What Will a Penny Buy? (Reposted - Friday Writing Essentials)

H. Rap Brown, dark glasses and beret, stood on the roof on a store next to the Dexter Theater and asked the incendiary question: what will a penny buy? The chorus, well attuned to the tragedy that had been playing out in American cities in 1960s, chanted: Matches! Matches! Smiling broadly he rejoined, "Motown better come around or we're going to burn it down!" The crowd, stirred and comfortable at the same time because it was so large the police dared not approach it, roared its agreement. Can you imagine anger so profound that people will burn their own neighborhoods down to the ground?

My reaction to him was a little more measured. I secretly objected to him as a carpetbagger. He wasn't a Detroiter. He didn't live on this steel plantation. He would leave us to our own devices before the fire and smoke consumed our shadows. Yet these feelings were kept well inside for the crowd and my friends would not listen or, if they deigned to listen, would label me a coward which is to say an Uncle Tom.

As Camus says in "The Rebel", rebellion is the first stage of revolution. When people are thrown to the brink of their own, imagined or real, annihilation, they will strike out at whatever is nearest. Once they understand the dimensions of their oppression, they will execute a revolution. Not always. In this instance of course, there was no revolution, only rhetorical brushes with the shadowy romance of partaking in one.

Malcolm X had it right from the start when he said that revolution is about land. Its about bloodshed. You don't have a revolution that is considered a success because you can now sit down on a toilet next to a white man. When you understand what a revolution is, you'll jump back in the alley. We all did. We weren't revolutionaries, we just wanted the pain to stop.

It was early July and all of urban American was restive. But the crowd by the Dexter Theater was more jubilant than angry. Defiance can do that. It can be born with a sense of self-righteousness that can mature quickly into tragedy with hardly any effort. But that day, in the mugginess familiar to Detroit, everyone on that corner rejoiced in his celebrity and the rebellious mood that it was built on.

In a manner of a few days, July 17^th to be precise, my small and youthful community of artists was devastated by the death of John Coltrane. His music had provided a magnificent score for our young lives. There were two men in our galaxy that demanded intense honesty: John Coltrane and Malcolm X.

Coltrane's death left us literally in tears. There were wakes all over the city for him. We played his music constantly. No one wanted to write, dance, or play their music. We could only hear ‘Trane. "My Favorite Things" could be heard in the streets and no one objected. I felt betrayed by him. How could he die when I was struggling? I was a college drop-out with kids to raise and writing to finish, and he selfishly leaves us in the turmoil of American cities boiling in the heat of that long, hot summer.

July 23^rd, overzealous police officers raided a blind pig, attacking a Vietnam veteran in the process. There was a furious backlash. By the time I arose for breakfast, 12^th Street was in flames. Eventually, 43 people died, 1,189 sustained serious injuries and 7,000 people were arrested. The arrests yielded prisoners well beyond the planned capacity of county jails. The authorities began housing prisoners in pens on Belle Isle. Abuses were magnified. The city was at war with itself.

The city burned. Snipers were firing at the police. The police, outmanned and ill-prepared for an insurrection, finally relented and called in the National Guard. These poor weekend warriors had no idea what they were going to face and at every opportunity, the rioters took advantage of their inexperience.

Finally, the mayor requested assistance from the federal government. within a matter of a few days, soldiers fresh from the killing fields of Vietnam were patrolling our streets. Can you imagine hearing 50 caliber machine gun bursts throughout the night? Can you imagine US Army tanks rolling down your street? Being stopped and searched at every major intersection?

American history has comfortably relegated the Detroit insurrection to a summer of discontent that flamed into another race riot. It was not a race riot; it was a rebellion against hostile and aggressive policing of poor and Black neighborhoods. It was a rebellion against de facto segregation, against an unfair draft that was draining our working class communities of its youth while suburban kids went to college or joined the National Guard.

Race played a crucial role because at that time nearly the entire police force was composed of white men many of whom were recruited from southern states known for their racist beliefs and practices.

It has been over 40 years since my hometown fell into the abyss of blind rage and violence. The images of tanks with 50 caliber machines guns atop rolling pass my parents home and the sound of gunshots whizzing overhead while helicopters hovered above the madness will never leave me.

From Wikipedia:

Over the period of five days, forty-three people died, of whom 33 were black. The other damages were calculated as follows:

•·        467 injured: 182 civilians, 167 Detroit police officers, 83 Detroit firefighters, 17 National Guard troops, 16 State Police officers, 3 U.S. Army soldiers.

•·        7,231 arrested: 6,528 adults, 703 juveniles; 6,407 blacks, 824 whites. The youngest, 4; the oldest, 82. Half of those arrested had no criminal record. Three percent of those arrested went to trial; half of them were acquitted.

•·        2,509 stores looted or burned, 388 families homeless or displaced and 412 buildings burned or damaged enough to be demolished. Dollar losses from arson and looting ranged from $40 million to $80 million