: Yeah, I mean and you hadn’t been listening to the radio or watching television.
SG: I wasn’t.
LW: You weren’t.
SG: I don’t recall.
LW: And this would have been, the Monday or Sunday, Monday or Sunday?
SG: I don’t know.
LW: But you had no knowledge up until that point?
SG: Right.
LW: —of rioting, looting, stealing, violence, watching this -
SG: Right, right, right watching this happen on Joy Road, people starting to run.
LW: Running with stuff that had been, probably had been looted or had been bought from looters or something?
SG: Or shared, here I can’t carry this or I dropped this or whatever, who knows, I mean some people are less aggressive but they’ll scavenge.
LW: So when you got home, what happened?
SG: I don’t — the only other visual I have about that I don’t remember focusing in on the news or I remember there was a curfew and a lock down and you had to stay in the house. We had to stay in the house. We couldn’t sit on the porch, back in those days people sat on porches, you sit on the porch. The people next door, the nurse and her husband would come over and my mother and father would sit on the porch and we could sit on the porch and play and stuff, but we couldn’t go outside. “Don’t go outside. Everybody stay in your houses.” There was a jeep, the National Guard, four men with long guns. We lived right on the corner of Stoepel and Fullerton right in that intersection, there was a jeep, an army — you know a military vehicle, four men with long guns sitting there, so you know, I didn’t really want to look out the window but every once so often we would look to see if they were still out there, “Yeah, they’re still out there.” Yeah, it was like at least 24 hours I don’t know we couldn’t go out, we couldn’t go nowhere. Had to stay in the house.
LW: Where were you in relation to — how far where from Twelfth and Clairmount area in terms of miles?
SG: I wonder. I don’t have a —If I’m at Fullerton, which is basically, Livernois and Fullerton and the next big street over, would have been maybe Dexter and then Linwood and then Twelfth. So maybe that is three?
LW: So pretty close to where stores where being burned and -
SG: We could see smoke, we could I remember that now, we could see smoke.
LW: What else did you hear or see, or smell?
SG: You know I am getting up here now. I remember the car, the truck, the men out there with the guns and I remember seeing smoke coming up over that direction, and looking out the back window and just being we have to stay in the house.
LW: Did your parents talk to you at all about what was going on?
SG: I don’t remember. We drove around after, way after and you could see that it was horribly messed like war. It was bad.
LW: During that week of violence in ’67 in July. Did you leave the house at all?
SG: I mean I think after, I don’t remember after, we didn’t really go a lot of places except school. But I remember staying in. They said we could not come out of the house; I don’t know how long that lock down was. And with the gun people sitting there, that seemed like that was a day or two. And then at some point, we could and we got in the car and we started to see what it looked like. What happened.
LW: Was your stepdad able to leave the house to go to work that week?
SG: I don’t remember? He always went to work, he use to work double shifts so I don’t know. I don’t know how they worked that out. We stayed in and we looked, I am a more forward looking person so I don’t really think about how so this is interesting, I can’t remember.
LW: That’s okay?
SG: Fifteen, No, he didn’t get sick until, he ended up getting lung cancer and disability retired I think that was a year later than that though. Well, he might have though I don’t know.
LW: So okay, so shortly there after though. He became ill and was on disability and not working anymore?
SG: Right, I am trying to think if that happened before or right in through there because he never missed work before that.
LW: I am wondering what do you think, looking back as an adult, you were 15 at the time. But, looking back as an adult or as conversations that maybe you have had with friends and family since ’67, what do you think caused that? When you saw this chaos, what do you think led to it?
SG: Right and off and on people talked about how it was the something about a “blind pig”—
LW: Sure there was a blind pig at Twelfth and Clairmount.
SG: And then the rousts rounded up all these men, boys and men, you know?
LW: Just from your perspective did you experience or see any discrimination or overt racism in your neighborhood? Against you, or friends and family?
SG: You know that is interesting, when I was 15 - was it that summer? - that was that summer, when the nuns at the place that had a little summer job were interviewing about that same question and I said no and I hadn’t experienced any racism that I had seemed all fine fair and normal. Then when I went to Michigan State, my first year there I had like cultural shock. I was like, “Where— What’s going on? There are no other black people. Where am I?” What is going on I couldn’t, even at Cass there was a fair amount of different races but not a whole lot I guess it was a majority black at that time so anyway. I didn’t personally feel any discriminated against but I do remember when I was in a car with my cousin, we went somewhere and he was driving and I never got pulled over or anything in high school driving around Detroit before I went away to school but my cousin - except for the time we were with him - he was driving and he had on a big fluffy coat and a hat and they stopped us. This was before, this was this was the late sixties. Might have been ’69, 70.
LW: Okay.
SG: And they stopped us and I just remember thinking “What do they want? Why did they stop us?” Well, so I never as a female had to deal with that and I did not have brothers. I had my sister. I did not personally experience that much until hearing about stuff later on, see.
LW: Right.
SG: And then I wasn’t, you know and I sewed, read books, I wasn’t an activist or whatever I don’t know.
LW: OK, so during civil rights you didn’t get involved in any of that you were relatively young still.
SG: Still there were people that were young that were doing stuff but I wasn’t.
LW: But you were not, you were at home?
SG: Yes.
LW: OK, and tell me about Cass Tech a little bit what was that experience like going to Cass Tech?
SG: It was a lot of stairs [laughing] it was good, I liked it. I learned too, sewing. I took Latin for the whole time I was there and one year of French. And there were groups of people and groups of people, I guess that is what happens at high school. This group of people run together and do things together these back hall people and the refrigerator people it was just groups of them and I just thought it was a nice amount of variety. And the lunch room was okay and I went to school. Cass was – I learned. I don’t remember having any trouble. I sort of stayed to myself, a little loner type minding my own business.
LW: Was it racially integrated? The groups of people you mentioned.
SG: No, not that I recall a lot, especially. no I don’t think so.
LW: What if you had to guess is the percentage of black, percentage white, percentage other minorities?
SG: We had like 999 people in our graduating class.
LW: Wow.
SG: Maybe 20 percent white and other, maybe 25. Mostly black I think in my classes
LW: Mostly black.
SG: In my classes.
LW: Okay, and there was some division based on race so white students tended to stick together and black students tended to stick together?
SG: In smaller groups, yeah, whatever groups there were that hung out I don’t remember them being mixed
LW: Okay, and you went on to Michigan State after that?
SG: I went to Wayne State for one year.
LW: You went to Wayne State and then Michigan State and tell me a little bit about the work you have done in your career since then?
SG: Wow, well Wayne State, Michigan State and then I was a social worker my first job out of college, with the state civil service and you know a lot of and that is when I learned about people being needy and learned about the volume of poor people and that they weren’t mostly black people. It was just that the majority of the black people were poor, but there were a whole lot of white people. My first zip code that I had was mostly white people on welfare. You know? So, I was surprised to see that see that, that was my bias. And they didn’t like, some of them didn’t want me to be there worker, you know.
LW: What organization were you working for?
SG: The Department of Social Services, State of Michigan. I started off doing food stamps for people. Went on, because I had a degree, doing adult employment and training, family services, you know. Just helping the people supposedly to move off of welfare, but that didn’t necessarily happen.
LW: And this was in the late 1970s, it would have been?
SG: Yes.
LW: And how long did you work for the Department of Social Services?
SG: All the way up until sometime in 83’ or something like that.
LW: And then where did you go from there?
SG: I went to the City Law Department, Law Clerk, I started going to law school because I just it was it was on a whim.
LW: You became a lawyer?
SG: Yes, on a whim. You know, I was I didn’t enjoy the social, the paperwork stuff that I was doing with the State, so I started going to law school. And there were opportunities to move to different social work positions and they started squeezing down again and and enforcing their manual code and time keeping and I had to be there 8 a.m. instead of 8:06 or 8:03 and it got all.
LW: At the City Law Department or the Department of Social Services?
SG: Social Services.
LW: Social Services. So, you went to law school at what school?
SG: Wayne State.
LW: You went to Wayne State?
SG: Mhm.
LW: Did you finish law school there?
SG: Yes
LW: Ok, and took the bar and became a lawyer?
SG: Yes.
LW: So that is what you did?
SG: On a whim.
LW: What thing to do on a whim, you don’t hear that very often.
