metro »
A half-century later:
Understanding The
1967 RI T
Jewish business
owners recall
tough decisions.
Robin Schwartz | Contributing Writer
V
ivid memories remain in the
hearts and minds of Jewish busi-
ness owners nearly 50 years
after the 1967 Detroit riot — from the
jarring sound of broken glass, to the sight
of flames and smoke rising over the city,
heavily armed military members swooping
in and the fear that ultimately drove tens
of thousands of white Detroiters to relo-
cate to the suburbs.
The five days of disorder, destruction
and violence that brought commerce to a
standstill from July 23-27 left 2,509 stores
looted, burned or in ruins. The majority of
damaged businesses were grocery stores,
611 in all, along with hundreds of cleaners
and laundromats, clothing stores, depart-
ment stores and furriers, liquor stores,
bars and lounges, drugstores, furniture
stores and other businesses.
Before the riot, Jews owned 78 stores
or 15 percent of the businesses in the
12th Street area alone. By Day Five of
the uprising, only 39 Jewish businesses
remained.
“A lot of people believed that black-
owned stores were spared because a lot of
black store owners wrote ‘Soul Brother’
on their doors, but that really isn’t true.
Stores were looted indiscriminately,” says
Danielle McGuire, an award-winning
author and associate professor of history at
Wayne State University. McGuire is work-
ing on a book about three black teenagers
murdered at the Algiers Motel during the
14 June 23 • 2016
riot. The boys were shot and killed by
Detroit police.
“People [who rioted] really saw all store
owners as exploitative with high prices,
high interest rates and a pattern of treat-
ing certain customers with disrespect,”
McGuire says.
Some businesses remained intact simply
because workers took up arms to protect
the properties. Bruce Colton of Bloomfield
Hills remembers that all too well.
“Six months before the riot, my dad
bought a case of shotguns,” he recalls. “I
asked him, ‘Why are you doing this?’ and
he said, ‘Times are not looking so good,
and someday we may need them.’ Boy, was
he right!”
Colton’s father, Sol, and grandfather,
Isaac Liebson, founded Domestic Linen
Supply in 1926. The company had one
plant at 3800 18th St. in Detroit; they
laundered and supplied uniforms, towels,
aprons and linens to Detroit businesses.
In 1967, Domestic Linen Supply employed
about 100 people, half of whom lived in
nearby neighborhoods.
“When the riot started, we picked up
some key employees and went down to
the facility and set up with the shotguns to
protect the property,” Colton says. “They
were burning down buildings all around
us. There was no law and order.”
Colton says his family gave workers
“war pay,” which amounted to triple their
normal wages, so they would sit up on
Bruce Colton's family
started Domestic
Linen Supply in
1926 in Detroit. Its
headquarters now is
in Farmington Hills;
a processing facility
remains in Detroit.
the roof with shotguns. Some stayed over-
night. A building across the street, which
the company used for storage, burned to
the ground. But, the main plant remained
unscathed.
“There were a lot of people who wanted
to save the business so they would have a
job,” Colton says. “You’d fire off a shotgun
blast or two and people went someplace
else.”
When the smoke cleared, a number
of the company’s customers were shut
down. But business and deliveries slowly
started up again. Domestic Linen Supply
received some insurance money for their
burned storage building but opted not
to rebuild; instead, they turned the land
into a parking lot. Colton watched as a
steady stream of residents and businesses
moved out of the city, but his company
stayed. They still have the Detroit loca-
tion to this day.
“We had a lot invested in that facility,
all of our machinery,” he says. “It would
have cost a fortune to move it.”
Now called Domestic Uniform Rental,
the multi-generational family business
continues to grow and thrive. Today, their
headquarters are in Farmington Hills; they
own eight processing facilities, including
the Detroit plant, and have customers in
14 states.
NEAR GROUND ZERO
Parker Brothers Shoes and Menswear was
near ground zero — at 12th Street and
Clairmount Avenue — in the building
right next to the unlicensed, after-hours
bar (known as a “blind pig’’) raided
by police, touching off the riot. Lester
Shindler, 89, of Farmington Hills owned
the store. His father-in-law, Julius Parker,
had opened it decades earlier.
“We sold men’s, women’s and children’s
shoes, men’s clothing, shirts and pants,
suits, and we had a shoe repair,” he recalls.
“Leather shoes, made in America, were
$7.99, Levis were $2.99, and work shirts
were 99 cents.”
On the night of the riot, as buildings
Lester Shindler, 89,
owned Parker Brothers
Shoes and Menswear
at 12th Street and
Clairmount, next door
to the “blind pig”
Detroit Police raided,
touching off the riot.