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Detroit 1967: Origins, Impacts, Legacies
In the summer of 1967, Detroit experienced one of the worst racially charged civil disturbances in United States history. Years of frustration generated by entrenched and institutionalized racism boiled over late on a hot July night. In an event that has been called a “riot,” “rebellion,” “uprising,” and “insurrection,” thousands of African Americans took to the street for several days of looting, arson, and gunfire. Law enforcement was overwhelmed, and it wasn’t until battle-tested federal troops arrived that the city returned to some semblance of normalcy. Fifty years later, native Detroiters cite this event as pivotal in the city’s history, yet few completely understand what happened, why it happened, or how it continues to affect the city today. Discussions of the events are often rife with misinformation and myths, and seldom take place across racial lines. It is editor Joel Stone’s intention with Detroit 1967: Origins, Impacts, Legacies to draw memories, facts, and analysis together to create a broader context for these conversations.
In order to tell a more complete story, Detroit 1967 starts at the beginning with colonial slavery along the Detroit River and culminates with an examination of the state of race relations today and suggestions for the future. Readers are led down a timeline that features chapters discussing the critical role that unfree people played in establishing Detroit, the path that postwar manufacturers within the city were taking to the suburbs and eventually to other states, as well as the widely held untruth that all white people wanted to abandon Detroit after 1967. Twenty contributors, from journalists like Tim Kiska, Bill McGraw, and Desiree Cooper to historians like DeWitt S. Dykes, Danielle L. McGuire, and Kevin Boyle, have individually created a rich body of work on Detroit and race, that is compiled here in a well-rounded, accessible volume.
Detroit 1967 aims to correct fallacies surrounding the events that took place and led up to the summer of 1967 in Detroit, and to encourage informed discussion around this topic. Readers of Detroit history and urban studies will be drawn to and enlightened by these powerful essays.
In order to tell a more complete story, Detroit 1967 starts at the beginning with colonial slavery along the Detroit River and culminates with an examination of the state of race relations today and suggestions for the future. Readers are led down a timeline that features chapters discussing the critical role that unfree people played in establishing Detroit, the path that postwar manufacturers within the city were taking to the suburbs and eventually to other states, as well as the widely held untruth that all white people wanted to abandon Detroit after 1967. Twenty contributors, from journalists like Tim Kiska, Bill McGraw, and Desiree Cooper to historians like DeWitt S. Dykes, Danielle L. McGuire, and Kevin Boyle, have individually created a rich body of work on Detroit and race, that is compiled here in a well-rounded, accessible volume.
Detroit 1967 aims to correct fallacies surrounding the events that took place and led up to the summer of 1967 in Detroit, and to encourage informed discussion around this topic. Readers of Detroit history and urban studies will be drawn to and enlightened by these powerful essays.
506 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 10, 2017
The summer I turned fifteen a neighbor girl and I stood in our street in Royal Oak, MI watching planes and helicopters flying overhead. They were carrying National Guard from Selfridge Airbase to Detroit.
My dad and his worried coworkers at the Chrysler plant in Highland Park left work early. My church was collecting food and blankets to distribute to people whose homes had been burned.
I heard strangers at the grocery store saying, 'kill them all.' Mom came home from coffee klatches with neighbors, fuming after being told "you don't know, you never lived with 'them'."
I was aware that five miles due south the world was very different from the one I lived in. My dad stopped at Woodward and McNichols to pick up his lab's African American janitor so he didn't have to walk from the bus stop to work. Mom visited a hospital roommate at her Detroit home, and returned ashamed of her working class 'wealth'. And, thanks to my teachers at Kimball High School, I understood the issues behind the riot: housing, jobs, poverty, racism, and dreams deferred.
1967, the summer of the Detroit riot, began a descent into hell, ending with the following spring's assassinations of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Before I turned 16 my childhood version of America had been turned on its head, my faith in humanity challenged. I wrote in my diary, "I expect to see an ark any day now."
We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes. Detroit motto
Reading Detroit 1967 for me was important and often emotionally draining.
The Historical Context
The twenty essays follow the history of African Americans in Detroit, showing the deep roots of Detroit racism.
How many Metro Detroiters know the personages behind our street names--Livernois, Dequindre, Grosbeck, Campau, Cass, John R-- and that these men were slave owners?
