Now in its 13^th year, “A Taste of Soul” has become a Black History Month tradition at SVSU.

“The African-American community has a rich and diverse culinary tradition,” said Mamie Thorns, SVSU associate vice president and chief diversity officer for diversity, equity and inclusion. “We want to share our African-American culture with SVSU’s campus and the wider community through this culinary experience.”

“A Taste of Soul” will feature a variety of traditional favorites, including fried chicken, catfish, and Southern desserts such as peach cobbler.

The event is open to the public; admission is $11.50 or a meal card swipe for SVSU students, faculty and staff.

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He has rendered the name “AMusBE” as shorthand in pursuit of a permanent “museum of the Black experience” in his hometown.

“Deserve,” where most would say “need,” reflects his positive determination to showcase the truth.

His reason is similarly succinct: “It’s simply a matter of equity and justice.”

Jones recently acquired a building for the new museum with plenty of space for other donors to complement his own collection of artifacts, which he steadily has gathered from family and friends, along with from auctions, flea markets, even rummage sales.

His personal collection has surpassed more than 6,000 items, from dolls and posters to salt shakers, which will be grouped in exhibits once the museum opens.

His passion for collecting and for history comes from his grandmother, Lula Bell Hardy, who passed away three years ago at age 98.

Kevin’s career is in social work, and he spent most of his young adult years at various stops along the East Coast. Upon his return home, he emerged last year with a rental of open space for “Blactiquing” at the former Case Funeral Home near the courthouse. He also gained fans and followers with “The Black Hand Side” at the Saginaw Art Museum.

African American artifacts reflect historical highlights and low points, the same as in overall history.

“The Black Hand Side is an interactive art installation that peeks through the prism of race to explore American history and experiences from American descendants of slavery,” Jones writes. “The reclaimed treasures acquired from antique shops range from the most celebratory dedications of Black people to the most vile and grotesque.”

Kevin closes with his description for why Saginaw “deserves” AMusBE.

“To simply observe these historic testaments as whimsical or intriguing art, the viewer turns a blind eye to real and enduring atrocities,” he notes. “Yet, in choosing to look at its Black hand side, lessons of resiliency, triumph, joy, and determination – in spite of challenges and injustices – become clear. We try to tell the whole story.”

AMusBE will also display pieces from local artists including Nyesha Clark-Young, DeVaughn Collins, Trel Frazier, Corrin Grooms, Antaios Hayes, Patrick Hayes, and other Michigan-based artists, creators, and collectors.

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At the Saginaw County CAC, legendary names begin with Al Loveless, Bob Viera and Omowale Art Smith. They continue with Lillie Williams Grays and Annie Graham and Sherry Draine Hannah. 

For 41 years, Mary McMath has been side-by-side with all of them, closing her career as the best mentor and assistant that second-year Director Hurley Coleman III could imagine.

Check Mary ‘s employment resume. Next, visit the Community Action Committee’s web page, saginawcac.org, for a list of programs and services. Just about everything will match, because McMath has pretty much done it all since she began as a CAC weatherization secretary in 1981, in a referral via the Job Training Partnership Act, or JTPA.

Modestly soft-spoken and definitely not the boss type, Mary nonetheless became a weatherization manager. Then minor home repairs. Emergency services. Food and nutrition. Housing counseling. Senior citizens.

“Actually I had always thought of becoming a school teacher and a minister,” McMath reflects, “and then I was sent to the CAC, and I’ve been here ever since.”

She is the eldest of eight children of the dearly departed Essie McMath, a day-care provider and evangelist from St. Louis who moved the family north to Saginaw during the 1970s.

Mary graduated from the Beaumont High School in the “Gateway to the West,” and then in Saginaw she worked several waitress jobs to help support her mother and her younger siblings. She also studied in her spare time at Delta College, until her first steps at CAC.

In Saginaw and across the nation, multi-purpose community action agencies since the 1960s have served as the main sources for federal funds to address poverty concerns. Mary says primary traits for outreach workers are “to get to know your customers” and “to put yourself in their shoes, always showing respect.”

Much of her work has involved direct aid to residents, such as providing home insulation materials or simple boxes of food.

At the same time, housing counseling — especially during the crisis years near 2008 and 2009 — went beyond giving and into preservation.

“We helped a whole lot of people to save their homes,” she recalls.

Mary’s favorite aspect of service is her encounters with people, but she also has gained skills through the years in filing the federal paperwork and grant applications that are necessary to keep the funds flowing. Therefore, one of her main ongoing roles as deputy director is to assist Coleman as a mentor as well as an assistant.

“He is an outstanding choice to become our director,” Mary says. “It’s time for the younger people to come in with their newer ideas.”

The post Mary McMath and Saginaw CAC: Forever bonded together appeared first on Saginaw Daily.

“If only you had told me about this, I would have put on some lipstick,” said Glendorah Surles Lawrence two summers ago, when patrons of the Houghton-Jones Neighborhood Resource Center surprised her with retirement honors two summers ago.

At the same time, the 50 folks who gathered at North 11th and Johnson, with I-675 motorists in the background, figured Glendorah couldn’t really step down as office manager and continue to stay away.

And so it really was no surprise when she returned in January to serve as a neutral moderator for election of officers, with Anganetta Ervin selected as president and Saleem Mannan as vice-president.

After all, it was her own mother, Pauline Lawrence, who had told the outdoor gathering of people, “I’m proud of all that she’s done, and also for all the things she’s still going to do. I know she’s not going to go home and do nothing.”

Glen is a 1975 graduate of Saginaw High School and a product of both Delta College and Saginaw Valley State University, leading to her first career as a Dow Chemical Co. global communications manager and administrator. 

She retired in 2014 and had the option to then enjoy more “G-Styles” travel and fine dining. Instead, she filled a Houghton-Jones void to take the reins as office manager.

Founding leader Christina Jones, still active at 88 and for whom the resource center headquarters is named, described Glen as “like a daughter to me” in presenting one of the honorariums. Mayor Brenda Moore, who resides near the resource center, offered a proclamation from the City Council.

One of the final victories during her tenure was the demolition of a long-time major eyesore, the former gas station and repair garage at Sixth and Lapeer. Glendorah transported an elderly adjacent neighbor to the meetings.

Her father, David Lawrence Sr., was a UAW Local 455 (Nodular Iron) leader prior to his death in 1988. David and Pauline were a young couple in Lowndes County, Alabama, when a dispute between himself and a neighboring white family during the early 1950s led to gun threats that forced the couple to flee to Saginaw.

This instilled a civil rights spirit within Glen that led not only to her neighborhood involvement and other forms of local activism, but also taking part in a 20th anniversary March on Washington (1983) and a 50-year commemoration of Bloody Sunday (2015) in Selma, which took her home as a part of Lowndes County.

President Obama was featured in the Selma event, but Glendorah already had converted a room in her home in tribute to his 2008 election and to his subsequent accomplishments.

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Instead of looking to Atlanta or Dallas, or even to a Saginaw suburb, Tarsha Works Consulting has opened Ashrat Company within a mile of her old stomping grounds. She is located at 1315 North Fifth, just off of North Washington. 

The former credit union most recently was home to the Juneteenth Cultural Center. Tarsha, with her trademark optimism, won’t hear any talk of the First Ward dying and becoming a “green zone.”

“My business plan was in place,” she says, “and this is ideal, 2,500 square feet, plenty of good parking, and it allows me to give back to the same part of the city where I grew up.”

Lula Briggs Galloway attained grant funding to open the Juneteenth Cultural Center in 2003, but she passed away in 2008 and the museum was shuttered soon afterward. A curbside granite marker remains at the site of Stevie Wonder’s birth home.

Tarsha inherited her business instincts from her parents. Jerry Blakely is a self-employed provider of services that range from lawn care to snow removal. Her mother, Sarah, was a seamstress until she passed away two years ago. Their prized only child did not take up dress-making, but she spent plenty of time behind a lawnmower and a paint brush while she was growing up.

Her father taught her about how to bargain, playfully allowing her to bid up the price of a 25-cent freeze cup.

“I would charge him a dollar,” she says with a laugh, looking him in the face.

He responds with pride, “She has a business mind.  She would help me with everything, even cleaning up a rental house.”

Best friend Erika Brown-Hinds was a Saginaw High sophomore when Works was a senior on the ’93 homecoming court, a friend to a newcomer two whole entire years younger.

Popular and stuck up? Even three decades later, Erika takes offense to any sort of suggestion.

“Tarsha has always been helpful to me, from the start when she helped me find my way around Saginaw High,” she testifies, “and now she’s helping my daughter (Kendell) at Heritage High School, everything from helping her choose her classes to lining up the paperwork so she could be in the homecoming parade.”

