There were, as always, complicated forces at work when it came to the issue of race in Detroit. At the same time that open-housing advocates were making their irrefutable case and winning in court against a reactionary homeowners’ rights ordinance, there came increasing reports of extortion and knifings in Detroit’s public schools, including the beating of a teacher at Pershing High. Some law-and-order politicians called for a police crackdown of the sort that took place the year before Cavanagh was elected mayor and Edwards became police commissioner, a policy that was criticized for indiscriminately targeting black citizens. The Urban League, meanwhile, issued a report asserting that racial discrimination persisted within the police department. Despite Edwards’s concerted efforts to integrate the department, there were still only forty-four black officers, or 3.25 percent of the force, and they were less likely than their white counterparts to get promotions. Edwards was now on the federal bench, but his allies came to his defense as best they could. They noted that nine blacks were in the latest police academy class, amounting to 7.4 percent of the class, which was an improvement, though modest, and that Patrolman Avery Jackson had been assigned full time to recruit fellow African Americans. It was also pointed out that black officers now worked in all but two of the city’s precincts, and that in the Edwards era sixteen were promoted to “preferred” jobs, including a woman officer who became the first black working forensic evidence in the Scientific Bureau.
The career change of William T. Patrick seemed to fall on both sides of the civil rights ledger. When Patrick announced at the end of 1963 that he was resigning as the lone black member of the City Council to take a job with Michigan Bell Telephone, it was seen at once as a blow to the movement and a sign of progress. Some called it the price of integration. Though in a different realm, it could be thought of as part of the same process that saw the demise of the Gotham Hotel and the disappearance of Hastings Street. With his new job as assistant general counsel for the telephone company, Patrick was reaching an executive level few African Americans in Detroit had seen before. Yet with his departure from the council, fears arose that the competition to replace him would further fracture the city’s black political community. Horace Sheffield, a leading black labor official in Detroit, said Patrick deserved the accolades, “but for the Negro community to continue to romanticize this situation and ignore the very real political chaos that his withdrawal from council has created is sheer stupidity.”
Detroit was 29 percent black then, and council members were elected at large, by the entire voting population, leaving open the possibility that a white candidate might prevail, leaving no African American representation. And fissures were already forming within the black community as various would-be replacements made their ambitions known. Patrick was the rare public figure who could interact comfortably with almost all segments of Detroit society and politics, with the exception of the virulent white neighborhood protectionists and a few black separatists. It was his impressive performance on the Olympic trip to Baden-Baden with the governor and mayor and Detroit business elite that inspired Michigan Bell to recruit him. At the same time, his steadfast sponsorship of open-housing legislation and his role as a black pioneer in city politics solidified his position in the African American community.
• • •
“Ah, it’s a great life if you happen to be Jerry Cavanagh.” Not a bad lead sentence for the mayor of Detroit to read in the Free Press as the new year began. There might have been a touch of sarcasm behind Frank Beckman’s line—he was, after all, a hard-bitten political reporter—but nothing that followed gave it away. “At age 35, you’ve got a $25,000 a year job as mayor of Detroit. The politicos see a great future ahead of you. The kids are over the flu and the gorgeous wife isn’t so frantic.”
Cavanagh had just been named one of the Outstanding Young Men in the nation by the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce, a list of rising thirty somethings that also included Birch Bayh, Democratic senator from Indiana; Zbigniew Brzezinski, a professor at Columbia University who specialized in the Soviet sphere of influence; A. Leon Higginbotham of Philadelphia, a black lawyer serving on the Federal Trade Commission; and George Stevens Jr., a documentary filmmaker and producer whose namesake father had directed the movie classic Giant. Cavanagh had reached a status where he was wanted on both coasts. The Outstanding Young Men ceremony would take place in Santa Monica, but before leaving for California, the mayor was preparing for a trip to Washington, where he would meet with President Johnson and a select group of mayors to discuss urban issues at the White House. A few years earlier, when LBJ was vice president and Cavanagh was meeting him for the first time at Johnson’s office near the Senate chambers in the Capitol, the mayor had the distinct impression that Johnson considered him with caution, if not disdain, as a Kennedy man. “I see you wear those Ivy League shirts,” Johnson had said to him then. Describing the scene later, Cavanagh explained, “It was button down. He didn’t like it.” But everything had changed since then, and now the two men were allies who needed one another.
