Influential book the end of the street. And i think it is kalonji going next. Dr. Kalonji walton professor at north carolina. And dr. David goldberg, an associate professor at Wayne State University. The chair and commenter today is jamon jordan, who is the detroit president of the detroit chapter of asala and tour leader and historian on all things detroit. A Community Scholar out of detroit. A wonderful set of folks going to help us think about politics in detroit and michigan and how to make sense of that. So im going to throw it over to the panel now. Again, thank you for being here. Right, thank you, patrick. Hello, everybody. My name is jamon jordan. Real quick before we start with the panel. I want to thank everybody for coming to this session and hearing a little bit about detroits politics, and particularly the radical politics. And i think, of course, i thank my panel for being here. I want to say even though its conyers were talking about the mid 20th century up until the beginning of the 21st century, their span of influence in that time period of rosa parks, john conyers, and mayor young detroits radical politics began in the 1800s. A couple of things that happened in 1800 that sets the stage for detroit to be in the top bed of radicallike politics. Theres an uprising in 1833 when 400 black people lead an uprising to free two people that escaped two people from slavery. Theyve been captured by slave catchers, including the sheriff and deputy were involved in the city of detroit. They will free, first, lucy by having a black woman go into the jail cell with her and switch clothes with her. Shes visiting and the sheriff allows her to visit. She switches clothes with lucy blackburn. Because this sheriff all the black women look alike, he couldnt tell which one he should be letting out and which one was still there. Thats how she escaped. Next day theres 400 people outside to free Thornton Blackburn and the sheriff will be killed. One of the people who passes the gun to thorton, who is being transported by the slave catchers, and hes given a gun is a man who is named madison lightfoot. Madison hands the gun to thornton. Its reverend madison lightfoot. At the onset of the blablg community organizing, we have even people in the religious Community Involved in arms struggle against slavery. And so this is the beginning of Institution Building by africanamericans. Now theyre going it start churches. Lucy blackburn went on to found the center of the underground railroad and the first black school in the city of detroit. Faith and freedom in detroit go hand and hand along with education. Its the site for the 1846 Color Convention in michigan. The michigan Color Convention happens and one of the members, William Lamberg will petition and demand the right to end slavery but black people to have the right to vote, black people to have schools. Hes making demands during the period when most black people in the city of detroit are ending slavery. Hes adding on to that. They want full citizenship. This is a radical demand. The state legislature will respond the next year by passing a law that black people cant vote. To make it clear where the state stood. So the early history in the city of detroit, both the Color Convention and the uprising of which William Lambert is a teen who plays a part. Hes 13 years old during the uprising. Hes one of the people involved in the uprising. So he goes on both sides and thats how the radical leaders in detroit through William Lambert and his wife julia. Theyre petitioning for are the right to vote but also involved in arm struggle. So they dont see a contradiction in those two. Today it is there are people who want you to be on one side or the other. For black people in the 1800s. It was part of one struggle. I say that to say its time to listen to our panel but i just wanted to give a little background of how this happened. Of course, two important pieces of this from montgomery alabama, or the state of alabama and we would have been in montgomery this year for the conference. Two of the topics or two of the subjects well be talking about today are from alabama. We want to start with dr. Mcguire. Hes going shes going give our first presentation and introduce her topic herself. Thank you. Okay. So i wanted to just talk a little bit about rosa parks. Rosa parks is probably one of the most familiar historical figures in United States history. Almost every Public School kid can tell you who rosa parks is and what she did on one day of her life. Right. The popular presentation of rosa parks is often as a quiet but courageous woman. A woman whose humble righteousness shamed america into doing the right thing. A woman whose foot fatigue alone brought down the cradle of the confederacy, and this is the way shes presented in every single museum, textbook popular presentation as this quiet, humble, and elderly woman who sat down, as many of her yule gists put it, so we could stand. In this version of history, rosa parks is living an inventive life outside of history. Free from its context and constrains, shes presented, you know, as a matronly figure who has, they put it, acted on impulse and emotion rather than conviction or intelligence. Theres no sense of her as a leader, as a member of a politically active community, or a part of Group Citizens organized against systemic oppression. And shes always presented alone as if one person can truly change history by sitting still. Right. So by telling a simple policist of rosa parks, we limit our understanding of her. I think it really hurts kids understanding of her radicalism, her importance in american democracy, and it limits their understanding of what they can do to make change in their world, too. So i always talk about how we might talk about her differently and how we can teach people, especially, about