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From International Socialist Review, Vol.31 No.1, January-February 1970, pp.60-61.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The Detroit Riot of 1967
by Hubert G. Locke
Wayne State University Press. 160 pp. $6.50.
This is another account of the 1967 ghetto uprising in Detroit. The author is a black man, a native of Detroit, a minister of the Gospel, director of the Office of Religious Affairs, and a research associate for the Center for Urban Studies at Wayne State University.
At the time of the black uprising in Detroit, Rev. Locke was administrative assistant to Detroit Police Commissioner Ray Girardin. In the 1969 Detroit mayoral campaign, he was a lukewarm supporter of the black candidate, Richard Austin, and since the election, has been mentioned as a possible member of the new mayor’s administrative staff. The new mayor is Roman Gibbs, a white candidate who narrowly defeated Austin.
Rev. Locke refers always to “the riot” as he does in the title. This is a “bad” happening, a kind of natural catastrophe like a hurricane. Before it,
“Detroit was somehow by-passed as urban rebellions erupted in Cleveland, swirled around America’s fifth largest city, swept through Chicago and Omaha and out to the west coast, venting their fury on Los Angeles and San Francisco.”
The city is personalized: “Detroit’s apprehension grew ... The city’s anxiety was deepened ...” Who in Detroit was apprehensive and anxious? The rulers? Their police agents? Or was it the people in the ghetto? Such questions are foreign to the Reverend’s search into what happened.
He sees everything from the window of a precinct police station. A section of his book, purporting to give a day-by-day account of the “battle” reads like the police blotter.
Other sections of the book, such as Riot Aftermath, in which the author attempts an appraisal of what he describes as “Post-Bellum Negro Leadership,” are tainted with a police outlook and mentality with some “enlightened” refinements.
How to avoid future “riots”?
“Restructuring the police system is one of the most critical and difficult tasks cities could conceivably undertake. But if the need is acknowledged and the possible benefits are recognized ...”
This book adds nothing to the factual information of the Kerner Commission Report and lacks the insights of John Hersey’s great book, The Algiers Motel Incident. But the Rev. Hubert G. Locke has presented the testimony of a rather common type of lower level politician and job seeker now operating in the black community.
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