ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Demographic history of Detroit

Detroit is a big city in America which has gone through a lot of changes in the way people live there over the years. A long time ago, there were only a few native American people living in the area. However, when Europeans came, they brought more people and Detroit started to grow.

After a while, Detroit became a really important place for the car industry. Lots of people moved there to work in the car factories and it became a big and busy city. At first, most of the people who came to work in Detroit were white, but as time went on, more and more people from different backgrounds also moved to the city.

However, during the 1960s and 1970s, things started to change again. The country was going through a lot of difficult times, including civil rights issues and a lot of people started to leave the city because they were unhappy with the way things were going.

This led to what is known as a "white flight" - many white people who lived in Detroit and had the means to do so, left the city and moved to the suburbs instead. As a result, the population of Detroit became more and more African-American, meaning that black people made up a larger and larger percentage of the city's residents.

Over time, Detroit continued to change and new people moved in with different backgrounds, cultures and life experiences. Despite some challenges faced by the city, Detroit has remained an important and iconic place in America's history, and continues to be home to many different people who all have something unique and important to offer.