5

THE RIOT AND ITS AFTERMATH

Upon learning of the federal housing project re-designation, Joseph Buffa and the SMFHIA organized a rapid response. Approximately seventy-five protesters, mostly women, stormed city hall, forcing their way into Mayor Jeffries’s office. The mayor promised them that the city council would hear them Wednesday. Ignoring this commitment, the crowd marched into council chambers demanding an immediate hearing. Continuous shouting from the crowd made discussion or explanation difficult for council members, though Councilman George Edwards made one point clear to everyone in attendance—that the leaders of this assembly, Buffa and Dalzell, were “inflamers of racial hatred in Detroit.…They are persons whose sole interest is in the few lots on which they will lose a little money. They are doing this community a distinct disservice when unity is important.”⁵³ The major complaint of the crowd, however, was that the mayor had indicated earlier that he lacked any authority to act on the matter, and then, most recently, he had persuaded the council to support his petition directed at the defense housing authorities to switch the project back from white to black occupancy. In an impassioned rebuttal, Jeffries asserted,

After the Federal officials selected this site against our advice, there was no right way to do the job. It was mishandled from the beginning. Whatever the cause, it became our problem. It was up to us to do something about it. Let’s talk practically about the matter. Most Negroes didn’t come to this country because they wanted to—they were brought here. We fought a Civil War over this problem, and we passed the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution which guarantees them equal opportunity.⁵⁴

Some small satisfaction was achieved by the protesters during the hearing when Councilman Charles Dorais, well known in Detroit’s Catholic circles, indicated he might be willing to change his mind in favor of white occupancy of the project, provided that a suitable alternative site could be found for the black defense workers.

The impromptu hearing did not break off until late Tuesday afternoon, but not without threats of returning the next morning to bring the controversy to a more favorable resolution. Many protesters remained at city hall and picketed outside the building for another hour or two before breaking up and heading home for the evening.

On the same day as the city council protest, DHC director-secretary Charles Edgecomb announced that the first sixty-five families were to move into the project on Friday, February 14, but that because of delays created by the recent controversy, the move-in might have to be postponed.

Sojourner Truth Homes at the corner of Nevada and Fenelon on Detroit’s northeast side. Library of Congress.

The very next day, Councilman Dorais proposed a compromise settlement that was immediately supported by fellow councilmen William G. Rogell, Eugene I. Van Antwerp and James H. Garlick. Dorais believed he could persuade the Ford Motor Company to revise its plans to build a defense plant at Dequindre and Modern and move defense work to a neighboring site, but there was a catch: a decision regarding a potential new housing project on this site had to be made by Monday, February 16, as the auto company was working under time constraints of its own.

On Tuesday, February 10, Mayor Jeffries apprised federal housing officials of this site availability for a limited period. Even though he was acting on a request by these four city council members, he made very clear to each of them he was not recommending abandonment of black occupancy at Fenelon and Nevada. His telegram to defense officials was carefully phrased so as not to recommend one choice or the other:

Members of our City Council have requested me to inform you that the original Negro housing site at Dequindre and Modern streets is now available under an option expiring next Monday.

Please wire us at once your decision as to acceptance of this site and also your desires as to type of occupancy for Sojourner Truth in view of this development. We as your agents will proceed in accordance with instructions. Monday option expiration date makes immediate and definite answer from you imperative.⁵⁵

Several telegrams from black leaders in Detroit to Mayor Jeffries made quite clear that regardless of what transpired at Dequindre and Modern, they were not abandoning the present Sojourner Truth project at Fenelon and Nevada earmarked for black settlement and hoped the mayor had not abandoned the plan either. At this point, it was not just about finding housing for black defense workers; it was about no longer being treated as second-class citizens.

The publication and distribution of the Seven Mile–Fenelon Homeowners News—a one-time issue—on February 14 drew widespread attention in both white and black communities, threatening to further aggravate an already tense situation. The News directly warned of an impending race riot stemming from any attempted black occupancy of Sojourner Truth. It further ridiculed the mayor, the common council and the housing commission for being pawns in the hands of such external agents as the NAACP and the Communist Party. Highlighting the tabloid was an announcement of a mass meeting at Cass Technical High School on Wednesday, February 18, at 8:00 p.m. Local authorities feared the rally would simply be a pretext for planning a physical confrontation should any black defense workers attempt occupation of Sojourner Truth. Joseph Buffa was brought in for questioning by Wayne County chief assistant prosecutor Julian G. McIntosh following complaints that, by virtue of statements made in the publication, he was inciting a riot. Buffa was released with an admonition to refrain from making any inflammatory statements at the mass meeting. He indicated he would be reading from a prepared statement.

Flier distributed by the Seven Mile–Fenelon Association pressure group organized against black occupancy of Sojourner Truth Homes. Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.

The day following the rally at Cass Tech, a mêlée occurred at city hall as a contingent of approximately one hundred white protesters, principally women, cornered Mayor Jeffries in the corridor outside city council chambers. Jeffries had just read to council members a telegram authored by Baird Snyder in response to a resolution adopted by council urging a further delay of black occupancy at Sojourner Truth. The telegram brushed aside the request for delay and reaffirmed federal instructions to begin moving families into the project. Escorted by police officers, Jeffries made his way back to his office on the first floor, but two officers remained stationed outside to bar members of the throng from pushing their way inside.

Meanwhile, DHC’s Director Edgecomb declared that while a few preliminary steps needed to be completed, the first African American families should be moving into the project on Monday, February 23. Edgecomb met later that afternoon with DHC members to confirm execution of the federal order. By unanimous vote, the housing commission agreed to abide by the order of Baird Snyder and approved the final list of black occupants for the project. However, at the conclusion of the commission hearing, Edgecomb to make moving arrangements and obtain coal to heat their apartments.

John Dalzell, unable to persuade the mayor to support a short delay in occupancy, announced that if efforts failed to stop black tenants from moving into Sojourner Truth, he would seek the recall of Mayor Jeffries. As Dalzell plotted his next steps, Rudolph Tenerowicz was delivering a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives berating Mayor Jeffries and claiming that communists were behind a campaign to make the new Sojourner Truth housing project an African American development. He specifically singled out sixteen signatories affixed to the petition that the Citizens Committee had sent off to federal authorities as “listed conspicuously” in the records of the House Un-American Activities Committee, chaired by conservative Texas Democrat Martin Dies. “This false leadership,” Tenerowicz asserted, “may as well be brought out into the open and exposed for what it really is—rabble-rousing, publicity seeking, ambitious radicals bent on the destruction of human values and property values alike.”⁵⁶

White picketers at the corner of Nevada and Fenelon protesting the assignment of black war workers to this new federal war housing facility, February 1942. Library of Congress.

THREAT BECOMES REALITY

The very next day, February 20, after all the denials of incitement and all the posturing, Detroit’s worst fears were realized. The dreaded riot had begun at the site of the recently completed Sojourner Truth Homes.

At 6:00 a.m. on the day when twenty-four families were to be moved into the project, a group of picketers was parading around the southeastern entrance, and within two hours, the ranks had swelled to five hundred. White picketers were determined to prevent the move-in from occurring. A single truck loaded with the first tenant’s furniture moved on past the project after a picket talked with the driver. At intersections distant from the project, several other furniture trucks were turned away by groups of picketers. The trucks parked, however, near the intersection of Ryan and Nevada, awaiting further instructions from police.

Large sign installed surreptitiously across the street from the Sojourner Truth housing project at Nevada and Fenelon Streets in northeast Detroit. Library of Congress.

At a home near the intersection where the moving trucks had parked, a group of African American men was observed in the backyard using hammers to break up concrete block into pieces. A few others were transporting the pieces to the corner, where they were piled up and ready for use as need be. A detail of 150 foot and mounted patrolmen was assigned to supervise the move-in, but when rock throwing began, Superintendent Louis Berg ordered all available men from nearby precincts to the scene.

Police attempt to disperse rioting crowds with tear gas on the streets near the Sojourner Truth Homes. Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.

