Detroit: Race Riots, Racial Conflicts, and Efforts to Bridge the Racial Divide by Joe T. Darden and Richard Thomas (review)

Book Reviews 111 Overall, Brandt portrays a dedicated management and workforce that continuously improved the process and product; however, that was not enough to make magnesium a major contributor to the bottom line. Primarily a producer of commodity chemicals, Dow did not make a major effort to develop uses and markets for magnesium. In the 1990s, over half of the magnesium production was consumed in one application as a strengthening agent in aluminum for beverage cans. Magnesium never emerged from the shadow of aluminum. John K. Smith Lehigh University Joe T. Darden and Richard Thomas. Detroit: Race Riots, Racial Conflicts, and Efforts to Bridge the Racial Divide. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2013. Pp. 436. Photographs. Notes. References. Index. Paper, $29.95. In Detroit: Race Riots, Racial Conflicts, and Efforts to Bridge the Racial Divide, Joe Darden and Richard Thomas have written an important and compelling book that uses a comparative historical analysis to examine the impact of the 1967 race riots on this once great American city. Detroit, home to the Big 3 automakers and Motown Records, symbolized the might of the US economy, yet it became the largest US city to file for bankruptcy in 2013. While the latter distinction is not included in the almost half century of urban history covered in the book, the authors use the ’67 riots as the point of demarcation as they meticulously chronicle the divergent trajectories of the city and its large African American population in comparison to the metropolitan region’s overwhelmingly white suburban population, much of which fled the city in the aftermath of the riots. Darden and Thomas provide an extensive analysis of socioeconomic and demographic data over a more than four decade period to survey the extent to which the socio-historical conditions that gave rise to the racial unrest, the perception of which differed along racial lines, have changed. They also examine the degree to which the quality of life for the city’s post-riot, predominately black, population has improved or deteriorated relative to the metropolitan area’s other, increasingly diverse, racial and ethnic groups. The authors give incisive accounts of the respective viewpoints of the riots and their causes: the abusive and adversarial relationship 112 The Michigan Historical Review between the black community and the police (which was the accelerant that ignited the riots); the contentious battles over school desegregation that exacerbated white flight; employment discrimination; and the ascendancy of black political power in the city. The mayoral administrations of Coleman Young, Dennis Archer, and Kwame Kilpatrick (1974–2008) are used to examine this black political empowerment and to raise one of the most important and provocative questions posed by Darden and Thomas, not only for Detroit but other urban centers under black/minority control: “What has been the effectiveness of black political power and demographic dominance in driving socioeconomic change?” (p. xv) It is here that the true value of this text is realized. For while it is a case study of arguably the most spectacular decline of any major American city not caused by a natural disaster, it provides urban scholars, public officials, and city leaders a stark illustration of the possible consequences of a metropolitan region with deeply ingrained racial/ethnic divisions, failing to reconcile its racial/ethnic differences in pursuit of social equity, enhanced life chances for all its residents, and regional economic sustainability. In the last chapters, Darden and Thomas discuss such efforts and suggest a strategy of “spatial mobility” for current Detroit residents. While I can appreciate the authors’ argument for such a policy, it is questionable whether this approach can be brought to the scale necessary to impact a significant portion of Detroit’s marginalized, black population. Would the receiving suburbs be receptive to an influx of low-income blacks or would it spur further white flight and racial antagonism? Ronnie A. Dunn, Ph. D. Maxine Goodman-Levin College of Urban Affairs Cleveland State University Don Faber. The Boy Governor: Stevens T. Mason and the Birth of Michigan Politics. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2013. Pp. 224. Illustrations. Paper, $26.95. Don Faber has followed his earlier work, The Toledo War: The First Michigan...