Poetry

is that a number of notable blacks who became "firsts" and struggled with this country's oppression, fled, even if briefly, to the U.S.S.R., like Paul Robeson.

I think the "context" is that there is much that has not been taught and when it did sort of get tentatively "taught", it was relegated during what one historian Carter G. Woodson established - "Negro History Week" (which later became "Black History Month" ), and has evolved from there.

If one wants to look at James Baldwin (who wanted to be a foil to Richard Wright), one needs some of that other background behind it. Of course Baldwin was also a gay man, so that added a whole other level to his discourse.

But to bring it to the "Michigan" connection, Frederick Douglass did actually go to the Detroit area and met up with the famous John Brown and other abolitionists - https://www.michiganradio.org/social-justice/2022-02-10/frederick-douglass-john-brown-and-a-key-moment-in-detroits-abolitionist-history

Just like where Douglass had briefly settled - around Rochester, NY right across from Canada, Detroit was obviously also right across from Canada, and a means to get the hell out of the U.S. and its slavery.



(as a sidenote, one of my BILs is multi-generational Ohioan - from Dayton - and still has a brother and sister there )