Join us on cspan3 today for an American History tv live on the 50th anniversary. The Pulitzer Prize winning historian of the university of michigan and editorialpage editor. Part 1 15 eastern, a former Detroit Police chief and journalist. An American History tv special live today at noon eastern on cspan3. Night, the cofounder and why hen his book thinks we are at the beginning of a third wave of Internet Development and why he is looking outside of Silicon Valley for the newest digital developments. Now we are starting to see the third way pick up steam. That is the internet that will be integrated in more seamless and pervasive ways, sometimes invisible ways, throughout our lives in changing things like health care, education, transportation, energy, food. The gas tax of our live in big sectors of the economy. I wrote the book because it requires a different mindset and going to bewe are successful in this third wave. Watch monday night at 8 00 eastern on cspan2. Washington journal continues. Host we would like to welcome the chair of the Political Science department at Howard University, Clarence Lusane. He is also the author of the book, the black history of the white house. We invite you want to talk about detroit 50 years ago. You were there is a young boy. What happened . My family had been fishing in canada. We came back and the city was exploding. Fires and fire engines all over the place. On the second night of the uprising, what we call rebellion, my mother, sister, and i walked to one of the major intersections about two blocks from our house. We had been there about 15 minutes when suddenly there were shots. There was gunfire. Everyone on the corner was shot except for me. My mother and sister were shot. They were injured. Fortunately, they were not lifethreatening injuries but they had to go to the hospital. Iran got my father. He came back with the car. We took people to the hospital. I was there 13 years old. That was very traumatic. Not just for me, for the entire city to live through that experience. It has not in something i have not thought about it has not been something i have not thought about. It has certainly had an effect on my life. Was filmed from 1967 as the uprising continued for nearly a week. 43 people were killed. Thousands were injured. As many as 2000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. What sparked the uprising . Why did it happen . Guest there was an immediate reason it happened which had to do with a response by the black community to a police action. There had been a long history of the police riding into the black community and harassing people. Ofa child, i grew up in fear the big four, police cars we drive around with four officers and harass people. It was racial profiling plain and simple. There is a bigger context important to look at. That was the conditions under which African Americans not only in detroit but in cities around the country were facing as we 1960s. To the late had political disenfranchisement where there were few elected black officials at any level. Marginalization where people had little opportunity. You had social isolation from schools to hospitals that were segregated weather official whether it was official or de facto. And then you had police harassment. A friend of mine wrote a book. What she found when she compared riots in the u. S. With those around the world is that in almost every circumstance where ,ou had these urban uprisings paris, london, los angeles, or detroit, almost universally they were started as a response to Police Actions that had built up over time where people said we cannot take this anymore. Martin luther king said these riots, rebellions were the language of the unheard. What he was referring to is all the channels by which people could have grievances addressed simply did dont exist, some people responded in the way they had so people responded in the way they had in front of them. Host this week, our conversation with joseph telefonica califano. He was at the white house when the uprisings began in detroit. In our conversation last thursday, he remembers what happened. [video clip] it was a stunning experience. It was probably the largest riot we were experiencing since watts. Watts came in 1965. We were in a race against high expectations. Once. Used to say that was inevitable for the oppressed becomes intolerable when there was light at the end of the tunnel. We were giving them a lot of light. The problems of lousy education, poverty, broken families, no enormous andwere were going to take a long time to deal with. We really were in this terrible race. This was deeply troubling. In second thing was, addition to all the People Killed and injured in detroit, we had an enormous problem of trying to maintain the funding for the Great Society programs. Thaton was always on edge the worst enemies to the programs we were trying to pass might be the people we were trying to help because of their inevitable inpatients mpatience. Host he was a Senior Advisor to lyndon johnson. The full podcast is available on our website. Your reaction . Guest i remember mr. Califano well in the johnson administration. He is right in that the anditions were creating situation for people to rebel. People should have been impatient. Particular, it was the fifth largest city in the country, it was a rising economy auto economy. The city was driving but for particular people in the city. The marginalization of people were feeling were the conditions under which the rebellion occurred. When i have often told my students is there would the mesh it would have been surprising if they had not been uprising in detroit. It was creeping around the country. Between 1964 and 1968, there were hundreds of rebellions around the country because the ability of