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- Honoring Black History Month
On February 4th, 2025, Nicole Brown, Mayor of the City of Ypsilanti, on behalf of the City Council, proclaimed the month of February as "National Black History Month" within the City of Ypsilanti, Michigan, urging all citizens to join in extending recognition and honor to African Americans for outstanding achievements and contributions to our nation during this month and throughout the year.
In November of 2022, The City of Ypsilanti elected a black woman Mayor for the first time in city history. Nicole Brown received 76% of the vote in defeating non-partisan challenger Amber Fellows and Libertarian Mark Alan King.
Brown says the historic nature of the election win is not lost on her.
“We’ve come a long way. Like, I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams, and so, whether elected or appointed, the fact that we have both have had this ability to now say that we were the first, I mean, that’s amazing. It really doesn’t matter how we got there.”
Lois Allen-Richardson, after several years of serving on the Ypsilanti City Council for over 20 years, became the first Black woman appointed as Mayor in the city's history in 2020.
Lois Allen-Richardson was born in 1942 in Ypsilanti, where she remembers attending Harriet Street School and spending time at Parkridge Center. As a young adult, she worked briefly at Goodman’s Fashion Center in the heart of Ypsilanti’s Black business district.
Information provided by Ann Arbor District Library.
Desiraé Simmons elected Council Member in 2023 - Shoutout to all the mommas, sistas, and daughters who have sustained us in the past and who will continue as we move into the future.
Crunchy O’s by Desiraé Simmons
She walked up the stairs.
Regally.
With the Crunchy O’s
cereal bag
perched upon her crown,
back straight,
steps purposeful,
carrying sustenance
like her ancestors.
How did she know?
She played in the dirt.
She felt it in her bones.
Carter G. Woodson was the second African American to receive a doctorate from Harvard, after W.E.B. Du Bois. Known as the "Father of Black History," Woodson dedicated his career to the field of African American history and lobbied extensively to establish Black History Month as a nationwide institution. He also wrote many historical works, including the 1933 book The Mis-Education of the Negro. He died in Washington, D.C., in 1950.
In 1915, he helped found the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH). A year later, Woodson singlehandedly launched the Journal of Negro History, in which he and other researchers brought attention to the achievements of Black Americans.
In February 1926, Woodson sent out a press release announcing the first Negro History Week. He chose February because the month contained the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, two prominent men whose historic achievements African Americans already celebrated. (Lincoln’s birthday was February 12; Douglass, who was formerly enslaved, hadn’t known his actual birthday, but had marked the occasion on February 14.)
Mattie Dorsey ran for local office four times without success, before finally winning an election to City Council in 1975 by 64 votes, becoming the first African American woman to do so.
In 1961, she founded the Ypsilanti Property Owners Association.
Dorsey died in 1990 at age 90, with her obituary proclaiming she was a “fighter.” That mantle is something today’s community leaders say they’re honored to pick up.
The development of Dorsey Estates was named in her honor.
Albert Prince (A.P.) Marshall, son of Early and Mary Bland Marshall, was born September 5, 1914 in Texarkana, Texas and raised in Oklahoma. He graduated from Missouri’s Lincoln University in 1939 with a bachelor’s degree in library science and earned a master’s degree from the University of Illinois in 1950. A.P. worked at Lincoln University, becoming director of the Inman E. Page Library. A leading librarian, he was President of the Missouri Library Association and Vice President American Library Association. During the 1950s he was President of the Missouri state NAACP.
A.P. came to Eastern Michigan University in 1969 and retired in 1980. In that time he taught library science and served as the director of Eastern Michigan University’s library as well as the Dean of Academic Services. He was involved in the Ypsilanti Rotary Club, Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, Ypsilanti-Willow Run Branch of the NAACP and Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, for which he wrote a history.
While in Ypsilanti Marshall began to research the city’s historic African-American community. His pioneering work brought to life figures like Elijah McCoy and helped transform Ypsilanti’;s sense of itself. A.P. wrote many articles and several books about Black Ypsilanti, including ‘Unconquered Souls’ available at the Ypsilanti Library. In the process of his research Marshall conducted dozens of interviews and collected hundreds of documents. To access the A.P. Marshall papers at the Ypsilanti Historical Archives, please contact 734-217-8236 or email yhs.archives@gmail.com.
John Anderson was born Edmund and enslaved by the Sullivan family (namesakes of Sullivan, Missouri) when he made his escape as a young man in the early 1850s. John headed for Canada, but ended up here in Washtenaw at first living on the Rowe farm near Manchester. John married Ypsilanti’s Lucy York in 1867. Lucy was born in Ypsilanti to Washington and Sarah York, from Kentucky, in the 1840s and were founders of Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal church. The Yorks were among Ypsilanti’s earliest Black families.
Two of their sons, David and George York fought in the Civil War (George dying at only 15 of disease) with John, who joined Company A of the 102d United States Colored Troops in the last months of the War, but participated in Potter’s Raid through South Carolina where he, himself a fugitive from slavery, and his comrades, including his future brother-in-law David York, helped to liberate thousands of people in April, 1865.
