Block upon block of the inner city burned and firefighters who came to put them out were killed by snipers. The Detroit police responded with an iron fist, shooting a lot of folks who were looting.
Even in the northwestern suburbs where 99% of the Whites fled, there were rumors (unfounded) that Blacks would come out to our areas and kill White people, just to make a point. We were in a sort of “lock down” and we were armed, almost creating a militia, just in case.
This landmark even of 1967 was worse than the previous race riots of 1945. I was not yet born in 1945, so I guess, look it up on Google.
Detroit never recovered, it remained a gutted, grammarian city with many African American (note, previously, I used the term “Black”, you could do that then) Mayors, each one more corrupt than the previous one.
The true downfall happened with the aid of two individuals, Mayor Coleman Young and City councilman, Kenneth Cockrel. These two, more than any other politicians, DESTROYED Detroit.
A few years later, Toyota and Japan, Inc. would polish off the job, began in 1967...
Remember James Brown's "I'm Black And I'm Proud"?
i was 9 years old during the 1967 Detroit Riot...lived on the far west side. Everybody in the neighborhood was quite scared...some left town til it was over. They blamed the Detroit Police as the main reason for the unrest. They had a undercover unit called S.T.R.E.S.S..”STOP THE ROBBERIES..ENJOY SAFE STREETS. Also had a unit nicknamed the “BIG FOUR’..4 man plainclothes cars,,,and..they were bad asses....no doubt about it. But i see a much more similar brew stirring that caused alot of the unrest simmering today. The 60’s riots were mostly in the latter part of the decade, well into Lyndon Johnson’s failed “NEW SOCIETY” policies...promising things that simply could never be accomplished. Sound familiar today?..People actually believed the Obama non-sense....now its a failed vision..a promise broken. Also with the Supreme Courts voting act rollback..social media connecting everyone..this could get real ugly.
The race-pimps will NEVER allow racial harmony, for them, the instigating media, and the democratic party......it's bad for business.
I think your recollection is a bit distorted, there were only two good guys killed during the riot, one policeman and one firefighter.
The Detroit police responded with an iron fist, shooting a lot of folks who were looting.
A total of only 43 people were killed not only by police and guardmen but looters themselves. It was not the holocaustic bloodbath by LEO that you are trying to make it.
And as a side note, on the day the riots started, my father, who was a Lieutenant in the TMU and lived on Detroit's east side, had started his vacation and was in Windsor with my mom and was coming back to the US when he saw smoke rising in the city. Since they had planned to spend their vacation up at their cottage in northern Michigan, dad drove mom up to the cottage, dropped her off and returned to their house in Detroit. He then called in to his precinct and informed them that he was available if they needed him but they never called him.
Even in the northwestern suburbs where 99% of the Whites fled,
You're kidding us, right? There was very little white flight from the east side "Grosse Pointes" or the Detroit side for that matter, which were closest to the 12th street riots. People stayed in their houses (probably armed) knowing that the riots were taking place downtown but prepared in the event it spread to their neighborhoods. Which it didn't......