What I learned from seeing Detroit go up in flames 50 years ago this week
Fifty years ago this weekend, a deadly urban riot began in Detroit. It started around 3:30 a.m., when police arrested 85 patrons of a “blind pig” — an illegal after-hours bar — in the midst of an all-black neighborhood that had been all-white 15 or 20 years before.
Rioting went on for six nights, with some 2,500 stores looted and burned, some 400 families displaced and property damage estimated at around $300 million in 2017 dollars. Forty-three people, many of them innocent bystanders, were killed. More than 1,000 people were wounded.
And what came out of it and all the other riots in the late 1960's? Nothing much except the emergence of a new class of race-baiting, self-serving leadership.
And what came out of it and all the other riots in the late 1960's? Nothing much except the emergence of a new class of race-baiting, self-serving leadership.
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