60 pages • 2 hours read
Thomas J. SugrueThe Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1996A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “Fire”
Part 3, Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis: “Class, Status, and Residence: The Changing Geography of Black Detroit”
Chapter 7 focuses on Detroit’s shifting racial topography. Racial covenants confined Black people to specific neighborhoods in the first half of the 20th century. After World War II, Black people began challenging these covenants in court alongside civil-rights groups. In 1948, the US Supreme Court heard three covenant cases that stressed covenants’ negative impact on Black people and challenged the legality of state-sanctioned racial discrimination. Swayed by these sociological and constitutional arguments, the Court unanimously ruled that racial covenants could not be enforced. Black people—especially members of the middle class—began challenging Detroit’s racial boundaries after the ruling. Black enclaves expanded beyond the city’s East Side, and housing conditions improved as Black people moved to newer areas with better buildings. Despite these improvements, however, Detroit remained highly segregated. White flight opened new areas to some Black city dwellers, but not to those in poverty. Black people with high-paying jobs crossed traditional racial boundaries, while Black people with little or no income remained trapped in crumbling urban neighborhoods.
Pushing at the Boundaries: Black Pioneers
Middle-class Black people were the first to challenge Detroit’s racial boundaries. This segment of the population expanded in the 1940s and 1950s. As their wealth grew, Detroit’s Black elite sought housing outside the racially segregating urban enclaves. These so-called pioneers moved into areas adjacent to Black neighborhoods that had been abandoned by white people fleeing to the suburbs. Buying in formerly white areas allowed Black people to build equity to finance better homes in the future, and it raised their social status.
The Open-Housing Movement
The growth of the Black elite coincided with the integrationist movement. Civil-rights activists lobbied for equal access to desegregated housing, believing that daily contact between the races would curb prejudice and inequality. The housing desegregation movement began in the late 1940s but grew dramatically the following decade. The Mayor’s Interracial Committee (MIC), founded after the race riots of 1943, played a central role in promoting integration by opposing segregation in public housing, striving to abolish racial covenants, and investigating instances of racial conflict. The MIC also urged white people to support desegregation, arguing that integration was inevitable and that it was in their best interest to cooperate to create stable communities. The MIC and other civil-rights groups published pamphlets and newspaper articles extolling desegregated housing. They pointed to other cities, such as Philadelphia and Chicago, as models of racial change. Further, they enlisted religious leaders to call for racial cooperation. In addition to appealing to white people’s morality, civil-rights groups used politics to advance their cause, asking the Federal Housing Administration and other government groups to help Black people purchase foreclosed houses in white neighborhoods. Starting in 1964, open-housing advocates used Black and white testers to document and curb racial discrimination in the real-estate market.
“Blockbusting” Real-Estate Agents
Real-estate agents played a central role in changing Detroit’s racial boundaries. Some sincerely believed in integration, while others sought to capitalize on the economic opportunities presented by open housing. “Blockbusting” agents helped Black people buy homes in white neighborhoods and spread rumors of a Black “takeover,” prompting white people to put their homes on the market at reduced prices. In other words, “blockbusting” agents played both sides and profited handsomely in the process. They also served as lenders, filling gaps left by banks and other financial institutions who refused to extend loans to Black buyers. These risky land contracts had above-market interest rates. Buyers who defaulted were summarily evicted, allowing agents to sell their homes to other desperate Black people. Civic authorities failed to curb unethical real-estate practices, despite passing a law to protect buyers and sellers in the early 1960s.
Separation by Class
Real-estate practices changed Detroit’s social geography. Affluent Black people were the first to move into transitional neighborhoods, followed by financially unstable working-class Black people. The latter group struggled with high home prices and above-market interest rates. To meet their obligations, many took on boarders, shared homes with other families, and skimped on building maintenance. Black neighborhoods became further segregated by class, leaving many Black people isolated in low-income, underresourced districts. Census data supports this conclusion: In 1960, Black people living in formerly white areas earned an average of 73% more than residents of old Black neighborhoods (199). From 1950 to the end of the 1970s, people living on the outskirts of Detroit had higher incomes than those living in the inner city (199).
Status and Conflict
Racial and class divisions grew in Detroit over time. White people clustered in racially homogenous suburbs, while Black professionals moved to formerly white areas. Black people with low incomes remained in the urban core. These latter Black people struggled to find work, had few protections from layoffs, and could not afford to own or rent homes in desirable neighborhoods. Low-income, predominantly Black neighborhoods had the highest unemployment rates in the city. These areas also had high juvenile delinquency rates starting in the 1950s (204). Affluent Black people protected their neighborhoods (as white people did) through covenants that banned boardinghouses and enforced single-family occupancy rules. Black elites objected when Black people with low incomes moved to their neighborhoods, describing the newcomers as gang members, transients, and welfare recipients who failed to maintain their properties and thereby lowered real-estate values (206). The movement of affluent Black people to formerly white areas transformed Detroit’s social geography. The city saw the formation of distinct Black communities defined by income, occupation, and status. In short, Black Detroit became increasingly segregated along class lines, with many remaining trapped in the city’s worst housing.
Part 3, Chapter 8 Summary and Analysis: “Homeowners’ Rights: White Resistance and the Rise of Antiliberalism”
Chapter 8 addresses the backlash against the open-housing movement. In the 1950s and 1960s, populist politicians railed against crime, racial integration, and taxation, blaming Black people and liberals for the socioeconomic woes of the white working class. Populists focused on race and homeownership, arguing that integration fueled violent crime, blight, and the “general lowering of moral standards” (210). Detroit’s white working and middle classes formed neighborhood organizations in response to these perceived threats. The anti-integration movement became one of the largest grassroots movements in the city’s history and reshaped Detroit’s politics.
The Rise of the Homeowners’ Movement
White Detroiters founded 192 neighborhood organizations between 1943 and 1965 (211). These organizations aimed to uphold civic values, guard their members’ investments (i.e., their homes), and protect neighborhoods and families. Members cast themselves as rooted and independent, in contrast to those in poverty, who were transient and dependent on social services. Records reveal that neighborhood organizations were ethnically diverse but predominantly white, with large numbers originating from the South. Although racial exclusion was not their primary mission, these organizations enforced building restrictions and covenants as well as zoning laws that kept their neighborhoods white. Neighborhood organizations also lobbied the city for better services, such as trash pickup, and organized social activities for members.
Neighborhood associations were as much about identity as they were about safety and protecting financial investments. In addition to stressing race and family, the groups were religiously cohesive, with most members practicing Roman Catholicism. Exclusivity was a salient feature of neighborhood organizations. The groups resisted change, notably open housing and desegregation. Members generally opposed racial intermingling, fearing that Black people would “invade” their neighborhoods and transform them into “slums.” Sugrue argues that housing had become such an important symbol of success for working-class families that derelict neighborhoods were viewed as personal failures and signs of family breakdown. The media reinforced negative racial stereotypes with sensational stories about Black “criminals” and white “victims,” despite the rarity of Black-on-white crime (217).
Homeowners’ Rights Versus Civil Rights
Neighborhood associations couched their political demands as rights, just as activists lobbying for workers and people of color had in the postwar years. They stressed the link between the right of homeownership and opportunity, as well as the right to live in neighborhoods of their choosing. The power of homeowners’ rights came from their imprecision: Some argued that property was acquired through industriousness, casting homeowners’ rights as a reward for sacrifice, while others exploited America’s founding documents to justify their neighborhoods’ exclusivity, arguing they had a right to assemble and choose their associates. Many believed that Black people gained civil rights at the expense of white people, while others took a majoritarian approach, arguing that the rights of the few (Black people) should not outweigh the rights of the many (white people).
Such discriminatory exclusion intensified overcrowding in the low-income city center, allowing real-estate brokers, developers, and landlords to raise rents. The interests of neighborhood associations thus dovetailed with those of the real-estate industry. The two collaborated to combat open housing, forming umbrella organizations that fought integration in court and harassed brokers who helped Black people break racial covenants. Opposing them were civil-rights groups. The two groups pressured local politicians by supporting or opposing integrated public-housing projects. Republican control of City Hall in the 1950s gave homeowners’-rights advocates the upper hand, emboldening them to demand city intervention in transitional neighborhoods. In 1950, for example, the director of the Courville District Improvement Association asked the city for help buying back the first house on a block sold to a Black family, arguing that their presence would lower property values and lead to white flight. The city refused to intervene, citing civil rights. This did not stop other groups from making similar demands using McCarthyist rhetoric, insisting that civil-rights organizations were influenced by Communism.
The struggle between housing rights and civil rights culminated in the early 1960s, when civil-rights advocates supported a law banning all racial discrimination in real-estate transactions. Housing-rights groups responded with an ordinance to preserve segregation, citing the right to privacy, the right to choose associates, and the right to freedom from interference by public authorities in property matters. The ordinance passed but was later declared unconstitutional. Lacking the political clout to implement their demands, neighborhood associations ultimately turned to lawsuits, harassment, picketing, vandalism, and violence to dissuade Black people from moving into white areas.
Part 3, Chapter 9 Summary and Analysis: “‘United Communities Are Impregnable’: Violence and the Color Line”
Chapter 9 focuses on racial conflict in Detroit between World War II and the 1960s. Black families who purchased homes in white areas faced hostile neighbors. Vandalism, harassment, intimidation, and violence were common. Housing-rights advocates used these tactics to drive Black families away from their neighborhoods. According to Sugrue, the tactics were not random or irrational; they were organized and widespread, making housing violence “one of the largest grassroots movements in the city’s history” (233). Racial conflict was a politically driven response to a variety of socioeconomic changes. Systemic violence maintained invisible boundaries defined by race and class, turning neighborhoods into key sites of identity formation. Two distinct Detroits emerged: one white, the other Black.
