Detroit race riot of 1943

The Detroit race riot took place in Detroit, Michigan, of the United States, and started around 10:30 the evening of June 20 and lasted until early morning on 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 as Detroit's auto industry was converted to the war effort. Nearly 400,000 migrants, both African American and European American, came to Detroit from the Southeastern United States from 1941 to 1943; there were severe housing shortages and the migrants competed for space and jobs, as well as against recent white European immigrants and their descendants.

The rioting began among youths at Belle Isle Park on June 20, 1943; it was exacerbated by false rumors of racial attacks in both the black and white communities, and 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 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. In this wartime period, there were also racial riots in Los Angeles, Mobile, Alabama; and Beaumont, Texas.

At the time, white commissions attributed the riot to black hoodlums. The NAACP identified deeper causes: a shortage of affordable housing, lack of minority representation in the police, and police brutality. A late 20th-century analysis of the rioters showed that the white rioters were younger and often unemployed (characteristics commissions had attributed to blacks). 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, longtime Detroiters, 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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