Black Detroit

by Herb Boyd

  BLACK STUDIES AT WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY

  In the late 1960s, Wayne State University became a rallying point for the nascent black nationalist movement. Still an undergraduate, I was now in a classroom teaching black history. Many great minds were attracted to Wayne State, such as Malcolm X and his mentors, including Dr. John Henrik Clarke, John Oliver Killens, Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan, and a host of other preeminent scholars of African and African American history and culture. The professors and student body benefited from their presence and willingness to share information.

  From 1968 to 1974, Wayne State was a hotbed of activism. It wasn’t unusual to have members of practically every political stripe, with sharp ideological differences among them. In the same classroom, one could find communists, socialists, black nationalists (members of the Shrine of the Black Madonna, the Republic of New Afrika, the Nation of Islam, or the Moorish Science Temple), Black Panthers, and members of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. These political organizations, each of which gained national and international traction, are the bedrock of the institutions that have given Detroit such a distinct reputation. Not only are these social, cultural, and political entities critical to Detroit’s history, but also many of them have carved a seminal niche in the evolution of black America. These activities at Wayne State were vital to the addition of black studies to college curricula. Along with San Francisco State, Cornell, and Howard University, Wayne State was at the forefront of that development.

  Many of the students who were educated both in the classroom and in the city’s dynamic political precincts went on to become the civic leaders, lawyers, judges, doctors, teachers, and entrepreneurs who were so important to the city’s growth and development. Moreover, a considerable number remained true to the militancy they cultivated at Wayne State and now are among the professors and administrators whose dedication and vision are responsible for the young people on campus who today embody the spirit and integrity of their predecessors.

  COLEMAN YOUNG

  An aura of optimism wafted across the black community during the 1970s when Coleman Young was elected Detroit’s first African American mayor. For a score of years from his perch in the City County Building, he challenged the traditional second-class designation of his constituents, empowering them both economically and spiritually. As noted activist Mary Frances Berry observed, “Coleman Young is unabashedly what an earlier generation called a race man, fighting for his black constituents . . . through decades of public life. His is the story of modern urban America with its ills and opportunities graphically displayed. If we are to implement a positive urban agenda, his voice must be heard”—and it was heard with powerful effect as he galvanized the city’s business elite and forged an economic plan to rebuild Detroit, beginning with the riverfront, where the Renaissance Center stands as a symbol of his aspirations. His combative, take-no-prisoners style was honed during his days as a labor activist, and it was the hallmark of his tenure in office, right down to his standoff with the city’s suburbs. He was emblematic of a Detroit toughness, a self-determinative disposition that continues to resonate from those who experienced his furious passage.

  AT THE POINT OF PRODUCTION

  Black labor has been indispensable to Detroit’s growth and development. From the moment the first fugitive slaves were safely secured in the city, they were put to work. Nearly all of the early buildings—homes, churches, businesses, schools, and other edifices—benefited from the craftsmanship of black workers. In Black Detroit you will witness from generation to generation the handiwork of black labor, and it will be more than apparent when the automobile industry is at full throttle. At first they were consigned to custodial and janitorial jobs before being shuttled off to the blast furnaces and the more hazardous workstations. It would be in the factories and auto plants, however, where black sweat and toil would become inseparably connected to production. By the 1960s, black workers, having gathered organizing skills through the various unions, began to assert their independence and make demands on the corporate bosses and the union leaders. The League of Revolutionary Black Workers was a formidable organization that, despite its short existence, had a lasting effect on the workplace. There is an extensive discussion of its influence and some of the key activists whose reputations would exceed the boundaries of the plants and go beyond the point of production.

  FROM BEBOP TO HIP-HOP

  Any mention of music in Detroit invariably begins with Motown, and while it may seem that any discussion of this empire has been exhausted, there are still significant elements that have been overlooked. Raynoma Gordy Singleton, Berry Gordy Jr.’s second wife, has rarely been more than a footnote in discussions of Motown. She deserves more than a passing nod for her contributions during the early days of the company. But beyond Motown—and it receives more than a glimpse in these pages—Detroit has produced a compendium of sounds—the blues, rock ’n’ roll, gospel, classical, jazz, and techno.

  In the realm of jazz, black innovators from Detroit have figured prominently in most of the major orchestras, bands, and ensembles, from McKinney’s Cotton Pickers in the 1920s down to the bebop era, with such giants as Yusef Lateef, and on to the current groups led by guitarist A. Spencer Barefield and the new music at Palmer Park. Shahida Mausi and her family and colleagues have kept the beat and the flame bright and bouncy at Chene Park, providing a platform for a variety of musical expressions. Black musicians from the city have always been pacesetters, a tradition that’s true and evident in the techno wave led by Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson. The underground techno phase put Detroit in the mix of this new sonic development, accentuating the contributions of producer-rapper J Dilla and producer Nick Speed. And we look to writers, such as Charles Latimer and Larry Gabriel, to keep us up to date on the city’s bustling music scene, no matter the genre.

