StoryCorps Detroit: A Front Row Seat to the Looting of 1967

Curtis Rodgers recalls what he was up to as a 14-year-old on July 23, 1967

In this StoryCorps Detroit segment, 82-year-old Clarice Rodgers asks her son, Curtis Rodgers, Jr., what he was up to when violence erupted in Detroit on July 23, 1967. 

StoryCorps

Rodgers, Jr. says he ended up going over to his cousin’s house, which was not far from the intersection of 12th and Clairmount.

“We’re sitting on the porch and we’re watching all these people, they have car loads of stuff:  radios, colored T.V.s, suits, bicycles,” Rodgers, Jr. tells his mother. That made him want to join in on the looting, he says.

Click on the audio player at the top of this page to hear what he actually ends up doing.

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The StoryCorps Detroit music is by Sam Beaubien.

Author

  • Laura Herberg
    Laura Herberg is a Reporter for 101.9 WDET, telling the stories about people inhabiting the Detroit region and the issues that affect us here.