Ingrid Scott
Title
Ingrid Scott
Description
Ingrid Scott lived on Burlingame and Hamilton in July of 1967. She remembers staying home with her family and seeing the destruction of looting and arson.
Publisher
Detroit Historical Society
Date
07/26/2016
Rights
Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI
Format
Text
Language
en-US
Type
Written Story
Text
1967 Memories
I remember returning from Mass at Visitation Church that Sunday morning. My sister Denise and I were walking across the overpass on Webb with no inkling of the chaos erupting just a few blocks away.
We lived on Burlingame just off Hamilton. The next few days were a blur of gunshots and people running down the street with sides of beef from A&P on their backs and everything else in the store before it burned down.
I remember my whole family, including my married sister and her kids confined in the house for days, watching destruction with the National Guard patrolling the neighborhood. There was a party store on the corner of Hamilton and Lawrence that was broken into and people driving up and being handed bottles of liquor and cigarettes by kids through the broken glass.
Firemen were unable to extinguish the blazes because they were being shot at. We had to keep below the the windows we were trying to peer out of for fear of stray bullets. One thing has stuck in my head all these years. As the A&P was burning, I saw two white men in the alley behind our house, pointing, laughing and nodding their heads at the destruction. What were they doing in the neighborhood?
The aftermath was one of disbelief and sadness. Our neighborhood store was gone, along with so many of the other establishments we frequented. The Detroit I was so happy in as a child was forever changed.
I remember returning from Mass at Visitation Church that Sunday morning. My sister Denise and I were walking across the overpass on Webb with no inkling of the chaos erupting just a few blocks away.
We lived on Burlingame just off Hamilton. The next few days were a blur of gunshots and people running down the street with sides of beef from A&P on their backs and everything else in the store before it burned down.
I remember my whole family, including my married sister and her kids confined in the house for days, watching destruction with the National Guard patrolling the neighborhood. There was a party store on the corner of Hamilton and Lawrence that was broken into and people driving up and being handed bottles of liquor and cigarettes by kids through the broken glass.
Firemen were unable to extinguish the blazes because they were being shot at. We had to keep below the the windows we were trying to peer out of for fear of stray bullets. One thing has stuck in my head all these years. As the A&P was burning, I saw two white men in the alley behind our house, pointing, laughing and nodding their heads at the destruction. What were they doing in the neighborhood?
The aftermath was one of disbelief and sadness. Our neighborhood store was gone, along with so many of the other establishments we frequented. The Detroit I was so happy in as a child was forever changed.
Original Format
Email
Submitter's Name
Ingrid Scott
Submission Date
07/23/2016
Files
Collection
Citation
“Ingrid Scott,” Detroit Historical Society Oral History Archive, accessed February 8, 2025, https://oralhistory.detroithistorical.org/items/show/325.