around the country. 1967 was a very riotous time -- race riots, rights over the , women's issues, environmental issues. but the racial issues came at the top and there were many, many instance and cities around the country, detroit happen to have the worst of the race riots. riot -- do we call it a riot, and uprising, rebellion? these are the things we explore in the perspective exhibit. of july 1967 in detroit were hugely important to everybody in detroit. it's much like the shooting of president kennedy or 9/11. people remember what's going on, what they were doing when they found out. it's hugely important and a story that needed to be told. the historical society loomed several years ago that the story

needed to come out and exploring aspects.s complex it tells many stories from so many different people, the title together -- to tie it all together. and hopefully people who come to see it will see the entire story. most people know the story. hopefully when they leave their looking forward to move beyond the problems that 67 caused. some of which are still with us today. entry zero win for the detroit historical society. welcome to the detroit historical museum. they are standing in the entrance to the detroit 67 --spective expedition exhibition, looking back to move forward. it showcases the 1960's, but

locally, nationally, and internationally read these are the opposite, and we of line the wall with pictures of things ase the vietnam war, as well the flower power and things are more peaceful. things are moving on the very opposite in actions that are being taken that are trying to move a movement forward. beginning ofto the the exhibition, where we are asking the visitors to take a survey -- what do you bring to this exhibition, and what do you already know about the events of 1967? keepstroduction video that idea of perspective going. a lot of people within the community of detroit who are talking about is it a race riot, is it an uprising, what is the name of this event that happened?

we list that here. on the wall. all of these different words that are used in terms that are ofd to describe the events july 1967. we actually use all these worlds -- words in our copy as we go through the exhibition. as we enter the beginning section, that before section of the exhibition, we really want people to really understand the idea of perspective. this exhibition is based on perspective. it helps reinforce this idea of perspective. one of those is media perspective. we try to showcase after an incident that happened the year , thee mentioned 67 critical incident. this is an event that happened on the east side of detroit, and it's really where police harassment sparked a mini riot. hours, lasted for 24

mostly because it's her terrain, but through different media outlets, and newspapers in particular were able to show how words matter and the words that you choose help show what your perspective is. there is an interactive that you out ofate a headline using words, crowds, gathering. the words you selected to fill in the sentence indicates the perspective you have. into the area we are calling our timeline. it's on a typical timeline, it's not traditional. very much didactic. it really helps showcase everything that was happening recently going back 50 years. 50 years of detroit history into the 1960's. things like the great migration that was happening everywhere.

people were moving north and jobs were available in the north. this change the demographics of which led to housing issues that were happening throughout the city of detroit. much of the stuff that's happening is local happenings and things that are down below on the reader rails are more national. stage for what may have happened and what may have led to the events of 1967. the artifacts that we have selected in the space are really things that help visually tell a story. these are not artifacts -- is only lincoln's chair, where it's one thing, and that one chair tells a story. these are items that together help to tell a story coming of the words and images and then

they help added another layer. whereoves us into an area we really focus on detroit as a model city. cavanaughdeo of mayor getting a pitch about the olympics. information about other happenings in things that are going on. cobo was the local mayor. he was not loved by everyone. we also talk about the other events that were happening around the country. we have different riots and uprisings and rebellions that were happening around the country. cavanaugh was somebody .ho was beloved when detroit time

saw themselves as we are the model city. uprisings that were happening throughout the country, it wasn't going to happen here. we know that wasn't the case. at the time, they couldn't abandon it. we turn from here, the end of the beginning. this is helping to set context for the during. we are moving into the during. sparklly showcase the that ignited the events of 1967. time, the blind fate was not used nationally. they had explained what a blind pig was, this establishment and there's probably gambling and alcohol. it was not sold legally at the time. pig was on 12 in claremont.

an event that started in the evening on july 22. they were celebrated in the homecoming of two black soldiers who were returning from vietnam. establishment,he and that lit the spark that sent us the weeks that followed. and now we're entering the living room. we officially enter the during part of this exhibition. howhis living room, it's the most of its rights violation would have experienced these events. not everyone was right in the epicenter. downtime on the site in the west side, people were in their homes. they were learning about this on tv. , two was a media blackout

or three tv channels and newspapers were how you got your information. wereayor and the governor trying to institute with the media outlets. today, that wouldn't happen. we were trying to go from twitter and facebook. for almost 24 hours, the media did not report what was happening, because they thought that this event with settle down. mayor gavin ordered the police state back, they were able to go about and they thought they would get it out of their system. that didn't happen. this interactive shows commercials that would've happened in the 60's and things that people would have been watching on their tv. both locally and nationally. we had a telephone that rings when you walk into the space, and there were five different reported messages for people sort of spreading the news.

people got calls in their homes, this is what is going on. did your was happening on 12th street? saycenter tv, i should first acts as a panel giving you information and the two on the right and the left start to show actual footage of the events. directly withds an interactive map on the wall, which shows you really the geography of what was happening. were burning down, where the police were called in. later when the national guard was called in, where they were coming from. this panel shows what you didn't at then you are looking

there are no female journalists. there are no journalists color. there are no photos of white men and women being incarcerated. these are some of the things of the time that were normal, which obviously was part of the reason that -- the institutional reason why something like this would have happened. this takes us into our storefront interactive. this is very much a theatrical experience. you'rebition like this, not going to have an artifacts. view related to create index areas. we were hoping -- create an experience. we were hoping by the living room and storefront experience, these are things that kind of help people feel that they at

least have a little understanding of what might have happened in that moment. this is something that is sensor triggered, and you can see as it changes, goes from from a static display with artifacts in the window -- the window becomes opaque and we start to see the events of july 23, 1967. we selected a cancellation shoes as one of our storefront and joe's records. cancellation shoes was a store that was all over the city of the time. many of them were looted, many of them burned. joe's records was a local record shop i was owned by an african-american man. and many of the african-american oninesses wrote soul brother their window so they would not be looted and burned. joe's records was not looted, but because he was in proximity to the other fires, it was

damaged by water and subsequently had to close down. we have peoplet moving back and forth. this whole interactive really is to help dispel some of the myths that african-american men were the only people who were leaving. there were white people looting, there were women, and it really shows how people can become i guess ought up in what's going on in the moment and not really be thinking about long-term consequences. we have a lot of oral history quotes, there were kids who went into stores and one kid in particular, he grabbed a bunch of hats and was running down the street in the alley with these hats, and at one point, dropped them. this friend was like why did you do that, he was like i don't need any of this. i don't know why a ticket. -- why i took it. couldy telling how you

get caught up. one of the actual artifacts we do have is over here, it's a bottle of bourbon that was given to us by one of the advisors to this exhibit and it was one of the case that have been looted. it's probably the only real artifact from the looting that we were able to acquire. to turn from the storefront interactive and you see a tank. the tank is something that made it into -- i would say probably 95% of the oral histories mention the memory of a tank going down their street. whether was an abv or actual tank doesn't matter. it was a big piece of machinery that was rolling down a street and change everything. this tank is actually a theater. if we go around to the other side, this is -- there's an illustrated -- augmented

illustrative piece that was created, based on the oral histories that were taken. we world histories, every single one that showcases, they talk about a tank. and it is really nothing the pool in her heartstrings. it's a very impactful interactive. >> [indiscernible] >> behind the tank is really the response to everything that was going on. this is police response, this is what the hospitals were doing, this is firefighting response. incarceration. there's an image of some men being hauled off into a

temporary hold in place, which was a bus. there were many buses throughout the city that were holding prisoners. there were over 7000 people incarcerated and they had to get very creative about where people were being held. they were held in parking garages, on buses, the buses had no bathrooms and people were held for multiple days. which is pretty terrible. they were held on belle isle, a big community park in bathhouses, which luckily had bathrooms. we have a few artifacts in here that are ashley from the events of 1967, a policeman's helmet and a baton. we also have artifacts from a local firefighter who took photographs and a lot of his photographs are showcased in the exhibition. it's got his helmet, we also have spouts from the nozzles from the hose.

there are a lot of these tablets throughout the exhibition. the tablets hold a lot of additional information. you really put a book on the wall and it's very easy to get very text heavy, because there's a lot of talk about. we wanted to capture as much as possible, so would put them in the tablets, and these tablets have information, more of a deep dive into some of the topics. if you wanted to have the actual timeline of everything that went through. more information here. -- understaffed police and fire. there were only 200 police officers on duty at the time. government cleanup and it lists everything that was happening. myth busting is a big part of this. this event is built around a lot of mess, a lot of things over the course of 50 years. miss cropped up.

notent through and tried to set the record straight necessarily but dispel some of those myths and give our community some of the actual facts of the things that happened. and then perspectives as well, those media perspectives and additional oral histories. oral histories and their perspectives on these were horizontal cards that make their way through this exhibition and every place that you go through the exhibit, you're going to find some of those elements. these panel talk about media, and how after media did enter the scene with different perspective they brought to chronicling the events. this area here is really the very best and very worst of the events of 1967.

wasn't something that really reported on, and unfortunately, it didn't the death of three young men. ended in the death of three young men. and then you had neighbors, things that were going on in the community, because it all happened so quickly. people lost their livelihood. they lost their homes. they had no clothes. i talked to one little girl, who was a little girl at the time as you lost your favorite easter outfit. it was at the cleaners in the dry cleaners burned down. it was the only thing that happened to her and she is grateful, but she still thinks about that easter garment that she no longer has. these are the things we connect with on a personal level. they are important stories. there's another story in here in this tablet about a man who knew there was a man in a wheelchair that lived in one of those apartments that was burning and he ran in and save the man's life, and those of the kinds of stories that we need to showcase all of it. as a very hard story to tell and

stories like that remind us that we are people, remind us that we are human. the immediate aftermath video is the last elements of the during session of this is a thing that really hits home with a lot of people. it's by the numbers, literally. how many people were killed during this week? how many people lost their livelihood, how many people lost their homes. how many troopers were deployed, airborne, national guard, the numbers are really staggering. here into the after section of the exhibition, and the after section takes us from i would say the immediate week following all-wheel through today. about, how we talk demographics change throughout the city. this event did not cause white flight.

but people did leave after this. white families moved for jobs in the suburbs, they moved their homes to the suburbs and spread out a little bit. there was a lot of rebuilding happening so they went to find work elsewhere. african-americans who could leave also did. we talk about a lot of the organizations that were formed , focussult of this event hope being a large one. new detroit being a large one. most of these organizations -- both of these organizations are still around today. as a copy of the carter commissioner in this case it was a very vital report that came out a year after that really sort of showcased all the inequities that going on in the city. this was specifically for detroit, but it was happening in every city. this was threat to country, it was really spotlighting what was happening in detroit, and how we can change it. how we come as a city could change it and made very specific

recommendations for how the future could be different if we made these changes. hadrtunately, a lot of that not been looked at or followed. we've got a lot of video in these spaces. schools, theo from other activism that was going on at the time. unity you got black power coming to the foreground. a lot of free johnson player, which was in those very local. he was somebody who was incarcerated for drugs, kenneth cockrell ended up being a very big mover and shaker later, this is one he really came on the scene and was making impact. we talk about how much like in the before section, the after section, we have these themes the kind of run through.

talk about housing and education and housing change in city government and how that changed. and in many cases, how it didn't change. we talk about sports, something that happened that we -- that were really great for the city, the 68 tigers won the world series. we talk about coleman a young, the first african-american mayor of the city of detroit, elected in 1974 and was the mayor for many years and was reelected and a lot of great things for the city. sports teams, the detroit pistons won the world championship 1989, 1990. emily's fun run, emily gale was somebody according to the phrase say nice things about detroit, and it's got a resurgence, people are excited about it. through current times we talk about things that are happening with the city today, the queue line which is something that really only serves the business district

right now. there's hope for the future and an expansion of the queue line. business development, the new arenas that are going in. gardens that are happening in the neighborhoods and what do we do to reach out to the neighborhoods? secondn we come to the survey station. this area really talks about media today. how media is different. we have samples of cell phones and the evolution of cell phones. you have your blackberries and flip loans and palm pilots, which without which is these amazing things and we are well past that now. how you would be able to hear something like this happen today, you would hear about it immediately and how that is a stark contrast from a 1967, you didn't get a phone call or you didn't hear the news, you probably didn't hear about it. is second survey station much like the first survey

station, same questions and we're wondering here did we move the needle? did something change in what you might call the event in 1967? that information is then sent over to our moving forward area, which is the fourth section of this exhibition. at the slightly different area. you'll be able to find another survey station that looks forward to 2057. you will also be able to find where you fall amongst all the people who have come through the exhibition, which is great information to collect and we hope to be able to present that to the public in the future. that area over there also talks about what to detroit looks like in 2067 and where are we 50 years from now? and we arek 50 years looking for 50 years. 150 years of time, where we going to be, what are we going

to be doing? we have a lot of partners in different events that are happening throughout video detroit. this is something that if you go over to that section and you want to take an action after you've gone through this exhibition, if you feel so inspired, you can see what's happening in the city. indirectly reach out the other touchscreens, with a lot of our partners, go volunteer. become a part of the movements to move forward to 2067 and let's start conversation. >> i hope this exhibit may have taught something or encourage you to come and see it at the museum. 2067part of our project in , looking back to move forward. we really hope you will help us move detroit forward. >> you can watch this and other american artifacts programs by visiting our website at c-span.org/history. announcer: 50 years ago on july 23, 1957 detroit corrupted in

-- 1967, detroit corrupted in five days of civil disorder that led to 43 deaths, hundreds of injuries and more than 7000 arrests. wxyz tv was there to record the events as they unfolded. up next on american history tv is real america, courtesy of the archives of michigan, a half hour wxyz documentary showing the events of that week. some viewers may find portions of this disturbing. >> detroit was hit by a riot. we said it couldn't happen, but it did, the nation was shocked. this is a portion of the story of that riot which left 43 dead, thousands injured, the city in flames. these films tell part of that story.

>> i think it's kind of awful. people are in this position to suffer. all the stores are closed and the restrooms. >> blame anybody? >> i do not know who to blame. it's really awful. >> does that make it right? >> no, it is not right. >> are you angry, mad?