DETROIT– The site of a temporary motel in Detroit where three young black men were murdered, allegedly by white police officers, during the city’s bloody riots Race riots in 1967 will receive a historical marker.
An opening ceremony is planned for Friday, a few miles north of the city center, where the Algiers Motel once stood.
As parts of Detroit burned in one of the bloodiest race riots in American history, police and National Guardsmen stormed the motel and adjacent Manor House on July 26, 1967, after reports of gunfire in the area.
The bodies of Aubrey Pollard, 19, Carl Cooper, 17, and Fred Temple, 18, were later found. About a half dozen others, including two young white women, had been beaten.
Several more trials took place, but no one was convicted of the murders and assaults.
“A historical marker cannot tell the whole story of what happened at the Algiers Motel in 1967, nor can it pass judgment on the horrors and injustices of the past,” said historian Danielle McGuire. “However, it can begin the healing process for survivors, victims’ families, and community members by telling the truth.”
McGuire worked with community members and the Michigan Historical Marker Commission for years to have a marker placed at the site.
“What we choose to remember — or forget — is indicative of who and what we value as a community,” she said in a statement. “Initiatives that seek to remember incidents of state-sanctioned racial violence are affirming statements about the value of Black lives then and now.”
Resentment among Detroit’s blacks toward the city’s predominantly white police department had been simmering for years before the unrest. On July 23, 1967, it boiled over after a police raid on an illegal after-hours club about a dozen blocks from Algiers.
Five days of violence would leave about three dozen black people dead, 10 white people dead, and more than 1,400 buildings burned. More than 7,000 people were arrested.
The riots helped accelerate the flight of whites from the city to the suburbs. Detroit had a population of about 1.8 million in the 1950s. By 1960, it was the nation’s fourth-largest city. Half a century later, Detroit’s population was about 713,000.
The declining population devastated Detroit’s tax base. Many businesses also fled the city, following the white and black middle classes to wealthier suburban communities to the north, east and west.
Deep in long-term debt and running billions of dollars in annual budget deficits, the city fell under state financial control. A state-installed manager led Detroit into the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history in 2013. Detroit emerged from bankruptcy in late 2014.
Today the city has about 633,000 inhabitants, according to the US census.
The Algiers, which was demolished in the late 1970s and is now a park, has been featured in documentaries about the Detroit riots. 2017 film “Detroit” described the 1967 riots, focusing on the Algiers Motel incident.
“While we will acknowledge the history of the site, our primary focus will be on honoring and remembering the victims and acknowledging the harm done to them,” McGuire said. “The past is immutable, but by telling the truth about history — even hard truths — we can help create a future where this kind of violence does not happen again.”