1967? >> a undercover or plainclothes officer, charles henry, attempted to get inside 9125 12th street, which is what police call a blind pig, an illegal after-hours bar. after he was finally able to get in mainly around 3:00 in the morning, the illegal after-hours bar was raided by the police for breaking the law. when they rated the place, they found it was not a small amount of people, which they were used to in these types of raids. the police confronted about 85 people who were there because to -- because two vietnam war veterans had returned and the party being held at the club was for them. it was sunday morning. the police were at their lowest manpower so it took a long time for them to get all of these people out. the police had no good relationship with the african-american community at that time. there had been a number of complaints for decades about racist police brutality. as the police are bringing people out, it is sunday morning but still nighttime, still dark outside, but it is 80 degrees. nobody had air-conditioners, particularly poor people in his neighborhood. so a lot of times people come outside to get away from the heat. 80 degrees outside is about 100 degrees inside the home. people are coming outside and they see -- initially, people are curious. but as time goes on, it take so long to bring the people out of this club and put them in paddy wagon and police cars, the crowd begins to get hostile, particularly because of the history of police brutality in the city of detroit. other issues are on the table with the african-american community. discrimination had been a long going issue in the city of detroit. many of the people who were here were displaced from black bottom , the historic african-american neighborhood, and they were forced to move year after urban renewal happened and a freeway was built to destroy that neighborhood. so you had that issue. you had discrimination in job sites. discrimination in some of the shops and restaurants even. you had an ongoing issue of educational inequality. but the major issue that sparked it was, of course, police brutality and the issue of how police harass african-americans in the city of detroit. so the crowd began to recite some of these kinds of incidents that have been going on in detroit to the police. hey, you did not arrest the person who killed danny thomas, an african-american who was killed by a cop who lived in this neighborhood. so they were beginning to recite some of their grievances, and eventually someone in the crowd, williams scott iii, the son of the owner of the club, began to throw bricks and bottles at the police officers. then the crowd began to join in with them. as the police began to leave to take the last people they arrested to the 10th precinct to put them in their cells and process them, the crowd is filling up -- a feeling of euphoria that they have chased the police away. when the police come back with reinforcements later, the community has come back with reinforcements as well, and the police are forced to stand down. for the first time in a long time, african-americans felt they had been relieved from police oppression or brutality, and they began first -- some people in this community, particularly young men, began to attack some of the stores and restaurants that had been discriminatory towards them. and some people, when the police did not respond and stop them, did not start arresting them, they began to attack other clubs and other stores and other shops , and of course, looting and fires began by that evening. and then a curfew was called by the governor, governor george romney. some people had been trying to protect the good stores. they understood that some of those stores were enemies or treated the african-american communities in a racist fashion or discriminatory fashion, but the good stores, people were trying to protect them. because of the curfew, the michigan state police arriving and then the national guard arriving, some of those people were arrested on curfew violations for trying to protect stores and others refused to get off the street so they did not get in the crossfire of the national guard or michigan state police. and then a lot of the fires and looting began, but it was initially because of the discontent that african-americans had with a lot particularly the police brutality, and that is how it all began. this neighborhood, 12th street neighborhood, was full of businesses. all of the green space you see around here now would have been filled with restaurants, stores, shops -- all the things a neighborhood would need to be a true neighborhood, a true community. those things are just about gone now and they have been gone for the most part since 1967. >> can you tell us the story of black jesus? >> on the morning of the second day of the uprising, also known as the riot or rebellion -- i generally use the term rebellion -- joe nelson, a house painter who had been driving past their -- there every day for his job, stopped there. he had been seeing this white jesus at the sacred heart cemetery for years. it had always troubled him that in the heart of this african-american community, this symbol of god was always this white monument. he got out that day. he wanted to participate in this uprising, but he did not want to loot or burn down buildings or shoot anyone, but he wanted to show he was in solidarity with what was happening to african-americans and he was opposed to racism. so he got out, got on his thatr, and painted jesus. the face, hands, the feet black. he had come up with his mother from alabama, doing what was known as the great migration, and he lived in that neighborhood. that was his way of stating that he was upset with this racism , and his mother, ophelia nelson, was the oldest of eight children. when she left alabama, her younger sister lucinda ross followed her later. lucinda ross got married here in detroit to moses ross and they had a child, jacqueline ross, and she began to date a man named jim jordan and they had a child and that child was me. so joe nelson, who painted this jesus black, was my older cousin. he is passed away now. the same night jesus was painted black, about three blocks away from here on euclid street, the police and the national guard shot out all of the streetlights, so people could not see what was happening. and the police themselves could not see. the army thought it was a bad idea but the national guard and police were not trained on dealing with this, so they shot out all the streetlights and they began to believe that there were a lot of snipers. now, we know there were some snipers. but every light, every noise began to feel like snipers to these police officers and national guardsmen. and as someone lit a cigarette at 1756 euclid street and the police, thinking it was a sniper , had the national guard shoot at the building, and of course the 50 caliber bullets, which go straight through the walls of the place, killed a four-year-old. she was the youngest victim of the 1967 rebellion. many of the victims in 1967 are really people who were shot because the police thought that there was a sniper or the police thought that they were up to no good. in some cases, they may have been looting. in other cases, they were innocent, and it could have been handed a different way. on the east side, where the army was primarily station, these kinds of shootings did not happen because the army was much more trained to deal with this kind of thing than the police or the national guard. most of the innocent civilian killings happened in this neighborhood, where the michigan state police and the detroit police department and the national guard were station, while the army did not have all of these fatalities. >> are there any significant differences neighborhood to neighborhood about how things happened? >> yes. in this neighborhood, for instance, at the 10th precinct, which is the closest precinct where it all started from, the police -- the detroit police department at that time was 95% white in a city that was about 40% african-american. police eventually -- african-american police who came out in this neighborhood began to see how they were being treated and the inequity that the civilians were being treated by the police department and national guard, and they began to stand up against it. they were then stationed in to station. they were put on desk duty so they would not be able to protest what was happening to african-americans at the hands of the police and national guard. >> how did things eventually calm down? >> when the army comes in, that helps. because there is a level of respect for the army. number one, they are about 30% african-american. they're much better trained. they are not shooting every innocent person. so the army helped the calm -- to calmo -- helped things down somewhat. then of course, the community, some of the community leaders had been working for a while to get things calmed down. so you had kind of a convergence of the army and the respect for the army and their ability to be well-trained, and tanks coming down the street also helps to get people off the street when you see tanks coming down. and do some community leaders began to help focus the community in a different direction. people should know that none of these things happened in a vacuum. these uprisings, these rebellions -- some people call them riots -- they don't happen in a vacuum. there are decades of history. so knowing about those five days is important, but knowing about the five decades that preceded those five days is even more important. knowing about the legacy of racism and mistreatment and economic inequality, knowing those things helps to understand better what happened in those five days, and can help us find ways to prevent these kinds of things from happening again. announcer: you are watching american history tv, 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter at c-span history for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. announcer: next on american history tv's railamerica, we continue our look at the 1967 detroit riots. president lyndon johnson delivered an oval office address to the american people on july 27, 1967 near the end of a week of widespread disorder and violence. president johnson announced the formation of a national advisory commission on civil disorders, also known as the kerner commission, to investigate the causes of uprisings in many cities that summer. he also details his legislative efforts to address poverty and discrimination. president johnson: my fellow americans, we have endured a week such as no nation should live through.