INTRO: Metro Detroit has more than its share of problems compared to other major American cities. Some argue race is its biggest problem . And the 2000 U.S. census confirms it is the most segregated metro area in the country. White flight began in the 1940’s, if not earlier. It wasn’t just after the 67 riots. Michigan Now’s Chris McCarus has been asking Detroit city officials and candidates if they could officially invite whites back to live.
TRX1: Historian and native Detroiter Thomas Sugrue spoke earlier this year at Wayne State University. He’s a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Sugrue has documented how state local and federal policies dismantled Detroit. They also prevented racial integration.
AX1: “In my book Origins of the Urban Crisis I’ve written about this wall called the wailing wall. It was a foot thick six foot high cement wall built on the property lines between Berwood and Mendota, between Pembroke and 8 mile. Federal housing policy meant that developers couldn’t get mortgage guarantees and work out the financing necessary for the construction if the neighborhood was perceived to be a mixed one. The wall physically separated those neighborhoods. It’s ultimately a very concrete manifestation of the mostly invisible boundaries that separated black and white communities over the course of the 20th century.”
TRX2: The wailing wall was put up in northwest Detroit in the 1940’s. By 1960, 200,000 whites had left the city. This month, in the primary elections for city council, former TV and radio personality Charles Pugh won the most votes. If that’s repeated in the November general election, Pugh will be the next City Council President. He’s 38, and lives just north of Tiger Stadium. Could he ask whites to come on back?
AX2: “You know I want to go beyond white flight or black flight. I want to look at just flight period. We need them to come back because we need the tax base. But in order to make that argument we have to make some major improvements in crime and schools. And we have to be able to provide jobs. And to improve our quality of life so you don’t have to drive and hour to get to meijer. We have a good 5 year period where we have to get our house in order.”
AX3: “It’s been beneficial, to leadership in this city on both sides of 8 mile to be able to blame the other side.”
TRX3: Saunteel Jenkins directs a homeless shelter. She was an aid to City Council President Mary Ann Mahaffey who died in 2005. Mahaffey was white.
AX4: “In Detroit we’re seeing L. Brooks Patterson is responsible for every thing that is going wrong with the Cobo Hall deal. Then we don’t have to take responsibility. And for L. Brooks Patterson or anybody can say it’s those folks in Detroit, the reason our water rates are so high or, pick something, crime in our area, then they don’t have to take responsibility. So I think it’s been used by our leadership as a crutch.”
TRX4: Jenkins says that if she’s elected to City Council she’ll be different.
AX5: “you know the consistent finger pointing has gotten us where we are today. Clearly it’s not working.”
TRX5: Saunteel Jenkins praises New York and Chicago for their large immigrant populations and less hostility between city and suburbs. That helps them prosper.
AX6: “we have to get past the 1960’s and the 1950’s. All the white flight.”
TRX6: That’s Gary Brown. He was deputy police Chief under Kwame Kilpatrick. His whistleblower lawsuit led to the ex mayor’s downfall. I asked Kilpatrick if he could ask white flight folks to come on back to Detroit. Press Secretary Matt Allen stood at his side.
AX7: “I don’t understand your question.”
TRX7: At a gas station on Livernois and 7 mile, right near his house Gary Brown spoke a couple days before the election. He got the third most votes of any candidate.
AX8: “I certainly understand your question. Come on back and spend your dollars. Move into my neighborhood. Now are we asking for racists and bigots to move to the city of Detroit absolutely not. But we’re asking anybody, white black, yellow red, to come back and help revitalize this city. We need to be a more diverse city in order to grow. That’s what the grand kids of the white flight generation want. They want to be in an urban area. But it has to be safe. They have to have school systems they can raise their kids in.”
TRX8: Like Brown, Shelley Foy came from the police department. She commanded the child abuse unit. Then she became a teacher. She has no apparent resistance to whites moving back to Detroit. Like Charles Pugh she says new residents will strengthen the tax base.
AX9: “Chicago was like this many years ago. Chicago has got people to come back. The white flight to come back. Detroit can do it too. We have the greatest asset. The waterway. We have the asset. Now all we have to do is get people moving back into the city. I was over on Vicksburg street. Big beautiful homes. You can’t build homes like that anymore. We got to get the city back in order. We have to make people proud of where they live.”
TRX8.5: In June, Council Woman Joanne Watson was at a rally in Lansing. I identified myself as a public radio reporter then asked her:
AX8.5 “have you ever read that book Origins of the Urban Crisis. I’m sorry. No thank you.”
TRX9: None of the candidates interviewed for this report have read Thomas Sugrue’s Origins of the Urban Crisis….except current City Council President Ken Cockrel Jr.
AX10: “Oh yeah I’ve read it. Thomas Sugrue. That’s a book that anybody that wants to understand the city of Detroit has got to read.”
TRX10: Cockrel placed second in the voting on August 4. If he comes in second during the general election he won’t be council president anymore.
AX11: “Great book…
TRX11: Cockrel says white return has been taking place for 20 years in his neighborhood Woodbridge. The city overall is about 12% white.
AX12: “To say we forgive you come on back? I don’t know that’s necessary. One of the things you gotta recognize. For a lot of people the American dream for them was a house in the country. And frankly you’ve got a lot of African Americans in Detroit who’ve come to that conclusion and that’s why they’re leaving. But certainly for anybody out there who wants to realize the American dream in Detroit, we’d love to have you.”
TRX12: Cockrel say money is more important than race.
AX13: “On a lot of issues it’s not about black versus white it’s about green, which we need a lot more of in the city of Detroit.”
AX14: “Well the perception is that we’re just down here, we’re crazy, we’re lying, thieving stealing, taking bribes.”
TRX13: Tom Barrow ran for Mayor against Coleman Young in 1989. He’s running again this year. He says he has no problem asking anybody to move to Detroit. The problem is perception.
AX15: “In people’s minds we’re just, we’re fighting. We’ve got crime running rampant and so therefore they just want to leave us onto ourselves. In reality we’re nothing like that. In reality we have very good folks. We can create a vision for Detroit that will be second to none. We’ll resurrect. That happened once before with Detroit after the big fire. From the ashes will rise a new Detroit. That’s what I’m here about. That’s what I’m gonna do. You’ll see.”
TRX14: Barrow’s opponent in the November election is incumbent Mayor Dave Bing.
AX16: “I think we’ve got to get out of the fear factor. It’s not just a black white issue. It’s about strong economy. That’s what we’ve got to develop here. Once you have that you can deal with the race issue. But the racial issue does exist and we’re not gonna get away from it.”
For Michigan Now, I’m Chris McCarus
MP3: Detroit Politicians On if They Can Ask Whites to Return
Tags: detroit, politics, race relations