The Sojourner Truth Project

Until I researched Motor City at War, I didn’t know that the abolitionist heroine Sojourner Truth spent her last years in Michigan. The most controversial housing project in Detroit during WW2 was named after her. In 1941, the federal government insisted that housing built in northeast Detroit with federal funds should be set aside for Black defense workers. White protest followed, as did violence.

This overview from Wayne State University’s archives isn’t cheering, but it gives you a feel for how high the stakes were and how strong the resistance was. It wasn’t the last protest over housing for Black residents of Detroit. But it was the worst, and it set the stage for the eruption of racial violence in 1943.