(Ebook) Escape from Detroit: The Collapse of America’s Black Metropolis by Paul Kersey ISBN 9781468138535, 1468138537

(Ebook) Escape from Detroit: The Collapse of America’s Black Metropolis by Paul Kersey ISBN 9781468138535, 1468138537

The top image on the book cover is of “The Spirit of Detroit,” a statue that was dedicated in 1958. In its left hand, the large figure holds a bronze sphere emanating rays to symbolize God; in the right hand, is a family group that symbolizes all human relationships.

Detroit was roughly 70 percent white when this statue was dedicated. It rests outside the city’s municipal center, which has subsequently been renamed for the first Black mayor of Detroit, Coleman Young.

The bottom picture is of the Joe Louis Statue, a giant Black fist that has come to symbolize “Black power” in a city that is 89 percent Black in 2012.

In 1912, Detroit was less than 2 percent Black. Escape from Detroit: The Collapse of America’s Black Metropolis is the story of what actually happened in a city that was once dubbed “The Arsenal of Democracy.”

Hard to believe that in the 1920s, Detroit had the tallest buildings in America and a thriving arts and culture industry. Of course, the city was more than 90 percent white. The cosmopolitan attitude cultivated in Detroit, with architects building towers that jettisoned into the sky at heights previously unseen in the entire world, earned the city the title of “The Paris of the West.” Now, those largely empty buildings stand as a monument to ‘what could have been’ in a city that wasn’t ravaged by unions, liberalism, or a natural disaster.

It was neglected by its majority population that took over the city in the wake of the 1967 riots.

“The Mogadishu of the West” offers a warning to other American cities. In Black and white, this is the story of Detroit’s collapse.

Paul Kersey takes you on a journey into the real reason Detroit collapsed.

In 1950, Detroit was known to the World as the “Paris of the West.” Boasting a thriving economy and a population of more than 2 million people (80 percent being white), the sky seemed the only limit for this city on the move.

In 1967, the “Arsenal of Democracy” would be home to the worst riot in American history as the Blac