Race Riots In Detroit

Blood and terror swamped the streets of Detroit in June of 1943. This became one of the most frighten riots in United States history. Rioting persisted for three days and came to an end with thirty-four total deaths. This amount of demise in such a brief time span is an appalling tragedy. The riots were centered around on race. Twenty-nine of the thirty-four people who died were black, seventeen of whom were shot by officers. The police are supposed to be the ones who serve to protect the citizens of the United States. During the riots, this was not the case. The police did nothing to protect African American citizens from their attackers. They actually fueled the attacks themselves. Of those seventeen African Americans whom were shot, a majority …show more content…
Lessons from Detroit, and What Caused the Detroit Riot? both provide a similar story about what was going on in Detroit around 1943. Describing in both how immigrations to Detroit and limited housing played a major role in creating racial tension in the city. Similar facts were also represented regard number of immigrants, deaths, and several other things as well. Both pamphlets were written around the same time, soon after the riots occurred. Similar wording was used throughout both thanks to this. Pictures and graphs placed in the writings also displayed further representations of the riots. Similarly, both provided some drafted “fixes” so that these occasions happen again. Among these included reformations to the police department, recreation, education, and many other things. The wording of these differed between pamphlets, but generally were similar. This may be because they were not written at the exact same time, and maybe more ideas were added on between their releases. Overall they provide a similar experience stating similar stories and similar …show more content…
The city of Detroit was booming with industry, especially thanks to the war. The demand for war vehicles was high and the motor companies were the ones who were able to supply them. Many industrial workers were shipped off to fight in the war however, which created need for a new crowd of workers. This drew many whites from southern states. With them they brought racial prejudice. The south was known for being intolerance of African Americans. Growing up with this background creates a lot of hatred. The need for industrial workers was strong, however. African Americans were also involved in the working process and many immigrated to Detroit as well. 50,000 of the 345,000 who moved to Detroit were African American. Anyone who was immigrating to Detroit needed a place to live, and whites did not want to be living with African Americans. This made it very hard for them to find housing. Owners wanted to make their white tenants happy, causing African Americans to live mainly in slum areas, which became congested quickly. Living became uncomfortably crowded in these areas. More suitable areas were desired, but whites did not want that to happen. This created even more tension in Detroit. African Americans wanted to do the same work, and live in the same areas as the white people, but the feelings were not mutual. Competition can lead to intense battles, and in this case it led to rioting. There were attacks in the