Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin

by David Ritz

“The spark that lit the fire happened on Belle Isle, a picnic spot in the middle of the Detroit River. The incident had sexual undertones. A white man said a black man made a pass at his girl. They began fighting and soon the fight spread. Rumors started racing. Blacks heard that a white man had thrown a black woman and her baby off Belle Isle Bridge. Whites and blacks went after each other for three days. Mobs attacked mobs. It ended only when President Roosevelt called in troops. By then thirty-five people were killed. Twenty-five of those were blacks. Of the twenty-five black deaths, seventeen died at the hands of the police. It was all-out racial warfare.