In Popular Culture
At least three songs directly refer to the 1967 riot. The most prominent was "Black Day in July", written and sung by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot for his album Did She Mention My Name? (and later covered by The Tragically Hip); as well a later version of the song "The Motor City is Burning" by John Lee Hooker (later covered by the MC5), a song that specifically mentions the intersection of 12th and Clairmount, and "Detroit '67" by Sam Roberts, which concludes with a call for riot police to attend to "trouble down on 12th Street".
Middlesex, a novel by Jeffrey Eugenides has a detailed retelling of, and makes some social commentary on the riot.
Joyce Carol Oates's 1969, National Book Award-winning novel, them, concludes with the Detroit riot.
The riot was also depicted in the film "Across the Universe".
The December 7, 2010 episode of Detroit 1-8-7 on ABC aired archive footage and photos of Detroit during the 1967 riots. The episode's primary storyline depicted a 2010 discovery of a black male body and a white female body in a fallout shelter constructed under a building burned down during the riots. In actuality, there were 2 individuals who lost their lives, listed above, in a basement of a building that was burned down.
A 2008 EP release by Detroit producer and DJ Moodyman was entitled 'Det.riot '67' and released on his imprint KDJ. The release featured a track called 'Det.riot' that sampled radio recordings from news reels talking about the riot.
David Bowie: Panic in Detroit 1973 (Trident Studios, London December 9, 1972–January 24, 1973/ RCA records.)
Read more about this topic: 1967 Detroit Riot
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