The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit

433 Pages·2014·16.751 MB·English

by  Thomas J. Sugrue, Thomas J. Sugrue

THE ORIGINS OF THE URBAN CRISIS

THE ORIGINS OF THE URBAN CRISIS
RACE AND INEQUALITY
IN POSTWAR DETROIT
With a new preface by the author
Thomas J. Sugrue
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD
Copyright © 1996, 2005 by Princeton University Press
Preface copyright © 2014 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
All Rights Reserved
First edition, 1996
First paperback printing, 1998
Revised edition, 2005
First Princeton Classics edition, with a new preface by the author, 2014
Paperback ISBN 978-0-691-16255-3
Library of Congress Control Number 2013957570
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in New Caledonia
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
press.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Dana and My Parents

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
List of Tables xiii
Preface to the Princeton Classics Edition xv
Preface to the 2005 Paperback Edition xxxii
Acknowledgments li
Introduction 3
PART ONE: ARSENAL 15
1. “Arsenal of Democracy” 17
2. “Detroit’s Time Bomb”: Race and Housing in the 1940s 33
3. “The Coffin of Peace”: The Containment of Public Housing 57
PART TWO: RUST 89
4. “The Meanest and the Dirtiest Jobs”: The Structures
of Employment Discrimination 91
5. “The Damning Mark of False Prosperities”: The
Deindustrialization of Detroit 125
6. “Forget about Your Inalienable Right to Work”: Responses
to Industrial Decline and Discrimination 153
PART THREE: FIRE 179
7. Class, Status, and Residence: The Changing Geography
of Black Detroit 181
8. “Homeowners’ Rights”: White Resistance and the Rise
of Antiliberalism 209
9. “United Communities Are Impregnable”: Violence
and the Color Line 231
Conclusion. Crisis: Detroit and the Fate of
Postindustrial America 259
viii CONTENTS
Appendixes
A. IndexofDissimilarity,BlacksandWhitesinMajor
AmericanCities,1940–1990 273
B. AfricanAmericanOccupational StructureinDetroit,
1940–1970 275
ListofAbbreviationsintheNotes 279
Notes 281
Index 365
Illustrations
Figures
P.1 Mark Twain Branch, Detroit Public Library, 2011, by Brandon
Davis (courtesy of Brandon Davis) xiv
P.2 Abandoned and collapsing house on Detroit’s West Side
(author’s photograph) xxxii
1.1 Criss-Crossed Conveyors, Ford River Rouge Plant, 1927, by
Charles Sheeler (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ford Motor
Company Collection. Gift of the Ford Motor Company and John C.
Waddell, 1987. [1987.1100.1]) 16
1.2 Shift change at the Ford River Rouge Plant (courtesy of the
Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University) 20
1.3 Aerial view of Detroit’s West Side, 1937 (© Detroit News) 21
2.1 Typical African American neighborhood, 1942, by Arthur
Siegel, United States Office of War Information (courtesy of the
Library of Congress) 32
2.2 Black-owned home and garden plot in the Eight Mile–Wyoming
neighborhood, 1942, by John Vachon, United States Farm
Security Administration (courtesy of the Library of Congress) 40
2.3 Clearance of land for urban renewal near Gratiot Avenue and
Orleans Street, on Detroit’s Lower East Side, 1951 (courtesy of the
Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University) 49
3.1 Detroit Housing Commission map of proposed public housing
projects in Detroit in the 1940s (courtesy of the Library of
Congress) 56
3.2 Wall separating the black Eight Mile–Wyoming neighborhood
from an adjacent white area in northwest Detroit, 1941, by John
Vachon, United States Farm Security Administration (courtesy of
the Library of Congress) 65
3.3 Billboard protesting black occupancy of the Sojourner Truth
Homes, February 1942, by Arthur Siegel, Office of War Information
(courtesy of the Library of Congress) 74