Michigan became a 'free state' when it entered the Union in 1837. And yet, The Free Press, started in 1831 with investments by Joseph Campau and John R. Williams, opposed the freeing of the slaves and did not support Lincoln.
Detroit became a crossroads of fugitive slaves, slave catchers, and the Underground Railroad. Fugitive slaves arrived in numbers after the War of 1812. In 1833 there was a riot over runaway slaves. The Underground Railroad helped runaways cross the river to Canada. In 1863,"the bloodiest day that ever dawned upon Detroit," saw a pogrom against African Americans when a white woman falsely reported she was raped by a black man.
European immigrants competed with blacks for jobs and housing, another source for racial tension. And immigrants resented being drafted into the Civil War to fight for black freedom. "If we are got to be killed up for niggers then we will kill every nigger in this town," a rioter proclaimed.
Henry Ford became the largest employer of African Americans in the country, but housing was limited; a wall was even erected. The auto industry whose jobs drew Southern blacks and whites left Detroit for Hazel Park, Dearborn, and Macomb County.
The KKK and Black Legion were active in Detroit in the 1930s. In 1943 there was another Race Riot. "Urban Renewal' destroyed African American neighborhoods. After the 1967 riot the white population fled to the suburbs.
The Riot
The 1967 Riot is considered from many vantages, with eye witness memoirs, a time line, commentaries after the event, and viewpoints from a historical perspective. The first hand accounts of how the riot began were especially revealing. I also appreciated the detailed timeline of events.
I had not known of the controvery over calling the event a riot or a rebellion; it is contended that when white Europeans protested it was called a rebellion, but when African Americans rose up it was labeled a riot.
I was interested in learning about Detroit before we moved here in 1963, how the progressive policies of Jerome Cavanagh and his police commissioners were unable to change grass roots racism, the rebellion against Police Commissioner Hart's attempt to integrate the police cars, and the failure of "top-down reforms."
The later essays address Detroit's death and rebirth. Will all Detroiters be included in the progress?
Learning that I live in "one of the most fractured regions in the country, with more than 150 separate municipalities" that "encourage extreme balkanization" was disturbing. But it is true. In the 1960s I grew up in an all white city, and now 50 years later I live a few miles away in a city with a non-white population of only 11.6%. Oakland County has the highest employment rate and one of the highest median incomes in the country. I live in a bubble.
When I recently blogged about summer 1967 people shared their memories of the riot. Several where returning through Detroit from Canada and saw the fires, or where stopped and checked at the tunnel, worried about getting home. Some recalled tanks going down Woodward. People who worked downtown saw kids carrying things they had stolen or drove by cars on fire. All recalled being afraid the riot would spread out of Detroit and worried about friends living in the city.
Clearly the summer of the riot was a pivotal event in our lives.
Reading Detroit 1967 helped me to understand the riot from the inside. I am concerned that the conditions that sparked it have not improved.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbaised review.
Detroit 1967: Origins, Impacts, Legacies
Thomas J. Sugrue, Joel Stone, et. al.
Wayne State University Press @WSUPress
Publication Date: June 5, 2017
$39.99 hard cover
ISBN: 9780814343036, 081434303
For more Detroit history I recommend,
Detroit Historical Museum- Detroit 1967 at http://www.detroit1967.org
One In A Great City by David Marianis, my review at
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.c...
Terror in the City of Champions by Tom Stanton, my review at
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.c...
My dad and his worried coworkers at the Chrysler plant in Highland Park left work early. My church was collecting food and blankets to distribute to people whose homes had been burned.
I heard strangers at the grocery store saying, 'kill them all.' Mom came home from coffee klatches with neighbors, fuming after being told "you don't know, you never lived with 'them'."
I was aware that five miles due south the world was very different from the one I lived in. My dad stopped at Woodward and McNichols to pick up his lab's African American janitor so he didn't have to walk from the bus stop to work. Mom visited a hospital roommate at her Detroit home, and returned ashamed of her working class 'wealth'. And, thanks to my teachers at Kimball High School, I understood the issues behind the riot: housing, jobs, poverty, racism, and dreams deferred.
1967, the summer of the Detroit riot, began a descent into hell, ending with the following spring's assassinations of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Before I turned 16 my childhood version of America had been turned on its head, my faith in humanity challenged. I wrote in my diary, "I expect to see an ark any day now."
We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes. Detroit motto
Reading Detroit 1967 for me was important and often emotionally draining.
