Black Bottom / Black Bottom

Named for its dark marsh soils, Black Bottom was a neighborhood roughly bound by Gratiot Avenue, St. Aubin Street, Larned Street and Brush Street. European immigrants settled here in the mid-nineteenth century. Between World Wars I and II it became home to thousands of African Americans who migrated from the South in search of a better future offered by factory work. Housing discrimination forced them into neighborhoods like Black Bottom. They paid overpriced rent and often packed multiple families into single homes as they built a new community. Those who grew up in Black Bottom included Coleman A. Young, Detroit’s first black mayor; Joe Louis, the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949; and Ralph Bunche, the first black recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, honored in 1950 for his role as a mediator with the United Nations. This street was once part of Black Bottom, a residential community that was largely African American during the first half of the twentieth century. Due to segregation, the neighborhood was mostly socially and economically independent. Black-owned enterprises, such as grocery stores, restaurants and shops, occupied its street corners and the business district along Hastings Street. Churches and schools provided residents with social spaces and a sense of belonging. In the 1950s-60s, the Detroit government razed most of Black Bottom as part of its urban renewal and “slum clearance” plan. Lafayette Park and Chrysler Freeway (I-375) replaced the community. Many families were displaced and given no resources for relocation. They retained their connections to each other through several Black Bottom churches that endured into the twenty-first century.