While young white Americans traveled to California and other locations to push against one set of cultural boundaries (such as drug use, sexuality, authority, etc. Over 20 community leaders including ministers and union leaders tried to break up the rioters, but were unsuccessful, writes Hubert G. Locke in The Detroit Riot of 1967… The commission found that in the 1967 riots, 83 people were killed and 1,800 injured, most of them African-American, and property valued at more than … In June there were riots in Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati, Buffalo, and Tampa.In July there were riots in Detroit, Birmingham, Chicago, New York City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Britain, Rochester, Plainfield, and Toledo. Nearly 160 riots occurred across the United States in the summer of 1967. Imagine coming up North for a better opportunity-to work in the growing manufacturing plants. Many outside observers were surprised that things got so bad so quickly in Detroit. The Detroit Uprising of 1967 was a violent and divisive time for the city and part of a wave of urban unrest that spread across the nation in the mid-to-late 1960s. Many historians in the area honestly believe it was 1967 Tigers (an amazing team) who put an end to the riots and brought calm back to town. In 1973, Coleman Young became the first black mayor of Detroit. ), black Americans were pushing against much more fundamental ones in their own communities. The long, hot summer of 1967 refers to the 159 race riots that erupted across the United States in the summer of 1967. “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” The African-American community in Detroit has still not recovered from the cataclysmic Detroit Riots of 1967. The Detroit Riots of 1967 were caused by social and economic tensions tha African Americans were feeling. The word got out and before we knew what was happening everything was on fire, guns were shooting all over town, and everyone with a car was pouring out of the city as fast as I-75 could carry us. The racial tensions which continued to simmer in Detroit resulted in the Twelfth Street riot of July 1967 in which 43 people died and over 2,000 properties were destroyed. A phenomenon known as white flight saw a large number of white families leave the city. Incidents of police brutality and harassment of African Americans were the immediate triggers for almost every episode of … Tanks rolled in the streets of a U.S. city as the phrase coined during the iconic Los Angeles Watts Riots two years previously resonated through the […] Equally important, however, were unseen economic forces undermining the stability and prosperity many Detroiters had once enjoyed. The Detroit Riots of 1967 were caused by many different reasons, and the events that took place during the five days the riots lasted had a multitude of consequences. Summer 1967 was a tipping point for race relations in the predominantly black neighborhood of Virginia Park, Detroit. For decades, racial profiling and the excessive use of force by a disproportionally white police department made the area feel less like a … The 1967 Detroit Riots were among the bloodiest in American history.