Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the
Algiers Motel Incident.
The Algiers Motel Incident was itself one
episode of the 1967 Detroit Rebellion.
Probably any randomly chosen incident of the many of its kind from that
era would have sufficed to provide a parallel to current attitudes and events
surrounding race in America, but the unnerving physical and psychological
brutality exerted by law enforcement upon unarmed suspects in this instance makes it
particularly relevant now. Race relations,
which since Ferguson have been at their ugliest point in decades, seem to have
gotten even worse in the wake of last November’s election which has emboldened
those bigots who might have been a bit more circumspect before.
More than at any time since the 1960s,
conservative politics have become openly entwined with white identity. Rhetoric surrounding public safety has morphed into thinly veiled calls for the armed oppression of communities of color. Black Lives Matter in particular has become a
focal point of opprobrium for those who wish to preserve white supremacy. (Cue the anguished protests: “I’m not a
racist!” Hmmm…if it walks like a duck
and it quacks like a duck…)
In the present climate, it is not difficult to imagine an episode like the Algiers Motel Incident happening in 2017. With this in mind, I've decided to examine the event with an eye toward a fuller understanding.
The murders of July 25 - 26, 1967 at the
Algiers Motel were a cause célèbre
for a while. Journalist and historian John Hersey published a book in the months afterward which remains the best single
account. The accused police officers and
a private security guard were inevitably tried and were inevitably acquitted. Eventually the matter was forgotten by the
public.
There has been renewed interest of late,
however. There is a well-curated website,
Algiers Memory, which gives a fairly
detailed rundown on the people and events.
Most notably, though, director Kathryn Bigelow has completed a film, Detroit, which is a dramatized recounting of what happened at
the Algiers Motel. The movie opens with
a special premiere in that city today and will see general release early next
month.
To grasp the violence of the Algiers Motel incident, it's important to know the larger events surrounding it. The Detroit uprising began on July 23rd. Like numerous other civil disturbances then
and now, Detroit’s began with a confrontation between police and
civilians. Early Sunday morning, the
police raided an unlicensed drinking club, or “blind pig,” on 12th
Street. Given the late hour, the
officers figured there would only be a few people present.
In fact, there were over 80 individuals
celebrating the return of two local men from Vietnam. The officers unwisely decided to arrest the
lot of them. Of course, they weren’t
prepared to move a large number of prisoners downtown so they called for
vehicles. This necessitated a wait,
which meant there was time for a crowd of onlookers to gather. Predictably, these folks were not favorably
disposed toward the cops.
Tensions rose, and someone chucked a bottle at
a police officer. As with the
precipitating incident of the Watts uprising two years earlier, a drunk driving
stop gone awry, the raiding officers were able to disengage before things got
really bad. Their departure didn’t quell the mood
of the people in the street, who then began breaking windows and looting
stores. Over the ensuing two days, the city was
convulsed with such violence that Michigan governor George Romney—yes, Mitt’s
daddy—called out the National Guard to restore order and requested federal
troops from President Lyndon Johnson for good measure.
When things quieted after July 27th,
43 people were dead. All but ten were
black. Coming right on the heels of the
Newark riots, the 12th Street uprising stood out in what would be
remembered by some as the Long Hot Summer of 1967 which saw more than 150 urban
disturbances across the United States.
(I say “by some,” because it really points up the myopic, narcissistic
cultural memory of white Americans that they are more apt to remember this time
as the Summer of Love in Haight-Ashbury than for the racial oppression and
urban violence which were its true hallmark.)
What made the Algiers Motel murders such a
notorious episode was its calculated viciousness. While much police brutality is probably spur
of the moment and adrenaline-fueled, the officers who responded to reports of
gunfire near the motel turned their encounter with the suspects into a
terrifying game which left three murdered and five others badly beaten.
The shooting deaths of two Detroit officers the day before undoubtedly put
the police on edge. It did not help that
the 8,000 National Guardsmen sent to help restore order were from predominantly
white suburbs and rural areas. Few of
the guardsmen had combat experience and as a group were not adequately trained
to handle civil disturbances.
