WDET is examining Highland Park as part of our Crossing the Lines series. 

Hidden within the history of the Detroit enclave are the remnants of a secret society based on racism and murder. 

It was exposed during a trial about a century ago that became a national sensation.  

And then it seemingly vanished. 

This is the story of the Black Legion.  

More vicious than the Klan 

 Across a driveway from the Highland Park Fire Department stands a boarded-up, multi-story office building. 

Author Tom Stanton gazes at the structure, one he says is filled with the echoes of powerful officials and mass killings. 

“The old city hall is gone, but this is an administrative building,” he said. “Over time, the fire department was here, the police department was here. It was also home to a court. All of those organizations would have had members in the Black Legion.” 

The Black Legion

It’s a vigilante group built on bigotry, crime and murder. 

And Stanton knows it well. 

His book, “Terror in the City of Champions,” follows the hate group’s movements during a time when Detroit sports teams were all winning titles. 

He notes the Black Legion was born in Lima, Ohio, from the fading ashes of a Ku Klux Klan the Legion’s founder felt was too tame. 

“There was a little bit of animosity because the guy who started the Black Legion had left the Klan. He didn’t view it as aggressive enough, the Klan, and he felt there needed to be an organization that was willing to do more,” Stanton said.  

It was the 1920s and 30s. Jobs were scarce. 

University of California Santa Cruz Professor Emerita Dana Frank examined those years. 

She says the era was ripe to create a ready market for Legion recruits. 

“Working class white men were looking for an answer and they’re looking for a scapegoat. And they turn to the Black Legion, an overtly fascist, white supremacist, anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, anti-African American secret organization.” 

A haven for hate  

The white supremacist group spread across Ohio and Michigan. 

And Stanton says Highland Park became a hotbed of Black Legion activity. 

The enclave’s police chief, fire and police commissioners and a city councilman were all members. 

Even, Stanton says, Highland Park’s mayor at the time, Ray Markland. 

“The publisher of the “Highland Parker,” Art Kingsley, was targeted by the Black Legion because he kept ripping into Mayor Markland. One of the gunmen for the Black Legion moved into Highland Park with the idea of assassinating him. In the end, he didn’t. The gunman had infiltrated the American Legion and came to actually like what Kingsley stood for.” 

Others were not as fortunate. 

Legion members dressed in black robes emblazoned with skull-and crossbones symbols, their hoods topped by pirate hats bearing the Jolly Roger. 

Death was their motif. 

The Legion committed an estimated 50 murders in Michigan. 

Historian Dana Frank says the group lured new recruits to parties or barbeques, then suddenly forced them to join the Legion at gunpoint. 

“It was even more secret than the Klan had been,” Frank said. “A lot of these Legion people had been in the Klan. They would be wearing black outfits with gold trim and pirate hats. And it’s quite chilling. Who sewed that robe? Somebody’s wife or daughter or mother.” 

Author Tom Stanton adds that “recruits” joining to save their lives, while planning to avoid the hate group afterwards, were in for a shock. 

“Many of those 50 murders were actually killings of Legion members,” he said. “They had violated the code or didn’t come to meetings or in some ways were an affront to what the Black Legion supposedly stood for.” 

The Black Legion unravels 

Yet Stanton says what eventually exposed the Black Legion’s crimes was the killing of federal organizer Charles Poole. 

And his death stemmed from an age-old motive for murder, jealousy. 

“A local official of the Black Legion was upset that Poole was married to a woman that he had a crush on years before down south. He hatched this plan to spread the word at meetings that Poole had abused his wife. ‘What are we going to do about this?’” 

The answer was to pronounce a death sentence. 

“They got a couple of carloads of guys. Poole was taken out to Gulley Road, not too far from the Rouge auto plant, and assassinated.” 

Investigators initially didn’t realize the murder was connected to the Legion, so no law enforcement officials working with the group could squash the probe. 

They eventually traced the killing back to a hitman for the hate group. 

Stanton says the self-described “executioner” Dayton Dean, then committed the Legion’s cardinal sin. 

He confessed to the crime. And to the existence of the secret society he was part of. 

