Idlewild: The Rise, Decline, and Rebirth of a Unique African American Resort Town 9780472118793, 9780472029204, 9780472035908

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Idlewild: The Rise, Decline, and Rebirth of a Unique African American Resort Town
 9780472118793, 9780472029204, 9780472035908

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Idlewild The Rise, Decline, and Rebirth of a Unique African American Resort Town Ronald J. Stephens The University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor

Page iv → Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2013 All rights reserved This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper 2016

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A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stephens, Ronald Jemal. Idlewild : the rise, decline, and rebirth of a unique African American resort town / Ronald J. Stephens. pages

cm Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978–0-472–11879–3 (hardback)—ISBN 978–0-472–02920–4 (e-book) 1. Idlewild (Mich.)—History. 2. Idlewild (Mich.)—Social life and customs. 3. Idlewild (Mich.)—Social conditions. 4. African Americans—Michigan—Idlewild—History. 5. African Americans—Michigan—Idlewild—Social life and customs. 6. African Americans—Michigan—Idlewild—Social conditions. I. Title. F574.I35S74 2013 977.4'68—dc23 201302052 ISBN 978-0-472-03590-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)

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In appreciation of the work of Erastus G., Flora, and Adelbert Branch; Drs. W. E. B. Du Bois and Daniel H. Williams; Herman O. and Lela G. Wilson; Joseph C. Ford; Madame C. J. Walker; Susan J. Bantom; Marcus M. Garvey; Charles W. Chesnutt; the Reverend Harry Franklin Bray and the Reverend Robert Louis Bradby Sr.; Michigan Republican governor Dr. Fred Greene; Michigan Democrat governor Jennifer M. Granholm; Dr. Lorenzo R. Nelson; New Negro clubwomen Violette Anderson and Irene McCoy Gaines; businessman Phil Giles; Arthur “Daddy” Braggs; John O. Meeks; Yates Township supervisor Harry Solomon; Yates Township transportation director Harrison R. Wilson; FiveCAP executive director Mary Trucks; and the efforts of promoter Tommy Roy, Grand Rapids Times founder and editor John Bankston, and Yates Township supervisor Norman Burns. Page vi →

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Abbreviations AASF CCC

African American Students Foundation Civilian Conservation Corps

CDBG EC

Community Development Block Grant Enterprise Community

ECEZ FBI FOIA

Enterprise Community Empowerment Zone Federal Bureau of Investigation Freedom of Information Act

HAL HR IAACC IBW IIA ICDA ILOA IRC ISRDC LCEC LCEZ LCS MEDC NAACP NNM PAHR SHPO UAW UNIA-ACL

Department of History, the Arts, and Libraries Harlem Renaissance Idlewild African American Chamber of Commerce Institute of the Black World Idlewild Improvement Association Idlewild Community Development Corporation Idlewild Lot Owners Association Idlewild Resort Company Idlewild Summer Resort Development Company Lake County Enterprise Community Lake County Enterprise Zone Lake County Star Michigan Economic Development Corporation National Association for the Advancement of Colored People New Negro Movement People's Association for Human Rights State Historic Preservation Office United Automobile Workers Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League

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Preface Over a twenty-year period, I have labored as a graduate student and college and university professor in the capacity of a community-based researcher in African American studies, historian, and interdisciplinary scholar. The methodological choices I have made along the way have allowed me to foster effective and ineffective community connections and relations in the process. However, as illustrated in the literature, community-based research is not only good science but often produces more useful, action-oriented results for the communities that participate in community-based research projects. I have devoted two decades of hard work and engaging efforts to rescuing and recovering Idlewild's history. This has been quite rewarding and, at times, challenging, disappointing, and painful. However, I never tired of conducting interviews; discovering new information in libraries, archival collections, and people's attics; or writing about the challenges, setbacks, and rewards I encountered concerning this project. The experience of writing this book has been quite enlightening and eye-opening as well. As curious minds peruse this book, I hope readers find enlightenment, excitement, and benefit in the details behind the histories, memories, narratives, and analyses surrounding the people who helped to build and sustain Idlewild and the many challenges they encountered along the way. It is my hope that this book will be treasured by all who read and consult it and that it will prove to represent a significant body of work in the literature that documents themes of leisure and recreation, race and class, gender, consumerism and consumption, historical preservation, revitalization, and tourism and economic development in Idlewild's rich and complex history. I hope that it will also serve as an inspiration for future scholars conducting research and producing quality scholarship about the life experiences of contemporary year-round Idlewilders, including new approaches to learning about and analyzing their family, community, religious, political, and residential life experiences as residents of Yates Township. Page xii → This book was inspired through the wisdom passed down by my parents, my teachers, and the residents of Idlewild who helped and motivated me to write it. It benefited from the support of Scott Ham, associate acquiring editor of the Great Lakes Series of the University of Michigan Press, and the critical analysis of external reviewers, Professors Angela D. Dillard and Derek S. Hyra, who offered valuable conceptual suggestions for improving the overall framework of the book. Along the way, I received intellectual investment and financial support through contact with various institutional sources. This includes staff members of the Michigan State University Museum; the Research Council at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln; the Dorothy A. Johnson Philanthropy Center at Grand Valley State University; the Burton Historical Collection of the Detroit Public Library; and the College of Arts and Sciences, the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, and the Director's Office of the Center for International Studies at Ohio University. Special acknowledgment also goes to the National Council for Black Studies and to various reference librarians and members of interlibrary loan staffs at the following institutions: Purdue University's Humanities, Social Science, and Education Library; Grand Valley State University's University Libraries; Auraria Library at the Metropolitan State University of Denver; and Ohio University's Alden Library. I thank them for assisting me in retrieving valuable sources. I thank my colleagues and associates who served as advisers, proofreaders, editors, consultants, and chapter reviewers and evaluators, which includes Dwight Watson, Barbra Johnson, Robin White, Daryl Davidson, Terri Ashmore, Kim Rush, Margaret W. Pearce, Dora Wilson, Katherine Jellison, Amritjit Singh, Charles Smith, Greg Nadon, Ben Ogles, Daniel Weiner, Steve Howard, James Stewart, Sundiata Cha Jua, Roy Cole, Thomas Weissinger, Paul Lovejoy, Michelle Morrone, Ryan De Rosa, Judson Lance Jeffries, Judith Grant, Heather Edwards, Errol A. Henderson, Jualynne Dodson, Perry Hall, Leonard Harris, William Santiago-Valles, Vivian Wagner, C. Michael Gray, John Meeks, Susana Osorio, Deanda Johnson, Mary Pattillo, Willie McKether, Jackie Benton, Robin Muhammad, Vilbert Cambridge, and Reiland Rabaka. Finally, I am appreciative and grateful for the warm support I received from my colleague, friend, and partner Venetria K. Patton. Thank you, Venetria, for the many days and long hours devoted to critically proofreading, discussing, and making suggestions for revisions

and improvements of this manuscript.

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Introduction Idlewild in Historical Context and Contemporary Times I remember my first visit to Idlewild. It was a warm September day back in 1992, and I drove there with one of my West Shore Community College students, Apryl Coleman, who had volunteered to give me a personal tour of the area. I immediately fell in love with the scenic views of Michigan's “Black Eden”—the maple, pine, and oak trees that took in strong breezes of fresh clean air—and vividly recall thinking about the black people who once controlled the beautiful stretch of land there. As we parked on Pine Street (renamed Martin Luther King Drive in 2005) to view Idlewild Beach and Idlewild Lake, I remember being awestruck by the beautiful lakefront cottages. Leaving Williams Island, we took in more scenery, then proceeded to Paradise Gardens—this was the place, my student told me, where middle-class black intellectuals and professionals came to celebrate themselves, to escape systems of racism and racial discrimination in the city, and to enjoy the pleasures of their summer vacation, relaxation, and classy entertainment. I had learned of Idlewild prior to this visit, when I read about an essay contest sponsored in 1917 by Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois, as editor of the Crisis. The contest encouraged the journal's readers to write essays about their memorable summer vacation experiences. At that time, a number of summer resorts “for colored folk” were emerging, among them Idlewild, about which the winning essayist, H. H. Thweatt, observed, “Like two playful children, my wife and I roamed the cultivated fields, rambled through the woods, drank the healthful turpentine water that collected in the boxes of the pine trees, picked blackberries, waded streams, till we found our cheeks glowing with the hot blood of youth.”1 This description encouraged Du Bois to tour Idlewild, and during the fall of 1920, he made arrangements to lodge with Chicago chiropodist Carrie Page 2 → Warner, an Idlewild resident, at the invitation of Marian Auther of the Idlewild Resort Company. In the August 1921 edition of the Crisis, almost a year after his Idlewild excursion, Du Bois, who was convinced that Idlewild's white founders had been interested in more than just making a profit, concluded that the resort was worth every penny of the investment. Du Bois later purchased property at Idlewild, although he never returned to develop the land.2 In this book, I explore Idlewild's hundred-year history and the shifting intersections of race and class there, as well as rural and urban experiences of African Americans of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Idlewild that Du Bois visited in the 1920s offered an escape from the terror and humiliation of racism for middle-class African Americans and became famous nationwide as a utopian enclave and vacation destination for summer fun and relaxation. Thirty years later, in the 1950s, as the civil rights movement was breaking down barriers of racism and institutionalized segregation in the South, Idlewild witnessed significant demographic shifts and changing class relationships, catering no longer exclusively to middle-class African American professionals but now also to a working-class clientele of factory workers, cab drivers, hustlers, and policy racketeers. This changing class dynamic informed both the internal structures of Idlewild as a rural community and its relationship and interaction with white America. Forty years after its founding, Idlewild entered another phase in its history, becoming popularly recognized as the “Summer Apollo of Michigan.” The resort successfully attracted and contracted big-name stars on a weekly basis over the summer months, among them Della Reese, T-Bone Walker, Little Willie John, the Spinners, Bill Doggett, the Four Tops, Etta James, Sarah Vaughan, B. B. King, Dinah Washington, Jackie Wilson, Brook Benton, Arthur Prysock, Ruth Butler, Lavern Baker, Betty “Bebop” Carter, Al Hibbler, and Jerry Butler. The presence of this entertainment helped producers Arthur “Daddy” Braggs and Joe “Ziggy” Johnson create an atmosphere that expanded Idlewild's audience further to black and white, middle-class and working-class fans of these artists. Less than a decade later, Idlewild would experience a sharp socioeconomic decline as civil rights legislation was passed alongside petitions for urban renewal projects in northern American cities by federal and state governments and local law enforcement agencies. By the 1970s and ’80s, Idlewild and the surrounding region existed as one of Michigan's most impoverished areas, occupied largely by poor and working-class year-round residents and only hinting at the former utopia experienced by Du Bois some sixty years prior. By the time of my visit in 1992, state

and local efforts to revitalize the Idlewild community, though only marginally successful, offered hope that inspired some residents. Page 3 → In a sense, this book is a sequel and a more elaborative companion to my previous book, Idlewild: The Black Eden of Michigan, which provides a visual treatment of the historic black town and resort community. The present book provides an in-depth analysis of the resort town's history and critiques interactions between middle-class and working-class African Americans, particularly in light of contemporary redevelopment efforts and how they compare to developments in sections of urban areas such as Chicago, Detroit, and New York. Before exploring these concerns and research interests in more detail, it is important for me to offer further explanations of my goals for this book.

Traveling and Vacationing in America As the twentieth century progressed, vacationing became firmly entrenched in America's lifestyle, as leisure and recreation developed into a mass phenomenon for people of diverse racial, ethnic, gender, and class backgrounds. The expansion of the U.S. railroads as well as the mass production of the automobile and development of a national highway system dramatically changed the vacation landscape. Vacationers could now travel almost seamlessly throughout the lower forty-eight states. Alongside these technological advancements came increased numbers of automobile drivers “with vacation time and the desire to exercise their freedom and independence.”3 Together, these developments encouraged the growth of consumerism and consumption in American culture and brought expansion in the tourism industry. The evolution of Coney Island during the 1920s illustrates this complex interplay between consumerism, consumption, and leisure. Originally a playground for the rich and famous, the historic seaside resort underwent significant changes when New York's subway system was built, ultimately becoming the amusement park capital of the world.4 Similarly, the expanding transportation system created new vacation opportunities for middle-class African American elites. Access to transportation allowed these families to take road trips, visit relatives, attend amusement parks, and engage in other kinds of recreational activities. As Susan Sessions Rugh notes, the challenges they faced on the road—“[using] different restrooms, [drinking] at different fountains, and [staying] at different hotels”—meant that vacationing equaled “a fundamentally different experience for [African Americans] than it was for white families in cold war America.”5 Racialized patterns of consumption and discriminatory practices existed particularly in segregated urban landscapes, encouraging middle-class African Americans to seek leisure Page 4 → and recreation in areas far away from the cities. A growing number of “Negro resorts,” like Idlewild, promoted racial uplift ideology and became the destinations of choice for these vacationers. By the end of World War I, there were two dozen “Negro resorts” that catered to middle- and upper-class African American professionals. After the Great Depression and World War II and into the postwar eras, the desire to market tourism, consumerism, and consumption to these vacationers was readily apparent. To get middle-class African Americans to invest and purchase property, entities like the Idlewild Resort Company strategically purchased quarter-page advertisements in black-owned newspapers such as the Chicago Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier, the Black Dispatch, the Oklahoma Eagle, the Detroit Independent, and the Indianapolis Recorder, as well as employing the services of black professionals like Charles Anderson, Marian Auther, and Lela G. Wilson, who successfully marketed resort wonders through word of mouth. The black press, as many authors have pointed out, was critically important to the success of black separate institutions in black resorts such as Idlewild. In the Midwest, black newspapers such as the Chicago Defender and the Michigan Chronicle, “like all other Negro weeklies,” served “the dual function of reporting news and stimulating race solidarity.”6 Although black resorts and other black separate institutions served as ideal geographical locations for promoting racial solidarity and advancing black political thought, they represented not necessarily collective ideology but, rather, a diversity of black political perspectives and class nuances. As recognized by Wilson Jeremiah Moses, black separate institutions “grew out of the conception of a New Negro that existed in black America during the

counter-Reconstruction era,” and they brought different strategies of struggle in the New Negro's fight against racism and discrimination.7 Black resorts like Idlewild became prime battlegrounds for the coexistence of divergent philosophies as New Negro elites promoted racial uplift even while seeking emotional and physical rejuvenation in peaceful vacation. Such black political debate, Michael Dawson argues in Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary AfricanAmerican Political Ideologies, “centered around six distinct political ideologies”—radical egalitarian, disillusioned liberal, black Marxist, black nationalist, black feminist, and black conservative ideologies.8 Similarly, in Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought, Melissa Harris-Lacewell narrows these ideological stances to four specific positions (conservatism, liberal integrationism, black nationalism, and feminism) as everyday common communication practices among middle-class and working-class African Americans.9 Harris-Lacewell frames “everyday talk” Page 5 → as a needed assertion “for a separate black sphere that nurtures multiple facets of African American intellect and spirit.”10 These four political ideologies flourished among the leaders who fueled the early tourist economies of Idlewild and perhaps other black resorts. Probing the terrain of black political thought in the public sphere, Michael Dawson's Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics interrogates the concept of a linked fate as a pointed focus on black politics, black nationalism, black autonomy, and the political and economic situation of African Americans of Chicago and elsewhere. This concept, which explores and challenges the collective behavior of the black intelligentsia, involves public political opinion research about the overarching support system and the economic markets that helped the black middle-class of the Midwest to emerge and to excel as representative agents of working-class black communities. This perspective, which rests on the assumption that there is a bourgeoisie public sphere generated by European colonialism, suggests that there is a counterargument advanced by the black middle-class that used their accumulated wealth in racially segregated neighborhoods to both uplift the race and to set the agenda for racial progress.

Why Study Idlewild? The history of these black resorts warrants scholarly attention because of their relationship to a larger historiography about the black club movement and the New Negro movement. Unfortunately, only a few historical accounts have documented the presence of these resorts and often only in passing.11 Unlike some other notable African American resorts—Oak Bluff's on Martha's Vineyard, American Beach, and Highland Beach—which served the upper class,12 Idlewild has catered to multiple classes over the course of its history and thus embodies a set of class-based tensions, making its history particularly worthy of study. Idlewild has been the focus of previous treatments of American tourism in general and black tourism in particular. Historian Cindy S. Aron's Working at Play: A History of Americans on Vacations in the United States highlights Idlewild's history without fully exploring the experiences of middle- and working-class African American vacationers, focusing instead on the conflicted relationship Americans internalized over time while off work and on vacation. John F. Hart examined the town's history during the mid-1950s as a geographical space occupied by a diverse class of African Americans who annually celebrated the history of this rural Michigan retreat.13 Wen Pehyum explored the Page 6 → viability of the town's economy during the crisis years of the 1970s.14 Other authors have written fondly about the commercial achievements of some of the middle- and upper-class pioneers and old settlers,15 the vacationing experiences of middle-class African American professionals,16 and aspects of the resort's social history.17 Of the previous scholarship on Idlewild, however, the most focused has been Lewis Walker and Ben C. Wilson's Black Eden: The Idlewild Community. Though an excellent book, Walker and Wilson's study has several weaknesses, one of which the authors present themselves: “It was impossible to include all of the rich experiences and personal voices of those who contributed to the Idlewild experience, both past and present. Another volume of a different nature would be needed to do justice to such a task.”18 I fill this void by employing community-based research methodology and offering extensive coverage of the men who founded Idlewild and the town's elaborative focus on the entertainment industry as an economic engine, as well as providing a detailed exploration of infrastructural changes, historical preservation, and revitalization in a northern rural area.

Additionally, the new research in this book contradicts many of the assertions advanced by Black Eden, approaches the history of Idlewild in a more comprehensive manner, and corrects historical inaccuracies presented in that work. Drawing on sources such as oral history interviews, documentaries, historical newspaper accounts (particularly those published in the black press), and deeds of property owners, this book particularly explores the role of the New Negro in Idlewild's development, as well as the contradictory histories of the white men who founded the resort and worked alongside the New Negro elites. This book also fleshes out Idlewild's story during the Great Depression and World War II, periods of significant challenges and successes for the resort, and discusses other individuals—such as Joveddah De Rajah, the Reverend Harry Franklin Bray and the Reverend Robert Louis Bradby, and Dr. Lorenzo R. Nelson—who played major roles in sustaining Idlewild as a postwar aspiration. My work illustrates a shared destiny or unity among these and other leaders who shaped Idlewild. This book connects the personal narratives of entertainers who performed at Idlewild to broader social, political, and economic historical events and also explores the creative side of Idlewild's legacy. The tours of Phil Giles and Arthur Braggs appealed both to the black and white citizens who had traveled to Idlewild and to those in cities across the nation where the revue toured. The structure of the Idlewild Revue's various acts and stars was unique in itself and continues to impact the entertainment industry in America, Canada, and Page 7 → Mexico today. My book examines the revue's new and carefully executed technique of using dancers as background for headliners, as well as Arthur Braggs's productions that combined African American dancers with Mexican dancers from Mexico City's Leon Escobar Ballet which performed Katherine Dunham techniques. In addition to chronicling the performances of Braggs's revue, I address the challenges, setbacks, and successes it encountered from the summer of 1954 to the summer of 1964 while traveling to perform at different venues in different cities. This book examines the factors that contributed to Idlewild's decline after its entertainment engine shut down. I argue that after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, business and political leaders failed to consider the changing socioeconomic times and to reinvest in infrastructure and economic development, leading to the middle-class abandonment, demographic shifts, and lack of leadership, vision, and accountability from which Idlewild suffered. The civil rights movement achieved a measure of success in altering perceptions in U.S. society's political, social, and legal world, and these victories may have helped shape fundamental reforms and legislation in the nation. However, desegregation and integration did little to produce sufficient socioeconomic benefits for African American businesses to sustain and increase an affluent class capable of providing employment opportunities in and for working-class African American communities. Ultimately, the positive gains made through desegregation legislation had a negative effect on the economic centers of black communities and was one factor that undercut black businesses in urban and rural areas such as Chicago, Detroit, and Idlewild. This book examines how numerous leaders and entrepreneurs—black and white men and women of substance—played important roles in shaping the development and sustainability of Idlewild's infrastructure, social life, collective cultural identity, and history in order to market the community as an imagined utopian black resort. I demonstrate how black entrepreneurs played significant roles in black urban centers like Chicago and Detroit during the postwar era of the New Negro movement and examine how this exclusive black enclave was patronized by people like Du Bois, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, Madame C. J. Walker, Charles W. Chesnutt, and Louis and Lillian Armstrong. Among this group of prominent figures, according to E. Franklin Frazier's analysis of them, racism impacted the identity of middle-class black America to such a degree that they were living in a world of “escapes from the world of reality into a world of make-believe.”19 Frazier went on to say that this illusion and “world of make-believe of the black bourgeoisie” embodies self-hatred, a sense of insecurity, petty jealousy, and “a form of social life engaged in for pleasure and friendly Page 8 → social intercourse.”20 Frazier explains that if the black bourgeoisie can “not escape identification with Negroes, they experience certain feelings of insecurity because of their feeling of inferiority. Their feeling of inferiority is revealed in their fear of competition with whites.”21 Taking my clues from Frazier, this book explores not only experiences surrounding what Wilson Jeremiah Moses refers to as “Frazier's observation on bourgeois separatism”22 during Idlewild's experimental years throughout the 1920s but also the role of class during shifting race and class relationships after World War II and the post–civil rights era. This book also explores class conflicts and divisions among intraracial groups of community members during the

twenty-first century in contemporary Idlewild, focusing on matters related to economic development and infrastructural changes. It suggests that despite the different episodes of class conflicts and divisions within the Idlewild community, the residents tended to work together for a common cause. By situating this interplay of race and class and intersections of rural and urban sensibilities at the center of this analysis of the town's rise, decline, and rebirth over the course of a century, this book argues that the social and cultural struggles that gave birth to Idlewild also challenged its viability as a model for lasting social revolution. The book presents new perspectives on development and revitalization in rural areas such as Idlewild as opposed to in urban areas such as Chicago, Detroit, and New York, by focusing on infrastructural changes, redevelopment, preservation, music festivals, and revitalization initiatives from 1992 to 2012 to determine the extent to which twenty years of revitalization has poised Idlewild to make a comeback. I suggest that continued revitalization may be possible, although it will not occur overnight and will require private funding and competent and committed leadership. The centralizing focus in this book involves the role that race and class played in Idlewild's founding and development, as well as how it became the “Summer Apollo of Michigan,” which makes its focus on diversity in terms of the Talented Tenth versus the Summer Apollo and the concomitant tension between exclusivity and popular openness. Essentially, it argues that by the middle to late 1920s, the town became one of the few places in the country where thousands of middle-class African American consumers could build cottages, stores, fine homes, and nightclubs for their entertainment and to entertain relatives and friends. For many African Americans of this period and later periods, Idlewild and other resorts like it were viewed as safe havens, providing sanctuaries and meeting places to celebrate “racial progress” and proofs that they could “achieve wonders on their own.”23 Sunnie Wilson, cited in Black Eden by Walker and Wilson, may be correct that desegregation should have been a two-way process as opposed to a one-way Page 9 → process whereby African Americans accepted the idea and middle-class white America rejected it. In examining Idlewild's decline, I additionally point to internal dynamics, a lack of political leadership and vision, and a failure of seasonal businessmen and businesswomen to reinvest in infrastructure and revitalization. While, in this regard, leaps and bounds of progress have been made over the last decades, Idlewild's recent history suggests that current revitalization initiatives and preservation and sustainability efforts may be threatened by the mentality of some of its leaders and residents. This book offers a window for readers to contextualize the class and caliber of the people who have made up Idlewild's history. I hope the reading of this book will result in critical discussions, particularly regarding the forecast of the future economic challenges and limitations Idlewild will likely face. Contemporary Idlewilders are not just subjects in this book but full partners in its writing and in the telling of their town's story. This book highlights the importance of using a historical and community-based research method to unravel the complex and rich past by which Idlewild continues to be both blessed and cursed. This project required verification of facts surrounding the town's history, including major events, activities of key leaders, resort features and accommodations, traveling arrangements and experiences, and property acquisitions by prominent African American figures. Conducting numerous interviews, establishing personal contacts, and fostering ongoing relationships with key community leaders and residents helped me to avoid hostile sources and misrepresentations of historical facts as well as to formulate a better understanding of Idlewild's ongoing internal class conflicts and positive external relations. Idlewild continues to be visible in the public eye on national and international levels because of its rich, complex, and unique intellectual, cultural, social, and entertainment history, all of which warrant this kind of intellectual investigation and documentation. The book relies on over one hundred interviews, forty academic journal articles, and scholarly books, biographies, government documents, and newspaper and magazine articles. My intention is to engage three audiences that have interests in learning new details and perspectives about Idlewild's history. The first is the scholarly community in the fields of Africana studies; American studies; ethnic studies; urban affairs and regional planning; history; English; sociology; political science; and travel, tourism, and recreation. The second is a popular audience of history enthusiasts, former vacationers, and seasonal and year-round residents of Idlewild and the surrounding regions. The third is Michigan politicians; public officials; business, religious, and civic leaders; and community activists and stakeholders. Page 10 →

