MSNBC: 100 National Guard troops being dispatched to Downtown Baltimore...

[brooklynite]

[lpbk2713]

1. Soldiers in gas masks with rifles and bayonets should really stabilize things.

OMFG


I hope I don't have to say this is

[kath]

2. I hope they bring out the tanks! Those really help too!

[undergroundpanther]

3. Here we go......

[longship]

4. In 1967 Detroit we were all happy to see the Nat'l Guard.

By "all" I mean everybody who wanted an end to the looting, the burning, the snipers shooting at firemen trying to put out the fires, the smoke in the skies all over the city. And the Guard did a wonderful job. We'd wave at them when they drove by the house. The whole neighborhood did, both black and white, because the city was tearing itself apart while it burned. We were all very scared. My integrated neighborhood on the NW side of the city was united on this.

Another OP had the audacity to state that he would disobey the curfew in Baltimore because it was totalitarianism. If he had done that in summer, 1967 in Detroit, he might have earned himself an uncomfortable night in jail at the hands of the Guard. Well deserved, I might add. Or maybe they'd have just told him to return home.

[romanic]

5. Interesting post.

I grew up in the Detroit suburbs and read up plenty on the riots back then (I was born in 88, twenty odd years later from the riots). What happened after the guard left in your neighborhood if i may ask? I know the wide spread effect on the city itself but its always interesting to hear from someone who was actually there.

[longship]

6. I was born in Detroit in the 40's.

As far as I knew, the Guard acted very well. They certainly were friendly when they cruised through the neighborhood. We'd wave; they'd wave back. But the city was self-destructing before everybody's eyes and ears and noses. The smell of smoke was everywhere as buildings burned, the fires defended by snipers who fired at the firemen attempting to extinguish them. That is what happens when racial tensions are so strained that things utterly snap. No hope. LBJ called out the National Guard and we were happy to see them.

I fear that the police actions against unarmed blacks could take us back to those scary ten days in the summer, 1967 in Detroit. If somebody does not do something about this, Baltimore may be just a taste.

It makes me very, very sad.

[romanic]

7. It is sad.

Thank you for responding, that must have been one hell of an experience.