1967 Detroit Riots: C-Span Broadcasts Live From Detroit Sunday

DETROIT, MI — C-Span’s American History TV will broadcast live Sunday from the Detroit Free Press newsroom for a 50th anniversary retrospective of the 1967 Detroit Riots. Several days of civil unrest followed a police bust on a “blind pig,” an illegal bar.

Racial unrest ignited in more than 150 American cities that summer, but Detroit and Newark, New Jersey, were the hardest hit. In Detroit, 33 blacks and 10 whites were killed, more than 7,000 people were arrested, more than 2,500 buildings were looted or burned and President Lyndon Johnson dispatched 5,000 federal troops to keep peace.

Property damage estimates topped $30 million. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Detroit Patch, click here to find your local Michigan Patch. Also, like us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

See Also

• 50th Anniversary Of Detroit Riots: A Look Back
• Detroit At Crossroads 50 Years After Riots Devastated City
• Detroit's '67 Riots Halted Music, Helped Recalibrate Sound

Here’s the broadcast schedule:

Noon to 1:15 p.m.: What Happened In Detroit And Why?

• Former Detroit Police Chief & Former Deputy Mayor Isaiah "Ike" McKinnon
• Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Heather Ann Thompson of the University of Michigan

1:15-2 p.m.: Media Coverage And Aftermath

• Detroit Free Press Editorial Page Editor & Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Henderson
• Former Detroit Free Press & Detroit News journalist Tim Kiska

The coverage also includes

• Tour of Detroit Historical Museum exhibit "Detroit 67:Perspectives";
• Interviews near the riot's flash point;
• Oral history interviews with people who were there;
• Archival footage of the unfolding violence recorded by WXYZ-TV Detroit;
• President Johnson addressing the nation;
• Aerial footage of the 1967 riots and views of how the area looks today.

The program re-airs on American History TV on C-SPAN3 from 6-10 p.m. Sunday, July 23.

In this July 1967 file photo, a National Guardsman stands at a Detroit intersection during riots in the city. Detroit wasn't the first of the riots in the summer of 1967, and it was far from the last. Buffalo, New York, and Newark, New Jersey, preceded it; in the course of the summer, more than 150 cases of civil unrest erupted across the United States. (AP Photo/File)