Looking Back, Moving Forward In chapter 1, I explore the development of Idlewild by white businessmen of the Idlewild Resort Company (IRC) as a place for the African American elites of the New Negro era who lived in midwestern cities such as Chicago and Detroit. As Idlewild grew during these experimental years, the community became a conduit through which the brightest African American spokespersons kept abreast of changes and troubles within the nation. These pioneering men and women, working collaboratively with the IRC, established black separate institutions through the Chicago-oriented Idlewild Improvement Association (IIA) and Idlewild Lot Owners Association (ILOA). The guiding principles behind Idlewild's growth into a popular African American resort evolved as a consequence of a linking of visions among the founders, leaders, and residents, who, despite the odds against them and a diversity of political philosophies, shared a history, destiny, and, to some extent, a collective group identity. Chapter 2, which further explores the Chicago machine as well as diverse political perspectives, discusses the challenges, setbacks, and suffering felt as a result of the 1929 stock market crash, the Great Depression, and the advent of World War II. It argues that Chicago elites controlled the economy and that Idlewild continued to prosper gradually despite difficult times for the nation as a whole, because of the leadership of prominent urban citizens from Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit functioning as the black intelligentsia. These intellectuals, politicians, and business leaders, men and women, not only vacationed in Idlewild but also created the markets that helped their areas of the city and the black town to grow. This chapter argues that unlike the economic forecast in urban American cities at the time, the Depression factors in suburban Idlewild did not affect seasonal and year-round Idlewilders (with their education, status, wealth, and disposable incomes) to the same degree as it affected the working classes elsewhere. Chapter 2 also addresses the method that the IRC, the ILOA, and leaders representing various subdivisions initiated as a set of strategic plans in concert with the visionary ideas of its pioneering leaders for achieving success. Throughout the 1930s, the ILOA sponsored a series of activities on the Island during the summer and in preparation for its annual Chautauqua celebrations. Working in partnership with the IIA and the IRC, the leaders of the ILOA welcomed President Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. This helped to actualize some of the pioneering leaders' initial dreams and preservation concerns by caring for the forestry, building roads and structures, and putting people back to work. The support of newer leaders with wealth, such as Joseph Downing, aka Prince Joveddah De Rajah; the Jones Page 11 → brothers; and Dr. Lorenzo Nelson, was also instrumental in sustaining Idlewild during this critical period. Chapter 3 examines the postwar rise in leisure and recreation in Idlewild of the 1950s and ’60s, when Detroiters controlled the scene, to discover how the residents’ participation in many of the major nightspots and outdoor activities were critical for this unique resort's success. Employing Adam Green's thesis on the commercialization of black radio and famous entertainers, this chapter argues that Phil Giles was the master-minded entrepreneur responsible for showcasing Idlewild as a distinctive African American resort and for promoting it as a hub of activities during his terms as Yates Township supervisor and president of the Idlewild Chamber of Commerce. As this renewed interest in African American tourism and entertainment was quickly unfolding, Phil Giles, who owned the Flamingo Club and Giles Hotel, and Arthur Braggs, of Saginaw, Michigan, who leased and managed the Paradise Club, became synonymous with Idlewild. As defenders of America's best resort capital, these men put Idlewild back into the limelight by encouraging other businessmen and businesswomen to take advantage of the market created for them as members of a separate black institution. Phil Giles was first to develop a nightspot that featured local, regional, and national personalities in show business. Chapter 3 ends by arguing that Giles's Flamingo Club was the alpha and omega of entertainment, leisure, and recreation, preparing readers for an argument addressed in chapter 7 as the club stands ready to be revitalized as an entertainment and recreation center on Williams Island. Chapter 4 focuses on the glitz and glamour of entertainment life during the years when Arthur Braggs promoted shows for vacationers traveling to Idlewild and for audiences in cities where the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue toured. Braggs played a major role in elevating black culture and in producing first-class entertainment on a regular basis in black- and white-owned nightclubs. Championing a different kind of civil rights cause, a creative cause that recognizes equality in the performance arena, classy productions that originated from Braggs out of Idlewild were not only well organized, polished, and well attended, but they also captivated the imagination of

audiences. In sharp contrast to African American artists and musicians performing in blackface for segregated white audiences in Harlem's Cotton Club in the 1920s and ’30s, the Paradise Club, under the management of Arthur Braggs, featured the legendary T-Bone Walker, Della Reese, Jackie Wilson, the Four Tops, Al Hibbler, and Bill Doggett. Chapter 4 also illustrates how Braggs's revue was Idlewild's link to the world, as Braggs developed a transnational alliance, offering a venue that encouraged an influx of comedians, dancers, musicians, and singers who showcased their skills and talents before large black and white audiences from Indiana, Page 12 → Michigan, and Ohio and even in Montreal and Toronto in Canada during the Cold War era of the civil rights movement. Chapter 5, which also consults Green's work, argues that within a couple of months after performing at the Basin Street South nightclub in Boston, the shows that Braggs produced added a unique international character to them, featuring Leon Escobar and his Mexican dancers as a strategy to create a unique mixture of black and brown beauties performing tantalizing dances. As thousands of African American vacationers and entrepreneurs consumed the pleasures of their summer vacations in Idlewild, the number of civil rights protests escalated throughout the nation. The all-black town would soon suffer from an overabundance of leisure by working-class people as the entertainers, performers, and professionals abandoned Idlewild and eventually began visiting other resort areas. With this came internal bickering and conflicts among the residents and seasonal entrepreneurs, ultimately leading to Braggs's exit of the Idlewild scene and leaving the town in idleness for several decades. Chapter 6 argues that the once-prosperous Idlewild, like other African American vacation destinations, experienced a predictable social and economic decline as an unintended casualty of the social progress made from the civil rights movement. With the end to legalized segregation, African Americans had more options and were not relegated to the recreational outlets that the resort offered. By the late 1960s, the 1970s, and the early 1980s, Idlewild was designated as an Eden-like retirement and family community. As Idlewild underwent this major transition, the community experienced what Harvard scholar and sociologist William Julius Wilson identified as middle-class abandonment. The assassination of Malcolm X and the rebellions emerging from the Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party, as well as the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Black Studies Movement, the Vietnam War, and the national recession in the early 1970s, all impacted the town's identity in one way or another. The inability of seasonal business owners to be competitive with other vacation outlets in the United States meant that the community suffered a significant social and economic decline. The children of some of the pioneering families who were born in the town were now forced to relocate to other cities in Michigan, Illinois, and elsewhere to find suitable employment, schools, and affordable housing to care for their families. As the town's population declined in the 1980s, an increasing number of new retirees, many of whom visited the area during its prime and heyday, relocated there and launched a campaign for revitalization. Defined in the 1980s as a family vacation and retirement community by some of the residents and by Yates Township supervisor Audrey K. Bullett, Idlewild's continued decline Page 13 → may have been caused by a number of contributing factors, such as the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a failure of black business owners to reinvest in the economic life and infrastructure of Idlewild, and continued internal tensions between permanent and seasonal residents. Township officials organized a planning commission, a zoning board, and other in-group initiatives as a way to encourage greater community input and to offer solutions that would improve the community's infrastructure. Several Community Development Block Grants were obtained for demolition, additional roadwork, and other structural changes, resulting in a complete makeover of the Island. Between the efforts of year-round residents and other community stakeholders and the persistent presence of the National Idlewilders, the people representing Idlewild worked slowly and persistently to revitalize the town. This became evident through the efforts of Yates Township supervisor Harry Solomon, who led a petition to rename the Island in 1977 in honor of the legacy and contributions of Dr. Daniel Hale Williams. He and Delores Killens felt compelled to document Idlewild's history as one of the most famous African American resort towns of twentieth-century U.S. history. During her administration, Audrey Bullett tried to designate the town as a retirement community; however, in 1992, when she lost her bid for reelection, Supervisor Norman Burns began what he defined as an era of fiscal responsibility. Idlewild's attention turned away from building projects and toward paying off debts, managing the

township budget, cleaning up blight, renovating and selling existing township properties, and increasing community pride among the residents. As these pragmatic developments were taking place, the town's vision for social change was also being partially fulfilled by the entrance of Mary Trucks, executive director of FiveCAP Inc., on the scene. The nonprofit agency led by Trucks was instrumental in encouraging the federal government's designation of Lake County as an Enterprising Community, which led to the installation of a sewer system, natural gas, and affordable housing for some residents. This contemporary history of Idlewild involves the collective efforts of its community, including leaders and stakeholders, representatives of local, state, and federal government agencies, and Idlewild and Baldwin business leaders, to preserve it as a historically significant resort town. Changes in zoning codes, the demolishing of dilapidated homes, the building of new houses with better heating, the installation of water and sewer systems and natural gas lines, and federal and state support served to both preserve and sustain the town's rich and complex history. The rich mosaic of these efforts together has led to a social transformation of the town. Chapter 7 surveys these developments and the efforts of FiveCAP and the Page 14 → Lake County Enterprise Community and addresses how the actions of the Norman Burns, Donel Brown, and George Walker administrations of Yates Township led to a $700,000 grant for blight removal and to a series of conversations about revitalization, historical preservation, and tourism and economic development. That grant was followed by a $620,000 grant to cover expenses for a feasibility study of the old Flamingo Club and the renovation of the Henrietta Summers Senior Center. With the development of a sewage system, natural gas lines, and a few paved roads, as well as the building of new affordable homes and a grant of nearly two million dollars from the state of Michigan, Idlewild appeared on the verge of a comeback. Besides consulting the works of Derek Hyra, Mary Pattillo, and Michelle Boyd on neighborhoods and communities in urban areas with revitalization efforts and class divisions, chapter 7 describes, interprets, and evaluates internal conflicts among middle- and working-class citizens and analyzes township leadership, accountability, and vision and current conditions of pending revitalization and historic preservation projects leading up to the summer centennial celebrations. The scholarship produced by Hyra, Pattillo, and Boyd surrounding contemporary black culture, history, and redevelopment in the Bronzeville District of Chicago's South Side and in Harlem in New York will assist in framing the marginalization of working-class African Americans and the failures of middle-class politicians as middlemen in contemporary Idlewild. For continued and sustained development to materialize in Idlewild, a series of strategic efforts must be in place, implemented and backed by a major fund-raising push to recruit a wealthy benefactor. In the epilogue, I suggest that Idlewild has an enormous opportunity and great promise and potential if the resources are available and if it uses its rich history and distant geography to attract specific target markets through music festivals and other recreational activities and facilities. However, without sustained focus, vision, a plan, leadership accountability and commitment, and “a deep pocket,” to use the language of former Michigan Democratic governor Jennifer M. Granholm, “this important opportunity will be squandered,”24 that is, if Idlewild cannot overcome its class tensions, conflicts, divisions, and petty politics. Unfortunately, success will only materialize if the township's leaders can collaborate with each other, overcome the bickering of angry residents during township meetings, and successfully get elected a team of sincere, qualified, committed, and responsible township officials to assist in the implementation of the township's mission, vision, and strategic plans.

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1 The Idlewild Resort Company and Developments in the New Negro Movement at a Unique, Utopian Negro Resort Town Contesting the interconnections of racism, capitalism, consumerism, and leisure and recreation of early twentiethcentury America, white businessmen and middle-class African American leaders and professionals—members of the New Negro movement—helped to shape Idlewild into an intellectual and cultural center dedicated exclusively for African American elites and their families. Taking the mutual benefits of this interracial collaboration into account, this chapter shows how the founders of the resort developed it as a strategic response to widespread practices of systematic racism, discrimination, and segregation at white resort facilities throughout the United States. The Idlewild Resort Company (IRC), aided by the visionary ideas of men like Wilbur Lemon, Alvin Wright, and brothers Erastus and Adelbert Branch, was able to successfully capture the imagination of New Negro elites, ultimately planting the seeds for social and economic prosperity in Idlewild. This resulted in the establishment of the resort's original plat, the Island, and eventual expansion into surrounding areas such as Paradise Gardens, Idlewild Heights, and Idlewild Terrace.

What's in a Name Exactly how Idlewild acquired its name is somewhat mysterious. Some observers jokingly claim that the name resulted from the area becoming a playground Page 16 → for “idle” men and “wild” women. Others, such as Robert H. Rifle, one of the founders of the Idlewild Improvement Association (IIA), believe that the name simply references Idlewild's situation in “a wild place” in the woods. The early development of this northern rural Negro resort is itself entangled, coming as a result of a series of social, cultural, and economic transformations. Idlewild's geographic placement on Michigan's west side can in part be traced back to the Chicago fire of 1872. Encouraged by the need for lumber to rebuild the city, mill towns flourished around what is today Manistee National Forest.1 The Pere Marquette, Grand Rapids, and Indiana railroad companies that owned much of the land in the region leased it to timber companies or sold it off to private loggers. After exhausting the land of timber, these private investors often moved on, letting the property revert to Michigan and become available for repurchase through the government.2 By the turn of the twentieth century, Michigan, known for its beautiful mixture of trees, was also becoming known as a vacation destination. Offering more miles of shoreline than any other state, expansive forests, and plentiful opportunities for fishing, boating, bathing, hiking, and horseback riding, Michigan was attracting middle-class Americans from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, all looking for leisure and recreation.

The IRC's Development and Promotion of Idlewild as a Utopian Negro Resort Town Walter B. Anderson, a representative of the real estate firm of Branch, Anderson & Tyrrell, was the first to conceive the idea for the Idlewild Resort. The partnership, which had achieved measures of success in the resort development business by early 1912,3 was incorporated under a charter in Illinois, where businessman Wilbur Lemon reigned, in November 1913. A year later, the Chicago firm partnered with the small western Michigan Newaygo County realty firm and launched an aggressive campaign to sell some of its land.4 The astute officers of the organization (Wilbur Lemon as manager, Albert Flogaus as secretary and treasurer, William E. Sanders as sales manager, E. G. Branch as tract manager, and E. G.'s brother Adelbert and Alvin E. Wright as salesmen) realized the possibilities of the tourist trade in the Manistee National Forest area and claimed an area containing Crooked Lake, which they quickly renamed Lake Idlewild.5 Branch in particular noticed that the Island that was surrounded by the lake was owned by the government, though the government land office held no record of this transaction. Branch and his wife, Flora, staked out the company's claim by homesteading the Island. After three years, the company successfully gained Page 17 → full legal rights

to the land, despite fierce competition from other businessmen who also realized the property's potential value.6 Once the IRC officially owned and surveyed the Island, the company immediately began recruiting middle-class African American salespeople to market lots and initiated an advertising campaign in the Negro press through the Chicago Defender, Indianapolis Recorder, and Pittsburgh Courier. Years later, the company purchased, developed, and sold the remaining twenty-seven hundred acres of land available surrounding the Lake Idlewild area, with the goal of establishing a series of first-class, small and close-knit vacation communities for middleclass African Americans, who were benefiting, at the time, from the country's economic prosperity. Leading religious and business figures in Newaygo and Lake counties, the Branch brothers were also cardcarrying members of the Ku Klux Klan in White Cloud—a fact seemingly in conflict with their philanthropist deeds and investments in an African American community. However, the Branches' membership was in concert with their white Protestant Christian ethics, family pride, and community unity and may have even been a strategic business decision to support the “wide-ranging popular appeals to Protestant morality, prohibition, and law enforcement, and an anti-religion campaign.”7 The pair was known for Page 18 → greeting, welcoming, and assisting pools of new and old African American arrivals to Idlewild, which actually did not contradict the Klan's open bigotry toward Catholics and immigrants at the time.8 Members of many northern KKK chapters opposed the South's antiblack terror campaign, a reality that underscores “the point that African Americans, at this time [and geographical location] at least, were not perceived to carry quite the same sort of imminent threat to white Protestant society as were Catholics in Michigan.”9 By October 1915, the IRC promoted its first excursion from Chicago and other Illinois and Michigan cities to Idlewild. African American professionals, many from notable backgrounds, participated, as reported in the Lake County Star, a newspaper owned by the Pioneer Group in nearby Baldwin, Michigan. Page 19 → The first allotment of 919 lots was inspected and approved by a visiting committee of some 30 Chicago and Evanston residents who arrived as a party…. They were driven to Idlewild where they enjoyed a sumptuous chicken dinner supplied by Frank Havens whose farm adjoins the tract on the west. Upon their arrival in Baldwin President Ray Trucks of the Commercial Club warmly welcomed them and expressed the hope that their stay should be both pleasant and enjoyable. The Idlewild colony welcomed the leading colored-people of Chicago and Evanston, physicians, college professors, real estate men, contractors, and professional people of wealth and acknowledged standing. The plans formulated now was the establishment of a golf course, tennis grounds, country club, bath houses, dancing pavilion etc. and for next year would be the erection of at least 30 cottages.10 Among the New Negro personalities vacationing at Idlewild were attorney Violette N. Anderson, the first African American woman admitted to practice law for the Supreme Court of the United States; politician Edward Herbert Wright; attorney Beauregard F. Moseley; the famous prima donna Anita Patti Brown; Louis and Lillian Armstrong; Dr. Carl G. Roberts, head of the Illinois State Medical Society; Dr. Edward Hall, one of Chicago's wealthiest colored physicians, and many others.11 Even as the IRC worked in partnership with these and other notable African Americans during the postwar era, racism continued to be blatantly visible in the country. Chicago's Red Summer of 1919 and the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot in Oklahoma were emblematic of the times, as were horrific news accounts of the nation's leaders ignoring African American rights. Still, sizable numbers of professional African American men and women had benefited significantly from U.S. participation in World War I. Between 1914 and 1920, some four hundred thousand to one million African Americans loaded up their belongings and migrated north. With this relocation came an increasing number of economic opportunities for a growing number of middle-class African Americans. Settling in northern cities, these professionals were forced into segregated neighborhoods in such cities as Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Muskegon, Gary, and Indianapolis, where they found themselves serving

as the business and civic leaders of the poor and working-class African American communities in the same cities and neighborhoods. This rise of the Black middle class in the United States represented a critical moment for the IRC, which took an active stance in support of the war while continuing to develop the resort.12 Idlewild represented an oasis and a utopian space Page 20 → during the New Negro era of Jim Crow segregation. “Renowned for its beautiful lakes of pure spring water, Idlewild stands out like a diamond among the gems of the earth,” and Idlewild was also a place “where young and old cast aside for the time all the cares and worries of their strenuous, nerve racking routine lives [to] enjoy to the full, nature in her wondrous glory.”13 Many of the lots that the IRC sold, like the one purchased by Louis and Lillian Armstrong, were adjacent to Idlewild Lake. However, to accommodate a larger number of summer vacationers, the IRC secured “a loan from an area bank of $35,000” to complete their plans to purchase the Island. On the Island, the Branch brothers built twenty-five ten-by-twelve-foot sleeping cottages (which they called doghouses because of their structural resemblance to actual doghouses), to better accommodate their guests. As the company was developing the Island and other properties in the mainland, it also capitalized on other aspects of the beauty that Idlewild had to offer. While using its in-house salesmen to encourage black consumers to purchase their lots at reduced prices, the IRC was busy finalizing plans to build a footbridge to allow vacationers to access the Island and dine in what would become Page 21 → the Idlewild Clubhouse. A year before the construction of the clubhouse was completed, the IRC had erected a sturdy flooring needed to build outdoor dining space and the doghouses. This tent space was initially used for “forty tent cottages,” meant to accommodate thirty-seven vacationers from Detroit, Chicago, Akron, Indianapolis, and Des Moines. Made from “tent cloth and stiffened with a framework,” tents stood 9 1/2 × 12 feet tall and had “beds, blankets, linen, mirrors, wash stands, soap, towels, and everything else needed.”14 The tent cottages were managed by an attendant, who changed the linen, filled the water and pitchers, made the beds, and performed other assignments to ensure that the guests were comfortable. The creative company men and their wives had also devised a strategy to feed vacationers. Branch recalled, We did our cooking on a range and served the meals in the dining room. Our tables were rough boards laid on some horses built for the purpose. There were no side dishes or table waiters, but the food was set on the table in large tin dishes and everyone dished out their own food. I remember that there were strawberries that year galore. Strawberry short-cake was served three times a day and I do not remember that there was anyone who complained about it.15 In addition, there were plans for building a “dancing pavilion on the island [along] with [the] clubhouse.”16 With the footbridge plans completed for building “from the mainland to the [west of the] island,” Branch, as company manager, was “forced to replace it with an auto bridge to accommodate the traffic.” “I had already built a footbridge on the east,” he remembered, and that was soon “also replaced with an auto bridge making a drive across the island.”17 During the summer of 1916, the IRC arranged “for a series of moving pictures of the resort…to be shown in the various colored movie houses in Chicago and other cities both as an educational feature and for advertising purposes.”18 The idea behind building the doghouses was to provide some means of privacy for visitors and guests. Part of the draw to these resort communities was the privacy and the idea of property ownership. Mary Ellen Tyus, granddaughter of Dr. Ernest T. Cox from Columbus, Ohio, described a visit to Idlewild by her grandmother, Mary Ellen Cox, in 1912, to investigate the cottage climate in search of relief for hay fever. This was to be the beginning of a yearly trek for the family's four (now six) generations of summer residents to the popular resort. Anxious to reap the benefits of Michigan's atmosphere, Mary Ellen Cox and a friend packed up their two respective toddlers and headed for Idlewild by train, a sixteen-hour trip at that time, with layovers in Chicago and Grand Rapids. The two mothers found accommodations on the Island in two of the identical one-room doghouses. These little cottages, about thirty in number, were lined Page 22 → up in a curve along the north side of the Island. There was a long narrow boardwalk in front of the houses, extending from the first to the last. The cottages had a front door opening onto the boardwalk and a window at the opposite end, facing little Lake Idlewild. Each cottage contained

