1967 — July 23-26, Detroit Race Riot and excessive use of Governmental force, MI — 43

— 43 Berry. Black Resistance White Law: A History of Constitutional Racism in America. 1995, 172.
–33 blacks
–10 whites
— 43 Herman, Max. “Detroit (Michigan) Riot of 1967,” p. 165 in Rucker and Upton, 2007.
–33 blacks
–10 whites
— 43 Hoffer, Peter C. Seven Fires: The Urban Infernos That Reshaped America. 2006, p. 238.
— 43 Hofstadter, R. and M. Wallace. American Violence: A Documentary History. 1970, 268.
–33 blacks
–10 whites
— 43 Noon, David. “Motor City is Burning.” The Chronicle.com. 7-23-2008.
— 43 Rutgers University. “Detroit Riots – 1967” (website).

Narrative Information

Berry: “The most extensive racial disorder of 1967 grew out of a police raid on a ‘blind pig,’ an illegal after-hours drinking establishment in Detroit on Saturday night, July 22. A crowd gathered outside the after-hours club, vocally criticizing the police for the way in which they made the arrests, charging they used excessive force. Window-breaking and looting spread….

“Of the forty-three persons killed, thirty-three were black; 7,200 citizens were arrested, most of whom were also black. One white national guardsman, one white fireman, and one black private guard lost their lives, all three being mistakenly killed by policemen and guardsmen. Claims of police brutality, wholesale violations of civil rights, illegal arrests, and unreasonable bail were commonplace. Seventeen of the persons killed were reportedly looters, two of whom were white. Some twenty million dollars in damage was done, most of which was covered by insurance.” (Berry. Black Resistance White Law: A History of Constitutional Racism in America. 1995, 172-173.)

Herman: “The Detroit Riot of 1967 was not a race riot in the traditional sense of the term. Unlike the race riots that had taken place earlier in the twentieth century in cities like East St. Louis (1917), Chicago (1919), Tulsa (1921), Harlem (1942), and Detroit (1943), the 1967 Detroit riot did not pit black and white civilians against one another in direct interpersonal combat. Rather, the 1967 riot was primarily a struggle between working-class African Americans (and some working-class whites) against the police, National Guard, and forces of the U.S. Army. At its conclusion, after five days of rioting, 43 people were dead, 1,189 were injured, and over 7,000 were arrested, making the 1967 Detroit riot the deadliest episode of urban unrest during the 1960s….

“Sunday afternoon…marked…the first known riot fatalities. Around 2:30 p.m., Krikor ‘George’ Messerlian, a white merchant who owned a shoe repair shop, was beaten by a group of black youths white he attempted to defend his store with a ceremonial sword. His death was followed by that of Sharon George, a twenty-three-year-old white woman who was hit by a bullet while riding in her husband’s car. Later that evening, Walter Grzanka, a second-generation Polish immigrant was shot while looting a grocery store, by the store’s owner. Although the first three fatalities of the 1967 Detroit riot were whites, by the end of the riot, thirty-three of the forty-three deaths attributed to the riots were blacks. Many of those deaths were attributed to the police and the National Guard, which arrived in Detroit during the early hours of Monday, July 24.

“By Monday morning rioting had spread throughout the city, with looting and fires reported on both the west side and the east side. Despite the presence of 800 state police and 1,200 national guardsmen, the riot was still not under control. At 2:15 a.m. Mayor Cavanaugh alerted federal authorities to the seriousness of the situation and shortly thereafter a conference call took place between the Mayor, Gov. Hugh Romney, and U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. At this time, there was considerable debate among these men over whether federal troops should be sent to Detroit. Clark implied that to send federal troops, the governor would have to declare that a civil insurrection was in progress. The governor was reluctant to do so because of his fears that insurance companies would refuse to compensate people for losses due to civil insurrection. In the interim, President Lyndon Johnson sent his envoy, Cyrus Vance, o tour the area and report to him on whether federal troops were needed. Vance toured the city Monday afternoon, between 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. during a lull in the violence. Because he did not personally witness any looting or sniper fire, Vance related his opinion to the president that federal troops were not necessary. But during the evening, violence flared once more. Eventually, at 11:20 p.m., President Johnson agreed to send Army paratroopers to Detroit. During the evening, a number of incidents were reported which involved National Guard troops firing machine guns at buildings in pursuit of alleged snipers. Overnight, nine people lost their lives.

