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From the Publisher
- Michigan State University Press
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From the Publisher To mark the fortieth anniversary of the 1967 Detroit riot, Michigan State University Press is issuing a new paperback edition ofSidney Fine's masterful work Violence in the Model City: The Cavanaugh Administration, Race Relations and the Detroit Riot of196Z Published originally in 1989, this book remains the definitive study of what followed a 23 July police raid on an illegal after-hours drinking establishment-a "blind pig"-in Detroit. In addition, Violence in the Model City is a comprehensive and detailed analysis of public policy during the years following the tragedy, as well as of the quarter century of political insensitivity, white racism, and poorly conceived urban planning that characterized Detroit between a 1943 riot and the bloody event in 1967. It is a chronicle of how a "model city" was transformed into an urban-American war zone. In many ways, Detroit's 1967 riot was an event of "the Sixties," a part of the tableau of escalating violence that occurred in many cities at a time when the nation was obsessed with the Vietnam War. It also was a hostile reaction to neglect, mistreatment, and misplaced beliefs held by many northern whites that integration issues, "the civil rights struggle," and "racial prejudice" were artifacts of the Old South. The late 1960s and the Detroit riot demonstrated that segregation and racism were not confined to regions below of the Mason Dixon Line. Jim Crow was alive in the north; he just showed his face a bit differently there. That summer of 1967, Detroit citizens, both black and white, took to the streets armed with guns and other weapons; buildings burned, business were looted; people were killed. The Detroit Police Department, the Michigan National Guard, and ultimately the U.S. Army intervened to restore order. In the process, authorities unleashed brutal counterattacks, some against innocent citizens-most of whom were black; at least forty-three people died. A "model American city" was transformed almost overnight into a symbol of all that was wrong with American urban life. This is a disturbing narrative that makes for arresting reading. Although Fine's book was out of print for a number of years, it remains a key point of departure for informed readers who seek to understand what happened to Detroit during the second half of Vlll From the Publisher the twentieth century. Forty years after the riot, Violence in the Model City provides us with an opportunity to revisit 1967 and to measure the distance we have come since that time. It should also inspire us to ask ourselves what, if anything, we have learned. ...