On Our Own Ground

This chapter rereads Detroit's history of postwar decline from the vantage point of how radical activists staked claims to urban space. The chapter examines how the 1967 rebellion in Detroit—which erupted in a geopolitical context overdetermined by Cold War anxiety and global movements for decolonization—ushered in a new phase of political struggle in which questions of land and territory became central. It demonstrates how the uprising presaged the rise of the Black political class in Detroit as well as a neoliberal assault on progressive politics that continues to shadow the city today.