“At 4:00 a.m., the first paratroopers of the 101st Airborne arrived in Detroit; among them were seasoned Vietnam veterans. These military troops, under Lieutenant General Throckmorton sought to engage the community in restoring order, help pick up garbage, and locate missing persons. Meanwhile, the National Guard and police continued to pursue suspected snipers, sometimes with disastrous consequences. In one particular case, the National Guard sent tanks to an apartment building where a sniper had been reported. Noticing a flash of light coming from the building, National Guard troops opened fire with .50-caliber machine guns. Inside the building, four-year-old Tanya Blanding was struck in the chest and subsequently died. Eyewitnesses and the police later established that the flash observed by the guardsmen was not that of a sniper’s rifle but came from a match used by Tanya’s uncle to light his cigarette.

“Emboldened by the presence of the National Guard and Army troops, Detroit police rounded up suspected looters in large-scale sweeps. By Monday evening, around 4,000 had been arrested, 1,000 of those arrested on Monday alone. The jails rapidly filled up, so prisoners were taken to a temporary holding cell in the parking garage of police headquarters where they were held incommunicado for the next twelve to twenty-four hours before being transferred to another temporary facility at the bathhouse on Belle Isla, an island park located in the Detroit River….

“During the daytime on Tuesday, July 26, over 500 reports of sniper fire were recorded. It is unclear how many of these incidents were due to actual sniper fire and how many could be attributed to crossfire between police and National Guard units. In response to these reports of sniper fire, police and National Guard troops initiated house-to-house searches. Another estimated 3,000 people were arrested over the next two days.

“In perhaps the most high-profile incident to take place during the riot, police officers, responding to reports of sniper fire, raided the Algiers Motel located on Woodward Avenue and Virginia Park, and shot three unarmed black teenagers who were enjoying the company of two white prostitutes. The police officers were later indicted for murder by a federal grand jury in 1968 but were acquitted by an all white federal jury in 1970. Two of the three officers were reinstated to the police force in 1971. This case is the topic of The Algiers Motel Incident, a book by journalist John Hersey.

“By Thursday, July 27, looting and sniping had ceased, and federal paratroopers were withdrawn from the city of Detroit. At the conclusion of five days of rioting, forty-three people had been killed; thirty-three (79 percent) of the victims were black…

“After the riot, white flight from Detroit accelerated, establishing Detroit as a majority black city….” (Herman, Max. “Detroit (Michigan) Riot of 1967,” pp. 165-170 in: Rucker, Walter C. and James N. Upton (Eds.). Encyclopedia of American Race Riots (2 Vols.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007.)

Hofstadter: “In 1967 ghetto uprising erupted throughout the country. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders counted 164 disorders and 83 deaths in the first nine months of the year, capped by major outbreaks in Newark and Detroit in July. The Commission repeated the findings of many of its predecessors about the background of rioting, but it went beyond them in saying: ‘White racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War I.’ It also cited as causes ‘white terrorism against non-violent protest’ and called the police agents of ‘white racism and white repression.’ The Commission noted that the rioters were better educated than non-rioters, were unemployed or underemployed, were racially proud, extremely hostile to whites and middle-class blacks, and highly distrustful of the American political system.

“The Detroit uprising, the largest of the year, began with a police raid on five ‘blind pigs,’ drinking and gambling clubs originally set up during prohibition, at 3:45 on Sunday morning, July 23. Eighty-two people were hauled away in police cars, which were stoned by a crowd of onlookers. By morning the crowds had grown to thousands, and window smashing and looting began. When the police proved unable to control the outbreak, the National Guard and then federal paratroopers were called in. The inexperienced, frightened Guardsmen sprayed bullets wildly at real or imagined snipers. The police rounded up blacks and beat some of them to extract confessions. Many men were brought to police stations uninjured and were taken from them to hospitals, bleeding severely; one woman was forced to strip while police snapped pictures and molested her. Although there was sniping at police and firemen from rooftops, of the 27 who were arrested for sniping, 24 were dismissed.

“Forty-three persons were killed in the riot, thirty-three of them blacks. The police killed twenty or twenty-one, the National Guard perhaps as many as nine, and the rioters two or three. Arrests totaled 7,200.” (Hofstadter, Richard and Michael Wallace. American Violence: A Documentary History. 1970, pp. 267-268.)

National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders: “. . . A spirit of carefree nihilism was taking hold. To riot and destroy appeared more and more to become ends in themselves. Late Sunday afternoon it appeared to one observer that the young people were “dancing amidst the flames.”

