Abstract
This research follows the evolution of intra-class relations between the Black elite, middle, and working classes within Detroit society from the Reconstruction period to 1936. By analyzing transformations of power and the inherited morals which accompanied these transfers, this essay will demonstrate how class relations within the African American community created distinctions within a designated urban space. This essay argues that Detroit's prominent Paradise Valley grew out of the Black Bottom community, which inextricably links the two separate entities into one. Ultimately, this research refutes historiographical debates which attempt to concretely bind these communities. Moreover, by blending academic debate to the voices of those who inhabited this community, this research also encapsulates the intersectionality of social memory and marries what and how we remember to urban spaces, race, and intra-class relations within Detroit in the early twentieth century.
First Page
53
Last Page
64
Recommended Citation
Grant, Emma C.
(2022)
"Black Bottom and Paradise Valley: The Intersection of Race, Class, and Memory in Twentieth Century Detroit,"
The Great Lakes Journal of Undergraduate History: Vol. 8:
Iss.
1, Article 6.
Available at:
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/gljuh/vol8/iss1/6
