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Summary Of Race And Inequality In Detroit By Thomas Sugrue

729 Words3 Pages

Thomas J. Sugrue. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. In his 1996 monograph entitled The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, Thomas J. Sugrue explores the factors which led gradually to the “urban crisis” in Detroit, arguing that, “It is only through the complex and interwoven histories of race, residence, and work in the postwar era that the state of today’s cities and their impoverished residents can be fully understood and confronted,” (Sugrue, 5). Sugrue proposes that it is not the riot of 1967 which triggered the urban crisis, but rather the culmination of these issues. Sugrue’s work is divided into three parts: “Arsenal”, “Rust”, and “Fire”. The first section, abbreviated …show more content…

Particularly in retail, the employees were the face of the business - the ones with whom the customers interacted. As a result of this,
The employment of black salespeople… would undermine the thoroughly bourgeois atmosphere of high-end retail shopping… [and] store owners sometimes acted on their fears that black employees would steal from the cash register or pilfer store merchandise. (Sugrue, …show more content…

Whites took “the wretched conditions” of Paradise Valley as “the fault of irresponsible blacks, not greedy landlords or neglectful city officials,” and because housing was a “powerful symbol of ‘making it’”, whites in Detroit saw this plight as “personal failure and family breakdown,” (Sugrue, 216-217). As a result of the social changes which emerged during the postwar period, Sugrue explains that “Detroit was… torn by cataclysmic violence…” (Sugrue, 260). Sugrue’s claim that, rather than taking the riot of 1967 as the catalyst for urban crisis in Detroit, one must understand a number of factors which preceded the riot in order to understand this issue, is well-defended by numerous anecdotes detailing the the history of Detroit since the postwar period. His claim and information are backed by a wide variety of sources, including books, academic papers and journals, newspaper articles (from a number of sources including the Dearborn Press, the Detroit News, and the Michigan Chronicle), and

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