In Absentia: The Lost Ones of America's/Motown's Revolution(s) is a non-traditional documentary dissertation film contesting and adding to the history of Sunday, July 23, 1967--the 1967 Detroit Insurrection--from Black residents and eyewitnesses using their oral history testimonies. This unorthodox undertaking uses a collection of detailed video-recorded, critical ethnographic, thematic life history oral histories from thirty residents, with ten participants selected for the first part, who survived, participated, chronicled, and/or attempted to restore law and order during the chaos. Interviewees assess, challenge, correct, and add to the metanarrative of urban uprising and the Detroit rebellion, which is overshadowed by an abundance of misinterpretations of Black life in the city, media perversions of Black agency and performance, and critiques of rioting rhetoric.
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