two cots, a small desk stand (complete with a pitcher and bowl), a bucket for carrying water from the public hand pump located behind the center of the boardwalk (in a parklike area), and a kerosene heater to take the chill off on cool days and nights. A small Sterno appliance was used for making cups of tea and other hot drinks. Occupants were served hot tasty meals in the dining room of the Idlewild Clubhouse on the south side of the Island, overlooking the lake. Toilet facilities were primitive (outhouses, as they were called) and located far behind the doghouses, near the first and last buildings. There was one for ladies and one for men.19 The IRC sought to entice a wide variety of the members of the black middle class to come to Idlewild for entertainment and recreation. Traveling by train, bus, and automobiles, these visitors were attracted to this space far removed from the urban centers where they resided and worked. The IRC understood that to attract these and many other middle-class African Americans to the area, it had to convince them that Idlewild was the place “to enjoy the pleasures of outdoor recreation, the best in entertainment, and leisure.”20 One way to convince vacationers of this was to capitalize on the lake itself. Branch remembered, “There were very few fish in the lake then. I only caught one the first year. The lake had been speared and illegal fishing had been carried on until the lake was almost depleted, but I got busy and before fall had received a nice planting of small mouth bass and perch and each year since I have planted a nice supply of fry in the lake. It is now conceded that Idlewild Lake is one of the very best lakes in the country for bass fishing and it will soon furnish sport for those who like to fish for other kinds.”21 Early on in the establishing of the Idlewild resort, members of the Grand Rapids Idlewild Club, consisting of men and women representing over thirty families, as well as “that erect, winsome, personality, known as Senator Ford, ” frequented the resort regularly. This makes sense since Grand Rapids is located only seventy miles south of Idlewild. As far back as 1912, Ford, a porter on the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad between the furniture city and Traverse City, was known for bringing large crowds of the city's colored citizens to Idlewild on “Grand Rapids Day.” Hailing from Grand Rapids for the biggest event of the summer season, Ford had been “elected [symbolic] mayor of Idlewild and remained such through the earlier years of Idlewild's growth, to which he made substantial contributions.”22 According to Susie Bantom, “one of the distinctive features of the summer life at Idlewild in its early years was the Grand Rapids Club annual excursion under the direction of Joseph Ford.”23 Page 23 → As both Branch and Lemon continued to warmly welcome mostly Chicago members of the national Idlewild Lot Owners Association (ILOA) who were in search of this imagined landscape, they sought to get them to invest in the ideal for the improvement, economic development, and sustainability of Idlewild. The IRC created an atmosphere that conveyed the comfort of sharing cultural norms and practices among African Americans in an isolated space in the Manistee Forest. The ILOA, which was dominated by individuals of national recognition and stature, consisted of property owners “composed of the thinking, progressive, active class of people.”24 Cleveland attorney William Green, Chicago Negro clubwoman Irene McCoy Gaines, civil rights activist and attorney Violette N. Anderson, and the Reverend Robert Louis Bradby of Second Baptist Church of Detroit and the Reverend Harry Franklin Bray of Sunshine Rescue Mission of Chicago were among this group of professional men and women who made a difference. Wilbur Lemon, one of the founding members of the corporation, was president in 1921. Erastus G. Branch, who secured the land on the Island and built the two footbridges and roadways, the clubhouse, and several cottages, was a big promoter and recruiter. Before exiting the Island scene and turning it over to Dr. Daniel Hale Williams and the IIA, Branch had built up another subdivision, Idlewild Terrace, where he and his brother Adelbert built an athletic field, a tennis court, and a hotel to accommodate the leisure and amusements of these members near Watermill Lake in Pleasant Plains Township. This aspect of the IRC's experiment proved to be quite the success in the commercialization of outdoor leisure and recreation. As Idlewild was constantly being shaped into a recreational space, the company made other investments by diverse groups of middle-class African Americans that embraced accommodation and integration as a political philosophy. In 1925, the IRC catered to the politics of these wealthy and famous African American consumers by bringing “[a]Chautauqua with exclusively colored talent during the month of August and a four weeks camp meeting with the most noted colored singers and speakers in the country.” They discussed plans for

the Chautauqua at the annual meeting of the IRC in Chicago in 1925, “but the war made it impracticable.” With the advent of peacetime, there came a tremendous stimulation of interest in the resort, as the lot sales for the month of January exceeded 300 and raised “the grand total of sales to more than 3,000 lots.” With this economic profit, the IRC moved “ahead with elaborative plans for the coming season,” stating that the first Chautauqua “will gather together the cream of the colored talent of the entire country. It will embrace educators of note, singers, speakers, and musical organizations seldom heard outside the largest cities. There is ample room in the lot site for a vast tent and the accommodations.”25 Page 24 → The IRC's grand idea was to organize the Chautauqua and to sponsor the camp meetings of the Pullman Porters League of Louisville, Kentucky, which would help to attract other prominent professionals from different occupational backgrounds. The Pullman Porters League, which had booked a spot for four weeks of camp meetings, had invited “noted colored divines” and “leading vocalists” and arranged for “a minister at the Club House for services every Sunday.”26 A slight adjustment had been made in the arrangements of cottage accommodations on the Island, as the IRC ended its tent city. The IRC management had relocated closer to the clubhouse, as a number of other developments on the Island unfolded.27 A convenient train station near the footbridge had been under construction, alongside the completion of a grocery store and post office across the road on the Island. This was particularly pleasing to the management and convenient for vacationers. The station allowed eastbound passengers to get under way for Ungers Hill, and electric lights installed at the station lit the area for late arrivals. The wiring for the lights on the Island had been completed, and terminals were ready to connect to the generator, which was being shipped within a week. Branch had built a cottage for himself near the clubhouse. The clubhouse's piano was being revarnished, and the dining room was being extended to the veranda and screened in. Three new boats had been added to the fleet, and the grocery store represented another addition to the conveniences of the Island colony.28 Before the close of the summer of 1925, some leaders had begun to prepare for the 1926 summer season. Various leaders felt that the 1925 summer season ended as “the greatest season in the history of the resort.” Financially, it had been so successful that the management had given contracts for building other facilities to accommodate the next year's patronage. The Island cottage annex to the hotel was equipped with individual porches, bridges had been repaired, and an effort to extend Waverly Boulevard to M-20, to relieve the traffic over the Island, was under way. During the August 23–27, 1926, Chautauqua, “so many cars were parked on the Island that it was only through good fortune and extreme care that accidents were averted. Each new arrival at the hotel squeezed into the small available parking space somehow and got out the same way. The management and a majority of the cottagers considerately went to the Island on ‘big’ nights by boat or on foot. The low water level was also a great aid, giving a broad, hard beach on which to walk.” Idlewild's larger-than-usual summer population was reluctant to leave a week before the end of August: “Many returned to the Island and to Paradise Gardens to spend Labor Day weekend,” making “it necessary to open some of the Island cottages to house the visitors.” Additionally, the Paradise Gardens Clubhouse enjoyed a successful season under the management of Cecil Page 25 → Pettiford and remained open to accommodate a large number of fall visitors during the hunting season.29 After a period of nearly twelve years of recruitment and attraction, the IRC, under the management of the Branch brothers, began to physically exit the Island scene. With the rapid sales but no more lots for sale, the brothers left behind the Island enterprises to develop Idlewild Terrace as a playground or center of athletic activities.30 With this leadership shift, the IIA controlled the Island, the Wilsons owned Paradise Gardens, and several leaders from other emerging subdivisions, in Yates and Pleasant Plain townships, collectively labored and contributed to Idlewild's growth and resort development. Many of the leaders of these subdivisions and plat sections of the resort were not only responsible for organizing the major social, cultural, and political activities in Yates and Pleasant Plain townships but were also devout followers and active dues-paying members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). As a result of the development of the Island and the racial uplift in Paradise Gardens by the Wilson couple, as well as the efforts of prominent residents of Idlewild Terrace and Idlewild

Heights, Idlewild's expansion and growth, with its “adjoining suburbs and associated enterprises,” created a “summer colony life that they may be regarded as a part of Idlewild itself.” Idlewild Terrace, the beautiful tract surrounding Watermill Lake and the middle branch of the Pere Marquette River, made “the recreational park a thing of past.” As early as the winter of 1920, Branch had first exhibited plans and a sketch of a new summer hotel near the Watermill Bridge. The new hotel, Rest Haven Inn, was a “two story structure, with dining and lounging rooms on the first floor and eight sleeping rooms on the upper floor. A balcony on three sides adds much to the cozy comfort of the place.”31 With the thirty-by-forty-foot hotel as a nucleus, Idlewild Terrace was used “for summer residents who prefer[red] the quiet of the location rather than the more populous summer colony.”32 The IRC, under the ownership of the Branch brothers, built an athletic field, which was dedicated on July 4, 1926. The Idlewild Athletic Field included “a baseball diamond, mile track and reserve for a boy scout field.”33

Landownership Conflicts and Legal Challenges Surrounding the Future Control of a Vacation Haven While the Branch brothers were Idlewild's primary developers, Lemon and Wright pursued other efforts, notably work on Woodland Park. Woodland Page 26 → Park was a smaller resort, originally established by Marian E. Auther, a reputable black businessman from Ohio and leading salesman for the IRC. When property in Newaygo County went up for sale by Brookings Lumber Company in 1920, Auther used earnings from sales commissions to make a down payment. In 1921, he and his wife, Ella, purchased most of the Brookings parcels but lacked enough to close the Woodland Park deal. Lemon came to the Auther's aid financially, allowing the couple to launch their new resort. Like Idlewild, Woodland Park would advance the interest of the race and contest discrimination through the establishment of black separate institutions. As the news of the new “black resort had reached Mattie Keller, an enterprising, middle-aged black woman living in Atlanta, Georgia, all of the Auther's networking became greatly rewarded.” After Keller arrived and settled in Woodland Park in 1922, “she'd opened its first store and fuel station. She'd also build, and intermittingly operate, two of the resort's four main hotels.”34 By June 1, 1925, Lemon and the Branch brothers had entered a partnership agreement for conducting a resort and real estate business under the IRC for land situated in Lake County. The gains and profits from the partnership were divided so that Lemon would receive 60 percent and each of the Branch brothers would receive 20 percent. Lemon was in charge of the company in Chicago, and the Branches were responsible for the management of Idlewild and Idlewild Terrace, as well as other acquired properties. The evidence surrounding the dissolution of the partnership's contractual agreement suggests that poor management of the company under Lemon sent it into bankruptcy. The Lake County Star followed the proceedings, reporting on March 9, 1928, “Sales of the office furnishings of the Idlewild Resort Company was made Wednesday in bankruptcy by Referee William F. Zibell. Lemon took over the concern last year and recently the Branches, formerly associated with him, took over the property under their securities claims and are now conducting the business from their offices in White Cloud. The bankruptcy did not affect the resort in any way, since the company owned the unsold portion of the original plat. Business continued as usual—or better, under the Branch Brothers' direction.”35 This point is significant since it was Lemon's full ownership in 1926 that drove the company into bankruptcy in 1927 and influenced the Branch brothers to save the company rather than to allow it to fold. By the winter of 1928, the Reverend Harry Franklin Bray had submitted a letter to the editor of the Lake County Star, distinguishing the Idlewild Realty Company from the Idlewild Resort Company. This came after the Branches acquired ownership and ended the partnership with Lemon through the court. Page 27 → The published letter stated, “Dr. H. F. Bray wishes to announce that the Idlewild Realty Company has no connection whatever with the Idlewild Resort Company. The Realty Company was the exclusive owner of a fine residence section known as Idlewild Heights, but has no connection with the IRC that controls other properties. Warranty deeds had been issued by the Realty Company to all their purchasers. Signed Dr. H. F. Bray, S. M. Bailer, County Treasurer, Emil Johnson, County Clerk, George H. Johnson, County Surveyor, and Ray Trucks, Lake County Abstract Company.”36 In an article to follow that appeared in the April 6, 1928, edition of the Lake County Star, a reporter captures the circumstances involving the circuit court for the Lake County bankruptcy case between the two

Branch brothers versus Lemon and trustees. Affairs of the IRC, involved through bankruptcy court proceedings, in Chicago, were put on a normal footing again last week by Branch Brothers of White Cloud, who paid all claims in full and took over the property. The offices have been moved to White Cloud and business is proceeding without interruption. Branch Brothers actions in paying up all claims is a splendid business gesture. Ethically they were not involved, having sold their interests to W. M. Lemon more than a year ago. However, affairs became so involved that to protect their deferred interest, they found it necessary to resume control. Business differences impeded settlement and to reach an adjustment in the speediest manner, they went into bankruptcy court. The move was merely strategic, as it put them promptly in control, and their discharge was equally prompt when they compiled a list of creditors and paid all claims, amounting to several thousand dollars. The last of the claims was paid Friday and the company is now on a sound business basis.37 By July 30, 1927, Lemon “called a special meeting of the Stock Holders, followed by a special meeting of the Board of Directors, and passed the proper resolutions to rearrange matters.”38 It appears that Lemon tried to reverse the deeds to qualify him to hold office and to serve as director of a new corporation, along with trustees of the Idlewild Summer Resort Development Company (ISRDC). He attempted to make a case before the Michigan Securities Commission, which denied Lemon's request. Attorney Charles Wilson of Chicago, director and counsel for Lemon's company, which had allegedly purchased fifty thousand dollars' worth of stock in the ISRDC, wanted an explanation.39 With limited development in selling property, the filing of bankruptcy, and the failure to pay all the claims, the Branch brothers were able to gain full control of the Page 28 → company that Lemon nearly ruined. The Lake County Star continued by explaining other details surrounding the history of the Branch brothers and their relationship to the people of the communities. The Branch brothers were original promoters of the Idlewild resort and were identified with it for many years. Later they established Idlewild Terrace on the Middle Branch and Watermill Lake. They still own a large acreage around Idlewild and all the unsold portion of the original plat. They are astute business men and have been liberal in their promotion work, staging programs and giving the splendid athletic field for use of all the resorts. Their action in voluntarily assuming the indebtedness and paying it so promptly is a splendid testimonial to their good faith and responsibility. Erastus led Idlewild, while his younger brother, Adelbert, managed the White Cloud office. Young Adelbert and his 16 year old bride lived in a one room cabin a mile north and a half mile east of White Cloud; they slept in the loft, reached by a ladder. The window spaces were boarded over and uncovered as they were able to save the fifty cents to buy the window pane. Morgan was a rough town; it had the Wilcox and Morgan mills down by the river, boasted of 13 saloons on Main Street. There were wooden sidewalks, muddy streets, outside toilets, an Opera House (adults—15 cents), and many fights, especially on Saturday nights when the lumberjacks were paid, and men from the camp came on the east side of Diamond Loch (note original spelling) and other camps came to town to release tensions by getting drunk. And in that setting, Adelbert and his brothers settled, started a church, began the Branch Real Estate Co. and the Idlewild Resort Co., were known as solid citizens serving on town councils from the village's earliest days.40 The Branch brothers were widely respected and admired among African Americans of the period in Idlewild, because of their many years of dedication to the residents. The friendships that developed positioned the Branches quite favorably, due to the resort features they had to offer vacationers, visitors, and residents in Idlewild Terrace and the business arrangements they continued to foster among black entrepreneurs residing in the different subdivisions of Idlewild. The Branches satisfied the needs of affluent African Americans who built summer cottages there to vacation, entertain guests, and expose their children to the many rich aspects of leisure and recreation in American culture, life, Page 29 → and history. Expanding their spread of property ownership, the Branches were also successful and trustworthy enough to purchase the subdivision Idlewild Heights from the

Reverend Harry Franklin Bray of the Idlewild Community Tabernacle, who served as president of the Idlewild Realty Company. The Branches made this purchase for approximately $140,000. The Lake County Star published an article outlining how the Branch Brothers had done a big job in developing Idlewild Terrace, which adjoins Idlewild Heights. They have built roads and streets, a fine athletic field and last summer erected a monument to veterans of the wars. The Terrace has expanded to a point where they felt they needed the adjoining territory. A number of fine cottages are already built along the lake and river. Combining the two tracts will make a unit of its many attractions. Branch Brothers are the original incorporators of Idlewild, and recently took over all the interests of W. M. Lemon in the property of the original Idlewild. They should make a success with the three properties under their personal control, for they employ business methods and are not afraid to spend money for improvements. The realty company will retain all its present contracts but sells its property, as yet undeveloped, its good will, etc. to the new owners. The deal was completed Monday afternoon through the Lake County Abstract Company.41 The Branches, now in complete control of the company and the unsold properties in Idlewild Terrace and Idlewild Heights, were responsible for the growth of the resort and for fostering meaningful relationships with African American leaders, visionary thinkers, cottage owners, and vacationers.

Episodes of the Character of the New Negro Movement in Idlewild The New Negro movement (NNM) set the mood for racial uplift and middle-class mobility in early twentiethcentury America as well as for the development of Idlewild. The movement, a sort of evangelical impulse, represented, according to Wilson Jeremiah Moses, a “new generation of intellectual leaders that arose in black America during the 1920s” who “tended to view the black mission in somewhat more secular terms than had the leaders of the nineteenth century.”42 The Negro's place in modern America, which had been escalated through “the optimism of Booker T. Washington,”43 Du Bois's insistence on “the centrality of American race relations to the nation's mission and destiny,”44 Marcus Garvey's myth of “the Christ-like Negro who” had pledged “to redeem the world,”45 Page 30 → and Alain Locke's synthesis of religious myth and secular artistic philosophies, notwithstanding his emphasis on the cultural and artistic gifts of the New Negro,46 captured the imagination of the nation. With the migration of the Talented Tenth, Moses reminds us of how “Black bourgeois literary institutions prepared the way for Garveyism, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, and the NAACP—all of which eventually established journals that published black authors during the Harlem Renaissance.”47 The spread of this progressive philosophy and the insistence to encourage racial uplift among middle-class black America gave rise not only to the concept of the New Negro but also to broadening “black literary and intellectual history”48 to other African Americans residing in midwestern cities and states. The men and women from Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio who vacationed in Idlewild and those who followed were members of the NNM, although they were actually representing several prevailing ideological precepts coexisting in Idlewild, just as elsewhere in the country. First, some found comfort and expression in the concept and policy of conservatism voiced by Booker T. Washington and his adherents, such as Dr. Williams. These individuals stressed “self-reliance, hope for a colorless society, and shun[ning] government assistance.”49 They believed in a “self-help” philosophy that would allow African Americans opportunities to prosper while at the same time not posing any threat to the existing socioeconomic order. Second, some, including the Reverend Robert Louis Bradby and other members of the ILOA of the 1920s and ’30s, embraced the political philosophies of W. E. B. Du Bois and the NAACP. This particular political philosophy pushed for a policy of full integration in every aspect of American life. To that end, the liberal integrationism of the NAACP advocated a policy of “agitation” and challenge through means granted by the U.S. Constitution and the courts. Liberal integrationism, as defined by political scientist Melissa Harris-Lacewell, “is an internally heterogeneous and contingent ideology. It is an ideological tradition that encompasses aspects of the political philosophy of Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Bunche, and W.E.B. Du Bois [sic], among other thinkers.”50 Third, as already discussed, Garvey's concept of black nationalism or nationhood was popular with a smaller group of progressive-thinking

residents and vacationers in the Idlewild community. During this time, black nationalism served as a scathing rebuke to the two other contemporaneously prevailing ideological precepts and was best represented by the local UNIA-ACL. Garvey's followers saw the plight of African Americans as unsalvageable and were convinced that the black and white races could not coexist within one nation. Consequently, they argued that accommodation and integration would continue to fall short in terms of what was Page 31 → best for the African American community. Reasoning that the policies of white America would never permit true democratic principles, Garvey advocated a nationalist policy that reinforced an African American agenda of “international-ism and separatism” without regard to white American concerns. This political philosophy was widely accepted and practiced by Lela and Herman Wilson of Paradise Gardens, who supported Garvey's messages to uplift the race and to resist the ravages of institutional racism. The final concept that impacted Idlewild leadership was black feminism. Black feminism, according to Patricia Hill Collin, “is the process of self-conscious struggle that empowers women and men to realize a humanistic vision of community.”51 It “encompasses a comprehensive, anti-sexist, anti-racist, and anti-elitist perspective on social change.”52 Taking intellectual clues from Collin's Black Feminist Thought, Melissa Harris-Lacewell recognizes it as “a central text in the Feminist tradition.”53 To illustrate how black feminist thought provides “a means for human empowerment rather than an end in and of itself,”54 I suggest, like Harris-Lacewell, Evelyn Higginbotham,55 Deborah Gray White,56 and Darlene Clark Hine, that black women's struggle for equality and economic justice was a unified one with men.57 Idlewild resort women and their activism as independent political thinkers, movers and shakers of associations such as the ILOA and other community-based organizations, deserve to be included in the historiography of black feminist thought. Earning national reputations as activists of New Negro organizations and Negro clubwomen, women such as Garvey movement participant and businesswoman Lela G. Wilson, Chicago attorney Violette Neatly Anderson, and clubwomen Irene McCoy Gaines and Carrie and Rose Warner were allies of black men “without seeming to threaten or challenge male dominance.”58 The New Negro did not accept the limitations of race regarding what he or she could do or achieve. In his influential Black Bourgeoisie, E. Franklin Frazier documents and explores the growth of this class of African Americans, the methods from which they acquired their wealth, and the roles they performed and needs they met in “segregated Negro communities.”59 Discussing the politics of respectability and individual self-definition among this class of African Americans, Frazier analyzes the identity of this group as one enmeshed by a myth that compensates for their exclusion from white America by encouraging them to live in a world of make-believe and also to attempt to escape from identifying with the masses of Negroes. Perhaps this mind-set attracted middleclass black vacationers to Idlewild. They imagined Idlewild as a utopian community that could provide economic opportunities and build economic structures and institutions.60 This group of vacationers may have wanted to “shield itself from Page 32 → the harsh economic and social realities,” but some found themselves serving as political, moral, and business leaders. In Idlewild, where one's class status mattered, the New Negro frequented the utopian colony annually. Besides designating a cultural identity for this secluded space in the woods, an interracial cooperation that marked the further development of the place was indicative of a strategy utilized within the NNM. In describing the inauguration of the Harlem Renaissance (HR), the literary arm of the NNM, Venetria K. Patton and Maureen Honey, editors of Double-Take: A Revisionist Harlem Renaissance Anthology, note, “The NAACP and the NUL sought to encourage interracial collaboration between liberal whites and Du Bois's Talented Tenth, the best and brightest of African American artists and intellectuals. They worked actively to connect black writers and white publishers.”61 This literary collaboration produced an anthology entitled The New Negro, which was specifically applied to the HR. Although a small yet dedicated group of individuals organized literary clubs in Idlewild, few, if any at all, of the famous writers of the HR ever visited the popular resort town; however, Nella Larsen's second novel, Passing (1929), does mention Idlewild, as well as Du Bois's Dark Princess.62 While the NNM is often overshadowed by the notion of the HR and its focus on the arts, the NNM represented a change in the mood and attitude of the African American. Perry Hall conceives of “the advent of the New Negro Movement in decidedly more radical terms, connecting the postwar emergency of the idea of a New Negro—and thus the roots of the HR itself—to a wider context of political militancy.” This conception injects a “class-based analytical perspective into the discourse that suggests how this period might be linked, in social, cultural, and political terms, with preceding and ensuing historical periods,” and it situates the New Negro,

