[Podcast] Wildcat of the Streets: Detroit in the Age of Community Policing
Posted May 1st, 2026 by teller
in
- African Americans--Michigan--Detroit--History--20th century
- African Americans--Michigan--Detroit--Social conditions--20th century
- Community development--Michigan--Detroit
- Detroit (Mich.) Police Dept.
- Detroit--economic conditions
- Detroit--politics and government
- Detroit--race relations
- Detroit--social conditions
- Minorities--Civil rights
- Police, Black
- Police-community relations
Dr. Michael Stauch explains how newly elected Detroit Mayor Coleman Young introduced “community policing” to the city in 1974, an experimental approach to law and order that included affirmative action hiring policies and neighborhood police stations to address community concerns about both police brutality and criminal activity in the neighborhoods. Despite these changes, tensions with the police remained, leading Black youth in the city to embrace labor radicalism from the shopfloors as they built informal economies and decentralized gangs to challenge and achieve political and social power in the 1970s and 1980s. Stauch is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Toledo and author of Wildcat of the Streets: Detroit in the Age of Community Policing.
Related Resources:
Wildcat of the Streets: Detroit in the Age of Community Policing
Related Collections:
James and Grace Lee Boggs Papers (UP001342)
Kenneth V. and Sheila M. Cockrel Papers (UP001379)
Coleman Young Papers (UP000449)
Episode Credits
Interviewee: Michael Stauch
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Music: Bart Bealmear