She now boasts that her best buddy “can do anything she sets her mind to.”

The fact that they are Zetas only adds to the bond.

Works describes herself more often as a “coach” than as a consultant. She guides, teaches and inspires her clients toward their goals, sometimes for personal and professional development, or on occasion to start or straighten the paths of their enterprises or nonprofits.

“I am energetic, motivated and self-disciplined, and I enjoy helping people,” she says.

The difference between Tarsha and motivational speakers in popular media is that she backs her words with specific tools for taking action. After graduating from Saginaw High School in 1993, she moved onward to Michigan State University, where she attained a bachelor’s degree in business administration. She then undertook the extra effort toward a master’s in industrial relations and human resources. She followed up during the pandemic shutdown with an online Ph.D in organizational development.

“With my consulting partners and agencies, we help you to establish measurable goals and timelines,” Tarsha explains.

In her bid last fall for a Saginaw County Board of Commissioners seat, Works fell a narrow 116 votes shy out of more than 8.000 cast, She ran as a mainstream Democrat in southwest Saginaw Township’s District 3, always a challenge for a Dem.

“Not bad for my first time in politics, while running my own business,” she wrote in a thank-you note to supporters, promising to pursue a rematch in 2024.

Works is receiving support from OPRA, not the famous TV motivator but the state’s Obsolete Property Rehabilitation Act, to encourage development in hard-pressed areas, both urban and rural. Saginaw City Council members voted with unanimous approval at their Jan. 23 meeting, with support from Tom Miller, Saginaw Future vice-president, who explained that Works will pay property levies on the existing structure, but “won’t be penalized” with increased taxes for making repairs and upgrades.

Coincidence? Long before Works knew of  OPRA tax abatements, she admired Ms. Winfrey for spelling her first name backward to create the Harpo. Likewise, in the same way, Tarsha is reversing for Ahsrat.

“The whole object is to rebuild the north side of town,” she told the City Council during a presentation that begins near the 11-minute mark on the online video replay. “It will be beneficial not only for that area, but for the entire city of Saginaw by adding to the tax base.” Tarsha also is the author of two books, “Are You Practicing What You Preach?” and “17 Strategies on Becoming a Better You.” They are available for purchase on her website, tarshaworks.net, which also includes info on her various consulting and coaching services.

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Many in Saginaw have seen Saleem express to the City Council in opposition to permits for marijuana dispensaries, or most recently in favor of the Houghton-Jones Neighborhood Association. This makes him an ideal presenter for a gathering to discuss one of the 19th century’s great orators.

Abolitionist Frederick Douglass spoke in Saginaw in 1868 and again in 1885, and Mannan will review the second appearance in a “Lunch and Learn” session at noon on Tuesday, Feb. 7, at the downtown Castle Museum of Saginaw County History.

“His first visit was only three years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and his main topic at that time was to expand voting rights,” Mannan explains, “In 1885, his Saginaw speech marked the 50th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade.”

Participants at the free event will witness how this local dynamo on current events, as a board member for both Great Lakes Bay Health Care and for Houghton-Jones, traces deep roots. After all, Douglass devoted his main efforts to preparing for the stage, far more than speaking from the stage. Saleem’s story is similar.

The former Anthony Albert moved to Saginaw in 1970 and began a 42-year career at the GM Grey Iron Plant. In time he enrolled at St. Joseph’s Adult High School, near the shadow of the foundry.

The principal was Sister Ardeth Platte, an advocate for the poor. She encouraged his civic involvement and he was elected Student Council president, which led to his encounters with activists such as Lou Oates and Omowale Art Smith, Charles McNair and Bobby Stitt. He recalls vigorous debates on philosophy and on strategy, as his new awareness did not diminish his independent thought.

His faith conversion led him to the Islamic Temple on Fourth Street, where today he chairs the Board of Trustees. The familiar structure, across from the old Germania School/OIC, now is connected with the Islamic Center of Saginaw, located on North Center Road out past Heritage High School.

He met his bride, Mennana, on one of his first pilgrimages to Morocco, and today they share eight children and 14 grandchildren.

So where did Saginaw’s newest Muslim get started in his social volunteerism? This began not in the inner-city, as we might imagine, but also in Coleman, north of Midland, in partnership with farmers to create an organic food co-op. 

“They were Quakers, the kindest people you ever will meet,” he recalls, and he remains a relentless advocate of a healthy diet and nutrition.

