I Wildcat of the Streets: Race, Class and the Punitive Turn
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Wildcat of the Streets: Race, Class and the Punitive Turn in 1970s Detroit by Michael Stauch, Jr. Department of History Duke University Date: Approved: ___________________________ Robert R. Korstad, Supervisor ___________________________ Adriane Lentz-Smith ___________________________ Dirk Bönker ___________________________ Thavolia Glymph ___________________________ Matthew Lassiter Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of Duke University 2015 i v ABSTRACT Wildcat of the Streets: Race, Class and the Punitive Turn in 1970s Detroit by Michael Stauch, Jr. Department of History Duke University Date: Approved: ___________________________ Robert R. Korstad, Supervisor ___________________________ Adriane Lentz-Smith ___________________________ Dirk Bönker ___________________________ Thavolia Glymph ___________________________ Matthew Lassiter An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of Duke University 2015 i v Copyright by Michael Stauch, Jr. 2015 Abstract This dissertation is a history of the city of Detroit in the 1970s. Using archives official and unofficial - oral histories and archived document collections, self-published memoirs and legal documents, personal papers and the newspapers of the radical press – it portrays a city in flux. It was in the 1970s that the urban crisis in the cities of the United States crested. Detroit, as had been the case throughout the twentieth century, was at the forefront of these changes. This dissertation demonstrates the local social, political, economic and legislative circumstances that contributed to the dramatic increase in prison populations since the 1970s. In the streets, unemployed African American youth organized themselves to counteract the contracted social distribution allocated to them under rapidly changing economic circumstances. They organized themselves for creative expression, protection and solidarity in a hostile city, and to pursue economic endeavors in the informal economy. They sometimes committed crimes. In the courts, Wayne County Juvenile Court Judge James Lincoln, a liberal Democrat long allied with New Deal political alliances, became disenchanted with rehabilitative solutions to juvenile delinquency and embraced more punitive measures, namely incarceration. In city hall, Coleman Young, the city’s first African American mayor, confronted this crisis with a form of policing that concentrated predominately on the city’s unemployed African American youth, and the result was the criminalization of poverty, youth, and race we have come to understand as mass incarceration. iv Dedication For Libby. “After the ecstasy, the laundry.” v Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... ix Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 The Wildcat of the Streets: Organizing Among Detroit’s Unemployed Working Class ................................................................................................................................................. 12 “Law and Order, with Justice”: Policing Race and Class in 1970s Detroit ................... 16 The Proximate Causes of Mass Incarceration ................................................................... 22 Chapter One. “Let Us Stop Knocking and Start Selling Detroit”: The 1973 Mayoral Election, Crime, and the Politics of Growth in Detroit .......................................................... 31 Coleman Young’s Proletarian Uplift .................................................................................. 33 The New Deal Coalition After World War II .................................................................... 47 Building a New Detroit ........................................................................................................ 59 Between Superfly Suits and Silver Badges: Coleman Young’s “Law and Order, with Justice” .................................................................................................................................... 64 Courting Growth Through Law and Order: The 1973 Mayor’s Race ........................... 76 “Let Us Stop Knocking and Start Selling Detroit”: Coleman Young’s Electoral Triumph ................................................................................................................................. 85 Making Mini-Stations: Coleman Young’s War on Crime ............................................... 96 The Lineaments of Riot Renaissance ................................................................................ 109 Chapter Two. “In Total Disregard for Any Authority”: The Trial of the Livernois Five 115 “It’s Like They’ve Been Saving Bottles for the Past Eight Years” ................................ 120 Organizing Peacekeepers .................................................................................................. 126 Citizenship and Violence: Redefining the Limits of Legitimate Protest ..................... 139 vi “White Man’s Justice…” .................................................................................................... 144 “…Black Man’s Grief” ........................................................................................................ 155 The Speech that Causes Politics ........................................................................................ 161 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 166 Chapter Three. “We Own The City”: The Informal Economy, Informal Work Groups, and Redefining Citizenship in the City .................................................................................. 169 “Whatever is behind you, leave it pass. Can’t you see what’s coming?” ................... 172 Frank Ditto and ESVID ...................................................................................................... 177 The Order of the City: Policing Precarity ........................................................................ 187 Incorporating Informal Work Groups in the Informal Economy ................................ 206 “A Battle for Detroit”: Mass Robbery at Cobo Hall ....................................................... 225 Rebuilding the New Deal Coalition through Crime ...................................................... 236 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 249 Chapter Four. “Rebellion Has Come of Age”: James Lincoln and the Emergence of Punitive Juvenile Justice in Detroit ......................................................................................... 252 Lincoln’s Early Views on Juvenile Justice ....................................................................... 257 Frank Murphy, The Democratic Party, and New Deal Law and Order ..................... 274 Policing the Movement: Lincoln’s Changing Position .................................................. 290 “The Supreme Court Has Gone Far Enough”: The Warren Court and Victim’s Rights ............................................................................................................................................... 304 Lincoln’s Attack on Social Workers ................................................................................. 312 “Rebellion Has Come of Age” .......................................................................................... 326 Chapter Five. “A Distorted and Misshapen Camelot”: Raymond Peoples, Young Boys, Inc., and the Street Sale of Heroin ........................................................................................... 334 vii Detroit’s Tenth Precinct ..................................................................................................... 340 Heroin in the City: Rethinking Police Brutality Before the Riot .................................. 342 An Illicit Quid Pro Quo: The Pingree Street Conspiracy .............................................. 352 “I Call It the Neighborhood”: Informal Economies in Transition ............................... 369 Becoming Scandalous: YBI’s Runner System of Heroin Distribution ......................... 383 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 401 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 406 Interviews ................................................................................................................................... 414 Archives ...................................................................................................................................... 414 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 416 Biography ..................................................................................................................................