Monday marks the 40th anniversary of the riots Detroit, which lasted five days and hastened the economic decline of a city already plagued by economic disparities and racial tensions. The riot started after police raided a nightclub and arrested 82 people. We hear from Loretta Holmes, who was in the club that night.
ALEX CHADWICK, host: This is DAY TO DAY. I'm Alex Chadwick.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: And I'm Alex Cohen.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: We go now to the summer of 1967. The country had been teetering from the effects of the civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam and a bourgeoning counterculture; America suddenly went haywire.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: The first riots happened in Newark, New Jersey. There were others in smaller cities. And then, forty years ago today, Detroit, Michigan erupted into five days of civil unrest.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: The violence began at an after-hour's club known as a blind pig where people had gathered for a party for two returning Vietnam servicemen.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: Loretta Holmes, then 17 years old, had gone to the club with a girlfriend.</s>Ms. LORETTA HOLMES: And I remember when we got up to leave, I was going downstairs, I was in front of her and a big sledgehammer came through the door.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: Loretta ran back into the club, where she encountered policemen blocking all of the exits.</s>Ms. LORETTA HOLMES: And everybody just started panicking, running to the back of the place, turning over tables, hiding under the tables.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: But there was nowhere to go.</s>Ms. LORETTA HOLMES: They put us all in a single file and they marched us all down the stairs into paddy wagons.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: Loretta and the 81 other African-Americans at the club were arrested. For black residents of Detroit, it was the last straw. Angered by a nearly all-white police department that had used excessive force too many times, by cops who called them boy and worse, they took to the streets.