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AACHM Oral History: Premail Freeman
Premail Freeman was born in 1947 in Mississippi and later moved to Ypsilanti. He reminisces about his childhood in Ypsilanti and some of the jobs he had growing up. Inspired by friends who ran a successful hair salon, Premail studied cosmetology and eventually opened his own salon where he continues to work to this day. His wife helped him run the business in the early days and together they raised a family of three.
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AACHM Oral History: Larry Hunter
Larry Hunter was born in 1951 and has lived in both Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. He’s worked in public service for years, served on Ann Arbor City Council, and earned a Juris Doctor degree in law in 2000. Larry recalls how he became politically active as a young man, organizing walkouts at his high school as a leader in the Black Student Union, as well as his involvement with the Black Panthers.
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A Conversation With Chef and Writer Tunde Wey
Nigerian-born chef and writer Tunde Wey opened a restaurant in Detroit in 2013. A year later, realizing that the influx of capital to the city was not contributing to an inclusive revival but to the profit of those already "fluent in the language of privilege," Tunde left the restaurant and moved to New Orleans.
He now travels around the country holding dinners, using food as a medium to have conversations about race, equity, and cultural values. Recently, the has received national press for Saarti, his lunch counter in New Orleans where white patrons were asked to pay $30 per plate and people of color were charged $12 per plate as a way to call attention to racial wealth disparity. Participants of color could “opt-in” to receive the profit redistribution.
In this video, artist and Stamps School Professor Rebekah Modrak (whose works, such as Rethink Shinola, critically intervene in consumption) moderates a conversation with Tunde about his work as a chef, his decision to use food as provocation, the possibility of transforming consumptive acts through dinners and pop-up restaurants, discriminatory development, racial wealth disparity, and the importance of self-determination in affecting the outcomes of your life and community. While in Ann Arbor, Wey also hosted two private dinners for local residents and advocates concerned with equity and race and offered food truck conversations for four nights.
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Unlikely Conductors - Underground Railroad
We learn in history class that the Underground Railroad was extremely instrumental in aiding slaves escaping captivity and searching for freedom. What we don't learn about is the role that Native Americans, who sometimes were slaves themselves, played in helping those slaves get to freedom.
Join Heather Bruegl, a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, and learn about the important role that Native American people played in the Underground Railroad.
Bruegl, inspired by a trip to Wounded Knee, South Dakota, quickly developed a passion for Native American History. Curiosity for her own heritage led her to Wisconsin, where she researched the history of the Native American tribes of that region.
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Getting Below the Surface: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity in Youth
Deborah Rivas-Drake is Associate Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Michigan. Together with the Contexts of Academic + Social Adjustment (CASA) Lab, Dr. Rivas-Drake examines how adolescents navigate issues related to race and ethnicity in peer and family settings and how these experiences inform their academic and socioemotional development. Her work seeks to illuminate promising practices that help set diverse young people on trajectories of positive contribution to their schools and communities.
This program is part of the "Exploring the Mind" series and is a partnership with The University of Michigan Department of Psychology.
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West African Art and Music in Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing, with Victoria Shields
Drawing from the African American Cultural Humanities (AC) curriculum, Educator Victoria Shields leads a workshop for music and art lovers with discussion of the 2018 Washtenaw Read, Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi. Shields examines the social and historical contexts presented in Homegoing using music — including a focus on how West Africa influenced American music — as well as visual art from the Detroit Institute of Art collection.
Shields is a doctoral student in the Eastern Michigan University Urban Education program focusing on curriculum development and programming. She conducts teacher training at state and national conferences and focuses on the development of Humanities and Social Science curriculum with the integration of music, dance and visual art.
This event is part of programming for the 2018 Washtenaw Read.
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Re-imagining Mental Health Services for American Indian Communities: Centering Indigenous Perspectives
The indigenous peoples of North America are heirs to the shattering legacy of European colonization. These brutal histories of land dispossession, military conquest, forced settlement, religious repression, and coercive assimilation have robbed American Indian communities of their economies, life ways, and sources of meaning and significance in the world. The predictable consequence has been an epidemic of “mental health” problems such as demoralization, substance abuse, violence, and suicide. This presentation reviews the implicit logics that structure mental health service delivery as well as key ethno-psychological commitments of many American Indian communities in an effort to re-imagine counseling services in a manner that truly centers indigenous perspectives.