On return, John and family had a small farm in Sharon Township before moving to Ypsilanti. They lived and raised their five children at 303 South Adams for nearly fifty years, just across the street from Lucy’s brother David and his family. The Andersons contributed greatly to the building of Ypsilanti and the life of its Black community. Lucy and John’s son, Fred Anderson, became an early President of Ypsilanti’s pioneering NAACP Chapter in the 1910s.
The man who owned him, Stephen Sullivan, was ruined during the Civil War, arrested for supporting Confederate guerillas in Missouri. Two of the Sullivan boys fought with Confederate guerillas and were killed by Union cavalry troops “refusing to surrender.” John lived to old age and to see his great grand-children before he died.
(2021, June 1). Ypsi Stories Episode 8: Ypsilanti’s Black Civil War Experience. Ypsilanti District Library. https://www.ypsilibrary.org/2021/06/ys-ep8/
On Saturday, June 8, 2019, City Clerk, now City Manager, Andrew Hellenga, sworn in Ken Hobbs, as the first African American Fire Chief of the City of Ypsilanti Fire Department (YFD) after serving as Interim Chief since January 2019. Chief Hobbs have served the YFD for over 32 years and has lived in the city as a resident for over 20 years.
He has also received numerous honors and awards for his service and dedication to the community throughout his career.
Second Baptist Church
In March 1836, thirteen determined men and women received permission from the Territorial Legislature of Michigan to own and operate their church. Second Baptist is the oldest religious institution owned by blacks in the Midwest. Second Baptist claimed a mission to free the enslaved and have them enjoy the full privileges of American citizenship.
Located at the corner of Catherine and Hamilton (Ward 1), the Second Baptist Church began in the year 1860 and is the second oldest black church in Ypsilanti.
For more information visit.
Ypsilanti’s New Jerusalem Baptist Church, located at 407 S. Adams St., was originally built as a school for African-American students The First Ward School closed in 1919 after more than 50 years of operating in the era of “separate but equal.”
"If you were a black child in Ypsilanti anywhere between 1864 and 1919, you went to this school."
The classic, one-room, brick schoolhouse, sits in the shadow of the former Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church at the intersection of South Adams and Buffalo on Ypsilanti’s historic south side.
In the social and political life of African-American Ypsilanti, no day was more important than the First of August, Emancipation Day, the oldest celebration of the ending of slavery in North America. Ypsilanti’s deep ties to Canada and the Underground Railroad are highlighted by the cause of celebration, the day in 1834 when slavery was abolished in the British Empire and Canada became a refuge from American slavery.
From the 1850s until the 1930s, Ypsilanti was host to the regional celebrations with hundreds coming by rail from Toledo, Jackson, Detroit, Albion, Ann Arbor and Canada for the festivities. Work was stopped and the day treated as an official holiday as the region’s Black community and guests would gather to commemorate the freedom struggle with a parade through the neighborhood and up Congress Street to what is now Recreation Park for speeches, games, food and reunions.
John Burton was elected mayor of Ypsilanti in 1967 after nearly 20 years on the Ypsilanti city council. He’s one of three men who made history that year by becoming Michigan’s first African American mayors. While serving as mayor from 1967 to 1970, Burton faced many important issues, the most controversial being the widening of Washington Avenue.
In his 30s, Burton played in the class A amateur division and was the catcher on a professional baseball team that played in major league parks, while the local teams were on the road. Burton, "... once played a game, pitched by Satchel Paige on his team and Dizzy Dean on the other." Burton was the first African American player to participate in class A professional baseball in Michigan. Later, he managed a baseball team in Ypsilanti. Burton, born in St. Louis, Missouri came to Ypsilanti in 1936 and was appointed to the staff of the international UAW by Walter Reuther in 1954.
Author Veronica Robinson. “John Burton, One of the First African American Mayors in Michigan.” John Burton, One of the First African American Mayors in Michigan | Ann Arbor District Library, aadl.org/ypsigleanings/19587. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.
In 1864- Ypsilanti's Black community is bound by blood to one of the most iconic events in in the history of the Black freedom struggle.
Five Ypsilanti men were participants in the event depicted here, made famous in modern times through the movie Glory. The assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina in July 18, 1863 by the Fifty Fourth Massachusetts Infantry was a turning point in African American involvement in the Civil War. Of the 600 men that charged Fort Wagner, 272 were killed, wounded, or captured. Of the five Ypsilanti men there that day, four would be killed or wounded.
Ypsilanti men Charles August and John Leatherman were among those that died from the events of that day. John Leatherman was killed in the assault. August was wounded and captured, a terrifying fate for a black soldier, and died shortly after at Andersonville Prison. William Scott, Napoleon Hamilton and Elias Rouse were also in the assault. Rouse and Hamilton were both wounded.
