Sarah Elizabeth Ray was asked to get off a boat while attending a graduation trip in 1945 because she was African American. In 1948, her case reached the U.S. Supreme Court - who ruled in her favor.
Shannon Steel said she hadn't heard of Ray before reading reporting about the plight of her home, but "it didn't sit right in my spirit that no one would" step up to save the house.
Months after the Detroit Land Bank Authority asked for proposals to help preserve the home of a civil rights activist that was nearly demolished by the agency, the future of the property remains precarious.
The land bank is taking proposals for the house itself in a first-of-its-kind program for the organization, which has typically sought to either tear down houses or make them habitable, through sales or other means.
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