Engage with History,
Inspire our Tomorrow

The 50th Anniversary of the 1967 Newark Rebellion

“Commemoration of the 1967 Newark Rebellion requires us to remember the past, while also teaching and sharing its lessons with our youth. It is critical that young people growing up in a new Newark, born of the political movement and outcomes of those historic five days, remember those who created the Rebellion, particularly the people who lost their lives fighting for freedom.” -Junius Williams

Please join us for a week of events to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of what Newark historian Dr. Clement Price has called “the defining moment of Newark’s 20th Century history.” Click on the flyer below for details.

In this short documentary, Newark residents, activists, and city officials remember events during the rebellion and reflect on the legacies of tragedy and empowerment coming out of this historic moment. For more information on the 1967 Newark Rebellion, please visit https://riseupdetroit.org/chapters/chapter-3/part-2/

In this video, Newark residents reflect upon the 1967 Newark Rebellion 50 years later. The clips come from a series of oral history interviews conducted by Junius Williams as part of efforts by the Ad-Hoc Committee for Newark’s History to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Rebellion. Share your memories of the rebellion here: https://riseupdetroit.org/share-your-story/

#RealTalk: Who will tell our story?

If people don’t tell their own stories about the Black Freedom Struggle, their own adventures, and interpretations of “the truth” as they saw it, what will happen to their individual and collective voices? A need to record these voices and educate our next generation birthed The North: Civil Rights and Beyond in Urban America. Our interactive archive preserves the stories of the “foot soldiers” in the Civil Rights Movement and other struggles for equality and empowerment in the urban North.

“The North” identifies and highlights organizations and individuals who were instrumental in advancing the cause of black empowerment in each city studied; and the opposition they faced in critical steps along the way.

The North: Detroit

Choose a chapter to get started

One

Migrations, Power, and Politics in DetroitPre-1940s

TWO

Black Freedom Struggles in Post-War Era Detroit1940-1960

THREE

Civil Rights and Black Power in Detroit 1960-1974

Press Play: Hear Their Voices

Visualize the Journey

Fighting For Democracy at Home and Abroad (1942)

African Americans attend a mass meeting in Cadillac Square in Detroit in support of housing for Black war workers in 1942. (Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University)

Resisting Police Brutality (1948)

Detroit residents march to protest the fatal shooting of Black teenager Leon Mosely by the Detroit Police Department in 1948. (Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University)

Demanding Housing Justice (1963)

Members of the Detroit NAACP picket an apartment building at 647 W. Warren for discriminative housing practices in 1963. (Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University)

The Walk to Freedom (1963)

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leads a crowd of thousands during the Walk to Freedom in Detroit in 1963. (Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University)

Black Power in Detroit (1966)

Rev. Albert Cleage (later Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman) and Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture) at a campaign rally for Cleage and Kenneth Cockrel in 1966 at the Jeffries Homes Project. (Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University)

The Detroit Rebellion (1967)

Three National Guardsmen patrol the corner of Hazelwood and Linwood with weapons drawn as residents from the neighborhood look on with a mixture of amusement and anger, Detroit, Michigan. (Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University)

Fighting for Police Reform (1971)

Detroit residents gather for a rally to protest the Detroit Police Department’s controversial STRESS unit in 1971. (Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University)

But then one day we looked around and realized that many of our friends (and enemies) who made that journey, or similar journeys, were no longer with us….to laugh with, relive old conquests, or just tell lies. Too many have moved to places unknown, gotten sick, or passed on to the next life.

So many of our collective stories go untold.

These stories must be told.

– Junius Williams, Civil Rights Leader –

Engage with History, Inspire our Tomorrow