Stanton said, “Dayton Dean wasn’t the brightest guy and he was easily manipulated by investigators. They promised him cigars and special treatment in his prison cell. He loved the attention and he was willing to talk. He just couldn’t resist it.” 

Dean also unveiled the bloody secrets of the Black Legion in court. 

Historian Dana Frank says evidence later showed the Wayne County prosecutor in the case, Duncan McCrea, had been part of the Legion himself, though he vehemently denied it. 

“(McCrea) chose to prosecute in 1936. And that’s what really broke the story. The membership basically crawled back into the woodwork. That doesn’t mean that they changed their ideas. But the risk of being part of the Black Legion had become much greater.” 

Court cases capture a national audience 

There was a second trial involving the hate group months later, this time for the murder of Silas Coleman, who had been killed prior to Poole’s death. 

Coleman was shot by a Legion member who wanted to know “how it felt to kill a Black man.” 

The cases resulted in multiple convictions and national headlines. 

Within a year Hollywood had already made two movies based on the events. 

One featured a young Humphrey Bogart as a fictional version of the group’s hitman. 

In a desperate, terrified voice, Bogie said, “They’ll kill me for telling you. Them Black Legion guys don’t fool. I can’t get out. Nobody ever lived to get out of the Legion.” 

But author Tom Stanton says the trials raised concerns about who actually was in the hate group. 

“Wives and children were discovering that their fathers were members of the Black Legion. It was a secret society, even from your spouse. People were wondering, ‘Is my neighbor a member? Public officials?’ It was this great mystery, like the stuff of a radio serial at the time.”  

In fact, a popular radio show created an episode loosely based on the trials, where the renamed “White Legion” was brought down by the hero of the series. 

“I am the one they call The Shadow,” boomed a voice over the airwaves. “The White Legion is about to be exposed!”   

The secret society disappears 

But in real life, historian Dana Frank says FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover knew all about the Black Legion and its ties to the Klan. 

Yet no other members were ever charged. 

Frank says some researchers believe they know why. 

 “J. Edgar Hoover didn’t go after the Black Legion because Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was president at the time, didn’t want him to. There were Ku Klux Klan members and racists in Congress, particularly in the Senate, and the New Deal coalition was dependent on the votes of those Southern Democrats. And they would not want him to touch the Black Legion.”  

Frank says the FBI director argued the hate group had not violated federal law, despite Michigan officials’ assertion that the Legion’s activities had crossed state lines. 

“Hoover immediately shut down any investigation. He told all his agents not to do any further investigation of the Legion without his explicit permission,” Frank said. 

The U.S. was then hurtling towards World War II. 

And the Black Legion seemingly vanished from the national consciousness.  

Author Tom Stanton says those associated with the group had a stake in erasing it from history. 

“Most people didn’t want to tout their involvement. They wanted to bury it,” he said. “The black gowns were discovered in swamps. Some were burning them. It wasn’t something to be proud of.” 

Stanton says scrubbing the memory of the Legion extended through generations. 

“Decades on, you don’t want to be bragging about your great grandfather who was a member of a hate organization. And great grandpa probably didn’t want anybody to know about it either, other than the guys who were at the meeting.” 

After almost a century, historians agree few people recall the Black Legion’s atrocities or its role in Michigan and especially Highland Park. 

Ironically, the hate group that secretly inspired terror has regained one of its most cherished goals. 

Anonymity. 

May 18 marks the 99th anniversary one of the deadliest school massacres in American history. 

The Bath School Disaster claimed the lives of dozens of children, and people in the small Clinton County community are still reckoning with the tragedy today. 

They’re working to preserve the memories of those they lost to make sure they’re never forgotten.

In the months before May 18, 1927, a disgruntled and embittered Bath school board member began planting hundreds of pounds of explosives in the Bath Consolidated School building.  

When they went off that May morning, 44 people died in the explosion and the ensuing collapse of half the building. More than 50 were injured. Most of the victims were children. S

In the weeks after, the community mourned but moved quickly to put the tragedy behind them. 

Within a year and a half, a new school building went up, and for decades, the survivors rarely talked about what happened that day. 

“People frequently asked me, ’What was it like growing up with a survivor?’ And I just say it was the same as anybody, because we knew what happened, but nobody ever talked about it ,” Bath resident Susan Hagerman said.