Next came a successful effort to save the life of Carl Bass, who was on death row when he escaped from an Alabama prison and fled north to Saginaw.

Mannan went international when he tackled apartheid in South Africa, supporting Oates and Sister Ardeth when they pushed 1980s City Council members for a local disinvestment ordinance, part of a national movement that helped to create Nelson Mandela’s historic 1991 transition from prisoner to president of the former British colony.

“My feeling was that as bad as we (black citizens in the U.S.A.) had it, our conditions were nowhere near as bad in South Africa,” he said.

In Arabic, his first name represents “peaceful” and his last name “generous” and “benefactor.” These are qualities that Saleem Mannan brings to any endeavor, even when he is in his Frederick Douglass mode.

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The Marshall Fredericks Sculpture Museum at Saginaw Valley State University will celebrate Black History Month with the opening of the exhibition titled “Jacob Lawrence: The Legend of John Brown from the Mott-Warsh Collection.”

Pioneering African American artist Jacob Lawrence created The Legend of John Brown, his fifth series of history paintings, in 1941. The series tells the story of white abolitionist John Brown. In 1974 Lawrence was commissioned to produce a limited edition of screen prints of the series. The Marshall Fredericks Sculpture Museum now presents that full print portfolio on loan from the Mott-Warsh Collection through April 2023.

Using vibrant colors, story-telling precision, and powerful graphic images Lawrence explores the human condition, the African American experience, and American history. “We hope local schools, groups, and community members come tour this incredible record of our shared history, as Black history is truly American History,” states Megan McAdow, director of the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum near Saginaw. 

With a style inspired by modern art, African art, print journalism, and popular film, Lawrence explained why he worked on the series: “I wanted to tell a lot of things. This was the only way I could work and tell the complete story.” The artist carefully researched John Brown, combining written scholarship with oral history and popular culture surrounding the white abolitionist icon. Brown advocated for violent uprisings, and he was executed for his failed insurrection at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. In the 1930s and 1940s, African American artists, intellectuals, and political leaders made pilgrimages to Harper’s Ferry and to his grave, while white historians of the time often dismissed Brown as an insane radical. Previous painters had romanticized and sanitized his anti-slavery crusade. Lawrence instead explored the complexity of Brown’s biography, providing Brown’s lifelong fierce Christian piety as context for his militant devotion to the abolition of slavery during the last 22 years of his life. 

The Museum is also presenting programming around this exhibition including a free concert with local vocalist Monique Ella Rose. Rose is authentic and bold — a genre-fusing singer and songwriter, who is deeply rooted in Gospel, pure Soul, Jazz, and R&B with lyrics that encourage, uplift, and move you. The concert will be held on February 2, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. near the Museum at the Rhea Miller Recital Hall on the campus of Saginaw Valley State University. Following the performance, attendees are invited back to the Museum for an afterglow with free refreshments and a cash bar. 

Programming also includes a series of drop-in art workshops throughout the run of the exhibition as well as guest speakers on art and history. On February 11 from 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. the Museum will facilitate a free Drop-in Collage Art Workshop. Participants can create original artworks based on techniques seen in the series by Jacob Lawrence. On February 22 from 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. the Museum will host “Commune @ Noon” where visitors can gather to learn from Dr. Jennifer Stinson, Associate Professor of History at SVSU, as she discusses “The Legend of John Brown” and the American Abolitionist Movement. Free snacks will be provided.

For a full and up-to-date list of programming, visit the museum website at MarshallFredericks.org.

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“I was only three years older than my players,” says the elder statesman with the Saginaw High Trojans.

How could that be? He was still a kid himself, only in Webber Middle’s eighth grade at the time. On Saturday mornings, following the Friday-night showcases at Saginaw High during the era of Coach Charlie Coles, he would bundle up in winter’s cold for the short walk from his South Side family’s home to Salina Elementary for the city youth league games. The tiny gym had been like his second home, and now he would return as a sort of adolescent honor alumnus.

His status at Salina was so solid that when the regular fifth/sixth grade coach was a no-show, school authorities asked young Reggie to fill in.

He recalls no further specific events of that Saturday, only that this was the beginning of his work with younger children.

He says his main challenge with his very first team was that four of the starters were left-handed. He adds, almost as an afterthought, that his Salina Stars went undefeated and captured the elementary city championship.

“I have never talked to my teams about winning,” he explains. “At that age, they already face enough pressure as it is.”

