From the Detroit Bungalow to the Ashanti Traditional Home

Part 10 of 13 in our journey from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo
(Connecting Landmarks in Michigan and African History)
 

Philadelphia row houses

The old cities of the northeast are filled with dense housing. For Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Baltimore, the row house is king. The row house is the prototypical housing type, where homes are packed so densely that they share walls, known as party walls, on two sides. This is where I grew up. It goes without saying that with this kind of housing, especially where party walls are only a single wythe thick, one develops a special relationship with one's neighbor. Details like when their alarm clock goes off, what their favorite television program is and what they're cooking for dinner are no longer mysteries, but shared experiences. As a kid, I imagined cutting a hole and exchanging notes with my best friend.

The Home of Orsel & Minnie McGhee

But when I arrived in Detroit, I found the prototypical housing to be very different. The streets were wide and spacious and they accommodated on street parking. There were no row houses. In fact, the typical Detroit home sits detached obstinately avoiding the touch of its adjacent neighbors. Sitting on 30' wide lots, narrow swaths of land buffer the space between houses. It amazed me how wide open Detroit's neighborhoods were. In fact, years later, it filled me with pride, as my wife and I moved into our first house, that the walls could only be touched by us. It's this spaciousness that exacerbates the 25 square miles of land that sit vacant in Detroit. Back east, density reduced the vacantness accumulated by home abandonment. 

The Home of Dr. Ossian Sweet

But at the turn of the century, Detroit built upon the health and environmental lessons learned from the dense cities built back east. Combined with the freedom of the automobile, and the availability of middle class wages, Detroit was destined to be place to earn a piece of the American dream (though for African-Americans the dreams had limits.  See the stories of  Dr. Ossian Sweet and Orsel and Minnie McGhee). Prominently standing in the center of this dream is a single detached house surrounded by a green lawn, a white picket fence and occupied by 2-1/2 kids. Thus, to make dreams come true, Detroit became dominated by two housing types: the Detroit Bungalow and the American Four Square.

The American Four Square was a home you could literally order from a catalog. Sears and Roebucks, Co. offered the dream for $1,995.00 plus shipping in its 1908 catalog. Its layout is, as its name implies, in a square. Typically 2-1/2 stories high, it usually includes four large, boxy rooms to a floor, a center dormer, and a large front porch with a wide stairs. Other common features include a hipped roof, arched entries between common rooms, built-in cabinetry, and Craftsman-style woodwork. Character was created by dressing the home in an architectural style like Tudor, Prairie, Queen Anne or Craftsman.

Detroit Bungalows

Detroit Bungalows were typically built in the Craftsman architectural style. They are typically 1-1/2 stories, with sweeping low pitched gabled or hipped roofs that extend over a front porch that matches the width of the home. The first floor is typically raised a half story to allow for perimeter windows to bring light into a full basement. Dormers bring added living space and light into the attic story and provide an opportunity for the architect to design distinctive front elevations. The chimney also rises along a side elevation, and again provides an opportunity for creative designs frequently done in brick or stone.

Detroit Bungalows

These were the housing prototypes of yesterday's Detroit. But today's Detroit struggles with how to reinvent itself. With huge swaths of land sitting vacant, how should the City rebuild itself? Even more importantly, what types of architecture will complement efforts to rebuild community?

Thousands of mile away, in the African country of Ghana, one can find the few remaining remnants of an ancient building tradition. Though its examples are few, attempts to preserve the forms and decorative motives of traditional Ashanti architecture continues since the early 1960s. The tradition provides an African example of how to intergrate building design with the community of people who use them.

The best examples exist around Kumasi in central Ghana. This was once the capital of the great Ashanti Empire that ruled independently from 1670-1896. The surviving buildings are today typically used as religious shrines. The buildings consist of four rooms around a quadrangular courtyard. Three of the rooms (those for drumming, singing and cooking) are open, while the fourth (the actual shrine) is closed to all but the priest and his assistants. The inner courtyards are usually littered with fetishes (objects believed to have magical powers).