both male and female, into a broader context.63 From the era of Black Reconstruction to the end of World War I, “the Great Migration” added “multitudes of blacks to the multiethnic stream of arrivals coalescing in the industrial manufacturing centers.”64 Millions had relocated to various cities in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio between 1890 and 1940, including educated professionals and business, civic, and religious leaders, as well as powerless and landless Negro workers who sought to escape the racial injustices they had experienced and witnessed in the South. Many relocated to Michigan cities, such as Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, and Muskegon, in search of better employment, housing, and schools for their children. Others migrated to Ohio, to such cities as Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, and Toledo, or to Illinois, to such cities as Chicago, Glencoe, Peoria, and Springfield. In Indiana, many migrated to Gary and Indianapolis. Eighty thousand blacks left the South between the years 1870 and 1890, while over two hundred thousand Page 33 → moved north and west between 1890 and 1910.65 According to Lewis Walker and Ben Wilson, this movement pattern represents “only a prelude to the so-called Great Migration,” which involved “over a million blacks moving into most of the industrial centers in the North.”66 These movement patterns ultimately created various kinds of social, political, and economic changes throughout the United States; in the midwestern states of Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio; and even internationally, as thousands of African American soldiers were arriving home from Europe. As these black soldiers returned, political ferment increased in the United States as the country continued to permit racial segregation and terrorism as well as lynching and murder regardless of African American patriotism. The riots of 1919 and 1921 showed the need for major African American institutions such as the NAACP, the Urban League, and the UNIA-ACL. While much of the energy of the NNM was centered in major cities, urban centers such as Chicago's Bronzeville and Detroit's Black Bottom produced the intelligentsia required for racial uplift and paved the way for separate black institutions to thrive in northern rural resort areas like Idlewild. Within spaces of urban community interactions, black middle-class leaders embraced what Michael Dawson refers to as “linked fate.”67 Notwithstanding an array of political perspectives, which were admired and espoused by New Negro elites, there arose a shared recognition of significant political, social, and economic differences between African Americans and white Americans. Dawson's theory of this recognition is convincing, as he states that “one should expect high levels of political unity among African Americans regardless of economic status” and that “black political thought and behavior rests upon two competing concepts.”68 The first concept is that race “remains the primary factor affecting the life chances of African Americans.”69 The second is that class represents a “major determining factor.”70 Dawson also discusses the “role of government in politicizing the economic status of African Americans” to determine “whether race or class becomes the primary politically salient identity for African Americans.”71 Tackling “questions of institutions and internal diversity in the context of a Black public sphere,” however, communication scholar Catherine Squires explains how Dawson suggests “that conversations about Black publicity, rights, and interests take place and are transformed into strategies to counter the oppression of White supremacist rule.”72 For Dawson, race and systems of racism during early twentieth-century America did become such a principle for the United States, where white supremacy is not an ideology, but a system of power relations that structures society. Racism is an ideology based on the power and social relations which are organized by Page 34 → white supremacy. The system of stratification in the United States based on race and its ideological components served to exclude African Americans both formally and informally from participation within the American bourgeois public sphere. This system also encouraged exclusion of African Americans from subaltern counterpublics such as those associated with labor, populist and women's movements of the late-nineteenth century.73 Dawson's analysis of the black public sphere, from which the NNM emerged from 1887 to the early 1940s, not only illustrates tensions and disagreements around class and gender in the black community as cooperative and collective manifestations. It also stresses that “Black institutions and publics have been largely multi-class, at least up to 1970, due to the long regime of enforced segregation,” and that as a counterpublic, “its leadership has been male and patriarchal, due in no small part to the importance of male religious leaders in the Black community.”74 This study of Idlewild and other resorts should stand alongside other manifestations of the New Negro elite and the black clubs movement. One principal question this examination raises is, in what ways do literary clubs and

resort towns advance the interest of the race and fight against discrimination? Black middle-class leaders of several midwestern urban neighborhoods and segregated communities adopted a philosophy of racial uplift and self-help by creating the economic markets and providing the resources and services that black working-class families in their communities needed to survive. St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton's Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City and August Meier and Elliott Rudwick's Black Detroit and the Rise of the UAW discuss the role that black migrants, old and new, played in the job markets of Chicago and Detroit, where they worked for low wages in the meatpacking and automobile industries. Drake and Cayton explore the role of meatpacking companies as well as the contributions of the owners of stores and restaurants, funeral homes, and barbershops and beauty parlors, including the role they served as professionals and as leaders in elevating the status of the black presence in the city of Chicago. This new identity and sense of freedom among Chicago's black middle class after World War I, came with the Great Migration and “the work of newspapermen with an eye for the dramatic.”75 This increase and expansion in the black population significantly impacted the region, as “Midwest Metropolis needed manpower and over 50,000 Negroes [had] poured into the city between 1916 and 1920 from the Deep South.”76 The increasing number of blacks present in Chicago and Detroit and the increasing awareness of their presence led to some friction with white citizens. Recognized as the second-largest city next to New York, Chicago became the scene of a 1919 Page 35 → race riot, and by 1943, where “race riots occurred in Detroit and New York, there were fears that a similar calamity might again befall Midwest Metropolis.”77 Blacks and whites were engaging in battles over political rights and “struggles for living space,” according to Drake and Cayton, which meant that Chicago's South Side represented “a city within a city.”78 White labor, as history demonstrates, “began to visualize Negro workers as a potential threat.”79 In addition to daily confrontations involving Jim Crow discriminatory practices and accusations in public places, as well as residential segregation, there was increased competition among the races over the use of recreational facilities. This cultural conflict in the major cities led to the riots and the development of black separate institutions. In the face of the many layers of social segregation, the “social realm” that mandated their “segregation from white people” in voluntary associations, in church congregations, and in clique relations and family life, Chicago's “Black Metropolis” created “its own set of institutions, bound by innumerable ties to similar Negro groups all over the United States.”80 The social web of relationships among the black middle class of Chicago mirrored a similar set of relationships in Detroit between black elites and the unions. Ford Motor Company had represented “one of the largest and least discriminatory employers of black labor in America,” and “the United Automobile Workers (UAW) [was] one of the most racially egalitarian leaderships among the CIO unions.”81 In Detroit, as in Chicago, during the labor shortage of World War I and the resulting migration from the South, African Americans found employment opportunities in “auto manufacturing.”82 The consistent contact Henry Ford made with the Reverend Robert Louis Bradby of Second Baptist Church set the stage for interracial interactions in the city. “Ford stepped up recruitment of blacks” due to his contact with Bradby as “intense racial labor unrest” unfolded,83 which led to many political and economic opportunities. As in Chicago, this led to skilled jobs and better-paying jobs, as well as new businesses that catered exclusively to the needs and desires of working-class black residents. The black middle class of Detroit had a firm grip on a host of political opportunities in the city and elsewhere in the state. The same dynamics that produced opportunities during segregation in the “Black Belts” of Chicago and Detroit created segregation in midwestern African American resort communities such as Idlewild. Black elites of the urban segregated communities created the economic markets that helped the early black middle-class to emerge and to invest and enjoy the fruits of resorts such as Idlewild. Thus, the emergence of urban places like Bronzeville in Chicago, where Dr. Daniel Hale Williams practiced at Provident Hospital, and Black Bottom (and Paradise Valley) in Detroit, where the Reverend Robert Louis Bradby pastored, significantly contributed to the emergence of Idlewild. Urban Page 36 → black communities such as Bronzeville and Black Bottom, as well as Harlem in New York City and Shaw in Washington, DC (where Dr. Williams also practiced at Freemen's Hospital), were the playing fields where the black intelligentsia emerged and where black enterprises consistently thrived. Historian Mark Foster noted that many of those “who defied all the odds and gained wealth”84 invested and vacationed in resort areas like Idlewild, Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard, Highland Beach, and American Beach.

The phenomenal rise of the NNM in Michigan and other midwestern states gave rise to the building of the Idlewild Clubhouse, the Oakmere Hotel, and the Purple Palace nightclub, which significantly afforded the IRC and the IIA the benefits of organizing and hosting numerous excursions. The scenery of Idlewild Lake (visible while enjoying breakfast at the clubhouse) and Idlewild's nightly entertainment (including dancing and cabarets) offered wonderful memories of paradise. These attractions garnered attention not only from the tall, imposing, well-dressed lady Louise Braxton, who sang baritone in a gospel quarter, but also from such notables as Madame C. J. Walker, Du Bois, Charles Chesnutt, Louis and Lillian Armstrong, Negro clubwomen Violette Neatley Anderson and Irene McCoy Gaines, the Reverend Harry Franklin Bray and the Reverend Robert Louis Bradby. The visions and efforts of these pioneers represented an important cultural and intellectual contribution to the town's early development by fulfilling what Alain Locke (1925) had defined as the age of the “New Negro.” This period of racial uplift and middle-class formation not only popularized cultural expressions in Idlewild and elsewhere in the country but, more important, firmly established the spirit and mind-set of the NNM. Echoes of the New Negro Renaissance and the Chicago Renaissance, as revealed in midwestern cities such as Chicago and Detroit, as opposed to New York's Harlem Renaissance,85 were evident in Idlewild as well. For instance, the playwright Elsie Roxborough, who ran the Roxanne Players in Detroit and produced Langston Hughes's play Drums of Haiti86 and other plays during the period, was an active vacationer in Idlewild, journalist, and seasonal resident. However, there is no doubt that the black professional class from the 1920s to World War II Chicago dominated the economic and political scene in the Idlewild resort community.

Notable Figures in Idlewild: The Legacy of Dr. Daniel Hale Williams and the IIA The IRC understood the significant role that the railroad, highway system, and automobiles would play in enticing their targeted audience, despite the distance Page 37 → of the resort from the larger cities. Idlewild was not only a vacation spot free from racism and segregation but also an investment opportunity and excellent moneymaking venture, free from the poverty, crime, and decay in the city. In this sense, the experiment stage was more profitable than the IRC and the New Negro of the Midwest had imagined. The men and women of the elite class who felt that it was their mission to do the lifting were notable leaders with the necessary resources, intentions, and financial backing. Exceptional recognition for espousing the entrepreneurial ideals and the conservative political philosophy of Booker T. Washington first appeared on the Island with the visionary ideas and leadership of Dr. Daniel Hale Williams of Chicago. At the age of sixty-four, Dr. Williams, one of the founders of Chicago's Provident Hospital in 1892 in Bronzeville, had been searching for a place far away from the city to rest and relax. Joining the IRC's 1915 excursion of twenty-five people, which was well advertised in the black press, Williams found the ideal location to escape the jealousy directed at him by George Hall, who also served on the medical staff at Provident Hospital. On that initial visit, IRC sold several sizable plots of land to Williams and his associates of the IIA in 1918.87 The IIA was incorporated, with an elected board of directors, by 1923, and its list of investors and officers included Williams as president; Louis B. Anderson, attorney and ward leader of Chicago, as vice president; William Green of Cleveland as secretary, and David Manson, also of Cleveland, as treasurer. These board members were not only highly qualified leaders but had also pledged “themselves to cooperate with the ILOA for the improvement of roads and drives.”88 Williams, who was one of the most respected and well-known African American surgeons in the United States and the world, as well as an accomplished entrepreneur, spearheaded the business arrangements that led to the organization's ownership of Idlewild's property, which surrounds the Island and Idlewild Lake. As early as 1917, Williams had begun to vacation in Idlewild on a regular basis during the summer and fall. A true sportsman and admirer of Michigan's great outdoors, Williams would spend up to four days or more in Idlewild at a time, despite his busy schedule, as he did during the fall of 1917 “on a fishing and hunting tour” as a guest of friends.89 A closer look at Williams's intellectual development can provide more insight into the extent of his contributions to Idlewild. Born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, on January 18, 1858, to Daniel and Sarah Williams, young Daniel H. Williams grew up in Janesville, Wisconsin. Apprenticed to a shoemaker from the age of twelve, he worked parttime as a barber in Harry Anderson's Tonsorial Parlor and Bathing Rooms before he took up the study of medicine

in 1878 as a student in the office of Surgeon General Henry Palmer,90 who was “one of the leaders of the profession following Page 38 → the Civil War.”91 With credentials from Palmer, Williams relocated to Chicago in 1880, where he graduated three years later, at the age of twenty-seven, from the Chicago Medical College, now part of Northwestern University. Williams became the city's fourth black MD as he began practicing medicine in Chicago from 1885 to 1888. He opened a practice at Thirty-First Street and Michigan Avenue, where he treated both black and white patients, and he “held a professorship as demonstrator of anatomy at Northwestern,” where he realized “that there was no place for training of Colored medics and nurses.”92 A member of the American Medical Society, Williams served as an unpaid staff physician for the surgical staff of the Protestant Orphan Asylum from 1884 to 1893 and as a member of the Illinois State Board of Health from 1884 to 1889. From 1889 to 1893, he was a member of the Cook County Hospital surgical staff and a staff member of St. Luke's Hospital, the largest Episcopal institution in the Midwest. At the time when Williams worked for these agencies, black physicians were not permitted to be on the staff of the city's hospital, and black patients were routinely denied adequate medical care and service.93 Although Williams never intended for Provident to be a Negro hospital or for its existence to be used as a justification for the exclusion of black physicians and patients from other hospitals, it was viewed from the beginning as an institution where black men and women could train and be treated with dignity. Provident established the first nursing school for black men and women in the United States. In the first year of its existence, 175 young women applied for training as nurses, but only 7 were accepted. Candidates came from far and near. For instance, Emma Ann Reynolds came from Concord Township in Ross County, Ohio, and Isabella Garnett came from Minnesota. Jesse Sleet, who came from Canada, was one of his first and most successful graduates. After completing her course of study at Provident, Sleet moved to New York City, where she became the first black woman to do district nursing for the Charity Organization Society and later trained a generation of black nurses in her own right. Williams viewed the hospital's early success as a model of Negro success and interracial cooperation. From 1893 to 1898, Williams also served as chief of Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, DC (the largest Negro hospital in the world at the time), where he established a second training school for black nurses and internships for black doctors. By 1900, he held the first surgical clinic in the Meharry Medical School of Tennessee. However, by fall of 1913, Dr. George Cleveland Hall, Williams's chief rival at the hospital, pushed through a resolution requiring all staff physicians to limit their practice to Provident. Williams then resigned and severed all ties to the hospital he had founded. Williams achieved international fame as the first surgeon ever to perform Page 39 → a “successful operation on the human heart,”94 a daring and pioneering operation, flawlessly executed. At the time, he was serving on staff at St. Luke's.95 But as soon as the news rapidly spread about the successful surgery, this “created a furore in surgical circles. Williams was being called all over the country to talk on heart surgery and asked to explain his methods. It was an epochal achievement, and the heart, which had hitherto been regarded as fatal to touch, was taken from the body and held, beating, in the hand. The taboo was lifted by one man's pioneer courage and skill.”96 Beyond the awards Williams received from Wilberforce University, the American Medical Society, and the American College of Surgeons from 1909 to 1913, this reputation heightened his credentials as a respected surgeon in the country and the world. On March 29, 1913, he was called to the bedside of Bishop W. B. Derrick, who was considered one of the most learned and progressive bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church of Flushing, Long Island, in New York. Williams served as his private physician. The bishop was critically ill and wanted to be cared for by “one of his own race, who stands at the head of his profession in this country.” It was one of that period's few occasions when a “race physician” was called from such a distance to attend so prominent a man. The bishop realized that Williams was considered “a high compliment to the entire medical profession.”97 Sometime in 1920, Williams built a small luxurious bungalow that overlooked Idlewild Lake. Furnished with electricity and designed with oriental rugs, the bungalow also had a chicken coop and a small rose garden in the yard. Doctor Dan, as Williams was fondly known in Idlewild, took great pride in beautifying his northern rural summer cottage, which he called Oakmere, “a place of sacred memories.”98 As president of IIA, he also built a small hotel, which he also called Oakmere, with a small accompanying park. The hotel, which included modern laundry facilities, was located next to the Idlewild Clubhouse, the cultural and intellectual center for African

American elites that had been constructed years earlier by the IRC.99 A small community hospital was also built on the Island, between the clubhouse and the hotel and across from the Purple Palace, a supper club where the wealthy congregated. Although Williams was no longer a practicing physician, the rumor was that “he never turned a deaf ear to a call for help,” as many residents “found him willing and ready to serve without pay in the cause of humanity.”100 As a staunch admirer of the philosophy of the deceased Booker T. Washington, Williams fostered many racial uplift projects in Idlewild. His increasing commitment to and understanding of social history, cultural awareness, interracial harmony, and a self-help philosophy significantly helped to develop the character of the town. George F. Dechow of the Lake County Star Page 40 → newspaper states that upon Williams's entry into Idlewild, he immediately became a popular and important figure with the children and adults, both black and white. Helen Buckler, author of Daniel Hale Williams: Negro Surgeon, further explains how Williams “had roamed the north woods in his old Ford, ferried delighted children over the lake in his speedboat, or best of all, sat silent in the flat-bottomed row boat and fished with Chesnutt, the novelist.”101 Beyond his enjoyment of the leisure life, the small one-room hospital he had built on the Island to serve the people of Lake County suggested that he had an interest in promoting racial harmony and uplift, for he became close friends with white neighboring businessmen Robert J. Smith of Lake County State Bank, Ray Trucks of Patti Drugs, Herbert Davis of the Lake County Star, and Andrew L. Bradford, a relative of Trucks who worked as a banker with Lake-Osceola State Bank in Baldwin and whose life he saved.102 By 1924, the same year Williams lost his beloved wife, Alice,103 the IIA gained partial control of the Island along with ownership of the clubhouse and many lakefront properties surrounding Idlewild Lake. As the IRC was expanding and developing other subdivision sites, the IIA and ILOA represented the black intelligentsia of the area. That same year, the IIA published and distributed its own brochure, claiming that if Atlantic City was the playground of America, Idlewild was the Negro's playground. The IIA promoted the resort by designating Idlewild “the Atlantic City of the West” and “a rest haven and a summer resort,” and it stated its purpose to remedy a “housing problem” and to make “this pleasure garden even finer and better in every respect.” The IIA continued to make its case in these terms: “If you have ever visited this wonderland in Michigan you will heartily agree with this statement. Each summer thousands of people leave their daily duties and come to Idlewild to find peace and comfort, joy and happiness. They know that it is only at Idlewild that they can find sweet rest, enjoy clear blue skies, fragrant pure air and crystal-like waters.”104

Lela G. and Herman O. Wilson: Building a Colony in Paradise Gardens Herman O. and Lela G. Wilson, who, like Williams, had participated in the first IRC-sponsored excursion in 1915, also determined that Idlewild represented a land of opportunity with a bright future. Going back to Illinois after purchasing several plots of land in the Paradise Gardens subdivision, the Wilsons set about planning their return to Idlewild. By 1921, they relocated there permanently, immediately building their first home in the newly founded African American resort town. Lela Wilson became the IRC's most successful saleswoman. In 1922, Page 41 → the Wilsons purchased the Frank Haven Farm, an eighty-acre parcel of land that ran east and west from Tampa Avenue to Tacoma Boulevard and north and south from Baldwin Road to the southern shore of Paradise Lake. Initially, the Wilsons subdivided this land into the first plat of Paradise Gardens. In the middle of this plat, they developed a wide two-lane road with a median strip leading into the Paradise Lake resort complex. The road was named Paradise Path, and it ran north and south from Baldwin Road to Wilson Drive. Paradise Path, which was a unique feature in the complex because of the two-lane gravel road leading to and from Baldwin Road to Wilson Drive, had a median that housed lush flower beds filled with beautiful flowers and rich evergreen shrubs. By the mid-1920s, the Wilsons had acquired quite an impressive complex. Fully able to accommodate the Island's vacationers more successfully than the IRC and IIA, they built a second home, in addition to constructing a grocery store with an attached garage, a hotel, a clubhouse, a bed and breakfast, and guest cottages as part of the complex. The house was built in 1927 out of native Michigan rocks. Lela had these rocks collected from roadways and farm fields within a forty-mile radius of Idlewild. She also had rocks gathered to support the pillars along the entrance to Paradise Gardens at the corner of Tampa and Baldwin Road. The grocery store, which was attached at the rear of their home, was eventually discontinued, when a structure was built on a new site across the street in

1948. The success Lela experienced from selling lots in the first plat influenced her to invest in more land. Consequently, the Wilsons purchased property ranging from the railroad tracks on the north side of Paradise Lake south along Forman Road to Baldwin Road. An article appearing in the Negro Digest in the August 1958 edition valued the holdings of the Wilsons at one-quarter of a million dollars. The Paradise Hotel, which was built by the Wilsons in 1929, was the first hotel built on Paradise Lake, housing tourists that vacationed in the community. There was a photography studio in the front room, next to the fireplace, where many noted visitors posed for portraits. An icehouse on the south shore of the lake supplied ice for summer activities and events. The ice came from the lake during the winter. The Paradise Clubhouse, a dining and dancing hall, which was built by the Wilsons in 1922, would later be renamed the Paradise Nightclub during the 1950s. However, in the beginning, the Wilsons, who leased the clubhouse first to Cecil Pettiford and later to John Simmons, used the clubhouse to host town social activities when the main clubhouse on the Island was closed during the winter months. By Labor Day weekend of 1925, Cecil Pettiford, who was a famous chef as well as the manager of the clubhouse, was hosting dinner dances and cabarets, while Andre Tuller, also of Chicago, served Page 42 → as the dancing instructor for those in need of lessons.105 In the summer of 1926, the Lake County Star reported, “The Muskegon Jubilee Singers rendered an entertaining program one Sunday afternoon before a large audience. The program was vigorously applauded.” The club had “retained the Chicago Melody Boys for the season” and was offering dances Thursday and Saturday nights, in addition to “breakfast dances Tuesday morning.”106 By the time of the Great Depression, John Simmons would lease and manage the clubhouse, continuing the tradition of hosting dinner parties (but with a liquor license) as part of the management and operation of the club. For the Wilsons, these improvements were geared to appeal to a certain middle-class sensibility. The Wilsons were active in the development of the resort as well as the local township government. Herman served as Yates Township supervisor, trustee, Page 43 → justice of the peace, constable, and highway commissioner at various times in the late 1920s, early ’30s, and ’40s. He also served as a trustee of the township's school board. Lela, fondly known as “L.G.” by business associates, continued building homes and commercial structures throughout the subdivision. Between developing the complex and a booming real estate enterprise, Lela and Herman laid the foundation for newer developments during the 1950s and ’60s. Building Paradise Gardens into a popular residential district and entertainment night place, the Wilsons had a vision that was best manifested through the practice of teamwork, cooperation, and collaboration with others. The good of the projects they tackled was achieved through hard work and consideration. Both were entrepreneurs who knew how to make cold hard cash. They were also generous people willing to help those who were less fortunate, as a means for striving to foster racial uplift and economic success. Lela sold land at a dollar down and a dollar a week and worked diligently to attract industry to Idlewild. She met personally with Henry Ford and representatives of General Motors in an attempt to influence them to build an automobile plant near the area for the purpose of providing year-round employment opportunities for residents. However, Lela's idea was strongly resisted by the establishment of Lake County, who believed that an industry would cause a racial imbalance by attracting a larger African American population. Lake County officials also feared that such a move would have a detrimental effect on the area's tourism trade. In addition to resisting the county's establishment, Lela was a student of metaphysics and a spiritual individual. This was known through the names by which she designated the streets in the plats of Paradise Gardens. In the first plat, she named the streets after the cities and towns from which vacationers traveled. In the second, the streets were named Unity, Patience, Kindness, Sincerity, Generosity, Harmony, Wisdom, Righteous Road, Miracle, Creation, Justice, Perfection, and Joy. Lela, like Garvey movement women Henrietta Vinton Davis and Amy Jacques Garvey, was active in religious, civic, and radically progressive activities throughout the subdivision. She was an active and dedicated member of Garvey's UNIA-ACL. This association with Garvey had roots in her family history, for Lela's parents were Garveyites in a small UNIA-ACL division in the Illinois “sundown town” where she had been raised. A decade and a half after Idlewild was founded, the residents had not only adjusted to a period of international and

domestic pressure for Jim Crow segregation, but some also responded to Garvey's call for nationhood, selfreliance, and racial pride. Dominating the politics of the day in Idlewild, a small group of Garveyites, living primarily in Paradise Gardens, organized Division 895 of the UNIA-ACL in 1927, the same year Garvey was being deported to his homeland Page 44 → in Kingston, Jamaica. With the support of the Detroit chapter of the UNIA-ACL, which was founded in 1919, Division 895, under the leadership of Lela G. Wilson of Paradise Gardens, attracted the attention of hundreds of vacationers inside and outside the Idlewild community.107 Around the same time, rumors surfaced that Garvey somehow secretly entered the United States in 1927 and traveled to Idlewild by the Pere Marquette Railroad from Detroit—the fact that Garvey, after serving two years and nine months in prison in Atlanta, was pardoned by President Calvin Coolidge and immediately deported to Jamaica makes this difficult to confirm. As far back as 1916, Garvey visited Detroit as part of a midwestern organizational tour, a few months after arriving in the United States. While building organizational memberships and chapters throughout the Midwest, the East, the West, and parts of the South, Garvey returned to Detroit in June 1919 and again on at least six other occasions prior to being summoned back to New York, where he was arrested and incarcerated. These visits occurred two years prior to his alleged visit to Idlewild. Because the Detroit chapter was too large to be considered a division, Garvey saw it as a critically important chapter helpful to the organization's goals. The Detroit chapter, like the Denver division in Colorado, was organized a few months after the First International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World in Harlem, in 1920. Among the regional delegates attending the convention was the Reverend A. D. Williams of Detroit, who returned to the city ready to get organized. Detroit Garveyite John Charles Zampty recalled how Williams “came back to Detroit with a red, black, and green flag, and he walked the streets of Detroit accompanied by others, playing the Tambourine, and so on. This began the organization of the Detroit Division.”108 Chartered as Division 125 (later 407), the branch experienced an astonishing amount of growth, perhaps unrivaled in the history of the UNIA, except possibly by New York. The Detroit division, in turn, gave birth to Michigan branches and divisions.109 Three years later, in 1923, as revealed through testimonials during Garvey's trial for a federal charge of mail fraud, a dramatic leap was reported in the Detroit division's membership roster, numbering four thousand. By August 5, 1924, Detroit's president, Fred E. Johnson, announced at the fourth UNIA convention that the branch was “7,000 strong,” considered a power in the city, and had organized and supervised “divisions in the suburbs and neighboring vicinity of Detroit.”110 The Detroit chapter, which assisted the Idlewild division, not only prospered numerically but also economically. By 1927, two years after Garvey was convicted of mail fraud and served a short prison term at the Atlanta Penitentiary, his attorneys reported that the Detroit chapter owned fifty thousand dollars' Page 45 → worth of assets, mostly through property.111 The chapter owned a variety of businesses, including “laundries, restaurants, shoe shine parlors, drugstores, and even theaters under the auspices of the UNIA.”112 The chapter was instrumental in expanding the visibility of the UNIA throughout Michigan. Anna Reese, secretary for the chapter, reported in a chapter update on May 22, 1927, “We [the Detroit chapter] are working to get Michigan organized for the Universal Negro Improvement Association.”113 Leonard Smith, the president and acting commissioner for Michigan, followed up by issuing a statement on behalf of Detroit's recruitment campaign to all divisions and chapters of the UNIA in the state of Michigan, asking them to increase their membership and proposing discussion of “ways and means of expanding and increasing our activities in this state.”114 The records in the New York Central division indicate that Michigan had branches in sixteen cities, including Idlewild, from 1925 to 1926. Although membership in the movement had been fragmenting and declining nationally, Garvey's persona and the philosophy of Garveyism were fondly embraced in Paradise Gardens.115 While the exact founding date of the Idlewild division remains unclear, a warranty deed was signed on May 9, 1927, by John and Ella Hawthorne, who paid one dollar to Herman O. and Lela G. Wilson to purchase lots 9, 10, 11, and 12 in block 13 of Paradise Gardens.116 As of October 15, 1928, a mortgage had been assigned to Division 895 of the UNIA at Idlewild. William O. Jones was identified as the first president, Charles W. Wilson of Chicago as secretary, and Moody Birt, Tom Thomas, John H. Hawthorne, Adam Daniel Smith, and Nero Williams as the board of trustees. The property, which was secured and donated by the Hawthornes, was purchased for five hundred dollars, with a principal payment of ten dollars or more per month beginning on November 15, 1928.117 The Wilsons were,

therefore, not only owners of Paradise Gardens but also devout Garveyites themselves. In 1929, the year of the stock market crash, Lela served as First Lady Vice President of the division. The year 1929 represented an important year in the UNIA's history. Internal conflicts went public as Garvey announced that “race traitors” were leading the UNIA to bankruptcy. This charge initiated a major organizational split, as Garvey announced the formation of an unincorporated UNIA-ACL of the World that would have headquarters permanently in Kingston, Jamaica, and that would serve as a rival parent body to the original UNIA Inc., which had headquarters in New York.118 The year also marked a somewhat significant organizational development for the Detroit chapter and the Idlewild division. Joseph A. Craigen, who was born in British Guiana (now Guyana), served as the Detroit chapter's general and executive secretary and was one of Garvey's Page 46 → most trusted lieutenants. When Garvey was imprisoned in February 1925 (immediately following his last visit to Detroit), Craigen was one of the leaders of the largest divisions that Garvey entrusted to maintain organizational business until his release. Could Craigen, who was a close associate of Lela Wilson, have traveled to Idlewild in Garvey's place and been observed by the senior citizens there? Like Garvey, Craigen was born in one of the Caribbean nations, spoke in a similar accent, and, given his statute, build, demeanor, and later history in Idlewild, could have been mistaken as Garvey. From 1927 to 1928, Craigen served as the parent body's special representative to Florida.119 When Garvey's sentence was commuted in late 1927, Craigen was a member of the committee of presidents that saw him off at New Orleans, Louisiana, when he was deported to Jamaica on December 2.120 Later in 1928, from Kingston, Garvey appointed Craigen high commissioner, or district leader, for Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota. In the following year, Craigen was one of two Michigan delegates attending the UNIA convention in Kingston. Garvey recognized Craigen and the Reverend Father Albert Glen Taylor, the newly elected president of Division 895, as two progressive delegates of the Sixth International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World, under the auspices of the UNIA of the World.121 Lela Wilson and the Idlewild division were proud to celebrate both contacts with the Detroit chapter and the division's president, Taylor, who came to the community from New York in January 1929, after having served as a delegate during the 1921 International Convention of New York City and as president of the Brooklyn division in 1925.122 As Edmond Cronon noted, it was typical for Garvey to rotate his loyal and trusted aides to build up some of the organization's weaker divisions. Before Idlewild, Taylor had been appointed by Garvey as president of the Brooklyn division for the purpose of increasing its membership. Taylor's presidency of the Idlewild division was also recognized for helping to preserve the quality of life for the citizens in this historically significant resort town. One of Taylor's first orders of business was to devote a considerable amount of energy and time to easing concerns about the integrity of and possible takeover of the township by the UNIA-ACL. Within a few months after his arrival, members of the organization were responding to criticisms via an editorial published in the Lake County Star on April 19, 1929, stating, The Universal Negro Improvement Association is a friendly, humanitarian, charitable, educational, institutional, constructive and expansive society, and is founded by persons desiring to the utmost to work for the general uplift of the Page 47 → Negro peoples. The members pledge themselves to do all in their power to conserve the rights of all mankind.123 This emphasis on the concepts of “universal brotherhood” and “humanitarianism,” which was taken verbatim from the UNIA Constitution and Book of Laws, was brilliantly linked to the idea of connecting with progressive and responsible citizens who were concerned about race improvement. The article continued, stressing the importance of the UNIA's motto, Believing always in the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, our motto is One God, One Aim, One Destiny, therefore, let justice be done to all mankind, realizing that if the strong oppress the weak, confusion and discontent will ever mark the path of man. With love, faith and charity toward

all, the reign of peace and plenty will be heralded into the world and the generations of men will be called Blessed.124

Although the division embraced the themes of institution building, cultural identity, and race achievement, it took the religious character of the movement very seriously as well. This reflected the belief in Garvey's “well developed and internally consistent theological framework,” which gave “meaning [to their] history and their destiny under a God who was working on their behalf.”125 In addition to linking this distinctive religious worldview to their lived experiences, the division's response to their critics conveyed a collective, conscious theme of community building. There has been quite a bit of misunderstanding of the aims and objects of the UNIA, but with the present president, this is being wiped out, and we are truly thankful. This organization has and is reaching into homes of millions of people that needed to be awakened to the more serious side of life, and to share the responsibilities of being better citizens and having more regard for the world at large in the right way. This organization believes in race purity. It advocates all religions, and disagrees with none.126 For Garvey, Division 895, and UNIA-ACL memberships elsewhere, Garveyism implied not only the concept of race purity but also nonsectarianism. Randall Burkett found that this emphasis on diversity among the religious beliefs of the organization stressed not only the race discourse and the organizational philosophy of Garvey but also a shared identity among the UNIA constituency, which consisted of “active members of diverse Black denominations.”127 Page 48 → The Idlewild division made rapid strides under Taylor's leadership, as he gave lectures to the membership about ancient African history,128 labored to increase the membership rolls of the division,129 and established important contacts with African American clergymen and women. In terms of fund-raising, he successfully motivated legion members to sponsor entertainment through parades in Baldwin130 and at Liberty Hall (to raise funds to purchase uniforms) and to prepare and serve dinners for an entire week in August at twenty-five cents per plate (to raise money to buy materials for flags and pennants).131 In addition to these small successes, yet another progressive activity occurred under Taylor's presidency as the division was preparing for the arrival of other Michigan divisions that were to attend the annual Legion Encampment. The Legion Encampment, which meant a lengthening of the season, was indeed a major undertaking for the division. The program committee was continuously “busy finding sleeping accommodations for about 1000.”132 Among those participating in the event was “the Detroit Division,” which was “first to arrive, and 375 strong.”133 Whereas some camped in Paradise Park, others stayed with local residents from nearby Cherry Valley, Idlewild Terrace, and Woodland Park. The Idlewild division grew rapidly following the encampment, and it gradually began to overshadow the program of the NAACP by 1929 and well into the mid-1930s. Despite the tremendous success of the encampment, Taylor's most enduring legacy as the division's president unfolded as he garnered international visibility as well as regional and national support for the division. Taylor served as one of three Michigan delegates during the convention in August 1929. Taylor was immediately recognized as an important UNIA division leader on August 19 following an interview held with the Blackman, in which he proposed a possible solution to Jamaica's pressing economic problems and elaborated on other matters during the convention. This, in turn, heightened his credibility as an “experienced” and “widely read” division leader. Following Garvey's opening address to the nearly twenty thousand convention attendees, three delegates—Taylor (Idlewild), Benjamin Sumlin (Chicago), and Bishop J. D. Barber of the Triumph Church (Youngstown)—made shorter speeches that were enthusiastically received. Taylor, in particular, delivered a rousing speech expressing his thoughts about mounting problems with the American wing of the UNIA and about his presidency in Idlewild. Taylor was clear in noting,

The majority of the population of Idlewild are members of the UNIA, the chief-officer of the township is a member, the Justice of the Peace are members, the constables are members and in fact every civic officer in Idlewild, Michigan Page 49 → is a Garveyite to the core (applause); and they want the people of Jamaica to know, together with the Delegates that they are going to follow Marcus Garvey until the sun goes out because we the American Negroes are in a better position to understand the feelings of the white race relative to us.134 His message was warmly welcomed. As he neared the end of the speech, he spoke to the enemies of the UNIA in Jamaica and advised them to cease “trying to be the best possible English man and [to] try to be the best possible Negro.”135 Taylor understood how the racism that helped to sustain slavery and subsequent forms of oppression and discrimination in the United States was present elsewhere in the African diaspora of the Americas. Hence, in highlighting some of the benefits associated with living in the United States, where African Americans could earn good wages in comparison to the economic possibilities their brothers and sisters in Jamaica encountered, Taylor was clear to warn that this does not mean that “anything the white man wants in America the Negro cannot aspire for.”136 Rather, he observed, by way of an analogy, “Our position in America can be favorably compared to the condition of a mule and an automobile.”137 Taylor's speech served as a reminder to the audience that the vast majority of Africans in the United States were aware that they were essentially Africans forcibly transferred from African and Caribbean societies. To that end, Taylor's visit to the British Caribbean nation represented a major achievement for the Idlewild community, even though the actual number of members was relatively small. The arguments he espoused during the convention resulted in his being identified and selected (by Joseph Craigen of Detroit, as “the speaker in the Convention,”) to serve on “several committees,” in particular, the agricultural lands committee.138 The goals of this committee were to identify, acquire, and control agricultural lands for the purpose of establishing factories and industrial institutions in various communities in the United States, Africa, Canada, Europe, the West Indies, South America, and Central America. As the convention was coming to a close, Taylor pledged five hundred dollars on behalf of the Idlewild division, to “be paid in quarterly, half yearly or yearly installments to execute the program decided on during the sixth international convention.”139 The mass political mobilization plans and strategies that Taylor organized in Jamaica and Idlewild during and following the convention were enthusiastically received. Two weeks after the convention, the division in Idlewild received a telegraph message from Taylor as he stopped over in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on his way home, stating he would “arrive on the 30th.”140 Taylor's travels and his international and national contacts helped to sustain New Negro interests Page 50 → in building Idlewild into a nation. The message he was to convey to the division was to continue to create and sustain community. The division read his letter with great pleasure during its weekly business meeting. Prior to his return, Taylor wrote a letter of thanks to the editor of the Blackman, which was published on October 20, 1929. In the letter, Taylor also expressed many thanks to his friends of Jamaica. He begs to return thanks to all those who helped to make his stay in Jamaica a happy one. He had a big welcome from his Division, they were glad to see him and to hear the news of the Convention…. His Division has arranged to carry on the drive for Negro emancipation more than before and is ready to give their all to the movement. He says Carry on Jamaica. Idlewild is behind you!141 The members of Division 895 held a special meeting as they welcomed their president back home. During the next regular weekly meeting, on October 29, the vice president, the Reverend George Rainey, introduced the president, who shared information about the convention proceedings. Taylor “brought a very inspiring message from the convention, outlining divisional changes, and asking for the cooperation of the membership in putting over the big program.”142 The significance of these meetings, in addition to focusing on the themes of racial uplift, economic unity, and political power, was, as Burkett observed, that they “possessed many of the characteristics of a religious

service.”143 Typically, these meetings were held on Sunday evenings. They began with “hymn singing, prayers, and sermons by local [and regional] clergy men [and women]. Special rituals were devised to give local groups a sense of identification with the national organization, such as public reading of the front page of the Negro World, which was always written by Marcus Garvey.”144 For Garveyites in Idlewild and elsewhere, these revival-like meetings reinforced the doctrine of the UNIA, which crossed age, gender, class, and religious lines.

The institutional development of Idlewild, though not necessarily a part of the Harlem Renaissance, was heavily influenced by the activism of New Negro personalities who, as early as 1917, encouraged W. E. B. Du Bois, while serving as editor of Crisis, to ask readers to write about successful vacations on a number of summer resorts that were emerging “for colored folk.” As I mentioned in the introduction, Idlewild was one of the most recent of these resorts. Du Bois published the winning essay, in which H. H. Thweatt made the following observation about Idlewild: “Like two playful children, my wife and I roamed the cultivated fields, rambled through the woods, drank the healthful turpentine water that collected in the boxes of the pine trees, picked blackberries, waded Page 51 → streams, till we found our cheeks glowing with the hot blood of youth.”145 This essay sparked a desire for Du Bois to visit Idlewild himself. In 1921, he published his own essay on the place in Crisis. Du Bois lodged at the cottage of Carrie Warner. A major social critic of the period, Du Bois not only explained how Idlewild was founded and developed for commercial reasons; he also helped to put Idlewild into the national spotlight. Describing his appreciation for the aesthetic beauty he observed in Idlewild, he wrote, For sheer physical beauty—for sheen of water and golden air, for nobleness of tree and flower of shrub, for shining river and song of bird and the low, moving whisper of sun, moon, and star, it is the beautifulest stretch I have seen for twenty years; and then to that add fellowship—sweet, strong women and keen-witted men from Canada and Texas, California and New York, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois—all sons and great-grandchildren of Ethiopia, all with Page 52 → the wide leisure of rest and play—can you imagine a more marvelous thing than Idlewild?146 For Du Bois, the same general spirit that produced the New Negro movement, of which he was a member, produced places like Idlewild and Highland Beach, where he vacationed. However, Idlewild impressed him so much that while staying with Warner and touring Idlewild and Woodland Park with Marian Auther, he began to see this cultural space as more than merely a hidden historical treasure. Du Bois's observation about Idlewild as a living historical space influenced him to purchase several lots, although, as I explained in the introduction, he never developed the property he purchased. Du Bois's visit characterizes the glory days in Idlewild. Although Du Bois was initially suspicious of the motivations of the white men running the IRC (as he did not want what had happened in Nicodemus, Kansas, to be repeated in Idlewild), he reversed that opinion and hailed the IRC's integrity and service to the African American community. Du Bois came to recognize and respect the efforts of the Branch brothers. In a candid account in his 1921 essay, he described precisely the just business practices of the men who were really running the IRC. Now white men developed Idlewild. They recognized its beauty, bought it and attracted people there. They have made money by the operation. That was their object. But they have not squeezed the lemon dry, and they have apparently been absolutely open, square and just. Idlewild is worth every penny paid for it. It is worth a good deal more than most people paid for it…. Our hats are off to the Idlewild Resort Company.147 With a clear vision of how modern economics affected middle-class African Americans, Du Bois offered his best blessings and then encouraged African Americans to invest in Idlewild. Surely the IRC was pleased to get free advertisement and a gracious compliment from such a notable figure as Du Bois, as well as by the prospect of increasing the interest of the African American professionals who were subscribers to Crisis magazine and were being encouraged by the influential Du Bois to reason with the evidence presented before them. Also embodying the ideas espoused by the IRC, the IIA, and the NNM in general in establishing Idlewild as an

African American cultural and intellectual center, Madame C. J. Walker, of Harlem, New York, had “signed a contract with the Idlewild Resort Company” indicating that she agreed “to build a training school for hair culture at Idlewild and have it in operation in 1920.”148 Walker also promised to build a lakefront summer cottage there. Madame Walker described Page 53 → Idlewild as “a great national progressive movement” that offered a “national meeting place where leading spirits from the various sections of the country [could] gather each year and discuss problems of national and race importance. Great good cannot help but result from such a movement and Idlewild being located as it is in the heart of the Great Resort sections of Michigan makes it ideal for the combination of business and pleasure.”149 Walker's letter to the IRC dated December 23, 1918, is testimony to its New Negro appeal and utopian dream. Unfortunately, Madame Walker was not able to witness the full extent of her intended contributions; she died in May 1919, nearly five years before the full maturation of the Island and the resort town. Before her death, she confided to her daughter and her friends her desire to create more jobs for African American women and men, saying, “My desire is now to do more than ever for my race. I would love to live for them…. I've caught the vision. I can see what they need.”150 Walker also asked her daughter, A'Lelia Walker Wilson, to maintain the lakefront property that her mother had purchased on the northeast corner of Idlewild Lake. The essence of Idlewild during the middle to late 1920s reflected the same visionary ideas and goals that the famous African American novelist Charles Waddell Chesnutt held throughout his life as a literary giant, attorney, and civil rights activists. Chesnutt, who was born in Cleveland on June 20, 1858, grew up in North Carolina and traveled extensively throughout the nation. Working as a practicing attorney, Chesnutt continued to write. By the late 1920s, around the time when he purchased Idlewild property and traveled there, he was awarded the Spinarn Medal during the NAACP's fourteenth annual conference, for his years of distinguished achievement and honorable service as a novelist, writer of short stories, and “public spirited citizen.”151 As a visionary thinker, Chesnutt helped to shape how various people should look at race, society, and equality. His interest and time spent in Idlewild resulted from two major factors: the natural beauty and tranquility of Lake Idlewild and the underlying cultural and sociopolitical drive for equality and race betterment (racial uplift and economic improvement) that the community represented. In Blue as the Lake, his grandson, literary scholar Robert B. Stepto, adds that Chesnutt found “release from the affairs of business” during the summer months he spent in his lakefront cottage in Idlewild.

