Eight Mile Road, originally utilized as a surveying line in the 1700s, evolved into a phycological and physical barrier between the traditionally black city to the south off Eight Mile Road and the white suburbs to the north. Prior to World War II, the area around the road was mostly farmland, especially to the north, […]
Project Topics: Race and Ethnicity
1980s Detroit Economic Collapse and White Flight
How Detroit lost the majority of it’s population and why: white flight and the economic depression of the 1980s
Bowling Desegregation in Detroit Unions
This article talks about how the influx of blacks in Detroit Unions caused bowling to integrate.
Hank Greenberg: Detroit’s Jewish Superstar
The story of the heckling of Hank Greenberg during the 1935 World Series and how it reflected national debates around Jewish stardom in a uniquely Detroit way.
The Purple Gang: How Detroit Supplied Liquor to the United States During Prohibition
Detroit became one of the most important cities during the Prohibition because of the connections the Purple Gang had to Canada, and the mass amounts of alcohol that they were able to smuggle into the United States.
Segregation and Discriminatory Practices at Ford Motor Company in the 1930s and 40s
The Ford Motor Company was a place ahead of its time in the early 1900s especially with pushing work equality, however, by the 1930s and 40s, these factors began to change.
The 1943 Race Riot
The 1943 Detroit race riot was one of the biggest racial conflicts that occurred in the U.S. in the first half of the 20th century, and it was primarily caused by deep-seated systemic racism and unequal housing and job opportunities in wartime Detroit. Shortly after the turn of the century, Detroit experienced a significant population […]
The Black Bottom, Slum Clearance, and Detroit’s Self-Destructive Desires
The Black Bottom Neighborhood Black Bottom was among the oldest neighborhoods in Detroit prior to its demolition. Although bearing a large immigrant and Jewish population by the turn of the 20th century, factors such as the Great Migration, new job opportunities, and redlining resulted in an explosion of Black Bottom’s African American population. Over the […]
Underlying Tensions: The Chicago Race Riots of 1919 and the Chicago Commission on Race Relations
The Chicago Commission on Race Relations released a study in 1922 called The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot trying to figure out what the reason behind the Chicago Race Riot 1919. The Commission came to the conclusion that the riots were based on three things: housing, labor conflict, and racial issues.
The Great Migration
The Great Migration (also known as The Black Migration) in 20th Century Chicago.