The buildings themselves traditionally have steep thatched roofs. Their lower walls are painted orange/red, and the upper walls are whitewashed. The walls are formed from clay or surface loam soil mixed with water and kneaded to a malleable consistency of 9"-10" in thickness. Over this base layer, a final layer about 3"-4" thick is formed to allow mural decorations to be directly carved into the walls.

These traditional "Adinkra" symbols represent the key characteristic of Ashanti Architecture. These symbols are extensively use in not only their architecture, but also fabrics and pottery. Each symbol conveys a distinct meaning, many linked to traditional proverbs. Fifty-three were recorded by Robert Sutherlan Rattray in his book, Religion and Art in Ashanti, published in 1927.

For me, the lesson to be learned from Ashanti architecture is how well these symbols, embedded in its architecture, connect the building to the people living within it. The designs are not only art, but also literally speak to the user. What better way to connect the architecture with the people who use it?

Adinkra symbols

My suggestion is not to say that in Detroit we build new housing with painted Ashanti symbols (graffiti has already accomplished this), but that we must find ways to connect whatever we build with the people who use it. For African Ashanti builders, their connection was through symbols. As Detroit explores new building patterns, weaving new with old, finding new uses for vacant land, it must connect with its people. They must buy into the notion that this new vision is a benefit to them. It's essential that the architecture compliment the need to build community and directly connect with its users. Perhaps it's a Hip Hop style of architecture as explored by Professor Craig Wilkins of the University of Michigan or a Prefabricated Architecture as explored by Kieran Timberlake Associates. If a building revival is to begin for Detroit, it must find a similar manner to connect its buildings to its people.

The Spirit of Great Zimbabwe and the Memorial to Joe Louis

Part 9 of 13 in our journey from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo
(Connecting Landmarks in Michigan and African History)

"Each time Joe Louis won a fight in those depression years, even before he became champion, thousands of black Americans on relief or W.P.A., and poor, would throng out into the streets all across the land to march and cheer and yell and cry because of Joe's one-man triumphs. No one else in the United States has ever had such an effect on Negro emotions – or on mine. I marched and cheered and yelled and cried, too." – Langston Hughes, from Autobiography: The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Vol. 14, page 307

The Arrival of Joe Louis

Joe Louis

In 1926, Joe Louis arrived in Detroit. At the age of twelve, the Brown Bomber and his family settled into Detroit's Black Bottom. He would begin his early boxing career at Wheeler Recreation Center, Detroit's first segregated recreation center associated with the nation's first African-American public housing complex, Brewster Homes.  He would eventually go on to win the center' boxing club championship.

Joe Louis would fight 71 times, knocking out his opponents 54 times, endure only 3 defeats and hold the heavy weight championship from 1937 to 1949. He would be victorious in 25 title defenses and be ranked by many as the best of all time. But more important than the victories was what he symbolized for a people. He was the first African-American to be national hero.

A Memorial to Joe Louis

A Memorial to Joe Louis

On October 16, 1986, Detroit dedicated a memorial to Joe Louis. Commissioned by Sports Illustrated Magazine, Robert Graham modeled his sculpture on Louis's tensed arm and clinched fist. The 28'-0" long arm modeled to scale hangs suspended from a steel tripod that sits defiantly amid rush hour traffic at the intersection of Woodward and Jefferson Avenues.

"The Fist"

For a city struggling to reinvent itself amid a shrinking population and mounting fiscal crises, the Memorial to Joe Louis represents the City's new spirit. A spirit symbolized in the Brown Bomber's clinched fist. To me it symbolizes not only the City's strength, but perseverance to find a way to reinvent itself. And just as Joe Louis overcame early racial prejudice and later financial difficulties, the City of Detroit will also endure.

Just as the Fist, as it's known to Detroiters, represents its City's spirit, thousands of miles away the ruins of an ancient city represent the spirit of a nation and a people reviving its pride in its African, sub-Sahara roots.