Hagerman’s father and three of his siblings were all in the building when it exploded. 

“My dad and the sisters were buried. His younger brother was in the part that did not get damaged,” she said.

Michelle Allen says her experience growing up with her father, another survivor, was similar.

“The subject didn’t come up. It was known, and that was about it, ” she said.

But Hagerman says that began to change around the 1980s, when some survivors started sharing what they remembered.

“They started opening up, because they realized it needs to be talked about. It needs to get out there,” Hagerman said.

Allen recalls being struck by something her father shared about the time of the explosion.

“Daddy said he heard nothing and saw nothing, absolute dead silence. Since then, I’ve heard that others experienced that too, but I never heard that before, and I didn’t know daddy had gone through that ,” Allen said.

Another catalyst for change came at around the same time, according to Hagerman. 

“The elementary school principal, Jim Hixson, looked out in the trash one day and saw some things out there and went out and investigated,” Hagerman said. “Somebody had cleaned out a storage closet and thrown all these things out there, and they were artifacts,” .

Hixson started the Bath School Museum Committee along with a group of survivors to preserve these artifacts and what people had kept hidden for years. 

What they collected ended up being displayed in the lobby of Bath Middle School’s auditorium. 

That include a photo of former Bath superintendent Emory Huyck who was killed in the bombing. 

“The kids all loved him. His wife was a music teacher. The kids loved her.”

Further down the wall is a statue of a little girl holding a cat. The sculpture was funded with donations that came in from across the state following the bombing. It stood in the building that replaced the one that was lost. 

 “It’s been told that students would walk in in the morning and put their hand on her, and they would know it would be okay that day,” Hagerman said.

She shares a story about a small wooden chair sitting on a cabinet.

“The day of the explosion, some kindergarten student was so traumatized they picked up their chair and ran home with it,” Hagerman said.

Beyond that, there’s dozens of news clippings and pictures amid other school memorabilia. But these artifacts are only available for viewing by appointment or during public events.  Hagerman says the original school’s cupola, which survived the explosion and has been on display outside for years, also needs protection. 

“The cupola that sits in the park is over 100 years old, and it needs to get inside, get out of the elements ,” she said.

So, over the past few years, the committee has set its sights on building a freestanding museum in the park where the school once stood.
 
Now, a third generation is getting involved, including Hagerman’s son Chris.
 
“I want to make sure that the story continues, and I want to get folks my age involved and keep the story alive,” Chris Hagerman said.

The group has been fundraising to hit a $5 million goal and revealed designs for the museum in 2024.  A documentary has been produced as a part of the campaign, and recently, the committee received grant funding to digitize some of its collections.

Although the committee has only raised a fraction of what they need to begin construction, Hagerman hopes to make progress with a memorial garden that potentially could be ready in time for the 100^th anniversary next year. 

“We thought we’d start with small bits and pieces and try to build and then show people that, hey, this is something that can really happen,” he said.

But even without the museum, community members will continue commemorating the tragedy.

They’ll gather for an annual candlelit vigil on the night of the May 18 to read each name of the victims and keep the memories of those they lost alive. 

This story was originally published on WKAR.

Highland Parkers have been telling WDET what they want people to know about their city as part of our Crossing the Lines series. Reporters have been listening to residents as well as people who no longer live there but still have deep connections to the city.

That includes Marsha Battle Philpot. She’s a writer, musician, and historian. And she was a Kresge Artist Fellow in Literary Arts in 2012. Her father, Joe Von Battle, owned Joe’s Records on Hastings Street in Detroit’s Paradise Valley before the thriving Black neighborhood was demolished.

Battle recorded all of Reverend C. L. Franklin’s sermons and was the first person to record Aretha Franklin’s voice. Battle bought a home in Highland Park when his daughter was about 2 years old.

“Marsha Music,” as many call her, tells WDET’s Pat Batcheller what growing up in that house was like.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Marsha Battle Philpot: It was a home with oak walls in some of the rooms, and pocket doors, and beveled glass, and a huge mantle that ran the length of the room. And it was a magnificent home, one amongst many magnificent homes in the city that were on akin to the homes of [Detroit’s] Boston Edison, but on a smaller footprint, making them, many of them more achievable for working class people. But it was a very, very affluent place to live.