The Historical Context
The twenty essays follow the history of African Americans in Detroit, showing the deep roots of Detroit racism.
How many Metro Detroiters know the personages behind our street names--Livernois, Dequindre, Grosbeck, Campau, Cass, John R-- and that these men were slave owners?
Michigan became a 'free state' when it entered the Union in 1837. And yet, The Free Press, started in 1831 with investments by Joseph Campau and John R. Williams, opposed the freeing of the slaves and did not support Lincoln.
Detroit became a crossroads of fugitive slaves, slave catchers, and the Underground Railroad. Fugitive slaves arrived in numbers after the War of 1812. In 1833 there was a riot over runaway slaves. The Underground Railroad helped runaways cross the river to Canada. In 1863,"the bloodiest day that ever dawned upon Detroit," saw a pogrom against African Americans when a white woman falsely reported she was raped by a black man.
European immigrants competed with blacks for jobs and housing, another source for racial tension. And immigrants resented being drafted into the Civil War to fight for black freedom. "If we are got to be killed up for niggers then we will kill every nigger in this town," a rioter proclaimed.
Henry Ford became the largest employer of African Americans in the country, but housing was limited; a wall was even erected. The auto industry whose jobs drew Southern blacks and whites left Detroit for Hazel Park, Dearborn, and Macomb County.
The KKK and Black Legion were active in Detroit in the 1930s. In 1943 there was another Race Riot. "Urban Renewal' destroyed African American neighborhoods. After the 1967 riot the white population fled to the suburbs.
The Riot
The 1967 Riot is considered from many vantages, with eye witness memoirs, a time line, commentaries after the event, and viewpoints from a historical perspective. The first hand accounts of how the riot began were especially revealing. I also appreciated the detailed timeline of events.
I had not known of the controvery over calling the event a riot or a rebellion; it is contended that when white Europeans protested it was called a rebellion, but when African Americans rose up it was labeled a riot.
I was interested in learning about Detroit before we moved here in 1963, how the progressive policies of Jerome Cavanagh and his police commissioners were unable to change grass roots racism, the rebellion against Police Commissioner Hart's attempt to integrate the police cars, and the failure of "top-down reforms."
The later essays address Detroit's death and rebirth. Will all Detroiters be included in the progress?
Learning that I live in "one of the most fractured regions in the country, with more than 150 separate municipalities" that "encourage extreme balkanization" was disturbing. But it is true. In the 1960s I grew up in an all white city, and now 50 years later I live a few miles away in a city with a non-white population of only 11.6%. Oakland County has the highest employment rate and one of the highest median incomes in the country. I live in a bubble.
When I recently blogged about summer 1967 people shared their memories of the riot. Several where returning through Detroit from Canada and saw the fires, or where stopped and checked at the tunnel, worried about getting home. Some recalled tanks going down Woodward. People who worked downtown saw kids carrying things they had stolen or drove by cars on fire. All recalled being afraid the riot would spread out of Detroit and worried about friends living in the city.
Clearly the summer of the riot was a pivotal event in our lives.
Reading Detroit 1967 helped me to understand the riot from the inside. I am concerned that the conditions that sparked it have not improved.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbaised review.
Detroit 1967: Origins, Impacts, Legacies
Thomas J. Sugrue, Joel Stone, et. al.
Wayne State University Press @WSUPress
Publication Date: June 5, 2017
$39.99 hard cover
ISBN: 9780814343036, 081434303
For more Detroit history I recommend,
Detroit Historical Museum- Detroit 1967 at http://www.detroit1967.org
One In A Great City by David Marianis, my review at
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.c...
Terror in the City of Champions by Tom Stanton, my review at
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.c...
February 18, 2019
As I'm preparing to leave Michigan, it seemed fitting to pick up a book on Detroit history. Because that's what this book is - the focus is on 1967, but the collection of essays starts with the 18th century and concludes with a look at Detroit today. I should also note first up that my knowledge of Detroit history is largely limited to the movie "Detroit" and scraps of information learned from museums. As such, I'll mostly write tiny summaries of the various articles, as I have no means of evaluating them.