a more radical rosa parks. A rosa parks that had a really important day in december of 1955, but who had a life of commitment to radical politics and freedom. And so thats the rosa parks that i think we need to Start Talking more about. So we dont have a lot of time today and we can talk about rosa parks forever, or at least i could, i think shes a fascinating historical figure. Let me go through things kind of quickly. Rosa parks grew up, you know, at the foot of her grandfather. From a young age, she was steeped in the traditions of marcus gar i have and black nationalism. She was raised to take pride in her skin color, her family, her history, and in her roots. And she was raised to not take anything from anybody. And she saw her grandfather and her family use arms selfdefense when necessary. When the ku klux klan marched through alabama, rosa parks was there waiting for her grandfather to get his shotgun. She says in her, you know, many of her auto biographical histories that she was hoping she could see her grandfather use that gun. Right. She was raised in a family that believed in armed selfdefense and believed in black nationalism and she was steeped with pride in her own history and her people. She married a man, not surprisingly, raymond parks, who carried a pistol in his pocket around town. Right. As a way to defend himself from violent White Supremacists in the community. From a very young age, this married couple held voter League Meetings in their home and later in montgomery, alabama, in the early 1940s. In the late 1930s, they held armed meetings to try to organize around the defense around the scots borrow boys who were accused of raping two white women in alabama in the early 1930s. You know, she recalls in her memoirs sitting up late at night with groups of men with their guns piled on the dining room talking about how they were going to work to free the boys. In 1943, she joined the montgomery chapter of the naacp. She did it after she attempted to vote and was denied. It was her third attempt to try to register to vote and her third denial. She was furious. She decided she would joint the montgomery ncaa aacp and immediy asked her to be secretary. We tend to of think of her secretarial role of something about paraphernaliawoperwork or taking notes but she was a field secretary. What that meant, she was the detective for that chapter. They sent her throughout alabama investigating crimes, getting testimony from people who had been attacked or assaulted, and bringing that information back to the montgomery chapter where they would then decide how they wanted to respond. One of the biggest cases that she worked on right away in her career as secretary was the assault on racy taylor that happened in 1944. A sharecropper, a mother, she was married. She was walking home from church when a group of white men kidnapped and raped her. Rosa parks was dispatched to get taylors testimony, which she did. She carried it back to montgomery where she and the citys most militant black activists organized the committee for equal justice for mrs. Taylor. That campaign went international. It was one of the largest activist campaigns in the United States in 1944 and 45. Second only, really, to, i think, the case of the 1930s. Rosa parks did that kind of work throughout the 1940s and into the early 1950s. Its that work at the center of black radicalism in alabama that puts her at the center of the montgomery busboy co boycott. She knew that the two women who had already been arrested werent going to be used by the Montgomery Branch of the naacp for a variety of reasons. When the opportunity presented itself to get arrested, she took it. She knew what that would entail. She knew she could go to jail. She knew what it meant as a black woman to go to jail in alabama. So she took on extraordinary risk. Throughout the bus boycott, you know, we think she got arrested and that was it. She was a primary fundraiser for the Boycott Movement in montgomery. The naacp flew her all around the country where she gave speeches and raised tens of thousands of dollars. This is incredible as we think of her as someone that didnt speak that much as a quiet person. She may have been soft spoken, she was very vocal about her resistance to White Supremacy. I found a document in Boston College in the king papers there where rosa parks actually requested armed guards for her home in montgomery because he was a frequent target of White Supremacists violence. So you can see that tradition of her supporting arms throughout the busboy cot. Finally, she feels so unsafe in alabama that she decides to move to detroit, which she called the promise land that wasnt. Everything she hoped for, you know, the ability to move freely through the world, the ability to have access to good paying jobs, decent housing, all of that didnt happen in detroit. It was just as segregated, just as unequality, just as many limits as there was in alabama. She set about what she had always don to resist that. To organize in the community, to build networks, to join organizations opposing things like segregated housing and pushing for better Educational Opportunities for kids in her neighborhood and in her community. She eventually began to work with john conyers, which was her paid political position, which was really incredible. And then she worked with him for the rest of her life. In detroit, she joined black power groups. She supported the black panthers. She was an antivietnam war organizer. She opposed apartheid. She marched in washington against apartheid and the vietnam war. She had a long history as a radical activist. A history that she that was rooted in gar i havism and continued throughout her life. One of the last big important things she did, and this is where ill end, she gave the eulogy for robert f williams. As many of you know, was an advocate of arms selfdefense naacp leader out of South Carolina who became exiled from the United States and went to cuba and china and other places. Rosa parks delivered his eulogy. Thats the company she kept. Thats the world she was immersed in. Thats the work she did throughout her entire life. I think we need to tell rosa parks story. Move her away from the bus seat in montgomery, move her more toward the radical politics she was a part of throughout her history and that rosa parks, that rosa parks will interest young people and old people and everyone in between from now until the end of time. Thanks. Thank you, dr. Mcguire. Just real quick about some recent news about rosa parks is the home she lived in for a short period of time is now in spain. It was in germany for a little while. I want us to move away just as dr. Mcguire said we need to move away from her sitting on the bus and move into her more radical politics. Move away from that home that she lived in for a short period of time. It was her brothers home and move to the house she was living in when she was involved in all this radical politics. I am part of the state committee that is going to make that a historic site. Thats her Virginia Park home which is in the Virginia Park neighborhood. The neighborhood where the 1967 rebellion occurred. Its in the same community. Not far from the new Bethel Baptist church. Im going to stop talking about this but i want us to understand that the way history is presenting in the popular media, as dr. Mcguire said about rosa parks, the same thing about the historic sites, including her home. So if you probably have seen an arable about her home was taken from detroit and is now going through europe, that was not really her home. Thats all i wanted to say. And now im going to introduce our next presenter, which is kalonji. Dr. Walton and ill let him introduce his topic. Thank you. Thank you, brother jordan, thank you to everyone joining us. My topic is briefly congressman john conyers to hr 40 which is known as the reparations of investigative commission. Theres a lot of mix up that it was a bill for reparations. It was a bill to study the potential of reparations. The nuances of reparations. Who would qualify and those types of things. Its an exploratory commission that he wanted to have established. I first want to say that im not going to address his exwife scandals nor his Sexual Harassment allegations, but i want to mention they exist in all fairness. Anyway. Its important to note that congressman conyers was a military veteran, he was an officer in the army, he was a korean war veteran prior to his education at Wayne State University where he received a bachelors degree and l. L. B. Law degree 5758 respectively. He was first integrated into white liberal politics in detroit as a staffer for congressman john dingell. His entree into politics was via the white liberal establishment; however, he had history just mayor Coleman Young of being as labor activist. He was a labor attorney and referee for the Workers Compensation department. Thats where he got his start in detroit and in the struggle and in politics in that regard, activism, and, of course, because of the history of black labor in detroit with the history of the negro caucuses. He first was introduced respectively to radical politics, black and white, radical politics. John dingell of liberal politics. The Labor Movement radical politics. He benefitted from preexisting and continued black nationalism and black radicalism in detroit as well as white liberalism and white radicalism. Thats important to note. Im not going to list a long list of black radical and black nationalist organizations in detroit during that time and prior to but its important to mention people like dr. Charles h. Wright, which the mu seem is named after. He wrote a book and people dont realize that. Also, we have the pan african i mean, the orthodox the shrine of the black madonna as well as republican africa, and Wayne State University and i can go on and on and i know brother goldberg will address some of this with regard to general baker. Its key that we understand that without those preexisting liberal politics, radical politics, black and white, what john conyers achieved and what he sought out to do would not have been as realistic or really possible and if we sidestep that then we are ignoring history. Right. John conyers was the first nonpolish well, second nonpolish and first black congressman from the original First District in michigan. That is key. The only other nonpolish prior to him goes back to prohibition and that was clancey, who is most famous for him and the mayor and the sheriff getting caught drinking during prohibition. That is his claim to fame outside of being nonpolish. Right. Now congressman conyers was elected in 1964. This is important because if we check across the country, this wave of black elected officials outside of people like adam clayton powell, right, we see it after the black power movement. This is prior to the black power movement. He would win in that district as well as that same Geographic Area after various manifestations of redistricting 25 reelections. 25 reelections. All of them except for one he won by a margin of over 84 . One was 77 . That was his low mark. 77 . Those are great numbers, if we look at it. That was made possible by the support and coalitions that Heather Townsend points out. He was the first dean of the house of representatives. The first black tedean of the house of representatives. The third longest serving member of the house and six longest serving Congress Member in u. S. History. Those things are important. I do have criticisms of when people stay too long and then the next generations of black leadership. Thats a different conversation. R