Construction of the Harding Mott University Center, 1977
Genesee Historical Collections Center, Frances Willson Thompson Library
This project explored the relationship between the physical growth of the University of Michigan-Flint and the role that urban renewal played in it. Urban renewal, a collection of mid-twentieth century policies that reshaped American cities, often at enormous cost to Black and working-class neighborhoods, leveled entire communities. In Flint, the St. John Street neighborhood, a predominantly Black community located north of the Flint River, was demolished entirely under urban renewal.
This research was built on the belief that the people whose lives were affected by urban renewal deserved to be at the heart of how their stories were told. Led by Callum Carr-Marquis, archivist at the Genesee Historical Collections Center, and Benjamin Gaydos, Professor of Design at UM-Flint and Director of the Community Design Studio, the project partnered with former residents, community organizations, and local filmmakers to weave together archival records, oral histories, and engaging design to create an exhibit rooted in justice, equity, and community engagement.
Aerial photograph of the Flint Central Business District in 1961, before urban renewal changed the face of downtown.
Genesee Historical Collections Center, Frances Willson Thompson Library
A miniature model of the UM-Flint campus was on display at the Blueprints of Power exhibition. My Proulx, Plain Air Photography
Blueprints of Power: The University and Urban Renewal in Flint
Our flagship exhibition asked a fundamental question: who benefits from development, and who bears its burdens?
Blueprints of Power explored how UM-Flint’s downtown campus emerged from the ambitions of city leaders, university administrators, and policymakers. The exhibition examined how that growth unfolded alongside the displacement of predominantly Black neighborhoods through urban renewal. The exhibition traced the complex tensions between civic vision, redevelopment, and the human cost of “progress,” inviting visitors to consider how decisions about city planning and university growth shaped both the physical and social landscape of Flint as we know it today.
The exhibition was split into two sections:
The mobile installation traced how UM-Flint came to occupy its present home along the Flint River. Before 1971, the university — then known as Flint Senior College — shared space with what is now Mott Community College. Its move downtown was not simply a matter of growth or geography, but the result of intersecting ambitions: business leaders seeking to revitalize the city’s core, university administrators envisioning expansion, and policymakers wielding the tools of urban renewal. While some celebrated the project as progress, the neighborhoods left behind told a different story, one of disinvestment and hardship borne largely by Black, working-class families already affected by earlier waves of urban renewal.
The Flint Spokesman section of the exhibition centered on a local newspaper that was essential to the project’s research. Founded in 1946 and later revived in the early 1970s, The Flint Spokesman offered unfiltered perspectives from Black community leaders on issues including police brutality, Black politics, labor, and community organizing. Under editor and publisher Tom Terry, its outspoken writing shaped community discourse until the paper closed in 1980 — at which point Concerned Pastors for Social Action, a Flint based non-profit, launched The Flint Courier, which continues today. Digital copies of The Flint Spokesman are accessible through the University of Michigan Library Digital Collections.
Blueprints of Power was led by Callum Carr-Marquis and Benjamin Gaydos, with contributions from research assistants, IHP staff, faculty collaborators, historians, and community partners. All photographs included in the exhibition were drawn from the Genesee Historical Collections Center at the Frances Willson Thompson Library, University of Michigan-Flint. The exhibition was co-presented by the Inclusive History Project, the Genesee Historical Collections Center (GHCC), and the Art & Art History Program. The exhibition’s impact has been tangible: since opening, it has driven increased foot traffic and donations to the GHCC.
At the 2026 IHP Summit, Gaydos and Carr-Marquis joined documentary filmmaker Rodney Brown and moderator Shana M. griffin for a roundtable on Flint’s urban renewal history and legacy, opening the conversation to the broader community.
The Flint Spokesman section of the exhibition centered on a local newspaper that offered unfiltered perspectives from Black community leaders. Sarah Rice, Michigan Photography
Professor of Art and Art History, College of Arts, Sciences and Education
Associate Archivist, Frances Willson Thompson Library
Undergraduate Program Assistant
Program Assistant
This project was grounded in relationships with the people who lived this history, who include:
The St. John Street Historical Committee, established in the 1970s by former residents of the St. John Street neighborhood — a community claimed by eminent domain during the construction of Interstate 475 — has spent decades working to preserve, protect, and defend their community’s history. The committee met monthly, maintained family connections year-round, and organized annual reunions to keep the neighborhood’s history alive. Their ongoing work toward a St. John Street Neighborhood Memorial Park was a driving force behind this project.
Rodney Brown, former director of WFUM and owner of iMichigan Productions, conducted extensive research into Flint’s urban renewal planning and the civil rights leaders who fought to protect these neighborhoods. His interviews with former city employees, and his donation of their files to the GHCC, added critical new material to the public record. He premiered St. John Street: Story of a Neighborhood at the Flint Institute of Arts in August 2024. A second documentary is in production, featuring interviews with former city officials and urban renewal experts.
The Community Design Studio (CDS) at UM-Flint, a student learning lab focused on community-led design, has worked alongside St. John Street elders since 2023. Through intergenerational storytelling sessions, workshops, and co-design activities, CDS students helped envision and design the memorial park, presenting their work each year at the St. John Street Block Party.
The St. John Street Historical Committee has been working to plan and construct a memorial park and monument to their lost neighborhood for several years.
Genesee Historical Collections Center, Frances Willson Thompson Library
Following its successful initial run at the Harding Mott University Center, the Blueprints of Power exhibition moved to the University Pavilion on Saginaw Street in downtown Flint, allowing more members of the university and Flint communities to explore this local history.
In the months ahead, the exhibition will travel to community events around Flint, beginning with the annual St. John Street reunion. UM-Flint’s Media and Communications team will support the exhibit as it moves through the community, an important step in the university’s outreach to the neighborhoods whose history the project documents.
The project will also continue as part of the Renewal Project, a national coalition coordinated through the Humanities Action Lab, the University of Minnesota, and the Smart Cities Research Lab at Trinity College, founded by Davarian Baldwin. Guided by the principle that the smartest cities develop without displacement, the coalition brings together university-community partnerships across the country, each reckoning with its own history of university-driven demolition and working toward repair.
Through the Renewal Project, archival interns will work directly with the St. John Street Historical Committee, bringing materials and memories from the neighborhood into the GHCC and ensuring that this history is preserved by the people who lived it. The next step is to return that history to the area itself installing interactive placemarkers where the neighborhood once stood.
My Proulx, Plain Air Photography
My Proulx, Plain Air Photography
My Proulx, Plain Air Photography