The first article is on Detroit's history of slavery. Detroit remained a small-ish town until slavery was abolished, nor did its economy ever depend on slavery to the degree that was true of some other states. Additionally, because the area changed hands between the French, the British, and then the United States, and because later on Detroit was across the river from Canada, questions about the status of slaves were in flux. But Detroiters did own slaves, and Brett Rushforth has noted that slave-owning families more than doubled their lands' productivity in comparison to non-slave-owners. So slavery clearly played a role in the early growth of Detroit.
The period leading up to and during the Civil War brought new types of racial relations and tensions. The city expanded in general, and while the Black population remained small until the 20th century, it grew ten-fold between 1840-1860. Perhaps not surprisingly, there were hopeful stories and horrible ones. Detroit was an important stop on the Underground Railway, and the book includes a testimonial from William Lambert, a local leader of the African American community and active manager of the Railroad. But racial tensions began to bubble in patterns that might seem depressingly familiar. European immigrants and Black people moving into Detroit from the South would clash. In 1833, two runaway slaves (Thornton and Lucie Blackburn) were chased by a local sheriff, who was eventually killed when a mob of mostly Black people protested and wanted to prevent the capture of the slaves. The clash had historic repercussions, as in response to it Canada developed its extradition policy; in Detroit, several homes of Black families were burnt down, leading many to migrate to Canada. Another incident of violence was sparked by false accusations of rape against a "Black" Detroiter (he himself said he was of "mixed Spanish-Indian blood" and had previously been thought to be white by his neighbors), leading to simmering white resentment bubbling over in the form of violence and destruction of property against Black people.
The following chapters make even violent mobs seem somehow...not exactly quaint, but devoid of a systematic drive to disenfranchise people. Two contributions argue that Detroit's racial relations only truly began to deteriorate when Black people became a more prominent presence in the city in 1900-1930. While the city initially offered opportunities and good wages in the automobile industry, racism narrowed these opportunities from both above and below: apparently in some contexts, segregation and discrimination came from top-down (such as the auto industry), while in others the movement was from the bottom up (such as the segregation of housing, which was initially driven my white residents rather than lenders or real estate managers). Again, angels and demons competed: the NAACP made headway, union leaders preached equal opportunity, and yet both workers, business owners, and government officials ensured that Detroit's Black population got crammed into a narrow strip of downtown without proper plumbing, resulting in high infant mortality among other things.
...Okay, I totally lost steam to write up summaries of the other chapters. Briefly, the rest of the book has both scholarly articles and testimonials ranging from the 1967 events (riot or rebellion, depending on who you ask) to modern-day housing blight. In addition to providing a general outline of events in the 1960s, I learned some interesting and surprising things. I didn't know, for example, that in the aftermath of 1967, in addition to several predominantly Black activist organizations there were white Catholic anarchists working to end segregation - a religious-political-racial combination I didn't even know existed.
The multitude of chapters overlap in places, but I think even in doing so they illustrate well the full complexity of Detroit's history and residents. There's hope (the police force now has a much healthier racial makeup and community relations, and there's the stream of "creatives" moving into town); there's despair (the police are still getting away with, quite literally, murder, and the benefits of the influx of people moving in seem to trickle to the white newcomers, and there's a daily commute of white people coming downtown for fancy jobs, Black people commuting to the suburbs for low-paying jobs, and then making the reverse trek home each night). Children's testimonials from 1967 range from horror to sadness to gleefully dreaming of killing white people. The organizations that were formed before and after 1967 included violent vigilantes, pacifists, and everything in between. What is impressive, based on the book, is the vibrant landscape of activism and people working within their communities. The level of involvement and engagement seems like something one can only dream of these days.
In sum, the book documents and records important first-hand testimonials and provides a wealth of information about different facets of Detroit history. I don't think there's any attempt at coherence or a unified, specific angle. Which, in a way, seems like the fairest way to handle a topic that meant and continues to mean such different things to different people.
The first article is on Detroit's history of slavery. Detroit remained a small-ish town until slavery was abolished, nor did its economy ever depend on slavery to the degree that was true of some other states. Additionally, because the area changed hands between the French, the British, and then the United States, and because later on Detroit was across the river from Canada, questions about the status of slaves were in flux. But Detroiters did own slaves, and Brett Rushforth has noted that slave-owning families more than doubled their lands' productivity in comparison to non-slave-owners. So slavery clearly played a role in the early growth of Detroit.
