Much has been made in the media about Detroit's comeback. Graduate students in my
Gender, Race and the Urban Space course addressed this issue last spring while reading
Thomas Sugrue's study on the origins of America's urban crisis. Sugrue looks at events occurring after World War II, namely the uneven distribution of postwar prosperity as a chief source of African American challenges in Detroit.
I took the photograph up top in 1994. This store sidewalk sign was near downtown Detroit, not far from Eastern Market. I loved the reference to Alaga, or Alabama and Georgia. It's always interesting to see tensions between the rural and the urban. For example, I recall a chicken place on the east side with Alabama in its name.
Save a lay-over at the airport years ago, I have not been to Detroit since 1998. I hope to show the film on Grant there some day. It will be good to see up close the changes, or lack of change, in the city's built environment and people. I know casinos are there as are community gardens. I have also heard there's still work ahead even with gentrification in certain areas. As a historian who is presently attentive to how African Americans leaving the place with which they have long been associated - cities - I wonder about the implications for Detroit.
Along the way, I'll continue thinking about the urban spaces that Grant Green saw before death in 1979. He was born in St. Louis and lived in Brooklyn and Detroit. Sounds of the city are certainly present in pop and R & B music, the Motown label included. How does black urban life in America bubble up in his contributions to jazz? It's worth thinking about since so much of what he created was completed during he years to which Sugrue is attentive.
How much of his music was a response to the crisis in question? Was any of his music a celebration over merely surviving this crisis and so much more for as long as he could? After all, he did own a beautiful house on Detroit's west side. That said, he experienced many financial struggles as did many musicians.
The second photo is of his house on Greenlawn and the third is documentary still shot of Grant Jr. walking on the rooftop on a loft building above Niki's Pizza in Detroit's Greektown neighborhood.
Much has been made in the media about Detroit's comeback. Graduate students in my Gender, Race and the Urban Space course addressed this issue last spring while reading Thomas Sugrue's study on the origins of America's urban crisis. Sugrue looks at events occurring after World War II, namely the uneven distribution of postwar prosperity as a chief source of African American challenges in Detroit.
I took the photograph up top in 1994. This store sidewalk sign was near downtown Detroit, not far from Eastern Market. I loved the reference to Alaga, or Alabama and Georgia. It's always interesting to see tensions between the rural and the urban. For example, I recall a chicken place on the east side with Alabama in its name.
Save a lay-over at the airport years ago, I have not been to Detroit since 1998. I hope to show the film on Grant there some day. It will be good to see up close the changes, or lack of change, in the city's built environment and people. I know casinos are there as are community gardens. I have also heard there's still work ahead even with gentrification in certain areas. As a historian who is presently attentive to how African Americans leaving the place with which they have long been associated - cities - I wonder about the implications for Detroit.
Along the way, I'll continue thinking about the urban spaces that Grant Green saw before death in 1979. He was born in St. Louis and lived in Brooklyn and Detroit. Sounds of the city are certainly present in pop and R & B music, the Motown label included. How does black urban life in America bubble up in his contributions to jazz? It's worth thinking about since so much of what he created was completed during he years to which Sugrue is attentive.
How much of his music was a response to the crisis in question? Was any of his music a celebration over merely surviving this crisis and so much more for as long as he could? After all, he did own a beautiful house on Detroit's west side. That said, he experienced many financial struggles as did many musicians.
The second photo is of his house on Greenlawn and the third is documentary still shot of Grant Jr. walking on the rooftop on a loft building above Niki's Pizza in Detroit's Greektown neighborhood.
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