"To outsiders, perhaps, Zimbabwe is just a name signifying some random geographical boundaries... But for me it is different. Rhodesia was a forbidden country for me, a white man's playland. I was always outside looking in... And I did not know until years of bloodshed and turmoil later just how sweet life could be here... I had inhabited Rhodesia, but in Zimbabwe I lived." -Nozipo Maraire, from Zenzele

A Nation is born

The British protectorate of Southern Rhodesia was created in 1889. Over time, a system of advantage was created that placed 60% of the wealth in the hands of a 4% white minority. Commerce was restricted to whites. The Land Act of 1930 gave the best farming lands to whites. Labor law in 1934 prohibited blacks from entering skilled trades and professions. Schooling, housing, recreation, sport facilities and medical care were all restricted and made to benefit whites.

Enduring this colonial oppression, the native Zimbabwean people finally gained independence in 1980. In order to re-establish pride in their ignored native history, they renamed their nation after the largest stone structures in Africa south of the pyramids known as the Great Zimbabwe ("house of stone"). These precisely cut structures are the remnants of a civilization that flourished during the 13^th century and was mysteriously abandoned by the late 15^th.

While under colonial control, historians insisted that the monumental ruins of the Great Zimbabwe were built by anybody but the Zimbabwean people. Phoenicians, Sabeans, Egyptians, even the Queen of Sheba, peoples whose civilizations had long died before the rise of the Great Zimbabwe, were among those given credit for its construction. It was beyond comprehension that the founders were sub-Saharan Africans. Much of this fiction was promulgated by the British businessman Cecil Rhodes, whose name is now best recognized for its association with Rhodes scholarship.

The Great Zimbabwe

The Great Zimbabwe

The truth is that the city was built by the Benametapa, Bantu-speaking ancestors of the Shona. They built other cities at Mapaungubwe, Dhlo Dhol and Penhalonga. They arrived around 400 AD and created the city sometime around the 1100s. At its peak, it contained a population of between 10,000 and 20,000 people. Most lived outside the wall of the main stone buildings which were restricted to roughly 200 to 300 royals and advisers.

Life for these people remains a mystery for there are no records except for these stone ruins. What is clear is that the area was perfect for grazing cattle and was rich in gold. Some researchers believe the City was built on a gold mine that facilitated trade with the Middle and Far East along the Limpopo River. This trading might is evidenced by unearthed Chinese and Persian pottery and stoneware. Unearthed Arabic inscribed coins are believed to come from the great east African Swahili coast city of Kilwa.

The City seemed to disappear by 1450. Theories center on environmental changes, reduction in usable land and water, and the disruption of all trade markets, particularly gold, with the arrival of the Portuguese.

But what is clear, is that these people were great masons. Without the use of mortar, each stone block is carefully fitted together. Stones were standardized in shape, size and weight to create a smooth and regular finish. There are hardly any straight faces, right-angled junctions or rectangular spaces. Circular turrets decorate the outer walls. Inside, there were a collection of circular huts completely made of daga (clay). Sometimes thirty feet in diameter and two to three stories high, they were finished with colors ranging from pale ochre to rich dark reds.

The Spirit of a Monument
There is now a deep pride in this heritage. There will never be a time when the Zimbabwean people's history is allowed to be forgotten. However, there is still much to be discovered about the people who lived in this great city, as well as the other great east African trade cities of Kilwa, Songo Mnara and Rhapta.

There are also serious economic, public health and living standard issues facing modern Zimbabwe. Price controls, land confiscations, the HIV/AIDS epidemic and drought lead the country's challenges. The average life expectancy of a Zimbabwe male is 42 years. In 1997, 25% of the population was believed to be infected with HIV. Infant mortality rates have climbed to 81 deaths per 1,000 live births (Note that the US infant mortality rate ranks 34^th in the world at 6.81 deaths per 1,000).

But despite the modern challenges faced by Zimbabwe, they will always have a symbol of their spirit. And just like Detroit's Joe Louis Memorial, the Great Zimbabwe symbolizes their strength to endure and to continue to build for the future.

