In the early stages the media didn’t report on events to try and maintain calm and prevent copycat action, but this had a marginal effect. Fighting, looting and arson spiralled out of control and completely overwhelmed the Detroit police force. The State Police and then the National Guard were brought in to assist, and the situation became so serious that President Johnson brought the military into the city.

By the time everything was over the devastation was immense – Wikipedia records forty-three deaths, 467 injuries, over 7,200 arrests, and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed by arson. So many people were arrested that there was nowhere to put detainees and various makeshift facilities had to be used. At one point on the second day of the riots, 40 National GuardUS cities called white flight. This is the name given to the migration of white people from inner cities to the suburbs where racially-restrictive housing policies made it hard for back people to live. The construction of interstate freeways across America was the enabler for this demographic change – allowing suburbanites to easily commute to their jobs in the city.

Changing demographics in Detroit

The effects of the declining auto industry and lingering issues from the riots have had a dramatic effect on the city and reversed the population from a white majority to a black majority in within 40 years. The black population within the city became trapped, initially by regulations that prevented them from moving to the suburbs, and in later decades by the falling value of property