Rebuilding The Engine: Detroit Summer '92

In the spirit of creativity and optimism, the Detroit Summer '92 Project seeks to nurture a grassroots spirit of reconstruction in Detroit and to focus national attention on the urgency of rebuilding cities all over the United States. To meet these goals, 400 young people (ages 14-25) from Detroit and 200 others from around the country will lead and particípate in team projects, workshops, and teach-ins in Detroit from July 12 to August 2. These projects will develop commitment, leadership and skills in participants, as well as provide support to local community groups and city-wide projects. Write to Detroit Summer '92, 2990 W. Grand Blvd., Rm. 307, Detroit, MI 48202, or call (313) 873-3216, for more information and application forms.

Late at night, we drive past homes like the one my father was born in, on a street named Winfïeld, in 1926. I have a picture of it, torn from a photo album and given to my father after his mother died. They are big brick homes, powers unto themselves, not the tame colonials out in Sterling Heights or Troy.

And what I can't get over is that these homes' interiors are darker than the sky: charred black, in fact, because they have burned. Not to the ground, because brick homes do not burn to the ground, but burned nonetheless, as if each home, in its entirety, had been used for a fireplace. Think of the heat.

"STOP ENGINE TEMP" Lately this light has been coming on in my car. I keep taking it back to the garage, and they feel the hoses and open the radiator cap to show me that, yes, the coolant is circulating. So it's just something in the wiring ; it's not the engine.

I worry because I've bumt an engine up before. I was on 1-94 just past Metro Airport when my car stopped, everything just stopped, and all the idiot lights came on. I managed to get the car over to the side of the road and then climbed a ten-foot fence in pantyhose (the soles of my dress shoes were too slippery) to get to a phone. So I know what it's like to burn an engine up. And when I look at these charred interiors, I know we have burnt the engine up: you, me, everyone. We have collectively, as they say, 'thrown a rod.' No matter who we are, we are children of the conflagration otherwise known as white flight.

White flight is not merely the movement of whites out of the cities but also the flight of controlled substances into the cities, the most recent arrival being cocaine. To not understand how these two motions are connected is to not understand how an engine works. To not understand what should have been done in the way of maintenance, and wasn't. And finally, it is to not know how to rebuild.

Someone at the second Detroit Summer '92 planning meeting asked if we were only going to have "kids from Montana growing gardens in Detroit." The answer, I think, is that we will have young people from Detroit (as well as Montana and elsewhere) learning how to rebuild an engine. Growing gardens, picking up litter, all the seemingly simple acts are very important. Just as in rebuilding an actual car engine, wiping surfaces free of accumuíated grime is half the battle right there.

There is another simple act: counting. When I rebuilt a car engine with my father, we carefully numbered the piston rods and laid them, in order, on the garage floor. So it will be with Detroit Summer: build 1 basketball court, use 2 buckets of paint, accidentally drop 3 paintbrushes in the bushes, make 4 friends. We need to learn how to count again because they have taken this away from us; the numbers have become too big and leave too many of us out.

I had a dream about Detroit after our second planning meeting. I dreamed a friend of mine was demonstrating how to make sweet bread and cookies in a lecture hall. After he finished I went to help him pack up; how odd it was that he carried his utensils and ingredients in a guitar case!

Then, instead of going to his car, he got onto the bus. He explained: "I'm so tense after I get off work, I always take the bus into Detroit to unwind." And I got on the bus with him, marveling, "Imagine that, we're going into Detroit to unwind." We drove past beautiful shapes in the moonlight. Blue and grey mangles. Silver walls. And I marveled at how wise my friend was to know to go into Detroit, in the moonlight, to unwind.

Remember how good it felt (however briefly) when you no longer had to worry about imminent nuclear holocaust? Imagine how good it would feel not to have to worry about Detroit. The engine rebuilt, good for another 100,000 miles. Imagine how good it would feel to not have to be afraid anymore, just tough and smart and careful, as we begin Detroit Summer '92.