Current:Home > StocksSite of 3 killings during 1967 Detroit riot to receive historic marker -WealthMindset Learning
Site of 3 killings during 1967 Detroit riot to receive historic marker
View
Date:2025-04-13 07:41:19
DETROIT (AP) — The site of a transient motel in Detroit where three young Black men were killed, allegedly by white police officers, during the city’s bloody 1967 race riot is receiving a historic marker.
A dedication ceremony is scheduled Friday several miles (kilometers) north of downtown where the Algiers Motel once stood.
As parts of Detroit burned in one of the bloodiest race riots in U.S. history, police and members of the National Guard raided the motel and its adjacent Manor House on July 26, 1967, after reports of gunfire in the area.
The bodies of Aubrey Pollard, 19, Carl Cooper, 17, and Fred Temple, 18, were found later. About a half dozen others, including two young, white women, had been beaten.
Several trials later were held, but no one ever was convicted in the deaths and beatings.
“A historical marker cannot tell the whole story of what happened at the Algiers Motel in 1967, nor adjudicate past horrors and injustices,” historian Danielle McGuire said. “It can, however, begin the process of repair for survivors, victims’ families and community members through truth-telling.”
McGuire has spent years working with community members and the Michigan Historical Marker Commission to get a marker installed at the site.
“What we choose to remember — or forget — signals who and what we value as a community,” she said in a statement. “Initiatives that seek to remember incidents of state-sanctioned racial violence are affirmative statements about the value of Black lives then and now.”
Resentment among Detroit’s Blacks toward the city’s mostly-white police department had been simmering for years before the unrest. On July 23, 1967, it boiled over after a police raid on an illegal after-hours club about a dozen or so blocks from the Algiers.
Five days of violence would leave about three dozen Black people and 10 white people dead and more than 1,400 buildings burned. More than 7,000 people were arrested.
The riot helped to hasten the flight of whites from the city to the suburbs. Detroit had about 1.8 million people in the 1950s. It was the nation’s fourth-biggest city in terms of population in 1960. A half-century later, about 713,000 people lived in Detroit.
The plummeting population devastated Detroit’s tax base. Many businesses also fled the city, following the white and Black middle class to more affluent suburban communities to the north, east and west.
Deep in long-term debt and with annual multi-million dollar budget deficits, the city fell under state financial control. A state-installed manager took Detroit into the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history in 2013. Detroit exited bankruptcy at the end of 2014.
Today, the city’s population stands at about 633,000, according to the U.S. Census.
The Algiers, which was torn down in the late 1970s and is now a park, has been featured in documentaries about the Detroit riot. The 2017 film “Detroit” chronicled the 1967 riot and focused on the Algiers Motel incident.
“While we will acknowledge the history of the site, our main focus will be to honor and remember the victims and acknowledge the harms done to them,” McGuire said. “The past is unchangeable, but by telling the truth about history — even hard truths — we can help forge a future where this kind of violence is not repeated.”
veryGood! (2382)
Related
- A South Texas lawmaker’s 15
- A New Study Revealed Big Underestimates of Greenland Ice Loss—and the Power of New Technologies to Track the Changes
- A man apologizes for a fatal shooting at Breonna Taylor protest, sentenced to 30 years
- Global Warming Could Drive Locust Outbreaks into New Regions, Study Warns
- Will the 'Yellowstone' finale be the last episode? What we know about Season 6, spinoffs
- Alabama Senate votes to change archives oversight after LGBTQ+ lecture
- Deliberations start again in murder trial of former Ohio deputy after juror dismissed
- Panel investigating Maine’s deadliest shooting to hear from state police
- McConnell absent from Senate on Thursday as he recovers from fall in Capitol
- A man died from Alaskapox last month. Here's what we know about the virus
Ranking
- Nearly half of US teens are online ‘constantly,’ Pew report finds
- Paramount Global lays off hundreds in latest round of media job cuts: Reports
- Journalists turn to picket lines as the news business ails
- These Are the Must-Have Pet Carriers for Jet-Setting With Your Fur Baby—and They’re Airline-Approved
- Rylee Arnold Shares a Long
- New York City files a lawsuit saying social media is fueling a youth mental health crisis
- Joey Logano wins Daytona 500 pole in qualifying, Michael McDowell joins him in front row
- Move over, Mediterranean diet. The Atlantic diet is here. Foods, health benefits, explained
Recommendation
Retirement planning: 3 crucial moves everyone should make before 2025
Snowy forecast prompts officials in Portland, Oregon, to declare state of emergency
13-year-old South Carolina girl rescued from kidnapper in Florida parking lot, police say
Cyberattacks on hospitals are likely to increase, putting lives at risk, experts warn
Hackers hit Rhode Island benefits system in major cyberattack. Personal data could be released soon
Spit hoods can be deadly. Police keep using them anyway.
Things to know about California’s Proposition 1
Wisconsin lawmakers consider regulating AI use in elections and as a way to reduce state workforce