SHS coaches, spanning from the legendary Coles to current 12-year vet Julian Taylor, have remained close to Robinson, for his trustworthiness and for his accumulated expertise to prepare youngsters in the basic fundamentals, both in skills and in positive attitudes.

For the first time, Robinson has missed some of Saginaw High’s games this season. He is caring for his mother, Lizzie Robinson, who was a city school teacher for 38 years. His father, Steve N. Robinson, an accountant for General Motors, passed away five years ago.

Reggie joins the coaches on the SHS team bench because he began attending varsity practices during the 1980s, as part of his learning process.

“I want to translate the Trojan basketball language, similar drills, into the kids’ practices,” is his simple explanation.

His sessions run no longer than an hour and 45 minutes. Players begin with stretching, then move to ball-handling and shooting. Next, team offense and defense are learned in a half-court setting, with players switching positions at intervals so that they may absorb both aspects. A full-court scrimmage simulates game conditions, while building fitness and stamina.

Finally, classroom activity is reviewed at the close, with the rigid intensity we would expect from a school teacher’s son. This goes far beyond checking report cards at each semester break. Coach Robinson’s players are asked to deliver academic progress reports at each team practice session.

Working with the Saginaw High J.V. and varsity team also allows Reggie to devote individual attention for youngsters who show the most serious interest. His one-to-one pupils through the years have ranged from Anthony Roberson to Eugene Seals Jr., who both share his South Side roots but who could not be more different in styles of play, Fookie Seals as a frontcourt grinder and Roberson as a backcourt wizard.

“Looking back,” Seals says, “I think of Coach Robinson as giving all of us the proper instruction, in relation to our individual talents and skills. That’s what I strive to do in my own coaching and training.”

For his part, Robinson recalls his protégé as an inexperienced, gangly 9-year-old who was playing for his first team.

“Eugene was rough around the edges, to say the least,” Reggie notes. “I asked him to come to practice a half-hour early, so that we could work one-to-one together. Instead, he would show up an hour ahead, and so I had to move up my schedule so that he wouldn’t beat me there.”

Seals advanced to play for Coles at Miami (Ohio) University, while Roberson was a standout at the University of Florida who made the NBA, an amazing achievement for an athlete of his smaller physical stature.

A good number of Robinson’s products have entered coaching themselves, Seals and Taylor among them. Mike Thomas has achieved three state crowns after manning the point guard position for Saginaw High, graduating in 2001. The championships were at Kalamazoo Central in 2010 and ’11, and then at Grand Blanc High in 2021. The Grand Blanc Bobcats were runners-up in 2022, and Thomas now is at East Kentwood High, near K’Zoo.

“Reggie Robinson is a very inspiring person. He provided my foundation for both playing and coaching,” says Thomas, who played four seasons for Albion College and first entered coaching as an assistant.

He adds, “Some of our practice drills, starting with our warmups, are based on what I learned from Coach Robinson.”

Another area in which Robinson was ahead of his time was use of game film. He acquired a camcorder when the video machines first became popular.

“As early as second and third grades,” Mike says, “Coach introduced us to watching film immediately after our games, when we could learn from our mistakes.”

Title IX, a federal law for gender equity, opened the door for girls in basketball, starting during the 1980s and peaking with the 1996 Olympic women’s team (Dawn Staley, Sheryl Swoopes and others), which led to formation of the WNBA.

Robinson was ahead of his time. His AAU teams did not stop with the “Pride Bad Boys Drug-Free Club.” He also organized the “Pride Lady Ballers.”

Jasmine Harris, Arthur Hill High Class of 2008, is the younger sister of Courey Jacobs, who was part of the Roberson/Seals AAU squad. She eventually earned a full athletic scholarship in basketball and track at Clark Atlanta University, an HBCU in Georgia, where she still resides.

“I didn’t have much confidence,” Jasmine says.

Reggie took one of his trademark creative approaches to boost her self-esteem. He suggested she was so good at shooting guard that she should consider switching to the point, which requires a wider skill set. This was a positive psyche move that blocked her from worrying about being the shooter, by making her think of taking a larger role instead.

“We would go back and forth on that,” Jasmine recalls. “He was my best coach ever.”

Jessie Drain, along with Julian Taylor, began under Robinson’s tutoring. They both advanced to Saginaw High’s Class of 1991.

Drain later recalls: “He would pick us up at home, those who needed rides, and take us to the practices. He was more than my first coach, fourth grade and fifth grade and beyond. He was like an older brother, and he still is today.”

