Under her pen name, Marsha Battle Philpot shares vivid, deeply personal recollections of the Detroit rebellion that occurred when she was 13. Below are excerpts from a chapter by her in "Detroit 1967: Origins | Impacts | Legacies," compiled by the Detroit Historical Society and published May 18 by Wayne State University Press.
By Marsha Music
My father, Joe Von battle, opened a record store on Hastings Street in Detroit in 1945. He gathered up the records from his home, where he lived with his wife and four children, and opened shop.
Marsha Music: "My 13-year-old world was spiraling into turmoil and rebellion." (WSU Press photo)
He sold records from opera to Elvis, Frank Sinatra to Nat King Cole—but Joe's Record Shop was known for blues music. He ran the store with his son, Joe Jr., and his clerk, Shirley Baker—a striking young beauty who later became my mother. . . .
Detroit was dynamic and musical; there were dozens of record shops in the city. My father was notable not only for selling records, but for establishing several record labels and national distribution deals with Chess, Savoy, King and other companies and for launching the recording career of the Rev. C. L. Franklin and his daughter Aretha.
By 1948, my father created a recording studio in the back of his shop and recorded artists who walked in off Hastings Street—John Lee Hooker, Johnny Bassett, Washboard Willie, Little Sonny and many others. It is believed that he was the first independent black record producer in postwar America. . . .
'Negro removal'
My mother . . . was born in Detroit and raised in an enclave of blacks on the west side, off Tireman Avenue—a Polish neighborhood. My dad was a Macon, Georgia, man, and this was the source of endless foolishness between them. . . .
In 1960, my father was compelled to relocate his record shop, as the Chrysler Freeway was being constructed right through Hastings Street. For years there was seething resentment in the community about the urban renewal, aka "Negro removal," that had ended Black Bottom and Hastings Street—eliminating not just buildings, but a generation of entrepreneurial experience and wealth.
Though most black businesses could not survive the demise of Hastings, some who did—like my father—ended up on 12th Street. So there was a kind of built-in community when we got there.
But the growing change in the culture was evident: the transition from the South to the North; a greater schism in social classes; even the music we sold changed—now everybody wanted to buy the new urban sounds of Motown. . . .
Joe Von Battle, circa 1953. (Family photo)
Though his transition to 12th Street was tough, Joe was still "the man" in the record biz. Berry Gordy, whom my father had preceded in business by 15 years, would come by dad's record shops on Hastings and in the new neighborhood. Many Motown artists would come by, like bassist James Jamerson and vocalist Mary Wells.
'A bristling tension'
Musically, industrially, artistically, spiritually—there was so much going on in the city it seemed about to burst with energy and art.
Even so, there was a bristling tension in the air, combined with the heat of summer—itself a harbinger. The presence of the police in the black neighborhoods in Detroit had always been oppressive; their power was brutal, arbitrary, and precinct houses were feared as dens of torment. Though Detroit wasn't the segregated South, there were neighborhoods where we could not live, stores and shops—even downtown—where we were not welcome, and jobs for which you better not even think you were going to be hired. . . .
Under the surface of solidness—of the neighborhoods, the musicality of the churches, radio stations and record companies—the black community heaved with bitterness, even as city officials called Detroit "The Model City."
In July of 1966, the lid blew off on the east side on Kercheval Street. A revolt against police brutality was quickly quelled with a rainstorm and arrests, a victory that gave officials a false sense of Detroit's invulnerability to civil unrest. The "'66 mini-riot" was a precursor of things to come.
On Saturday afternoons at the record shop, I stuck my head out the door and watched in awe as new black militants strode up 12th Street in berets and leather and dashikis. They were regarded, variously, as troublemakers (by my father) or superheroes (by me) and everything in between (by the community). Their presence was evidence of a new jubilant, vigorous Black Pride and signified growing anger and impatience with inequality.
It was a time of great social upheaval. My 13-year-old world was spiraling into turmoil and rebellion.
The phone rings on a steamy night
Shirley Battle, circa 1950. (Family photo)
It was July. It was Saturday night. It was hot. The telephone rang in the middle of the night; someone called my father and said "something" was happening on 12th Street. We knew what "something" meant.
He jumped out of bed, got his gun (most businessmen carried) and headed over to 12th Street. We (my mother, myself and three siblings) went back to sleep after a while, worried about Daddy.
Our house was in Highland Park, a tiny city within the City of Detroit, a couple of miles—and a world away—from 12th Street. When we awoke again in the morning, we ran out onto John R Street and looked west toward 12th. Over the horizon, we could see a sky full of black smoke. We didn't know all that was going on, but we knew that our lives would never be the same.
My father same back home and told our mother what was going on. By that time, we had seen on TV that there was a "riot." We were terrified with the thought that he and the other business folks on the block were guarding their stores and writing "Soul Brother" signs in a plea for solidarity that was brave pitiful and futile.
