How Detroit Became One of America's Most Segregated Cities

Photo Credit: Vasenka

To metro Detroiters, the phrase "8 Mile" brings to mind much more than the name of Eminem's 2002 semi-autobiographical film. Eight Mile Road represents the separation of white Detroit from black Detroit.  South of 8 Mile is mostly African American; north of it is mostly white.

Now, with the 2010 census numbers having been released, more and more Detroit residents are leaving the city for the suburbs and other locations. According to recent census numbers, Detroit lost 25% of its residents over this past decade and now claims a population of just over 700,000.

As the population figures of Motown have noticeably shifted, it makes one wonder how Detroit became so segregated in the first place. Salon.com has done a feature on the most segregated cities in the United States and Detroit came in fourth on the list.  Salon's description of Detroit is both revealing and troubling:

"In the early 20th century, however, the city's real estate was valuable, and jealously guarded by whites. The hundreds of thousands of blacks who migrated to work in the city's booming auto and defense industries found that most jobs and neighborhoods were closed to them.

In the 1920s, '30s and '40s, working-class white ethnics bought homes and began to identify as just "white." And being white meant keeping blacks, suffering from an extreme housing shortage, away from white neighborhoods and jobs. Along with the restrictive covenants that barred the sale of homes to non-whites and discriminatory public and private lending practice, white Detroiters perpetuated widespread harassment, violence and property destruction against blacks who dared move out of the crowded ghetto in the city's Lower East Side. "For most of the 20th century, Detroit was one of the most segregated cities in the United States," says Tom Sugrue, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of "The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit." "The city became a magnet for black migrants -- and whites fiercely defended their turf against black newcomers."

One developer even erected a 6-foot-high cement wall between white and black neighborhoods to make the former actuarially sound.

"In many neighborhoods, whites used violence and intimidation to deter black newcomers. In my book, I document nearly 250 incidents involving mobs, vandalism and violence directed toward the first black families to move into formerly white neighborhoods. Whites also formed hundreds of 'neighborhood improvement associations' that pledged to keep 'undesirables' -- namely blacks -- out. Real estate brokers and mortgage lenders -- backed by federal housing policy -- also played a critical role in creating an unfree housing market for African-Americans."

With the relocation and decline of industry, blacks were stuck in an increasingly jobless and expanding ghetto. Black unemployment rose to 22.5 percent in 1980, doubling in just 20 years. White workers, writes Sugrue, followed industry to the suburbs. Those too poor to stay behind became "angrier and more defensive." In 1972, every majority white ward in the city supported George Wallace in the Democratic presidential primary. The Alabama governor -- who once declared "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" -- had a message that resonated.

The new census numbers show large numbers of blacks moving to the suburbs, and increasing integration as a result: Detroit's dissimilarity index fell a dramatic 10 points since 2000, one of the largest decreases nationwide. This good news, however, is only made possible by the broader economic disaster."

What hope does Detroit have for healing and greater cooperation between the city's various ethnic groups? Hopefully, the E.A.C.H. campaign will make a difference. EACH (which stands for Everyone a Chance to Hear) is a collaboration between a number of metro Detroit churches that endeavors to give over 3.5 million people a chance to hear about Jesus Christ and help them take the next steps in their spiritual journey. As Detroit seeks to rebuild itself into a proud city once again, its foundation needs to have a footing of integrity, morality and spirituality.

I'm proud to say that both my home church in Michigan, Colonial Woods Missionary Church, and my wife's home church, Royal Oak Missionary Church, are participating in this great effort.  If you're a metro Detroit resident and would like to get personally involved in EACH, please talk with your pastor and visit the campaign's website here.

(h/t to AOL's Black Voices blog for the link to the Salon feature)

Is There Evidence For God?

Photo Credit: astrorom

Could there really be evidence for the existence of God or are believers in a supreme being just a bunch of deluded simpletons? A couple of scholars hope to find out. At 7 p.m. (EDT) on Wednesday, March 30th on the campus of North Carolina State University, Dr. Lawrence M. Krauss, who will be arguing that God does not exist, and Dr. William Lane Craig, who will present evidence for God's existence, will engage in a debate on this topic.

Dr. Krauss is an internationally known theoretical physicist and is currently a professor at Arizona State University. Dr. Craig is one of the leading Christian apologists in the world today and is currently a professor at Talbot School of Theology.

Even if you do not live in Raleigh, North Carolina, you can still view the debate online as it will be streamed live on the Internet. To view the debate, please go to www.thegreatdebatencsu.com.  The moderator will be Justice Paul M. Newby, Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina.

For more information on whether God's exists or not, please visit here.     

A Short History of Race & Basketball

Photo Credit: GonchoA

Doug Morlino has written the first segment of what I'm sure will be a fascinating series on the history of race and basketball. His post, entitled LeBron James Back to James Naismith: A History of Race and Basketball and published on the Bleacher Report, examines the relationship between black and white players and the role that basketball has played in helping racial progress within the United States. He also touches on the influence that Christianity played in the early origins of the sport.

Morlino traces his youth in Seattle and how his views on race were influenced through his time on the court. He says:

"It also made me question the origins of many of the assumptions I’d held about sports.

Why, I wondered, was the basketball court seen as such an ideal place to mix kids from different backgrounds? Why did I grow up as seeing success on the court as reflecting my own sense of achievement and manhood? And why and how did basketball come to be viewed as a quintessentially "black" sport?

The effort to answer those questions led me back into basketball’s history, which was more complex and fascinating than I’d imagined.

I started to see connections between how early decisions in the game’s development still echo in what we see on the court today, from Blake Griffin’s monster dunks to Phil Jackson’s coaching style. I also found that the history of what’s happened on the basketball court has very closely mirrored that of race relations in the United States, and often preceded changes off of it."

I'm often asked how I came to be so interested in black culture and how my friendships with African Americans developed over the years. Initially, it was due in large part to the time I spent with African Americans on the basketball court during my youth growing up outside of Detroit. I am looking forward to reading more of Morlino's story in the rest of these articles (a planned eight-part series) and how the game of basketball came to be what it is today.

(h/t to AOL Black Voices)