In recent weeks, people across the Detroit area have been reflecting on an uprising that changed the course of this former auto manufacturing behemoth and whose aftermath continues to linger. Along with the commemoration of the 50th anniversary comes a film by Kathryn Bigelow, “Detroit,” which focuses on the 1967 unrest. It has its nationwide opening on Friday.

There have been discussions around what to call the events — a riot or a rebellion? Museums have created special exhibits about it. Oral histories have been told; newspaper articles written and documentaries aired.

“It’s good to reflect on it, where you come from,” said Kerwin Wimberley, 51, as he ate lunch in a downtown park that sits amid shiny, restored high-rises. “A lot of people do not know why we live the way we do. We reflect on it, you go back through history and understand the struggles or understand the things that happened that can help you not go back and do it again.”

But what exactly does that history of the Detroit unrest mean to residents?

In conversations with them — in what is not a big sample size — I found a bit of a divide in how they viewed what the unrest meant today. Generally, the white people I talked to said that reflecting on the riot only highlighted how much better things had become. But Black Detroiters generally said that they were a reminder of how far the city — and society as a whole — had to go.

“This anniversary serves as a reminder that things have changed, but not as much as sometimes we think they have,” said Lakisha Barclift-Jones, 42. “You look back at the last couple years and all the stuff that has been in the media, with the shootings and the deaths, all that kind of stuff, it kind of reminds you that we’re not really that far off that stuff.”