Television stopped reporting on the "disturbance" early on, but reports were coming in from friends, relatives and neighbors. Other streets were consumed in the unrest: 14th Street, Linwood, Dexter, the main arteries of the west side—soon, east-side streets, too.
Rebellion, not a 'race riot'
The looting was spreading, and it was clear that it was not just a "criminal element," but regular working folks, too. A lot of whites were in the streets looting, although that was rarely reported.
One thing for sure, it was no "race riot"—race against race. It was rioting within a rebellion against whatever power there was.
The conflagration continued for days. In our neighborhood in Highland Park, we were far away, relatively speaking, from the mayhem on 12th Street. Life in our neighborhood was tense as the news spread, but our streets, full of middle-class mini-mansions and shady elm trees, were as peaceful as always.
It was an utter shock—even in the midst of the mounting tension—to look out from my ruffled-curtained bedroom and see a massive green tank slowly, incongruously, rolling its way up quiet John R. Incredibly, across the street from our house on California Street, soldiers looked out from the balcony of the Monterey Motel onto our Arts and Craft houses and manicured lawns, bayonets over their shoulders as they lolled around smoking cigarettes on R&R, like in a bizarre dream. Our mother cautioned us not to wave.
After the fkirst days, the anger and tension of martial law in Detroit permeated both cities. Soon the unrest and looting reached Hamilton in Highland Park. Our neighborhood, on the other side of our small town, remained unchanged but for a curfew and the daunting presence of the military.
'We walked through the wet, fetid debris'
My father had been on 12th Street, standing guard in front of his shop with his gun and his "Soul Brother" sign. After the first day or so, the authorities stopped letting business owners guard their shops, and my father returned home defeated.
August 4, 1967 issue
He never shook the feeling that by halting his efforts to protect his store, they had guaranteed its destruction. Days later, they allowed Daddy to return to a smouldering 12th Street. He took my uncle, my little brother and my cousin—the first look at the damage was deemed a job for men and boys.
But the next day, he took me. The noise and smoke and burnt buildings made 12th Street hellish. We walked through the wet, fetid debris of what had been one of the seminal record shops in Detroit.
I trailed Daddy silently as we trudged through charred rubble and melted vinyl records. Some of the most significant voices in recorded history were in those fire hose-soaked reel-to-reel tapes, unwound and slithering like water snakes. Thousands of songs, sounds and voices of an era—most never pressed onto records—were gone forever. I believe Daddy died that day.
My father's alcoholism gravely worsened after his life's work and provision for his family were destroyed—by looters; by the explosion of the pressure cooker of racism and discrimination; by the move from Hastings to a new and different location, with a new modern music; by the turning of his first beloved record shop and studio into a freeway service drive.
He returned home from his ruined 12th Street store and proceeded to drink himself to deatg. Though John Von Battle was not pronounced dead or buried until 1973, he died on that day in 1967.
© 2017, Wayne State University Press
Epilogue: 'These folks were not setting out to destroy the shop'
" I was totally unprepared to see this."
WSU Press photo)
At her Facebook page, the writer talks about the dramatic photo below:
This is a photo of my father's record shop being looted the week of July 23, 1967—probably on that first day, Sunday or Monday. This is 12th Street, between Philadelpia and Euclid.
I was shown this photo in preparation for the new book "Detroit 1967," edited by Joel Stone. I was literally breathless for a moment and had to get myself together, as it is the first time I have seen an actual image of my father's store during the unrest. It was found in archives.
This photo is looking away from the boulevard, toward Clairmount, about seven blocks north from the epicenter of the rebellion, at the blind pig.
It is very orderly. This photo belies the narrative that it was all mayhem and wilding. These folks were not setting out to destroy the shop, by the looks of it, but are all up in the moment. Someone looks like they are standing in the doorway handing out records, and folks are just in line, like at the grocery store. I was totally unprepared to see this.
My father could have perhaps survived this. It was just stock that eventually he could have replaced.
If you notice as well, there was no real destruction on the block. The destruction happened after the crowds were pushed further north. And actually, a lot of it was firefighting damage, not the people. It was after the unrest was over that the building was destroyed by authorities.
I think that there were businesspeople—black, Jewish, etc—who felt that they were forced out, not by the looters or destruction, but by the way some of this was handled by the city, etc.
My father was bereft when the authorities forced him to leave the area, guarding his store, for it was obvious that they were not going to protect the small businesses.
I say in the book about my father's end: "His life’s work and provision for his family was destroyed—by looters; by the explosion of the pressure cooker of racism and discrimination; by the move from Hastings to a new and different place with a new, modern music; by the turning of his beloved first record shop and studio into a freeway service drive."
In other words, my father's store was not destroyed these people alone—but all that caused this situation to come to be.
Read more about Joe Von Battle
- Requiem for a Record Shop Man: An extensively illustrated memoir by Philpot at her website.
- Oral history transcript: Philpot was interviewed in September 2015 for the Detroit Historical Museum's riot anniversary project.
12th Street on the rebellion's first or second day, 50 years ago this month..
