Concluding chapter(s) of my research into Detroit.
First, I am so proud of this chart that I have made, in it is the entire story of Detroit. No, seriously.
It is not possible to understand Detroit without understanding the relationship of the white community to the black community. The two histories are interwoven to this day.
No other city with a population of 100,000 or more has gone from being almost 100% white to almost 100% black.
Since 1890 this transition has happened in four distinct phases, as shown in the chart. Each phase has a story to tell which is the story of Detroit and how it got to where it is. I believe that if we don’t see this big picture we will be distracted by all the sideshow of politics, corruption, unions, financial mismanagement. Each phase in Detroit was a turning point that could have set Detroit on a better trajectory. (Hindsight is perfect).
I will narrate the story of each phase and in the end tie it all together into what I now believe needs to happen to restore Detroit to its past glory.
My personal quest, for the past month, has been to understand inner-city crime in America and the root cause of the current protests in our cities. I picked Detroit because I felt that if I could understand Detroit I would know what ails our major cities. I think, for myself, I have accomplished this goal. I have an understanding and a perspective I did not have before.
I will wrap this work up with what I believe are solutions to addressing crime and violence in Detroit and in our major cities.
Phase II : 1920-1930 Detroit. These were boom years for the auto industry. Detroit had become Motown, USA. Americans from all over were moving to Detroit for jobs. The Great Migration of the blacks from the South resulted in 80,000 blacks moving to Detroit for jobs. Many were sharecroppers and most were uneducated, but they found jobs in the factories. This was the first big inflow of blacks into Detroit. They were not welcomed by the white population (in today's language they were the equivalent of caravans coming from the South). But, Ford and other car manufacturers needed cheap labor, and blacks from the South wanted to get away from Jim Crow laws and discrimination(including lynching). They did not find a hospitable environment in Detroit, they were confined to black neighborhoods, in particular, the neighborhood of Black Bottom and Paradise Valley. As more blacks migrated to Detroit the Black Bottom neighborhood became increasingly crowded. The housing stock was already old and many homes did not have plumbing or electricity, yet more than one family shared a home, there were very few places outside BB that they could find a home. In 1924 a black physician, Dr. Ossian Sweet, moved into a white neighborhood and white mobs surrounded his home. Someone inside his home shot a gun and killed someone in the mob. Dr. Sweet was charged with murder. All through that period racial tensions ran high.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossian_Sweet
Phase III-1930 to 1950: These were momentous years for Detroit had they gone differently Detroit would have been a different city. Post depression to spur the home construction industry FDR in 1934 created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC). FHA revolutionized homeownership by creating our current financial mortgaging system. In the process, it produced a lending structure that helped to solidify the racial segregation that still exists today. The Underwriting Handbook used by the FHA endorsed the practice of redlining, which marked African-American neighborhoods as ineligible for FHA mortgages. Redlining is the practice of refusing to back mortgages in neighborhoods based on racial and ethnic composition. in 1934 the FHA Underwriting Handbook incorporated “residential security maps” into their standards to determine where mortgages could or could not be issued. Developed by the Home Owner’s Loan Coalition, these were color-coded maps indicating the level of security for real estate investments in 239 American cities. The maps were based on assumptions about the community, not on the ability of various households to satisfy lending criteria.
https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan.../detroit-then-and-now
This link is to an interactive redlining map of Detroit from 1937. You can click on any area of the map and see how it was described by HOLC surveyors. Written in the surveyor notes is the percent of "negros" or "jews" in that area.
FHA, HOLC, and the subsequent GI Bill enabled middle-class Americans (whites) to buy homes and resulted in a housing boom. Homeownership created wealth for whites which was denied blacks of similar income. Homeownership has been the primary source of wealth for many Americans. To this day there is a gap in the wealth of whites and blacks that can be traced back to this period. Had blacks been allowed to own homes starting in 1934 in Detroit it is possible that we might not be in this situation in Detroit today. This could have been a turning point.
More to come.
1941-1943: "White mob riot against racial integration in Detroit"
https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/feb/28
In 1941 Sojourner Project homes were built to house black wartime workers. This project was in the midst of a white neighborhood. Please read the story below.
Racial tensions were boiling over, white workers walked off the Packard assembly line when they were asked to work alongside black workers. Then in 1943 race riots broke out over disinformation (sound familiar) in black and white neighborhoods that a black (or white) child was thrown over a bridge by some whites (or blacks).
With echos of the 2020 election, Albert Cobb beat out a more liberal mayoral candidate George Edward over the issue of building low income (black) housing in white neighborhoods.
It is possible that had Detroit (and the country) been more tolerant and able to coexist in integrated neighborhoods in cities we might still have vibrant inner cities. This was not to be.
