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© 2006 University of Chicago Library
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When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Michigan Governor's Committee to Investigate the Detroit Race Riot. Records, [Box #, Folder #], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library
The Detroit riot of June 21 and 22, 1943 was one of the most violent racial upheavals to occur in the United States. The clash between white and African American residents, the worst since the Chicago riots of 1919, was finally quelled with the help of federal troops, but it left 34 dead and 670 injured.
A committee composed of Herbert J. Rushton, the State's Attorney General, William E. Dowling, Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney, Oscar C. Olander, the State Police Commissioner, and John H. Witherspoon, the Commissioner of the Detroit Police Force was charged by the Governor of Michigan, Harry F. Kelly, to investigate the circumstances of the rioting, including the possibility of enemy agitation and subversion. The committee concluded, however, that the rioting was a "spontaneous uprising resulting from long-neglected and side-tracked social problems" which could only be solved by "determined, straight-forward, sociological methods."
Consists of a report prepared by a committee directed by Michigan governor, Harry F. Kelly, to investigate the riot that took place in Detroit on June 21, 1943. Committee members included Herbert J. Rushton, William E. Dowling, Oscar C. Olander, and John H. Witherspoon.
The committee report, about 300 pages long, contains a 17 page mimeographed narrative of the riot. This narrative and the committee's subsequent findings are based upon police and hospital statistics concerning the dead and the injured, weapons confiscated, arrests, individuals tried or awaiting trial, looting and other property destruction. Photocopies of police and hospital reports, of weapon displays and police precinct maps constitute the exhibits which accompany the report. A detailed index to these exhibits can be found in Folder 3.