They demolished our neighborhoods so they could put up highways.
They put up highways so they could build and sell cars.
They sold cars so they could build and sell single family homes in the suburbs.
They subsidized the building of suburbs so the wealthy could flee to exclusively white neighborhoods.
The whites had fled, so the city could be left to rot.
They demolished our neighborhoods so they could put up highways.
They put up highways so Detroit could build the cars that would drive them.
Detroit would build the cars because we had an established industrial base and convenient geography.
Detroit’s established steel industry and river access enabled the conversion of public wealth into private profits.
The public didn’t have any wealth, so the city could be left to rot.
They demolished our neighborhoods so they could put up highways.
They put up highways so they could divide us into motor vehicles, separate and unequal,
They divided us into motor vehicles so they could siphon funding from public infrastructure.
They defunded public infrastructure so they could blame Detroit for its own misery.
It was Detroit’s own fault, so the city could be left to rot.
They demolished our neighborhoods so they could put up highways.
They put up highways so that white-collar laborers could commute and work in the city they had fled.
They welcomed commuters so corporate employers could avoid the consequences of their worker’s flight.
Detroiters were left underemployed and overburdened with taxes so they would have to work harder to get by.
Detroit could not support itself, so the city could be left to rot.
They demolished our neighborhoods so they could put up highways.
They put up highways so the downtown businesses could maintain access to those who became suburbanites.
They welcomed suburbanites downtown because they would spend their disposable wealth and avoid the inner city.
They wanted the well-off to avoid the soul of Detroit so they would believe any lie told by the media.
Detroit was dangerous and full of criminals, so the city could be left to rot.
They demolished our neighborhoods so they could put up highways.
They criss-crossed our town with highways and dubbed us the motor city; Motown.
We would build the vehicle of our own destruction and be called by its name.
Mocking us, because they would take everything within their reach while they postured as our hope for salvation.
Because we dared to resist our chains, because we refused to be left to rot,
They demolished our neighborhoods so they could put up highways.
They put up highways to keep the working class divided along arbitrary racial and class lines.
We are kept divided because it prevents us from organizing and engaging in collective struggle.
The ruling class fears black and working class struggle because it poses a legitimate threat to their power.
Our power threatens theirs, so they want us and our city to rot.
They demolished our neighborhoods so they could deny the collective power of our community.