Clearly outmanned, police consulted with black and white leaders to keep the violence from getting out of hand. In the meantime, volleys of shotgun fire could be heard near the intersection as police fired tear gas bombs to disperse the growing crowd at the Ryan-Nevada intersection, where most of the activity was occurring. Early on, seven whites and seven blacks were injured in the mêlée and required immediate attention at local hospitals. But the toll would later rise. Among the African Americans, Henry Love, Edward Siebert, Fred Ware and Malvin Clark were being treated for head injuries at Receiving Hospital. Clarence Caviness suffered a fractured shoulder. Two other injured African Americans, William Pearson and Lawrence Martin, were held at the hospital as police prisoners after both were alleged to be carrying .32-caliber revolvers on their persons.⁵⁷

Detroit police on horseback attempting to disperse a group of protesters at the intersection of Nevada and Ryan Roads. Library of Congress.

African American men confront Detroit police detective about uneven treatment at the hands of police during the riot on February 28 at the Sojourner Truth housing project. Library of Congress.

Five African American men stand on sidewalk with their hands raised above their heads, with uniformed officers facing them in foreground. Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.

Among the whites injured in early rioting and taken to Saratoga Hospital was Walter Efimetz, who suffered a stab wound in the back. A woman, Dolores Hommer, was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Hamtramck with head wounds. The remaining white persons injured were patrolmen. Patrolman Carl Mayer suffered a six-inch gash behind his left ear after being knocked from his horse by a brick. Joining him at Saratoga was patrolman Joseph Dunn, also suffering head injuries. Patrolman Edward Koss was treated for head injuries at St. Francis Hospital. The two other patrolmen, Terry Mason and Thomas Turklay, were quickly dispatched to Harper Hospital with facial injuries.⁵⁸

Police officers on horseback attempting crowd control during early morning hours of February 28, 1942, at corner of Nevada and Ryan Roads. Library of Congress.

Despite an announcement to the crowd that Mayor Jeffries had decided to indefinitely postpone the scheduled occupation, the two groups—still in large numbers—remained at the intersection. Commissioner White made a plea directly to the black crowd to disperse, but there was very little movement. Director Edgecomb tried to break up the group of white protesters by assuring them that that there would be “no sneak moves”—that is, they would be notified in advance of any future attempt to move in the African American families. As with the black crowd, the whites kept their ground, with both groups shouting epithets and taunting each other across the newly established police lines.

Black man arrested and escorted to police car to be taken to local precinct for processing. Library of Congress.

White woman identified as Dolores Hommer sits back in chair with a bandage wrapped around her head in the aftermath of the violent protest over the Sojourner Truth projects. Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.

Crowd of young white men surround an overturned automobile that attempted to break a picket line during the Sojourner Truth Housing Riot. Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.

The standoff was broken by several incidents that produced serious injuries. At 2:30 p.m., approximately three dozen black youths, one armed with a pickaxe, tried to push through the police lines and confront the whites on the other side. Police were able to subdue the youth with the pickaxe and chase the remaining youths into nearby fields. At almost the same time, two cars with blacks drove into the white section but withdrew when several cars with whites intercepted them.

At about 3:30 p.m., three African Americans were walking east on Nevada toward the project. At Justine Avenue, a group of whites impeded their progress and a fight ensued. Two detectives driving past were able to end the brawl, but not before one of the black men was struck with a length of iron pipe and transported to St. Francis Hospital for treatment. A white man, Bernard Augustyniak, was immediately arrested and subsequently booked on a charge of felonious assault.

Just half an hour later, a car with three black occupants approached the intersection of Stockton and Shields Avenues. They continued in the direction of a group of several dozen white pickets. Police were on the scene turning cars around and away from the intersection. However, the car accelerated, jumped the curb and nearly struck the pickets. Police immediately apprehended the driver and his two companions and placed them under arrest. As they were being transported to the Davison Station, a small group of pickets overturned the vehicle and proceeded to smash the windows and do severe damage to the body.

Police take real estate developer Joseph Buffa into custody for his role in instigating the Sojourner Truth Housing Riot on February 28, 1942. Library of Congress.

