1943 — June 20-22, Detroit Racial Rioting (25 blacks and 9 whites killed), Detroit, MI– 34

— 34 Baulch, Vivian and P. Zacharias. “The 1943 Detroit race riots.” Detroit News, 2-11-1999.
— 34 Gilje, Paul A. Rioting in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999, p. 156.
— 34 Herman, Max. “Detroit (Michigan) Riot of 1943,” in Rucker and Upton, 2007, 160.
— 34 PBS American Experience. “Detroit Race Riots 1943.”
— 34 Wikipedia. “Detroit Race Riot (1943).” 12-10-2012 modification.

Narrative Information

Baulch and Zacharias: “Recruiters toured the South convincing whites and blacks to head north with promises of high wages in the new war factories. They arrived in such numbers that it was impossible to house them all. Blacks who believed they were heading to a promised land found a northern bigotry every bit as pervasive and virulent as what they thought they had left behind in the deep south. And southern whites brought their own traditional prejudices with them as both races migrated northward.

“The influx of newcomers strained not only housing, but transportation, education and recreational facilities as well. Wartime residents of Detroit endured long lines everywhere, at bus stops, grocery stores, and even at newsstands where they hoped for the chance to be first answering classified ads offering rooms for rent. Even though the city enjoyed full employment, it suffered the many discomforts of wartime rationing. Child-care programs were nonexistent, with grandma the only hope — provided she wasn’t already working at a defense plant….

“Whites resentful over working next to blacks caused many stoppages and slowdowns. Harold Zeck, a former Packard defense worker, recalls the time when a group of women engine workers tried to get the men on the assembly line to walk off the job to protest black female workers using the white restrooms. “They think their fannies are as good as ours,” screamed one woman. The protest fizzled when the men refused to walk out….

“By 1943 the number of blacks in Detroit had doubled since 1933 to 200,000 and racial tensions in the city grew accordingly. To protest unfair conditions, some blacks began a “bumping campaign” — walking into whites on the streets and bumping them off the sidewalks, or nudging them in elevators.

“Local and national media anticipated trouble. Life Magazine called the situation dynamite. On June 20, blacks and whites clashed in minor skirmishes on Belle Isle. Two young blacks, angered that they had been ejected from Eastwood Park some five days previously, had gone to Belle Isle to try to even the score. Police began to search cars of blacks crossing to Belle Isle but they did not search cars driven by whites. Fighting on the island began around 10 p.m. and police declared it under control by midnight. More than 200 blacks and whites had participated in the free-for-all….

“An angry mob of whites spilled onto Woodward near the Roxy Theater around 4 a.m., beating blacks as they were getting off street cars.

“At least six Detroit policemen were shot in the melees, and another 75 were injured.

“Woodward was the dividing line between the roving black and white gangs. Whites took over Woodward up to Vernor and overturned and burned 20 cars belonging to blacks, looting stores as they went. The virtual guerrilla warfare overwhelmed the 2,000 city police officers and 150 state police troopers. A crowd of 100,000 spectators gathered near Grand Circus Park looking for something to watch.

“The first death was a white pedestrian killed by a taxicab. Later four white youths shot and killed Moses Kiska, 58, a black man who was waiting for a bus at Mack and Chene.

“The white Detroit police officers who patrolled Paradise Valley considered all blacks on Hastings Street looters. They reportedly told bystanders to “run and not look back.” Some were shot in the back running from police.

“Disregarding police warnings, a white doctor, Joseph De Horatiis, entered a black neighborhood on a house call. Within moments he was hit with a rock, pulled from his car and beaten to death by rioters. A monument to the Italian physician was dedicated in 1946 at East Grand and Gratiot.

“A black man coming off a bus on Woodward was beaten by a white mob in front of four policemen who made no effort to protect the victim or arrest the whites.

“Mayor Edward Jeffries Jr. and Governor Harry Kelly asked President Roosevelt for help in restoring order. Federal troops in armored cars and jeeps with automatic weapons moved down Woodward. The sight of the troops with their overwhelming firepower cooled the fervor of the rioters and the mobs began to melt away.

“The toll was appalling. The 36 hours of rioting claimed 34 lives, 25 of them black. More than 1,800 were arrested for looting and other incidents, the vast majority black. Thirteen murders remained unsolved.

“Five black men received 80-day jail terms for disturbing the peace. Two were acquitted. Twenty-eight were charged and convicted on various charges including concealed weapons, destruction of property, assault, larceny. There was little arson, due to gasoline rationing, but more than a few cars were overturned and torched.

“Tipton and Little, the two blacks linked to the original rumor, were sentenced to two-to-five years for inciting a riot.

“The city’s white police force was criticized for its “restraint” in dealing with the black rioters, despite the fact that only blacks — 17 of them — were killed by police.