Schools were jewels

MBP: “People were desperate to try to get their children into Highland Park schools. During those days of the 1950s and 60s, they were some of the best schools in the United States. I remember the schools that I went to were voted or deemed to be the best schools in state of Michigan. It was really an extraordinary place to live. Even our elementary schools had swimming pools. All Highland Park kids could swim. All of us who deigned to do so went to musical classes and band and all kind of extracurricular activities. There were two or three bands in Highland Park. It was just an extraordinarily prosperous place.

The City of Trees

MBP: And if you put that prosperousness on top of the physical lushness of the city, it was such a lush, verdant green atmosphere in Highland Park. The trees would create archways over the streets. So, I would come home from school, and if it was raining, I wouldn’t get wet, because the trees oftentimes bowed over the over the skyline, and they would protect you from some of the rain. It was just an extraordinary place to grow up.

Pat Batcheller: Where we’re talking right now is in your dining room, which is technically in Detroit. It’s just on the south edge of Palmer Park. Where were you before?

MBP: I had been married and lived in a couple of other areas of the city, and so I was very glad to be able to come back to Highland Park when my mom decided that she was not going to be able to keep the house.

PB: The house that your dad bought her?

MBP: “Yes, our family home. Because she was ill, and she went to live with her sister, who was helping care for her. And she finally made a decision, “would you like to take the house?” And so, I did. But in about 2007 is when I had an electrical fire, and it was caused—I learned later from the fire investigators— by a dehumidifier. It was in August of 2007 it was probably 90 degrees. It was hot, and air conditioning those big houses is very challenging. And our basement was always soaking wet, and I ended up with a dehumidifier there that apparently had been running. And the fire people later told me that that that scenario is the cause of many fires.  It’s still standing, but it destroyed the house.

The home of her heart

PB: You said you were happy to come back to Highland Park. What made you happy?

MBP: Because it’s my home. And even though it had experienced so many challenges over the years since I had been gone, it was the home of my heart. And I always loved Highland Park because of its separation, even from Detroit. We’re in our own world in Highland Park.

And there were so many of the elders that were still there since I was a child and had done their best to try to hold on to this city. It’s the essence of the Black experience of perseverance in Highland Park. These people had been holding on despite all manner of reversals and in their big homes, these big, beautiful homes that they’re trying to take care of as best they can. Even in a situation in which the actual light poles were repossessed. Come on, now! You take the light poles out? Oh, my goodness!

PB: You’re only about a block away from Highland Park, so you’re not far away. Do you go into Highland Park?

MBP: Every time I go anywhere, I have to basically go through Highland Park. And I call Highland Park my happy place. You know, I love Highland Park. Even when I’m up on Woodward Avenue and I’m just up there shopping, because I’m not going to get in my car and go to the suburbs and shop. I’m going to shop where I live.

And when I’m up there on Woodward, I literally can feel my mother. And she’s been gone for many years. But I think of her walking up to the stores in Highland Park or driving to the stores and shopping in the days in which we had Sears and Winkelman’s and the various national chains. I think of my people in Highland Park, because we’re very much embedded there.

More Crossing the Lines: Highland Park

While the city of Highland Park may be known as the birthplace of the automotive assembly line, it’s also home to one of the first mosques built from the ground up in the U.S.

Imams Hussein Karoub and Khalil Bazzi led the construction of Highland Park’s Moslem Mosque. They selected a location near the Ford assembly line plant in Highland Park and opened the mosque in 1921.

The mechanical contractor John E Green Company now owns the building.

Sally Howell is a professor of history at the University of Michigan – Dearborn. She says Syrian immigrants, “mostly from what is today, Lebanon,” built the mosque.

She says immigrants were attracted to the Ford plant’s wages of $5 per day, which was around twice the average industrial wage at the time. 

She says Arab Americans had organizations and political associations leading up to mosque opening. Howell says people from the Middle East, South Asia, and Eastern Europe worshipped there. It only stayed open for about a year.

“Part of the congregation, by 1921 had already started moving to Dearborn, because Henry Ford was already building and starting to open the Ford Rouge assembly,” she says.

However, Highland Park had a growing African American Muslim population.

