DETROIT — One thing Lou Eva Carr remembers is the smoke.
After visiting family in Ohio, Carr and her family were driving
back to Detroit when they heard the news on the radio. Twelfth Street was on
fire.
"There was tons of smoke; I remember a lot of National Guard
everywhere, naturally," Carr said. "I was going to see one of my daughters
who lived on Santa Rosa when I saw the National Guard open fire on people. I
was almost killed; I saw (the National Guard) kneeling down and my
sister-in-law pulled me into a house. What I remember was the smoke we saw from
the guns."
The riot/rebellion of July 23-28, 1967, reverberates through
Detroit today. Shattered windows and broken storefronts turned into shattered
souls and broken hopes, as a city tore itself apart from racial and social
divides that still haven't been fully healed today.
"I was a parishioner at Church of the Madonna at the time of
the rebellion," said Carr, who today attends St. Charles Lwanga Parish on
the northwest side. "At the time, the church was more focused on Catholic
ritual than it is today. But I remember Father (Charles) O'Neill, talking about
need to heal the racial divisions at the time."
Many other priests, from Father Bill Cunningham to Msgr. Thomas
Finnegan to Father Norm Thomas were and still are at the forefront of social
activism.
After the chaos and violence, it was left to pastors and priests
in the city to bring a sense of clarity to a population rocked by civil unrest
and justified anger.
Father Victor Clore, today pastor of Christ the King Parish in
northwest Detroit, was an associate pastor at St. Francis de Sales in 1967.
"The neighborhood where I was assigned was in the process of
African-Americans first purchasing homes in the area," Father Clore
recalled. "The so-called 'white flight' was already happening before the
riot began, and our neighborhood was in a transition phase."
Father Clore and his fellow priests at St. Francis de Sales
worked with clergy from the local Lutheran and Presbyterian churches to
organize community meetings to discuss racial and social issues.
A point of contention was the real estate industry selling a home
in a predominately white neighborhood to a black family. After the black family
moved in, Father Clore said white parishioners at St. Francis de Sales would
receive offers to sell their homes and move out to the suburbs at an incredible
price in a process known as "blockbusting."
The chance to have a bigger home in a safer neighborhood at a
cheaper price proved too tempting for many, as Father Clore witnessed the
"bulldozing" of the parish community at St. Francis de Sales.
"What happened after 1967 really accelerated 'white
flight,'" Father Clore said. "The population at de Sales really
diminished in the five to 10 years after the uprising. There were
African-American Catholics who moved into the neighborhood, became parishioners
and sent their kids to the school, but white families started leaving."
The changing demographics of the neighborhood created a funding
gap for many inner-city parishes and schools. It wasn't long after the riots
that Father Clore noticed church attendance at St. Francis de Sales dropping by
the hundreds.
In an era when Catholic schools were funded by parishioners,
regardless of whether they had children in the schools, a drop in parishioners
meant a drop in funding. The schools were forced to raise tuition, which in
turn priced out many African-American families moving into the neighborhood.
The effects of the rebellion of 1967 reverberated throughout the
Detroit archdiocese in the following years. A flight of white — and black —
parishioners to the suburbs left many urban parishes on shaky financial
footing, resulting in the closing and merging of parishes that left many black
Catholics who stayed in the city behind.
"The main thing that reverberates today is the black
community in Detroit feels like they don't have a full voice in the Catholic
Church," said Leon Dixon, director of black Catholic ministries for the
Archdiocese of Detroit.
"We've had periods where they feel they had a voice, but not
particularly a full voice. Whether we agree or disagree why our churches
closed, a great number of African-Americans' churches closed since 1967, and
it's left a sour taste in the mouths of many," he said.
During a time of racial tension and social upheaval, the Catholic
Church was in the midst of transformation itself with the Second Vatican
Council and a Detroit archdiocesan synod.
Auxiliary Bishop Donald F. Hanchon was 20 when the 1967 riot
happened, serving as a transitional deacon at St. Agnes Parish in Detroit while
studying at Sacred Heart Seminary.
After seeing the effects of the social unrest on the neighborhood
surrounding the parish, he resolved to work in the city, in parishes with
poorer, African-American parishioners.
"Archbishop John Dearden came home from the Second Vatican
Council with a clear vision to implement lay leadership and lay
involvement," Bishop Hanchon said. "But in many parishes, many white
parishioners weren't comfortable with having black leadership and parishes, and
many traditionalist pastors weren't comfortable with lay leadership in the
first place.
"It took five, 10 years for the dust to settle," Bishop
Hanchon said. "And by then the demographics of many of the parishes in the
city had already changed."
Fifty years removed from 1967, the effects of the riot or
rebellion — whatever people choose to call it — still impacts the Catholic
Church in Detroit.
Many who lived through 1967 have their own stories to tell,
grievances to bear and injustices they've witnessed as the church looks to move
forward, but never forgetting what happened then.
As Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron urges the church in southeast
Michigan to begin a new chapter to "Unleash the Gospel," 1967 will
remain a watershed moment in the local church's history — one that will always
be a part of, but not necessarily define, the church as it seeks to bring the
Gospel to the city of Detroit.
"Detroit has always required people of hope getting their
hands dirty to give others hope," Bishop Hanchon said. "As a Detroiter,
I feel I'm the inheritor of a wonderful tradition that goes beyond the Catholic
Church."
The purpose of remembering historical events isn't to bring up
old wounds, but to recall lessons from the past.
"It's a good thing in our day to put Jesus at the center and
ask, 'What would Jesus do if he were in Detroit?'" Bishop Hanchon said.
"You have to agree: He wants us together as brothers and sisters. That's
why 50 years after the riot, I can remember those images vividly. The smell in
the air, the music of the day, the energy of the people. But I like to remember
with hope."
Meloy is a staff reporter at The Michigan Catholic,
newspaper of the Archdiocese of Detroit.