12th and Clairmount uses a range of different sources to tell the story of the violent 1967 civil disturbance in Detroit, from contemporary interviews, home movies, and photographs to newsreel footage, dispatch recordings, educational films, and drawings. With Jerome P. Cavanagh as the city’s progressive mayor in the early 1960s, Detroit had attracted large sums of federal support for urban renewal and downtown investment, but underlying racial tensions persisted. Housing policies and police actions created unrest. Were the events of 1967 a “riot” or an “insurrection”? Those who lived through it—black and white; wealthy, middle class, and poor; suburban and downtown inhabitants alike—describe their hour-by-hour experience of the disturbance, put it in context, and try to explain how it came about. As these Detroiters tell the highly particular story of their city, their narrative resonates with our current debates over urban development, gentrification, and police misconduct.  AT

Q&A following screening