“Police Commissioner John H. Witherspoon defended his force and his refusal to issue shoot-to-kill orders, saying hundreds could have been killed. “All of those killed would not have been hoodlums or murderers–many would have been victims of mob psychology or innocent bystanders. If a shoot-to-kill policy was right, my judgment was wrong.”

“Mayor Jeffries praised the police and said he was “rapidly losing my patience with those Negro leaders who insist that their people do not and will not trust policemen.” The mayor asked the Rev. White to search for 200 qualified Negroes to join the police force.

“Thurgood Marshall, then with the NAACP, assailed the city’s handling of the riot. He charged that police unfairly targeted blacks while turning their backs on white atrocities. He said 85 percent of those arrested were black while whites overturned and burned cars in front of the Roxy Theater with impunity while police watched. “This weak-kneed policy of the police commissioner coupled with the anti-Negro attitude of many members of the force helped to make a riot inevitable,” Marshall said….” (Baulch, Vivian M. and Patricia Zacharias. “The 1943 Detroit race riots.” Detroit News, 2-11-1999.)

Gilje: “The most severe rioting, and the last of the classic race riots with extreme personal physical violence, took place in Detroit June 20-22, 1943. Youth groups from both races harassed one another on a Sunday afternoon of Belle Island, an amusement park contested by blacks and whites. Each side spread rumors about atrocities committed by the other. The combat escalated as roving bands assaulted any passerby of a different race. Streetcars were searched and passengers beaten and killed. Whites invaded black neighborhoods, Blacks fought back. By the time the police, eventually aided by the military, managed to quell the disturbance, 34 people, 25 of whom were black, were dead.” (p. 156.)

Herman: “The Detroit Riot of 1943 was by many accounts the most severe manifestation of urban unrest in America since the Chicago (Illinois) Riot of 1919 and the Tulsa (Oklahoma) Riot of 1921. At the conclusion of three days of rioting, there were 34 confirmed deaths, 760 injured, and an estimated $2 million of property damage. The 1943 Detroit riot was not an isolated episode. Rather, it was part of a larger cycle of civil disorder that took place in several American cities, such as Harlem, New York; Los Angeles, California; and Beaumont, Texas, during the summer of 1943 where wartime mobilization efforts had brought new waves of blacks and Hispanic migrants in contact and competition with previous generations of white migrants and European immigrants. In Detroit, much of the conflict occurred between working-class white immigrants from Europe and black migrants from the rural South. Marked by interpersonal violence among members of these groups who vied for space, jobs, and political power, the 1943 Detroit riot can be seen as a prime example of a communal riot….” (Herman, Max. “Detroit (Michigan) Riot of 1943,” pp. 160-164 in: Rucker, Walter C. and James N. Upton (Eds.). Encyclopedia of American Race Riots (2 Vols.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007.)

PBS: “As the nation’s most important production center during the Second World War, the city of Detroit was popularly known as the “arsenal of democracy.” The city’s overwhelmingly industrial landscape had been rapidly expanding since the manufacturing boom of the post-Civil War era. Yet its industrial prosperity masked underlying and deeply-rooted racial animosities. As the city’s many production plants mobilized for the war effort, employers turned to a ready pool of African American labor from the South. Yet Detroit was in no way equipped to accommodate these new laborers. The shift in the city’s demographics caused volatile racial tensions which would erupt into one of the bloodiest riots in the nation’s history.

“By the 1940s Detroit already had a long history of racial conflict. Race riots had occurred in 1863 and as recently as 1941. By the 1920s the city had become a stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan, an organization committed to white supremacy. The industrial plants provided jobs but not housing. White communities militantly guarded the dividing lines imposed by segregation throughout Detroit’s history. As a result, the city’s 200,000 black residents were cramped into 60 square blocks on the East Side and forced to live under deplorable sanitary conditions. Ironically, the ghetto was called Paradise Valley.

“These and numerous other indignities contributed to escalating racial tensions in June of 1943. In many cities the demands of wartime were manifesting themselves in outbursts of intolerance. Race riots had already erupted in Los Angeles, as well as Mobile, Alabama, and Beaumont, Texas. In 1943 the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People held an emergency war conference in Detroit and accused the nation of its hypocritical commitment to personal freedoms abroad and discrimination and segregation at home.

“The Detroit riot began at a popular and integrated amusement park known as Belle Isle. On the muggy summer evening of June 20, 1943, the playground was ablaze with activity. Several incidents occurred that night including multiple fights between teenagers of both races. White teenagers were often aided by sailors who were stationed at the Naval Armory nearby. As people began leaving the island for home, major traffic jams and congestion at the ferry docks spurred more violence. On the bridge which led back to the mainland, a fight erupted between a total of 200 African Americans and white sailors. Soon, a crowd of 5,000 white residents gathered at the mainland entrance to the bridge ready to attack black vacationers wishing to cross. By midnight, a ragged and understaffed police force attempted to retain the situation, but the rioting had already spread too far into the city.