Perhaps the most serious incident of the afternoon occurred when a truck loaded with club-wielding African Americans broke through police lines and headed east on Nevada. When confronted by a crowd of white protestors, the truck turned onto a side street, whereupon the blacks jumped from the truck and several fights ensued. Only with great difficulty were police able to subdue the combatants. With blood streaming down their faces, several black and white participants required medical attention.

Random confrontations between individuals and groups of combatants continued throughout the evening. Police were clearly unwilling to disperse the large crowd of white protestors who refused to leave. Despite assurances otherwise, the picketers were of one mind: the moment they dispersed or looked the other way, some tenant assigned a specific housing unit would sneak in to begin habitation, changing the whole calculus status quo. They were not budging, at least not on move-in day.

As the situation in northeast Detroit remained volatile, Reverend Hill called for a meeting of the Citizens Committee at Plymouth Congregational Church to assess what had unfolded on this day and plot a strategy moving forward. Among the more than three hundred members who attended the 8:00 p.m. meeting, there was consensus that local authorities—from the mayor’s office on down to the patrolman on the street—were either unwilling or unable to enforce the federal mandate. However, there would be no capitulation. The mayor was simply going to have to turn the matter over to the federal authorities and call in federal troops as necessary. Lest there be any confusion or miscommunication between Reverend Hill and Mayor Jeffries, by the end of the meeting, members of the Citizens Committee charged Reverend Hill with the immediate task of wiring the White House and requesting federal troops to ensure the orderly movement of rent-paying tenants into the assigned apartments at Sojourner Truth Homes without delay.

Harold Dillard, fourteen, is arrested by police officers during the Sojourner Truth Housing Riot as his sister clings to him in his defense. Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.

An African American man runs in front of a police vehicle, with a uniformed police officer holding his nightstick up behind him and houses in the background in the aftermath of the violent protest over the Sojourner Truth projects. Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.

THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH

Sunday morning brought peace and quiet to northeast Detroit as pickets had begun to break up during the early morning hours, despite earlier avowals otherwise. Nonetheless, Police Superintendent Louis Berg kept 120 patrolmen posted in the vicinity of the project. Many of the Roman Catholic pickets made it to midmorning Mass at St. Louis the King Parish in time to hear Father Dzink’s homily on the righteousness of the cause at hand. Most of those suffering injuries had now been released from various hospital emergency rooms in the area, and more than one hundred blacks were sitting in holding cells pending court examinations Monday morning. The twenty-four black families scheduled for the previous day’s move-in could not, in most cases, return to their previous living arrangements. Housing was so tight in the city that as soon as one tenant departed a unit, another tenant moved in, typically the very same day. The DHC was hard-pressed to locate temporary accommodations for these project-approved tenants but did manage to find space in either the Brewster Homes or in the buildings of the unfinished Brewster-Douglass Apartments for most of them. The DHC sincerely hoped that temporary was a reliable descriptor.

The Detroit Police Special Investigation Squad, under the command of Inspector George McLellan, reported that 108 individuals had been arrested during the mêlée; 6 faced charges of felonious assault, 24 of carrying concealed weapons such as handguns and blackjacks and 79 of inciting a riot. Perhaps hoping to tamp down claims of discrimination, McLellan reported to the press that only about half of those arrested in the demonstrations were black, when in fact nearly all were black. Only 3 whites were charged with various offenses. Although the tally had not been formalized, it was believed that 40 individuals were injured in the rioting, including 3 mounted policemen. In addition, three police horses were injured, two having been struck with clubs and a third stabbed.

