Detroit history

After the Covid-19 pandemic postponed the event for a year, the Tokyo Olympic Games are set to begin on July 23. While the thrill of the athletic competition dazzles audiences from around the globe, the unseen process of who gets to host the games is just as competitive.

Today on Stateside, we talk to a researcher who found that the forever chemicals known as PFAS are showing up in rainfall around the Great Lakes. Then, what families should know about kids and COVID-19 as summer vacation begins. And, an effort to save the historical home of Sarah Elizabeth Ray, the Detroit civil rights activist whose U.S. Supreme Court case led to the integration of the Boblo Island ferry. 

Today, on Stateside, we discuss changes to medical care under Michigan’s reworked no-fault auto insurance law, and what it means for those in a catastrophic accident. Also, the artisitc journey of Michigan-based children's book illustrator Gijsbert van Frakenguyzen. Plus, long-time journalist John Gallagher talks about entrepreneurship and reinvention in Detroit.

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Musician Marvin Gaye took a creative leap of faith 50 years ago when he released one of the most enduring works of the 20th century: his 1971 album What’s Going On. On the anniversary of the album’s release, a group of journalists, music aficionados, and educators join Stateside to reflect on the community that gave rise to Gaye’s masterpiece, and on the record’s enduring legacy today.

Digital tools, which allow people to show one another what’s going on in their lives in real time, have shifted how Americans talk about police brutality and other police misconduct. Members of the public can now record and share law enforcement abuses more often than they could back before the advent of smartphones.

But the pattern of police violence toward Black Americans existed long before the digital age, and now, a new exhibition called Detroit Under Fire: Police Violence, Crime Politics, and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Civil Rights Era documents a portion of that history in an online setting, cataloging Detroit Police Department abuses from 1957 to 1973.

Detroit loves its sports, and sometimes even loves the results. The new book City of Champions details pivotal Detroit sports moments spanning more than 250 years, and documents how sports history is woven into the city's overall successes and struggles.

Sometimes fiction tells new truths about history. That’s what happens in author Alice Randall’s latest novel Black Bottom Saints, which draws from the experiences of Black Detroiters who lived in the city’s historic Black Bottom neighborhood. The book is structured like a book of saints in the Catholic tradition. Many of the saints are based on real people, and they give voice to a place that continues to influence Detroit, and the rest of the world, today.

Today on Stateside, the state Supreme Court says Governor Gretchen Whitmer can’t extend her emergency declaration indefinitely amid the spread of COVID. That leaves local leaders in charge of putting plans in action. Also, we’ll check in with a teacher about returning to in-person instruction with her middle school students.

For many Michiganders, summer used to mean a stop at Boblo Island. Trips to the amusement park island on the Canadian side of the Detroit River ended in the early 1990s, but folks still talk about carefree days on Boblo, or riding one of the two ferries that took you to the island: the Columbia and the Ste. Clair. Those boats are the subject of a documentary underway, Boblo Boats: A Tale of Two Sisters. Within that documentary is the story of Sarah Elizabeth Ray, a woman hailed as “Detroit’s other Rosa Parks” for her experience on the Boblo Boats. 

On June 23, 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. stood in Detroit and spoke about a dream. It was a fraught moment in the history of the American civil rights movement. Noted civil rights activist Medger Evers had been murdered by a white supremacist just days earlier.

We talked to Detroit historian Ken Coleman, author of On This Day: African-American Life in Detroit and writer for Michigan Advance, about MLK Jr.’s visit to the city. 

Today on Stateside, a new investigative report revealed that top exectutives at a firm contracted by the city of Flint knew there was a problem with lead contamination in the water system, but never alerted the public. Plus, a look at the golden era of downtown department stores in Detroit, and what their eventual demise tells us about how the retail landscape has changed. 

Halloween night is one of the busiest pizza delivery nights of the year. If you're having people over after trick-or-treating, there's a good chance you'll have a rectangular deep dish delivered to your home. 

That style of pizza—with the cheese pushed to the edges, forming a caramelized crust—that's Detroit style pizza. The Michigan invention is now becoming more popular in culinary scenes across the country.

Today on Stateside, Governor Gretchen Whitmer breaks down the rationale behind her proposed 45-cent gas tax in her first state budget. Plus, the Univeristy of Detroit Mercy School of Law is celebrating the anniversary of a Detroit meeting between two prominent abolitionists 160 years ago this week. 

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Today on Stateside, a Princeton study makes recommendations for how Michigan's new citizen commission should redraw the state's political maps for the 2022 election. Plus, a look at why Michigan State University is refusing to hand over 6,000 internal documents to special investigators. 

Listen to the full show above or find individual segments below. 

What is lost when an urban area is “renewed?”

That’s the question being asked by an exhibition called “Black Bottom Street View,” on display at the Detroit Public Library's Main Branch through March 15.

Michigan has a long list of water problems: raw sewage overflowing into the Great Lakes, PFAS chemicals in groundwater and, of course, the countless lead pipes that contributed to the Flint water disaster.

The state's first-known water crisis, though, happened more than 180 years ago.

In 1971, the Detroit Police Department launched the S.T.R.E.S.S unit, an acronym for “Stop the Robberies and Enjoy Safe Streets.”

The unit was eliminated by Mayor Young in 1974, but the stories of those three years are dark and violent.  They included tragedies of unchecked use of excessive force against the city’s African-American community. 

Like something out of a gangster movie, radio personality Jerry Buckley was gunned down in the La Salle Hotel in Detroit 88 years ago this week.

Buckley’s killer was never found, and the mystery of his death involves mobsters, a city mired in violence, and a corrupt mayor who was recalled, in part, because Buckley protested his election on the radio.

On this day 75 ago, the 1943 race riots were coming to an end. Over a three-day period, 34 people were killed in the riots. Nine of them were white and 25 were African-Americans. The event would mark a turning point in the city’s history.

Michael Jackman, senior editor of the Detroit Metro Times, joined Stateside’s Lester Graham to discuss this bloody part of Detroit’s history.

This week marks the 75th anniversary of the 1943 race riots in Detroit, and Stateside is exploring this violent episode in the city’s history – and its legacy in present-day downtown and Midtown.

Jamon Jordan, tour leader for the Black Scroll Network History and Tours, joined Stateside to talk about another “major flashpoint” of the riots: Woodward Avenue.

Today marks an infamous anniversary in our state. Seventy-five years ago today, a brawl between African-Americans and whites began on the Belle Isle Bridge.

How do we talk about Detroit?

In the 80's and 90's, the focus was on crime and urban decay. Detroit was the "Murder City." Today, the narrative is one of possibility and resurgence.

But both of those depictions were largely imposed by outsiders, and were, at best, incomplete.

In today’s Detroit Free Press, there's an article titled Bringing Detroit’s Black Bottom back to (virtual) life.

It tells the story of a young Detroit architect named Emily Kutil who's trying to bring a neighborhood that no longer exists back to life ... in digital form. 

So here you are, the first on your block to buy Henry Ford's Model T. 

But roads are often dirt-covered, getting your newfangled automobile all grubby. And maybe you don't feel like hauling out buckets of water to wash it. 

If you lived in Detroit in 1914, you had a solution: take your care to the Automobile Laundry, the very first automated car wash in the country. 

A recent MLive poll asked readers: What’s Michigan’s state food? Climbing above competitors such as the pasty, the Boston cooler and Superman ice cream, the Coney Island hot dog emerged on top.

The Coney Island hot dog is an key part of Michigan’s food scene, especially in Detroit. But how did it become so popular? And how did it get its name?

Joe Grimm looked to answer that question in a book he co-authored with fellow journalist Katherine Yung, Coney Detroit.

Detroit is celebrating Vernors 150th anniversary this week. That celebration winds up tomorrow, when the city will try to set a world record for most pop drinkers at a time.

Keith Wunderlich, curator of Vernors collectibles, joined us on Stateside today to talk about the iconic company, which started with Ginger Ale.

Does wearing exotic uniforms, wielding sabers, riding camels, or driving tiny cars sound like a good time to you? Then you might have been right at home in one of the scores of social clubs that sprang up around America hundreds of years ago.

The Freemasons, the Odd Fellows, the Loyal Order of the Moose, the Daughters of Rebekah and the Order of the Eastern Star – men and women flocked to these clubs, especially in Detroit.

Bill Loomis took a look at these groups in his piece, Hanging at the club: the golden age of fraternal societies.