Dowling, William E.

The Detroit riot of June 21 and 22, 1943 was one of the most violent racial upheavals to occur in the United States. The clash between white and African American residents, the worst since the Chicago riots of 1919, was finally quelled with the help of federal troops, but it left 34 dead and 670 injured.

A committee composed of Herbert J. Rushton, the State's Attorney General, William E. Dowling, Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney, Oscar C. Olander, the State Police Commissioner, and John H. Witherspoon, the Commissioner of the Detroit Police Force was charged by the Governor of Michigan, Harry F. Kelly, to investigate the circumstances of the rioting, including the possibility of enemy agitation and subversion. The committee concluded, however, that the rioting was a "spontaneous uprising resulting from long-neglected and side-tracked social problems" which could only be solved by "determined, straight-forward, sociological methods."