Fight or Flight: The Social Ecology of White Resistance
Civic authorities and the media downplayed Detroit’s racial conflicts. Fearing riots, the MIC regularly met with editors and reporters to discuss coverage of racial incidents. In 1955, city officials went so far as to deny knowledge of any racial violence in the city, despite more than 20 incidents (235). Only when a local paper published a story about a two-week siege against a Black family did most white Detroiters learn about racial violence in their city. Black people, on the other hand, had long been aware of the problem because it featured prominently in Black weeklies. Racial violence made Black people pessimistic about race relations in addition to making them doubt the commitment of civic authorities to protect them.
Defended Neighborhoods
Racial violence was concentrated in Detroit’s transitional areas. These defended neighborhoods shared several traits: They were home to powerful neighborhood associations; their populations were predominantly blue-collar, with median incomes above the city average; skilled workers, notably craftspeople, were overrepresented in each area; single-family homes dominated the neighborhoods; and the areas were ethnically heterogeneous but had large Catholic populations.
Violence beset Black people who moved to defended neighborhoods. For example, Black families on the Northeast Side regularly had their windows broken and houses set on fire (238). Similar incidents occurred in other defended areas. In 1955, thousands of white homeowners took to the streets, injuring two police officers, when a Black family moved to the Wyoming Corridor. Between 1956 and 1965, residents of the area also attacked Black buyers and real-estate agents who profited from white flight (239). Similarly, 18 racial incidents rocked the Lower West Side between 1945 and 1950, leaving one Black-owned home torched and driving many Black residents out of the area (240). Other American cities, such as Chicago and Cleveland, experienced similar racial violence in transitional neighborhoods.
Undefended Neighborhoods
Not all white neighborhoods resisted open housing. Some undefended neighborhoods experienced violence in the initial stages of integration but quickly became racially peaceful areas. Disruptive infrastructure projects may have dampened resistance to Black movement in certain areas, as these projects often resulted in white flight. Areas with large Jewish communities were also open to integration. Sugrue speculates that Jewish people recognized that the techniques used to keep Black people out of neighborhoods could just as easily have been used against them. Further, Jewish people had lower homeownership rates than Catholics and lacked the financial and personal stakes that put homeowners on the defensive. Jewish institutions were also more mobile than their Catholic counterparts, making it easier for Jewish communities to move if demographics changed in ways they found unacceptable. Predominantly middle- and upper-class white areas were also accepting of Black pioneers, as evidenced by statistics. For example, only 12 minor racial incidents took place when Black people moved into affluent white neighborhoods near the Northwest Side in the 1950s (245). Demographics changed rapidly in these areas: 2.5% of the population was Black in 1950; a decade later, the area was 73.5% Black (245). The Black newcomers filled the spaces left by white people who had moved to Detroit’s growing suburbs. White flight to racially homogeneous suburbs helps account for the lack of resistance to Black pioneers.
Territoriality
For white Detroiters who were unable or unwilling to flee, open housing seemed like a threat. Fearing a shift in racial boundaries, they guarded their neighborhoods through gatekeeping and force. Neighborhood associations organized themselves along paramilitary lines and functioned as militias. Networks of tightly knit groups covered swaths of the city, striving to maintain racial hegemony. Racist signs threatening violence against Black people and affirming residents’ Klan membership dotted contested areas. Although the Ku Klux Klan is often associated in the minds of Americans with the South, there was a significant presence of the Klan and other racist terrorist groups in Midwestern cities like Detroit. Some of these organizations had their roots in the Black Legion, a Midwestern offshoot of the Klan which included many public officials, including Detroit’s police chief, allegedly (Perlstein, Rick. “I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong.” The New York Times Magazine. 11 April 2017).
Members of these associations also staged protests on neighborhood boundaries, warning Black people not to cross racial lines. Other tactics included publishing the names of blockbusting agents who sold homes to Black people in white neighborhoods and encouraging members to harass them. White residents who listed their homes with these agents were called “race traitors.” In addition to threats against Black people, neighborhood associations relied on diplomacy among themselves to keep their areas white, sometimes offering to buy properties that might otherwise be sold to Black people.
Family Affairs: Containing the “Negro Invasion”
Neighborhood defense was a family affair. Women played a central role in the process by distributing pamphlets and speaking at community meetings. They also staged daytime protests, to great benefit. Reluctant to arrest female protesters with children, police officers instead let crowds gather without permits and ignored disorderly conduct. Nighttime demonstrations involved fewer women and tended to be more violent. Men vandalized homes while gangs of teenage boys served as community sentinels. They rarely directly attacked Black people, however, instead focusing on threats and property damage. Their tactics were powerful deterrents that kept neighborhoods white. When Black people breached racial lines, all but the least financially advantaged of white people moved away, and cities across America witnessed white flight. However, Black people were still excluded from vast swaths of the country, particularly the suburbs. Racial conflict over housing exacerbated Black distrust of white people and white institutions, contributing to racial tensions that continue to divide the country.
