Sandra Gross

Sandra Gross

Sandra Gross was born the week of July 23, 1967.

Detroit Historical Society

08/19/2016

Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, MI

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I don't actually remember the riots, as I was born that week (July 31, 1967). That means of course, that my birth story has always been woven together by talk of the riots. My parents, both native Detroiters, had moved out to Flint for my father's job; we later settled in Troy. After the unrest began, rumors began circulating in Flint that riots would be spreading to that town. A couple days before my mother's due date, my father, nervous about getting my mother to the hospital safely, brought a shotgun home from the department store he managed. He discovered later, after my birth, that he had brought home the wrong shells for the gun. He never took the gun out of the box.

I wish I could have seen the city before the unrest and before white flight. When I was 10, my father took me to the 12th Street neighborhood and I was amazed that 10 years after the riots, there were still half-burnt buildings.

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Sandra Gross

07/28/2016