From the windows of the hideaway annex to his eleventh-floor office, Cavanagh could see south and west toward Cobo Hall and the Ambassador Bridge leading to Canada. When he looked down at the blotter on his desk, he saw a photograph of Louis Miriani, his predecessor. It had been among the detritus left behind during the transition in 1961, and instead of returning it or throwing it out, he decided to put it in a place where he could not help but see it, even though there was no love lost between the two politicians. The photo, he said, served as “a reminder that this too shall pass.” But what next? There was talk of challenging George Romney in the next gubernatorial election. One Democrat, Congressman Neil Staebler of Ann Arbor, had entered the race, but Staebler’s labor and civil rights credentials were questioned by Walter Reuther and the UAW, who went looking for an alternative. Reuther first approached G. Mennen (Soapy) Williams, the popular former six-term governor who had gone to Washington with JFK’s election to serve as assistant secretary of state for African affairs, but when Williams declined Reuther turned to Cavanagh.
Some Michigan political observers said it was a fifty-fifty proposition that Cavanagh would run, even though he had not yet finished his first term as mayor. Beckman described him as “energetic, restless and AMBITIOUS,” the capital letters in this case no overstatement, given his overt attempt to model himself after Kennedy. “The job of mayor is very satisfying,” Cavanagh said in response to the speculation. “My present inclination is to remain where I am. But one has to consider all things in politics and opportunities as they present themselves.”
In his New Year’s address for 1964, Cavanagh had echoed the “unfinished business” theme articulated in the Chronicle. Nineteen sixty-three was “momentous,” he said. “It witnessed economic prosperity for most of the country and looked with special favor on Detroit. The general level of wages and salaries has been improved and unemployment has been reduced. New buildings in Detroit indicate an active past year and bode well for 1964.” But there was much still to be done, and Cavanagh was optimistic that it could be done, both in Detroit and nationally under LBJ, who had already defined himself as an activist president. His optimism, Cavanagh said, was “an inherent characteristic of man and his trust in progress.” But he added that all of these hopes rested on one condition most of all: a peaceful world. On the same day that he delivered that message, there was a front-page story about two noted West Point graduates who had been wounded in South Vietnam. One was Brig. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell Jr., the son of a noted World War II commander, and the other was William C. Carpenter, a lieutenant who had been a star college football player, gaining fame as the “lonesome end” on the 1959 Army team. American forces in Vietnam were designated as advisers then, but 163 had already been killed in the developing war.
• • •
“I am proud of a young man named Berry Gordy Jr.,” Ziggy Johnson wrote in his first “Zagging with Ziggy” column of the new ye
ar. “He has given the youth of our town an incentive to strive for unknown goals that can be theirs, once they find something pleasing to the show-going and record listening public.”
Motown was entering its sixth year of existence in January 1964. Gordy had closed out the old year with a grand Christmas party at his new showpiece, the Graystone Ballroom. Most Motown accounts, taking their cue from Gordy’s own autobiography, To Be Loved, placed this Christmas party in December 1962, but that is inaccurate. Gordy did not buy the ballroom until June 1963. The Christmas party in December 1963 was his first at the Graystone. All the Gordys were there: Mom and Pops and sisters Esther, Anna, Gwen, and Loucye, along with brothers Fuller, George, and Robert and their families. So were most of the producers, technicians, writers, salespeople, musicians, and artists in the growing Motown assembly, along with local deejays, emcees, club owners, and friends. “I would be a stupid columnist if I attempted to call the names of all the future stars who were on hand,” Ziggy confided. Mohair suits, cocked hats, cocktail dresses, furs—everyone dressed in their finest. Robert Gordy wore a Santa Claus suit and handed out bonus checks. Smokey Robinson played the piano for the crowd, with many of the singers gathered around him, and was given the Motown Spirit Award.