Imam Hamidullah Daniel Mujahid was born in Highland Park in 1953.

He says many Muslims practiced their faith in private during the 1950s and 1960s. About 50 Muslim families—people from the Middle Eastern, followers of the Ahmadiyya movement from South Asia, and people from the Nation of Islam—lived in the city.

“At this given point in time, the only outward practicing group was the group that was called the Nation of Islam, that was the Black African American community,” he says.

Mujahid says people wanted to fit in with the majority of the Christian population. They also didn’t want to get targeted.

Researcher Akil Fahd says another predominantly African American mosque, Masjid As-Salaam, opened around 1971. It was an incubator for other mosques.

“A lot of the other communities that were Sunni Muslim, that did not come out of the Nation of Islam, they kind of spread out from Masjid As-Salam,” he shares.

A lasting community

Masjidun-Nur opened in 1977 on Pilgrim Street. It has an extension building, the Markaz Al-Tabligh, on Hamilton Avenue for larger gatherings and special occasions such as Eid prayers.

Fahd says it’s part of the Tablighi community, a global Islamic missionary movement focused on spiritual renewal, prayer and following the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

Fatimah Rashad is a labor and delivery nurse and mom of four. Her parents moved from New Jersey to Highland Park in 1991.

“My father actually wanted to move here because it’s a bigger Muslim community, and they heard about the Islamic schools,” she says.

Rashad says the community was warm and welcoming. About 20 families lived there.

Khalil MuMinun is an assistant imam at Masjid Wali Muhammad. He says the Muslim community in Highland Park offered an alternative lifestyle.

“They played a significant role in you know keeping the drug epidemic from taking over the entire neighborhood by creating a space where the standard was virtue and having good manners with your neighbors,” he explains.

While today just a few Muslim families remain in Highland Park, Muslim communities played a vital role in developing the city since the early 1900s.  

In the early 20^th Century Ford and Chrysler operated extensive facilities in Highland Park, helping its population grow to more than 50,000 people by the 1930s.

But both car companies moved away from Highland Park decades ago. Now its population hovers between 8,000 and 9,000.

Automotive historian Robert Tate writes for the website MotorCities and worked with the Chrysler museum.

Tate says Ford mass-produced its Model T in Highland Park, creating the moving assembly line that forever changed manufacturing.

Tate says even the Highland Park plant’s architecture was inspiring.

The following interview edited for length and clarity.

Robert Tate: The building was designed by Albert Kahn. He and Henry Ford had a great relationship. The doors opened January 1, 1910, on Woodward Ave. It became one of the largest factories in the world because they manufactured the Model T. The factory was about 865 feet and ran parallel to Woodward Ave. This was one of the most historic sites in the United States and the world, to be honest with you. And it also attracted a lot of people from European countries and other cultures to finally get a job and become an American citizen. So, the factory itself created a lot of things for a lot of people, not just the Model T, but for people to live a good life.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: Why did it attract people from Europe and elsewhere?

RT: Henry Ford began using the moving assembly line. And in 1914, the average wage was $2.30. But he raised it to $5 a day. That attracted a lot of people from all over the world to come here, including my ancestors. My family came here from the South to get jobs like that. The only problem was that the hours were long, 10 hours a day and then five hours on Saturday for the workers. And that created a lot of health issues for a lot of individuals because they were so regimented in putting together parts at the assembly plant.

QK: How much did the Ford factory actually mean to the city of Highland Park?

RT: It meant a lot because you’re talking about taxes and people coming in. The Highland Park Hotel was there, they had a racetrack as well at the time. That generated a lot of income.

QK: Why did Ford move it out eventually? Why did it leave Highland Park?

RT: My belief is that things began to change when the 1927 Ford came out and the company had the model assembled at the River Rouge plant. The Model T was produced from 1908 to 1926. And then Ford introduced the 1927 Model A, which was very, very popular. Ford sold millions of those cars. Also, and people don’t like to talk about this, unfortunately there were a lot of workers who got killed at the Highland Park plant. Because at that time they didn’t have things enclosed for safety. So, a lot of men, unfortunately, lost their lives. But I think that Ford wanted to get out of Highland Park and move it closer to River Rouge because you had more goods coming into that particular facility for models to be assembled.