Jessie took his high-flying, athletic game to play four years with the University of Houston and five more with the Harlem Globetrotters. Similar to Seals, he now adapts Robinson’s principles to his youth coaching, to the point where he invited Reggie to his family’s home in Orlando last summer to view his AAU team, which includes his own son, Terrance.

Lawrence Davis came along a few years later. The reason he became familiar with older stars like “Draino” was because Robinson would car-pool the South Side youngsters not only to their own practices and games at Salina School, but also to the Saginaw High battles against, often versus the powerhouses from Flint and from Pontiac, on occasion from Detroit..

“We all would pile into his car to the point where we were sitting on each other’s laps,” recalls Davis, who now resides in Seattle with his family.

“Then he would drive us to the tournament games, Those were the only times some of us had traveled out of town. And then on top of that, he would take us to eat. Even beyond the basketball, I remember the mentorship. He was like a father figure to us.”

But basketball still was the centerpiece.

“Back at Salina School, we would run the same drills as we would see at Saginaw High,” Davis adds. “Even our uniforms were black and gold. That was Coach Robinson.”

Coach Taylor guided the Trojans to their most recent state crown in 2012, his first season, and during the ensuing decade he has maintained the program’s traditional high standards.

“I can write a book on how Reg helped us with the game of life and with basketball,” Taylor says. ” As a coach, he gave us all the confidence in the world to be the best we could be. He never fussed or yelled at us, he kept his cool at all times.

“When I first played for Reg, I was a 10-year-old skinny kid with no confidence, I was only following along on an AAU trip with my cousins. While watching my cousin’s team get prepared for the game in the locker room, Reg asked how old I was and did I want to suit up for that game, which was the championship game. That moment forever changed my life! Although I didn’t play much in that game, it gave me confidence that I could play with anybody.”

Julian continues, “Fast forward to the following year, He handpicked eight of us to play for his AAU program. That year he really showed me how to be a hard worker and to be dedicated to the game. He took our team to the next level. That year we won the state championship and the national championship!”

In summary, “He is by far one of the best coaches in Saginaw history!! Things I learned from him, I still apply in coaching. He was one of the first people I reached out to when I got the head coaching job at SHS, and still do to this day.”

“Reggie Robinson was my first coach,” Drain says, “not only in learning how to play, but in learning about life.”

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Information is power. As long as they give you bad information, you have bad power. We have to show that the white folks can’t beat us upside the head, where it counts. There’s a lot of water in the ocean, but it can’t sink the ship unless it gets inside.

It is no coincidence that our local juco is at the heart of Saginaw’s history of Black History Month. Gregory’s Delta-sponsored appearance at St. Joseph’s Church in the First Ward took place only four years after Willie Thompson first got things going.

In 1971, Thompson joined an African American leadership team at the still-new Delta campus that already featured John Pugh and Lou Oates, among other notables. The history month reckoning, launched nationally by Carter Woodson, remained one week at the time. In addition to topical speakers, Delta featured entertainers who ranged from Ramsey Lewis and his jazz trio to Saginaw’s own Larry Reynolds with The Dramatics.

A full-page promo featured a sketch of an African American man, headlined, “Is he part of the American Dream? We think so.”

Professor Thompson, a Delta administrator who also was known as an off-campus professor of sociology, soon would join Ruben Daniels to begin integrating the Saginaw Board of Education:

He explained the focus of the special events.

“It doesn’t all have to deal with history.,” he said. “We also have to face up to all the current problems in the community.”

One factor that has remained the same, 1971 or 2023, is critics asking, “Well, then, all things being equal, why don’t we have a White History Month?”

Thompson anticipated this sort of backlash, and so he stepped beyond the standard “white people have all 12 months” response. He took note of events such as the Bavarian Festival, the Greek Festival, Cinco de Mayo and St. Patrick’s Day. He simply speculated, what’s the difference? To add emphasis, he explained that his own latest leisure book was a history of Frankenmuth being formed.

Patricia Caldwell, longtime director of Delta’s Ricker Center, entered the conversation.

 “We hear so much negative said about African-Americans,” she asserted, “but we are a very positive group of people, and our contributions to this society are far greater than most people realize.”

Events soon expanded to a full month, which led to a sort of conspiracy theory, mostly in jest but with that ever-present edge. Had February been chosen because it’s the shortest month, even during leap years?

Most who took this tack were fully aware, of course, that Woodson’s framework had started with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln (Feb. 12, 1809) and Frederick Douglass (est. Feb. 14, 1817 or ’18).

During the early years, many of Saginaw’s civil rights pioneers spoke and acted with special caution, careful not to offend the white power structure. But as Black History Month activities expanded, some felt they finally could express themselves with more forthrightness.

For example, Daniels recalled breaking the Board of Education barrier.

“Some of the whites (in 1967) tried to pin me down as a school busing advocate,” he said. “They just tried to crucify me, but I held my tongue. I was on the board for a number of years before I really unloaded on race issues.”

Like most in Saginaw of all races, he had opposed forced busing and favored open enrollment, a concept that would allow school choice across the river. His “unloading” took place when he noted that many black families took part in the voluntary integration, but only a handful of white families had done the same. 

His statement may seem obvious in 2023, but it ruffled feathers in 1973.

This came in 1982. School administrators advised that a shutdown of Potter Elementary would only be the start of inevitable East Side closings, with some elementary enrollments dipping near only 100 total in buildings that had been full, prior to population shifts and open enrollment.

Daniels was director of First Ward Community Center, and he and Thompson both were Potter grads. They had moved the meeting from downtown to Tenth and Farwell, a gesture of respect for neighbors who filled the small gym, and both fought to control their emotions at the time of the official vote.

Delta College rescued the Potter building for a few years, but school officials opted out by the early ’90s. The final memory is activist Bobby Stitt, in Dick Gregory style, chaining himself to the entrance as a last gasp, blocking the demo crews for a few added days.

Daniels grew near the railroad tracks in the northeast area that was described by an early local leader, Rev. Cornelius Monroe.

The pastor of the original Christ Community Church spoke out: “The First Ward can’t help being branded a slum district, because we don’t get our share of improvements. We have been ostracized and kicked aside. We pay taxes and we want something for our money. Some streets look worse than a chicken yard. Don’t drive your own car. Get a truck.” 

During the 1940s, Daniels was among the first officers to integrate the city police ranks. With new bride Elizabeth, he aimed to move to better conditions. His eye was on a green-sided two-story gem along Sixth Street’s bend onto Cherry.

Young Ruben was not naive. He asked his spouse, “sounding more white,” to phone the realtor.

“Liz promptly was provided the asking price, monthly payments and tax estimates,” he recalled. “Then she asked whether blacks would be allowed to move into the area. She was assured, ‘No ma’am, you need not worry about that. There will be no black families near Sixth and Cherry.’ “

Daniels in later years was regarded as friendly, with an easy sense of humor. He sometimes would chuckle while storytelling, and so many listeners were surprised to learn how severely the incident had hurt him. His wife had needed to talk him out of heading back to their birth-home in rural Oklahoma.

Of course, there are countless local black history tales similar to that encountered by Ruben Daniels, that relate to housing discrimination.

Henry Marsh, Saginaw’s ground-breaking first black mayor in 1968, waited for years before he revealed one of his long-held secrets. A sympathetic local banker and fellow councilman (Benjamin Marxer) had led him after-hours into Second National Bank’s upper offices. The First Ward was visible out the window, while a map on the wall showed the notorious red lines for no loans.

This was during a campaign for a local ordinance linked to the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968, the closer of a landmark legislative trio that began with the better-known 1964 Civil Rights Act (from the March on Washington and the Birmingham bombings), and the 1965 Voting Rights Act (Bloody Sunday, Selma-to-Montgomery)..

Like Daniels locally, and like Dr. King across the country, Marsh was more militant than reflected in some local versions of history.

To 1968 fair housing opponents, for example, he didn’t hesitate to celebrate the ordinance referendum victory.

“Ten percent of the community has been forced to live where the other 90 percent say it should. Now the 10 percent will feel (equal rights) as the 90 percent always have felt.” the mayor told local media in his lawyerly manner.

Marsh also reviewed the first 1958 result of his organizing the Human Relations Commission. Plans were to segregate Daniels Heights public housing, with blacks on the First Ward Center side of the Fourteenth Street tracks and whites on the other, until the commission raised a public stir. (Sadly, the HRC has remained on ice during the new millennium, not from being challenged by anti-CRT types, but from lack of member attendance. However, a recently-formed group, Community Alliance for the People (C.A.P.), is exploring 2023 local housing, beginning with 1990s steps that led to the Daniels Heights demo. See our related report here on saginawdaily.com.)