From Kilwa Kisiwani to Highland Park

Part 8 of 13 in our journey from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo
(Connecting Landmarks in Michigan and African History)

Highland Park Ford Plant

Highland Park, MI was launched into the spotlight when Henry Ford purchased 160 acres of land just north of Manchester Street between Woodward Avenue and Oakland Street. Construction of the Highland Park Ford Plant (designed by Albert Kahn) was completed in 1909. The small village of Highland Park went from a population of 4,120 in 1910 to around 46,500 in 1920. At Highland Park, Ford would relocate his Piquette Avenue Assembly Plant and implement the first assembly line for the production of automobiles. At its peak it would produce 1000 "Tin Lizzies" a day.

Chrysler headquarters before
demolition

In 1913, Highland Park's Brush-Maxwell automotive factory opened as a division of the United States Motor Car Company. The factory complex shared space with the Chalmers Automotive Company. Chalmers ended production in 1923 and in 1925 the Maxwell Motor Company was reorganized into the Chrysler Corporation. The original Brush-Maxwell plant would grow to a size of 150 acres and become home to Chrysler for the next 70 years.

But just as quickly as the automotive industry arrived, it left Highland Park. Ford Motor Company downsized its operations in the late 1950s and eventually sold the factory in 1973. The Chrysler Motor Company moved its headquarters to Auburn Hills between 1991 and 1993 dislocating a total of 6,000 jobs. Highland Park's population dropped from a peak in 1930 of 52,959 to 11,176 in 2010.

Packard Motor Plant

Fisher Body Plant 21

Ford Piquette Avenue Plant

What remains today is a city struggling to recover from the loss of its auto industry. The city and its surroundings are littered with the history of its once mighty automobile production. In addition to the Ford and Chrysler plants, you can still find other abandon automotive manufacturing monuments. At Detroit's Milwaukee Junction, one can find Henry Ford's first assembly plant and the Fisher Body Plant 21. Not far from Piquette Avenue, you can find the Packard Motor plant. And there are many more abandon sites that provided the parts and raw materials in support of these might assembly plants.

The Mosque of Kilwa

As one looks at the photos of these abandon factories, I can't help but compare them to ruins found on the east coast of Africa. The ruins are remnants of a great trading empire that once supplied goods across the Indian Ocean to India, China, Indonesia, Arabia and Rome. These cities were the melting pots that gave birth to the Swahili culture. Today, when comparing these decaying structures to those found in Highland Park and Detroit, the same emotions are invoked. Just how mighty were these cities? What did they produce? How did they so quickly disappear?

Trade along the east coast of Africa existed as far back at 60 AD. The cities included Kilwa Kisiwani, Songo Mnara, Kizimikazi, Sanje Majoma and Unguja Kuu. The greatest of these cities was Rhapta, whose location today is still debated, but whose trading might lives on in the ancient Roman navigating guide the "Periplus of the Erythraarean Sea" (Periplus of the Red Sea).


The great Muslim explorer Ibn Batutta reached the city of Kilwa in 1331 and wrote,

"We ... traveled by sea to the city of Kulwa [Kilwa in East Africa]...Most of its people are Zunuj, extremely black...The city of Kulwa is amongst the most beautiful of cities and most elegantly built...."

The Mosque of Kilwa

The great Mosque of Kilwa built in the 11^th century is probably the most famous piece of architecture that remains from these cities. Built out of coral stones and lime mortar, it contains sixteen domes believed to be the first true domes on the east African coast. The largest dome would retain its title as the largest on the east African coast until the 19^th century. Proof of the city's trading might is found in the Mosques' chief decoration of embedded Chinese porcelain. Other buildings on Kilwa include the Husuni Kuba palace built around 1310 and the Geraza (Swahili for 'prison').

Songo Mnara

At Songo Mnara, one can find the remains of five mosques, a palace complex and some thirty-three domestic dwellings constructed of coral stones and wood.

