History of African Americans in Detroit

Last updated

Black Detroiters
Afroamerica.svgFlag of Detroit.svg
Total population
960,838 [1] (2017)
Regions with significant populations
Throughout Detroit
Languages
Inland Northern American English, African-American Vernacular English, African languages
Religion
Black Protestant

Black Detroiters are black or African American residents of Detroit. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Black or African Americans living in Detroit accounted for 79.1% of the total population, or approximately 532,425 people as of 2017 estimates. [2] According to the 2000 U.S. Census, of all U.S. cities with 100,000 or more people, Detroit had the second-highest percentage of Black people. [3] [ needs update ]

Contents

Many black Detroiters have moved to the suburbs or Southern cities such as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Birmingham, Memphis, San Antonio and Jackson. [4] [5] Nearby suburbs also had higher Black populations, reflecting the history of settlement of African Americans here during the Great Migration of the early 20th century, when people were attracted to Detroit's industrial jobs: Southfield had a Black population of 42,259, and Pontiac 31,416. In 2002 the Michigan city with the highest percentage of Black residents was Highland Park, where 93% of the population is Black. [6] In the 2010 census, African Americans made up 22.8% of the total city and metropolitan area population in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties.[ needs update ]

Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History, founded in 1965 in Detroit Charles Wright African-American Museum.jpg
Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History, founded in 1965 in Detroit

History of African-American settlement

Pre-1865

Among African Americans who moved to Detroit from the American South before the end of slavery were George and Richard DeBaptiste. They attended classes taught by Rev. Samuel H. Davis, the pastor at the Second Baptist Church in the city. [7] Marcus Dale [8] attended the African Methodist Episcopal church led by Rev. John M. Brown and others. [9] In the days before the Civil War began, Detroit was an important site on the Underground Railroad, in which local people aided the passage of fugitive slaves to freedom. Its location just across the river from Canada, where slavery was abolished in 1834, made it a destination for many seeking freedom. Although Michigan was a free territory, some refugee slaves wanted to go over the border to Canada to prevent being captured by slavecatchers. Others settled in Detroit.

Local blacks involved in the Underground Railroad work included Samuel C. Watson (who later opened a drug store in Detroit), [10] William Whipper, Richard and George DeBaptiste, and others. William Lambert, Laura Haviland, [11] and Henry Bibb were also involved. [12] Many Detroit African Americans served in the American Civil War (1861-1865). The 102nd Regiment United States Colored Troops of Michigan and Illinois was recruited in large part in Detroit. [13]

Blacks in Detroit had to face rising tensions from ethnic whites before and after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in January 1863. A Democratic Party paper, The Detroit Free Press , supported white supremacy and opposed President Abraham Lincoln's handling of the war. In addition, it consistently presented issues of the day as problems due to competition with free blacks, projecting threats to white men's power and forecasting worse labor problems if the mass of slaves were freed. In March 1863, a race riot broke out in Detroit. Catalyzed by the arrest of a mixed-race man for allegedly molesting a white girl, a white mob attacked blacks and their neighborhood, resulting in two deaths (one, white and one black), numerous people injured, 35 houses and businesses destroyed, and more than 200 people left homeless. As a result, the city established its first full-time police force. [14]

1865-1890

After the war, African Americans formed an important political block in the city, led by Watson, George DeBaptist, John D. Richards, and Walter Y. Clark. [15] Saginaw's William Q. Atwood was an important figure outside Detroit who influenced the city's African-American politics as well. [16]

1890-1929

Ossian Sweet House Ossian Sweet House Detroit MI.jpg
Ossian Sweet House

Before World War I, Detroit had about 4,000 Black people, 1% of its population. In the 1890s, journalist and founder of the black paper, Detroit Plaindealer, Robert Pelham Jr. and lawyer D. Augustus Straker worked in Detroit and throughout the state to create branches of the National Afro-American League. The pair were active, in part through the league, in supporting Blacks in legal trouble. [17] Pelham was also an important figure in the league at a national level. [18]

The first major period of Black growth occurred from 1910 to 1930, during the economic expansion in the auto industry. [6] At the time in Detroit, most Blacks lived in mixed communities containing other racial groups, often recent European immigrants, as both groups were making their way and had to take older housing. [19]

Due to the war effort in World War I, many men enlisted in the armed forces, and employers needed workers. They recruited African Americans from the South, who were also on the move as part of the first Great Migration. They sought more opportunity and a chance to leave behind the oppression of the Jim Crow South. From 1910 to 1930, the Black population of Detroit increased from under 6,000 to over 120,000, as the city developed as the fourth largest in the country. By 1920, of Michigan's Black residents, 87% were born outside of the state, and most of those came from the South. [20] Because landlords began to restrict access to housing, Black residents were forced into small districts, which became overcrowded as the population grew. T. J. Sugrue, author of The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit , wrote that the first geographic racial divisions between Whites and Blacks developed during the Great Migration. [19]

In 1912 the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded a Detroit chapter. The Detroit Urban League was founded in 1916. Both organizations used the support of Black churches. Steve Babson, author of Working Detroit: The Making of a Union Town, wrote that in the early 20th century the Black population "was relatively behind the middle-class leadership" of the NAACP and the Urban League. [21]

Around the 1920s and 1930s Black people working in Henry Ford's factories settled in Inkster because they did not want to commute from Detroit and they were not allowed to live in Dearborn. [22] Whites resisted even middle-class blacks moving into their neighborhoods. In 1925 the State of Michigan charged physician Ossian Sweet with murder after he used a shotgun to kill a white man who was part of a mob trying to force him to leave his newly purchased house, located in a mostly white neighborhood. Sweet was acquitted of his charges. [23]

1930-present

During the Great Depression, the population stagnated. [6] The Black population growth was at the lowest rate since 1910. [20] As the US entry into World War II disrupted the labor market by drafting numbers of young men, the demand for labor grew with the expansion of the war industries. Sections of the auto industry were converted to wartime production of the arsenal and vehicles needed for war, and a new wave of Black people migrated from the South. [6] President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an Executive Order to prevent discrimination among defense contractors, increasing opportunities for minorities in the range of jobs and supervisory positions. This was resisted by some working-class Whites. In the period from 1940 to 1950, more than 66% of the Black population in Detroit had been born outside the area, with most born in the South. [24] The increase in population had strained city schools and services for all residents.

Housing Crisis

Competition in employment and housing spheres increased social tensions in the city. Insufficient housing opportunities for African Americans led to a polarized political and economic landscape. The government attempted to ease the housing pressure by building projects for working-class families, but whites resented placement of these projects in their neighborhoods. As a result, black housing was allocated in deeply impoverished areas that regressed into further dangerous and disease filled locations. [25] Since Black individuals were forced to take low-earning jobs, the density of Black families in this area known as "Black Bottom" increased, and further exacerbated its destitute living conditions. [26] Federal housing policies effectively stymied the progress of African Americans in the city of Detroit, and, consequently, housing shortages disproportionately targeted African American citizens. [27] African Americans in Detroit were systematically shut out of the housing market due to structural racism. This hindered their ability to accumulate generational wealth, putting generations of African Americans at a disproportionate economic disadvantage.

Redlining

Residential segregation was prevalent as structures of disinvestment amplified hypersegregation along both racial and economic lines. In 1935, the Federal Home Loan Bank Act (FHLB) commissioned 239 lending maps for the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) to document and evaluate what neighborhoods throughout the country were lending risks. Many areas of Detroit were redlined as a result of being designated "high risk" neighborhoods. Neighborhoods that were graded as hazardous for lending were primarily composed of minority groups, and these redlined neighborhoods illustrated the ways in which economic inequality disproportionately targeted African Americans. Citizens residing in these neighborhoods were denied loans by lending institutions, and consequently they were unable to purchase or fix homes. Since black individuals were not able to leave their impoverished neighborhoods and were not able to improve their homes through loans, the concentration of poverty within black bottom increased. [28] Such policies worsen the condition of black housing solely on the basis of race. [26] The lack of mobility for black people reaffirmed stereotypes white communities held about the moral integrity of black neighborhoods because of the destitute conditions black communities were stuck in.

Racially Restrictive Covenants

Federal and state policies further exacerbated segregation through the use of racially restrictive covenants within the city. Racially restrictive covenants were legally bound contracts that outlawed the residency of African Americans within a given area. [29] These covenants ensured the maintenance of racial homogeneity in white neighborhoods and their use was incentivized by early federal housing policy that awarded higher ratings to racially homogeneous neighborhoods. By 1940, 80% of Detroit's residencies abided by racial covenants, and thereby restricted black housing to historically impoverished and dangerous areas on the basis of race. [28] The Michigan Supreme Court upheld the enforceability of racial covenants. [30]

Public Housing

Despite these discriminatory policies, the federal government did attempt to help improve housing access to those they disproportionately disadvantaged. The Wagner-Steagall Act was passed in 1937 to subsidize local public housing agencies. However, public housing efforts throughout the 1940s were met with opposition from several parties. Suburban governments and community groups concerned with racial homogeneity resisted public housing projects. [31] Real estate developers also opposed public housing projects as they believed that these projects threatened their private enterprises. [31] Even elected officials opposed public housing to prevent backlash from their white, middle-class supporters. [31] For instance, Mayor Albert Cobo outwardly supported white homeowner groups and pledged upon being elected in 1949 that "it will not be the purpose of the administration to scatter public housing projects throughout the city, just because funds may be forthcoming from the Federal Government". [32] This strong opposition from local forces in Detroit undermined public housing efforts and solidified spatial barriers of race.

There were, however, pro-public housing groups, the most important being the Citizens' Housing and Planning Council (CHPC). The goal of this organization was to improve environmental conditions in slums by replacing suboptimal living and sanitary conditions with more adequate housing for African Americans. This reform aimed to ameliorate poor living spaces and construct a cleaner environment that was more conducive to public health and morale. [27] This organization inevitably faced strong opposition from anti-public housing groups and white homeowners who were fixated on maintaining racial homogeneity in their neighborhoods.

Slum Removal

The use of redlining and racially restrictive covenants trapped black Detroiters in inadequate, disinvested neighborhoods. The failure of the federal government to erect substantial public housing solidified this housing segregation. The Detroit City Planning Commission (CPC) then intentionally destroyed these already disadvantaged black communities and neighborhoods they referred to as "slums" in an effort to improve the city's conditions, highways, hospitals, and apartment buildings. [33] Having Detroit's city leadership in the 1940s and 1950s attribute redevelopment and renovation with destroying "dangerous" parts of the city made black bottom especially vulnerable to displacement. The CPC subsequently failed to provide adequate resources for relocation to the black families whose homes and neighborhoods were destroyed. [34] This resulted in the movement of displaced African Americans into already inadequate and overcrowded housing in disproportionately black neighborhoods. This displacement and disappearance of black communities resulted in the disappearance of black culture and tradition. Systematic discrimination in housing contributed to volatile race relations in the city of Detroit.

Opposition from Homeowner Associations

After the decision of Shelly v. Kramer banned racial covenants, efforts to keep neighborhoods segregated were propelled by Homeowners associations. [35] Members from white concentrated neighborhoods organized and used grassroots activism to prevent integration from sullying the “high character” that their white dominated neighborhoods provided. [36] These associations flexed their agencies in a number of ways. Through the use of mutual reciprocal legal agreements, homeowners associations maintained racially specific language to bar black people from obtaining loans in white populated areas. [37] Further, homeowners associations leveraged the ownership of the homes in their neighborhood to safeguard sales to black individuals. Associations such as the Plymouth Manor association required its members to only contract with approved real estate brokers that would guarantee that loans and property would only be sold to white individuals. [38]

The legal power of the Homeowners associations was furthered when entering into administrative positions with Mayor Albert Cobo. Cobo opted to have several members of homeowners associations counsel zoning and urban development policies which attempted to further enforce de facto segregation within Detroit. [38] The influence of homeowners associations within the Cobo administration stretched as far as playing an integral role in disbanding the Mayor's Interacial Committee (MIC) which was aimed at facilitating integration within the city, and turning it into the Commission on Community Relations (CCR). The CCR was composed of homeowners association members and perpetuated segregated housing standards by emphasizing rights that belong to white homeowners to resist integration throughout the city. [39] Racism within housing was therefore still intact after it was federally banned through these extralegal loopholes that were spearheaded by white homeowners associations.

The actions of the homeowners associations reflected the deep cultural ties that Detroiters developed within their neighborhoods. Historians have previously connected homeowners associations’ efforts to prevent integration to be tied to the sense of identity within the segregated neighborhoods in Detroit. [36] Since the housing shortage affected both white and black populations, people clung onto aspects of their community for the feeling of security within housing. [36] Segregated Detroit neighborhoods facilitated for this feeling of safety and stability to then be linked to race. Once this sentiment of safety was threatened with integration of black residents who have been construed as dangerous and inhumane, the agency of white homeowners associations was actualized.

Predatory Inclusion

In 1968, the HUD Act was passed by the federal government to address the problems of housing availability and residential segregation that constrained the agency of African Americans. The HUD Act mandated the production of 10 million units of new and renovated housing within a decade and also guaranteed that the federal government would pay the full mortgage of any foreclosed homes. [40] [41] This incentivized real estate and mortgage bankers to sell homes to individuals they believed were likely to miss mortgage payments. Single black mothers on welfare were often targeted for this reason. [41] Real estate companies used the existing poverty and inadequate housing conditions that redlining created as excuses to sell homes to African Americans at disproportionately higher prices. [41] The HUD Act therefore led to this vicious, predatory cycle of real estate companies selling homes at a very elevated price to poor, black families so they could eventually foreclose the home, get federal money to cover their losses, and sell the home to the next desperate family.

1943 Riot

Postwar tensions and animosities culminated in the race riots of 1943. This riot started with a conflict among young men at Belle Isle, and it quickly spread into the city, inciting violence between whites and blacks. Although at the time blacks were largely blamed for the violence, studies have found that many young armed whites traveled across the city to attack majority-black areas east of Woodward Avenue. By contrast, blacks arrested in the riot tended to be mature family men who had lived longer in the city and were defending their homes. The riot ended when 6,000 soldiers of the United States Army intervened to keep the peace and order in the city. As a result of this riot, white citizens learned to use violence to gain leverage in political and housing contentions. [27]

Civil Rights Movement

The civil rights movement in the South affected minorities in northern and western states as well. In Detroit, activists pushed for more representation in local government, including the white-dominated police force, and for equal justice in housing and employment. At the same time, African Americans were proud of their progress in Detroit. In 1965 the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History was founded in the city.

According to columnist Keith Richburg, in the 1960s a social divide developed between the many black people from Alabama and those from South Carolina; they lived east and west of Woodward Avenue, respectively. The migrants from South Carolina believed they were more refined than those from Alabama, who were from rural areas and thought to be lower class. Richburg described the divide as "more psychological than geographic". [42]

From 1950 to 1970 de facto racial segregation in the Metro Detroit area increased. Those white people who were more established economically moved out of the city to newly developed suburbs, which often were divided by class and income levels. In that period black growth in the suburbs averaged 2.7%, while in previous decades it had been 5%. [24] Social tensions increased as blacks felt oppressed by discrimination, a majority-white police force, and restricted housing. Resentments erupted in the widespread destruction and violence in black neighborhoods of the Detroit riot of 1967, considered the worst in urban America. That summer similar riots erupted in numerous cities across the country. Both middle-class whites and blacks began to leave Detroit in greater number. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968, there was renewed violence in a civil disturbance along 12th Street, the center of the 1967 unrest. It was quickly controlled. In the 1970s, the number of middle-class blacks moving to the suburbs increased, as they also sought newer housing, better schools, and neighborhoods with less poverty and crime. [6]

Auto Industry

Pressures on the auto industry and restructuring of heavy manufacturing across the region caused high job losses, adding to the strains of the city. Overall population in the metro area declined, with many people moving to other areas for work. Detroit suffered concentrated poverty in sections, where people were unable to leave. The quality of schools declined, creating a cycle that appeared to trap people in place. The city struggled to support those in need at a time of declining revenues.[ citation needed ]

Demographic Changes and Suburbanization

By 1970 Detroit and six other municipalities, Ecorse, Highland Park, Inkster, Pontiac, River Rouge, and Royal Oak Township, had higher than average black populations. The six suburban municipalities with higher than average black populations held a total of 78.5% of the suburban black people in the tri-county area. [43] During this suburbanization period, many middle-class blacks also moved from Detroit to Southfield. [44] Suburban development and growth increased among all populations, and blacks became more widely distributed.

By 2000, blacks in the six suburban municipalities that had held the great majority in 1970 made up only 34% of the blacks in the suburbs. [43] From 1990 to 2000, black people migrating to the suburbs constituted almost half of the total population growth there. In the decade 1990–2000, the highest number of blacks moved into the Detroit suburbs of any decade in the 20th century. In that decade, the black population of Southfield increased by more than 20,000 people. [6] At the same time, the total number of black people in Detroit decreased for the first time in the city's history. But other ethnic decreases resulted in black people in the city making up a higher percentage of its overall population: from 76% to 82%. [45] As of 2002, a total of 90% of the black population in Wayne, Macomb, and Oakland counties resided in Detroit, Highland Park, Inkster, Pontiac, and Southfield. [3]

Migration of black families out of Detroit continued. By 2010 Southfield became 70% black. [44] In 2010 9% of Macomb County's population was black, [46] and the black population in Warren from 2000 to 2010 increased from 4,000 to 18,000. [47] By 2011 black suburbanization had increased across the area, as blacks settled in more different localities. [44] By 2011 black suburbanization had increased across the metro region, no longer limited to a few communities. From 2000 to 2010, Detroit had lost around 200,000 people, as many families continued to leave the ailing city. [44]

The housing market in Metro Detroit declined during the Great Recession, enabling some blacks to move into areas that had previously been too expensive. At the same time, many white suburbanites were unable to sell their houses so stayed in place, resulting in the development of more integrated neighborhoods. Mark Binelli, author of Detroit City is the Place to Be , wrote "In a funny way, the recession had helped this integration along." [46] Some suburban residents, including middle-class blacks, resented the new arrivals, feeling they brought unwelcome patterns of behavior that disrupted the peace of the suburbs. [46]

From 2000 to circa 2023, the African-American population declined by 295,000. In 2010, 82.2% of the people living in Detroit were black, and it was the large American city with the highest percentage of black people. By 2023 this percentage was down to 77.2%, and so there were other major cities with higher percentages of black people. [48]

Institutions

Media

The Michigan Chronicle and The Michigan FrontPage , both owned by the company Real Times, serve the African-American community.[ citation needed ]

Recreation

Congressman John Conyers speaking on stage alongside Alicia Skillman (l) and Curtis Lipscomb (r) during Hotter Than July 2013 in Detroit, Michigan's Palmer Park Hotter Than July 2013 - stage137.jpg
Congressman John Conyers speaking on stage alongside Alicia Skillman (l) and Curtis Lipscomb (r) during Hotter Than July 2013 in Detroit, Michigan's Palmer Park

The "Hotter than July" annual LGBT festival is held in the park Palmer Park; the festival states that it caters to the "black same-gender-loving". [50]

A Buffalo Soldiers museum is located in western Detroit, near Rouge Park. It interprets the history of African-American soldiers who fought in the West. [51]

Ruth Ellis, a black lesbian, held house parties at her residence, "The Spot". It became a socializing place for black lesbians and gay men, allowing them to avoid heterosexism and racism in their society. Ellis, who was featured in the documentary Living With Pride, was the oldest-known black woman who identified as a lesbian until her death in October 2001. She lived in Detroit until her death. [52]

Politics

In the 2020 United States presidential election in Michigan African-Americans in Detroit were a major demographic contributing to Joe Biden winning that state. The same happened in the 2020 United States Senate election in Michigan in regards for Gary Peters. [53]

Notable people

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Detroit</span> Largest city in Michigan, United States

Detroit is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the largest U.S. city on the Canadian border and the county seat of Wayne County. Detroit had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 census, making it the 26th-most populous city in the United States. The Metro Detroit area, home to 4.3 million people, is the second-largest in the Midwest after the Chicago metropolitan area and the 14th-largest in the United States. A significant cultural center, Detroit is known for its contributions to music, art, architecture, and design, in addition to its historical automotive background.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southfield, Michigan</span> City in Michigan, United States

Southfield is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. An inner-ring suburb of Detroit, Southfield borders Detroit to the north, lying roughly 15 miles (24.1 km) northwest of downtown Detroit. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 76,618.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coleman Young</span> American politician (1918–1997)

Coleman Alexander Young was an American politician who served as mayor of Detroit, Michigan from 1974 to 1994. Young was the first African-American mayor of Detroit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1967 Detroit riot</span> American riot

The 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street Riot, and the Detroit Uprising, was the bloodiest of the urban riots in the United States during the "long, hot summer of 1967". Composed mainly of confrontations between black residents and the Detroit Police Department, it began in the early morning hours of Sunday July 23, 1967, in Detroit, Michigan.

Black Bottom was a predominantly black neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan. The term has sometimes been used to apply to the entire neighborhood including Paradise Valley, but many consider the two neighborhoods to be separate. Together, Black Bottom and Paradise Valley were bounded by Brush Street to the west, the Grand Trunk railroad tracks to the east, south to the Detroit River, and bisected by Gratiot Avenue. The area north of Gratiot Avenue to Grand Boulevard was defined as Paradise Valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Detroit</span>

Detroit, the largest city in the state of Michigan, was settled in 1701 by French colonists. It is the first European settlement above tidewater in North America. Founded as a New France fur trading post, it began to expand during the 19th century with U.S. settlement around the Great Lakes. By 1920, based on the booming auto industry and immigration, it became a world-class industrial powerhouse and the fourth-largest city in the United States. It held that standing through the mid-20th century.

Conant Gardens is a historically Black neighborhood in northeast Detroit, Michigan. The neighborhood was once the most exclusive Black neighborhood in that city, and residents of Conant Gardens comprised the most highly educated Black enclave in Detroit.

The 1943Detroit race riot took place in Detroit, Michigan, from the evening of June 20 through to the early morning of June 22. It occurred in a period of dramatic population increase and social tensions associated with the military buildup of U.S. participation in World War II, as Detroit's automotive industry was converted to the war effort. Existing social tensions and housing shortages were exacerbated by racist feelings about the arrival of nearly 400,000 migrants, both African-American and White Southerners, from the Southeastern United States between 1941 and 1943. The migrants competed for space and jobs against the city's residents as well as against European immigrants and their descendants. The riot escalated after a false rumor spread that a mob of whites had thrown a black mother and her baby into the Detroit River. Blacks looted and destroyed white property as retaliation. Whites overran Woodward to Veron where they proceeded to violently attack black community members and tip over 20 cars that belonged to black families.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Sugrue</span> American historian (born 1962)

Thomas J. Sugrue is an American historian of the 20th-century United States currently serving as a professor at New York University. From 1991 to 2015, he was the David Boies Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and founding director of the Penn Social Science and Policy Forum. His areas of expertise include American urban history, American political history, housing and the history of race relations. He has published extensively on the history of liberalism and conservatism, on housing and real estate, on poverty and public policy, on civil rights, and on the history of affirmative action.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Cobo</span> American politician

Albert Eugene Cobo was an American politician who served as mayor of Detroit from 1950 to 1957.

In the United States, housing segregation is the practice of denying African Americans and other minority groups equal access to housing through the process of misinformation, denial of realty and financing services, and racial steering. Housing policy in the United States has influenced housing segregation trends throughout history. Key legislation include the National Housing Act of 1934, the G.I. Bill, and the Fair Housing Act. Factors such as socioeconomic status, spatial assimilation, and immigration contribute to perpetuating housing segregation. The effects of housing segregation include relocation, unequal living standards, and poverty. However, there have been initiatives to combat housing segregation, such as the Section 8 housing program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Miriani</span> American politician

Louis C. Miriani was an American politician who served as the mayor of Detroit, Michigan, from 1957 to 1962. To date, he remains the most recent Republican to serve as Detroit's mayor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demographic history of Detroit</span>

Detroit's population began to expand rapidly based on resource extraction from around the Great Lakes region, especially lumber and mineral resources. It entered the period of largest and most rapid growth in the early 20th century and through World War II, with the development of the automotive industry and related heavy industry. Attracting hundreds of thousands of immigrants from southern, central, and eastern Europe and from the Near East, as well as black and white migrants from the Southern United States, the city became a boomtown.

<i>The Origins of the Urban Crisis</i> Nonfiction book by Thomas J. Sugrue

The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit is the first book by historian and Detroit native Thomas J. Sugrue in which he examines the role race, housing, job discrimination, and capital flight played in the decline of Detroit. Sugrue argues that the decline of Detroit began long before the 1967 race riot. Sugrue argues that institutionalized and often legalized racism resulted in sharply limited opportunities for African Americans in Detroit for most of the 20th century. He also argues that the process of deindustrialization, the flight of investment and jobs from the city, began in the 1950s as employers moved to suburban areas and small towns and also introduced new labor-saving technologies. The book has won multiple awards including a Bancroft Prize in 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Detroit Wall</span> United States historic place

The Detroit Eight Mile Wall, also referred to as Detroit's Wailing Wall, Berlin Wall or The Birwood Wall, is a one-foot-thick (0.30 m), six-foot-high (1.8 m) separation wall that stretches about 1⁄2 mile (0.80 km) in length. 1 foot is buried in the ground and the remaining 5 feet is visible to the community. It was constructed in 1941 to physically separate black and white homeowners on the sole basis of race. The wall no longer serves to racially segregate homeowners and, as of 1971, both sides of the barrier have been predominantly black.

As of the census of 2010, there were 5,196,250 people, 1,682,111 households, and 1,110,454 families residing within the Detroit–Warren–Ann Arbor Combined Statistical Area. Within the Detroit–Warren–Dearborn Metropolitan Statistical Area, there were 4,296,250 people residing. The census reported 70.1% White, 22.8% African-American, 0.3% Native American, 3.3% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 1.2% from other races, and 2.2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.2% of the population. Arab Americans were at least 4.7% of the region's population.

Gentrification in the United States is commonly associated with an influx of higher-income movers into historically divested neighborhoods with existing, working-class residents, often resulting in increases in property prices and investment into new developments. Displacement and gentrification are also linked, with consequences of gentrification including displacement of pre-existing residents and cultural erasure of the historic community. In the United States, discussions surrounding gentrification require critical analysis of race and other demographic data in examining the inequalities and disparities between existing residents, the community, new buyers, and developers caused by gentrification.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sojourner Truth Project</span> Housing project in Detroit

As a strikingly controversial project in 1941, Sojourner Truth Project set precedents for Detroit housing project policy through the next decade. Created by the Detroit Housing Commission (DHC) and United States Housing Authority (USHA), the proposed 200 units would alleviate housing shortages caused by the wartime climate of World War II. However, the project was met with extreme backlash from white residents and middle-class black homeowners in Conant Gardens. Violence erupted in 1942 when black families moved into the project housing. More than a thousand black supporters and white opponents crowded streets culminating in violent displays later characterized as the Sojourner Truth riot.

Eight Mile-Wyoming area is located nearly 10 miles (16 km) from Paradise Valley on the northern boundary of Detroit and minimally resembled inner-city neighborhoods. Originally settled in the 1920s by thousands of optimistic migrant farmers, the area became a settlement opportunity for Blacks to construct and own their own homes. The area was fought over for development and housing projects for decades and represented an isolated concentration of Blacks in a vast population of whites.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ "Detroit". blackdemographics.com.
  2. ↑ "U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Detroit city, Michigan".
  3. 1 2 "Race and Ethnicity in the Tri-County Area: Selected Communities and School Districts Archived 2013-11-10 at the Wayback Machine ." (Archive) From a Child's Perspective: Detroit Metropolitan Census 2000 Fact Sheets Series. Wayne State University. June 2002. Volume 2, Issue 2. p. 1. Retrieved on November 10, 2013.
  4. ↑ "Detroit Black Population". blackdemographics.com.
  5. ↑ O'Hare, By Peggy (August 13, 2021). "Latinos, Blacks Show Strong Growth in San Antonio as White Population Declines". San Antonio Express-News.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Metzger, Kurt and Jason Booza. "African Americans in the United States, Michigan and Metropolitan Detroit Archived 2013-11-09 at the Wayback Machine ." (Archive) Center for Urban Studies, Wayne State University. February 2002. Working Paper Series, No. 8. p. 8. Retrieved on November 9, 2013.
  7. ↑ Simmons 1887, p355
  8. ↑ Simmons 1887, p685
  9. ↑ Simmons 1887, p1115
  10. ↑ Simmons 1887, p862-863
  11. ↑ Tobin, Jacqueline L. From Midnight to Dawn: The Last Tracks of the Underground Railroad. Anchor, 2008. pp200-209
  12. ↑ Toledo, Gregory. The Hanging of Old Brown: A Story of Slaves, Statesmen, and Redemption. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. p75
  13. ↑ Dunn, William. A History of the First Michigan Colored Regiment. Thesis (M.A.)--Central Michigan University, 1967.
  14. ↑ Kundinger, Matthew (2006). "Racial Rhetoric: The Detroit Free Press and Its Part in the Detroit Race Riot of 1863" (PDF). University of Michigan. Retrieved 2011-02-24.
  15. ↑ "The Colored Voters", Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan), 30 April 1874, page 1, accessed December 13, 2016 at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/7841273/the_colored_voters_detroit_free_press/
  16. ↑ "Political Gossip", Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan) September 6, 1884, page 8, accessed December 13, 2016 at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/7841433/political_gossip_detroit_free_press/
  17. ↑ Alexander, Shawn Leigh. An Army of Lions: The Civil Rights Struggle Before the NAACP. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011, p36
  18. ↑ Alexander 2011, p326
  19. 1 2 Metzger, Kurt and Jason Booza. "African Americans in the United States, Michigan and Metropolitan Detroit Archived 2013-11-09 at the Wayback Machine ." (Archive) Center for Urban Studies, Wayne State University. February 2002. Working Paper Series, No. 8. p. 12. Retrieved on November 9, 2013.
  20. 1 2 Metzger, Kurt and Jason Booza. "African Americans in the United States, Michigan and Metropolitan Detroit Archived 2013-11-09 at the Wayback Machine ." (Archive) Center for Urban Studies, Wayne State University. February 2002. Working Paper Series, No. 8. p. 9. Retrieved on November 9, 2013.
  21. ↑ Babson, p. 28.
  22. ↑ Binelli, p. 25. "The blacks working at the Rouge didn't necessarily want to commute all the way from Detroit but they weren't welcome in Dearborn, so they began settling in the regrettably named suburb of Inkster (which in fact commemorates an early Scottish settler, Robert Inkster)."
  23. ↑ Carrillo, p. 265.
  24. 1 2 Metzger, Kurt and Jason Booza. "African Americans in the United States, Michigan and Metropolitan Detroit Archived 2013-11-09 at the Wayback Machine ." (Archive) Center for Urban Studies, Wayne State University. February 2002. Working Paper Series, No. 8. p. 10. Retrieved on November 9, 2013.
  25. ↑ [Sugrue, Thomas J. (1996). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540: Princeton University Press. p. 37. ISBN   978-0-691-12186-4]
  26. 1 2 [Sugrue, Thomas J. (1996). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540: Princeton University Press. p. 34. ISBN   978-0-691-12186-4.]
  27. 1 2 3 Sugrue, Thomas J. (2014-04-27). Origins of the urban crisis : race and inequality in postwar Detroit. New Jersey. ISBN   9781400851218. OCLC   878919151.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  28. 1 2 [Sugrue, Thomas J. (1996). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540: Princeton University Press. p. 43. ISBN   978-0-691-12186-4.]
  29. ↑ ""Detroit Housing Discrimination"" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-07-06. Retrieved 2019-11-15.
  30. ↑ Sipes v. McGhee, 316 Mich. 614, 628, 25 N.W.2d 638 (1947), rev'd Shelley v. Kramer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948); Parmalee v. Morris, 218 Mich. 618, 188 N.W. 330 (1922).
  31. 1 2 3 Sugrue, Thomas J. (1996). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 72. ISBN   978-0-691-16255-3.
  32. ↑ Sugrue, Thomas J. (1996). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 84. ISBN   978-0-691-16255-3.
  33. ↑ [Sugrue, Thomas J. (1996). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540: Princeton University Press. p. 49. ISBN   978-0-691-12186-4.]
  34. ↑ [Sugrue, Thomas J. (1996). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540: Princeton University Press. p. 50. ISBN   978-0-691-12186-4.]
  35. ↑ [Sugrue, Thomas J. (1996). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540: Princeton University Press. p. 182. ISBN   978-0-691-12186-4]
  36. 1 2 3 [Sugrue, Thomas J. (1996). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540: Princeton University Press. p. 214. ISBN   978-0-691-12186-4]
  37. ↑ [Sugrue, Thomas J. (1996). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540: Princeton University Press. p. 221. ISBN   978-0-691-12186-4]
  38. 1 2 [Sugrue, Thomas J. (1996). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540: Princeton University Press. p. 222. ISBN   978-0-691-12186-4]
  39. ↑ [Sugrue, Thomas J. (1996). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540: Princeton University Press. p. 225. ISBN   978-0-691-12186-4]
  40. ↑ Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta (2019). Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership. University of North Carolina Press. p. 12. ISBN   9781469653662.
  41. 1 2 3 Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta (2019). Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership. University of North Carolina Press. p. 5. ISBN   9781469653662.
  42. ↑ Richburg, Keith (1995-03-16). "American in Africa". Washington Post . Retrieved 2016-10-13.
  43. 1 2 Metzger, Kurt and Jason Booza. "African Americans in the United States, Michigan and Metropolitan Detroit Archived 2013-11-09 at the Wayback Machine ." (Archive) Center for Urban Studies, Wayne State University. February 2002. Working Paper Series, No. 8. p. 11. Retrieved on November 9, 2013.
  44. 1 2 3 4 Binelli, p. 133.
  45. ↑ Metzger, Kurt and Jason Booza. "African Americans in the United States, Michigan and Metropolitan Detroit Archived 2013-11-09 at the Wayback Machine ." (Archive) Center for Urban Studies, Wayne State University. February 2002. Working Paper Series, No. 8. p. 13. Retrieved on November 9, 2013.
  46. 1 2 3 Binelli, p. 134.
  47. ↑ Binelli, p. 133-134.
  48. ↑ Neavling, Steve (2023-03-29). "Black Detroiters are fleeing the city at an alarming rate". Metro Times . Retrieved 2023-06-18.
  49. ↑ https://dabodetroitinc.com/
  50. ↑ Case, Wendy. "Affirming Ferndale." (Archive) Metro Times . May 30, 2007. Retrieved on January 24, 2013.
  51. ↑ Detroitblogger John. "Soldiering on." Metro Times . July 28, 2010. Retrieved on August 2, 2015.
  52. ↑ Hornsby, Alton Jr. (editor). A Companion to African American History (Wiley Blackwell Companions to American History). John Wiley & Sons, April 15, 2008. ISBN   1405137355, 9781405137355. p. 418.
  53. ↑ Warikoo, Niraj (2020-11-06). "Black voters in Detroit key for Joe Biden and Gary Peters' victories, advocates say". Detroit Free Press . Retrieved 2020-11-11.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.