The Fifty-Year Rebellion: How the U.S. Political Crisis Began in Detroit

American Studies Now: Critical Histories of the Present

by Scott Kurashige

On July 23, 1967, the eyes of the world fixed on Detroit, as thousands took to the streets to vent their frustrations with white racism, police brutality, and vanishing job prospects in the place that gave rise to the American Dream. Mainstream observers contended that the “riot” brought about the ruin of a once-great city; for them, the municipal bankruptcy of 2013 served as a bailout paving the way for the rebuilding of Detroit. Challenging this prevailing view, Scott Kurashige portrays the past half century as a long rebellion whose underlying tensions continue to haunt the city and the U.S. nation-state. He sees Michigan’s scandal-ridden "emergency management" regime, set up to handle the bankruptcy, as the most concerted effort to put it down by disenfranchising the majority black citizenry and neutralizing the power of unions.

Are we succumbing to authoritarian plutocracy or can we create a new society rooted in social justice and participatory democracy? The corporate architects of Detroit’s restructuring have championed the creation of a “business-friendly” city, where billionaire developers are subsidized to privatize and gentrify Downtown, while working-class residents are being squeezed out by rampant housing evictions, school closures, water shutoffs, toxic pollution, and militarized policing. Grassroots organizers, however, have transformed Detroit into an international model for survival, resistance, and solidarity through the creation of urban farms, freedom schools, and self-governing communities. This epochal struggle illuminates the possible futures for our increasingly unstable and polarized nation.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction

178 pages, Paperback

Published July 4, 2017

Reviews

[Dusty Wight · Rating 5 out of 5]

Detroit is mostly seen through a lens of former greatness, a broken city with a glorious past. We never talk about the people who still live there and what the community is about. This quick history of segregation, broken economic policies, and failed (or rather forced) public policies. As it mentions in the book, Detroit is a tale of two cities that do not match up. If we look at Detroit we can see the trends that we are seeing global (bigotry, inequality, and institutionalized racism).

I really loved this book as a deeper look at our racial divide and as it gave me a better understanding of Detroit and our history of deindustrialization. It’s quick and filled with really interesting facts. And at the end of it I was left thinking, what can I do to improve my own community and how will that impact other communities?

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for anyone infuriated by the Trump administration. (And, if you have a working heart, you SHOULD be.) This book tracks the history of corruption, privatization, and cannibalization of Detroit, the Rust Belt, marginalized communities, and a vulnerable population. And how that became a horrible blue print for Trump and related big money cronies to do the same thing at a federal level.

[Chris Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting perspective. Definitely causes the reader to contemplate

[Peter P. Bernard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sociology of Detroit: A Truncated Look

This is an excellent book that helps see some of the contrived circumstances that has destroyed the Detroit that Black residents thought they could win legally but lost by extra-legal means.

The Manoogian sex-party rumor was the match that started the final fire but no one seems to smell its smoke.