Detroit

Joe Louis was the World's Most Popular Athlete; Racist Businessmen Refused to Let Him Endorse Fords

by Silke-Maria Weineck

Market research documents related to the Ford Motor Company's refusal to grant retired champ Joe Louis a dealership franchise reveal a combination of middle-class prejudice and the willingness of the business world to accommodate Jim Crow. 

I Grew Up in a Black Liberationist Commune

From 1973 to the early 2000s, the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church operated a communal home in a Detroit apartment building, dedicated to the collective project of replacing received notions of Black inferiority with a sense of possibility. 

Immigrant Merchants and Law-and-Order Politics in Detroit

by Kenneth Alyass

The Chaldean community of Detroit became a significant middleman-minority through the operation of small stores in working-class and majority-Black neighborhoods. As white flight and disinvestment created increasingly dire conditions, they also became a constituency for aggressive policing. 

Preserving Detroit's Native History

Karen Marrero of Wayne State University discusses how oral traditions have kept indigenous histories alive even as many physical markers of that history have been destroyed. 

For Black Detroiters, the City's History of Mutual Aid is as Relevant as Ever

by Nate File

"The mutual aid movement here is steeped in history and working to build the city that politicians and private actors have promised for decades but failed to deliver."

Adults Support Empowering Youth – Until Youth Dissent

by Dara Walker

American youth are seldom credited for having a clear understanding of the policies that affect their lives. COVID safety walkouts are the latest example of student activism to be dismissed.

Greening Detroit's History

by Brandon Ward

Urban historians are starting to recognize something that urban activists grasped in the 1960s: power and inequality are reflected in cities' environments. 

Detroit Bankruptcy Documentary Wins Library of Congress Prize

Ken Burns, who collaborated with Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden on the selection, called "Gradually, Then Suddenly" a "complex, nuanced, layered" examination of the city's financial crisis and the political divide between Detroit and the state of Michigan. 

Detroit Historical Society Launches Interactive Walking tour of Historic Black Bottom District

Black Bottom was a predominately Black neighborhood in Detroit that was demolished for redevelopment in the late 1950s, and was replaced with the Lafayette Park district and I-375.

Police and the License to Kill

by Matthew D. Lassiter

The history of the Detroit Police Department shows that police reforms won't reduce killing as long as departments can set priorities that result in racially targeted and discretionary enforcement and are allowed to investigate and sanction the conduct of their own officers. 

Mary Wilson, Co-Founder of the Supremes, Dies at 76

Mary Wilson was sometimes overshadowed by Diana Ross in the popular Motown group, but her peers recognized her contributions to the Supremes and popular music. 

Rosie the Riveters gathered on Labor Day to Honor the Working Women of WWII

"The Rosies and veterans then told stories from the front lines. One Rosie said she was shocked at the idea of wearing pants to work. A veteran recalled being shot down from the sky in northern Italy and receiving notes from Rosies back home full of profanities toward Hitler."

Detroit Students Have a Constitutional Right to Literacy, Court Rules

A major ruling in a lawsuit involving the Detroit public schools comes at a time when school shutdowns are expected to affect poor children most adversely.

Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Rules Students Have the Right to Basic Minimum Education

The decision in a suit brought by Detroit students against the state of Michigan referenced a number of historic cases and revives the question of whether inequality among school systems violates equal protection under the Constitution.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Heather Ann Thompson sees Detroit as central for carceral reform

We’re poised for positive change with incredible energy to make our criminal justice system more just, and nowhere are we seeing that more than in Detroit. 

New Website aims to preserve Detroit’s civil rights history

Rise Up Detroit is scheduled to officially launch with a kickoff event May 14 at Wayne State’s David Adamany Undergraduate Library. The program is expected to include a discussion with civil rights veterans and experts.

Two prizewinning books detail slavery in the north: Washington’s fugitive, Detroit’s forgotten crime

The authors detail the life of a woman who refused to be a possession of the nation’s first president and the Michigan city’s troubled past.

Police killings of 3 black men left a mark on Detroit’s history more than 50 years ago

by Jeffrey Horner

"I believe these events show that police brutality today, perpetrated disproportionately against blacks in urban areas, is more of a continuation of historic patterns than a set of novel events.”

From Segregation to Gentrification

by Mike Green

Lessons from Seattle and Detroit: How city policies and NIMBYism lead to unimpeded market forces displacing poor people of color.

Tiya Miles is mapping forgotten corners of slave history

The MacArthur "genius" grant winner and author of "Ties That Bind” is digging into the history of slavery in Detroit.