Joseph P. Gone is Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan. His interdisciplinary scholarship explores the sociocultural foundations of healthy and disordered psychological experience on one hand, and the normative and prescriptive activities of mental health professionals on the other hand. His current projects are dedicated to integrating indigenous healing practices into clinical mental health settings that serve Native American people.
This program is part of the "Exploring the Mind" series and is a partnership with The University of Michigan Department of Psychology.
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A Comics Presentation with Nate Powell
Why are graphic novels so good at capturing history? Find out when Nate Powell stops by AADL for this presentation. Best known for his work on the award-winning March series he co-created with Andrew Aydin and legendary Civil Rights activist Congressman John Lewis, Powell explores many of the unique and immersive storytelling principles used in comics.
Powell’s work also includes You Don’t Say, Any Empire, Swallow Me Whole, The Silence of Our Friends, and The Year of the Beasts. If you’ve ever wanted to tap into the power of graphic novels to explore history, or just wanted a deeper look into why they move us as readers, you won’t want to miss this!
Special thanks to the Conflict and Peace Initiative at the University of Michigan’s International Institute. This event was part of the Fall 2017 social justice events series: Marching Forward.
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Building Matters: Black Architects in Michigan
In honor of Black History Month, local experts discuss the contributions of black architects, architectural designers, and landscape architects to the built environment of Michigan. They touch on Michigan's first black-owned architectural firm, Detroit's historic Black Bottom neighborhood, and Detroit's connection to the rise of hip-hop architecture.
This video includes talks from Jessica A.S. Letaw, Karen AD Burton, Saundra Little, and Emily Kutil. Burton and Little's project, the Noir Design Parti, is a 2016 Knight Arts Challenge winner. The project documents the professional journeys and creative works of Detroit’s black architects through a series of videos, photographs, maps, and tours. Kutil's project, Black Bottom Street View aims to connect Detroit residents with the Burton Historic Collection’s photographs of the former Black Bottom neighborhood, and is also a 2016 Knight Arts Challenge winner.
Saundra Little is a registered architect and founder and principal of Centric Design Studio, an architecture firm based in midtown Detroit. Her firm specializes in office, retail, healthcare, and multifamily design. She holds a bachelors and masters degree from Lawrence Technological University, is a past president of the National Organization of Minority Architects - Detroit Chapter [NOMA-D], a board member of the Detroit Creative Corridor Center, and past board member of the AIA Detroit.
Karen Burton is a marketing consultant to architects, engineers, and artists who combines her architectural design and entrepreneurial experience to help businesses grow to their full potential. She is also founder and president of SpaceLab Detroit, a new coworking space opening soon in downtown Detroit. Karen has a bachelor of science degree in architecture from the Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, studied business administration at Wayne State University, and is a board member of the Detroit Chapters of the National Association of Minority Architects and National Association of Women in Construction.
Emily Kutil is a designer, adjunct professor of architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy, and a member of the We the People of Detroit Community Research Collective.
The program is moderated by Jessica A.S. Letaw, who enjoys working on, thinking over, and telling stories about architecture. Jessica's past day jobs included design/build and construction firms. She lives in Ann Arbor with her rescue hound, Henry, and keeps herself out of trouble by volunteering for the Ann Arbor Summer Festival and other local events. She enjoys reading, gardening, and well-made White Russians.
Don't miss this opportunity to explore the history and continuing legacy of local black architects in Michigan and beyond.
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AACHM Oral History: Janice Thompson
Please take a moment to take our Living Oral History Survey and let us know what you learned.
Janice Thompson was born in 1939 and grew up in Ypsilanti. She reminisces about visits from her Detroit relatives to her home in the "country," some of the prejudice she faced during her school years, and pranks she played with friends in Ypsilanti neighborhoods. Ms. Thompson received a master's degree in social work, working for a time at the Veteran's Administration hospital and running programs for public housing children.