At arraignment on Monday morning, the first wave of defendants faced either recorder’s court judges George Murphy or W. McKay Skillman: 52 of the 108 arrested in Saturday’s riot were brought to court, 25 on charges of carrying concealed weapons and the rest for disturbing the peace. The first 4, all black, came before Judge Murphy and were accused of disturbing the peace. Their attorneys argued that whites were illegally picketing the project in the first place and that consequently no peace existed for the blacks to disturb. Judge Murphy ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove that they had disturbed the peace by inciting to riot. Judge Murphy dismissed the charges in twenty-four cases and adjourned three others until Wednesday for further testimony. Meanwhile, the concealed weapons cases came before Judge Skillman. The 24 defendants pleaded innocent and demanded examinations. They were all held under $1,000 bonds pending examinations set for March 9, 10 and 11.⁵⁹

A NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ISSUE

Without needing to consult with representatives of any organization or group, Mayor Jeffries had reached the conclusion independently that Sojourner Truth Homes, being federal property, would now require direct federal intervention in some form. The specific form he did not envision, but he hoped that through direct consultation with John Blandford, the head of the newly organized National Housing Administration, a solution would be found. He decided to meet with Blandford on Tuesday and fly out to Washington as soon as possible.

Since Jeffries was to be in Washington, he thought it prudent to meet with Martin McIntyre, secretary to President Roosevelt, to keep the White House firmly in the loop. He also agreed to meet Congressman Tenerowicz later in the day, but only after receiving satisfaction from key officials of the National Housing Administration. It was Jeffries’s intent to place the matter squarely in the hands of federal authorities, and the two men he arranged to meet—John Blandford, the top man at the agency, and Leon Kyserling, the director of the public housing division—were precisely the officials who could resolve the issue once and for all.

Accompanying the mayor to the meeting were City Controller Charles Oakman and Max Barton of the WPA’s Detroit office. As they were leaving the Washington Hotel to make their way to the offices of the NHA, they were accosted by Joseph Buffa, John Dalzell, Virgil Chandler and the Reverend John Hopkins, the latter of North Detroit Baptist Church. Buffa and his entourage insisted that they be at the table during this important, decisive meeting with the NHA. Jeffries refused this demand.

Beyond resolving a local housing issue, the importance of the meeting was not lost on Blandford and Kyserling. The national policy implications were already apparent and were beginning to reverberate throughout the halls of the NHA. Jeffries made it clear to federal officials—and Congressman Tenerowicz, who would sit in on the late afternoon meeting—that he doubted the ability of Detroit police to prevent a recurrence of conditions that had just occurred the previous Saturday. “I feel like MacArthur in the Philippines,” Jeffries was quoted as saying. “I’m responsible in the field but the decision is made in Washington.” For their part, Blandford and Kyserling would concede that Secretary of the Interior Ickes’s policy—adopted by the USHA—of not permitting projects that might “change the character of a neighborhood” had been disregarded when the Sojourner Truth Homes had been designated an African American project. Interference outside the control of housing administration, it was suggested, came from some other federal entity. Neither Blandford nor Kyserling would point fingers, but they clearly implied that none of the present controversy would have occurred if the original decision to locate the defense housing project designated for black occupancy had been at some other location than the racially mixed Nevada and Fenelon neighborhood. In previous federal practice, mixed areas were typically designated white, thus further promoting the official federal policy of segregation while exacerbating an already critical housing shortage for African American defense workers.

Undoubtedly, incidents such as the Sojourner Truth housing controversy threatened to weaken homefront morale and make American groups fear or hate one another. Such behavior, it was feared, might lead to workplace disruption, strikes or anything that could cut back military production. Such racial discord did not go unnoticed in the offices of German, Italian and Japanese propagandists, who, like their American counterparts in the Office of War Information, waged a different kind of war against the enemy: to sow the seeds of division and doubt among its citizenry. Early in the war, for example, Radio Tokyo broadcast throughout Asia an unsettling reality of the American South:

It is a singular fact that supposedly civilized Americans in these times deny the Negroes the opportunity to engage in respectable jobs, the right of access to restaurants, theaters or the same train accommodations as themselves, and will periodically run amuck to lynch Negroes individually or to slaughter them wholesale—old men, women, and children alike—in race wars like the present one.⁶⁰

During the winter of 1942, shortwave recordings in Washington revealed that the Nazis were using the Sojourner Truth housing dispute for propaganda in South American countries. Tokyo Radio, on the other hand, was in Dutch, directed to the Dutch East Indies:

Because of the labor shortage in the United States, many people have moved to Detroit. This has made it necessary for the Government to order white homeowners to admit Negro war workers. But when the Negroes attempted to move in, they were shot at by whites and bloody street riots resulted and there were many dead and wounded.⁶¹

The NHA was now deeply concerned that the Sojourner Truth controversy could set off race riots in several cities. Similar controversies existed in at least half a dozen Northern industrial centers and others in the border states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and West Virginia. Officials were fielding scores of telephone calls and answering numerous letters and telegrams, all of which were inquiring about federal strategy going forward. Aggravating the situation, however, were accusations of conspiracy that were gaining traction in various communities, and the ones being made in Detroit were particularly difficult to suppress because of just enough anecdotal evidence to make them plausible. John Williams, for example, a Detroit-based correspondent for the influential Pittsburgh Courier, suggested that real estate interests in the area, not white citizens, were behind the picketing and that DHC director Charles Edgecomb had capitulated to these interests. The Reverend White charged that a deeper conspiracy was afoot, a conspiracy of forces opposed to democracy. White contended that the police were likely in on it, given the fact that they made no effort to disperse the crowd of whites and that no attempt was made to stop a fiery cross from being burned at the site. Harper Poulson, of the Citizens Committee, asserted that the riot had been carefully orchestrated. The police were aware, he argued, of plans hatched at Ku Klux Klan meetings and at a meeting of the Seven Mile–Fenelon Neighborhood Association. The NHA realized the only counter it had to these theories was to decide regarding black occupancy as soon as possible.

Before any official announcement was made regarding resolution of the issue at Sojourner Truth, the NHA received several proposals that found their way into the local press. One such proposal called for the federal government to purchase the land lying between Sojourner Truth and Conant Gardens. The land would be held for future development as an African American settlement. Any local antagonism could be resolved by offering white homeowners in the immediate area the opportunity to dispose of their properties at fair market prices. Purportedly, some NHA officials supported this solution. Another proposal, put forward by Congressman Tenerowicz, relegated the project buildings to city offices. If that didn’t appeal to Mayor Jeffries, perhaps the army and navy should be consulted on the possibility of using the project for military housing. The latter proposal had been suggested by City Councilman Dorais, who had been in communication with Captain R. Thornton Brodhead, commanding officer of the naval reserve in Michigan and in charge of the Detroit Naval Armory. Broadhead acknowledged a deep interest in using the project to accommodate the families of enlisted navy personnel in Detroit, as they were having serious difficulties finding suitable quarters in Detroit. Ultimately, all of the proposals were rejected for one reason or another. Blandford had already made his decision, and there would be no turning back.⁶²

Blandford, however, felt that a cooling-off period was necessary, as no formal announcement regarding the timing of occupancy at Sojourner Truth would be forthcoming for nearly six weeks. This is not to suggest that the issue was being ignored in Washington. Blandford had a few conversations with Mayor Jeffries and leaders of national organizations like the NAACP and NUL that he felt could help control the narrative going forward. He was not interested in engaging the Seven Mile–Fenelon crowd; he knew he could never satisfy their demands.

In Detroit, the Citizens Committee remained active, interacting frequently with representatives of the NAACP and NUL and receiving assurances that nothing of consequence had changed in Washington. Both small organizational meetings and large mass gatherings, with as many as three thousand attendees, were held to exchange views and, more importantly, to solicit funds to provide for legal representation for the remaining African Americans who were facing charges. Meanwhile, the DHC remained in the loop as well, as Reverend White communicated with the Citizens Committee regarding any discussions about the project taking place during commission meetings.

More cases of alleged individual wrongdoing during the February 28 riot came before the bench during the interim. Most cases were quickly dismissed, leaving but nineteen cases involving African American suspects. By the end of March, charges against nine defendants were dropped, and seven other defendants were placed on probation for eighteen months. Another pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon and was sentenced to two and a half to five years. Of the final two African American defendants, one received eight months’ probation for weapons possession, and the other, a repeat offender, was sentenced to a prison term of one year and a day.

Of three white rioters who were arrested, only one, Bernard Augustyniak, faced charges for felonious assault, for striking a man with an iron rod. Augustyniak received two years’ probation. Charges against the other two white defendants were dropped.

GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION

Meanwhile, a federal grand jury investigation into the cause of the February 28 riot was begun almost immediately. Impaneled for just over a month, the grand jury handed down three indictments on charges of seditious conspiracy. Warrants were issued on Friday, April 17, for Parker Sage, treasurer of the National Workers League (NWL); Garland L. Alderman, secretary of the NWL; and Virgil Chandler, executive vice president of the Seven Mile–Fenelon Homeowners Improvement Association. (The National Workers League was founded in Detroit in 1938 by Parker Sage and sought worker membership to support its anti-Semitic and racist program of “equal rights” for whites and certain other “non-Jews.” It sought to adopt “clean racial standards which shall permanently guarantee that Americans of white European descent shall in the future direct the political and economic destiny of America.” The organization, with a relatively small membership, openly espoused fascist doctrine and praised Nazism and, as such, had drawn the attention of the House Committee on Un-American Activities.)⁶³

Named as co-conspirators but not indicted were Joseph Buffa, president of the SMFHIA; John Dalzell, secretary; Fred Monasterski, a vice president; and Leonard Stewart, also a vice president.

The indictment set up two counts, one charging that the defendants violated the civil rights of black tenants of the Sojourner Truth Homes by preventing them from occupying the premises on which they held leases and the other charging seditious conspiracy in preventing, hindering and delaying execution of a U.S. law. The civil rights count provided for a maximum penalty of a $5,000 fine and ten years in prison, and the other count called for a maximum penalty of a $5,000 fine and six years’ imprisonment.

It was alleged that the defendants conspired to “injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate certain individuals and other citizens of the United States in the free exercise and enjoyment of the rights and privileges secured them by the Constitution”; that part of the conspiracy was for the defendants to appear before the Common Council and the Detroit Housing Commission to protest occupancy of Sojourner Truth by black war workers and to threaten that there would be bloodshed and rioting if the blacks tried to occupy the buildings.

The indictment further alleged that Sage, Alderman and Chandler incited numerous other persons to maintain a picket line at the project and to use force and threats of force. The defendants appeared at numerous meetings of the SMFHIA and other organizations to incite persons to volunteer for picket duty and arranged for a signal, namely the sounding of automobile horns, to summon the pickets. They conspired to establish such a tight picket line at the project that any effort to get through it would and did result in bloodshed and rioting. Since the time of the riot, the defendants continued to appear at meetings of the SMFHIA to maintain a picket line.

The indictment was returned before federal judge Frank A. Picard. No connection was established between the National Workers League and the SMFHIA as organizations, nor was the league involved in the conspiracy.

THE FEDERAL ANNOUNCEMENT AND MOVE-IN

Finally, on April 15, fully six weeks after the housing project riot, the federal government made its official final announcement regarding the disposition of the Sojourner Truth Homes. John Blandford instructed the Detroit Housing Commission to proceed with filling the housing project with African American occupants. Moreover, he placed the responsibility for effecting the move on city government. At the conclusion of the telegram, Blandford directed the DHC to notify city government of the contemplated action so that the city could initiate measures to ensure a smooth occupancy.

Blandford then called Jeffries to instruct him not to take any action regarding the move-in until and unless he conferred with Governor Van Wagoner. Jeffries was stunned to learn that the burden of protection of the African American occupants fell, once again, on the city’s resources, and the question of contacting the governor to seek additional resources went without saying. The Detroit Police Department was in no position to supervise the move-in by itself, especially after considering the potential of a second round of organized resistance. Jeffries immediately contacted the governor’s office and arranged a conference at noon the following day at the East Lansing post of the state police. Accompanying Jeffries were Charles Edgecomb of the DHC and police commissioner Frank Eaman. Though he had tendered his resignation right after hearing of the contents of Blandford’s telegram to the DHC, Eaman agreed to participate in the conference as one of his final official acts of office.