“A Negro plainclothes officer was standing at an intersection when a man threw a Molotov cocktail into a business establishment at the corner… In the heat of the afternoon, fanned by the 20 to 25 m.p.h. winds of both Sunday and Monday, the fire reached the home next door within minutes. As residents uselessly sprayed the flames with garden hoses, the fire jumped from roof to roof of adjacent two- and three-story buildings. Within the hour the entire block was in flames. The ninth house in the burning row belonged to the arsonist who had thrown the Molotov cocktail. . . .

“. . . Employed as a private guard, 55-year-old Julius L. Dorsey, a Negro, was standing in front of a market when accosted by two Negro men and a woman. They demanded he permit them to loot the market. He ignored their demands. They began to berate him. He asked a neighbor to call the police. As the argument grew more heated, Dorsey fired three shots from his pistol into the air. The police radio reported: “Looters, they have rifles.” A patrol car driven by a police officer and carrying three National Guardsmen arrived. As the looters fled, the law enforcement personnel opened fire. When the firing ceased, one person lay dead. He was Julius L. Dorsey. . .

“. . . According to Lt. Gen. Throckmorton and Col. Bolling, the city, at this time, was saturated with fear. The National Guardsmen were afraid, the residents were afraid, and the police were afraid. Numerous persons, the majority of them Negroes, were being injured by gunshots of undetermined origin. The general and his staff felt that the major task of the troops was to reduce the fear and restore an air of normalcy. In order to accomplish this, every effort was made to establish contact and rapport between the troops and the residents. The soldiers–20 percent of whom were Negro–began helping to clean up the streets, collect garbage, and trace persons who had disappeared in the confusion. Residents in the neighborhoods responded with soup and sandwiches for the troops. In areas where the National Guard tried to establish rapport with the citizens, there was a smaller response.” (National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, “Summary.” 1968, pp. 3-4.)

Noon: “…the Detroit uprisings…over the course of five days consumed 43 lives and injured more than a thousand while causing at least $40 million in damage….

“While the riots were sparked by a single event — the arrest of 85 black patrons at an illegal saloon on the city’s west side — the roots of the conflict can be traced to the economic and spatial polarization of Detroit from the 1940s onward. Plumped by wartime defense contracts and postwar economic growth, its massive industrial landscape represented the “Arsenal of Democracy” materialized. The auto industry dominated the regional economy, with facilities like the gargantuan River Rouge plant serving as a synecdoche for the entire city, the aspirations of its dwellers, and for modernity itself.

“Drawing streams of labor from the world over, the city also proved to be an important destination for African Americans who, fleeing the grotesque racial conditions of the Jim Crow South, settled in northern and western cities. In Detroit, most of the black migrants took root along the eastern edge of the city, a strip of land that came optimistically to be known as ‘Paradise Valley.’ Others settled in clusters to the west, with smaller black communities emerging in the Eight Mile-Wyoming and Conant Gardens neighborhoods to the North.

“Although African American workers and their families benefited to various degrees from the economic opportunities availed by industrial labor and the growth of the union movement from the mid-1930s onward, they faced open discrimination on the shop floor, in the union hall, and along the borders of their neighborhoods, whose racial barricades most white Detroiters were determined to maintain. In countless demonstrations of solidarity, white workers defended their sense of racial entitlement by striking out against the employment of black labor. White homeowners formed community organizations whose broad purposes were indistinguishable from the notorious White Citizens’ Councils of the post-Brown South. Vigilantes enforced the residential color line by smashing windows, burning crosses, and setting trash cans ablaze on the lawns of unwanted neighbors. By redlining entire sections of the city and refusing to develop new sources of low-income housing, financial and municipal officials cooperated — or collaborated — in the transformation of Detroit into perhaps the finest example of industrial apartheid the United States has ever known. Civil rights organizations struggled in vain against these conditions; calls for integration and racial harmony from Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish leaders went unheeded by local congregations, which fled “transitional” neighborhoods as quickly as possible.

“By the mid-1960s, Detroit was in a state of pronounced crisis, as rapid demographic and economic transition destabilized the city. For African Americans, conditions were exceptionally bad. The evacuation of the auto industry to the suburbs — where outright racial exclusion substituted for the merely segregated residential patterns of the city — left Detroit’s black communities more impoverished than ever. With black unemployment rates climbing toward 20 percent, local leaders welcomed the new anti-poverty measures enacted by Congress during the Johnson administration. Unfortunately, none of these programs were capable of thwarting the massive structural problems caused by deindustrialization. By focusing on the behavior of the poor — attempting, for example, to transform youth culture rather than address the liquidation of jobs — antipoverty programs in Detroit retained the limited agenda established by social welfare professionals during the 1950s.