At Unguja Ukuu, oral legend tells of how a local land owner, Mohammed was Joka, could foresee the future and could cast spells making the city invisible. For a period, it was the capital of Zanzibar.

The Chinese explorer
Cheng Ho

These cities were trading with India and the Chinese long before the arrival of the Europeans. Goods exchanged included ivory, tortoise shells, gold, spice, and iron. In 1417, the great Chinese explorer Cheng Ho (or Zheng He) on his sixth of seven expeditions reached East Africa. He is said to have traveled with more than 300 ships and 28,000 men. The largest of his vessels was 444 ft. in length (By comparison, Columbus' Santa Maria was 60 ft. in length). After the death of the Chinese Emperor in 1425, contact with the Chinese ended opening the door to the Europeans.

Indian Ocean Trade Routes

The Portuguese explorer Vasco Da Gama reached east African shores in 1488. Finding little gold, the Portuguese besieged cities like Kilwa and indulged their appetite for slave trade. And with their arrival, began the slow decline and eventual abandonment of most of these trading cities. By 1840 Kilwa was abandon.



Songo Mnara

Kilwa Kisiwani

We know very little of what life was like in these Swahili cities. It wasn't until the 1960s that the search for the City of Rhapta began in earnest. Serious archaeological investigation of Kilwa didn't begin until the 1950s. Much of Kilwa's mysteries remain unexcavated. In 2008, the World Monuments Fund included Kilwa on its Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites. It seems amazing that ruins such as these remain unstudied. These are truly lost cities and it's my hope that their mysteries can be solved before they are forever lost to time and the elements of nature.

From Zanzibar to the Shrine of the Black Madonna

Part 7 of 13 in our journey from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo
(Connecting Landmarks in Michigan and African History)

The diverse colors of Africa

As an African-American I've always want to travel to Africa; to somehow re-trace the steps of my ancestors. I've even had the strange experience of being mistaken for a Somalian (until I opened my mouth). As a child, while classmates could call themselves Irish, or German, my roots were tied to an entire continent. But as I grow older, I realize that the countries that make up Africa are as different as the color blue is from red. By calling oneself Black, you are essentially calling yourself a composite of all colors as a place holder for not knowing your actual African lineage.

African-Americans are different than any other immigrant population that arrived in the US: we are a people who were forced to come to America. For African-Americans, assimilation means forgiving a country's past mistreatment and believing in its potential to change. It takes the leap of faith that the principles that this country was founded upon can transcend the problems we face today. That these principles are tools for change and that using them will make things better. And it's this faith that gives the choice to assimilate or separate its religious connotations.

Shrine of the Black Madonna

Shrine of the Black Madonna

This debate erupted for Detroit in 1967. On Easter of that year, Rev. Albert Cleage unveiled an 18 foot painting of the Black Madonna and renamed his Central Congregational Church the Shrine of the Black Madonna. His actions launched the Black Christian National Movement, which called for all Black churches to reinterpret Jesus' teachings to suit the social, economic, and political needs of black people. In his own words,

"I use the concept of a nation within a nation to describe the separation that's enforced on black people... The white man has done too good a job. I was separated from the day I was born... You can't ask me if I'm advocating a separation... I just inherited it." [1]

W.E.B. Dubois and the Niagara Movement

W.E.B. Dubois in 1904

Rev. Cleage's actions are part of a century old debate. The two arguments were eloquently argued by W.E.B. Dubois and Marcus Garvey. W.E.B. Dubois was a proponent of demanding equal rights for African-Americans. As a leader of the Niagara Movement, he believed in full civil rights and political representation. A prolific writer, a major theme of Dubois's literary work was the  double consciousness that African-Americans were faced with. In Dubois's words,

"A world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,--an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." [2]

Marcus Garvey and the Back-to-Africa Movement

Marcus Garvey in 1924

Marcus Garvey founded The Black Star Line. His organization arranged for the migration of Africa-Americans back to Africa. As part of the Back-to-Africa Movement, it promoted the return of "the African Diaspora to their ancestral lands."