The period leading up to and during the Civil War brought new types of racial relations and tensions. The city expanded in general, and while the Black population remained small until the 20th century, it grew ten-fold between 1840-1860. Perhaps not surprisingly, there were hopeful stories and horrible ones. Detroit was an important stop on the Underground Railway, and the book includes a testimonial from William Lambert, a local leader of the African American community and active manager of the Railroad. But racial tensions began to bubble in patterns that might seem depressingly familiar. European immigrants and Black people moving into Detroit from the South would clash. In 1833, two runaway slaves (Thornton and Lucie Blackburn) were chased by a local sheriff, who was eventually killed when a mob of mostly Black people protested and wanted to prevent the capture of the slaves. The clash had historic repercussions, as in response to it Canada developed its extradition policy; in Detroit, several homes of Black families were burnt down, leading many to migrate to Canada. Another incident of violence was sparked by false accusations of rape against a "Black" Detroiter (he himself said he was of "mixed Spanish-Indian blood" and had previously been thought to be white by his neighbors), leading to simmering white resentment bubbling over in the form of violence and destruction of property against Black people.
The following chapters make even violent mobs seem somehow...not exactly quaint, but devoid of a systematic drive to disenfranchise people. Two contributions argue that Detroit's racial relations only truly began to deteriorate when Black people became a more prominent presence in the city in 1900-1930. While the city initially offered opportunities and good wages in the automobile industry, racism narrowed these opportunities from both above and below: apparently in some contexts, segregation and discrimination came from top-down (such as the auto industry), while in others the movement was from the bottom up (such as the segregation of housing, which was initially driven my white residents rather than lenders or real estate managers). Again, angels and demons competed: the NAACP made headway, union leaders preached equal opportunity, and yet both workers, business owners, and government officials ensured that Detroit's Black population got crammed into a narrow strip of downtown without proper plumbing, resulting in high infant mortality among other things.
...Okay, I totally lost steam to write up summaries of the other chapters. Briefly, the rest of the book has both scholarly articles and testimonials ranging from the 1967 events (riot or rebellion, depending on who you ask) to modern-day housing blight. In addition to providing a general outline of events in the 1960s, I learned some interesting and surprising things. I didn't know, for example, that in the aftermath of 1967, in addition to several predominantly Black activist organizations there were white Catholic anarchists working to end segregation - a religious-political-racial combination I didn't even know existed.
The multitude of chapters overlap in places, but I think even in doing so they illustrate well the full complexity of Detroit's history and residents. There's hope (the police force now has a much healthier racial makeup and community relations, and there's the stream of "creatives" moving into town); there's despair (the police are still getting away with, quite literally, murder, and the benefits of the influx of people moving in seem to trickle to the white newcomers, and there's a daily commute of white people coming downtown for fancy jobs, Black people commuting to the suburbs for low-paying jobs, and then making the reverse trek home each night). Children's testimonials from 1967 range from horror to sadness to gleefully dreaming of killing white people. The organizations that were formed before and after 1967 included violent vigilantes, pacifists, and everything in between. What is impressive, based on the book, is the vibrant landscape of activism and people working within their communities. The level of involvement and engagement seems like something one can only dream of these days.
In sum, the book documents and records important first-hand testimonials and provides a wealth of information about different facets of Detroit history. I don't think there's any attempt at coherence or a unified, specific angle. Which, in a way, seems like the fairest way to handle a topic that meant and continues to mean such different things to different people.
February 3, 2025
Very hard read, but I’m extremely glad I did.
June 7, 2021
This has been on my shelf for a while (and on my to-read list for longer) and, in the end, it was a pretty mixed bag. Plenty of chapters that felt like "lite" versions of chapters in The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit and The Algiers Motel Incident, and I assume the same will be true of Violence in the Model City: The Cavanagh Administration, Race Relations, and the Detroit Riot of 1967 once I've read it. Some of the chapters feel like they're include to pad out the page count (and, likely, Joel Stone's CV), but many of them do hold some real value (especially the firsthand accounts).
So, if you're looking to start learning about the historical roots of racism aimed at the black population in Detroit or the social conditions leading up to the 1967 uprising, this is a good place to start. If you've already read more comprehensive works, like those I mention above, you can skip most of this and just focus on the firsthand accounts and the portions of Section I that cover the time period before the 20th century.
So, if you're looking to start learning about the historical roots of racism aimed at the black population in Detroit or the social conditions leading up to the 1967 uprising, this is a good place to start. If you've already read more comprehensive works, like those I mention above, you can skip most of this and just focus on the firsthand accounts and the portions of Section I that cover the time period before the 20th century.
November 30, 2017
This exceptional collection of stories captures the events and weave all the details in a manner that makes this type of historical book easily digested. Each of the twenty contributors brought a unique and enlightened factual analysis to that historical summer in Detroit.
February 9, 2018
I learned a great deal from this. I knew the basics (I knew the riots happened in 1967, I knew those three were killed at the Algiers Hotel, I knew a tiny amount about the situation in Detroit prior to 1967). There was a lot of very accessible, very readable information in this book. It was a bit repetitive - which the authors/editors acknowledge in the intro, and was mostly due to the natural fact that getting different perspectives of the same events would naturally lead to repetition - and they didn't want to edit that repetition out - a good decision over all. I liked all the first person narratives (and the full unedited versions are easily available on the web if you want more). Mostly what I learned was that Detroit was vastly more troubled than I ever imagined. I had the mistaken belief that Detroit became crime ridden in the 70's when jobs and people were fleeing -- Nope, our fine city seems to have been plagued by violence (both institutional and criminal) from pretty much day one. I was also one of those people that believed that somehow the "north" was better than the "south" in handling racial issues. Well, we may have handled them differently - but certainly no better. I really never new until very recently that slavery was a thing here in Michigan and Detroit. Kind of like learning how racist the entire country remains after the 2016 election. Better to learn late than never, I suppose. If you want to learn some info about how we got to the not great place we are today - this is an excellent place to start.
November 6, 2017
I was excited to read this new anthology of essays about the "civil disturbances"--or term of your choice--that happened in July 1967 in Detroit, being somewhat involved with the Detroit Historical Society's 50th anniversary commemorations through the Detroit-area cultural institution at which I work. It was not disappointing. As with any anthology, some essays were more dry and some more appealing than others, but the fact that they were all short and for the most part not written in academia-speak made it easy to speed through even those that seemed less appealing. Oral histories of both notable citizens and everyday people collected by DHS add a personal angle. The book does a great job of spelling out how complex the causes were of those events 50 years ago--but also how complex any potential solutions might be.
As an added plus, the physical layout of the book is beautiful--everything from the weight and gloss of the paper to the chapter titles added to the outside margins enhanced the experience for this book lover.
Highly recommended.
As an added plus, the physical layout of the book is beautiful--everything from the weight and gloss of the paper to the chapter titles added to the outside margins enhanced the experience for this book lover.
Highly recommended.
August 3, 2020
This is absolutely a worthwhile read. The diverse collection of essays, recollections, and analyses was well curated and well organized. You can read this one section at a time, or dive in for a week, or even return back to re-read passages again as you make connections between the different narratives.
There is a lot of hard-hitting reality in this, and the clear differences in opinions, perspectives, and outcomes are presented in equal strength. Even more - the ability to mirror the past to the present is disconcerting, especially as we see the renewed demands for basic human rights to be met... highlighting exactly how far we haven't come in the past 50 years.
This is definitely going high on my list of recommendations.
There is a lot of hard-hitting reality in this, and the clear differences in opinions, perspectives, and outcomes are presented in equal strength. Even more - the ability to mirror the past to the present is disconcerting, especially as we see the renewed demands for basic human rights to be met... highlighting exactly how far we haven't come in the past 50 years.
This is definitely going high on my list of recommendations.
November 21, 2017
Excellent insights
re Detroit riots 67
re Detroit riots 67
January 30, 2019
This collection offered so many fascinating perspectives: my heart broke at a few of the personal stories, and the factual pieces were packed with relevant context.
June 24, 2019
Excellent summary of the last 50 years in the city’s history. You will not be disappointed with this collection of essays.
June 23, 2023
From my uncle. Collection of essays that was somewhat interesting but occasionally repetitive in annoying ways. I know far more than most people do know about the Detroit riots in 1967 now!
August 7, 2025
An awesome historical overview of the events of 1967, including everything that led up to the rebellion.
August 23, 2024
I read this book for my book club. I generally read fiction. I enjoy escaping into imaginary and theoretical worlds rather than confronting the one that is actual and real. If you're looking for insight into the racial issues facing America and Detroit specifically, this book is an excellent source. The fact that it's so, reconfirms my reading preference. An imaginary world is a safer place to be in.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews