History of Detroit

the job, effectively slowing down the critical war production. It was clear that whites who worked with blacks in the same plant nevertheless refused to work side-by-side with them. During the protest, a voice with a southern accent shouted in the loudspeaker, "I'd rather see Hitler and Hirohito win than work next to a nigger." The Detroit Race Riot of 1943 occurred three weeks after the Packard Motor Car incident. Over the course of three days, 34 people were killed. Of them, 25 were African–American, and approximately 600 were injured.

Postwar era

Mergers in the 1950s, especially in the automobile sector increased oligopoly in the American auto industry. Detroit auto manufacturers such as Packard and Hudson merged into other companies and eventually disappeared.

An extensive freeway system constructed in the 1950s, '60s, '70s, and '80s encouraged auto commuting. In 1956, Detroit's last heavily used electric streetcar line along the length of Woodward Avenue was ripped out and replaced with gas powered buses. It was the last line of what had once been a 534 miles network of electric streetcars. In 1941, a streetcar had once ran on Woodward Avenue every 60 seconds at peak times. All of these changes in the area's transportation system favored low density auto oriented development over high density urban development and were factors that contributed to the metro Detroit area becoming the most sprawling job market in the United States. In 1950, before the area shut down its last electric streetcar lines, the city held about one-third of the state's population. Over the next sixty years, the city's population gradually decreased to less than 10 percent of the state's population. During the same time period, the sprawling Detroit