As July of 1967 wore on during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, citizens of Detroit, Michigan were becoming increasingly frustrated with a government and community that continually oppressed blacks. On Saturday, July 23rd, an unlicensed police raid of a speakeasy known as the Blind Pig ignited what would become a five-day affair of civil unrest. During the raid, police discovered well over 80 black citizens welcoming home two officers from the military.
The police subsequently arrested everyone present and thus began the “Detroit Uprising.” While it was the unsanctioned raid of the bar that incited the riot, tensions in detroit had been high leading up to July of ’67. Institutional racism overlooked by the Cavanagh administration, housing discrimination, and in particular, police brutality coalesced to construct a highly frustrated population of blacks in detroit. Despite numerous reports of police brutality and discrimination throughout the city, both the Detroit Police Department and the local government at large did nothing to seriously quell the tense relationship between the two communities.
Historian John Hersey interviewed several Detroit citizens in the year following the riots to gain insight as to what catalyzed the riot to begin with. Barbara Stanton, a Detroit native and witness to what would come to be known as the Algiers Motel Incident, stated, “It’s the police who were the villains. You watch and see, when this is all over it’ll be the fault of the police, all over the country. Police start riots, police start trouble, police do the killing. Yeah, it’s all the policeman’s fault, always the police.” Stanton, who worked for the Detroit Free Press at the time of the riots, was one of few journalists willing to take up the task of documenting the narratives of police brutality against blacks.
As the 12th street riots raged on through the weekend, the night of the 25th came. Police responded to a call of gunmen near the Algiers motel, which was located on the intersection of Woodward Ave. and Virginia Park. What transpired after the police arrived was a chaotic and violent scene, leaving three black men dead along with two white women and seven other black males severely beaten. The details of that night are ominous and hard to come by, as the authorities since that night have not been cooperative in uncovering the truth. However, as interviews, testimonies, and works from scholars like John Hersey show, the Algiers Motel Incident was much more than a response to shots being fired near the motel that evening.
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