“Two rumors circulated which exacerbated the conflict. At the Forest Club, a nightclub in Paradise Valley which catered to the black population, a man who identified himself as a police sergeant alerted the patrons that “whites” had thrown a black woman and her baby over the Belle Isle bridge. The enraged patrons fled the club to retaliate. They looted and destroyed white-owned stores and indiscriminately attacked anyone with white skin. Similarly, white mobs had been stirred up by a rumor that a black man had raped and murdered a white woman on the bridge. The white mob centered around the downtown Roxy Theater which harbored a number of black movie-goers. As the patrons exited the theater, they found themselves surrounded by gangs who attacked and beat them. As rumors about the incidents in Paradise Valley and the downtown area spread through the night, so did the nature and the extent of the violence. White mobs targeted streetcars transporting black laborers to work, forced the cars to come to a halt, and attacked the passengers inside. They also targeted any cars with black owners, turning them over and setting them on fire.

“By mid-morning, black leaders in the community had asked Mayor Edward J. Jeffries to call in federal troops to quell the fighting. But it was not until late that evening, when white mobs invaded Paradise Valley, that Jeffries took the necessary steps to get outside help. Around midnight, a disturbing silence reigned over the city as a truce between the city’s warring factions was kept by U.S. Army troops. More than 6,000 federal troops had been strategically stationed throughout the city. Detroit, under armed occupation, virtually shut down. The streets were deserted, the schools had been closed, and Governor Harry Francis Kelly had closed all places of public amusement. Most of the Paradise Valley community feared to leave their homes. Yet spurts of violence still flared up. As late as Wednesday, white mobs threatened black students leaving their graduation ceremony at Northeastern High School. The graduates had to be escorted home by truckloads of soldiers bearing bayonets.

“The days of rioting had been severe. Twenty-five black residents and nine white residents had been killed. Of the 25 African Americans, 17 had been killed by white policemen. The number injured, including police, approached 700 while the property damage, including looted merchandise, destroyed stores, and burned automobiles, amounted to $2 million. The Axis Powers were quick to point out that the riot was symptomatic of a weak nation. The German-controlled Vichy radio broadcasted that the riot revealed “the internal disorganization of a country torn by social injustice, race hatreds, regional disputes, the violence of an irritated proletariat, and the gangsterism of a capitalistic police.”

“The riot was another, although especially violent, manifestation of racism in the city of Detroit. Governor Kelly appointed a fact-finding committee to investigate the cause and the nature of the conflict. Yet the committee’s investigation was far from thorough and quickly laid the blame on the city’s black population. Even in the subsequent trial of some of the black teenagers who had been involved in the initial fighting at Belle Isle, the jury was wholly composed of white members whose judgment had already been swayed by the boys’ “conviction” in the press and by the Governor’s committee. Equally disappointing in the aftermath of the riot was the lack of attention paid by President Roosevelt. Many had hoped he would address the riot and the country’s racial problems in one of his “Fireside Chats.” Yet fearing protests from the southern wing of his own party, Roosevelt followed his advisors’ advice that such a discussion would be “unwise.” His comment on the riot came only in a letter to a New York Congressman in which he stated, “I share your feeling that the recent outbreaks of violence in widely scattered parts of the country endanger our national unity and comfort our enemies. I am sure that every true American regrets them.”

“Explanation of the causes of the riot reflected the fanaticism of the time. In Mississippi, the Jackson Daily News blamed the riot on Eleanor Roosevelt’s efforts toward social equality stating, “In Detroit, a city noted for the growing impudence and insolence of its Negro population, an attempt was made to put your preachments into practice, Mrs. Roosevelt.” Representative Martin Dies of Texas, chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, assigned blame on the Japanese-Americans who “had infiltrated Detroit’s Negro population to spread hatred of the white man and disrupt the war effort.” Hysteria about subversive Axis attempts to weaken the nation abounded. Yet the lack of constructive action to ameliorate the causes of the riot left conditions just as explosive as they had been before.

“One month after the outbreak in Detroit, another riot erupted in New York City’s West Harlem. Again the U.S. Army had to intervene. Troops occupied Detroit for six months until Roosevelt felt it was safe to pull them out in January of 1944. Racial conflicts would not appear on such a visible and widespread scale again until the Civil Rights movement just one decade later.” (PBS)

Sources

Baulch, Vivian M. and Patricia Zacharias. “The 1943 Detroit race riots.” Detroit News, 2-11-1999. Accessed 12-12-2012 at: http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=185

Gilje, Paul A. Rioting in America. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999.

Herman, Max. “Detroit (Michigan) Riot of 1943.” Pp. 160-164 in: Rucker, Walter C. and James N. Upton (Eds.). Encyclopedia of American Race Riots (2 Vols.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007.

PBS. American Experience. “Detroit Race Riots 1943.” Accessed 12-12-2012 at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/eleanor-riots/

Wikipedia. “Detroit Race Riot (1943).” 12-10-2012 modification. Accessed 12-12-2012 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Race_Riot_%281943%29