With the 50th anniversary of the civil disturbance in Detroit happening this year, we’ve been hearing a lot of oral histories from people who witnessed the violence with their own eyes. Those stories are essential to understanding what the city has been through.
But are they being passed down to the next generation in Detroit? What do kids today think about what happened in the city in 1967? Do they even know about it?
This past year, students at the James and Grace Lee Boggs School on the city’s eastside spent a whole unit studying 1967. The school is a public charter with strong roots in social justice philosophy. The kids there spent several weeks researching, and they took a field trip to several sites including the intersection of 12th Street and Clairmount Avenue where the disturbance began. Students also presented what they learned to community members.
WDET’s Laura Herberg visited the school to find out what some of these young people think about the turmoil that shook Detroit decades before they were born. Click on the player above to hear an audio collage of the students explaining what happened. Below you’ll find more reflections.
Click on the blue quotes to hear the students’ voices.
Trevelle Crosby, 13 years old:
Sharon Johnson, 12 years old:
Ajani DeFreece, 12 years old:
Taleah Brown, 12 years old:
Lily Smentkowski, 10 years old:
Oscar Campbell, 10 years old:
Karrielle Crosby, 11 years old:
“They keep saying nothing’s barely changed from 50 years ago because everybody’s still getting killed. Everybody don’t even care about what happened 50 years ago. They don’t want to make the place better, they just want to keep going at it.”
Juli’jah Watson, 12 years old:
Kamari Ray, 13 years old: