An exhibit that explores the life of Henry G. Marsh continues during Black History Month at the downtown Castle Museum of Saginaw County History.
Marsh is best-known during the 1960s for serving as Saginaw’s first black City Councilman and mayor, among the nation’s first that began most notably with Richard Hatcher in Gary, Ind., and Carl Stokes in Cleveland. His main accomplishments included voter approval of a local anti-bias “open housing” ordinance, adding teeth to the national Fair Housing Act of 1968.
Henry Marsh was only 38 years old in 1969 when he closed his career in elected politics, but he was a local leader both before and afterward, until his death in 2011 at age 89. His spouse, Ruth Claytor Marsh, at age 94, passed away Feb. 22, 2022. They were married for 63 years, with three children.
Mayor Marsh grew up in Knoxville, Tenn. After Army service during World War II with combat in North Africa and Sicily, he achieved his 1950 law degree from Wayne State University and came to Saginaw to hang his shingle. He became involved in local civil rights and once joked, “When I came north, I immediately commenced to running my mouth.”
In 1958, three years before he became a local candidate, he was the founding organizer of the Saginaw Human Relations Commission. The group tackled bias in restaurants, retail stores, education and law enforcement. Mayor Pro-Tem Annie Boensch has proposed reviving the HRC,
A top achievement as mayor during the close of the 1960s was voter approval of the city’s open housing ordinance, after a local banker had shown him a secret copy of a redlining map. This added teeth to the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968, closing the trio that began with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Marsh also paved the way for Saginaw’s designation as a Look Magazine All-American City, and his post-council service was with more than two dozen worthy causes. The I-675 bridge is named in his honor, along with Saginaw Valley State University’s Henry Marsh Institute for Public Policy.
Pastor Roosevelt Austin and fellow attorney Carl Poston followed Marsh onto the Council, and Joe Stephens became the second black mayor in 1977, followed by Larry Crawford, Henry Nickleberry, Gary Loster, Wilmer Jones Ham, Joyce Seals, and now Brenda Moore.
The exhibit will be on display for the rest of 2023. Museum hours begin daily at 10 a.m., except for Sundays at 1 p.m. Closing hours are 4:30 p.m., except 7 p.m. on Thursdays. Donations at the door are voluntary, as a fractional property tax millage supports the downtown operation and four outlying smaller historical centers.
