In the midnight hours of July 23, 1967, a Detroit police raid on an unlicensed after-hours bar,The Blind Pig, a black, unlicensed, late-night drinking club where locals were celebrating the return of two soldiers from Vietnam, turned violent, and an uprising, fueled by reports of police brutality and driven by underlying conditions including segregated housing and schools and rising black unemployment, began.
By the time the riots ended four days later by 7,000 National Guard and U.S. Army troops, 43 people were dead, 342 injured, and nearly 1,400 buildings had been burned.
Hatred of the police was widespread among the poor in Detroit, especially the black poor. The vast majority of cops were white and the police excelled at recruiting and promoting the most bigoted (so nothing really has changed).
Officers routinely stopped and searched young men and women—and were not afraid to lash out if anyone didn’t know their place. Even old black men were routinely addressed by police as “Boy”.
Small scale disturbances were common, so top cops expected things at the Blind Pig to calm down as the morning wore on. But by afternoon buildings were ablaze and smoke billowed across the city.
Evening saw rioting spread and the overwhelmed Detroit police call in reinforcements from Michigan State and Wayne County. Hundreds of white officers carrying shotguns and long-held resentments against the black poor were off the leash
Officers routinely stopped and searched young men and women—and were not afraid to lash out if anyone didn’t know their place. Even old black men were routinely addressed by police as “Boy”.
Small scale disturbances were common, so top cops expected things at the Blind Pig to calm down as the morning wore on. But by afternoon buildings were ablaze and smoke billowed across the city.
Evening saw rioting spread and the overwhelmed Detroit police call in reinforcements from Michigan State and Wayne County. Hundreds of white officers carrying shotguns and long-held resentments against the black poor were off the leash
On Sunday the looting became more strategic. As the dam of anger broke, the greatest targets became the pawn shops which wound up yielding 2,498 rifles and 38 handguns.
By Tuesday evening the third and final phase of the riot, sniping. Only this time, instead of civilian targets like grocery stores, now the authorities were to draw the ire of the rioters.
Within a 50 minute period around midnight, nine different police and fire stations would be under fire by mad snipers who were venting their anger against the most visible symbol of the white power structure, the police. http://www.detroits-great-rebellion.com/Snipers.html
The president used the Insurrection Act of 1807 and gave the order to send in troops. The US Army’s 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were among those who had recently returned from the Vietnam War. Now they were on streets of one of the US’s greatest cities.
Tanks and armored cars took up positions, on occasion firing shells into homes suspected of harboring shooters. But compared to the police, the troops were relatively restrained.
notice that the above Jeep has crossed revolvers as nose art
there were actual tanks from the 101st Airborne during the riot and one even shot the steeple off a church
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From the mid-1950s onwards unemployment for black people soared to double the national average.
Thousands of black families lived in permanent poverty, depending on welfare payments for survival. Long after formal segregation ended, black people in Northern cities were everywhere faced with white authority—in the schools, in the welfare departments, and especially the police.
A study of black people in Los Angeles after the Watts riots of 1965 showed that large percentages had been subject to or witnessed police mistreatment. One fifth had been unnecessarily stopped and searched, two fifths had seen it happen to others.
How could leading Democrat politicians support black rights in the South but ignore racist policing, prejudicial hiring and firing, and appalling housing in the ghettos of the North? (nothing has changed)
You can read first hand accounts and recollections of the week of the riots at
I think it's available on Hulu
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