Marker commemorates racist Detroit police murders – 57 years after the fact

July 26 was the 57th anniversary of the murder of three Black teenagers by Detroit police. Auburey Pollard, 19, Carl Cooper, 17, and Fred Temple, 18, were beaten and then shot outside the Algiers Motel during the historic 1967 Detroit Rebellion, which was sparked by racist police brutality. They were gathered at the motel when the murders and beatings of others occurred.

The three officers who murdered the youths were charged with murder but were acquitted by all-white juries.

Now, finally, a historic marker has been erected to remember Cooper, Temple and Pollard. Their family members and friends attended an unveiling of the marker on July 26. Among them was Cooper’s best friend, Lee Forsythe, who said: “I saw my best friend die. I heard him take his last breath.” (wfmj.com, July 26)

The rebellion began July 23, 1967, after police raided an unlicensed after-hours bar. Anger had been building after two attacks on the Black community by racist mobs and the police killing of a Black woman. Thousands of federal troops, National Guard, Michigan state police and Detroit police were deployed to put down the mass revolt, leaving scores of people killed, injured and arrested. 

Exactly one year later, on July 23, 1968, the Glenville uprising began in Cleveland.