Many whites tried to help African-Americans with the dilemma, helping to fund and recruit the repatriation of Blacks to Africa. The American Colonization Society was founded by white supporters of gradual emancipation and actively worked to re-settle free African-Americans in Africa. Detroit's Reverend William C. Monroe of Second Baptist Church (Detroit's first African-American church) immigrated to Liberia, along with other members of the Society. African-Americans would also migrate to Ghana, Ethiopia, and Sierra Leone.

Detroit politics have always been infused with the question of assimilation or separation. Today's City which is 82.2% Black and its neighboring City of Dearborn which is 89.1% white is still dealing with the legacy of the line politicians drew at the City's Eight Mile border.
 
In Detroit, as in America, the question has always been: Are we African or are we American?

Zanzibar

As polarizing as this issue is among Americans, it seems odd that if we travel a few thousand miles, to a small island that exported many blacks to the US and Middle East as slaves, we will find a people struggling with the same question, but through a different lens. For the people of Zanzibar, the question is: Are we African or Arab?

Figure within Zanzibar
Slave Monument

For over 2,000 years, east coast Africa traded with the Indians, Chinese and Europeans. But with the arrival of the Portuguese, the slave trade began to dominate its economy. The height of east coast slave trade was reached during a period from 1770-1870. Zanzibar became its center sending half its victims to Arabia and Egypt and half to the Portuguese (and eventually the New World). Under the rule of the Sultan of Oman, the number of slaves passing through Zanzibar each year has been estimated at 15,000, though some estimate as high as 45,000. [3]  In the 1870s, up to 2/3rds of the Zanzibari population were slaves.[4]  The British would finally end slave trade on the island in 1873.



Zanzibar Slave Monument

This created a dilemma. As explained by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., during slave times, it was a mark of status to call oneself Arab. To be Swahili (or African), was to be culturally inferior or descendants of slaves. But when the slave trade ended, it became a liability to be Arab, since they were the harsh perpetrators of the slave industry. Therefore, despite the reality that the vast majority of people can trace their descendants to the African mainland, they created a more specific Arab identity. They traced their lineage to Persia calling themselves Shirazi (from the Shiraz in modern Iran). Thus they created a way to avoid the stigma of being African and being associated with the evils of the Arab slave traders.

Stone Town


Stone Town

But despite this racial hierarchy, the entire island is filled with examples of Arab, Indian, European and African assimilation. The small island sits on a boundary and like the point where salt water meets fresh water, something fresh and new was created. Below are Zanzibar's keys influences:

Zenj Bar (Black Empire)

Zanzibar's Kizimkazi Mosque

During the 8^th-10^th centuries a group of coastal cities made up the Zenj Bar. Under the influence of peoples on mainland Africa, ruins of some of these cities have been unearthed (but left mostly unstudied). Our next chapter will talk more about these cities and their contact with Chinese, Indians, Arabs and Romans. At Kizimkazi, one can find a 12^th century mosque still in use, the oldest evidence of an Islamic presence in east Africa.

Palace of the Sultan Barghash
(House of Wonder)

Omani Arabs
Stone construction was introduced to Zanzibar by the Omani. The name "Stone Town" comes from the use of coral stone as the main construction material and gives the town its unique warm reddish color. The oldest building, the Old Fort (Ngome Kongwe,) was built by the Omani Sultan in the 17^th century. The Omani would build the City's oldest mosque with its distinctive conical minaret (Malindi Minaret Mosque) in 1831. And in 1896, the Palace of Sultan Barghash (the House of Wonder) was built.
 

Indian style carved door

India
The Indians introduced two key architectural features to Zanzibar. First, as Indian merchants began to buy Omani homes, they added wide verandas protected by carved wooden balustrades. Secondly, they introduced the tradition of carving elaborate entry doors. The doors come in two styles: Indian style with rounded tops (and lotus flowers) and Omani style which are rectangular (with Islamic content).

