ABOUT THIS BOOK

The 1967 Detroit Rebellion was the bloodiest of the urban riots in the United States during the “Long hot summer of 1967.” Hurt, Baby, Hurt takes a personal look at the Rebellion from the perspective of William Walter Scott, III. The Rebellion began when police raided an unlicensed drinking club owned by Scott’s father and continued for five days, resulting in forty-three deaths and even more injuries, fires, and arrests. Scott, who was just 19 at the time and working as a doorman at his father’s club, is widely recognized as the man who started the Rebellion by throwing a bottle at one of the police officers.

This memoir recounts Scott’s life from his birth up through the Rebellion. It tells the story of how the Rebellion started and provides an on-the-ground account of the Rebellion and its immediate aftermath, including the police detainment of the people involved. Now with a new foreword by Austin McCoy that considers the lasting impact of the rebellion, Hurt, Baby, Hurt offers valuable insight into an important part of Detroit history.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

William Walter Scott, III is credited with starting the 1967 Detroit Rebellion. His memoir, Hurt, Baby, Hurt was first published in 1970 by New Ghetto Press, Inc. in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and a portion of the book received the 1969 Avery Hopwood Award from the University of Michigan.

REVIEWS

“This 1970 memoir, Hurt, Baby Hurt, is a response to the larger societal injustices of white supremacy, educational inequality, political disenfranchisement, racist police brutality as well as Scott’s own family’s dysfunctionality, and his personal alienation. This book tells a part of the story of a young Black man dealing with society’s ills — especially in Detroit, but it also tells how that same young man came to deal with some of his own personal demons. And it shows how neither he individually, nor we collectively, have solved either of the two.”— Jamon Jordan, City of Detroit Historian, University of Michigan

“Bill Scott’s vivid, raw reporting will be read by future generations to understand what it was like to be a militant young Black man during the twilight of white Detroit.”— Bill McGraw, longtime reporter and editor at the Detroit Free Press and creator of The Detroit Alman

“Hurt, Baby, Hurt is a gripping real time account of the 1967 Detroit Rebellion written by the young man known for inciting the uprising as well as a coming-of-age memoir of Black working class life in the segregated North. It is a must-read for all who seek to hear what Martin Luther King described as ‘the language of the unheard.’”— Matthew Countryman, University of Michigan

“A powerful and poetically beautiful piece of writing, Scott’s memoir gives revolutionary food for thought in these dark times. What makes someone leave or feel like an outsider? What pulls them in and embraces them? . . . Scott’s story is one that reminds us exactly of our messy humanity.”

— Megan Douglass, Fifth Estate

“Of all the accounts I’ve read or heard about the 1967 Detroit Rebellion, I can’t think of another that is more visually or emotionally rich, or that better explains the days before and after the city exploded. Walter William Scott III, provides a rare first-person retelling of how the world looked to him when anger, frustration and determination inspired a five-day uprising, centered in the neighborhood where he lived. In important ways, his individual struggles help amplify the challenges Black Detroiters had in aggregate in the Detroit neighborhood where the uprising broke out. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the Detroit Rebellion, or the fiery connection between inequality and discontent, especially among young people.”— Stephen Henderson, Detroit journalist and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for commentary

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Prophet
Foreword by Austin McCoy
Chapter 1: Hurt Baby Hurt
Chapter 2: Child Be Born
Chapter 3: Don’t Paint Me Black
Chapter 4: Ain’t Got No Head That Belongs
Chapter 5: The Pimp and the Undertaker
Chapter 6: I Goes to College
Chapter 7: The Club
Chapter 8: The Emancipation
Chapter 9: Get Some Loot and Scoot
Chapter 10: The House Burns
Chapter 11: I Got Busted
Chapter 12: The Garage
Chapter 13: Exodus to a City Bus
Chapter 14: Animals in a Cage
Chapter 15: Your Honor
Chapter 16: Patient or Prisoner
Chapter 17: Ten Dollars a Head
Chapter 18: FREEDOM

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