Institute of Politics

It’s 1963 and Detroit is on top of the world. The city’s leaders are among the most visionary in America: Henry Ford II, Grandson of the first Ford; influential labor leader Walter Reuther; Motown founder Berry Gordy; the Reverend C.L. Franklin and his daughter, the amazing Aretha. It was a time full of promise. The auto industry was selling more cars than ever before. The Ford Mustang was invented. The Motown sound was capturing the world with its amazing artists. The progressive labor movement was rooted in Detroit with the rise of the UAW. Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech there two months before he made it famous in the Washington march. Once in a Great City shows, though, that the shadows of collapse were evident even then. Detroit at its peak was threatened by its own design. Despite the city’s insistence on developing “urban renewal,” unfair housing laws kept communities segregated, labor struggles changed employment prospects, and Woodward Avenue divided not just east and west but “haves and have-nots.” Join the IOP as it welcomes David Maraniss to discuss Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story and how Detroit went from being an urban giant to a city in financial ruin. Book signing to follow.