The Development of the Interfaith Emergency Center
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Date
1969-11
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Publisher
Disaster Research Center
Abstract
Description
. . . it just so happened that on Sunday morning I had said in the pulpit that I had just finished a tour of the ghetto in Detroit and that if anyone thought
that Detroit was going to escape violence we were that if we were able to escape it this summer we would have it by next summer. At that point the riots were
already in progress but no one knew it. That evening my wife and I were looking at the TV coverage of the Israeli-Arab conflict and they interrupted the program
to say that the Grand Rapids National Guard would report to their center. We heard that announcement a couple of times and I said to my wife that it looked
like there was trouble in Grand Rapids. If there was I would probably head for Grand Rapids. I called our Association Minister and asked him what was happening in Grand Rapids and he said he didn't know what was happening at: Grand Rapids --all he knew was what was happening in Detroit. And I said, "well, what do you mean?" And he said, "well, the whole intercity looks like it's about to break open.!'
Detroit, Michigan, on Sunday, July 23, 1967. First, certain persons in the Detroit community were sensitive to possible trouble that might erupt into a full-scale disturbance. Second, most of Detroit's citizens were totally unaware of-events occurring in their city. City and state officials received the news media's cooperation in down-playing the event, so that local officials would obtain some control over the situation. However, national affiliates in other cities were reporting the events happening in Detroit. And third, most citizens learned of the disturbance through many indirect channels.
Keywords
interfaith, Detroit, racial crisis, emergency center