Detroit Race Riot (1943)
| Detroit race riot of 1943 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | June 20-22, 1943 | |||
| Location | Detroit, Michigan | |||
| Methods | Rioting, arson, assault, street fighting | |||
| Parties to the civil conflict | ||||
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| Casualties | ||||
| Death(s) | 34 | |||
| Injuries | 433 | |||
| Arrested | 1,800 | |||
The Detroit race riot took place in Detroit, Michigan, of the United States, from the evening of June 20 through the early morning of June 22. It was suppressed by the use of 6,000 Federal troops. It occurred in a period of dramatic population increase and social tensions associated with the military buildup of World War II, as Detroit's auto industry was converted to the war effort. Existing social tensions and housing shortages were exacerbated by the arrival of nearly 400,000 migrants, both African American and European American, from the Southeastern United States from 1941 to 1943. The new migrants competed for space and jobs, as well as against white European immigrants and their descendants.
The Detroit riot was one of three that summer; it followed one in Beaumont, Texas, earlier that month, in which white shipyard workers attacked blacks after a rumor that a white woman had been raped; and preceded a riot in Harlem, New York, where blacks attacked white-owned property in their neighborhood after rumors that a black soldier had been killed by a white policeman. In this wartime period, there were also racial riots in Los Angeles, California, and Mobile, Alabama.
The rioting in Detroit began among youths at Belle Isle Park on June 20, 1943; the unrest moved into the city and was exacerbated by false rumors of racial attacks in both the black and white communities. It continued until June 22. It was suppressed after 6,000 federal troops were ordered into the city to restore peace. A total of 34 people were killed, 25 of them black and most at the hands of white police or National Guardsmen; 433 were wounded, 75 percent of them black; and property valued at $2 million ($27.5 million in 2015 US dollars) was destroyed, most of it in the black area of Paradise Valley, the poorest neighborhood of the city.
At the time, white commissions attributed the riot to black hoodlums and youths. The NAACP identified deeper causes: a shortage of affordable housing, discrimination in employment, lack of minority representation in the police, and white police brutality. A late 20th-century analysis of the rioters showed that the white rioters were younger and often unemployed (characteristics that the riot commissions had falsely attributed to blacks, despite evidence in front of them). If working, the whites often held semi-skilled or skilled positions. They traveled long distances across the city to join the first stage of the riot near the bridge, and later traveled in armed groups explicitly to attack the black neighborhood. The black rioters were often older, established city residents, who in many cases had lived in the city for more than a decade. Many were married working men, and many were defending their homes and neighborhood against police and white rioters. They also looted and destroyed white-owned property in their neighborhood.
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