All seemed flush at Motown, just as with the auto industry. But here too 1964 presented itself as the year to deal with things undone.
A few months before his fourteenth birthday, the youngest member of the troupe had dropped the diminutive from his stage name and was now going by Stevie Wonder. His voice was also changing, making it more difficult for him to sing in keys being arranged for him. “Fingertips (Part 2)” had propelled him into stardom and across the ocean. He was in Paris and London over the holiday break, performing in both European capitals and appearing on various television shows. In the middle of the tour, he flew back to New York, missing scheduled stops in West Germany and the Netherlands for what was to be a January 5 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. It was listed in TV Guide and promoted in Detroit, but time ran out and the host was into his weekly end-of-show ritual, a sweeping wave good night, before Stevie could make it onstage. The commitment had been firm since the previous September, but now the Beatles were coming with their British Invasion. They would make their American debut on the show five weeks later, on February 9, while Stevie was still waiting for his chance.
Reflecting the crosscurrents of the times, Gordy had involved his prodigy in a seemingly peculiar back-to-the-future enterprise before the trip overseas. Or maybe it was not so odd, given two of Gordy’s proclivities: first, his intention to promote Motown beyond the racial confines of the rhythm and blues market, as the sound of young America; and second, his incipient fascination with Hollywood and the Southern California lifestyle. In the final months of 1963, Gordy had established a small auxiliary operation in Los Angeles. He hired a few writers and producers and scoured the movie culture looking for potential deals and openings for his artists. Along came the producers of Muscle Beach Party, an inane movie starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello frolicking and fretting on Malibu Beach. This was the tamest of white teen culture, straight out of the fifties mentality, but there was a supporting role for Stevie Wonder as he joined the beach crowd to lip-synch a song called “Happy Street.” The lyrics almost mimicked “Fingertips,” which is to say they were barely lyrics at all, mostly encouragements to “clap your hands, stomp your feet, get with the rhythm of happy street.”
Even with all of Motown’s success, three of its most talented groups still thirsted for their first hit. Gordy was on his way to becoming a wealthy man, his recording company was turning into an international enterprise, the studio on West Grand Boulevard could compete with the best in New York and Los Angeles, and yet this was all without success from the Supremes, the Temptations, and the Four Tops—the very groups that later would define the Motown sound.
In the year of unfinished business, the Temptations were the first to break through, with considerable help from two Miracles. On January 8, a Wednesday afternoon, they went into the studio on West Grand Boulevard and started recording a song that Smokey Robinson and Bobby Rogers, a fellow Miracle, had conceived while out on the road during the second Motortown Revue tour. All in the family. Rogers was born on the same day in the same hospital as Robinson. He was not only Smokey’s friend, the tenor below Robinson’s soprano, but also the cousin of Smokey’s wife, Claudette, and husband of one of the Marvelettes, Wanda Young. Of the many talented Detroiters attached to Motown, Rogers ranked among the most underrated, with a natural affinity for writing and choreography. As they rode down the endless highways on tour, he and Smokey would exchange pickup lines and laments and rhymes until they had possible stanzas for a new song. One came up with “You got a smile so bright / you know you coulda been a candle.” The other responded with “I’m holding you so tight / You know you coulda been a handle.” And eventually they had composed “The Way You Do the Things You Do.”
