by Zev Chafets
First published 1990
Ze'ev Chafets returns to Detroit, the city where he grew up, to witness what he calls America's first Third World city. Once a model of prosperity in the early 1960s, Detroit provided steady work for both blacks and whites in its booming auto industry. Then the 1967 race riot, the worst in American history, transformed the integrated industrial center into a chaotic urban wasteland overnight. Chafets explores the distinct subcultures that emerged from this collapse. He meets black intellectuals who see their segregated community as progress, spends time with frustrated police officers torn between pride and bitterness, examines growing Muslim and Christian sects offering religious escape, and interviews suburban whites about why they fled. He also speaks with Mayor Coleman Young, who remains convinced he can lead Detroit to a brighter future despite the city's dire conditions. The author witnesses Devil's Night, when Detroit burns on the eve of Halloween as citizens, tourists, and firefighters gather to watch abandoned buildings and factories consumed in an annual ritual of arson.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, crime, non-fiction, african-american-historical-fiction, american-history
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: personal-narrative, social-commentary
Setting: Detroit
Period: 1960s, 1967
240 pages · Hardcover · Random House, Inc.
Content warnings: racism