  BREWSTER, JEFFRIES, AND SOJOURNER TRUTH

  Since the 1920s, when thousands of black migrants began arriving in Detroit, housing has always been a troubling issue. The majority of them had few options and settled on the city’s lower east side, where they were basically confined by restrictive covenants. In the forties, black residents slowly began to venture to other parts of the city. With the creation of the Sojourner Truth Projects, despite the racial problems and the attendant violence, African Americans took advantage of the federally supplied living space. There were even greater opportunities for better housing when the Brewster-Douglass Projects and the nearby Jeffries Projects were erected in the fifties. Much more will be said about these units and some of the renowned residents who once made “the bricks” their home.

  CULTURAL HERITAGE

  A community thrives when its cultural institutions are firmly established, well financed, and ably staffed. Detroit has had its share of major institutions, several of which have received national acclaim, including Broadside Press, Lotus Press, Boone House, N’Namdi Gallery, Strata Concert Gallery, the Concept East Theater, and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Each in its own way has blazed an inimitable path, whether in publishing, exhibition, curating, performance, or archiving treasured memorabilia. These institutions are bolstered by the schools and churches, and together they form the matrix of a city and are guided by a coterie of forward-thinking visionaries. The current success of the Northwest Activities Center, which could serve as a model neighborhood development, is exemplary of black Detroit in recovery mode, a center that wisely combines financial institutions and cultural programming.

  BRIGHT HORIZONS

  Throughout the history of Detroit, no matter the political strife, economic despair, and racial oppression, the city’s black citizens have never lost sight of the prize, as they have been steadfast in their resolve and optimistic about the future. Black Detroiters survived enslavement, white mobs, housing and job discrimination, and municipal indifference, and with each endeavor they chipped away at the age-old misery index. This unwillingness to settle for defeat is
manifested in the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network led by cofounder Malik Yakini. Promising too is JP Morgan Chase’s Entrepreneur of Color Fund and the Motor City Match program, which provide job opportunities for minority participants. Black-owned restaurants, bookstores, and mixed endeavors like those launched by Bert Dearing must be supported in order to help stabilize the community and put black Detroit back on an even keel.

  Black Detroit offers expansive discussions of black studies at Wayne State University and other educational facilities, of a treasury of prominent families, of the life and legacy of Coleman Young, of the city’s incomparable musical and cultural heritage, and of a plethora of urban issues—housing, labor, business, and the day-to-day fight for self-determination. It chronicles the milestones without losing sight of the ordinary lives who are the city’s lifeblood.

  In Black Detroit I have gathered the previously underreported stories and the suppressed voices of hundreds of Detroiters, many of whom have been linked to national headlines, and woven them together in a historical and cultural narrative that captures both their individual journeys and the city’s. Let us hope that new enterprises, like Shinola, Shake Shack, and Bedrock, and efforts by Mayor Mike Duggan and the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation to stimulate jobs have a far-reaching impact for those suffering from low or no employment. These new ventures and businesses, although not owned by black Detroiters, are nonetheless providing minimum-wage opportunities. These workers, whether employed at the concession stands, as parking lot attendants, valets, or security guards at the stadiums, exemplify a long tradition of service, a vigorous working-class pulse that built the backbone of the city and for many decades kept many industries thriving.

  THE LONG VIEW

  Black Detroit illuminates the city’s rich history, from the French explorer Antoine de Lamothe Cadillac’s first habitation at Fort Pontchartrain to the once luxurious Pontchartrain Hotel, located near that historical site, from the meadows “fringed with long and broad avenues of fruit trees” to the pothole-pocked streets like Woodward Avenue, from the waves of fugitives from bondage via the Underground Railroad to today’s passengers on the People Mover circling downtown. What was once a little village of “bounding roebuck” and indigenous Pawnees is now a city with a majority African American population. The terminus for runaway slaves soon became a promising beginning for black workers, whose sweat and ingenuity were so essential to the building of the city.

  Black Detroit is an amalgam of personal experience, collective research, and the stories gathered from the city’s griots. This is the first book to consider black Detroit from a long view, in a full historical tableau.

  Despite a long separation of more than a quarter of a century, Detroit will forever be my home—a forever home, because it was here where I witnessed my mother’s indomitable, independent spirit as she nurtured and provided for her children. No matter where we lived, it was a city that had a host of sharing neighbors, all of them willing to guide and watch over us. More than anything, it was a city that I explored with wonder, from Black Bottom to Eight Mile Road, from the projects to the beautiful neighborhoods on the far west side. It has taken a long separation for me to understand how crucial the city was to my development, to renew those yesterdays, and to realize how much of the past is still with me. You can’t go home again, as Thomas Wolfe asserted in his classic novel, but what if in spirit you’ve never really left?