In “the snakepit” studio the day of the recording, Eddie Willis took a Funk Brothers star turn with the urgent syncopation of his joyful guitar chords; Eddie Kendricks, with his signature falsetto, sang lead; and the newest member of the quintet, David Ruffin, melded in with Paul Williams, Otis Williams, and the deep-voiced Melvin Franklin as backup. The talent was all Temptations, but the words and sound, so simple and clear, were classic Smokey Robinson. “The Way You Do the Things You Do” took its place in the anthology of songs that inspired Bob Dylan to call Smokey “America’s greatest living poet.” The only problem is that Dylan never actually uttered those words. Al Abrams, a public relations man at Motown, later acknowledged that he concocted the quote after hearing Berry Gordy say Smokey deserved more recognition than he was getting for his songwriting talents. Abrams recalled that he was talking to Al Aronowitz, a music writer close to Dylan, and asked if he could get a quote from Dylan praising Robinson. When Aronowitz wondered what sort of quote he had in mind, Abrams suggested “Smokey Robinson is America’s greatest poet.” As Abrams recalled the scene, Aronowitz “thought about it for a minute and then said, ‘Why bother even telling Bob? That sounds just like something he’d say anyway. Go ahead and do it. If Bob sees it in print, he’ll think he said it. He’s certainly never going to deny it.’ ” So Abrams took the quote to Gordy, and from there it went public. “I will admit that I lived in fear every time I heard Dylan was doing a major interview and might say, ‘What the fuck? I never said that!’ ” Abrams recounted. But Aronowitz was right, it never happened, and the Dylan paean to Smokey Robinson found its way into rock and roll mythology.
The Supremes seemed to be everywhere except where they wanted to be, although they were able to escape the frigid Michigan winter for a two-week engagement in Bermuda. Florence Ballard was twenty-one, Mary Wilson and Diana Ross still twenty, but they had been part of the Motown scene so long they were all regarded as adults. They performed each night in a club at the Clayhouse Inn, where the first show started at eleven and the second at one in the morning. Flo raved about Bermuda’s pink sand, Mary about the Crystal Cave, and Diana loved the shopping. No sooner had they returned than they joined Ziggy Johnson on an eighty-mile trip from Motown to Jacktown to stage a holiday season concert for inmates at the state prison in Jackson. In sequined dresses and high heels, they danced and sang four songs and inspired the hardened audience to go wild and sing along—four years before Johnny Cash immortalized the penitentiary concert at Folsom Prison.
Gordy had made two decisions in the final quarter of 1963 designed to set the Supremes on a surer course. The first was to name Ross the lead singer instead of rotating that honor among the three depending on the song. The second was to team them up with Motown’s hottest songwriting team, Holland-Dozier-Holland, who had written and produced three big hits for Martha and the Vandellas, including that previous summer’s blockbuster, “Heat Wave.” Could they do the same for the Supremes? An early HDH number for the group, “When the Lovelight Starts Shi
ning through His Eyes,” was the first step. Then and forever after, few knew it by its long title but by the infectious, drawn-out, syncopated rhythm: “May—hade me ree—a—lize I should a—pol—o—gize.” It eventually reached No. 23 on the Billboard 100—better than anything the Supremes had accomplished before, though not enough for stardom.
The alliance with the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team had another matchmaking aspect to it when Brian Holland, who was married, began an affair with Diana Ross. This was nothing new within the Motown culture. Married and single, on the road and at West Grand Boulevard, new sexual partnerships were forming and dissolving month by month, adding to the crackling energy and tension of the scene. Ross was by no means the only one involved, but she was among the more active players. She had already had affairs with several Motown musicians, including most notably Smokey Robinson, and was working on Berry Gordy, who had always been smitten by her. The romance with Brian Holland was brought to an end by his wife, Sharon, after a confrontation one night in February in the Driftwood Lounge at the 20 Grand, which had become the unofficial Motown hangout club. As Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard later told the story, Sharon Holland walked up to the diminutive Ross, loomed over her, started swearing, and shouted, “If you don’t stay away from my man, you’re a dead woman!” Ross made a fist and stood her ground, until Wilson and Ballard moved in to protect her. “Sharon kept saying she was going to kick Diane’s butt”—they always called her by her real first name, never Diana—“and for a few minutes we had to hold her back,” Ballard recalled. The affair was said to end that night but might have sparked something else. A few months later the Supremes had their first hit record, and the lyrics were particularly apt. “Baby, baby, where did our love go?” The song’s key worked better for Mary. All three Supremes mistakenly complained that it was written for the Marvelettes and they were just getting hashed-over seconds. Flo thought the tune was lame. Diana grudgingly sang it in a lower register. It became their first No. 1 hit. “I’ve got this burning, burning, yearning feelin’ inside me.”
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