Archival photo posted by Ninian Reid
This is the third in a weekly series. Links to earlier segments are at the end.
For two days in 1943, Detroit erupted into a flat-out race war.
Thirty-four people died as whites and African-Americans battled each other in the streets. People were ripped from street cars and beaten senseless. Of the 25 deceased African-Americans, 17 were killed by police.
It ended only as the U.S. Army came in with rifles and bayonets. Historians Thomas Klug and Jamon Jordan discuss the historic event. A young NAACP lawyer, Thurgood Marshall, came within days to investigate the catastrophe. He filed a report. Former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer reads Marshall’s words.
And we hear from the late Bill Bonds, who tells us in a 2011 interview what he witnessed.
-- Tim Kiska
Earlier installments:
