Motor City: The Story of Detroit. The 12th Street riot - Jul 23, 1967. In the early morning hours of July 23, 1967, one of the worst riots in U.S. history breaks out on 12th Street in the heart of Detroit’s predominantly African-American inner city. By the time it was quelled four days later by 7,000 National Guard and U.S. Army troops, 43 people were dead, 342 injured, and nearly 1,400 buildings had been burned.
By the summer of 1967, the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Virginia Park was ready to explode. Some 60,000 poor people were crammed into the neighborhood’s 460 acres, living in squalor in divided and sub-divided apartments. The Detroit Police Department, which had only about 50 African Americans at the time, was viewed as a white occupying army. The only other whites seen in the neighborhood commuted from the suburbs to run their stores on 12th Street. At night, 12th Street was a center of Detroit inner-city nightlife, both legal and illegal. Detroit Mayor Jerome P. On Monday, 16 people were killed, most by police or guardsmen.
Detroit Race Riots 1943 . Eleanor Roosevelt . WGBH American Experience. 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. These and numerous other indignities contributed to escalating racial tensions in June of 1943. The Detroit riot began at a popular and integrated amusement park known as Belle Isle. Anatomy of Detroit’s Decline - Interactive Feature. Mayor Coleman A. Young of Detroit at an event in 1980.
Richard Sheinwald/Associated Press The financial crisis facing Detroit was decades in the making, caused in part by a trail of missteps, suspected corruption and inaction. Here is a sampling of some city leaders who trimmed too little, too late and, rather than tackling problems head on, hoped that deep-rooted structural problems would turn out to be cyclical downturns. Charles E. Bowles, backed by the Ku Klux Klan, was in office for seven months in 1930 before people demanded his removal. His ascension to the mayor's office was followed by a spike in crime, and he was suspected to be linked to some of Detroit's underworld figures, according to “Detroit: A Biography" by Scott Martelle.
Edward Jeffries, who served as mayor from 1940 to 1948, developed the Detroit Plan, which involved razing 100 blighted acres and preparing the land for redevelopment. Coleman A. Kwame M. Related. Marilyn Salenger: ‘White flight’ and Detroit’s decline. By Marilyn Salenger By Marilyn Salenger July 21, 2013 Marilyn Salenger is president of Strategic Communications Services and a former correspondent and news anchor for several CBS stations. An almost palpable sadness has swept across the country at the news that the city of Detroit has filed for bankruptcy. While the possibility of this had been discussed, the reality of what was once the fourth-largest city in the United States sinking to such depths is disheartening, a moment people will remember for years to come. To understand that the decline and bankruptcy represent so much more than dollars and cents requires a step back to a time that many would prefer to forget but remains unforgettable.
In the late 1960s,racial tensions engulfed parts of our country, at the cost of lost lives and abject destruction. Such was the case in Detroit during the summer of 1967, when one of the worst race riots our country had seen took place. Opinions Orlando Shooting Updates post_newsletter348 true false. Whites moving to Detroit, city that epitomized white flight. DETROIT — Whites are moving back to the American city that came to epitomize white flight, even as blacks continue to leave for the suburbs and the city’s overall population shrinks. Detroit is the latest major city to see an influx of whites who may not find the suburbs as alluring as their parents and grandparents did in the last half of the 20th century.
Unlike New York, San Francisco and many other cities that have seen the demographic shift, though, it is cheap housing and incentive programs that are partly fueling the regrowth of the Motor City’s white population. “For any individual who wants to build a company or contribute to the city, Detroit is the perfect place to be,” said Bruce Katz, co-director of the Global Cities Initiative at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. “You can come to Detroit and you can really make a difference.” “A young person can move here with $10,000 and start up a small flex space for artists or artists’ studios,” Seger said. Elizabeth St. St. Detroit just filed for bankruptcy. Here’s how it got there. By Brad Plumer By Brad Plumer July 18, 2013 On Thursday, the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy — the largest city in the United States ever to do so.
(Carlos Osorio/AP) To get a better sense of just how Detroit got into such dire financial straits, it's worth browsing through this May report on the city's finances and this "Proposal for Creditors" from June. Detroit's emergency manager Kevyn Orr laid out all the problems and economic headwinds facing the city. For instance: — Since 2000, Detroit's population has declined 26 percent. . — The official unemployment is now 18.6 percent, and fewer than half of the city's residents over the age of 16 are working. . — Low tax revenue, in turn, means that city services are suffering.
. — High crime and blight are driving even more residents out of the city. . — Detroit is sagging under decades of bad governance. . — Meanwhile, Detroit owes around $18.5 billion to its creditors. Wonkbook newsletter Your daily policy cheat sheet from Wonkblog. Top 10 reasons Detroit went bankrupt. Detroit declared Chapter 9 bankruptcy July 17, making it the largest city in American history to enter the municipal bankruptcy process. A local judge ruled that filing unconstitutional July 19, but, as the city sorts out its next move, here are 10 key facts about the causes of Detroit's financial mess. 1. The population has collapsed in the past six decades. Detroit was America's fourth-largest city in 1950, when it had 1.8 million people. In the 2010 census, the city had fewer than 702,000 residents -- an astonishing decline of 60 percent in 60 years.
Yes, fewer people means a smaller tax base, but the real problem is the city's government did not shrink along with the population -- more on that in a bit. 2. This is both a cause and an effect of the population situation. 3. That's a lot more than some of the other high-profile municipal bankruptcy cases in recent years. "Detroit has been working its way to a level of insolvency for decades. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. How Detroit Leaders Ignored Causes of Bankruptcy for 65 Years. By Lew Mandell The signs of Detroit’s decline have been well-recognized for 65 years. Photo courtesy of Spencer Platt/Getty Images. For the past few months, Lew Mandell, author of “What to Do When I Get Stupid,” has been our retirement finance guru.
He’s addressed multiple ways to close the retirement income gap, encouraging boomers to plan ahead before they lose their financial faculties to old age. The best retirement deal, he thinks, is the one that guarantees an 8.3 percent return — for life: Single Payment Immediate Annuities. But Mandell’s expertise is vast. Making Sense has done extensive reporting on Detroit, both the city’s declines and hopes.
Lew Mandell: Detroit has just been allowed to enter the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. The economic malaise began with the exodus of non-automotive manufacturing jobs from Detroit, just after the Second World War. Relocation out of Detroit By the time of my study in 1972, the employment situation in Detroit was acute.