For hundreds of years, the area was so important to commerce between Native American tribes that only well-known fur traders were allowed into the territory. Then in 1701, French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac used his knowledge of the region to establish a fort on the banks of the Detroit River. In 1760, Great Britain took control of the region. In 1796, European Americans took over the region as a result of Jay's Treaty. In 1815, Detroit incorporated as a city. From the early 1800s until the Civil War, Detroit played a major role in the Underground Railroad and one famous meeting between Great Abolitionists.

    After the Civil War, local Black population spiked upwards due to migrants looking for work and a better life than the South.  In 1896, Henry Ford built his first car in Detroit. This was not big news since the automobile had already begun in Europe. It was the method of building cars that Ford later developed which revolutionized the automotive industry and the American landscape. Little did anyone know at the time, the importance of Ford’s moving assembly line and fair employment practice.

    Ford was running short of European Americans to work the most physically challenging jobs on the assembly lines as car demand rocketed. But he needed more workers to produce more cars and offered $5 dollars for eight-hour workdays. He figured that African Americans who worked plantations in the South had the mettle to withstand repetitive and strenuous work in his factories. But in 1910, there were only 5,000 African Americans in Detroit. Driven by his capitalist instincts, Henry Ford sent recruiters throughout the South looking for good workers. Ford benefited from the best ideas and labor skills as a result. His competitors eventually copied his assembly line and fair employment practice. Consequently, Detroit’s Black population grew faster and larger than other industrial cities in the North, such as St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Cleveland.

    Dozens of new automotive companies emerged in the region. Many were acquired by automotive conglomerate General Motors. In 1930, there were over 120,000 African Americans in the city, settling primarily in the Eastside near car factories.

    When the Depression arrived in 1930, many European American men saw African American men as unwanted job competition. They were historically, visually and legally easier to target for discriminatory practices than new European Immigrants. Such competition for jobs and ignorance were breeding grounds for Klu Klux Klan recruits and activity.  One result was a manipulation of automotive trade unions to the detriment of African American workers.

    The reactionary attitudes of some European Americans could be seen in the treatment of the Ossian Sweet case. Sweet was a black doctor who moved into a white neighborhood. He wasn’t welcome. A mob of residents tried to destroy his house. Dr. Sweet, in defense of his life and home, shot two people in the mob, killing one person. Sweet would later be found not guilty in a landmark legal case, but his treatment by the mob was a reminder to all African Americans.  Choose your residential area carefully or prepare for consequences.

    Probably as a reaction to racism, W.D. Fard, a person with mysterious beginnings and endings, founded the Nation of Islam (NOI) here in 1930. He based the NOI partly on the Black Nationalism principles espoused by Marcus Garvey. Prophet Jones also came to the city and developed a radio show heard by millions in the 1930s. Joe Louis, a Detroit native, marveled fans of all stripes as he held the boxing crown off and on between 1935-1949. During World War II, factories used to build cars, churned out weapons for the Allied Powers. Since the nation’s defense policy was to severely limit the number African American soldiers, sailors and pilots based on an ignorant fear that they would be more dangerous after the war, the automotive trades opened again to Black workers. With more access to auto jobs, Detroit’s Black middle class approached 50,000 during World War II. Weapons production by automotive workers helped win the war. But the luster of greater job access faded quickly in the Detroit Race Riot of 1943. Dozens were killed. The job environment quickly changed for the worse when European Americans returned from Europe and the Pacific. A significant contingent of Tuskegee Airmen returned or settled in Detroit.

    When the national economy picked up in the 1950s, more automotive jobs re-opened up for African Americans. Despite discriminatory, school and housing segregation practices over the next 15 years, Black Detroiters worked feverishly to improve their lot in life politically and economically. Charles Diggs, Jr. was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1955 making him Michigan’s first Black US Congressman. So many African Americans were employed in the automotive industry, that for a time Black Detroiters had the highest per capita income among African Americans nationwide. In this environment many Black businesses sprang from former autoworkers. Berry Gordy’s Motown Records was one of them in 1959 and the rest is music history.

    Detroit’s uglier side resurfaced in 1967, changing the racial makeup of city for the foreseeable future. On 23 July 1967 police raided an illegal Black drinking establishment on 12th Street, handcuffing and beating many patrons. This event started one of the biggest urban riots in American history. Forty-three people were killed, 1189 injured, 7231 people were arrested and over $45 million in damage resulted. White residential and business flight from the city occurred rapidly afterwards. This population shifted to a point where over 70% of residents were African Americans. They soon ushered in Detroit’s first Black mayor in 1973, Coleman Young.

    During the 1970s and much of the1980s, the city’s tax base shrank and automotive industry was in recession. As it struggled to find a new economic balance for its citizens, crime soared. During the final years of Young’s term, the city began to bounce back financially. Detroit’s second Black mayor, Dennis Archer, led the city to a redevelopment boom. Downtown opened more offices, theatres, restaurants and shops -- bringing much needed tax base and jobs again. Unfortunately, the Hip-Hop mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, was convicted of improprieties casting a pall on the mayor's office.