Riots; Detroit; Race Riots. Burning & Wrecked Autos. Rioters running from tear gas

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Description:

Car, turned on its side, burns on street in Detroit, Michigan during race riots of 1943, with fire engine arriving at scene and crowd of people in background. "Times were tough for all, but for the Negro community, times were even tougher, Blacks were excluded from all public housing except the Brewster projects, many lived in homes without indoor plumbing, yet they paid rent two to three times higher than families in white districts, Blacks were also confronted with a segregated military, discrimination in public accommodations, and unfair treatment by police ... the summer of 1941 saw an epidemic of street corner fights involving blacks and Polish youths who were terrorizing black neighborhoods in Detroit and Hamtramck ... by 1943 the number of blacks in Detroit had doubled since 1933 to 200,000 and racial tensions in the city grew accordingly, to protest unfair conditions, some blacks began a "bumping campaign"--walking into whites on the streets and bumping them off the sidewalks, or nudging them in elevators ... Mayor Edward Jeffries Jr. and Governor Harry Kelly asked President Roosevelt for help in restoring order, federal troops in armored cars and jeeps with automatic weapons moved down Woodward, the sight of the troops with their overwhelming firepower cooled the fervor of the rioters and the mobs began to melt away ... the toll was appalling, the 36 hours of rioting claimed 34 lives, 25 of them black, more than 1,800 were arrested for looting and other incidents, the vast majority black, thirteen murders remained unsolved," from Detroit News article, The 1943 Detroit race riots, by Vivian M. Baulch and Patricia Zacharias.

Notes:

Collection located at the Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. To schedule an appointment to view the original image, order high resolution copies, or seek permission to use an image, contact the Walter P. Reuther Library Audiovisual Department at reutherreference@wayne.edu., Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University, and This metadata was created by Wayne State University Library system based on original description by the Walter P. Reuther Library

Date Issued:

1943-06-21T00:00:00Z

Data Provider:

Wayne State University. Libraries and Walter P. Reuther Library

Collection:

Virtual Motor City

Place:

Michigan, Detroit, Michigan, Detroit, Michigan, Detroit, Michigan, Detroit, Michigan, and Detroit

Subject Topic:

Automobiles, Fires and fire prevention, Fire engines, Crowds, Streets, and Race riots

Format:

photographs

Rights:

Copyright Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University

URL:

http://digital.library.wayne.edu/item/wayne:vmc78719