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The three minutes of Detroit visual history above have moved from a family's 8-millimeter collection to historians' hands at Wayne State, which shares it on YouTube.
"Never-been-seen-before home movie footage of the aftermath of the 1967 uprising in Detroit," begins a recent posting by the Walter P. Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs.
Scenes of Michigan National Guard and U.S. Army patrols, military helicopters and smoldering ruins were filmed 49 years ago this week by Ray Grudzinski. No details are given about the intrepid resident who daringly used curfew-free daylight hours to preserve a historic time.
Black-owned businesses were spared, as this marked storefront shows.
Grudzinski shot his personal footage without sound while driving or riding through affected neighborhoods. He shows the smoky ruins of a family apparel and shoe store with a green-and-white awning that says Joe's Men's Women's & Children's Wear (second photo below).
In other frames, he rolls past two young guardsmen or soldiers standing behind barbed wire at an apparent checkpoint (first photo below).
The rioting began after police raided an unlicensed after-hours bar just north of 12th Street (now Rosa Parks Boulevard) and Clairmount Avenue on the near west side. After nearly a week of burning, looting and gunfire, .the toll was 43 dead, 1,189 injured, over 7,200 arrests, and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed.
Next July's 50th anniversary of 'the 1967 Detroit uprising," as the opening slide in WSU's video calls it, will marked with observances and presentations now being planned.
For its files and for anniversary exhibits Wayne historians are interested in other home movies or photos from that time. To donate materials or learn more, contact reutherav@wayne.edu or see this web page.
The 1967 home movie shows young guardsmen or soldiers near a roadway sign that may designate a checkpoint where they inspected vehicles for weapons.
The remarkable 8-millimeter film was made just hours after storefronts burned.
