Black History in Hamtramck
African American communities have existed in Hamtramck since the city was only a small village in the pre-20th century. In the early 20th century during the Great Migration from the South, the population increased significantly and established churches, businesses, social and political organizations and deeply interconnected neighborhood communities. Black Hamtramckans have served on the city council and in elected government positions beginning with Ordine Toliver on the last village council (1920) and Dr. James Henderson on the first city council (1922) and most recently when Titus Walters was elected in 2013. The following stories, photographs and records explore traditions and culture in the city's predominantly black communities, the accomplishments of prominent African American individuals, black-owned businesses, historic churches, and reflections on experiencing and overcoming discrimination and racism.
Reverend Darla Swint describes the Ducktown neighborhood she grew up in. She explains the ways in which the members of the predominantly black community supported each other through birth, life and death.
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Darla: My name is Reverend Darla Swint I am a resident of Hamtramck, Michigan. I am third generation blacks from this city. My grandparents were in this city when it was a village. We owned two family homes in an area on the north side of Hamtramck that was known as Ducktown. It was known as Ducktown because many blacks that migrated north found the land there to be somewhat the same as in the southern states. It was swampy, a lot of trees, and when it would rain ducks would come and just swim down the street.
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Vera Burk discusses her family's background and why they came to Hamtramck from Greensboro, North Carolina.
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Vera: My name is Vera M. Burk. I’ve lived in Hamtramck on Evaline for 88 years, I was born there. And my parents were Reverend Lucious and Leola Burk. And they migrated here from Greensboro, Alabama.
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Churches
Below is a selection of images of some of Hamtramck's historically black churches. Greater Mt. Zion Baptist Church and First Baptist Church are no longer functioning.
Reverend Darla Swint recalls her family building their church in Ecorse Michigan, reflects on her role in the church community and explains what spirituality means to her historically and personally.
Darla: I was raised up in church, I don’t know life without church and God. If you took that away from me I would cease to exist. My grandfather on my dad’s side was a bishop. And back then— today it’s Church of God and Christ— but when we were kids it was just Sanctified, which means to be set aside. So the family church, if you ever get a chance, you’re not far from it, is Buffalo and Talbert, it’s a church. That church is Baldwin Church of Christ, is an exact, from what our history tells us, is an exact replicate of the church in Georgia that the families had.
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Historically Black Churches of the 20th Century:Macedonia Baptist Church (Was on 5104 Evaline, Reverend F.D. Mills/Reverend J.A. Watson, then moved to Belmont and Buffalo then moved to Southfield Road)
St. Peter’s AME Zion (On Yemans and Charest) Institutional Baptist Church (Was on Mitchell, right off Caniff, now on 7 Mile Road) Corinthian Baptist Church (On Caniff) Leland Missionary Baptist Church (Moved from Leland Street in Detroit to a tent where Veteran’s Park is, moved to a storefront on Miller, then moved to Moran and Denton, then moved to Findlay and now on Fenkell in Detroit) First Baptist Church (Was on Trowbridge between Joseph Campau and Gallagher) Jones Temple (On corner of Caniff and Dequindre, now on Evergreen Road in Detroit) St. John’s (On Miller on the south end, off of Conant) List provided by Vera Burk
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Discrimination & Oppression
Reverend Darla Swint shares her memory of running for Homecoming Queen in high school and losing every year due to the discrimination of the school administration. When the student government attempted to compensate for the racist actions of the administration, Darla responds in a deeply powerful way.
Vera Burk recalls her tactical way of responding to a restaurant's discriminatory practices and how she was a person that never tolerated injustice.