SG: I mean, at first some friends were going to take the LSAT and I decided well I don’t really like this job I have with the state so you know I am going to go and take it too. And when I took it and did well and then I decided to go and talk with the people at Wayne State and I also was going to talk with the people at the school of Engineering but I didn’t make it there because the people at Wayne State said, “You did really well. You really should do this this is important come to the —” Okay so I’m like, “okay, fine I’ll do this.”
LW: So throughout the eighties and nineties.
SG: I started in Law School in ’79 in the summer and then I decided that if I would do it for a year and if I didn’t like it I would quit and I liked it.
LW: You liked it, so what kind of law did you practice?
SG: What kind of law did I practice? I started with for a like a little while I was doing just tickets just whatever whoever I just sort of float around for about three or six months then I started with UAW Legal Services Plan which is general civil stuff. I didn’t do family. I did consumer car cases, burned up car cases, there were a lot of them at that time. I would get the insurance company to pay or not and then I did you know tax cases: property tax, income tax, real estate — lot of real-estate closings. A lot of that stuff. So basically, it was real estate and consumer and quite title and stuff like that for civil. No criminal. No family.
LW: And you still work today for Legal Aid?
SG: Well, I work know for Legal Aid and I worked, I went from, actually I went from UAW to being to doing criminal appeals in my house because I had little babies so after three years at UAW I went to do criminal appeals so I could stay home with the kids and then I went to Legal Aid and Defender and went back to consumer and real-estate and stuff like that and started working with outreach to senior citizens that was fun seeing all those different places and in the city and I think, and tri-county. We use to go Southgate that was fun too.
LW: So you currently work for Legal Aid?
SG: I currently work for Legal Aid, I started 10 years doing just technology no more cases.
LW: So, through your work, and you have had a lot of experience obviously, what do you think the greatest need — assuming that you are very in touch with the people’s needs at this point — what do you think is the greatest need is for people for people that you work with for people in the city of Detroit in general?
SG: Respect. People always need respect, everybody needs it people just need it and people just need to learn how to appreciate themselves and we need to show each other appreciation. That is what I would say, respect. People need money, everybody needs money, you can spend more you can spend less. Health care, we need it, we all need it, food, you know basic stuff, you've got to care about yourself enough to try to and work on gotten that and its good when anybody that’s providing whatever service mostly showing respect and not expecting people to be grateful or not expecting people to, you know, behave in any certain way or you know quiet enough I am going to need you to be quiet while I you know just showing people that is just one thing that I discovered in all this social work which law is you know graduate social work, people need to be heard they just want you to listen to what is going on more so than fix it a lot of times they may not know they don’t even know have an idea of a fix finally that you heard the whole story and you listened if there is anything can do or talk to me with some respect, like you heard me, and tell me some truth then that is just some major step that we have made. Every now and then there is a solution or some help that you can give them get but a lot of times it is just let them be clear about what happened and then let me tell you what I see and where you went wrong and how you really don’t want to do that anymore and know we had a conversation and I heard you and that is better for you.
LW: Do you think the lack of respect, in general, between people in the city in various colors of people - especially classes of people socio-economic difference - you mentioned one of the surprised you had was all these poor white people on welfare, it's not just black people, do you think the lack of respect is one of the driving forces behind all the rioting you witnessed?
SG: Probably, I am sure it came together a lot of times that is what comes to the head I am not taking that anymore enough of that it is a lot of little fights and skirmishes come from people just not feeling seen, respected, [or] appreciated.
LW: Interesting, well I appreciate you talking to me today.
SG: Okay
LW: And looking back.
SG: It has been interesting and it reminds well I use to always stick my head in the sand I am just trying to be in my own little fifties world I just you know.
LW: Well, I appreciate you looking back and talking with me today I really appreciate it.
SG: Well good, good.
**
Video
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M34rIPgrudk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
Dublin Core
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Title
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Sharon Gant, August 15th, 2015
Description
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In this interview, Grant discusses growing up in Detroit, Michigan and the causes of the 1967 disturbance and her personal experiences during that week in July. Grant also looks back at her career as a social worker and at her decision to attend Law School.
Publisher
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Detroit Historical Society
Date
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11/16/2015
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
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looting, neighborhoods, wayne state, law, social work
1967 riot—Detroit—Michigan
Curfew
Ford Motor Company
Jeffries Housing Project
Looting
Michigan State University
Social Work
Teenagers
Wayne State University