After Michigan’s governor declared a full ‘insurrection,’ the president sent tanks to fire on Detroit
The city thought it wouldn’t happen there, but it was the worst riot of the Long Hot Summer of 1967
Detroit was no stranger to racial trouble. During the Great Migration thousands of African Americans moved there, fleeing terror in the South in favor of opportunities in the burgeoning automotive industry. But like most Northern cities, Detroit proved a place where black migrants found they were trading in one set of systemic problems for another. Whites defended neighborhood borders fiercely, making housing difficult to come by for black families, which, in turn, drove prices up. And the situation wasn’t much better at work. In June of 1943, white factory workers brought production to a halt by striking against the promotion of African Americans, and periodic slowdowns occurred in plants across the city as white workers refused to work alongside blacks. Animosity spilled out into the streets and racially motivated street fights were not uncommon.
Tensions first came to a head with the race riots of 1943, which took place almost 25 years prior to the 1967 uprising. A fight between groups of blacks and whites blossomed into several days of violence where roving mobs of black and white residents attacked and beat one another. In the end, it took 6,000 U.S. Army troops to quell the violence, and 25 black people were killed, 17 by police. Nine white people lost their lives in the bloodshed.
The Birwood Wall, a barrier on the northwest side of the city near 8 Mile Road, was built in the 1940s with the specific purpose of separating the black residents who began to move into the neighborhood. Meanwhile, urban renewal policies of the late 1950s and early 1960s compounded the difficulties for black Detroiters, particularly with the construction of Interstate 375—known as the Chrysler Freeway—through the historic Black Bottom and Paradise Valley neighborhoods, which forced residents out of epicenters of black life into farther flung parts of the city.
One of those places was 12th Street, the site of the 1967 uprising. In an oral history given to the Detroit Historical Museum, John Eddings, who lived in the 12th Street section of the city during the 1960s, remembers how hard the dissolution of the Black Bottom and Paradise Valley neighborhoods was on residents. “To me, that’s about the time the resentment started because the only people who appeared to be displaced were black folks. They called it urban renewal, but urban renewal for who? It wasn’t for the black folks.”
Added to this was a tense relationship with police. Recording artist Martha Reeves, who lead the Motown group Martha and the Vandellas, spoke about the police tactics also familiar to many residents of Detroit at the time. “I think the riot was caused by too much pressure on the people who lived in the city of Detroit….We used to sing on the street corner, under the street lights. There was a fear of us gathering on street corners. And they would bust the crowd up, and they would either hit you in the head, or lock you up for being here. They didn’t want you to gather.”
Yet despite this, Detroit, like other cities in 1967, fancied itself immune to the strife that was unfolding in black neighborhoods across the country. They had recently elected a liberal, white mayor in Jerome Cavanagh, who had won the post largely on the strength of his popularity in black districts. He was seen as a progressive on race who would increase black confidence in government after the previous administration found itself involved in a number of stop-and-frisk scandals. Cavanagh would choose African Americans for several key posts in his administration, including controller, public works secretary, and later deputy police commissioner.
Moreover, Detroit’s thriving industry meant that there was a strong black middle class, earning well and living in nice homes, for whom the pace of progress, while not ideal, was still acceptable. Less than 24 hours into the uprising, black labor leaders Horace Sheffield and Robbert Battle III of the United Auto Workers even issued a statement saying, “One day of violence threatens to destroy years of effort to build a community Negroes and whites can well be proud of. We have been far from satisfied with the conditions which have confronted Negroes generally in the community but none can deny that substantial progress has been made.”
But a rift was growing among black people. Those who couldn’t get factory jobs and access to even a small salary were growing increasingly angry about what felt like continued mistreatment by economic and legal forces.
Korean War veteran Mike Hamlin recalls returning to Detroit in 1960 and immediately seeing a connection between American aggression abroad and at home. He took a job in the distribution department of a newsroom and began to talk with other low-wage workers who felt as he did. “I told people many a time, then and since then,” Hamlin recalled to the Detroit Historical Museum in 2015, “that during that period I didn’t care whether I lived or died, but I was going to live or die with some feeling of freedom.”
That feeling of freedom would come for some on July 23, 1967. A Saturday night after-hours party celebrating the return of two soldiers from Vietnam was held on 12th Street on the west side of town. Police raided the gathering at some point just before 4am, expecting to find a handful of participants. Instead, guests reportedly numbered much higher, and 73 people were ultimately placed under arrest. While transport wagons were arriving, a crowd gathered—many of whom knew the arresting officers by name and reputation—and began yelling insults.
