THE GREAT CITY OF OPPORTUNITY!

THE GREAT CITY OF OPPORTUNITY!

 

(Elizabeth Ann Martin, Robert C. Goodspeed, William H. Frey)

(Dan Bilefsky, Dave Sheingold, James N. Gregory, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

(New York Times, Associated Press, Detroit Free Press, Peter Lawrence, Frazer Chronicle)

Call it whatever you like, “Detroit – Blood That Never Dried, the Great Migration, Motown, Detroit City, or the Motor City,” Detroit has been ruled eligible to declare itself bankrupt, it marks the biggest (dollar amount) municipality bankruptcy in at least the United States, and a federal judge ruled that the city can begin shedding more than $18 billion dollars of debt. Thus another sad chapter can be adding to the history of the city on the Rouge River.

Of course it won’t be that simple, nothing with regards to money ever is, but in this case, the people that will be involved will probably number into the hundreds of thousands. Health care for retired city workers, $5.7 billion, unfunded pension liabilities, $3.5 billion and other city debts, more than $8.8 billion will make the process contentious to say the least.  

However the worst part of the entire equation will be those people that rely on the services that the city is supposed to offer. The simple amenities that are taken for granted, like street lighting, stop and go traffic signals, garbage pick-up, police protection and fire and rescue services.

Detroit, Michigan is known for many things other than the former auto manufacturing capitol of the world, there’s Henry Ford Community Hospital, Wayne State University, University of Detroit, or St. Mary’s College. The city was referred to as “the arsenal of democracy” as the city’s overwhelming industrial landscape had been rapidly expanded since the boom of post Civil War, and further expanded during World War II to provide many of the war machines that would help defeat the Axis powers.

However the industrial prosperity during the war effort masked a deep seated racial animosity, as many production plants mobilized for the war effort, employers turned to a ready pool of African American labor that had immigrated from the south. In 1910 there were approximately 5,741 blacks living in the Detroit metro area and by 1940 there more than 130,000.

THE FIRST RACE RIOTS IN DETROIT

Finally it happened, the racial distrust, dislike and a world at war all played a part in the race riot, (one of the worst in U.S. history,) that occurred in June of 1943. The riots lasted from June 20, to June 23, 34 lost their lives, more than 600 were injured and 1800 plus were arrested.

Detroit’s population during the war had skyrocketed by more than 350,000 during the first couple years of the war. More than 50,000 blacks and over 300,000 whites had arrived, mostly from rural Appalachia and the American South. Of course during this time the Ku Klux Klan, an organization committed to white supremacy, did their best to alienate ethnic groups, like the Poles, Irish and Slavs to distrust the blacks by threatening their jobs, homes, communities and churches.

Recruiters from the Detroit area industrial factories traveled to the south and convinced blacks as well as whites to “come up North,” promising them higher wages in the new factories. Believing that they had found a nirvana, blacks moved North by the thousands…..but when they arrived they found that housing was in short supply, and that northern bigotry was almost as bad at the south.

In June of 1941, little more than seven months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Detroit Housing Commission approved two sites for defense housing…..one for whites, and one for blacks. The Detroit Housing Commission chose a site for the blacks which was located next to a black neighborhood, but the U.S. government chose a site for the whites in an all white neighborhood.

At an amusement park, Belle Isle, a fist fight broke out between a black and a white, as the brawl grew; it predictably grew into a confrontation between blacks and white, and spread throughout the city. When the dust had cleared, after Detroit city Mayor Edward Jeffries, and Michigan Governor Harry Kelly asked President Roosevelt to intervene, there were 34 deaths, of them 25 were black, 17 whom had been gunned down, or beaten to death by city police. Of the more than 600 who were injured, 450 were black, 75%, and of the roughly 1800 who were arrested over the course of the three-day ruckus, 1250 were also black, about 85% of the arrests recorded.

The seeds of resentment were sown not in the 1950’s, or 60’s, the problem began long before the 1967 riots. In 1900 the percentage of blacks that made up the population of Detroit was just 1.4%, in fact by 1910 the percentage had went down to 1.2%, it would mark the only time in the 20^th century that blacks would not clamber to make an exodus from the south to the north.

By 2000 the population of the city of Detroit had risen to more than 77%, a 74.3% increase in diversity in the racial make-up of the city proper. Today the city’s population that is made up of African Americas…..77.3% is by far one of the most undiversed cities in the country.

The first black mayor of Detroit was Coleman A. Young, a Tuscaloosa, Alabama, transplant who was elected in November 1973, and retired after his fifth term in office, 1994, at the age of 76. Young’s initial political victories as the mayor begin a period of 39 years of black representation in the mayor’s office.

Young and his four successors labored to make a more inclusive city services sectors, police, fire and rescue, and city hall all went through a change that favored black politicians as well as vendeors, and contractors that served the city.

WITHOUT EXCEPTION THERE WAS MASSIVE POOR PLANING

After Coleman Young, there was Dennis Archer, Kwame Kilpatrick, Kenneth Cockerel, and Dave Bing, and each was left with the same mess that was created by the United States Government, and the political machine that had been running the city since after World War II, now escaped blame…..from Edward Jeffries, (1940-1948,) Eugene Van Antwerp, (1948-1950,) Albert Cobo, (1950-1957,) Louis Miriani, (1957-1962,) Jerome Cavanagh, (1962-1970) and Roman Gribbs, (1970-1974.)

When the balance of power shifted political parties as well as the skin tone of the city, whites were as bad as blacks, and vice-verse. With Mayor Cobo in office (he was white), the city’s largest redevelopment project was replacing huge sections of mostly slum black neighborhoods with gleaming new attractive, modern housing.

The Gratiot Area Project was originally conceived as a part of a comprehensive urban renewal housing plan for the city as part of the Detroit Plan which had been in the process of being produced for most of the 1940’s.

The plan, adopted in the 1950’s by Mayor Albert Cobo, and continued by both Louis Miriani, and Jerome Cavanagh effectively achieved the following for the city of Detroit; Condemnation awards paid for by slum properties in the path of expressways go to absentee landlords……the tenant families that are evicted are simply left standing on the sidewalk with no place to go and no funds with which to provide themselves shelter…..in the face of severe housing shortage any municipal government that ignores the plight of those evicted families would be morally bankrupt.

By the early 1950’s, the region that had been designated part of the Gratiot Area Redevelopment project was 95.7% non-white, according to government statistics. The 1950 census counted 1238 dwelling units, 120 of which were owner occupied, and the rental units were some of the cheapest in the city…..$29.17 per month.

In 1960 the census cataloged 507 dwellings in the same area; they were occupied by 90% white, and showed that 58% in the area was earning at least $10,000. There had been a battle over public housing that coincided with Mayor Cobo…..and few people even understood what the outcome would be.

What has happened to Detroit is both involved and simple…..it has been a story of greed, racial ignorance, and extreme short sightedness. Whites as well as blacks share in the blame, it’s like the old man said “you usually get what you vote for” sadly that has been the case to an extremely interesting city with a long and storied background.

Whether the city of Detroit ever comes back to its former glory is debatable, it’ll take some mighty smart people with excessively deep pockets…..and faith in his fellow human being. I’ll be watching and waiting.

HAVE A NICE DAY!