“As efforts to reverse Detroit’s economic decay came to naught, the city mailed its fists. Among other innovations, the nearly all-white police department established an elite unit known as the “Tac Squad,” which focused its attention on prostitution and illegal bars (“blind pigs”) in the black neighborhood along 12th Street, the eventual epicenter of the ’67 riots. The Tac Squad verbally and physically harassed residents of the community, enacting de facto pass laws by arresting those who were not able to show proper identification. The conduct of the police grew so notorious that blacks surveyed by the Free Press in the spring of 1967 listed police brutality as Detroit’s worst problem.

“On the night of July 22, the Tac Squad raided four blind pigs, uneventfully arresting a few dozen patrons. The fifth pig on the squad’s list, the United Community and Civic League, was hosting a party for two servicemen who had just returned from Vietnam. When police entered the club after 3:00 a.m. on July 23, they were surprised to discover more than 80 patrons. By the time the last arrests were completed two hours later, a large crowd had gathered at the intersection of 12th and Clairmount. Fueled by rumor and underlying hostility toward the police, the crowd grew in size and animus over the next few hours, as looting and arson sent the West side careening out of control. Michigan Governor George Romney, decrying ‘lawlessness and hoodlumism,’ dispatched 1500 National Guardsmen to the city and requested further intervention from President Johnson himself.

“Two days after the 12th street neighborhood erupted in violence on July 23, Lyndon Johnson sent 400 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne as well as 8000 National Guardsmen to suppress the violence. Coleman Young, a Michigan state senator who would later serve as mayor of Detroit, characterized what followed as a ‘police riot.’ Nearly half of those killed were shot by police, soldiers and guardsmen; most of these were shot in the back, and nearly all were unarmed. Among the latter were 23-year-old Nathaniel Edmonds, who was shot in his backyard by a white man who accused him of looting his store; William Jones, shot by Detroit police officers while looting a liquor store; Julius Lawrence, a 26-year old white man shot by police while he and some friends attempted to steal a car from a junkyard; Roy Banks, a 46-year old deaf man who was mistaken for a sniper; Charles Kemp, 18, shot by police for looting five packs of cigars; and Tanya Blanding, a 4-year old girl shot through the window her apartment by a National Guardsman, who fired when he saw a small flash that turned out to be a relative lighting a cigarette….” (Noon, David. “Motor City is Burning.” The Chronicle.com. 7-23-2008.)

Rutgers: “Events. The Detroit Riot of 1967 began when police vice squad officers executed a raid on an after-hours drinking club or ‘blind pig’ in a predominantly black neighborhoods located at Twelfth Street and Clairmount Avenue. They were expecting to round up a few patrons, but instead found 82 people inside holding a party for two returning Vietnam veterans. Yet, the officers attempted to arrest everyone who was on the scene. While the police awaited a ‘clean-up crew’ to transport the arrestees, a crowd gathered around the establishment in protest. After the last police car left, a small group of men who were ‘confused and upset because they were kicked out of the only place they had to go’ lifted up the bars of an adjacent clothing store and broke the windows. From this point of origin, further reports of vandalism diffused. Looting and fires spread through the Northwest side of Detroit, then crossed over to the East Side. Within 48 hours, the National Guard was mobilized, to be followed by the 82nd airborne on the riot’s fourth day. As police and military troops sought to regain control of the city, violence escalated. At the conclusion of 5 days of rioting, 43 people lay dead, 1189 injured and over 7000 people had been arrested.

“Causes of the Detroit Riot

“The origins of urban unrest in Detroit were rooted in a multitude of political, economic, and social factors including police abuse, lack of affordable housing, urban renewal projects, economic inequality, black militancy, and rapid demographic change.

