IMPRESSIONS OF DETROIT 
City Where Dreams About America Die First 
From the Detroit Institiute of Arts, courtesy of Romare Howard Bearden Foundation 
Th
upse 
stree 
e Blac 
t
t 
i 
corner 
k
n 
brothe 
the
, wailin 
mind 
r stand 
.
g 
Anothe 
as
s 
i 
a
f h
t th 
e i
e
s
r ha 
tha 
Detroit' 
s
t 
playe 
rule
s African-America 
d
d 
ove 
a pivota 
r th
l
e 
rol 
peopl 
e in
n 
man 
communit 
e of
y 
Israel 
event
y
s
, 
Soldier 
Th 
Movemen 
e Mothe 
s and Sailor 
t herself 
r o
s Monumen 
f th 
, Ros 
e Civi 
a Park 
t 
l Right 
s is also
s 
that have shaped America's culture and roams around the nearby petrol station, from Detroit. She reminds you of 
history. asking for alms. Yet another stands in Nigeria's Mrs. Funmilayo Ransomethe 
midst of moving traffic, hawking Kuti, the iconoclast female opposition 
Ever heard of 'the real McCoy'? Elijah the Final Call newspaper. Here and leader who warred against traditional 
McCoy was the 19th century inventor there a dot of White faces in a city of chauvinism and colonial exploitation. 
whose high-quality craftsmanship of abandoned houses and homeless Rosa Parks it was who ignited the historic 
seventy-eight inventions sparked the people. Detroit, America's border city Montgomery bus boycott when she 
phrase. He was from Detroit. Joe Louis of cars has bumpy, patched-up roads refused to give up her seat to a White 
of the 'Brown Bomber' fame was also like the sub-water-ways of Lagos person. 
metropolis. the world heavyweight champion from 
Is this America the great, the country 
of dreams? Is this the industrial 
America, the model state of aspirations? 
Majek Fashek sang about it in his So 
Long, Too Long. He saw beggars and 
hawkers of the American dream and he 
was bewildered. Men may still escape 
to her shores, but may her streets never 
kill their dreams. 
Like the biblical Bethlehem which was 
the least among the princes of Judah 
but nevertheless produced a governor 
AKINTAIWO 
1937 to 1949, victories which were a 
symbol of American pride and honour 
during the Second World War period. 
How mighty the Black community has 
been! 
Time would still permit us to mention 
Dr. Ralph Bunche who as a United 
Nations mediatorduring the Arab-Israel 
war of 1948 won the Nobel Peace Prize 
in 1950. Coleman A. Young, Detroit's 
first elected African-American mayor 
in 1973 was a civil rights and labour 
movement activist. 
In the field of music is Aretha Franklin, 
the acclaimed queen of soul. She also 
grew up in Detroit area, singing in her 
Reverend father's church until show 
business finally beckoned to her. When 
you think of people like Ebenezer Obey, 
Shina Peters, Simeon Adebo, Ernest 
Shonekan, Olusegun Obasanjo and the 
Ransome- (Anikulapo-) Kutis and their 
home city, Abeokuta, and examine their 
contributions to the history and culture 
of Nigeria, the story of Detroit in 
America would have been well 
understood. 
33
for one African-American family from 
enslavement through the 1930s, 
demonstrating how rural southern 
African-Americans raised crops, 
livestock and faced up to everyday tasks. 
Life on industrial plantation and the 
ingenuity and courage it took to escape 
from slavery is shown on the Hermitage 
Whether one talks about America's 
underground railroads, the automotive 
industry, labour unions, the civil rights 
movement, religion, politics, music and 
the arts, Detroit's African-American 
community, home to the largest 
concentration of Blacks outside 
continental Africa, has greatly 
influenced the course of the American 
life. 
Slave House. The Village also houses 
the George Washington Carver 
Memorial. It has a permanent exhibition 
about American industrial history titled 
Made in America. 
Other notable museums are Your 
Heritage House, Detroit Historical 
Museum, National Museum of the 
Tuskegee Airmen, The Black Cinema 
Gallery, International Jazz Museum, 
African-American Heritage Cultural 
Centre and American Black Artist 
Museum. The internationally famous 
Motown Records is also in Detroit, 
making it a big cultural, centre in 
Africa may well shape up if she knows 
what her children in the Diaspora think 
of 'home'. The romanticization of 
As a people of beauty, the present and 
past is lived and re-lived aesthetically. 
Not less than ten museums grace Detroit, 
all offering a variety of permanent and 
changing exhibitions illustrating the 
history and culture of African- 
Americans. On Frederick Douglass 
Boulevard is the Museum of African 
History which is dedicated to educating 
the general population about the Black 
man's struggle for freedom and dignity. 
Its permanent exhibition titled An Epic 
of Heroism: The Underground 
Railroadin Michigan, 1837-1870 offers America. 
a moving portrayal of life in Africa, the 
Middle Passage, life in America during 
slavery, and the escape to freedom in 
the northern United States and Canada. 
Africa's glorious past may indeed be 
therapeutic to the souls of the children ja Parks On its own part, Motown Historical 
Museum is filled with rare photographs, 
vintage clothing, memorabilia and 
artefacts recapturing the history and 
legacy of this era in American music. 
Popular artistes like Michael Jackson, 
Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder. Marvin 
Gaye and The Temptations recorded 
their first hits in the Museum's studio 
known as Hitsville U.S.A. 
who couldn't 
accurately trace 
their roots. Many 
of them have 
rejected their 
English names 
and adopted 
African names 
which they can't 
pronounce well 
and whose 
meaning they 
may not even 
know. 
The Detroit Institute of Arts on 
Woodward Avenue exhibits famous 
African-American artists like Romare 
Bearden and Charles McGee and houses 
extensive collections of works from 
ancient cultures including Greece, Rome 
and Egypt in more than one hundred 
galleries. 
There is the Henry Ford Museum and 
Greenfield Village which features the 
Matton House and the Hermitage Slave 
House. The Matton House explores life 
At the shrine of 
the Black 
Madonna, I came 
across 'fellow 
brothers' who 
look so much like 
me. I stopped 
Short Of speaking Some participants at the last African World Festival in Detroit. 
Aretha Franklin. 
34
my 'home' language to them. Coming 
inside their bookstore and galleries, I 
was awed. What with the array of African 
crafts, arts, clothes and musical 
instruments like drums, even gangan 
and sekere which they call calabash. 
For twenty-two years, we learnt, this 
bookstore (the largest African-American 
bookstore in the country) has offered an 
array of Afrocentric items from the world 
over, including fabrics like kente clothes, 
ties, belts, leather goods and old rare 
pieces. 
Browsing through the collection 
confirmed the assertion. All known 
Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe books 
are there. Ditto for Amos Tutuola' s The 
Palm Wine Drinkard and Festus Iy ayi' s 
Heroes. Zainab Alkali and Buchi 
Emecheta were not left out. 
Opening a book jointly written by Chris 
Stapleton and Chris May titled African 
Rock: The Pop Music of A Continent, 
this writer was elated to read about 
Nigerian musicians. The Afrobeat and 
Afro-pop section features Fela and Tony 
Allen, Sonny Okosuns, OnyekaOnwenu 
amongst others while Sunny Ade, 
Ebenezer Obey, Dele Abiodun and 
Segun Adewale graced the juju pages. 
Apala, sakara and fuji pages have Haruna 
Ishola, Ayinde Barrister and Gasper 
Lawal, a Nigerian percussionist resident 
in the United Kingdom, as stars. The 
book discusses the background, style 
and profiles of music from West Africa 
especially Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, 
Mali, Gambia, Guinea, Senegal, 
Cameroon and Cote d'lvoire with 
singers like E. T. Mensah, Prince Nico 
Mbaga, Pat Thomas, Manu Dibango, 
Osibisa, Salif Keita and Musa Suso 
amongst others. We didn't see this book 
in Nigeria. Christopher Alan Waterman, 
once a juju musician in Nigeria, has 
another book basically on juju music 
titled Juju: A Social History and 
Ethnography of An African Popular 
Music. 
There are books by, and on, Toni 
Morrison, Richard Wright, Zora Neale 
This boxer welcomes you to Detroit 
Africa may weft shape up if 
she Iqwws what her chtidrtn 
in the 'Diaspora thin^of 
'home'. 
Hurston, Gloria Naylor, Alice Walker, 
Langston Hughes, Ngugi wa Thiongo, 
Ayi Kwei Armah and Ama Ata Aidoo. 
Other books are on religion, Black 
theology, music, dance, literature, 
history, biography, arts, revolution and 
nutrition. One could know so much 
about Africa without once stepping on 
the African Soil. And we thought to 
ourselves, 'They read what we live.' 
They would also want to experience 
what we detest. It is the nature of the 
world that men must continually move. 
Where we are going is where others are 
coming from. 
The famous Broadway Theatre is around 
thecorner, Sunny Ade and Sikiru Ayinde 
Barrister had performed there before. 
There are other concert venues apart 
from this. Detroit Repertory Theatre, 
Chene Park Music Theatre, Fox Theatre 
and Gem Theatre amongst 
others are around. Works and 
places of arts in Detroit can 
neverfully be explored. They 
can just be glimpsed through. 
But does the rich heritage 
mean so much to the average 
American Black? Many still 
live below the poverty level 
while the money made in the 
city is used to develop the 
suburb where the whites live. 
Ask yourself what the 
sublime aspiration of a 
society is and you would 
remain a philosopher! IGRl Hitsville, USA