Graduated High School 67. The summer of the inseruction. Lived in a downstairs flat in a once glorious victororin home . A little neighborhood sandwiched between the Cass Coridor and Skid Row. The house was on the Cornor of Fourth and Plum street. , the best view of Plum Street , from my front porch.
Robert Cobb was a teacher at my school, (Westren Hugh) he had been my slum landlord before we moved to the house on Fouth and Plum . One of the owners who refused to sell to Cobb and Sharprio .
July 67 we watched the shop owners run around Plum street , guns in hand , meeting in little pods planing how to defend the burning and looting, which never came. Tanks with soldiers sitting atop with riles rolled by . Patrol cars reminesice if the Big Four patrolled by . The burning and looting never came.
Our whole neighborhood is now engulfed by the dam MGM Casino We were far in the middle , kinda isolated we looked to the northwest, could see lots of smoke.
The poorest part of town was always integrated. Black, White, Hispanic, Eastern Europeans . Grew up running the streets, playing ball, eating at each other's houses. We all stood on the corner wacting.
I like to suggest your really from Detroit if no part of your family history has stories of hiding in a barricaded basement waiting for the " Roit " to engulf the city.
The third day we took my 58 Ford Fairlane drove up Twelfth Street up To Clairmount , people in cars looked a little timid, usually a raised fist or Two fingers got a response.
A few years back I was visting my old JR High ( Pelham) The nice young Principle told me " the school was built as result of the neighborhood being burnt down during the "roits " . I looked at him and laughed , " no homes in this area were burned down. Besides take a look atop the school"s Front passage , this school opened in 1963, I attended that first year. We need to get our stories together .