QK: In regards to Chrysler, how did they get into Highland Park?

RT: It was their major headquarters until they moved to a larger facility in Auburn Hills. I used to hear a lot of Chrysler employees say that the Chrysler Highland Park site was just too archaic.

QK: I’ve heard some experts say that when Chrysler in particular moved out, it truly devastated Highland Park’s economy. And that the enclave has struggled to really replace that revenue since. Do you agree?

RT: Yes, I do. The same thing happened with American Motors when they moved out. Unfortunately, the neighborhoods and the communities suffered when both of those companies moved to Auburn Hills. The neighborhoods were devastated.

QK: There must have been a lot of tax revenue and other money coming into Highland Park that suddenly vanished. But you say that from what you heard people who were working for Chrysler were happy to vacate and to go to a newer facility.

RT: My God, yes. I would hear that all the time because it was a new facility. It created a new way of thinking, using the new things that they were not accustomed to having at Highland Park. I remember walking through the hallways at the Chrysler facility in Auburn Hills and it was a showcase. It was a very beautiful building.

QK: After all that has happened since Ford opened the Model T assembly line, when you look at Highland Park now, what do you think is the legacy that automakers have left there?

RT: As a historian, I look at the 1950’s in Highland Park. Virgil Exner, who was the chief designer in charge, came out with the 1957 Chrysler line. And I’m a big fan of the 1957 Chrysler line. So, whenever I think of Highland Park, I think of the good days that launched a lot of cars that were popular, the 1964 Dodge, the 1957 Chrysler. Those cars changed America.

Read more Crossing the Lines: Highland Park

Highland Park is an odd shape—a trapezoid to be exact. Its borders include West McNichols Road on the north side, railroad tracks along the eastern edge, alleys behind Tennyson and Tuxedo streets to the south, and the Lodge freeway forming part of its western boundary.

These have been Highland Park’s city limits since officials incorporated it 1918.

That’s how it managed to avoid becoming part of Detroit, which had already annexed most of the surrounding land.

Leaders and residents wanted autonomy

Jeff Horner is a professor at Wayne State University‘s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. He says Detroit wanted to absorb Highland Park even before the latter became a city.

“Highland Park was not open to the idea of being absorbed,” Horner says. “They wanted to have some local autonomy.”

Michigan’s Home Rule law in 1909 made it difficult for one city to annex another. That same year, Henry Ford finished building his Model T factory in Highland Park. It was the first Ford plant to use an assembly line. Horner says the city’s population exploded.

“From the 1910 U.S. census to the 1920 census, the population of the city grew by over 1,000% from about 4,500 to about 45,000,” Horner says. “That is remarkable growth.”

Auto industry drove growth

Highland Park kept growing until 1930, peaking at almost 53,000 people. Marsha Battle Philpot grew up in the city and has written about its history. She says Henry Ford’s offer of $5 a day to work on his assembly line drew thousands of people from across the country.

“This was an astronomical sum in those days,” she says. “Maybe an average person might make $5 a month”.

The city’s population steadily declined through the 1930s and 1940s. But it was still relatively prosperous. Philpot says the schools were among Michigan’s best in the 1950s and 1960s.

“Even our elementary schools had swimming pools,” Philpot says. “It was really an extraordinary place to live.”

But good schools were not enough to keep people from leaving the city decade after decade. Ford eventually closed its Highland Park factory, which is now a Michigan historical landmark. Chrysler moved its headquarters, established in 1925, from Highland Park to Auburn Hills. The city’s tax base evaporated. It had so much trouble paying its bills its streetlights were repossessed. State-appointed emergency managers ran the city and the school district for much of the early 2000s, closing the McGregor Library and the high school. Glenda McDonald, Highland Park’s mayor since 2022, says those decisions hit young people especially hard.

“Children need a place to go, and literacy is a very important part of our children’s learning,” the mayor says. “It kind of put a very bad taste in people’s mouths.”

Lansing takes over

McDonald says emergency management didn’t solve Highland Park’s long-term financial problems. One was literally bubbling under the surface: leaky water pipes, some more than 100 years old. The city incurred tens of millions of dollars in debt to the Great Lakes Water Authority. Each side sued the other with the city accusing GLWA of overcharging residents who were too poor to pay for water. The legal dispute pushed Highland Park to the brink of financial ruin.

