The Detroit Riots of 1943

In the summer of 1943, amidst the heightening of the United States’ involvement in World War 2, a race riot raged through the city of Detroit. Over 350,000 Americans, mostly white, had come from the South in search of work in the growing arms factories. Detroit did not have the housing infrastructure to support this number. Furthermore, its existing migrant population buckled under an anti-black propaganda movement by the city’s strong white supremacy groups and began to fear for their jobs.