Project Origins
This project seeks to explore the relationship of UM-Flint to urban renewal. Crucially, it builds upon and supports the ongoing work of numerous members of Flint’s community who have led research into urban renewal in Flint and the neighborhoods it destroyed. This project’s origins lie in these communities and the incomplete but growing archives that help to reconstruct that history.
By working in partnership with community members and weaving together a range of historical materials, we aim to create a project that reclaims erased histories and reflects a commitment to justice, equity, and community engagement. Project partners and leads include the St. John Street Historical Committee, UM-Flint faculty members Callum Carr-Marquis and Benjamin Gaydos, and documentarian Rodney Brown.
The St. John Street Historical Committee is a group composed of former residents of Flint’s St. John Street neighborhood. Founded in the 1970s, this committee meets monthly, maintains connections among families year-round through social media, and organizes annual reunions. These annual reunions play a crucial role in keeping families from the neighborhood connected and in ensuring that the neighborhood’s history is documented and remembered.
The committee’s commitment to honoring the neighborhood’s legacy led to the development of the St. John Street Neighborhood Memorial Park Plan. Its mission is to locate, collect, and preserve materials that reflect the history of the St. John Street community. Additionally, the committee seeks to make these materials accessible to those interested in accurately portraying the neighborhood’s vibrant past, which was disrupted when the area was claimed by eminent domain during urban renewal and the construction of I-475.
When Callum Carr-Marquis joined the Genesee Historical Collections Center (GHCC) in the Frances Willson Thompson Library at UM-Flint as an archivist in 2018, they increased access to the collection’s archival materials by digitizing them. Historical documents in the GHCC collection were now more accessible, and there was an immediate surge in interest in the Community Development Committee records.
These records outline Flint’s urban renewal planning and include famed architect Lawrence Halprin’s planning for the Riverbank Park and the initial planning documents for all nine urban renewal areas in Flint: St. John Street, the Central Business District, the Doyle neighborhood, the Interchange area (Floral Park), Lewis-Longway, the Central Park Neighborhood, Grand Traverse South, Civic Park, and Dort-Lippincott. Though some of these areas would see minimal urban renewal activities and spending, the St. John’s and Floral Park neighborhoods, which are predominantly Black neighborhoods, were completely leveled.
Carr-Marquis was first contacted by the St. John Street Historical Committee in November 2019 as they gathered material for the St. John Street Neighborhood Memorial Park Plan. Members were searching for relevant archival material, especially photos, in the GHCC collection. Their work brought the collection to the attention of two key partners–Professor Benjamin Gaydos and documentarian Rodney Brown–and Carr-Marquis saw the opportunity to explore the university’s relationship with urban renewal and its potential connections to the site of the current Flint campus.
Benjamin Gaydos is an artist, designer, and associate professor of design at the University of Michigan-Flint, where he is the Department Program Coordinator for Fine Art and Design, leads the Arts & Culture Research Cluster, and is a faculty fellow at the Urban Institute for Racial, Economic, & Environmental Justice. At UM-Flint, Gaydos directs the Community Design Studio (CDS), a unique student learning lab for community-led social impact design. In January 2023, under Gaydos’ guidance, CDS began working closely with elders from the St. John Street Neighborhood Historical Committee. The students’ work was deeply influenced by the Design Justice Network, guiding their commitment to equitable community centered design (ECCD) and inspiring their community-centric ethos. CDS worked closely with elders over two years to support the development of a park memorializing the neighborhood razed in the 1970s. Alongside the historical committee, CDS co-hosted intergenerational story-telling sessions, workshops, and co-design activities where youth and elders worked together to envision and design the memorial park. At the yearly St. John Street Block Party, the students showcased their research and design projects, giving community members a glimpse of what the park could look like, with detailed examples of interpretive signage highlighting the neighborhood’s history.
Rodney Brown, former director of WFUM television station and the owner and operator of iMichigan Productions, contacted Carr-Marquis when conducting research into city planning documents and the efforts of civil rights leaders to combat the destruction of these neighborhoods. In his efforts to produce a documentary about St. John, Brown interviewed former city employees and collected their files for donation to the GHCC collection. These are critical resources for studying the University of Michigan-Flint’s move from the planned campus at Court and Lapeer Street to the downtown Kearsley Street campus.
Central to our project is the belief that the public should actively participate in uncovering and preserving their history. We will organize community workshops, storytelling sessions, and collaborative art projects, encouraging residents to share their memories, artifacts, and insights. Through this participatory approach, we aim to empower the community to reclaim its own history, fostering a sense of ownership and pride in preserving these narratives.