New Negro Women on the Move in Idlewild Black women's participation in national organizations not only illustrates their activism as clubwomen, business and civic leaders, entrepreneurs, and educators but also “demonstrate[s] the changes in black women's thinking and outlook in Page 54 → the twentieth century.”152 Idlewild's women leaders such as Violette N. Anderson and Irene McCoy Gaines served as members and officers of the National Association of Colored Women's Club, the National Council of Negro Women, the Federal Colored Women's Club, the Friendly Big Sisters League of Chicago, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, the Illinois Federation of Republican Colored Women's Club, and the Chicago Council of Negro Organizations and thus helped to elevate the status of the ILOA and other fraternal and community-based organizations. The establishment of these clubs and organizations and the activities of the women who championed them illustrate how New Negro women in Idlewild significantly contributed to the development of the all-black resort town community as a place they valued as home and community. In the process of promoting “a substantial racial uplift agenda” and organizing a plan of action to implement ideas, these women were typical of New Negro women and the roles they performed during the period. Realizing “something of work and rewards, of the productions of goods and their consumption, of the ambitions of wealth, and the self-seeking of nations,”153 New Negro womanhood stood “firm in that inevitable time when [for black women] as a group, or as an individual, there must be a demand for the decencies of civilized living for all.”154 Marion Vera Cuthbert, author of “Problems Facing Negro Young Women,” also points out, like Deborah Gray White in Too Heavy a Load, some of the challenges, consequences, and rewards of black women's participation in early twentieth century black women's national organizations, where one of the guiding principles was “behind all the clubs was racial uplift through self-help.”155 In an effort to reduce the sting of the race problem “through intensive social service focused on improving home life and educating mothers”156 as a direct

outgrowth of the activism of twentieth-century women figures Mary Bethune, Dorothy Heights, Mary Church Terrell, and Anna Julia Cooper “some programs aimed at increasing the skills and intellectual ability of club members”157 sought to create change agents, which speaks volumes about black women's organizations and their perseverance. As black women establishing themselves in Chicago's Black Belt, Violette N. Anderson, Irene McCoy Gaines, and Carrie and Rose Warner were prime examples of this mission of clubwomen as they were deeply involved in the political and social life of Idlewild. Born in 1882 in London, England, to a West Indian father, Richard E., and a German mother, Marie (Jordi) Neatley, Violette Neatley relocated to the United States, along with her family, when she was a child. She grew up in Chicago and attended North Division High School.158 After earning a high school diploma in 1899, “the same year she got married to Amos Preston Blackwell on June 21,”159 NeatleyBlackwell attended the Chicago Page 55 → Athenaeum from 1902 to 1903 and the Chicago Seminary of Sciences from 1912 to 1915. In 1906, she ended a seven year abusive marriage to Blackwell,160 almost a year before she “began her career in the legal field as a court reporter,” where she managed a “successful stenography, shorthand, and court reporting business in the [Chicago] downtown [lawyer's] district”161 and later turned her “home on 53rd at Michigan Avenue”162 into the site of her practice. Anderson “worked as a court reporter from 1905 to 1920, an occupation that sparked her interest in the law” and led to a LL.B. in 1917 at the University of Chicago Law School “and her passing the bar exam in the spring of 1920.”163 Page 56 → Sometime also in 1906 Violette married Dr. Daniel Herbert (Bert) Anderson, a Chicago physician and graduate of Northwestern University's School of Medicine.164 This marriage lasted for approximately ten years. Maintaining the Anderson name, Violette married again in the summer of 1920 to a pharmacist named Albert E. Johnson. They became the first couple to get married in Idlewild.165 The wedding ceremony, which “was widely reported as a major social event”166 in the Broad Axe, was performed by the Reverend H. Franklin Bray. Attending the wedding approximately one month before Dr. Du Bois's tour of Idlewild were Chicago's Carrie Warner, Evelyn Casey, and Virginia Bray and a pool of guests from Battle Creek, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, and Wilberforce as, according to the Broad Axe, The bridal party stood on the lawn at Miramar Cottage looking to the east into the limpid and placid waters of a perfectly mirrored lake, with the blue sky for a canopy and oak and Norway pines forming a background for the altar. No wedding party long planned could ever eclipse the impromptu preparations which were perfection in every detail. The bride was gowned in a simple lingerie frock of white and yellow, with a garden hat completely covered with golden rod, and carried a wonderful bouquet of the same flowers and ferns gathered in the woods by the bridal party.167 The bridal party was led by Carrie Warner, Evelyn Casey, and the wife of Chicago's power broker politician Edward Herbert Wright, and was followed by a reception on the Island in the lobby and dining room of the Idlewild clubhouse. Anderson was a strong supporter of the Republican Party, an active member of a colored church known as St. Thomas Episcopal Church, and a prominent attorney and Negro clubwoman. Beginning a private practice after graduation as the first African American woman to graduate from any law school in the state of Illinois, she was the first to practice law in the U.S. District Court Eastern Division and was the first female assistant city prosecutor in Chicago in 1922.168 Four years later, on January 29, 1926, she “became the first black female to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court,” an achievement that “set a precedent that allowed other black women to do the same.”169 Like other progressive New Negro women leaders of respectability, Anderson belonged to the Federal Colored Women's Clubs. She served as president of the Friendly Big Sisters League of Chicago, “which helped dependent black women and children and sheltered them in a house that they owned.”170 Anderson was involved in many projects “to help people, serving as first vice president of the Cook County Page 57 → Bar Association, an executive board member of the Chicago Council of Social Agencies, secretary of the Idlewild Lot Owners Association, general counsel for the Idlewild-Woodland, Inc.,”171 and a member and officer

of the Zeta Zeta chapter (sixth graduate chapter chartered) of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority.172 Anderson was the eighth Grand Basileus of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, an organization she demonstrated great pride in belonging to by “bequeathing her summer” cottage at Birch Haven “in Idlewild to the organization.”173 Before passing in 1937, Anderson was instrumental in getting “a bill passed to help black tenant farmers and sharecroppers who lived liked slaves,” a legislative bill adopted months later “by the Federal government in the Bankhead-Jones Act.”174 Annually in April, on Violette Anderson Day, members of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority recognize Anderson as a forerunner and pioneer in U.S. history. Another New Negro woman who deserves mentioning as a forerunner to Idlewild's growth and development is Irene McCoy Gaines. Similar to Anderson, Gaines was a civil rights reformer devoted to racial uplift, involving black women and young people. Born Irene McCoy in Ocala, Florida, on October 1, 1893, to Charles B. and Mamie McCoy, young Irene was raised by her mother, who had relocated to Chicago in 1896 after a marital divorce. Growing up in Chicago McCoy attended and “graduated from Wendell Phillips High School, and enrolled in and attended Fisk Normal School at an unusually early age, from 1905–1910. In 1914, she married Harris B. Gaines and they had two sons.”175 A Chicago community activist and civil rights leader, Gaines was “a Republican Party activist, and an African American club woman of national standing.”176 Gaines was employed as a stenographer and typist in 1910 in the complaint department of Chicago's juvenile court when World War I “opened opportunities to advance into full-time social work.” Then she worked at Provident Hospital and in Idlewild as Dr. Daniel H. Williams' personal secretary. During the war, “at the urging of Mary Terrell,” Gaines “joined the War Camp Community Service,” which represented “the beginning of a long career of volunteer and public service,” and the Community Service of Chicago.177 By 1920, “she undertook additional training in social work in the YWCA Training School and at the University of Chicago and Loyola University”178 and soon thereafter became industrial secretary for the first African American branch of the YWCA in Chicago. Gaines married Harris Barrett Gaines, a Chicago attorney, in 1914. The couple and their two sons enjoyed their summer vacations in their cottage at Idlewild. After losing their first summer cottage to a fire in Idlewild in 1926, 179 the couple quickly rebuilt and continued to contribute to the development of the resort that was in great demand for Midwesterners. Years later while working in the welfare department of Cook County from 1930 to 1945, Gaines served Page 58 → as president of the Idlewild Lot Owners Association for fourteen years, as well as president of the Chicago Council of Negro Organizations from 1939 to 1953. Gaines's activities as an Idlewild leader “cover a considerable span of time.”180 The ILOA, a nonprofit, charitable, service, recreational, civic, and welfare organization, consists of Idlewild property owners who reside in Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Indianapolis, Flint, Grand Rapids, and Saginaw. Since its founding in 1921, ILOA has sponsored various summer programs for youth and adult activities such as an annual fashion fair and amateur show to encourage cultural heritage and pride. Serving as both a member and officer of the ILOA, Gaines was responsible for establishing these youth programs and family activities in Idlewild. In seeing a need for change through legislation in Chicago, Gaines, a civil rights activist and reformer, was not only involved in early neighborhood improvement programs relative to the Hyde Park–Kenwood Community Conference and the Kenwood-Ellis Community Center of the late 1950s, but she was also “the first Black woman to run for a state legislative seat and (in 1950) the first Black woman to run for the county commissioner's office. Though she lost both elections, she gained much credibility.”181 The local efforts of Anderson and Gaines also influenced other Idlewild women such as Rose L. Warner, who was married to Devere Joseph Warner, a World War I veteran and Yates Township supervisor of the early 1930s, who organized “a Club of Women of Idlewild” to secure property for a Veteran of Foreign Wars building that would serve as the V.F.W. building for the Stewart Alexander post headquarters on Foreman near Baldwin Road.182

Progressive Religious Leaders as Builders of Lasting Cultural and Social Institutions Another source of the New Negro movement was the spiritual leadership, religious guidance, teaching, and civic projects of the Reverend Harry Franklin Bray. Born on May 14, 1875, in Mount Vernon, Ohio, the son of the Reverend Nathaniel L. and Mary Francis Bray, Harry Franklin Bray was an indefatigable worker as well as an organizer with broad ideals and the energy to carry them out. He, his wife, Virginia, and his mother, Mary,

migrated to Idlewild in 1922 from Chicago. The purpose of the relocation was for Bray to find relief from asthma.183 But because he was a “race man” with deep religious convictions, this retirement did not last very long. He not only founded the Idlewild Community Church but also developed Idlewild Heights, located to the west of the original Idlewild, and made it into a community center.184 ILOA president Irene McCoy Page 59 → Gaines and secretary Mary Ellen Cox found that Bray, as a member of the board of directors, was a great help in the development and progress of Idlewild and proved himself a loyal friend and helper with an understanding heart who shared their sorrows and joys. With high estimation of his worth and influence as an exemplary Christian, citizen, and friend, they planned to live up to the ideals of the philosophy he taught. His life would be an inspiration that would abide with them, and his memory would continue to be enshrined in their hearts. While working in Indianapolis, Indiana, Bray was a regular attendant at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, where he was converted in January 1894 at the age of nineteen. He was baptized when ice was broken in the Ohio River at Madison, Indiana, by his father, who was pastoring in the city. Answering the divine call to the ministry, he entered Wilberforce University's Payne Theological Seminary, to prepare himself for his life's work. After four years of study, he joined the Kentucky Conference, through which, at the age of twenty-six, he was appointed presiding elder of the Louisville district, being the youngest minister to hold such an office in the AME connection. He served as pastor of several AME churches in Kentucky, Colorado, Arizona, and Kansas. While conducting a series of revivals in Des Moines, Iowa, he met Virginia Robinson, secretary of the YWCA, and on June 30, 1920, they were married. Discontinuing the active pastorate life, Bray entered the evangelistic field, where he worked from 1916 to 1921.185 With his wife, son, brother, and mother, he permanently relocated to Idlewild in 1923, as the retiring evangelistic pastor of Chicago's Sunshine Rescue Mission. Bray was widely known as the Rocky Mountain Evangelist and as superintendent of the mission. He was known as such because he once lived in the Rocky Mountains as he traveled throughout the North, South, West, and Midwest delivering sermons to thousands of souls in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Cambridge in Ohio, and other cities and states, as he conducted “revival meetings” on behalf of various churches.186 Determining a need for a religious program within the first year of his residency at Idlewild, he delivered sermons at the Idlewild Clubhouse. During the first year Bray spent in Idlewild, he held nondenominational church services on Sunday mornings, outdoors on the back porch and in the yard surrounding the clubhouse. During one such service in August, literary giant Charles Chesnutt “was introduced by Reverend Bray, and made some inspiring remarks.”187 In the following year, Bray founded the first official house of worship near the Island, the Idlewild Community Church (also known as “the Tent”). Prior to the establishment of the church's tent structure, the Wilsons and Mother Mary L. Turner held Christian services in their homes. However, Page 60 → after Bray settled in Idlewild, he promoted a campaign, supported by year-round residents and seasonal vacationers, to build an official church building. Edwyn Elsner (husband of Isabel Elsner, the town's first postmistress) helped to raise five hundred dollars to purchase the four lots needed to build a rustic structure for religious services. Additional lots were donated by Herman O. Wilson and E. G. Branch. At the time, the church was a tent, with sand for the floor. As early as 1923, the church had its own publication; the Idlewild Community Herald was the official organ of the church, community center, and ILOA. A monthly religious and social news magazine, published by the Community Publishing Company of Reed City, the Herald was Idlewild's major print source for social, religious, and political news updates from 1923 to 1939. Bray served as the editor, and Lake County Star journalist Susie J. Bantom was contributing editor. Later, Negro clubwoman Irene McCoy Gaines, Dr. Williams's former personal secretary, Elsie Roxborough, and Richard M. Hughes (educational director of the Houghton Civilian Conservation Corps Camp) would all serve as contributing associate editors.188 Being the only erected house of worship in town, the church served those who lived in the area year-round as well as the increasing numbers of visitors who were vacationing from such urban areas as Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Gary, and Indianapolis. Because of its structure, the first church could only be used in the spring, summer, and autumn. The heavy snows of 1928 caved in its roof. Undaunted by the havoc of the winter snow, Bray declared, “Under God we go forward.” By 1929, the church's membership had grown, and the facilities needed improving. Therefore, a second structure was built by Oscar Blankenship, a local contractor, from materials furnished by the

A. H. Brott Lumber Company of Baldwin. John Simmons, Herman O. Wilson, Charles Scott, and others helped to build the new church structure. Learning about the completed construction date of the church, Bray wrote to the governor's office on May 1, requesting a meeting so that he could invite Governor Fred Green to the dedication ceremony. Bray could not have imagined the continuous back and forth correspondences that would be involved in getting on the governor's agenda. Nor could he have imagined the uncertainty about the governor's attendance that would continue to haunt the preparations for the event. Responding to Bray's request, Howard C. Lawrence, the governor's secretary, wrote, “Dear Rev. Bray: Would Monday next be suitable to you for the appointment requested in your letter of May 1st? The Governor will be in the office and could see you about eleven o'clock.”189 Writing again two months later, in a letter dated July 26, 1929, Lawrence informed Bray, “It will be appreciated if you will kindly favor us with the details regarding the dedicatory Page 61 → exercises at Idlewild August 11th. By this I mean the basic facts surrounding the project, the building that is to be dedicated, and the territory that is served by you. The Governor is, of course, more or less familiar with your general activities. Do not hesitate, however, to go into detail in making reply as we want to be in possession of all the facts with relation to your program. Thanking you, I am.”190 One week prior to the day of the event, Bray received a third letter from Lawrence, dated August 6, 1929, and stating, “Much as we regret to do so, it is necessary to advise that Governor Green will not be able to personally attend the dedicatory services Sunday afternoon. We have arranged for him to be represented by Dr. Richard W. McLain, a medical physician and ordained minister, now chaplain of the Michigan State Prison at Jackson.”191 The typed letter of a page and a quarter continued with more regrets as to why the governor would not be able to attend the event. However, at the formal opening of the new “Idlewild Community Tabernacle,” which took place on Sunday, August 13, 1929, Michigan Republican governor Fred Green was indeed the guest speaker.192 The governor and his wife made the visit with two aides. For the night prior to the event, the governor stayed at Bray's cottage, BraHaven, in Idlewild Heights. It was in the residential section, which had a number of fine cottages and a peaceful and relaxing atmosphere. On the next day, the day of the ceremony, the first item on the agenda occurred within walking distance of the Island, where there was an elaborate luncheon prepared at the clubhouse. After lunch, Governor Green's speech was delivered on Founders' Day, during a special dedication ceremony at the church. It was noted that “Hundreds of visitors from far and near,” as well as many respected businessmen and businesswomen, “poured in the magnificent structure” that afternoon for the occasion. Because of the number of guests, “the space was insufficient to accommodate the people. Cars were parked many blocks away, beginning at second block, and people, unable to enter, surrounded the church and its grounds.”193 Bray led the procession. Following prayer, the church pastor and master of ceremonies “introduced Evelyn Casey, who in a most eloquent way, presented Christine Smith, current president of ILOA who welcomed the governor and his party on behalf of the women of the state. “The Creator,” said Smith, “made Idlewild and rested awhile and said it is good. It [Idlewild] is a playground of nature.”194 Smith's welcoming remarks were followed by greetings from the Reverend Joseph Evans of Detroit. Then the Reverend Robert Louis Bradby, nineteenth pastor of Second Baptist Church of Detroit and president of the Detroit branch of the NAACP,195 “in his own way welcomed Governor Green,” stating, “Prejudice grows out of misunderstanding…. Negroes only become a menace Page 62 → as disregarded by officers. The ballot is ours and when we use it, we ought to use it forever.” Following a warm introduction from Bradby, the governor's speech was delivered “in a mild but forceful way.” C. Grace Bradley, the Pittsburgh Courier reporter who both attended and covered the event, wrote, After rendering an excuse for his wife not responding to welcome address, for which the reason was, “She talks at home and I away, he stated that he was very happy to be here and that he'd like to be known as not for great work but the reputation of being fair. In assuring the race of his fairness, he asserted, I am going to give every bit of my time for Michigan and its people, whether black or white. The applauses almost deafening one's ears sounded throughout the universe, seemingly. In Governor Green's concluding remarks he stressed the importance of our people having faith and congratulated Idlewild for being the only resort with a church. A mention of B. T. Washington, Dunbar and Du Bois

was made, proving that we have the ability if we only use it to an advantage. He concluded by saying when we rendered service to others we are rendering Page 63 → service to God. The many visitors from almost every state in the Union feel proud of such an address. Representatives were here from Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, New York, Arkansas, California and as far south as Atlanta, Ga.196

The body of the governor's speech emphasized four major points. The first was that “executive duties always come first.”197 The governor's second point focused on his striving for fairness as the chief executive of the state.198 His third point focused on the themes of racial pride and uplift: “Every worthy nation is proud of its history and its achievements; every individual, of the achievements of his family and of his people; so your group is proud of the achievements—and many of them are most remarkable—of your people.”199 Finally, the governor emphasized the importance of the church and how special Idlewild was in being the only resort in the state with its own church “We are brought together today to dedicate this beautiful community tabernacle. It has been provided as the result of your enterprise and endeavor in behalf of group uplift, and the betterment of those who are brought under the influence of this community. Every community needs the church. Every individual, whether he admits the fact or not, is influenced and benefited by the church.”200 The governor congratulated Idlewild for its accomplishments and for its vision to center its activities on the church. The reputations and partnership established between Bray and Bradby brought Governor Green to the church's dedication ceremony. Like Bray, Bradby, the dean of African American pastors in Detroit during the 1920s and ’30s, would not only serve as an influential figure in the development of Idlewild's cultural and social institutions but also helped to “assimilate” Detroit's “first mass migration of Negroes during World War I; it was he who was the guiding hand in helping these newcomers get adjusted to city life and to see that they were placed in jobs.”201 Recognized as the city's placement officer, Bradby also labored as a leader of Detroit's branch of the NAACP and other civic and community organizations that protested discrimination. It was Bradby to whom “the people looked for advice and counsel.”202 Along with these credentials, Bradby, as future president of the ILOA, contributed to Idlewild's civic, social, and religious life throughout the 1920s and ’30s, as discussed further in chapter 2. The contexts of the advisory remarks he made to the governor during his introduction carried some meaning and weight. Governor Green, who was familiar with and had frequent contact with Bradby, heard the coded message. The former president of the NAACP, member of various lodges and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, nineteenth pastor of Second Baptist Church of Detroit, and newly elected vice president of the ILOA, Bradby, an Idlewild cottage Page 64 → owner, politically active seasonal resident, husband, father, spiritual leader, and close colleague of Harry Franklin Bray, served as the director of at least two of Idlewild's annual Chautauqua celebrations. The first annual Chautauqua occurred within weeks after the annual Grand Rapids Day. The August 1926 event was intellectually engaging, as it had a domestic Pan-African and civil rights theme, colorful fashion and garden shows in the clubhouse, outdoor sporting activities, the dedication of the Idlewild Athletic Field in Idlewild Terrace, and an evening on the pavilion with dancing, music, and fun. On the occasion, which occurred on the Island and in Idlewild Terrace, the Lake County Star reported, Sunday evening was featured with an interesting lecture by J. Wilson of Liberia, followed by moving pictures of Idlewild. The fashion show was a revelation representing a theme beautifully presented and interpreted. The auditorium of the Clubhouse was transformed into a beautiful garden with bowers of natural branches and shaded walks. Under a huge garden umbrella of red and white satin, tea was served by a charming hostess, the guests displaying afternoon toilettes and morning gowns. The orchestra struck up “La Paloma” and handsome women appeared in Spanish costume with mantillas, matrons and maids in evening costumes, children in fairy garb danced about while a concealed singer voiced a beautiful tenor. The entire function was most artistically designed and produced.203 The children also held a mock wedding in the lobby of the clubhouse, in front of the portrait of Booker T. Washington overlooking the large brick fireplace, as parents looked on from the right of the doorway entrance. The children participating in the event were Sonny Bundle, Harrison Gaines, Jack Davidson, Clyde Timmons,

Elizabeth Ann Hawkins, and McAllister J. Merchant Jr. The annual weeklong summer event also included a series of evening activities for children and the adults, including a fashion show, a cabaret night, professional and amateur performers, and a grand dinner ball. The Lake County Star continued, Cabaret nights in the pavilion are proving a great drawing card. Notable artists appear in their specialties. Many of them are professional performers and some high class amateurs also appear. The full dress ball Saturday night at the club house brought out fully one hundred couples, the ladies so beautifully gowned that it was difficult to select the winner. However, the choice was liberally applauded. A number of prizes were awarded. The Hit Pin baseball teams, girls 9–12 years played their final game Thursday at Idlewild Terrace field the Stars winning over the Fleetfoot team. At the close of the game the manager E.G. Branch Page 65 → presented both teams with candy souvenirs. The Rev. R. L. Bradby, pastor of the Second Baptist Church, Detroit, was the featured speaker at the Chautauqua Tuesday. His was a stirring address, and afterward, he showed remarkable ability in pitching horse shoes, taking on the resort champion in several matches. Owing to the heavy downpour on Friday, the Bathing beauty contest and Regatta were postponed to this week along with the Chautauqua program.204 The 1926 program eventually ended successfully with “moving pictures of Idlewild” and a memorable address by Bradby. In preparation for the second annual Chautauqua, Bradby, in a letter dated June 8, 1927, wrote to the Honorable Governor Fred W. Green, requesting his attendance. I am writing you in the interest of a movement which was inaugurated last year and which has grown to quite a proportion. You are aware that our group has a very splendid Summer Resort at Idlewild, Michigan, close to Baldwin. Last year we held a Chautauqua which had a huge success. The brain and culture of the race were there. We are planning our program again this year, and the Chautauqua week will be the week beginning Sunday, August 1st. It is the unanimous opinion that you, the governor of Michigan, should be our speaker on Monday, August 2nd. I am therefore extending to you the invitation, praying that you will find it convenient to be present. An early reply will be appreciated.205 Two days later, the governor's office responded, “Dear Mr. Bradby: Your letter of June 8th, inviting me to attend the Chautauqua at Idlewild, Michigan, on August 2nd, received. I greatly appreciate the invitation and should like very much to be able to accept. The demands upon my time at present, however, are such that I am unable to make a commitment at this time. If the situation should change so that I can be with you I will let you know promptly. With kindest regards, I am.”206 In the end, for some unforeseen or unknown set of reasons, the governor was able to attend the event on August 2. Formally held from July 25 to August 6, 1927, this big event marked a significant historical moment in Idlewild's history. Idlewild's Second Big Annual Carnival and Chautauqua was kicked off at the Island clubhouse, which filled rapidly as the “famous Byron Brothers Orchestra” opened the season with a series of songs on the evening of July 23. Saturday evening's entertainment was followed by religious services on Sunday afternoon. The carnival and Chautauqua, which started after Sunday's services, opened with “The Star Spangled Banner,” played by the Baldwin High School Band, and “the new flag rose to the top of Page 66 → the high staff and gracefully fluttered to the breeze.”207 The closing of the successful season came after the carnival and Bradby's presentation of the annual Chautauqua. Charles Wilson of Chicago was director of the carnival athletics. Prior arrangements had been made for entries into any of the events, at the Chicago IRC office and at the guest cottage on the Idlewild Terrace grounds. This second annual celebration opened with a basket picnic on Monday, July 25, followed by an automobile parade on Tuesday, men's and women's swimming contests at Lake Idlewild on Wednesday, a boat regatta on Thursday, swimsuit beauty contests on Friday, and the athletic events, which were divided up into three groupings, on

