Morning News from WJR, Detroit – May 1, 1967 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
Busy day full of contrasts for this newscast via WJR-AM in Detroit. The Suburb of Belle Isle had their first Love-In, rumored to be the first one to usher in the Summer Of Love of 1967. 2,000 people were slated to show up – 8,000 turned out. By most accounts, it was what everything a love-in was supposed to be about – lots of incense – lots of bells – lots of hair – lots of Patchouli. By night it turned nasty, and Belle Isle was turned into a battleground – also a harbinger for the Summer to come. For all intents and purposes, Belle Isle came to epitomize was 1967 would be all about – lots of love and lots of hate, in equal doses and sometimes in the same breath. Belle Isle wouldn’t be the only place. Detroit the City would be engulfed and reduced to so much kindling. But so then would the rest of the country. This was the start of the Long-Hot Summer – Belle Isle would be a fond and distant memory.
In other news – Weather was grabbing headlines, especially the Midwest where Snowstorms and Tornadoes were trading places reeking havoc. Death counts and property loss all over Minnesota and Illinois were climbing.
Since it was May 1st that meant it was May Day in Moscow and the Communist Bloc countries. Red Square was a sea of missiles, ordinance and wildly anti-West rhetoric. On top of everything else, it was The Cold War.
And no where was the Cold War more prevalent than in Vietnam where the latest death count added some 200 U.S. Marines to the list during the previous week. We were now starting to hear about body counts – there was still the majority of American people in favor of the war, still confident the North Vietnamese couldn’t withstand the almost relentless bombing by B-52’s and that the intensity of the war only indicated North Vietnam was desperate and throwing everything at the U.S. as a last ditch effort. But instead of solidifying that position, Americans were growing weary and fed-up at the seemingly pointless incursions yielding little or no results and the excuses being handed out by the State Department on a daily basis. The U.S. government wanted to fight a traditional war – Vietnam wanted to fight a guerrilla war. The American people would be gradually more and more divided over time. The Summer of Love would give way to the Summer of Protest. Strange days indeed.
So while the newsmen and announcers at WJR were exchanging wisecracks about “the hippies” at Belle Isle, the world was spinning relentlessly, this May 1st, 1967 as reported by WJR’s Morning News along with a snippet of some local programming of the day.
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