  1

  CADILLAC, “THE BLACK PRINCE”

  Detroit is a dynamic city, recognized the world over for its innovations in automobile manufacturing. One of its most prized creations was the luxury vehicle produced by the Cadillac Motor Company. The enterprise’s name was inspired by the city’s founder. In 1700, Antoine de Lamothe Cadillac (né Antoine Laumet) sent a letter to Count Pontchartrain, Minister of the French Colonies, presenting his vision for the settlement that would become Detroit. In order to manifest it, he put forth his proposal for dealing with the Indian population, mainly the Iroquois. Cadillac wrote,

  It would be absolutely necessary . . . to allow the soldiers and Canadians to marry the savage [as he called Native Americans] maidens when they have been instructed in religion and know the French language which they will learn all the more eagerly (provided we labor carefully to that end) because they always prefer a Frenchman for a husband to any savage whatever, though I know no other reason for it than the most ordinary one, namely that strangers are preferred, or, it were better to say, it is a secret of the Almighty Power.1

  Cadillac’s Francophone sense of superiority and his ethnocentricity are fully evinced in his statements to Count Pontchartrain. The central purpose of his precept of interracial marriage was twofold: build a friendship with the Native Americans and replace their “deplorable sacrifices” with Christianity through the Jesuit missionaries. Sanctioning the mixing of races, however, is not to imply that Cadillac regarded the Indians as equals. “He would never smoke a peace pipe with them and would not give his full attention to their powwows.” Because of his swarthy complexion he was jokingly called the Black Prince, and that dark skin may have been inherited through the Spanish blood that flowed in his veins.2

  This intermarriage tactic was intended to be one of mutual protection as well as to facilitate trade with the indigenous population. This recommendation may have precluded applying the same condition to blacks, since they would have been less of a threat and had only their bodies for trade. Cadillac was a shrewd and shady operator, and this move proved effective. Soon there were four large Native American villages built within a short distance of the French village. “During the winter of 1701–02, six thousand Indians lived there,” wrote historian Clarence M. Burton.3

  Although sometimes through alcohol or bribery Cadillac did a good job of keeping the Indians from hostile acts against the French, he was less successful managing the often disruptive bloodletting among the tribes, particularly the rivalry and jealously between the Ottawa and Miami groups, each believing the other was receiving the best trading bargains from the French. In 1706, while he was traveling, the worst outbreak occurred between Native Americans, an action that necessitated the involvement of the French to quell the conflict and the subsequent killing of thirty Ottawa warriors.4

  Black slaves in Detroit were first mentioned in 1736, six years after Cadillac’s death. The ethnicity of slaves is significant because there is confusion on the subject among the early historians of the city. Burton, however, seems to be clear on this matter. He identifies and distinguishes the blacks from the Native Americans, whom he identifies as Panis or Pawnees. After citing the “two negroes” belonging to Joseph Campau, he lists several Panis or Panisse, including one called Escabia, belonging to Joseph Parent, a local blacksmith, who is rumored to have lived among the Indians long before Cadillac’s arrival.5

  Were the “two negroes” the same as those mentioned by Dr. Norman McRae in his dissertation on the history of blacks in Detroit who he said were the property of Louis Campeau? The eminent professor notes that the majority of slaves in Ville de troit, or Detroit, “were panis and a few were black. It is difficult to know how many slaves were transported from New France to Detroit through regular business transactions and how many panis and blacks were brought to Detroit through the fortunes of war.”6 Moreover, McRae added, in 1736 an “unknown negresse” was buried by Father Daniel, which would record her as one of the first black women in the region.7

  Listed among the spoils of war that went to the victor in the Indian battles were black slaves who were brought to Detroit. Others were captured during the Native American raids against plantations in the South. “Later some were brought to the city and the surrounding area by southerners who moved in with their chattels.”8 During an interview on National Public Radio, Native American authority Professor Tiya Miles of the University of Michigan verified such transactions:

  African-Americans who were enslaved in Detroit in the Great Lakes area were people who were sometim
es themselves captives of Native Americans. So native people were moving . . . all around, north and south, east and west, interacting with other nations of native people, and were sometimes capturing black slaves from the South. And then black slaves who were captured by Indians would perhaps be passed along, just like the Native slaves.9

  When the French conducted the first census in 1750, the total population in the city was 483 inhabitants, 33 of whom were slaves, both blacks and Panis. No distinction was made between black and native slaves. On September 10, 1760, the French surrendered the city to the British without a fight.

  In 1761, a year after the change of rulers, James Sterling arrived in Detroit and Brian Leigh Dunningan wrote that by 1764, “he owned two big Negroes.” He had difficulty selling them because they were without wives, “and likely to run away.” Sterling’s solution to the problem was to have his partner, John Duncan, buy two African women and send them to Detroit.10

  There is no indication that blacks were involved in the Indian conspiracy led by Chief Pontiac, a leader of the Ottawa nation, in the spring of 1763. Under his leadership, a confederation of tribes was assembled with the purpose of attacking nearby British forts. While Professor McRae discusses a black slave woman named Catherine in 1752, she is not Catherine, the Ojibway maiden or “Chippewa squaw,”11 who betrayed Pontiac’s attack on the city by divulging his plans to the British commandant. “Every Englishman will be killed, but not the scalp of a single Frenchman will be touched,” she told Major Gladwyn (or Gladwin), who had pressed her to end her lingering silence after entering his room.12 Pontiac, perhaps suspecting a trap, altered his plan of attack, and the Battle of Bloody Run raged for three months before the reinforced British soldiers were able to subdue the uprising.13