The Intersection: What Detroit has gained, and lost, 50 years after the uprisings of 1967

by Bridge Magazine, Detroit Journalism Collective

Fifty years after anger and frustration over police-community relations boiled over into a rebellion in Detroit, there are lots of people asking what we’ve learned, how we’ve changed.

...There are so many ways that the factors that led to the uprising are still with us. There are so many reminders, both physical and metaphorical.

If there is good news, 50 years after the 1967 uprising, it is probably that we are all much more honest about the ways in which the problems of then still haunt us now. There’s nowhere near as much gloss or self-kidding as we used to indulge. This book, a collection of the coverage by the Detroit Journalism Cooperative during 2016, is a testament to that.

244 pages, Paperback

Published March 23, 2017

Reviews

[Sharlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent overview of the riots but much more. Chapters include Power, Police, Poverty, Race and many more relevant subjects. Although housing & poverty were bad in 1967 black Detroiters are worse off now than then. Back then Black residents had 3/4 the income of whites--now they have only 1/2. People in poverty have doubled. Unemployment was 6.2% in 1967. In 2016 overall unemployment was 9.1%. But...2014 records show that only 4.6% of white men were unemployed while the number was 14.4 for black men. Pres. Johnson put together the Kerner Commission which came up with some viable facts & solutions but it was ignored by the administration & the country. This book is well worth the time to read & find out why often we in America ignore a problem rather than solving it.