At the East Lansing meeting, the four conferees quickly concluded that federal or state troops would be necessary to keep the peace. The first group of African American families holding leases would be safely moved into the Sojourner Truth Homes under the protection of state troops and battalions of city and state police. The governor subsequently, at state expense, authorized the deployment of 1,500 Michigan Home Guard drawn from twenty-four companies, ten from Detroit and the other fourteen from outstate. These troops would be supplemented by 300 state police and 450 Detroit patrolmen. For two days before the planned move on April 29, state troops were arriving at the staging area set up at the state fairgrounds at Eight Mile and Woodward Avenue. There the troops would drill and receive instruction on military procedure with respect to engaging civilians.

And so, just after midnight on April 29, Home Guard troops took their positions, circling tightly around the housing project. At the break of dawn, state police arrived in more than fifty vehicles to survey the area, looking out for any potential disturbance. A convoy of moving vans slowly turned down Nevada Avenue, surrounded on both sides by police motorcycles. Detroit police patrolmen took positions at each major intersection around the project and prevented onlookers from gathering in groups.

The first family to move into Sojourner Truth Homes was Walter Jackson and his wife, Queenetta. Clinging closely to their mother were the two youngest of five children. Cautious and concerned for the safety of his family but resolute about claiming his civil right to move in, Jackson told a reporter, “I have only got one time to die, and I’d just as soon die here.” Jackson would not have to die on this day, as the move-in went smoothly.

Joseph Battle, with his wife and four children, moved into the project next, without incident. The remaining twelve families of defense workers scheduled for this day’s mass move-in arrived and completed the process by midafternoon.⁶⁴

While there was no violence, there were individuals ready to stir things up if the opportunity arose. Small groups, mostly women, milled about on the south side along Nevada Avenue. Aside from hurling insults at police or the moving vans or the African American defense workers, nothing came of it. However, the crowd was bigger at the north side of the project where the realtor and SMFHIA president was provoking an already agitated crowd. Police moved in and immediately took Buffa and a dozen others into custody. They would be released later in the afternoon at the Davison station with one exception, Taylor Smith, who was being held on a concealed weapons charge.

Moving vans escorted by Detroit police motorcycle units on April 29, 1942, as African American war workers prepare to finally move into the Sojourner Truth Homes. Library of Congress.

Moving van breaks down on Nevada Road as Michigan Home Guard march in a westerly direction. Library of Michigan.

Soldiers standing fifty feet apart to ensure that the Sojourner Truth Homes is completely surrounded and protected against any protesters choosing to disrupt the start of the move-in by tenants. Library of Congress.

That evening, three hundred white residents in the neighborhood of the project met at the parish hall of St. Louis the King Church to commiserate about the day’s events. The rally was organized by Buffa and Virgil Chandler of the SMFHIA, both of whom denounced the unannounced move-in in direct violation of what they claimed was a promise of no “sneak move” by DHC’s Charles Edgecomb. Since the first defense workers had already moved in under the watchful eye of state troops, a grim sense of defeat settled over the crowd when someone asked about the next steps to be taken. No one really had an adequate answer.

Members of Michigan Home Guard stopping and inspecting all vehicles before being allowed to proceed to Sojourner Truth Homes on move-in day, April 29, 1942. Library of Congress.

Sojourner Truth Homes methodically being settled, cars parked near units in background. Library of Congress.

Mother supervising placement of furniture as father watches over daughter in front of new housing unit. Library of Congress.

In the days ahead, local police and state troops oversaw the new occupants as they directed the movers where to place furniture and other personal belongings in their new units. Children played outside on the frozen ground between the buildings. At day ten of the move-in, a gradual demobilization of state troops began and continued for another week until it was felt that the project was secure.

As a sort of exclamation point to events in the late winter and early spring of 1942 in northeast Detroit, Raymond Foley, state director of the Federal Housing Administration, announced that FHA loans would be available to residents seeking mortgages in the neighborhoods surrounding Sojourner Truth Homes, thus removing one of the major objections to black occupancy by local white homeowners.

Proud family among the first to move into a new home at Sojourner Truth. Library of Congress.

Another family happy to pose for the camera on the stoop of their new home. Library of Congress.

Two-story brick unit in Sojourner Truth Homes. Library of Congress.