people to exercise basic civil rights, human rights, political lights had been threatened writes had been threatened. People were using the language available to them at the time. It required a transformation in the city that was not forthcoming and had to be forced rather than negotiated. Host we are defining our phone lines regionally. We have aligned set aside for those of the you of you who remember we have a line set aside for those of you who remember what happened 50 years ago. Our first caller is from detroit. Good morning. Caller good morning. Good morning, mr. Lusane. I wanted to bring up a couple of aspects of this if you have time. There are a lot of white people, im African American by the way, who are in denial about theconditions that sparked rebellion in the first place. First with regard to police brutality, i dont know if the viewers in my hometown especially are familiar with this unit of the Detroit Police , tacticalhe big four slots that regularly patrolled black neighborhoods and brutalized and even murdered African American men. I think even the white conservatives back then would defend those actions much like they are defending White Police Officers today. Host gary, thank you for the call. Guest he makes a critical point. Police black Community Relations was one of the sore spots during that time. It was not resolved after the rebellion. The rebellion, there was urgency to put money into the city, to take young kids and put them in social programs. I learned right in the community centers. Rather than address these issues, it became worse. In the early 1970s, there was a police unit called stress. I dont quite recall be acronym the acronym, but it was like a swat team that terrorized the community. It had the largest percentage of murders of citizens of anywhere in the country. The mayor wasil elected in 1973 that you begin to get a transformation of the Police Department and began to nota more just completely just but it required a transformation of the city at the top because the police, mayor, and city council had not addressed that particular issue that was raging in the black community. Host sunday morning, july 23, 1967, the demonstrations began a detroit and continued for five days. As a result, there were 43 deaths. More than 7200 arrests took place during the riots. 2500 stores were looted or burned. 1967, 38 of residents were African American. The percentage of Detroit Police officers that were black, 5 . Lets go to nathan. Riots are still happening. They are still going on. You kind of have to be her own igurnalist nowadays to d deep and look at the actual videos and stories. We just had a right in germantown, pennsylvania, which used to be german. There are no germans left. My ancestors came there in the 1690s. There were about 500 black youth that rose up and got told to go home from the swimming pool. They attacked the police. I saw the videos. The papers tried to cover it up and say it was an event. I see things like the videos of the white teacher trying to blackup lacking fights gang fights and the attacks on what teachers white teachers. Video of theio and black kids who watched the white kid drowning and did not attempt to save him. We had ferguson, west baltimore. Was mostlye, it arabs and asians targeted by blacks. My question is difficult but one that i find amazing and i want to get his opinion. Im trying to keep an open mind. I deal with a lot of people traveling who are indianamerican. Castecome here from the system, their own version of slavery. In less than a generation, they own most of the stores in town. They are very gentle people. A little humorless, but they are very gentle people. I cannot imagine Indian Americans are writing. Rioting. They work too hard. Host we will get our guest a chance to respond to your many points. Guest there are Different Things in the comments. You cannot make those kinds of generalizations. I think what is important to note about what happened not only in 1967 but what is happening now is we still see in many situations people facing these conditions of marginalization. When you talk about ferguson, one of the things that stood out is there was virtually no representation in ferguson on the city council, no representation of African Americans on the police force. It has been documented by those who took the time to look at it blackhe city was facing and poor residents cost of harassment from the police. It was not just the killing of the young man but it was the context of that killing in the history that gave rise to people standing up. The same thing happened in baltimore. I would use the term rebellion rather than riot. Refers to winning a Basketball Championship and overturning cars. Rebellion reflects there is a wherey, a social context for a long time there is a build up of tensions because of unresolved social justice concerns and that finally is sparked by an incident usually and leads to people being out in the street. Give it some context and not place the blame on people who really are the victims in these circumstances. Host lets go to michelle who remembers the riots in detroit. She is joining us from michigan. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am curious as to how old your guest is. Guest i am 64. I was 13 at the time of the rebellion. Caller i am 70 years old. We lived maybe 20 miles from the city of detroit. Was ay the riots started blind pig was raided. At that time, that started the riot. Own happened was their stores and communities were being torn down and set on fire, and looting and robbing. It was unbelievable what was going on. The people that were killed were each other. You are depicting it a little too deep i think. Granted, the stress units were there try to keep some sort of control trying to keep some sort of control. It was resented, of course. I see it a lot differently than you do. Guest that is fine. Let me give you more history. She referred to blind pigs. That was a term for after our places runfterhours by people who would sell drinks and make money on the side. They were not places where people were committing violence or negative activities going on. What happened on the saturday leading up to the riots was that the police raided this place and harassed people and brutalized people. I know about blind pigs well. My father ran one for quite a while. The context of what was going on was this was a harassment of people. The response was the only response available. There was no one in the Police Department, no one in the City Government that said you should curtail these kinds of harassing activities and try to address these concerns. The larger context of it is these were communities under which people were not given any kind of ownership at all. Redlining was the practice quite legal at the time. It certainly was carried out. The banks would draw a circle around communities and not make loans. Even if you were a middleclass African American in detroit or st. Louis or los angeles, you could not get a loan to purchase , not in thriving areas in detroit. Those were the conditions under which people conditions people were facing in the mid1960s. None of that changed until people were able to get political power and positions on City Councils and School Boards and begin to affect the communities in which they lived rather than have that be controlled by people outside those communities. Host if you are interested in this topic, at noon eastern on atpan three, we look back the detroit riots on the 50th anniversary. Can follow all of our programming online at cspan. Org. Brenda lawrence is a former mayor in michigan and joins us the sky. Thank you for being with us. Congresswoman lawrence, can you hear us . She cannot hear us. We will come back to her. Lets go to michael joining us from minnesota. Good morning. I am 65 years of age. My concern was i thought the youngion started when African American men returned home from vietnam and was having a good time, and the Police Presence came in. Knowing they would be there, and the present to try to arrest one of the young men presumed to try to arrest one of the young men because he was walking by and then goesar back into the establishment. The policehows policies have not changed 50 years ago until today regardless of what city you live in. It seems like you are guilty until proven innocent. Host michael, thank you. Guest let me give some political context to the history of African Americans in the city. There is a very good book that just came out called black detroit which traces a lot of the evolution and coming to the city of African Americans from other places as well. The city was an epicenter of black politics. You had traditional black politics, naacp, Martin Luther king had come to the city. But you also had radical black politics which started after the riots with the individuals who led it had been there. , thead the nation of islam league of revolutionary black of his which came out termination in auto plants. Detroit was you had very strong progressive, leftist environment so there had been demands for changes, not just starting in 1967, but for years. Host this is a recent photograph of one of the homes from 50 years ago, the remnants of the riots that took place. Pointing out detroit today is 80 African American and 40 of its population lives below the federal poverty line while many of the predominantly white neighbors are far richer. How does that feed into the racial and Economic Issues detroit is dealing with today . Guest i talked about some of the political changes that happened after the rebellion in 1967 with the election of young, were African Americans on the city council and school board. The city also had the confluence of a number of other factors that led to the kind of deterioration that has often been the focus on detroit. Of 1973the oil crisis which had a major impact on the Auto Industry. At the same time, the Auto Industry was being challenged and begin to move manufacturing out of the city. When i graduated high school in 1971, before i started university i worked at what was maybe at that time the largest auto plant in the world. Tens of thousands of people worked there. You could go in any day and would start working the next day. People who have gotten out of prison, gotten back from vietnam, had a third grade education could get a wellpaying manufacturing job. It was hard work but it was income that gave people middleclass opportunities. That ended rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s. The city had not planned and anticipated what would happen if the Auto Industry collapsed. Essentially, detroit was a one company town. There were circumstances beyond people in the community that began to affect it. As the picture indicates, much of the city was never rebuilt after the 1957 rebellion. There are parts of the city that went up in flames and buildings had been burned and neighborhoods had been harmed that received little attention. And then the city began to lose population. Host let me pick up on that point and bring in representative Brenda Lawrence from the detroit area. Thank you for being with us 50 years later to pick up on what the professor was saying. What are the aftereffects of the rights in your home city . Guest thank you for having me. This is Interesting Times in detroit. Manynot tell you how people have mixed emotion about even discussing this because is on the rebound, what we call the comeback city. Some people say we do not want to discuss the past and the negative things that happened, lets talk about