The Great Migration

Between 1910 and 1970, African Americans left the rural Southern United States in droves in pursuit of more lucrative (and comparatively less oppressive) opportunities in the prosperous industrial hubs of the urban North. The period known as the Great Migration is sometimes divided into two waves, the first occurring between 1910 and 1940 and the second between the mid 1940s and 1970.

A burgeoning automotive industry made Detroit an especially promising land of opportunity. In only the first ten years of the Great Migration (1910-1920), Detroit's Black population grew by a remarkable 611%. The city's eventual status as a predominately Black city can be traced back to this trend.

Detroit Before Civil Rights

Public Segregation

The doctrine of "separate but equal" originating in the late 19th century United States Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson allowed segregation in most public facilities to persist into the mid-20th century, although less widely and less severely enforced in the North compared to the South. In a precocious exception in the State of Michigan, an 1869 Michigan Supreme Court ruling deemed racial segregation in the state unconstitutional; however, the ruling's ability to reshape the racial composition of Detroit schools was limited by school districting that was based on neighborhoods, which were still highly segregated, and the ruling had no impact on housing or any public facilities apart from schools. In other words, despite Michigan's early opposition to school segregation, a lack of similar efforts on housing functionally maintained racial segregation in schools.

Sojourner Truth Housing Project (1941-1944)

In 1941, a federal housing project bearing the name of an African American abolitionist and slavery escapee was proposed to address housing shortages in Detroit during World War II. The Sojourner Truth Project would involve the construction of 200 new housing units designated for Black workers and their families, who were still pouring into the city from the South to work in Detroit's industries as automotive pivoted to wartime defense production. Many white residents opposed the construction of public housing for Blacks and organized to put a stop to the project. In turn, civil rights groups and other supporters organized to protect the project's realization.

The Federal Housing Administration responded by refusing to issue mortgage loans in the existing neighborhood occupied by whites due to its proximity to the proposed public housing for Blacks. This would impede even whites' ability to finance in the neighborhood in a practice known as "redlining" and only amplified white opposition. The Detroit Housing Commission buckled under this pressure and re-designated the project for white occupancy, but the backlash that followed caused the decision to be reversed. The 46 buildings were constructed in 1941 and opened to Black families in February of 1942.

As residents moved in, violent protests erupted, resulting in the injury and arrest of hundreds of mostly Black individuals. In response, the Detroit Housing Commission mandated racial segregation in all public housing. The issues that fueled opposition to the Sojourner Truth Housing Projects continued to cause tension and spurred even more violence the following year.

Detroit Police assist an employee from Busy Bee Moving whose hand was injured while attempting to move African American families into the Sojourner Truth Housing Project.

Detroit News Photograph Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Race Riot of 1943

In June of 1943, racial tensions that had been festering at least since the inception of the Sojourner Truth Housing Projects came to a head in a series of violent events that lasted two days in Detroit. A fight between Black and white youths at Belle Isle ballooned into a large-scale, violent confrontation between Black and white Detroiters that spread to other parts of the city. In what is popularly referred to as a "race riot," 433 people were injured and 34 killed. As in the previous year, most injuries were sustained by Black individuals and most of those killed were Black, their deaths largely attributed to excessive force by police. The development from a small fight between young people into a full-fledged riot has been characterized as the culmination of racial tension and competition (real or perceived) over housing and jobs, as well as discrimination, harassment, and abuse of Black residents by police.

Detroit and the Civil Rights Movement

Policing

In Detroit during the 1950s and 1960s, police-community relations were fraught, especially between the Detroit Police Department and the Black community. While official policies were used to maintain a Jim Crow-like environment in this Northern city, they were reinforced by police violence and intimidation. In part, the 1967 Detroit Uprising represented a breaking point among Detroit's Black community after decades of mistreatment by police. Detroit police doubled down in their own way in the early 1970s.

In 1971, Detroit police implemented the S.T.R.E.S.S. (Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets) unit. The militarized initiative deployed undercover police officers in targeted areas of the city, purportedly to stop muggings and robberies before they occurred. However, the stings resulted in more than 100 deaths of mostly young, unarmed Black men. They were met with criticism of entrapment and backlash from civil rights groups, as well as the Black Power Movement that characterized the post-Civil Rights Movement era. By the time the initiative was shut down in 1973, Detroit police were responsible for more civilian fatalities than any other American city.

Overlapping much of the procedural history of Milliken v. Bradley, S.T.R.E.S.S. represented a reassertion of power by officials to maintain a discriminatory social order, while Milliken v. Bradley represented a long-building fight for equitable opportunities that had been systematically denied to the Black community.

Detroit Walk to Freedom (1963)

Reverends Clarence L. Franklin and Albert Cleage, two leaders in Detroit's civil rights movement, formed the Detroit Council for Human Rights to organize a mass march in Detroit. Billed the Walk to Freedom, the demonstration was organized in solidarity with civil rights activists in the South and to bring attention to civil rights struggles in the urban North, such as inequality in employment, education, and housing. It took place on June 23, 1963 in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the 1943 Detroit riots.

Approximately 125,000 attended the march, which started on Woodward at Adelaide, proceeded to Jefferson, and concluded at Cobo Hall with speeches by prominent figures of both the local and national civil rights movement. Speakers included former Governor of Michigan John Swainson, Mayor of Detroit Jerome Cavanaugh, Congressman Charles Diggs, United Auto Workers (UAW) President Walter P. Reuther, and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. who gave a version of his "I Have a Dream" speech that he delivered in its more famous form two months later at the March on Washington.

Marchers during the Walk to Freedom carrying signs reading "Fight for Freedom / Join the NAACP," "Evers Died for You / Join the NAACP for Him," "3rd Congressional District Democrats," and "The UAW Supports President Kennedy's Civil Rights Program."

Detroit News Photograph Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

12th Street Riots (1967)

In the early hours of July 23, the Detroit Police Department raided a blind pig - an unlicensed bar - at 12th Street and Clairmount Avenue. Expecting to find only a handful of patrons, they arrested a party of more than 80 people celebrating the return of two Black soldiers from the Vietnam War. As they carted arrestees away, a crowd gathered and grew hostile. A brick thrown from the crowd shattered a police cruiser window, igniting a rash of violence that quickly spread across the city. The incident catalyzed five days of violent clashes between Black Detroiters and police.

In total, 43 people were killed. 33 of them were Black, most of whom were shot by police officers, National Guardsmen, or store owners guarding their shops from looting and property damage. The source of the unrest has been characterized similarly to the unrest of 1943, representative of a breaking point among Detroit's Black community long subjected to systemic discrimination, social and economic inequities, and police brutality. Although it is popularly referred to as a riot, some historians and community members have adopted the term "uprising" or "rebellion" in recognition of the legitimate anger underpinning the unrest.