Saturday. Group A of the athletic events consisted of a running broad jump, a standing broad jump, a hundredyard dash for men, and a fifty-yard dash for women. Group B included a three-legged race, a sack race, a potato race, a fat men's race (for two hundred pounds or over), and a fat women's race (for 175 pounds or over). Group C ended with horseshoe pitching, a cross-country run, a tug-of-war, and separate little boys' and little girls' races (for ages seven to twelve). Director Wilson ended the athletic field events with a special event featuring “catching the greased pig” and “catching the live hen.”. An added feature, according to the Lake County Star “was a display of horseback riding by the pupils of Sgt Albert Johnson,” involving “five entries in a race that proved very exciting.”208 Sergeant Johnson, who served in the Ninth Calvary of the U.S. Army, managed the lunchroom and led the riding school at the Terrace and the stand at the athletic field.209 This event ended the carnival, as explained earlier. The opening exercises of the second annual Chautauqua began on Sunday, July 31, at 3:00 p.m., with religious services. The intellectual discussions of the day followed, as Attorney William R. Green of Cleveland,210 president of the IIA, opened and presided over the commemorative occasion. Green read a short message from Wilbur Lemon, the only remaining member of the IRC. On the platform, Charles Chesnutt (vacationing for a month in Idlewild with his family),211 Hattie Buckles, Carey B. Lewis, and Walter M. Anderson shared opportunities for brief welcoming remarks. Bradby greeted everyone and then, in an impromptu speech, according to William Pickens, executive secretary of the NAACP, “asked for a show of hands as he called the roll of the states.” Pickens reported, “Many states, north, south, east and west, answered, the roll call—the greatest number of hands being shown for Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio. Others were from as far west as Kansas and Nebraska, as far south as Alabama, and Texas, as far East as New England and New York, and as far north as Toronto, Canada. People from the east often drive over to Buffalo, then take Lake Erie steamer to Detroit, and then drive on to Idlewild. But the resort can be reached Page 67 → by railroad, via Grand Rapids.”212 Bradby essentially “became the orator of the day.”213 “Idlewild's Second Big Annual Chautauqua” continued with an address by Pickens., commenting about making Idlewild “a truly national and international play, health and culture center for colored people and for their friends among other races, who may wish to accompany them,”214 Pickens discussed his impressions of Idlewild: “It is neither idle nor wild. It is one of the livest and busiest resorts of recreation and pleasures in the United States. And the people, who come there, so far from being wild, are of the best classes of people from all over the country. But Idlewild is a place to idle away from the hard and monotonous work of everyday life, and a place to see a bit of wild nature and to experience the wily joy of living.”215 As for the film that was then being made about it, Pickens stated, “These films will be available for motion picture theaters that cater to colored folk throughout the world, and the patrons of movie houses should ask the management of their theaters to show them Idlewild. This great picture should be the very best of racial propaganda in addition to being a thing of beauty and pleasures.”216 Speaking to over a thousand guests, Pickens concluded, “As someone remarked, Idlewild could invite and welcome the President of the United States without fear of embarrassment. Coolidge would find in the beautiful streams that thread the resort as good trout as he could find anywhere—and perhaps much fewer suckers.”217 Following Pickens, there were other prominent speakers, including Bradby, as well as lots of good music by the orchestra, a special annual dedication ceremony, and community signing. The governor watched on as Mrs. William R. Green of both Cleveland and Idlewild led in the community's singing of the national anthem and some Idlewild songs. The group sang and moved over to a spot a few feet from the clubhouse where a large, beautiful “white rock weighting 600 pounds” was mounted on a cement block bearing the inscription “Founders Rock.” An “impressive paper” was read by Maud Thomas of Detroit as the cloth covering of the rock was unveiled. The dedication of the rock, which had been donated by the ILOA, marked a “Fraternal Day,” a day chosen to celebrate Idlewild's twelfth birthday and to commemorate its founders, a decision made the previous summer to celebrate “each Fourth Idlewild Founder's Day,” as well as the dedication of the Idlewild Athletic Field in Idlewild Terrace.218 Representatives of the Chicago Daily News took moving pictures: “A stop was made at the Terrace for pictures, including the picturesque bridge overlooking the Pere Marquette trout stream that winds beautifully through the Terrace.”219 The big event proved successful: “There were 35 cars parked and the refreshment stand did thriving business. Many of the cottagers remained but a number have gone into return at a Page 68 → later date. Founders Day has been a factor in bringing people in earlier in the season.”220 E. G. Branch should be credited for his low-key but very powerful role in planning and marketing

Idlewild. In a letter dated August 28, 1929, two weeks after a letter he had written to the governor, Branch received a letter from the governor's office stating, Dear Mr. Branch. Glad to have your letter of August 14th and note what you say in regard to my visit to Idlewild. I enjoyed this meeting and was pleased that everyone seemed to be in good spirits. I am interested, of course, in aviation and hope that some time in the future I may meet the representatives of the Chambers of Commerce and talk over matters pertaining to airports in your county.221 Although Branch was successful in fostering a productive dialogue with the governor's office on behalf of Idlewild, the credit belonged to Bradby, for his leadership and effective organizational skills and initial invitation to Governor Green. This historical moment was ripe with opportunity for middle- and upper-class African American migrants to leave their imprint on the Idlewild community. The visionary thinkers who helped to shape and carve out a solid future for Idlewild and its identity were also participating in one of the greatest moments of the early twentieth century where collaboratively white thinkers and their visions for community builders and businessmen and businesswomen were actualized. The character of the intellectual and cultural center that developed in the 1920s and ’30s was far from the conceptualization of the entertainment mecca it would become during the 1950s and ’60s. In chapter 2, we will look ahead to the period covering the Great Depression and World War II to assess the persistence of the leisure and recreation activities as well as the continuation and sustainability of many of the projects that got started during the 1920s. This includes the establishment of other separate black institutions important to the history of Idlewild.

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2 Racial Uplift and Economic Progress during the Depression and World War II Despite the illnesses and deaths of several Idlewild pioneers,1 the Great Depression did not prevent Idlewild from prospering. The Idlewild Lot Owners Association (ILOA), the largest and oldest organization in the town's history, joined a small group of leaders from various subdivisions to continue initiating strategic plans and projects that put the progressive ideas of the Idlewild Resort Company (IRC) and the Idlewild Improvement Association (IIA) into action and implementation.2 Consequently, David Manson, treasurer (and soon to be president) of the IIA, declared in an announcement in the Cleveland Gazette on April 25, 1931, “Idlewild…has passed the experimental stage. Its directors want to give the residents and the summer visitors the best possible service. An unusual opportunity exists for an executive director who can serve as city manager of the resort. The right man will open a dozen employment opportunities for others.”3 While this search for a clubhouse executive manager was underway, a sizable number of Idlewilders with high levels of education, status, wealth, and disposable income continued to vacation and invest in the summer retreat on an annual basis. This collaborative partnership between the IRC, ILOA, and IIA, in addition to local, state, and federal support,4 made the difference in moving the resort forward. The federal government's creation of the Civilian Conservation Corp helped in the development and sustainability of the resort by providing employment opportunities related to laying a foundational infrastructure. New leaders with wealth and status soon made Idlewild home. Each arrived on the Page 70 → social, economic, and religious scenes and contributed to Idlewild's continued growth, development, and popularity. Idlewild was sustained during the Depression through support from local, state, and federal policies, although these initiatives should not underscore the contributions of the segregated mixed-income, culturally vibrant, urban “Black Belt” communities and neighborhoods of Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Columbus. The aspirations of black middle-class professionals of Chicago and Detroit as a consequence of a much larger landscape of racial struggle in the midwestern cities encouraged a period of growth and development despite “the chaotic turbulence of the early thirties” in the Midwest Metropolis. As such Drake and Cayton identified Chicago as a “city within a city,” and Adam Green later observed how it “functioned well, on its own terms, and of its own accord.”5 The crisis that gripped the nation brought unprecedented suffering to the residents of Chicago. Thousands of people unemployed by 1932 paraded through the Loop and gathered during an unemployed rally at Grant Park, to hear speakers discussing the seriousness of the crisis. Chicago was one of the American cities hit hardest by the Great Depression because of the city's dependence on manufacturing and because of a local fiscal crisis that predated the stock market crash. Four years after the crash, unemployment in the city was near 50 percent. Unemployed veterans earned wages selling apples for a nickel near the corner of Wells Street during the fall of 1930. In that year, the International Apple Shippers Association had an oversupply of fruit and decided to empty their warehouses by selling apples on credit to the unemployed. Vendors stationed with crates of apples on city street corners became commonplace in Chicago (and in Detroit) during the Depression. It was not uncommon to find scenes such as a lodging house on North Union Avenue, where homeless men were grateful for cots and floor space as temperatures in the Windy City dropped near zero. Thousands in Chicago had lost their jobs and housing, and several shelters, some privately funded, sprung up and provided some space for the unemployed to sleep. By 1932, men also worked at a relief station on South Market Street, distributing packets of seeds for people planning gardens in order to grow their own vegetables. The Great Depression left thousands penniless and forced them to find new ways to cover the most basic necessities, such as food. Depression-era relief came in many forms, as residents lined up in front of butcher shops for free meat, bread, and potatoes. Teachers worked at reduced wages or went without pay, in part because people were unable to pay their taxes. In addition to the development of public works projects, parents of school-aged children sponsored bake sales to raise funds.

Class divisions within black Chicago were more apparent, yet this did not Page 71 → prevent Southern Blacks from mixed-income backgrounds from relocating to both Chicago and Detroit. Confronting “the specter of social equality” along the color line, according to Drake and Cayton, “New Deal measures” were to be implemented to encourage some measure of social equality. Relief and work projects stabilized Black Metropolis. Gradually the Republican grip upon the Negro vote was broken as people began to vote for bread and butter instead of for the memory of Abraham Lincoln. Organizations of the unemployed, under Socialist and Communist leadership, drew large masses of Negroes into various forms of disciplined petition and protest against relief cuts, for social security; against discrimination, for housing projects. After 1935, those Negroes who remained in the mass production industries were caught up in the sweeping organizational campaigns of the CIO. The Negro peasants had become proletarians. The Chicago Tribune reported that historians credit the mass demonstrations of the period with bringing relief, jobs, a shift toward Democratic politics, and an increase in the power of organized labor.6 The political situation facing the greater African American community in Detroit had a similar effect. The crisis resulting from the Depression did not severely impact the relationship between blacks and organized labor, but it did cripple the economy. Detroit had produced more than 6,337,000 vehicles in 1929. The city had a decade of prosperity. The building of the Penobscot Building and the General Motors and Fisher buildings, the opening of the Detroit Zoo, and the opening of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel for families driving automobiles under the Detroit River and above the Ambassador Bridge marked progress, along with the election of Frank Murphy as mayor. Then came the stock market crash, and by 1930, auto productions were down to 3,363,000. Prohibition had been in effect for ten years. However, the nightclub life had thrived, and the gangs controlled the liquor trade. Unemployment was becoming a major problem. There were 19,412 jobless Detroit citizens registered as unemployed through a list of Detroit registration places, and within a four-day period, this list reached 75,704 names. Mayor Murphy appointed a Commission on Unemployment, which came up with the idea of the jobless becoming apple vendors, an idea that came from a similar plan in New York City and Chicago. Veterans and men with dependents were eligible. Apples were brought from Washington State growers directly to the produce terminal and sold for five cents each. Vendors had to pay for the first box, which was under two dollars. Vendors were licensed, had to be Detroiters with at least one year of residence, and were assigned to specific Page 72 → locations. By 1931, the overall employment situation had worsened. Unemployment relief demonstrations occurred as auto production went down, and the Ford Hunger March was organized. Three thousand marched from Detroit to Dearborn asking for union recognition, full employment (as Ford had had massive layoffs), and a six-hour workday with no reduction in wages. Tax delinquencies created a fiscal crisis. City employees' salaries were reduced, and welfare was sharply reduced. Nationally, fifteen million Americans were unemployed.7 Along with this national crisis, some conservatives in Chicago (and perhaps Detroit) ignored blatant incidents of racial inequality and residential segregation, out of concerns for themselves, while others achieved a measure of success by embracing “a sense of linked fate.” Michael Dawson's political theory suggests that a sense of linked fate arises from a shared history and common set of lived experiences among African Americans, “as well as from their recognition of significant political, social, and especially economic differences between African Americans and other groups, specifically white Americans.”8 Dawson is convinced that “one should expect high levels of political unity among African Americans regardless of economic status.”9 His framing of black political thought and behavior rests on two basic assumptions. The first is that race “remains the primary factor affecting the life chances of African Americans,”10 and the second is that class represents a “major determining factor.” In addition to these assumptions, Dawson explores how “race or class becomes the primary politically salient identity for African Americans.”11 For the purposes of this chapter, Dawson's model provides a guide to understanding some of the core indicators of how black nationalism, black autonomy, and the political and economic situation of African Americans of the “Black Belts” of Chicago and Detroit prospered during the Great Depression. Through a sense of linked fate, the economic status and influence of the black intelligentsia created the economic markets that helped the black middle-class of the Midwest to emerge, to act as agents on behalf of members of workingclass black communities, and specifically to use the wealth they accumulated, as business leaders and

entrepreneurs, to uplift the race. This then allowed some of these leaders to move Idlewild from the experimental stage to the success stage.

Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corp in Michigan: Contributions of Company 1691, Camp Baldwin During the Depression, 25 percent of the nation's able-bodied men and women found themselves unemployed, and for those who could find work, wages were Page 73 → around eighteen dollars a week for men and nine dollars for women. Severe droughts, wildfires, and floods also damaged the nation's natural resources. Dust storms swept across the Great Plains, bringing agriculture to a halt. Wildfires repeatedly burned, fouling watersheds and destroying timber and wildlife habitat. Flooding followed these wildfires where no trees and vegetation remained to slow the runoff. As the financial situation and psychological damage worsened, employers gave reasons not to hire young men due to their age and limited experience. These dependability concerns had reached national proportions, as young men, black and white, were everywhere with nothing to do but roam the streets. Among young African American men, the situation grew even more complicated. Realizing the dangers surrounding this situation, national and state policy makers understood that something needed to be done. On his first week in office, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had outlined a plan to employ the nation's unemployed while simultaneously accomplishing much-needed conservation projects. On March 31, 1933, he called the Seventy-Third Congress into emergency session and issued the Emergency Conservation Works Act. Congress approved Roosevelt's act, and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was born. It would enroll thousands of unmarried eighteen- to twenty-five-year-old men, along with some World War I veterans, in a peacetime army setting. The CCC was established to “provide employment for young men who, because of the depression, were unable to find work.” About four million Americans served in Roosevelt's most successful New Deal program. Michigan, which “was a part of the 6th Corps of the CCC, with headquarters in Chicago,”12 was one of many states to participate in the program and provided many of its workers and received many of its benefits. The goal of the program was to have the camp enrollees engage in a battle against the mounting destruction of our natural resources. Michigan's Manistee National Forest was used to secure campgrounds and many of the employment opportunities for the economically disadvantaged youth. Most camp enrollees came from Detroit, Pontiac, and Port Huron, with a few from Battle Creek and Illinois. The mission of the Michigan CCC troops was predominantly forestation and restoration of parklands. This included the planting of trees, the creation of roads and trails in park areas, and the establishment of new park and recreational facilities.”13 By 1935, the Department of Agriculture was operating work programs at 1,231 camps; of those, 517 were in national forests and other public lands throughout the forty-eight states. Participants made thirty dollars a month, with twenty-two to twentyfive dollars sent home to their families. The CCC was considered a resounding success. Patterned after the military, Page 74 → camp life was much regimented. The camps were run by military men, mostly reserve army officers. Young men lived in camps and did forestry work. A typical day in a camp began at 6:00 a.m., with reveille, followed by hall call, waking up, and policing the barracks and grounds, all before breakfast. The men worked weekdays beginning at 8:00 a.m., doing in-camp or off-site assignments that ranged from cooking and administrative duties at camp to road construction, habitat restoration, forest fire suppression, flood control, nursery operation, and reforestation off-site. Work projects were under the supervision of a project superintendent. His staff was composed of foremen who would go out with the crews to supervise work projects. The project superintendent was usually a civil engineer or a forester. Most camps had two civil engineers, two foresters, and several practical men with extended experience, to complete the technical services staff. The type of work the enrollees would do depended on the kind of camp to which they were assigned. Each camp was classified as federal, state, or state park or by a special project name, such as soil conservation, biological survey, or drainage.14 There were over twenty-seven thousand men in 59 separate camps in Michigan, with a total of 139 camps in the Sixth Corps area overall. Approximately 167 African American men came to the camps from Detroit metropolitan

and rural areas. All were inducted into the All-Colored CCC Camps in western Michigan. The men of Company 1691, Camp Baldwin, located on Nelson Road, just off of U.S. 10, in Yates Township, fought forest fires, improved and reclaimed millions of acres from soil erosion, and developed Michigan roads and trails covering an area of fifty-nine thousand acres, most of which was owned by the state. Camp Baldwin was known for planting trees, installing phone lines, fighting wildfires, and building roads and trails. The camp also constructed the Baldwin Airport and the Baldwin Fish Hatchery. Next to Camp Baldwin, Camp Bitely-F-22, Company 670-C, was another all-colored campsite. Colonel Ralph W. Hauenstein, chief, Intelligence Branch (G-2), Headquarters, ETOUSA, who was stationed in Camp Bitely, recalls his first set of impressions upon joining the CCC. I volunteered in May of 1935 for a two-and-a-half year active-duty assignment with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in Michigan. This, my initial active duty assignment, was a real eyeopener for me in the ways of the military and another culture. [At first] I wondered, why such an assignment? What I did not know at the time was that the Army was using the CCC as a training ground for its officers, particularly those destined to be military intelligence officers.15 Page 75 → Each camp had a commanding officer, who was usually a captain or a first lieutenant under the supervision of the U.S. Army. That commanding officer was responsible for providing all of the enrollees with food, shelter, clothing, medical attention, and both educational and recreational facilities. The staff of officer personnel consisted of one and sometimes two junior officers, a medical officer, and a camp education adviser. In an arrangement with the University of Michigan, a correspondence supervisor was stationed in most of the camps in Michigan.16 Hauenstein's officer training was fulfilling not only for supervisory purposes but also in terms of his cross-cultural and intercultural awareness and training as an intelligence officer. Discussing the limited intercultural relational experiences and the foundational leadership knowledge he obtained as the second-in-command officer, Hauenstein writes, My military on-the-job training had begun! One of my first tasks consisted of being given a transit and a tripod, with an order to go out into the Michigan wilderness and set up a camp within a specified deadline. I hardly knew which end of a transit to look through at that point—but I did meet the deadline. The deadline was the day that the camp would be receiving 160 of what were then called colored veterans. They were all residents of Michigan. It was the national policy, throughout the entire CCC period (1933–1942), to have all camps segregated, even though many attempts were made by the various states participating in the program to integrate them. Working with these veterans was a baptism by fire, as I was initially totally unprepared for the job. These veterans knew every trick in the book and then some. I was a 23-year-old yearling, who knew all too few tricks. That assignment taught me many lessons that have remained with me throughout my life, not all of which resulted from the actions of the black troops—I learned a great deal about the whole issue of segregation, as well.17 Growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood, Hauenstein initially lacked the necessary knowledge about racial segregation, intercultural awareness, and cultural competence skills needed to navigate the racial land mine surrounding Michigan and U.S. politics. He writes, “Boy, did I learn.” Hauenstein's first episode of racial awakenings occurred in “a town nearby”: “One of the things our camp recruits wanted to do was to go to town on Saturday and watch a movie. Sounds simple, but my black troops were not allowed in the local theater. Soon enough with a little negotiation, the CCC boys were allowed into Page 76 → the movie theater—though only in the balcony.”18 A second awakening involved his training of the “administrative function of a military command,” and a third concerned his awareness about African American culture, which developed in a way similar to that of Captain Taylor (Dennis Lipscomb) in his relations with colored troops who were also baseball players in Tynen, Louisiana, in Charles Fuller's A Soldier's Story.

Recalling one set of many experiences in “Idlewild, a famous resort where people of color from all over the Midwest came for their summer vacations and where famous black entertainers came to perform,” Hauenstein explains, “Occasionally, for special events, I would take a truckload or two of my men over to Idlewild to visit. My presence was necessary, as Army regulations required that our officers accompany the men on such excursions, and since all our officers were white, we would accompany the trucks. I will always remember that, although I might have been the only white man in the crowd—my men, the resort visitors, and the entertainers, as well as the locals—I was always well and respectfully treated.”19 These experiences exposed Hauenstein to African American culture, “as it later would be for many Americans during the war years to come when soldiers of color became an integral part of the U.S. Army.” He reminisces, “The time was well spent, both personally and professionally. I learned not only how to be a troop commander but also how to deal with another culture, and our camp was very productive in completing our assigned tasks. To this day I can drive proudly through areas of Michigan that were forested by my CCC troops.”20 Camp Baldwin men regularly attended Tabernacle worship services on Sundays and the Purple Palace, India Inn, and UNIA dinner dances on Friday and Saturday nights in Idlewild and Paradise Gardens. The men also participated in sporting events at the athletic field in such sports as swimming, boxing, track, and baseball. Camp Baldwin had a baseball team. The team was good and often played games against Baldwin and Scottsville teams. As members of the team, these CCC men escaped the full and devastating effects of the Great Depression that was crippling the rest of the North American economy.

