Detroit Race Riot: 34 Killed, Federal Troops Deployed

On June 20, 1943, a fight between Black and white youth on Belle Isle bridge escalates into three days of citywide race war. 34 people are killed — 25 Black, 9 white; 600+ are injured; nearly 2,000 arrested. White mobs drag Black passengers from streetcars and beat them. The Packard plant had seen racial conflict after Black workers were promoted to work beside whites. President Roosevelt deploys 6,000 federal troops. Police kill 17 Black people and no whites. The riot exposes wartime racial terror in a Northern industrial city.