Editing 1967 Detroit riots (section)

[[Image:Detroit_Riots.jpg|thumb]]
{{Quote|Black day in July<br>The streets of Motor City<br>are now are quiet and serene.<br>But the shapes of gutted buildings<br>strike terror to the heart.<br>And you say, 'how did it happen'?<br>And you say, 'how did it start'?<br>Why can't we all be brothers?<br>Why can't we live in peace?<br>But the hands of the have-nots<br>Keep falling out of reach.|Gordon Lightfoot, "Black Day in July"}}
The '''1967 Detroit riots''', also known as the '''Detroit Rebellion''' and the '''12th Street Riot''', was the bloodiest incident in the "Long, hot summer of 1967". Composed mainly of confrontations between black residents and the Detroit Police Department, it began in the early morning hours of Sunday July 23, 1967, in Detroit, Michigan.

The precipitating event was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar, then known as a "blind pig", on the city's Near West Side. It exploded into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in American history, lasting five days and surpassing the scale of Detroit's 1943 race riot 24 years earlier.

Governor George W. Romney ordered the Michigan Army National Guard into Detroit to help end the disturbance. President Lyndon B. Johnson sent in the United States Army's 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions. The result was 43 dead, 1,189 injured, over 7,200 arrests, and more than 400 buildings destroyed.

The scale of the riot was the worst in the United States since the 1863 New York City draft riots during the [[American Civil War]], and it was not surpassed until the [[1992 Los Angeles riots]] 25 years later.