Bill Scott threw the first bottle at police, an act that encouraged violent uprisings by black Detroiters in 1967. His son grew up thinking his race didn’t matter. Until one night, suddenly, it did.
Detroit Journalism Cooperative
Posted inUrban Affairs
On the Detroit River, a faded dream at a city-owned marina
An African-American businessman dreamed of a place where people of color could live and boat on the river, in the shadow of high-rise luxury. It never happened.
Posted inUrban Affairs
He started the Detroit riot. His son wrestles with the carnage: Part 2
Bill Scott from a promotional poster for his book, “Hurt, Baby, Hurt.” The father The origins of the Scott family’s story is a familiar one in Detroit. William Walter Scott II, the owner of the blind pig and Bill Scott’s father, was born in Georgia and came to Detroit as child, just as the “Great […]
Posted inUrban Affairs
He started the Detroit riot. His son wrestles with the carnage: Part 3
Bill Scott with his sister Wilma and an unidentified friend (courtesy photo) Ann Arbor Bill Scott never did move back to Detroit. For the Ann Arbor of that era was a cauldron of activism, music, drugs and experimental ways of living and thinking, with John Sinclair and the White Panthers, SDS, feminist scholars, the Black […]
Posted inUrban Affairs
Black flight to suburbs masks lingering segregation in metro Detroit
Residential racism may be less overt than in the 1960s, but whites still live among whites, and blacks among blacks, 50 years after the violence of 1967.
Posted inTalent & Education
Detroit’s school crisis is a century in the making
The lawmakers charged with repairing the damage to the city’s schools should know it has roots that go back to the 19th century – even before the Civil War
Posted inMichigan Government
After decades of failure, will metro Detroit pass mass transit this year?
Southeast Michigan has tried, and failed, to craft a functional public-transit system that works – many times. Leaders hope the RTA’s master plan, to be revealed this spring, will turn the tide
Posted inMichigan Government
Before Flint, a Detroit-area water warning system was allowed to crumble
A state-of-the-art water contaminant warning system protected more than 4 million people in southeast Michigan. But a few years back, communities began to pull out of the network, to save money. After Flint, was that a mistake?
Posted inGuest Commentary
State teacher of year: Who am I to judge Detroit teacher sick-outs?
The stark inequality between Michigan’s rich and poor schools is the greatest obstacle to learning. Nowhere is that more true than in Detroit, where teacher sick-outs have put a spotlight on the terrible conditions in which children must learn
Posted inGuest Commentary
EM law had unintended racial consequences in Flint and Detroit
The legislature probably didn’t intend for its impact to fall disproportionately on Michigan's residents of color, but it has. Now is the time to investigate fixing it
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