William Scott III, the 19-year-old whose father had thrown the event, would later say in a memoir that he was the first to throw a bottle. But the combined social and economic frustrations of the community, along with an overwhelming sense of helplessness, were ultimately the driving force behind what unfolded. Within hours, full-scale looting was underway, helped in part by the fact that it took longer to mobilize law enforcement on a Sunday. The first arrest did not come until 7 a.m.
By mid afternoon, the first fire had been set at a grocery store and news had spread. Detroit Tigers left fielder Willie Horton completed a game at Tiger Stadium that day, went directly to 12th Street, and stood on top of his car while still in uniform to urge people to calm down. It was to no avail. A curfew put in place by police, from 9:00 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., was largely ignored.
Just before midnight, President Lyndon Johnson held an emergency press conference. With the nation fresh on the heels of riots in Plainfield and Newark, New Jersey, Johnson was eager to appear on top of what he felt was a growing insurgency. “We will not tolerate lawlessness. We will not endure violence,” the president said in his prepared remarks. “This nation will do whatever it is necessary to do to suppress and punish those who engage in it.” In a significant move, he authorized 5,000 federal troops to assist state and local authorities in Detroit. This marked the first federal intervention in a riot that year, and it was only possible because Michigan State Governor George Romney declared a “state of insurrection,” which meant that the people of Detroit were to be considered a rebelling enemy force.
Violence and looting continued through Monday and rumors of snipers and snipers nests began to circulate among law enforcement. In a now infamous incident, a small task force made up of Detroit police officers, Michigan State Troopers, and the Michigan Army National Guard raided the Algiers Motel on a tip that a gunshot assumed to be from a sniper had been heard nearby. Inside, officers found three black men and two white women, all in their early twenties, listening to music in a hotel room. What happened next is disputed. But by the time the confrontation was over, the three civilian men were dead and both of the women had been sexually assaulted. One person admitted that someone in the group of youngsters had jokingly fired a starter pistol, later recovered, in the room. No other weapon was found at the scene.
The fear of snipers and organized armed insurrection was a driving force behind the state and federal response. On July 27, two tanks opened fire on an apartment building, thought to contain snipers, on the west side, 10 blocks from where the riots began. After ground troops filled the structure with bullets and smashed in the door, they found two white teenagers in possession of a gun, some ammo, and a store of looted food and drinks.
In a marked progression from the year’s previous uprisings, the scene on the ground in Detroit began to resemble a combat zone. Firefights were reported between civilians and armed forces. In an incident reported in the Chicago Tribune, an army Jeep was used to smash down the door of a house where sniper fire was thought to be originating. No one was found inside.
In another mirroring of wartime conditions, Detroit residents saw the price of basic groceries skyrocket as profiteers sought to turn the chaos to their financial advantage. Bread and milk were going for as much as $1 per unit, a nearly 400% cost increase, until emergency price controls were invoked by the governor’s office.
Hoping to avoid significantly worsening the situation, government officials had given strict rules to mobilize units around the use of ammunition. Police were instructed not to fire unless fired upon, but patience grew thin with the passing days. “The time for fooling around is over,” a policeman in the 10th precinct told the Tribune at the time. “Tonight we’re all going to shoot to kill.”
Stores selling guns and ammunition also reported big jumps in demand, almost exclusively in white areas, the day after the burning and looting erupted.
By the evening of Thursday, July 27, national guardsmen withdrew their ammunition. Troop withdrawal began on Friday, July 28, and was completed the following day.
President Johnson convened a commission, to be led by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, to look into the causes of this series of rebellions. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders would release a report the following year which would place the blame squarely on unemployment, lack of opportunity, and lack of support for African Americans. The Kerner Report, as it came to be known, would become a bestseller.
In the final tally, 43 people, including 33 African Americans and 10 whites, were killed. Nearly 2,000 people were injured. more than 7,000 arrests were made, including 703 youth, one as young as four years old.
By the time it was done, the Detroit riot would go down as the deadliest riot in American history. It was in many ways the pinnacle of a century’s worth of anger. Every riot preceding it seemed to build to it, and every riot afterward took place in the shadow it cast.
And the summer still wasn’t over.
Additional reporting by Tarryn Hall
