Access for All leads to the alternative four-year degree
Black Bottom and Paradise Valley: Center of Black Life in Detroit Page B1
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Volume 80 – Number 21
michiganchronicle.com
February 1-7, 2017
Pancakes & Politics returns for 12th season
The Michigan Chronicle
As Pancakes & Politics moves into its 12th year, one thing is for certain — there will be no shortage of topics to discuss. This is already a big year in the news, both locally and nationally, and we’re barely out of January. As always, those invited to share their views during this year’s four separate forums focusing on the critical issues of the day will be sure to provide those in attendance with more than enough food for thought. Created in 2006, Pancakes & Politics has established itself as a widely-respected forum
for discussing the business and economic issues affecting the entire metro Detroit region. The series brings together leading newsmakers in the business and government sectors to address the topics considered most relevant to the community. The event regularly attracts an audience including many elected officials, as well as business and community leaders from across the region. In years past, Pancakes & Politics has welcomed a wide variety of influential local and regional leaders such as Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, Michigan Sen. Bert
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& POLITICS page A-4
The Algiers Motel Incident
Is Muslim ban the beginning of 'The Fire Next Time'?
TERROR IN BLUE
There is an eerie link between Trump's Muslim ban and the 1967 riot/rebellion By Keith A. Owens Senior Editor
Whether you choose to call it a rebellion or a riot, history is pretty clear that such tumultuous events do not occur in a vacuum. In other words, folks don’t just wake up one fine morning and decide, what a wonderful day for a riot. Without a doubt there are more than a few reasons to question the effectiveness of such events, particularly since the end result is most often widespread destruction of property, limited to the confines of the aggrieved community. And in 1967-era Detroit, where a boiling rage and anger against persistent and perpetual racial injustice had been simmering for several decades, it didn’t take much for that anger to catch fire and spill over into an all-consuming flame that left devastated communities in its wake. Charred skeletons that haunted the city’s landscape for even more decades to follow. The point being that anger always has a cause and a source, it is not just a stand-alone effect. But 50 years later, the historical significance of that anger is still being debated. Was it a riot or was it a rebellion? Was it a righteous protest
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WHAT’S INSIDE
Another important
Motown
book
See page D-1
By Roz Edward
becoming known as the ’67 Rebellion.
Managing Editor
When the violence of the summer of 1967 began, a number of individuals, desperate to get off the street and to safety, took refuge in the annex of the Algiers Motel, which was actually a large house behind the Algiers Motel located at Woodward and Virginia Park. All total, there were nine people, seven black males and two white females, caught in the cross hairs of their self-appointed judges and executioners.
Events at the height of the 1967 riot, coupled with an overwhelmed police force and terror in the streets resulted in one of the most tragic events in Detroit’s history. On July 25, 1967, in one of the most deplorable miscarriages of justice that occurred during the 1967 riot, three young black men met their deaths under dubious circumstances at the Algiers Motel, executed by members of city, state and national law enforcement officers. Nine others were subjected to mental torture, terrorized and brutally beaten. It later became known as the Algiers Motel Incident. This collective of rogue cops, Detroit Police, Michigan State Troopers, National Guardsmen, and private guards who had been directed to the scene, didn’t conspire, as many have believed for decades, to beat and kill guests at the Algiers. They did, however, act on the fear and panic which was the order of the day, and they did so with great and unchecked fervor.
DETROIT
1967- 2017
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Responding to a telephoned report of sniping, the police group invaded the Algiers Motel and interrogated 10 black men and two white women, none of whom were armed, for an hour. By the time the interrogators left, three men had been shot to death and the others, including the women, were badly beaten. The dead: Carl Cooper, 17; Aubrey Pollard,19; Fred Temple, 18. Boys. What transpired on that fateful day… The five days of turmoil that left 43 people dead in Detroit was approaching the height of violence on July 25, 1967, two days into the rebellion, and the day of the most violent single incident during what is
The Algiers Motel, which had at one time provided respite for traveling businessmen, had fallen into decline as Detroit’s economic downturn escalated and began to take its toll on residents and neighborhoods. By the time of the Algiers Motel Incident, the lodging had a reputation for housing drugs, prostitutes and transients. As the light of day shone on July 26, it layed bare the horrors that had occurred under the perilous cloak of darkness from the night before. Three black teen-
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MOTEL page A-4
Chemical Bank commits $35,000 in scholarships to second annual Michigan Chronicle S.W.A.G. Awards Scholarship Program The Michigan Chronicle proudly announces that Chemical Bank has signed on as a sponsor of its second annual Students Wired for Achievement and Greatness Awards Scholarship Program (S.W.A.G. Awards), committing $35,000 in scholarship dollars for deserving students. Created in 2016, the S.W.A.G. Awards seek to ensure that more metro Detroit students demonstrating leadership in areas beyond academics have access to scholarships. The program is open to minority high school seniors who live and attend school in metro Detroit, are planning to attend college or a trade school, have at least a 2.5 grade point average, and have demonstrated a commitment to service and integrity. While this is the first year of support as Chemical Bank, Talmer Bank and Trust, which merged with Chemical in late 2016, anchored the inaugural S.W.A.G. Awards program and awarded 25 deserving students, including a top award of $10,000. “Chemical Bank is proud to continue support of the Michigan Chronicle’s S.W.A.G. Awards. There are few better ways to help a community thrive and grow than by investing in the next generation of its leaders, so it
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AWARDS page A-4