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Remembering the Detroit riots: Willie Horton's heroism, a missing mother, a tank outside the window

In director Kathryn Bigelow's first film since 'Zero Dark Thirty,' 'Detroit' tells the powerful story of the Detroit riots in 1967 and the murders of three African-American teens at the Algiers Motel.

I peeled back the shade and peeked out the bedroom window, defying my big sister’s specific instructions, because I was just too curious.

Right there on the corner, a few hundred feet from our house, I saw a tank surrounded by soldiers in full riot gear “patrolling” a neighborhood that was literally on fire. The tank stayed there all night, probably all week, as part of the military presence ordered by Governor George Romney.