"How about the 67 riots, Where were you?"
Right down in the shit, Detroit, summer of '67.
I was in high school taking a summer break when my dad took us 4 boys to see a doubleheader
at Tiger Stadium in downtown Detroit. Nearing the end of the second game us in the cheap seats
could climb up to the top row of seats and look down over the city. We could see individual stores
burning as smoke and sirens dominated the landscape. We showed Pop the scene and we left the ballpark
immediately. We were supposed to stop on the way home to the 'burbs at my grandma's place so we
took Grand River home instead of the freeway. GR is the main drag going east and west through the Motor
City. As we sped west we watched whole groups of blacks surge into a store and wipe the place clean. Not
much different from the flash mobs of today, except there wasn't a lot of white people saying the riots were whites'
fault.
Shortly after leaving the game we were stopped at a light. Right in front of us 2 Detroit cops had 6 or 8 looters
lined up against the outside of a HFC store they had been looting. One of the looters made a run for a nearby alley
and the nearest cop shot at him and missed. My pop said "fuck the red lights", dropped the old Ford into first gear
and streaked the rest of the way down Grand River to safety in the white suburbs. My youngest brother shouted an ephithet
out the car window and was greeted with a brick bounced off the car.
Don't try to tell me that those poor people were rioting for food or even civil rights. They were stealing because they thought they
could get away with it. 'Nuff said.
BigSteve, saw riots in Detroit:1967, Chicago "Days of Rage": 1969, L.A.: 1992.