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Darla: By the time I got to Hamtramck High School, I ran for Homecoming Queen three years straight, and the first vote— just say a white girl and myself would have maybe a vote of ten difference, and so there would also be a recount. And in that recount, the school cared so little for the blacks, let’s say the whole freshmen student body was 200. Well they might give me 50 votes and give her 200, yet the student body was only 200. But they had to make sure that the European girl won, because they had, you know, we had, this Labor Day Celebration here in Hamtramck, well even back then they would have a parade in Hamtramck. And they would march down to Hamtramck Park where the park is named after Colonel Hamtramck, who is a Polish man. And the thing of it was it wouldn’t look right to have a black girl riding in a Polish parade. And we had a real real big car dealer here in Hamtramck, and uh, he was Polish. He did not want a black person riding in his car, because he would loan the cars to the parade. So I could never be the Queen. By the time I got to my senior year the class officers volunteered to build me a float because they came— and times were changing, don’t forget, rapidly— and they let me know that they knew I had won all those years. And the girls who would win were my friends.
Vera: I never had that. No. First thing if I thought they were doing that I wouldn't tolerate it. But, now I don't know, I've heard that, but for me to say that happened, I can just take your word for it. Because if I went in somewhere and I felt I was being taken care of properly by me being raised here and born here I have a different outlet. I don't take it, I don't take it from nobody.
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Solomon McCormick recalls the discrimination that led to the "fluke" of acquiring his house in Hamtramck.
Reverend Darla Swint explains how the discrimination in schools emanated from certain teachers from outside Hamtramck who brought ignorance into the city. She describes how black boys in particular were treated in schools and how the students themselves often got along much better than the adults.
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Solomon: The house that I have in Hamtramck on Fleming, I bought that house on a fluke and the fluke was my wife’s cousin’s husband was a salesman, a real estate salesman. They put that house on sale and there was a guy that made application. They didn't sell it to him because he was black. Now, as an employee of Hamtramck, you’re supposed to live in Hamtramck so my, my thinking was buy the damn house because they refused to sell it to a black and if they refused to sell it to you, you have your papers to confront Hamtramck about having to live here when they wouldn't sell you the damn house. They sold me the damn thing. I’ve never lived in it. But I’ve been very fortunate because in the Hamtramck projects was a lady named Helen Cernick. She had five children. When I completed the sale, I agreed to rent it to her. She raised her five children there, 28 years, never late with her rent. Took care of the place extremely well.
Darla: I stayed home and went to college. I wanted to go south, as a matter of fact I wanted to go to Fisk University, because they had this choir, an historical choir going all the way back to slavery called the Jubilee Choir. And you had to audition to get into that choir. And at that time I knew I could have made that audition, but times were changing, these were the late 60s. And my dad felt that coming up in a community where we were allowed to be outspoken, speak our minds with respect, that going south, it would, you know, it wouldn’t be good for me during that time.
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Reverend Darla Swint describes the discrimination her mother and aunt faced when eating at some Polish restaurants in the city. She explains why her mother continued to go to them by sharing her own experiences with discrimination at some of Hamtramck's soda fountains.
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Darla: As a child on Yemans Street there’s two restaurants. There’s the polish village restaurant and right, their next door neighbor is another restaurant called Polonia's. When I was a child they didn’t even want us walking on that side of the street. They didn’t want us walking past their door. And it was a bar.
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Greg Kowalski begins by recalling his personal memories of the riot in Detroit in 1967. Then, drawing on his research as a Hamtramck historian, Greg Kowalski explains how segregation and racism in Hamtramck compared to other cities.
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Greg: That was a very interesting thing. First, let me tell you, the riots in Detroit started about two miles from here on the west side of Detroit and it started early on a Sunday morning at like two o’clock in the morning. Well there used to be a bookstore on Woodward Avenue and Seldon not far from the Detroit Institute of Arts that my family, we used to go there all the time time.
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Prominent African American Individuals from the 20th Century Include:
Spanish American War Veteran Walter Locket
World War I Veteran George Clay City Clerk Ordine Toliver Medical Doctors: Dr. Haley Bell, Dr. James Henderson (also served on Hamtramck's very first city council), Dr. Morris, Dr. Windowcox Nurse Iris Paige Butler City Council Member Titus Walters Hamtramck's first black police officers: Detective Arthur Dillard (became Hamtramck's first black officer in 1921), Detective James Perry, Dectective James Raspberry, Detective Ralph Strickland, Detective Byron Bachelor (the city's first black motorcycle policeman), Detective Harry Butler, Detective Freddie James, Detective Solomon McCormick (the city's first black chief of police detectives), Detective Percy Harris , Lieutenant Henry Wyams, Sergeant Willy D. Coleman, Sergeant John Watson, Officer Emile Jones, Officer Gregory Collins, Officer Dennis Nunley, Officer John Wells Provided by Vera Burk
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The First Black Police Officers in Hamtramck
Solomon McCormick was Hamtramck's first black Chief of Police Detectives.
Here, he explains the long struggle to become a police officer in 1958. He goes into experiences on the job from coworkers trying to make him leave the force to the challenge of trying to police violent crimes based in old family ties. |
Interviewer: So when did you become a police detective?
Solomon: Well that was in 58. The Ford Motor Company had been kind to me by giving me a job. Between the—1949 and then when I went away to the service again, and I did come back, they were kind enough to give me the job back and I had a very good experience with it. I mean it wasn’t a one way street, I worked for them, they paid me well, I was comfortable with that. And I probably had the best job that one can have in a factory. And that best job— any teenager, any young man would love it. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen an assembly line where you travel the assembly line and the cars go down the line, everybody puts on a part and at the end of that line— listen to this— it was my job to climb into the driver’s seat and drive it off the line. Can you ask for better than that? |
Change came with me and people like me climbing the ladder and seeing and knowing what was transpiring and not tolerating it— simple as that.
-Solomon McCormick
Here, Solomon shares his memories of the Detroit Riots of 1967.
Vera Burk recalls what is was like having a more diverse police force that was strongly rooted in the community.
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Solomon: I remember everything about the riot. I knew, I knew everything about it. I knew the area explicitly, 12th St and I don’t know, it was a confrontation. I owned the business and all of the places around my place had difficulty but fortunately, I was spared.
Well Hamtramck is in the middle of Detroit, it was all there, there was no differentiation. You didn’t cross the street until the riot was over. This’ll surprise you. You heard about the german shepherd dogs in Alabama, etc. On Roosevelt and Gallagher, I drove through there one day in uniform there were three german shepherds. I got their attention— and all of the white guys are out walking around—I got their attention, questioning who owned the dogs. They were very free to tell me who it was because the [?] that the chief of police— they were from Warren, Michigan— that the chief of police had ordered them down. And I told them that I was leaving and I came back, and I would definitely be back, the dogs shouldn't be anyplace that I could find them. When I came back, they were gone, that was over with. Interviewer: And did you, you knew these cops?
Vera: Yes I knew all of them, very well. Interviewer: And what did you feel like their impact was? Vera: Good. It was a good impact in the city. Very good impact. It was more like a community thing, you know. |
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Black-Owned Businesses in Twentieth Century Hamtramck Included:
Slappey Groccery Store: Formerly on Yeman and Buffalo, the building is now a house Sim's Confectionary Store: Formerly on Yeman between Jos Campau and Gallagher across from St. Peter A.M.E., the building is still there Brown's Confectionary Store (also formerly William's and Burk's): Formerly on Yeman, the building is now a house Collin's Confectionary Ice and Coal Store: Formerly on Ellery between Evaline and Yeman, the building is still there Jimmy Shannon's Pool Hall: Formerly on Yeman and Ellery Johnson's Barber Shop: Formerly on Conant between Belmont and Trowbridge Perry's Bar and Lounge: Formerly on Conant and Trowbridge, the building is still there The Blue Note Bar: Formerly on Conant Raspberry Bar: Formerly on Miller Patterson's Confectionary Store: Formerly on Buffalo between Evaline and Yeman, the building is still there Strickland's Bar: Formerly on Dequindre, belonged to a Hamtramck police officer, Detective Ralph Strickland Kim's Place: Formerly on Dequindre Nixon Drugstore: Formerly in the neighborhood around Dequindre Strickland's Funeral Home: Formerly on Mitchell next to Institutional Baptist Church Royster: A storage and moving company formerly on Hanley off of Jos Campau |
Historic Negro League Hamtramck Stadium
Hamtramck Stadium was used by national Negro League baseball teams from the 1930s through the 1990s. Baseball Hall of Fame Inductee and Outfielder Turkey Stearnes played on the field with the Detroit Stars in the 1930s.
Former Detroit Tigers player Ike Blessitt discusses his hopes to revitalize the Hamtramck baseball stadium that used to host Negro League games.
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Ike: Like I said, right at the moment I’m trying to bring baseball back to Hamtramck. The field I was gonna tell you about, down here at Key Worth Stadium, the old black Negro League used to play there and it looked just like the ballparks they used to have with the tin roof. Still in immaculate condition just need a few things. I’m trying to work something out with somebody if they let me lease it and bring baseball back to that field, play tournaments. I ain't so much want the money for me, put it back into the school system for paying for the equipment and different things. So I know it’s a hard time but if they let me get that field that’s what I would do, all the money I make off the concession stand and stuff like that, I would give it back to the city of Hamtramck to build their programs back up to where they used to be at. Baseball and everything, that’s how much I loved living here in Hamtramck. You know Negro League— Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, you know— that’s when they had the white league and the black league. I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie Jackie Robinson, ok, all them guys played in the Negro League and some of them came in and played right here in Hamtramck. It made the baseball field historical. You know, this was here. All them guys that played in the black league came and played here. I feel honored I actually was the only Afro-American player that played on that field that went to the major league— the big leagues.
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Housing Displacement, Garrett V. Hamtramck, and Urban Renewal
In 1971 federal Judge Damon Keith found that the city of Hamtramck had used urban renewal projects to intentionally displace black communities and residences. Decades later, after some plaintiffs in the original Garrett V. Hamtramck class action lawsuit had passed away, a settlement was reached and construction finally began on affordable housing for the displaced families and their descendants. While many feel that justice has finally come for the displaced, others believe it came too slowly to benefit many of the people who were originally forced out of their homes.
Vera Burk discusses her time on the Grand Haven, Dyer, Dequindre Board overseeing the Urban Renewal project following the displacement of a predominantly African American neighborhood in Hamtramck.
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Interviewer: Do you remember the expressway being built through Hamtramck and how that affected the community and displaced all those people?
Vera: Yeah that was—now as far as politics is concerned, I’m not a politician. I just vote. I don’t, you know, but at that time I think I was, I wasn’t even involved in the city when they had the Urban Renewal. You know how you do when you’re young and you think, what is this stuff, you know. But I do know that there was injustice done. |
Reflecting on Black Community in HamtramckIn responding to the question of how the immigration changes in the last fifty years have affected her, Reverend Darla Swint explains why it doesn't bother her because her focus is on empowering the African American community in the city.
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Darla: It was strictly to move out— because that was almost a solid black community. You had whites in there, they got along. You know, racial tension no. You know even in what was it, 67 when Detroit went up in flames they guarded Hamtramck on all four corners and we had not to my knowledge, not one racial outbreak in our community.
Darla: The biggest thing that I want is for my black people to come out and be seen. Now the other day my son was driving me down Joseph Campau and there were some black men, a group of black men just sitting on Joseph Campau just talking. And I cannot tell you how good that made me feel. I think I would be fine if we had some stores, black merchants on Joseph Campau. If our presence--we’re here, see us, but you can’t see us if we don’t show ourselves, and we won’t. We don’t, I won’t say--we don’t. And I don’t think it’s the demographics of the change that bothers me that much as much as it is, where are my people? Like in the voting, when it’s time to vote, one percent? And we are the third largest population in the city? But one percent? Where are you? You have a voice, you go to any benefit if there are blacks they’re from Detroit. Where are you? Even though I understand that these generations don’t have that understanding of how important they are--how are you gonna learn if you don’t, you know, push yourself? The community shouldn’t always have to offer you food, a babysitter, a lottery ticket--I’m not being funny, I’m being honest--you know, whatever, to get you to come out. We belong here, we are here, we’re not going anywhere. Make that stand--be proud. That’s how I feel about demographics. I’m cool with the demographics but I’m not cool with my people.
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