This Week.
Elmhurst Epilogue
Detroit News series on a city block's demise rouses memories and controversy.
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he received about a dozen complaints about the
Sunday article. Fran Gross, interim director of the
Anti-Defamation League Michigan Region, said she
received 25 phone calls protesting the story.
McWhirter, who has been at the News for 2 '/.2
years of his 13 years as a journalist, said this vas the
biggest response he had ever received to a story —
about 150 calls and e-mails.
"I got four or five people who said they were
Jewish," he said. They were concerned not so much
that the stories were inaccurate, but they were afraid
that an anti-Semitic person would perceive it in the
wrong way.
Council's Gad-Harf questioned the focus on Jews
in the microcosm. "It made it seem as if the Jews
were the only ones who left that neighborhood or
left the city of Detroit," he said.
"We all know that Jews constituted a small per-
centage of the city's white population and that every
"He was very sincere and concerned about the fact
that we had received these calls," Gross said.
"The fact is that he did a very interesting article.
He did a tremendous amount of research. He was
hite flight — white people fleeing
careful in attempting to present the information cor-
racially changing neighborhoods —
rectly and honestly, and no one at the meeting really
was a fact of life in every major U.S.
argued the truth of the article.
city, said Detroit News reporter
That they argued is that it wasn't the only truth.
Cameron McWhirter, "h•it nowhere to the extent
We weren't the only people who left the city-."
that it was in Detroit.
Another concern to Gross and Gad-Harf was the
"Nowher- have you seen 1.5 million people move
summary-box sentence: "In a panic, working-class
out in a span of 20 years."
Jewish residents flee the block of Elmhurst and
McWhirter wrote a five-day series for the News
blacks move in."
exploring this aspect of Detroit history. The series,
Gad-Harf phoned the News' managing editor
"Death of a City Block," focused on the decline of
Everett J. Mitchell II about it.
one street in Detroit over the past 50 years, from a
"The managing editor was telling me how com-
vital middle-class neighborhood to a desolate "urban
plex these issues are," Gad-Harf said, and how
prairie."
much research went into the articles and how if you
He examined Elmhurst, between 12th and 14th
read the articles carefully you would see how the
streets, as a microcosm to exemplify white flight. It
Jews were not being singled our.
just so happened, under this
But for those people who don't
microscope, that many of the
read every word and jusr looked at
whites fleeing Elmhurst Street
that box on the front page of the
happened CO be Jewish.
paper, they come to a certain con-
"Certainly, every white ethnic
clusion, which is Jews are the prob-
group had different reactions to
lem — they fled because blacks
the encroachment of black people
moved in."
into their section of the city,"
McWhirter said he did not write
McWhirter said. "But as I pointed
the summary line, but reiterated
out in the series' final installment,
„at
the story was only a microcosm.
everybody left.
Martin Baum
Cameron McWhirter David Gad-l-larf
Harry Shiovitz
One of his supervisors, Bob
"The end result was tl-,- same.
Simison, News assistant managing
Everybody took off."
conceivable ethnic group participated in the exodus
editor-national and stare, \ vas asked about readers
The firsr installment ran Sunday, June 17, in the
who may only look at headlines, pictures and sum-
from Detroit."
joint edition of the News and Detroit Free Press. It
mary boxes and make inferences not intended by the
In an interview with the Jewish News, McWhirter
focused on Harry Shiovitz, a Jew with a growing
said a city block east of Hamtramck with a largely
story
family who moved from Elmhurst Street in 1953.
"It's hard to control the conclusions that people
Eastern European population also was seriously con-
Other Jews who lived in the neighborhood were
are going to try to draw; all we can hope to be is fair
sidered as the focus.
interviewed. A photo of Congregation B'nai David's
and accurate," he said.
He said that block had twice as many houses on it
departure from the neighborhood was included as
"We don't want to be putting false messages out
and Elmhurst was chosen because land records
well as graduating class pictures from nearby Central
there. If we failed in that, then that's regrettable."
research would be more feasible.
High School, contrasting white and black enroll-
McWhirter said he showed the story to black and
ment in 1951 and 1958.
Jewish co-workers before it was printed and every-
But some Jewish readers wondered why a block
Why They Moved
thing was examined by the News' Jewish publisher
where Jews lived was picked to depict white flight
Harry
Shiovitz, of Southfield, the subject of the first
and
editor,
Mark
Silverman.
from Detroit. Some felt concern that the story sin-
article, said more than 99 percent of the people he
McWhirter said, "It was of great concern to us
gled Jews out or could stir anti-Semitism among
talked to "thought that it was very nice, very fairly
that people not make the assumption that because
both whites and blacks.
written.
we were writing about a Jewish neighborhood, that
Some Jews also objected to the one-sentence sum-
`And I had no complaints."
we felt somehow that was the dominant leader in
mary of the Sunday article that ran in the series
Some Jews did question whether the Jews were
white flight from Detroit."
summary box on the front page all five days, imply-
typical examples of white flight.
ing that Jewish residents fled the block in a panic.
In his book on Detroit Jewish history, Hal- 121011y
Jews who protested thought the summary sentence
Community
Reaction
and
Dissonance, Voices of Jewish Identity in Detroit,
could lead to misleading inferences by those who did
1914-1967 (Wayne State University Press, 1991),
ADL's Gross invited McWhirter to address 55 people
not read all the articles.
University of Michigan-Dearborn Professor Sidney
at the ADL board meeting June 21 at the Max M.
David Gad-Harf, executive director of the Jewish
Bolkosky wrote:
Fisher Federation Building in Bloomfield Township.
Community Council of Metropolitan Detroit, said
DAVID SACHS
Copy Editor
W
6/29
2001
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