“Police Brutality

“In Detroit, during the 1960s the “Big Four” or “Tac Squad” roamed the streets, searching for bars to raid and prostitutes to arrest. These elite 4 man units frequently stopped youths who were driving or walking through the 12th street neighborhood. They verbally degraded these youths, calling them ‘boy’ and ‘nigger’, asking them who they were and where they were going. (Fine 1989:98). Most of the time, black residents were asked to produce identification, and having suffered their requisite share of humiliation, were allowed to proceed on their way. But if one could not produce ‘proper’ identification, this could lead to arrest or worse. In a few notable cases, police stops led to the injury or death of those who were detained. Such excessive use of force was manifested in the 1962 police shooting of a black prostitute named Shirley Scott who, like Lester Long of Newark, was shot in the back while fleeing from the back of a patrol car. Other high profile cases of police brutality in Detroit included the severe beating of another prostitute, Barbara Jackson, in 1964, and the beating of Howard King, a black teenager, for ‘allegedly disturbing the peace’. (Fine 1989:117) But the main issue in the minds of Detroit’s black residents was police harassment and police brutality, which they identified in a Detroit Free Press Survey as the number one problem they faced in the period leading up to the riot. (Detroit Free Press 1968, Fine 1989, Thomas 1967). According to a Detroit Free Press Survey, residents reported police brutality as the number as the number one problem they faced in the period leading up to the riot. (Detroit Free Press 1968, Fine 1989, Thomas 1967 ).” (Rutgers University. “Detroit Riots – 1967” (website).)

Vance: “VI. Lessons Learned….e. Discipline in National Guard Troops. At the outset, the troops of the National Guard were far below the standards of the active Army in appearance, bearing, courtesy, and general behavior; discipline was not adequate and command and control down into the ranks were poor. The National Guard improved markedly in all these areas as they gained experience and confidence and were held to a high standard of performance. Discussions with numerous community leaders and individual citizens revealed that these facts were readily apparent to the citizens of the riot-affected sections of the city. These initial deficiencies were primarily in the area of basic military discipline. In light of these facts, I recommend that a review be made by Federal and State officials of the qualification and performance of all officers in the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard to insure that the officer personnel are fully qualified to discharge their responsibilities and to provide the required leadership. I wish to make it very clear that I am not suggesting that the caliber of National Guard officers is generally unsatisfactory. This is not the case. I am certain that the vast majority are competent and dedicated men. However, I can state from my own observation that there are substandard officers who must be weeded out. This will not be an easy task. It will require the best efforts and skill of both the Department of Defense and the cognizant State authorities. It is also clear that riot control training for the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard should be improved and expanded.

“f. Negro Personnel. Neither the Detroit Police, the Michigan State Police, nor the Michigan National Guard had representative numbers of Negro personnel in their ranks. I believe that this fact inhibited communication, and, since the majority of the rioters were Negro, tended to exaggerate the racial nature of the conflict. Whether the substantially larger percentage of Negro personnel in the airborne units from the active Army was a major factor in their greater success in the maintenance of law and order cannot be precisely determined. However, a sampling of informed opinion throughout the riot-torn areas of Detroit revealed a strong conviction that a greater degree of integration of the police and National Guard would be of major importance in controlling future disorders. I believe strongly that steps should be taken immediately to increase the recruitment of Negroes into the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard. This is a difficult problem and will require the combined efforts of the Department of Defense, State officials, and the Negro community….” (Vance, Cyrus R. Final Report of Cyrus R. Vance, Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, Concerning the Detroit Riots, July 23 through August 2, 1967. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Secretary, 1967.)

Sources

Berry, Mary Frances. Black Resistance White Law: A History of Constitutional Racism in America. New York: Penguin Books, 1995.

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.

Herman, Max. “Newark (New Jersey) Riot of 1967,” pp. 447-452 in Rucker, Walter C. and James N. Upton (Eds.). Encyclopedia of American Race Riots (Vol. 2 of 2). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007.

Herman, Max, Ph.D. “Newark Riots – 1967.” Accessed 12-22-2012 at: www.67riots.rutgers.edu.

Hoffer, Peter Charles. Seven Fires: The Urban Infernos That Reshaped America. New York: Public Affairs, 2006.

Hofstadter, Richard and Michael Wallace (Eds.). American Violence: A Documentary History. Vintage Books, 1970.

National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, “Summary.” Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1968.

Noon, David. “Motor City is Burning.” The Chronicle.com. 7-23-2008. Accessed 12-12-2008 at: http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/edgeofthewest/2008/07/23/motor-city-is-burning/

Rutgers University. “Detroit Riots – 1967” (website). Accessed 12-13-2012 at: http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/d_index.htm

Vance, Cyrus R. Final Report of Cyrus R. Vance, Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, Concerning the Detroit Riots, July 23 through August 2, 1967. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Secretary, 1967.