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On 22 June 1943, three days of racial violence come to an end in Detroit.
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Earlier this month, we saw how the rapidly increasing population of U.S. Navy sailors went after the Latino youth of Los Angeles in the Zoot Suit Riots, during which the local police often sided with the rioters. Only after the servicemen were confined to barracks did the riots finally stop.
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But Los Angeles is not the only place seeing a new rise in racial tensions in the rapidly changing war-time economy of the United States. The growing defense industry is pulling many workers from the south to the cities in the northeast. African Americans, in particular, are moving north, where new jobs have opened up for them following President Roosevelt's Executive Order 8802, which prohibited racial discrimination in the defense industry.
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Detroit is one of those places that has seen an explosive growth of migrants. It does not take long for the fight for jobs and housing to become a racial conflict. In one instance, a housing project meant for black migrants met heavy protests from the local white community, who tried to bar families from moving in with violence. There have also been wild strikes in the factories when black employees were hired to work alongside white workers on the assembly line.
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On June 20, a brawl between youths in Belle Isle Park grows into a confrontation between blacks and whites on the Belle Isle Bridge. The confrontation soon turns into a riot that reaches the black neighborhood of Paradise Valley in the city itself, where both sides burn, loot, and kill for three consecutive days.
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By today, the riots have been suppressed with help from federal troops. Although both sides are to blame for the escalation of violence, the numbers reveal that the African American community has once again pulled on the shortest end. Of 34 people killed in the riots, 25 are black, of which the police have killed 17. And of the 1,800 people arrested, 85 percent are African American.



cause they're the ones doing the fucking rioting. yet somehow even that's twisted to make them out as the victims. sick of seeing this obvious bullshit.