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Detroit River Stories
People think they know the story of Detroit. But what other stories might we hear if the city and its water spoke for themselves? Tune in to the Detroit River Stories Podcast to find out. This podcast is just one small part of the University of Michigan’s Detroit River Story Lab, an interdisciplinary, grant-funded initiative that partners with regional organizations to reconnect communities with the river and its stories. Through collaborative research, education, and engagement projects, our partnerships amplify marginalized voices and foreground the role of the river and its shores as sites of connection, stewardship, and healing. For more information, visit https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/detroit-river-story-lab/.
Detroit River Stories
Black Power (Boating) in the Motor City
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The Detroit River Story Lab
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Season 2
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Episode 4
Dr. Juanita Lyons and Steven Johnson recount how their father, Albert Johnson, founded the Motor City Yacht Club in 1960s Detroit to help foster a black power boating community when other local yacht clubs were exclusively white. Juanita and Steven also share memories of their childhood spent boating, swimming, fishing--living, really, on the Detroit River and the Great Lakes, as well as how this shaped their passionate adulthood relationships with these bodies of water. They also speak to the dramatic changes they have witnessed in boating culture and policing throughout the years (including "river rage"), ultimately calling us to respect and love the water and others who frequent it.