In 2023, the state intervened again, this time giving the city $100 million to pay its debt and fix its water infrastructure. McDonald says workers are now replacing every lead water line in town.

“We’re working with the state, we’re working with GLWA, and hopefully we’ll continue moving forward that way,” McDonald says.

Had the state not thrown Highland Park that lifeline, the city likely would have filed for bankruptcy. The financial crisis raised a question: would Highland Park be better off becoming part of Detroit? The mayor demurred.

“Blasphemy,” she says.

Legal hurdles, local pride make merging difficult

For one local government to absorb another, state law requires residents of both communities to vote in favor of it after weighing the pros and cons. Stephanie Leiser directs the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy. She says uniting Detroit and Highland Park could reduce bureaucracy.

“You can eliminate some layer of management there,” she says. “They don’t need to have an additional mayor and a clerk and all of those things.”

But Leiser says there’s not a ton of evidence that it would help Highland Park financially.

“They’re not going to save money necessarily on like plowing the roads, picking up trash, or maintaining the infrastructure,” she says.

Leiser says Highland Park’s finances are in better shape than they were when officials were considering bankruptcy in 2023. But it still has challenges, such as high property taxes.

Highland Park has some of Wayne County’s highest millage rates

In 2025, the city’s millage rate for principal residences was 63.221. That’s $63.22 for every $1,000 of a home’s taxable value. The non-homestead rate as over 79 mills. Rates for industrial and commercial personal property were over 57 mills and 67 mills respectively.

Former Highland Park Councilman Ken Bates says the city’s millage rates and pervasive poverty make it hard to attract new investment.

“We have to look into the future as to what will help Highland Park become sustainable,” he says. “What kind of industry should we count on?”

Bates says city leaders need a plan and the expertise to implement it.

“If not, it’s just you maintaining the status quo year after year,” he says. “You’re just one disaster away from financial calamity.”

More than just lines on a map

Bates says Highland Parkers are fiercely loyal to their community and that most want to remain a city within a city. Resident Michael Williams, Sr. admits he wouldn’t rule out becoming part of Detroit.

“We would get more popularity, probably more services,” Williams says.

But other residents, like Kim McDade, don’t see the benefit of giving up Highland Park’s identity.

“Highland Park needs to be given a chance to continue to build,” McDade says. “Our mayor is doing a great job in doing some things and making connections with the right people.”

Mayor Glenda McDonald says the city’s greatest strength is its people.

“They’re resilient, they’re loving, they’re kind, and we take care of each other,” she says. “I know a person on every single street.”

The mayor says that resilience defines Highland Park more than its shape on a map.

When political tensions are high, artists and creatives use their work to weigh in. In 1960’s Detroit, a poet and a painter, built a place for that work to live and be shared across the country and the world. 

In 1969, Ann and Ken Mikolowski taught themselves how to operate a printing press, and launched The Alternative Press in the Cass Corridor. For 30 years, the periodical published writings and poetry from their contemporaries that spoke to the political and cultural moment. 

Rebecca Kosick, an associate professor of comparative poetry and poetics at the University of Bristol, is recognizing those efforts in her new book “Dispatches from the Avant-Garage.” In it she details the Mikolowski’s story and their efforts launching The Alternate Press. Kosick joined the show to discuss the publication’s lasting impact.

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The story of retired baseball player Ron LeFlore is one  worth repeating. 

LeFlore was a gifted athlete who refused to let the mistakes he made during his childhood define him. His talent, perseverance and a little luck catapulted him out of his prison cell and onto the Detroit Tiger’s roster for six seasons. He led the league in stolen bases twice and secured a spot on the 1976 All-Star team. 

Although Ron LeFlore’s story has been told before in an movie and an autobiography, author Adam Henig felt there was still more to tell.

In Henig’s book “Baseball’s Outcasts: The Story of Ron LeFlore” he details the former Tiger’s journey from the streets of Detroit to the dugout, and LeFlore’s life after the major leagues. Henig  joined the show to explore some of the lesser known details about Ron LeFlore’s life. 

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

More stories from The Metro