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Goodspeed Cited in Detroit Free Press Article about Detroit’s Black Bottom

Goodspeed Cited in Detroit Free Press Article about Detroit’s Black Bottom

In the Detroit Free Press article, “Bringing Detroit’s Black Bottom back to (virtual) life” cited Professor Goodspeed’s undergraduate history thesis, “Urban Renewal in Postwar Detroit: The Gratiot Area Redevelopment Project”. The article, written by Bill McGraw and published on February 27, 2017, discusses the razing of Detroit’s Black Bottom neighborhood in the urban renewal era. The article quotes from Goodspeed that “tens of thousands of poor and mostly black citizens–dislocated in the name of civic progress–saw their homes, businesses and communities appraised, bought and destroyed without their input or permission.” In the introduction to his 2004 study, Goodspeed writes that the urban renewal policies of the 1940s and 50s were “fundamentally flawed.”

The Detroit Free Press article can be read here.

Goodspeed’s thesis can be read here.