1950s: The gilded age of Detroit and its death knell. Why? Follow the comments section below
1967 riots in Detroit were the final nail in the city's coffin. It accelerated the decline of the city that was already underway. There was a massive population shift taking place the whites were on the verge of becoming a minority. Racial tensions had been simmering for years. Relations between an all-white police force and the black residents had never been good. In the 1943 riots the majority of those arrested were blacks though the riots were instigated by a white mob protesting blacks moving into white neighborhoods and stealing their jobs in factories. Resentment among the blacks about police bias had been running high.
"In the sweltering summer of 1967, Detroit’s predominantly African-American neighborhood of Virginia Park was a simmering cauldron of racial tension. About 60,000 low-income residents were crammed into the neighborhood’s 460 acres, living mostly in small, sub-divided apartments.
The Detroit Police Department, which had only about 50 African American officers at the time, was viewed as a white occupying army. Accusations of racial profiling and police brutality were commonplace among Detroit’s black residents. The only other whites in Virginia Park commuted in from the suburbs to run the businesses on 12th Street, then commuted home to affluent enclaves outside Detroit.The entire city was in a state of economic and social strife: As the Motor City’s famed automobile industry shed jobs and moved out of the city center, freeways and suburban amenities beckoned middle-class residents away, which further gutted Detroit’s vitality and left behind vacant storefronts, widespread unemployment and impoverished despair.A similar scenario played out in metropolitan areas across America, where “white flight” reduced the tax base in formerly prosperous cities, causing urban blight, poverty and racial discord. In mid-July, 1967, the city of Newark, New Jersey, erupted in violence as black residents battled police following the beating of a black taxi driver, leaving 26 people dead.THE 12TH STREET SCENE
At night, 12th Street in Detroit was a hotspot of inner-city nightlife, both legal and illegal. At the corner of 12th St. and Clairmount, William Scott operated a “blind pig” (an illegal after-hours club) on weekends out of the office of the United Community League for Civic Action, a civil rights group. The police vice squad often raided establishments like this on 12th St., and at 3:35 a.m. on Sunday morning, July 23, they moved against Scott’s club.On that warm, humid night, the establishment was hosting a party for several veterans, including two servicemen recently returned from the Vietnam War, and the bar’s patrons were reluctant to leave the air-conditioned club. Out in the street, a crowd began to gather as police waited for vehicles to take the 85 patrons away.An hour passed before the last person was taken away, and by then about 200 onlookers lined the street. A bottle crashed into the street. The remaining police ignored it, but then more bottles were thrown, including one through the window of a patrol car. The police fled as a small riot erupted. Within an hour, thousands of people had spilled out onto the street from nearby buildings.Looting began on 12th Street, and closed shops and businesses were ransacked. Around 6:30 a.m., the first fire broke out, and soon much of the street was ablaze. By midmorning, every policeman and fireman in Detroit was called to duty. On 12th Street, officers fought to control the unruly mob. Firemen were attacked as they tried to battle the flames.NATIONAL GUARD ARRIVES
Detroit Mayor Jerome P. Cavanaugh asked Michigan Governor George Romney to send in the state police, but these 300 additional officers could not keep the riot from spreading to a 100-block area around Virginia Park. The National Guard was called in shortly after but didn’t arrive until evening. By the end of Sunday, more than 1,000 people were arrested, but the riot kept spreading and intensifying. Five people had died by Sunday night.On Monday, the rioting continued and 16 people were killed, most by police or guardsmen. Snipers reportedly fired at firemen, and fire hoses were cut. Governor Romney asked President Lyndon B. Johnson to send in U.S. troops. Nearly 2,000 army paratroopers arrived on Tuesday and began patrolling the streets of Detroit in tanks and armored carriers.Ten more people died that day, and 12 more on Wednesday. On Thursday, July 27, order was finally restored. More than 7,000 people were arrested during the four days of rioting. A total of 43 people were killed. Some 1,700 stores were looted and nearly 1,400 buildings burned, causing roughly $50 million in property damage. Some 5,000 people were left homeless.KERNER COMMISSION
The so-called 12th Street Riot was the third-worst riot in U.S. history, occurring during a period of fever-pitch racial strife and numerous race riots across America. Only the New York Draft Riots of 1863 and the Los Angeles Riots of 1992 caused more destruction.In the aftermath of the Newark and Detroit riots, President Johnson appointed a National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, often known as the Kerner Commission after its chair, Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois. In February, 1968, seven months after the Detroit Riots had ended, the commission released its 426-page report.The Kerner Commission identified more than 150 riots or major disorders between 1965 and 1968. In 1967 alone, 83 people were killed and 1,800 were injured—the majority of them African Americans—and property valued at more than $100 million was damaged, looted or destroyed.Ominously, the report declared that “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal. Reaction to last summer’s disorders has quickened the movement and deepened the division. Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American.”However, the authors also found cause for hope: “This deepening racial division is not inevitable. The movement apart can be reversed.” Additionally, the report stated that “What the rioters appeared to be seeking was fuller participation in the social order and the material benefits enjoyed by the majority of American citizens. Rather than rejecting the American system, they were anxious to obtain a place for themselves in it.
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