After the war, Elias Rouse married Mary Gay, the widow of John Gay, an Ypsilanti man who had died of disease serving with the 102nd USCT in South Carolina. Together Elias and Mary raised the fatherless children and had a child of their own. They lived at the northeast corner of Emmet and Ballard Streets for decades. Elias died in 1899 and is the only member of the Fifty Fourth Massachusetts buried in Ypsilanti’s Highland Cemetery.
Charles "Chief" Eugene Beatty (1909-1998)
Charles Eugene Beatty became Michigan's first black principal in 1940 when he became principal at Harriet School in Ypsilanti.
Known as Gene to friends and "Chief" in his neighborhood, Beatty quickly became a leading figure in Ypsilanti's black community.
Beatty was inducted into the Eastern Michigan University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1976, the Michigan Education Hall of Fame in 1976 and the EMU College of Education Hall of Fame in 2011.
Ypsilanti Community School's Beatty Early Learning Center is named after him.
klogsdon@mlive.com, Kullen Logsdon |. “For Black History Month, Read about These Notable Washtenaw County Figures.” Mlive, 15 Feb. 2019, www.mlive.com/news/erry-2018/02/d2e31d6b29/celebrating_black_history_mont.html.
Formed in 1904 as the Trustee Helpers of Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the group was renamed the Palm Leaf Club in the 1930s when it officially separated from the church and became its own civic and social African American women’s organization. It is the oldest organization of its kind in Ypsilanti and is affiliated with the Ypsilanti Association of Women’s Clubs, Michigan State Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, and the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. Legend has it that the name comes from the Palm Sunday Scholarship Teas that have been going on during the entire life of the Palm Leaf Club.
Photograph and information from c. 1954. From Ypsilanti Historical Society.
Boxing legend Joe Louis visited Ypsilanti at the height of his career in 1938
This photograph was taken by Louis' friend and golfing buddy, Ypsilanti principal Eugene Beatty. The picture is believed to be taken in front of the Elmer and Emma Roberson home at 136 Hawkins Street. That same year, on June 22, Louis won his historic second fight with Max Schmeling.
Boxing legend Joe Louis visits Ypsilanti -1938
Floyd Walls grew up in Ypsilanti and attended Ypsilanti Public Schools. He went on to attend Cleary University and the University of Michigan.
He was a historian who loved art, and primarily collected Native American Art. He painted murals at Ypsilanti High School and Greater Shiloh Church of God in Christ.
Floyd Walls also loved to travel, and especially liked Canada, where he met Beverly Walls. After they married, the couple returned to Ypsilanti, where they were the first people of color to purchase a new home in the West Willow Community.
Article Author Emma Jackson. “Civil Rights Memories Remain Vivid.” Civil Rights Memories Remain Vivid | Ann Arbor District Library, aadl.org/node/266726. Accessed 18 Feb. 2024.
Marilyn Lejean Horace-Moore - Ypsilanti Police Department on the 1st day of December 1973.
Upon graduation from Washtenaw County Police Academy, Moore was assigned to the Drug Unit as an undercover Police agent. She served in that capacity for four years, working throughout the state of Michigan with the Michigan State Police, and was responsible for many arrests and convictions. On the 30th day of January 1982 she was promoted to Detective, and on the 6th day of July 1986 was advanced to the rank of Sergeant. Four years later Sergeant Moore was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant.
Lieutenant Moore retired from the Ypsilanti Police Department, after Twenty-Two years of outstanding service on the 19th day of January 1994.
Lieutenant Moore continued her service in the criminal justice field with a long and distinguished career teaching and conducting research at Eastern Michigan University. She served as a lecturer in the SAC Dept at Eastern Michigan University for 30 plus years. She also directed and administered the Law Enforcement Internship Program EMU until her death in 2020. She was a beloved teacher by her students and a respected faculty member.
Lieutenant Moore was married to James "Jimmy " Moore the seventh Chief of Police (1978-1983) for the City of Ypsilanti, and the First Black Chief of Police.
Jimmy F Moore - Served for 25 years, as the First Black American Administrative Assistant to Chief of Police with rank of Lieutenant, First Black American Deputy Chief of Police, and the seventh Chief of Police (1978-1983), and also the First Black American Chief of Police.
Moore organized and supervised, with state funding, the first youth Community Service Officers Program in Michigan, dedicated towards combating juvenile delinquency and crime.
Jimmy Moore also lectured at Washtenaw Community College for 36 years, and Eastern Michigan University for 20 years.
Moore was married to Lieutenant Marilyn Lejean Horace-Moore - City of Ypsilanti's First Female Black Detective (1982), First Black Sergeant (1986), and First Female Lieutenant (1990)
African American Cultural and Historical Museum of Washtenaw County
Mission Statement:
To research, collect, preserve and exhibit cultural and historical materials about the life and work of African Americans in Washtenaw County. Click on the additional information below to read about the past programs, tours, exhibits and collaborations the AACHM has been part of over the years. Check out the Facebook page for the past years of activity