Are You Aware? Made in Detroit

“Motown — the Detroit Years” by The_Old_Grey_Wolf is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

This is part IV in our Awareness Wednesday series for Black History Month 2021. Read the other posts in the series here.

In the 1920s, Detroit was the fourth-largest city in the United States, and there was considerable tension in the city. The city — which in 1910 had a population of 456,000, with fewer than 6,000 Black people — had a population of 990,000 in 1920 with nearly 41,000 Black people. The tension created by this phenomenon gave rise to a relatively large Ku Klux Klan presence by the mid-1910s. This was fueled by southern whites and European immigrants competing with Blacks for housing and jobs.

The automotive industry, although in its infancy, expanded rapidly and was consolidated into larger corporations in the wake of the first World War. The Ford Motor Company, Packard, and Dodge were among the many automakers operating in the area. This industrialization led to Detroit becoming one of the destination cities of both Black and white people leaving the southern states.

During World War I, the number of Black employees at automotive plants ballooned to over 8,000. At Ford, Black and white workers were paid the same wage for the same work. Many other plants, however, would only hire Blacks for the most menial jobs, which paid less. However, due to the activities of labor unions, Black workers were able to work in better conditions than ever before. The six-day workweek, eight-hour days, and steady pay were better than any situation these children of former sharecroppers and slaves had ever experienced in the South.

World War II expanded the automotive industry again. This set in motion another wave of migration to Detroit. Because there were federal contracts that had to be filled, and the federal law prohibited discrimination in defense work, the Packard plant promoted three Black workers on the assembly line in 1943 — and 25,000 white workers walked off the job. There were also reports of white women workers exclaiming that whites should walk off the job because they were forced to use the same restrooms as Black women workers. Two weeks later, Detroit was in full riot.

After the war and riot, the migration of Blacks into Detroit continued, even as many of the auto plants like Packard disappeared. Newer industries developed in the city, such as breweries and refineries. These companies had an insatiable need for workers. Through the 1950s, southern Blacks continued to come to Detroit. Despite the increasing segregation in the city due to redlining of neighborhoods and the addition of restrictive covenants in deeds prohibiting the sale of real estate to Blacks, vibrant Black communities developed in Detroit.

Among the migrants who came to Detroit were the parents of Berry Gordy. Berry had served in the Army during the Korean War. He had worked the assembly line at an auto plant, owned a record store, and attempted a boxing career. But he also had an interest in producing music. He wrote a few songs — one was recorded by Jackie Wilson.

In 1959, Berry met young William Robinson, whose nickname was Smokey. Berry recorded and produced a song by Smokey Robinson and his band, The Miracles, for another record company. In January of 1959, he formed his own company, Motown Records. In 1960, Motown had its first million-selling single, “Shop Around” by the Miracles.

Motown grew during the 1960s and early 1970s, signing more artists such as Gladys Knight and the Pips, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and the Supremes, and many more. The company was run like an assembly line. There were staff songwriters and teams of musicians who worked with specific acts, and they had no reservations about having groups cover each other’s hits. David Ruffin’s version of “I Want You Back” does not have the flair of the Jackson 5’s, for example (and personally I like the Jackson 5’s “Who’s Loving You” better than the versions by the Temptations or Smokey Robinson and the Miracles). The Jackson 5, in my opinion, was the greatest act ever signed to Motown. During this period, the music was largely happy, danceable music that was designed to appeal to broad audiences.

By the 1960s, Detroit was in its decline. The automobiles the city produced had led to the exodus of the middle class and wealthy whites to the suburbs. Black neighborhoods had been razed to provide room for highways. Houses and businesses were lost to the roadways that carried much of the tax base with them. In June of 1963, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the Detroit March to Freedom. The goal of the march was to speak out against segregation and the brutality that met civil rights activists in the south, while at the same time addressing concerns of African Americans in the urban north: inequality in hiring practices, wages, education, and housing.

The Motown label also realized it could do public service. Its Black Forum subsidiary produced spoken word albums. These included Stokely Carmichael’s “Free Huey!”, Langston Hughes and Margaret Danner’s “Writers of the Revolution,” and The Great March on Washington. These and other recordings memorialized great events and ideas of the Civil Rights Movement.

This also signaled a change at Motown for its artists as well. Edwin Starr recorded “War” in protest of the Vietnam War. “Jimmy Mack” by Martha and the Vandellas was about a boyfriend off in the army. “Stoned Love” by the Supremes was about world peace achieved through love.

The artists began writing and performing more songs that reflected the lives lived in cities like Detroit. Diana Ross and the Supremes’ “Love Child” and the Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” were examples of this. Stevie Wonder began taking more control of his material as well. He wrote “Living for the City”, “You Haven’t Done Nothing”, and “Village Ghetto Land” in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Marvin Gaye gave us “What’s Going On.” Some of these creative changes must have been the result of the turmoil in the city at the time.

In 1967, a police raid of an unlicensed bar provoked the 12th Street Riot. Governor George W. Romney ordered the Michigan National Guard into Detroit, and President Johnson sent in U.S. Army troops. In the end, 43 people were killed, nearly 500 were injured, and more than 7,000 were arrested.

In 1970, the NAACP filed suit against Michigan state officials, including Governor William Milliken, charging de facto public school segregation. The court found there was a direct relationship between unfair housing practices and educational segregation. However, the U.S. Supreme Court in Milliken v. Bradley ultimately decided that the suburban districts did not have to work toward desegregation of the city schools.

Many experts believe this decision doomed cities like Detroit. John Mogk, a professor of law and an expert in urban planning at Wayne State University in Detroit, says, “Everybody thinks that it was the riots [in 1967] that caused the white families to leave. Some people were leaving at that time, but really, it was after Milliken that you saw mass flight to the suburbs. If the case had gone the other way, it is likely that Detroit would not have experienced the steep decline in its tax base that has occurred since then.”

In 1972, Motown Records left Detroit. Motown is still going strong, however. It is headquartered in Los Angeles where Berry Gordy moved to pursue filmmaking. Films produced by Motown include “The Wiz”, “Lady Sings the Blues”, “Mahogany,” and more. In 1988 Gordy sold Motown to MCA for $61 million. MCA then sold it to Polygram Records for $325 million five years later.

Motown’s influence on American music and its political commentary was shaped by Detroit, and, in turn, Motown shaped the sound and the consciousness of our country.