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• “Black Presence in Saginaw, Michigan: 1855-1900,” by Dr. Roosevelt S. Ruffin.
• “Voices in Transition: African American Migration to Saginaw, Michigan: 1920-1960,” by Dr. Willie E. McKether.

Both authors are graduates of Saginaw High School.

Ruffin, who passed away in 1992, was a Michigan State University product who served as principal of the former North Middle School. He also was an advocate for health care and assorted worthy causes, and he volunteered as a local historian. He devoted hundreds of volunteer hours to his review of Saginaw’s late 19th century, which begins with the Goodridge Brothers photographers and extends into African Americans in the lumberjack era, including William G. Atwood.

McKether is chancellor at Philadelphia’s Thomas Jefferson University, following his tenure as the University of Toledo’s vice-president for diversity and inclusion. His five-year project is more ambitious, with more than 500 pages and with audio tapes of nearly 100 interviews, because it comprises his doctoral thesis for his PhD from Wayne State University.

Both works, published by Ruffin in 1978 and by McKether in 2006, are preserved in Hoyt’s third-floor confines for history and genealogy studies. Advance calls are requested for viewing, (989) 755-9827.

Ruffin covers a late 19th century era in which the black population held steady near only about 300. The presence was so low, in the range of 1 percent, that whites as a group did not feel overly challenged, and the handful of black families established homes on both sides of the river.

McKether picks up the story during the economic boom of the 1920s, when General Motors began recruiting labor from the southern states for work in Saginaw’s expanding foundries. Recruits arrive in trainloads on Potter Street, and now resistance grows among major segments of the white populus. The first step toward racist repression is housing, and the first red line is the railroad yard, keeping blacks squeezed north of the tracks..

A petition to the City Council states, “We, the undersigned citizens and taxpayers of Saginaw, do hereby petition your honorable body for a hearing in protest against certain objectionable acts committed by some of the Negroes and Mexican people who have recently come into our city (and) whose acts are menacing the welfare of our community.”

McKether’s assembled quotes, from Saginawians who mostly have passed away since then, address the gamuts of race relations, employment, housing, education and social life.

I really didn’t know I was different than anyone else. It wasn’t until third or fourth grade that a blonde little girl called me (a racial slur). I had not heard the word before, but it was just the way she said it that made me feel there was something wrong with being black.”

Florence Goines, student

We always knew there was a certain line, like across Potter Street,  where the white people lived. It wasn’t until after World War II that we could move and buy houses across the railroad tracks, on streets like Astor and Carlisle and Carroll.

Martha Hardy, pioneering real estate agent

When Duke Ellington and his band came to Saginaw, they couldn’t stay at the Bancroft Hotel. They couldn’t even go down to the restaurant, and so they stayed in black folks’ homes.

Charles Bowman, WWII Tuskegee Airmen combat veteran

I came back to Saginaw with three battle stars, on a segregated train car with farm animals, and back at home we decided that we were going to go to every white (tavern) establishment to Saginaw. And we would sit there until they called the police to have us arrested, and go to jail as our way of trying to break these barriers.

Jessie Daily, WWII veteran and volunteer with First Ward Center and the African Cultural Festival

Primarily my father (Ernest Thompson Sr.) loaded iron, poured iron. The black workers had the dirtiest, noisiest jobs in the whole Grey Iron Foundry. I saw my dad doing those jobs and I felt tears, because that wasn’t the way a human being was supposed to have to live.

Willie Thompson, longtime Delta College educator and Saginaw school board member

Pastor Roosevelt Austin, Zion Missionary Baptist Church, offered a summary: “Religion has been the salvation for black folks, not just in terms of spiritually saving our souls. We have learned to be tolerant and to accept the things we cannot change, but to become very involved in changing those things that we can.”

Saginaw’s legendary clergyman risked his then-young life organizing Louisiana voter registrations in 1951, four years prior to the Montgomery bus boycott. Once in Saginaw, he joined Mayor Henry Marsh during the 1960s on a newly integrated City Council. He added a pledge: “We’re going to go down fighting and make things better for all people. Religion tells us that we all are people of God.”

McKether said, “By looking back at historical times and events, maybe we can find some clues to deal with today’s issues.”

He added, “Hopefully, the work from Dr. Ruffin and from myself will inspire young people to do these kinds of interviews with their grandparents, their parents, their other relatives, so that we may continue to build this sort of a collective history. We need to begin asking questions. We need to start writing more of this stuff down.”

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