The Detroit Race Riot of 1943 began on June 20th when a Black man and white man began fighting at the city’s Belle Isle Amusement Park. Before long, others joined in with the riots that spilled out into the city, with some accounts stating cops helped dole out violence against the city’s Black residents alongside the whites.
It was reportedly a warm Saturday evening and racial tensions in the Motor City had flared since the influx of Black and white families migrating from the South to the North to find employment. World War II was at its height and many of the city’s auto factories doubled as manufacturing plants for the armed services.
The southern white migrants brought their racist beliefs with them, and felt that Black families were infringing on opportunities meant for them. This created a natural divide and it would only widen as time went on.
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The riots raged for three days with an estimated $2 million in damages reported. President Theodore Roosevelt ordered 6,000 federal troops to the region to quell the disturbance. In the end, 34 people lost their lives, 24 of them Black and allegedly at the hands of police. A reported nine white people were also killed.
24 years later, another riot, often called the “Detroit Rebellion” took place; with some saying it was a holdover of the continuing racial imbalances from the 1943 riots. The 1967 riots and their aftermath were depicted in the 2017 film, Detroit.
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