Anglican Cathedral
 of Christ Church

Britain
At the end of the 19^th century, the British arrived. They purposefully built on the site of the biggest slave market in Zanzibar the Gothic Anglican cathedral of Christ Church. Then in 1893, construction of the Romanesque styled Catholic Cathedral of St. Joseph was begun.

Conclusions
The demons of slavery continue to haunt two countries. In both, the descendants of slaves struggle with their identity. Both African-Americans and Zanzibari struggle with regenerating the history of their African heritage.

The Swahili Style

For me, the beauty of Swahili lies in the wonderful assimilation of all its influences. I love the fact that for Americans Swahili is the most recognized African language. It's the language used to celebrate the African-American holiday of Kwanzaa. It's the language my daughter's name is derived from. And though Swahili was spoken by very few of the slaves brought to American, it's the perfect language to represent the joining of African and American traditions. And it gives me hope that the demons of slavery will someday be overcome in both America and Zanzibar by the beauty of Swahili culture.

-----------------------------------------------
[3] Gates, Jr., Louis, Wonders of the African World, pg. 182.
[4] Ibid, pg 187.

From Lalibela to Sacred Heart

Part 6 of 13 in our journey from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo
(Connecting Landmarks in Michigan and African History)

Gateway to Freedom (Detroit)
 by Ed Dwight

What was is it like as a fugitive slave to stand at the shores of the Detroit River looking across to Canada? I can imagine outstretching an arm and trying to touch freedom. The short distance between Detroit and Windsor made this a natural final stop along the underground railroad. Today, companion memorials stand on each side of the Detroit River commemorating the thousands who earned this freedom.

Freedom Tower (Windsor)
by Ed Dwight

In 1773, a British census counted 93 slaves in Detroit. By the next decade, this number would grow to almost 200. A story in The History of Detroit 1701-1922 by Clearance Monroe, William Stocking and Gordon K. Miller recounts a Negro slave woman and a Frenchman accused of a crime, resulting in the British Commandant being transferred to Fort Niagara. In 1776, Captain Richard Beringer Lernoult was transferred because of his refusal to hang the accused African slave woman.    

The firm of Abbott & Finchly carried on one of the largest trading establishments in the place. One of their employees was a Frenchman named Jean Baptiste Contencineau. A Negro slave belonging to James Abbott was named Ann (or Nancy) Wyley. The Frenchman and the slave formed a plan to rob the storehouse of the firm and then to set fire to it in order to avoid detection…On June 24, 1774 the Frenchman at the request of the woman set fire to the building and carried away from it as the plunder he wanted a small box containing six dollars… of which four dollars were silver and two dollars were paper…

The prisoners were tried before [Judge Philip] Dejean the justice possibly with a jury and certainly with the approbation of [Lt-Governor Henry] Hamilton. They were found guilty and Dejean sentenced them to be hanged. Without unnecessary delay, the day of execution was set but public sentiment had so changed that it was found impossible to get an executioner. Hamilton then agreed to free the woman from the penalty about to be inflicted upon her if she would act as executioner on the Frenchman. Of course she agreed and the Frenchman was accordingly swung off. [1]
    

Lt.-Governor Henry Hamilton

Not exactly a story with a happy ending, but due to public outrage, Judge Dejean and Lt-Governor Hamilton were indicted for this and other abuses of power.

In 1787, the US Congress enacted the Northwest Ordinance making slavery and involuntary servitude illegal in the territories of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin. British controlled Ontario would follow in 1793. But by no means did this emancipate those already held in slavery.

Judge Augustus Woodward

The Americans would finally take control of Detroit in 1796. And it would be a ruling by Judge Augustus Woodward (for whom Detroit's main street is named after) in 1805 that would give slaves their freedom except for those held by British citizens prior to American control. What this meant was that the slave population would linger in Detroit's records until 1830, when the census recorded 281 free blacks and 32 slaves. At this point, at least for Michigan, slavery would become a southern state issue. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 ensured that if a fugitive slave was captured in a free state, they could be legally sent back to their slave master. Only by going to Canada, could a fugitive slave insure their freedom. Canadians refused to extradite fugitive slaves back to the US.

Ste. Anne du Detroit
(current location since 1866)

Christian life began in Detroit when the first building was constructed at Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit. Construction began on Saint Anne's church on July 24, 1701. Today it is the second oldest continuously operating Roman Catholic parish in the US. It seems logical that the church would be advocates for slavery's abolition. But they were not immune to the same racial prejudice that had infected the greater society. African-Americans were allowed to believe, but forced to worship separately.

Second Baptist Church

(circa. 1898)

Second Baptist Church today
(current location since 1852)

In 1836, thirteen freed slaves organized the Second Baptist Church after being mistreated as members of the First Baptist Church. It marks the beginning of the African-American church becoming (as described by the African-American run Michigan Chronicle) the "catalyst for ushering in positive social, economic and spiritual change for Detroiters."[2] Second Baptist would become a leading advocate for African-American civil rights and suffrage. Included among its famous members is Ralph Bunche the first African-American to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Frederick Douglass,  Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sojourner Truth (who in 1867 made her home Battle Creek, MI) would all gives speeches from its pulpit. Today, Second Baptist is Michigan's oldest African-American congregation and Detroit's seventh oldest church. They would help some 5,000 fugitive slaves escape to freedom in Canada. Occupying its current location since 1852, one can still visit a room constructed under the sanctuary built specifically to hide escaping slaves until they could continue their journey to freedom in Canada.

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Sacred Heart
Roman Catholic Church
(built in 1875)

It wouldn't be until 1938 that Detroit's Roman Catholic leadership recognized the need to establish a Black church.  As Detroit's demographics changed, the parish of Sacred Heart no longer found itself within the heart of a German community, but instead within Hasting Street's Black Bottom. The diocese therefore decide to convert Sacred Heart to African-American.  Worshipping from a school building, the Jim Crow Parish of St. Peter Claver, which Detroit's first African-American Catholic Priest Norman "the Duke" Dukette had help organized in 1911, now had a new home.

Black congregations therefore evolved into serving two purposes. First, they served as advocates for change. Second, and perhaps more importantly, they served as safe havens from the discriminatory practices of the greater society.

Bet Giyorgis

(St. George Church)

Bet Emanuel

Half way around the world and almost 700 years earlier, King Lalibela, the first Emperor of Ethiopia, is said to have seen Christianity's most holly city, Jerusalem, in a vision. Placed in a three day coma by an attempted murder by his ruling brother, he dreamed that he was ascended to heaven and commanded by God to construct a new Jerusalem. It was 1187 and the Muslims had captured Jerusalem (launching Europe into the Third Crusade). From this vision, he built a new holy city "that would be invisible to invaders and protect the faith and wealth of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and his empire."[3]

Bet Maryem



Bet Medhane Alem
(Largest monolithic rock-hewn
Church in world)

What he would create would be a network of 13 churches in the heart of Ethiopia's highlands. At an altitude of almost 9,200 feet, each would be carved out of red volcanic rock. Four are completely free-standing structures, attached to their mother rock only at their bases, the remaining either semi-detached or whose facades are the only features that have been 'liberated' from the rock. The rock churches, although connected to one another by maze-like tunnels, are physically separated by a small river which the Ethiopians named the Jordan.  Construction work began and is said to have been carried out with remarkable speed. According to legend, angels joined the laborers by day and at night did double the amount of work which the men had done during the hours of daylight.

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King Lalibela

Lalibela remains a high place of Ethiopian Christianity, a destination for pilgrimages and expressions of devotion. And just as Detroit's network of Black churches, joined by Second Baptist and Sacred Heart, uses its faith to drive its advocacy for change, Lalibela speaks to the amazing accomplishments that profound faith can achieve. Let's hope that the strength and leadership of Detroit's faith community can be used to unify all its members and like King Lalibela create a rejuvenated Detroit.

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[3]  Gates, Jr.,  Louis Henry, Wonders of the African World, pg 91.