The Algiers Motel itself seemed at first glance
to be an unlikely venue for what transpired.
Several of its occupants that night had checked in because it seemed to
be a safe place to hunker down and wait for everything to blow over. It was true that the Algiers stood in a
neighborhood gone to seed along a stretch of Woodward Avenue where disreputable
people were known to do disreputable things.
But it hadn’t always been that way.
The motel had been built in the heady,
optimistic days after the Second World War.
Detroit was a thriving, vibrant manufacturing and cultural center
then. It was a place to visit, not avoid, and the
visitors needed clean and inexpensive lodgings.
Before Holiday Inn and other family-oriented hotel chains claimed their
business, mom-and-pop outfits like the Algiers needed a theme, or gimmick if
you will, to bring in the paying gentry.
Hence, the Arabesque name and trappings.
A picture postcard from its respectable period shows a clean, tidy
two-level structure with late model cars in the parking lot and happy families relaxing
around the swimming pool with the motel’s road sign with its palm tree motif in
the foreground.
By 1967, the Algiers had its best years behind
it. At the time of the incident it had
acquired a reputation as a hot-sheet motel frequented by sex workers and drug
dealers. The main building had been supplemented
by an annex in the form of a neighboring three-story house, the so-called Manor
House, the owners had purchased several years earlier. It was in this annex where the victims of the
Algiers Motel Incident were staying on the evening of July 25th.
This is the first cast of characters, the
people staying at the Algiers Motel: Carl Cooper, aged 17, and his friend,
19-year-old Auburey Pollard. Also
staying in the annex was 18-year-old Fred Temple. Fred had been at a concert at the Fox Theater
on the evening on the 23rd featuring Martha Reeves which had been
cut short because of the unrest; Fred was friends with several members of a lower billed act called The Dramatics.
All three youths were waiting out the violence at the motel before going
home.
During the day, friends and acquaintances of
the young men had joined them at the Algiers. Michael Clark, Lee Forsythe, and James Sortor
were Carl and Auburey’s friends. Fred’s
friends from The Dramatics, Roderick Davis and Cleveland Larry Reid, were there as well. Two older men, Robert Greene and Charles Moore, were also checked in.
A bit more problematic given what would take
place was the presence of two other motel guests. Two white girls, Juli Hysell and Karen
Molloy, both 18, had checked into the Algiers with their last dollar and
cent. Later accounts had it that the
police thought Juli and Karen were prostitutes.
Trial testimony established that they were recent cosmetology school
graduates on a celebratory road trip. In
any case, the two young women became reliant on the generosity of their new
friends in the annex for their meals and incidentals.
The group spent the day at the motel pool,
shooting craps, and lounging in the annex watching TV. At
some point late in the evening, Carl began to play with a starter pistol. He brandished it, frightening Lee, before firing a blank round. The
report from the pistol sounded like real gunfire out in the street. This attracted police attention to the
vicinity of the Algiers Motel.
Now, on to the second cast of characters, the
force which responded to the call of shots fired. Patrolman David Senak, 23, became for all
purposes the leader of the raiding party.
“Snake” Senak had earned a reputation as a go-getter during his brief
tenure with the Detroit police. He
specialized in plainclothes vice work busting hookers and johns. He also possessed a misogynistic streak. When asked by John Hersey whether he thought
women were less moral than men, Senak answered with a question of his own: “Who
gave who (sic) the apple?”
With Senak were patrolmen Ronald August and
Robert Paille, along with a contingent from the Michigan State Police. Further support arrived in the form of a National
Guard detachment led by Warrant Officer Theodore Thomas, who was a factory
worker in daily life. They gained
additional backup from an armed private security guard at a grocery across the
street from the Algiers. His name was
Melvin Dismukes. The men cautiously approached
the motel annex, weapons drawn.
© 2017 The Unassuming Scholar
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