Spaces mark where a thriving commercial district once stood. There are lingering questions and issues that led to the rioting. We are here with the Detroit Free Press. And we are joined by heather and thompson and detroit page editorial editor. We will be live for the next two hours taking your calls, tweets, and facebook posts. Can we start with definitions in the sense that the event is described as a riot. Would you describe it as such or is there a better way to define what happened . That term connotes chaos and it is suggested everyone showed up and destroyed city for no reason. It also suggests how we should understand what happened and the impact it had. We prefer to think about it like a rebellion because all of the energy and anger at that went into that moment had long been predicted. The economic discrimination, that frustration cannot be understood as chaotic and incoherent. It was a rebellion. The word i have come to over some time is uprising which captures what happened in 1967. And oppressze African American people, destroy africanamerican communities even. That was the buildup to what happened in 1967. The flashpoint was packed specifically against a police of aggression and Police Brutality. You also had a lot of other kinds of pushback. People in the streets Looting Stores were pushing back against the economic depression. They were pushing back against the housing discrimination. And uprising really captures all of that in a way one of the things that is true is language has real power in our culture and the word riot was used to dismiss all of those things after what happened happened. It was used to say ignore this, dont worry about the things that are behind this. We have taken care of it with Police Response and we will move on. What else was going on in 1967, particularly as other areas in the nation were struggling with uprisings. There are common themes in the cities. Newark was 11 days before detroit. Los angeles was a few weeks later. You have this moment partially fueled by the questions asked by the civil rights movement. This was the time when African Americans were no longer sitting back and saying we will wait for equality and justice. We want it and we want it now. At the same time, they were realizing how far they were to that realization and there was this real effort to deny that systematically. You see this outbreak happen in cities across the country. All in that same context. Beginning in 1964, philadelphia erupts, rochester erupts harlem erupts. ,it was all for the same reason. It was that sustained critique Police Activity in the black Community Overwhelmingly and the sustained critique of we passed all the legislation. Why is there still such a disparity in income and lifestyle in general . Afterculmination of a decade, that we are not going to ask anymore, we are going to demand. If you want to call on the phone lines if you live in detroit currently or lived during what happened in 1967 we invite you to call as well. You can also tweet us at cspan history and post on our facebook page. At facebook. Com cspan history. Lets go back to 50 years ago today. Put in context specifically what happened. Specific specifically, it was a night like many other nights. Where folks in the black a community, at an afterhours drinking establishment were having a party, a get together aided by the Detroit Police department. People were routinely pulled over, routinely thrown up against cars, stopped, frisked, and it just touched a nerve in this particular community had experienced a lot of that aggressive policing even more than others. It was a match to candling. At the blind pig, why wasnt like that . It known it is a way to talk about after our bars because the pigs were blind to them. They often avoid the gaze of Police Officers. And the celebration were a couple of folks from vietnam, they were celebrating Early Morning hours. Please come. People are being taken out. What specifically happened . There is a conflict between the people inside the bar and the police. I think history shows this was planned by the police and they were there to show some force and be particularly aggressive. It spilled out into the street as they try to get people into paddy wagons. They were arresting a large number of people in this establishment and there are other people in the streets who see this and start to react, start to ask questions. Saying this is not right and we are tired about this. They were concerned about what would happen to those that were being arrested. There is a long history of arrest, it is not that someone got arrested, locked up, tried and charged or issued a ticket. People ended up harmed. There was a history of people being severely injured. Peoples concern by so many arrests was not just frustration, but genuine concern for what people knew to be true. There are more people than officers and at some point they cant control what is going on. If you go to the Detroit Free Press this morning, you will see on the headline of this coverage, you will see weve got trouble. That statement from the police chief at the time talking to the mayor. Talk about the role of the mayor. When he puts the police in, action, how to do that. The mayor at that time is jerome cavanagh. He is a very hopeful political figure elected with great promise in the early 1960s. Around the same time as john kennedy. There are often comparisons drawn between the two of them in their early careers. He is also a pretty dark figure in our history for the things that he ignored that were brewing when he was mayor. Leading up to 1967. And then the way that he handles this. It catches him by surprise in a way that it should not have. About warned many times the things going on inside the Police Department with regard to the community and in the community, with regard to the kinds of segregation and discrimination going on in the city. He kept saying i think we will avoid the things we are seeing in other places. It was really naive of him at best. His response was to let the Police Department lose on the community. And that, i think, not only leads to this massive confrontation over the next few days that it leads to the end of his political career. It really ends jerome cavanagh. We hear about this starting at 12th and claremont but how far does this spread over the five days into the acreage of detroit . And how did and why did it happen . It just spreads and spreads and the only way to understand is the prehistory. Shouldrome cavanagh, he have known because his own police commissioner, someone he appointed to remedy this problem of Police Brutality, George Edwards quit because he says the Police Department, 90 , is irre formable. Every neighborhood that hears the story and the rumor spread. Was shooting out lights. People are fearful and it is chaotic. That spreading was inevitable because of the way the policing operated after the initial confrontation. Where there are no lights. Fires are burning. People are armed. And then there is a rumor of sniping even though there is no evidence in retrospect that this what was that this what was going on. There is no evidence of people being fatally wounded. It is also the license for the really bad actors inside the department to go do the things they had in doing so far, under the cover of darkness. They are doing it in broad daylight now and they are doing it wantonly. Wandering thele streets, shooting into the houses because they say that someone is inside and i need to take care of that. Ike mckinnon, who was later if who was later a police chief in the city, was one of the few black patrolmen at that time in detroit. He is accosted by two other officers who say they want to kill him. It really escalates to a point where there is no rationale for the behavior that the police are undertaking and that makes everything worse. It fuels what goes on for the next few days. Mckenna will join a shortly to give us his experience. We will start our calls today with david who lives in detroit, michigan. Thank you for calling. You are on with our guests. Go ahead. Color it is good to see caller my question to dr. Heather they are going to be releasing a new movie called detroit. Accuracy ork to the is there going to be much in the way of accuracy, historically, with this movie. Secondly, i would like to reflect for a moment with regard to the 1967 riot. We lived on vine would in grand d and grand vinewoo river. I was seven years old. I remember how it rolled out. I remember hearing the sirens. Everyone was startled. And then you sell the billowing black smoke coming up from cunningham, on the corner. Subsequently, real quick, again, i was seven years old so this would probably have been a day after. But i ventured up there and i and i caught myself going into one of the stores and grabbing a pair of shoes that did not hit me as i recall. Thatted to reflect on because it feels like yesterday. If you could answer that in terms of historical accuracy. David, thank you so much. First, i want to say thank you so much for telling that story. It really shows that even the socalled looting. People were getting very practical things that they need it, often. Shoes, clothing, food. That is often missed when we talk about this just as a riot as a reference back to our terminology. Everyone wholm, experienced it is going to have to decide whether they feel that it captured the out year the Algiers Motel murders. An incredibles historian, danielle mcguire. We are going to get the real nittygritty of what happened. I think it will capture the extraordinary level of violence directed against young people, particularly young black kids. One wasway in which no held accountable for that kind of violence. If nothing else, if the film captures that, it does a service to that. Algierscontext for the incidents. A group of africanamerican teenagers during the uprising at the Algiers Motel. They were with some white teenagers. I dont remember exactly the reason but the police show up. Over several hours, it escalates to the point where they kill some of these black kids and there is never a good reason for that killing, there is never an explanation. And they are never held to account for it. No one is ever brought to justice. To be clear, these were kids that were in this hotel because there is so much chaos on the streets. Some of these kids were musicians. Do not comesay home. It is too crazy. Stop at the hotel where you will be safe. The police show up under this rumor of a sniper and for hours, these kids are beaten, tortured and the officers play russian roulette with them. Three of the teenagers and of dead. At least, i think the movie captures that. And that is critically important because that is a microcosm of the reason why the city erupted in the first place. Let us hear from philip in las vegas. Go ahead. Are you there . I think we lost him. Hello. Can you hear me . Go right ahead. Mann and i want to say that i was born and raised here in america and i love america. Emphasize on we were the only people brought over here at gunpoint. Second of all, you have to freeber that we worked for and did not get a dime. When lincoln, supposedly, set us was because the nonblacks did not have any work and they became employed after slavery and then we had no work at all. From that point, we did not receive what we were supposed to get. We were denied, like the indians to get a treaty and a conversation, there were senators and congressmen who stood up and fought and said that africanamericans were too ignorant to discuss a treaty, or whatever. Philip, thank you. We got your point. And Stephen Henderson, to the economic question he brought up your for the average black person in detroit, what was it like economically . There were a couple of things going on. You did have this emerging black middle class in detroit. My family, my mothers family, was part of that black middle class living in russell woods, just off of dexter avenue, one of the flashpoints of the stripng, a commercial that had been hit hard. You had an emerging black Political Class emerging in the city. People being elected to city council and congress. But at the same time, you have this underclass that is being pushed further and further behind in further and further marginalized. Andarea around 12th claremont had become an africanamerican neighborhood of the other prime africanamerican neighborhoods in the city had been destroyed. They had nowhere else to go. And the opportunity that they could see, not only white but theys enjoying, started to see other africanamerican detroiters enjoying, was a real source of tension. I think there was no question that people understood that if you were africanamerican, your chances of moving ahead were just very slim and the deck was stacked against you. Agree. Mpletely incidentally, i think that is why it is so important that we are commemorating this at 50 years. Detroit is now the comeback city. Detroit is now doing a lot of gentrification again including the slum clearance of yesteryear that you eradicated the black bottom area of the city, that pushed people out of their homes. May people homeless. We have this opportunity to how dider or consider things go so wrong in the first place . People do not realize but detroit was the model city of 1967. It was the apple of washingtons eye. Johnson and schreiber they all said that detroit was the best we have accomplished. And then it went up in flames and everyone was surprised. I think that is a real lesson for us today. Detroit is coming back but will a comeback for everybody or just for the middle class and for rich, white folks that can move into the city . Heather n thompson is professor at the university of michigan, annrich, white folks e into the city . Arbor where she teaches afroamerican studies and Stephen Henderson is with the Detroit Free Press, he is their editorial page, page editor. Thompson winning a Pulitzer Prize for her book blood in the water. Let us go to janet in east lansing, michigan. Wanted to draw a verbal picture of what it was like to be in the city when everything blew up. I was on the Northwest Side of the city, west of greenfield. People who know the city will note that it is a major northsouth artery in the city. Parents. Iting my in the house that i grew up in. I got a funk call from a friend who lived much closer to where everything was burning, already. And she said you better get home. Area,ed in the lansing about 90 miles away. My husband and i said what is going on . Nothing was on the tv or the radio. Nothing. She said well, some kind of riots are going on you better get out of there. And i said what are you seeing . And she was hearing a lot of gunshots. I got in the car and drove back to lansing. 90 miles. But armything vehicles. Not tanks. But trucks, foot soldiers with weapons and helmets and overhead, helicopters. And everything was going into the city. From all of the expressways. They were coming in from the army bases in lansing, and you name it. 100 mile radius around the city, coming in. And this was my First Experience of what it is like to live in a city or a country where martial law takes over. Where marshall law takes over. Thank you for the call. She is referring to the governors decision to bring in the National Guard. Is overmatched almost immediately because of the incident. And there is some debate in lansing about what to do. Romney does eventually say we have to bring in the National Guard which makes things much worse. The National Guard troops they bring are not remotely prepared for what they are encountering in detroit. Notmost of them are experienced in any sort of urban area at all. Aboutare a lot of stories the kind of racial tension that they heightened with their behavior. Once the federal troops arrived, which is later, that actually has the better affect than the guard did. The guard, i think, was responsible for a lot of the escalation in those early days of the uprising. Including one that is killed by a fellow guardsmen. It is so chaotic with the shooting. Anyone is a target. Imagine a situation so chaotic that a fellow guardsman shoots they were shooting one another. They were scared. ,he guard troops were young experienced and scared. They had no idea what was going on and they were frightened. When that happens, you get the kind of chaos that we saw. Was it a quick decision by the mayor to do this . Realthink there was tension between the mayor and the governor to do this about the guard coming in. And, of course, neither of them are quite sure what they are dealing with or the scale of what they are dealing with. In the early days, there is a belief that may be this will just subside on its own if we wait it out. As Lyndon Baines johnson. How did he factor into all of this when it came to the National Guard . There was real tension. Romney has to make some real choices about bringing in federal troops because he is essentially admitting that he has lost control of his city and his state. Remember, detroit was the apple of washingtons eye. There is a lot of funding coming into detroit the yet the office of economic opportunity. All of this is in jeopardy. What is interesting is that because detroit was so important to the johnson administration, after this, johnson himself is a little shocked and stunned. This is the first time that we get calls for a federal study of what in the world is going on. Notably, even though he calls for this, he does not ultimately take it seriously and he does not implement what the socalled Kerner Commission suggested was needed. But, it really was that moment. Detroit was the moment when everyone woke up. Let us go to longview, texas. Pierre. i just wanted to say that this is an interesting story in that just to put this in perspective. I was born in 1969 in longview. My mother was born in 1941. My grandfather was born in 1896 and slavery was abolished in 1865 . Of course, my greatgrandfather was a slave. Up, havingim growing hethed