San Francisco, 1906
Detroit, 1967
In the early morning hours of July 23, 1967, a raid by Detroit police on a Blind Pig triggered five days of rioting that left 43 dead and 2000 buildings destroyed by looting and fire.
I was in Detroit that Sunday, a six-year-old kid attending a double header between the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers. My Dad wanted me to see Mickey Mantle play before he hung up his cleats. Near the end of the opening game, we could see smoke starting to rise in the distance beyond Tiger Stadium. A rumor spread through the crowd that it was no ordinary fire. We left before the second game.
By that evening, all hell had broken loose in Detroit. The Epicenter was just west of Tiger Stadium. Neither Detroit PD or Michigan National Guards could quell the unrest. In an unprecedented move, the Insurrection Act of 1807 was used to allow LBJ to send federal troops from the 82nd Airborne to occupy an American city.
Unlike San Francisco in 1906, Detroit's destruction was man-made, self-inflicted. While San Francisco quickly rose Phoenix-like from the ashes of the Great Earthquake and Fire, Detroit quickly fell into a decline from which it has yet to recover. Those that could afford to fled the city for the suburbs. Business left, people left, the tax base eroded, and schools and infrastructure crumbled. Forty years later, the smallest victories in the fight to rebuild Detroit and its image are celebrated.