The Jones Brothers: Chicago's Policy Bosses Vacationing in Idlewild In the years leading up and going beyond these political efforts and initiatives, Jim Crow segregation and the Depression would also help African American entrepreneurship to flourish, despite the fact that most African American workers were living in segregated neighborhoods of the “Black Belts” of Chicago and Page 77 → Detroit. Business leaders, clergymen, doctors, lawyers, newspaper editors, and mechanics benefited handsomely in their businesses. Some involved in the underworld economy of Chicago, the 1930 numbers racket, which was ruled by the Jones brothers, would purchase property and vacation in Idlewild. For many of the patrons of black policy bosses, a slip with winning numbers meant an opportunity to put food on the table. Ron Chepesiuk, who has written about the rise of numbers men and women in Harlem, Chicago, and other major cities, has observed that as far back as 1932, there were nearly as many jobless city residents as there were employed ones, with blacks representing the most disadvantaged group.21 However, in time, the Jones brothers's Harlem-Bronx wheel became the Black Belt's leading operation, thanks to the addition of craps, blackjack, other games, and a bevy of beauties who operated the premises. It was speculated that the Jones brothers utilized the death benefit of their father to involve themselves in the policy racket. As key spokesman for the interests of the Black Belt's dozen policy wheels, which allegedly paid $250 dollars per wheel for protection, the Chicago Defender heralded the financial progress of the Jones family, whose gaming interests brought them an estimated profit of two million dollars per year. One of America's richest black families, the Joneses had investments in a large variety store, a food store, several hotels, beauty parlors, and haberdasheries. The Joneses relaxed on French provincial furnishings and in bathrooms with gold fixtures, all of which were kept up by their many servants, and they often traveled to their Parisian and Mexican villas in Mexico City. They saw that their wives, who were former showgirls, and their widowed mother lived in the lap of luxury. Ed Jones dressed to the nines and drove a pricey Lincoln, but surprisingly, neither he nor his brothers “gave back” to the black community, regardless of how the black press, namely the Chicago Defender, seemed to uphold them. As Chepesiuk notes, The black press, mesmerized by the Joneses wealth and power, seemed defensive about the charge they were tightwads. The Joneses did provide “charity” through employment and the low-rent housing they gave their workers, the press pointed out, noting as well that the Joneses were great purveyors of advice to friends and associates in all walks of life. “On many occasions,” the Chicago Defender explained, “parents of graduates would seek the aid of the Jones brothers when their youngsters wanted to enter the teaching profession. While unable to make such placements, the Jones boys generally spoke a few words on behalf of the candidates. More often than not their aid was of value.” But one should note that talk is cheap and not exactly the same thing as giving cold cash to

the needy.22

Page 78 → That was the life of the Joneses in Chicago, where, according to Nathan Thompson, author of Kings: The True Story of Chicago's Policy Kings and Numbers Racketeers; An Informal History, “the Policy Kings had amassed enormous wealth by any standards. The Jones brothers alone kept millions of dollars, reputedly in as many as twenty-five different banks, and acquired considerable real estate holdings including several multi-unit apartment buildings and commercial storefronts throughout Bronzeville.” But when the brothers, their wives, and their bodyguards traveled to Idlewild and elsewhere by rail, they were going to have fun, to vacation in the sun, and to party in the big cities. Thompson explains just how good the numbers racket had been to the policy syndicate as they celebrated. Policy had been good to Ed Jones and his cronies, and when they weren't paying some cop, judge, politician, or otherwise working, they enjoyed the fruits of their labor in the grandest of ways. Their circle of friends did everything together from making the rounds to hot spots like the Ritz Club and the Grand Terrace Café, to vacationing in Idlewild and Havana. Often, Big Jim Martin, Mack and some of the other guys would buy out two or three club cars on the Illinois Central and take scores of people on rail parties bound for Pittsburgh, California, or the Zombie Club in Detroit. Harlem was always a favorite stop for clubs like the Ubangi, 101 Club, Jack Dempsey's spots along Seventh Avenue, and on some occasions the Cotton Club. In the case of the Cotton Club, where Blacks were not allowed as patrons, Ed Jones, Jim Martin and John Wooley, however, were among the few exceptions.23 The three Jones brothers, Ed, McKissack, and George, often motored to Idlewild, where they found solace from the hustle and bustle of big-city life. The brothers had their own cottages, purchasing separate properties surrounding different sections of Idlewild Lake but within visual, boating, and driving distance from the others. On each of the properties, they had cottages built or renovated as estates, including their cottages that sat off the lake and a two-story cottage structure used for their bodyguards. The properties were surrounded by twelve-foot privacy fences. The cottage purchased by George Jones was originally owned by Christine S. Smith of Detroit, who, after furnishing the labor, supplies, and materials for the improvement of the summer dwelling, sold it on October 25, 1939.24 The property that had been owned by Lucy Lindsey Jackson of Chicago, who was deceased and had appointed Daniel McKee Jackson, her husband, the executor, had been sold to McKissack and Jean Jones on August 1, 1936.25 The eldest brother, Ed Jones, a former club car porter for Twentieth Century Limited, purchased his Idlewild property a year later, when this son of Page 79 → a Baptist minister from the South who came to Chicago and died shortly afterward, leaving a widow and three sons, secured a cottage for his mother as well. Besides the purchase of property, “the Jones brothers funneled their cash into legitimate businesses and real estate in Chicago, enough so that they became the biggest source of ready cash inside the Black Belt.”26 Although most African American policy operators in Chicago had the backing of the South Side's most important political boss, Congressman William Dawson, who had led his people out of the Republican Party into the Democratic fold, the Jones brothers were on even better terms with the congressman, inviting him to Idlewild, along with a number of former Chicago police officers and detectives who served as bodyguards and night watchmen of their estates at different locations around Lake Idlewild.27 The Joneses' relationship with Congressman Dawson, however, was not enough to prevent the federal government from raining on their parade. The Internal Revenue Service, which had already calculated that the family had spent over one million dollars more than the amount of money on which they paid taxes, immediately placed liens on the family's assets—stocks; real estate; holdings in nearly two dozen banks; and government, municipal, and industrial bonds—for approximately the amount owed. Ezra Leake, a gambler and former employee whom Ed Jones had fired, testified against the family as a state witness in the trial for tax evasion. Jones requested that the charges against his brothers be dismissed in exchange for his sole punishment. He paid more than eight hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, interest, and penalties; paid close to half a million dollars in fines; and was sentenced to

twenty-eight months in the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. As the story goes, while incarcerated, Ed Jones befriended a couple of white gangsters, Billy Skidmore (who formerly worked for Mayor Cermak) and Sam “Mooney” Giancana. Both were captivated by the prideful black man's account of his riches, his gambling empire, his estates, and so on. Thomas Reppetto, author of American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power, writes, “The standard story of the 1946 takeover assigns the brainstorm to Mooney ‘Sam’ Giancana, a minor figure at the time. Serving a stretch in a federal prison, he noticed an AfricanAmerican named Ed Jones was being treated like he was Emperor Jones. A few inquiries disclosed that the favored con was the policy king of Chicago's South Side. Giancana struck up a friendship with Jones who proceeded to tell him about how the nickels and dimes mounted up—Jones Maine-Idaho-Ohio wheel, Chicago's largest, was turning a profit of $1 million a year.”28 The two mobsters ingratiated Jones by doing him small favors. As Chepesiuk reports, “Remarkably, Jones eventually began blabbing about the nitty-gritty of the policy racket: how many people played, the dazzling profit margin, and the Page 80 → clever business techniques used in operating a policy wheel. The policy king even offered to set up Giancana and Skidmore in policy once they got out. Jones had violated the unwritten code of the Black Belt policy kings. Never share information with outsiders, especially white outsiders.”29 Excited about his plan for “getting in good with the Joneses,” Sam Giancana, after being released from prison on early parole in 1943, arranged a meeting with Ed Jones's brother George. The following evening, Giancana approached two key figures in Chicago's strong white mafia, called “the Outfit,” with a plan to take over the Black Belt policy racket: these figures were financial wizard Jake Guzik and his boss, Paul Ricca, who proudly served at one time as Al Capone's emissary on the East Coast. Joe Adonis, Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky, and Longy Zwillman rounded out the rulers of the Outfit. Collectively known as the “Big Six,” these mobsters desired to expand their gambling interests throughout the Windy City. Chepesiuk observes, “Fortunately for Giancana, he was in tight with Ricca, Guzik, and [fellow gangster Tony] Accardo, who liked the young hood, even though he was volatile and had a trigger temper. But Giancana was a loyal mafia soldier who would do as he was told and does it well. He was particularly valuable as a wheelman, known to have nerves of steel and for being adept at escaping the scene of a crime or avoiding a hit.”30 Upon his release from prison, Ed Jones did indeed assist Giancana in entering the policy racket. After visiting Jones's home, Giancana supposedly commented to an associate, “I had no idea there were niggers who lived like that.” Giancana and Jones went into business together, with Jones loaning him one hundred thousand dollars to place vending machines and jukeboxes in bars and clubs throughout the Chicago area. Rising in the criminal ranks, Giancana chose Fat Leonard Caifano as his right-hand man. Soon the two had twelve thousand vending machines (which issued stolen products: records, candy, soda, and cigarettes) and five hundred employees throughout Chicago. Chepesiuk indicates that Giancana's fixed books made it seem like he was repaying Jones's loan, even though no evidence supports this. Chicago's policy kings during the early 1940s were threatened by hidden bombs and kidnapping attempts and also faced increased community pressure, which took its toll on them. Chepesiuk reports, “The Chicago Urban League and the National League of Justice [had] petitioned the Chicago Crime Commission to help them stamp out Chicago's policy racket, which they claimed was corrupting the public's morals and taking millions of dollars from black families on the Southside, many of whom were on welfare.”31 Soon, grand juries were convened to investigate, and an exposé written by the Chicago Sun led the authorities to pressure the racket. Chicago police commissioner James Allan Page 81 → ordered the closing of all the Black Belt's policy wheels and stations. At the same time, Sam Giancana continued to target the black family's empire, sending flowers when McKissack Jones died in a freak car accident in 1944. In that same year, the other man whom Ed Jones had befriended in the Terre Haute prison, Billy Skidmore, died in his cell of a heart attack. According to Chepesiuk, “It was a good time for Mooney Giancana to make his move. Grand jury investigations had led to indictments of several leading Black Belt policy kings, and the racket was under increasing pressure from community leaders. Those indicted included Ed Jones, who was still in prison; his brothers, McKissack and George; Ily Kelley; and Big Jim Martin. On February 2, 1942, twenty-six of Chicago's major policy operators turned themselves in to authorities and posted a $5,000 bond.”32

By mid-1946, in order to intimidate Ed Jones and to warn him and other Black Belt policy kings, Sam Giancana orchestrated Jones's kidnapping by two white mobsters, who abducted the man from his parked car. The screams of Jones's wife alerted a passing police cruiser, and an unsuccessful chase ensued. Chepesiuk reports, “The days passed, and the kidnappers made no ransom demands, nor did it appear that they had tried to contact the Jones family. Speculation about the kidnapping was rampant, and the incident dominated the front pages of the newspapers. Inquiring Chicago minds wanted to know: Was Jones kidnapped because he failed to pay off some mobster? Was Jones' kidnapping done for revenge because of some promise Jones had made but failed to keep? Or was Jones kidnapped because he was trying to move into the record-vendor racket, a no-no, since the Outfit considered the racket its exclusive territory?”33 Almost two weeks after the planned abduction, Ed Jones was released unharmed after the family reportedly paid the kidnappers one hundred thousand dollars. (Interestingly, his brother George would never admit to paying a ransom, much to the chagrin of the IRS.) There was an immediate national manhunt for the ex-convict kidnappers: Grover Dullard, a suspect in the killing of a bookie; and Virgil Summers, who had committed a series of bank robberies. With a new lease on life, Ed Jones allowed Sam Giancana and the Outfit to permanently take over his entire policy operation, reportedly in exchange for an annual payoff of two hundred thousand dollars. Virgil Peterson, the operating director of the Chicago Crime Commission, wanted to call a grand jury to look into the case, since Jones refused to cooperate. The Jones family wasted no time in fleeing to their Mexico estate, where Ed Jones spent the remainder of his life. Chepesiuk asserts that he became persona non grata: “By dealing with the white mob, Jones had brought a veritable plague on the Black Belt. Many policy kings now feared for their futures; others wondered if they had any future at all.”34 Page 82 →

Garveyism during the Depression Garveyism was quite visible in Idlewild as a black nationalist organization that was “rooted in an insistence on some form of cultural, social, economic, and political autonomy for African Americans.”35 The division was active before the Reverend Albert Glenn Taylor's term ended in the first week of February 1930. The contributions Taylor made were to affect future growth and developments of the division. Garveyism, as HarrisLacewell points out, “identified the international and historical bases of black subjugation and declared the right and necessity of black separation from oppressive polities by developing separate political representation, cultural icons, and economic institutions.”36 Taylor not only helped to increase the division's visibility locally, nationally, and internationally, but he also outlined a strategic plan and vision for increasing the membership of the division, one that would carry the division for the next six years. Taylor's leadership was also instrumental in ensuring that the Garveyites continued to control the governance of the town. In the meeting following the February 9 meeting, two additional decisions were made that would ensure future challenges and successes for the division over the course of the next six years. The first, which took immediate effect, concerned the election of the Reverend George R. Rainey. The former vice president of the division was elected the new president. The second decision, which was deferred until the next regular business meeting, developed in response to a communication from the secretary-general, Lady Henrietta Vinton Davis. Lady Davis's statement, which appeared on the front page of the Negro World, requested that the new charter number for Division 895 be 126.37 Although the numbers of UNIAACL members in most divisions had been dwindling in size nationally and, to some extent, internationally, the presidency of Rainey as head of Division 126 helped to increase the division's membership and, without question, achieved some success in getting the new charter approved. Rainey, who was an active member of the Reverend H. Franklin Bray's Idlewild Community Tabernacle, was responsible for delivering the Sunday sermon in Bray's absence on many occasions. An alliance was established, as Bray often supported and, when time permitted, even spoke at UNIA meetings.38 The alliance between Rainey and Bray significantly contributed to Rainey's success as president of the Idlewild division. As the principal speaker of the regular business meeting on April 21, 1930, Bray said “that he thanked God that he was Black,” even though “there are lots of us who get top-heavy.”39 Rainey and Bray were “race men.” However, in struggling to keep the division alive, Rainey was astute in continuing the tradition of fostering a network of interstate relations Page 83 → and community networks among Michigan divisions. Rainey recruited

the Reverend Oliver W. Motley of Muskegon and invited him, his wife, Mary, and their daughter, Pauline, to the division's meetings. During the Motley's second meeting, Oliver gave “a [short] talk on unity.”40 The Motleys third meeting brought good news to the division as Oliver “spoke of the new club in Muskegon,” which would “soon send for a charter.”41 The fourth meeting included a presentation by Miss Pauline Motley of the Muskegon club, after which Oliver spoke on Garvey Day, stating, “God bless this day because this is a Black man's day.”42 Motley, who came to Michigan in 1929 from Louisiana, according to the 1930 census records for Muskegon Heights, went on “to introduce a plan whereby we can market the products of Negro farmers of the South so that they can get something for their labor.”43 In consideration of the economic problems faced by Southern farmers during the Great Depression, the Idlewild division was progressive in assuming the responsibility of establishing and strengthening its contacts with Southern black sharecroppers and tenant farmers to reduce their list of problems. This may have been the division's response to, as Rolinson noted, “landowners [who] kicked sharecroppers and tenant farmers off their farms in response to New Deal programs under the Agricultural Adjustment Act.”44 Whatever the reasons were, the division labored to build an alliance with Southern black farmers to help to restore prices that would be acceptable for their needs. This alliance was also part of a regional collaboration between the Idlewild and Muskegon divisions that made Motley important to Rainey's presidency, through this linking of the pragmatic needs, concerns, and agendas of African Americans in Northern and Southern communities. Although it is unclear how significantly this alliance would benefit the farmers, what is clear is the success of the division's system of networking inside and outside of the state. Elizabeth Thompson, an active member of the Idlewild division and the sister of Vina Galloway Smith, the lady president of the division, delivered a report about her visit to a meeting of the Gary division where she met and discussed UNIA-ACL business with Madame Maymie Leona Turpeau de Mena,45 who had joined Henrietta Vinton Davis at the top levels of the UNIA-ACL.46 Thompson's role as a representative of the Idlewild division and as a guest speaker of the Gary division suggests that a partnership was being fostered between the two divisions and that women played an important role in the organization during the “twilight years of the UNIA.”47 Raymond Mohl and Neil Betten additionally observed that although Garvey was losing organizational support in Gary's black community as a result of his conviction of mail fraud, “the UNIA in Gary, Indiana remained strong until well into the thirties and active into the forties.”48 Maintaining connections with UNIA-ACL divisions in other states, the Page 84 → Idlewild division continued to support Garvey's plans. Rainey's term had come to an end during the November 2 meeting. Edmond O. White, a Yates Township trustee, “spoke very forcefully on the message from the chief.”49 He, businesswoman Lela G. Wilson, and township trustees Moody Birt and Henry Brown joined the township's justice of the peace in making supportive statements about Garvey and Garveyism throughout the meeting.50 The preamble, objects, and aims of the division were also constantly being read, particularly as new officers were about to be installed.51 The business meeting of January 4, 1931, opened with Lee Porter as the elected president of the division. In addition to establishing important contacts with Dr. Emmanuel M. Clark (the newly appointed vice president of Ferris Institute in Big Rapids, Michigan), Porter invited George Roxburgh of Reed City to discuss concerns of his members about the issue of taxation.52 Under Porter's leadership, these Garveyites continued to maintain key political positions in the local governance of Yates Township. Although other Idlewild groups concerned with racial uplift, such as the ILOA and the NAACP, fought to regain control of the local government, the Garveyites dominated the township's politics up until 1936. By the end of Porter's presidency in 1931, the UNIA had witnessed a major split between Joseph Craigen of the Detroit chapter and Garvey, “after the two exchanged charges of corruption.”53 The division witnessed many other challenges, with few accomplishments along the way, from 1932 to 1945. Though the Negro World ceased publication in mid-1933, Idlewild Division 126 continued to get its reports published in the Lake County Star biweekly. The Lake County Star granted the publication of the weekly column “Heard in Idlewild,” which was the main print communication channel used to disseminate important information about the business of the Idlewild UNIA-ACL division. As seen in these accounts, this period was dominated by national news about the Great Depression and World War II, as well as the organization's continued split and efforts to encourage positive interstate and intrastate relations between the various Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and

Indiana divisions. Although some division members were sometimes distracted, giving attention to other emerging independent, progressive, and loyal brotherhood bodies, which were increasingly becoming interested in garnering support from within the African American communities of Detroit and Idlewild, the most significant challenge that the division faced evolved after the formation of the organization Our Own, which was incorporated in the state of Michigan in Detroit on March 4, 1933. Our Own evolved through the promotional efforts of a Japanese citizen entering the United States illegally under the name Naka Nakane.54 Sometime in 1933, Naka Nakane, aka Satohata Takahashi, was invited to one of the Page 85 → Idlewild division's business meetings to garner support for Japan.55 However, following Takahashi's visit, he was “arrested in Detroit and charged with illegal entry into the U.S.”56 This signified a warning signal to members of the division. The Takahashi deportation motivated two reactions among UNIA-ACL members in Idlewild. First, it signaled the division's loss of almost half of its members. Second, it inspired some of the remaining members to form another UNIA-style organization, which they called the Progressive Club. Unlike the former division, this organization was more interested in the Pacific movement, which involved people of color throughout the world, including several countries in Asia. As the Progressive Club worked to garner support in the community, it would eventually become a social club by 1936, a few years before Pearl Harbor would occur and World War II would begin. This meant that the original UNIA-ACL, though small in numbers, would continue to support Garvey's message. It appears that the limited support from these members did not matter, even though Garvey was about to leave Jamaica for London the following year.57 The division continued to invite UNIA-ACL members from other branches to speak. One of the first to speak in 1934 was Leonard Smith, former president of the Detroit branch, who delivered a timely evening address at Liberty Hall on July 8, 1934. Two years following Smith's visit, the Reverend L. W. Hooper of Chicago continued having rival services at Liberty Hall, where there was “splendid interest being manifested at each meeting.”58 Nearly two months later, the Reverend Willa F. Davis of Saginaw, who served as pastor of the Church of God and Saints in Christ, “preached at the UNIA.”59 The Reverend Eugene Crump of Gary, Indiana, followed Davis, as a guest speaker. Crump preached during the evenings and was accompanied on many occasions by “a musical feast.”60

Black and White Leadership and Collaborative Institution Building The year 1939 represented a major transitional period in religious history in Idlewild. In addition to a denominational change of the Idlewild Community Tabernacle to an African Methodist Episcopal church, a number of other Christian-based interdenominational religious philosophies and church bodies, structures, and congregations were founded. Mount Olive Church of God in Christ had been founded in 1929, First Baptist Church of Idlewild in 1933, and the Seventh-Day Adventist church in 1936. The Reverend John (Jay) Calvin Pellum and Mother Pellum of Mount Olive Church of God, who had been told “that they could not stay in Idlewild if they didn't join the different organizations,” Page 86 → organized and built their “sanctified church” and throughout the hardships of the Depression and inclement weather, and limited financial backing, held Sunday worship services for its members.”61 Together, these ministers did good works in improving the quality of family, community, and religious life in Idlewild. However, H. Franklin Bray, who had founded and maintained the Idlewild Community Tabernacle “through his tireless efforts, and the support of the people who live in Idlewild, the businessmen of Baldwin, and the lot owners and their vacationing friends,” was unique. Bray not only pastored the leading church in the community, “giving his time and services willingly, always with a smile and without salary,” but was an organizer “with lofty ideals and endowed with a fine intellect, power and ability to carry them out.” During his years of pioneering services in the resort, he envisioned a future for Idlewild as a permanent village. He was very active. He joined the ILOA and “worked indefatigably with that organization to make it possible for electricity and good roads to be procured. He was an esteemed member of the association's board of directors.” Bray's kindly Christian character and services meant a great deal for the betterment of the Idlewild community, more “than any other single influence.”62 One of his plans during the course of time he lived in the town was to establish an industrial training school for his race. Bray organized an alliance of businessmen behind the Idlewild Industrial School project, which consisted of nine professional and religious leaders from Idlewild, Baldwin, Reed City, Fremont, and Detroit. The board of directors included three highly respected Michigan ministers—H.

Franklin Bray of the Idlewild Community Tabernacle, Robert L. Bradby of Second Baptist Church of Detroit, and F. H. Clapp of Reed City Methodist Episcopal Church—as well as Baldwin attorney Ray Trucks (owner of the Lake and Osceola county abstract companies), and businessman E. G. Branch of Idlewild Terrace. Fritz Reber of Fremont served as president, Baldwin physician Dr. Carlton W. Winsor of Reed City served as vice president, real estate broker C. E. Charleston of Idlewild served as secretary, and Baldwin bank president Robert J. Smith served as treasurer. These men were organized to establish an industrial school in Idlewild for “Michigan Colored citizens only.” The Lake County Star reported, “One of the most ambitious plans for the emancipation of the Colored race since the Tuskegee Institute has been announced following the incorporation of the Idlewild Normal and Industrial Institute.”63 An investment of ten thousand dollars had been made by the board of directors for the establishment of the school, which would offer hospital and nursing, agriculture, technical, and home economics degree programs. The Lake County Star continued, “The first unit of the school will be a 44 × 70 stone stipple building 2 1/2 stories high with full basement, located on the Foundation's forty Page 87 → acre tract of woodland opposite Idlewild entrance pillars on state trunk line, off U.S. 10, four miles east of Baldwin. The upper floor will be used for dormitories until cottages are erected to house the students and staff, and a labor allotment of $5,000 for the construction has been assured by the PWA.”64 The ideals and philosophy Bray taught and the inspiration his intellect brought to the residents of Idlewild meant community economic development and sustainability. Ten years after the restoration of H. Franklin Bray's own health came the passing of his mother, Mary Frances Bray, who died at his home on Monday, February 5, 1934, at 11:00 p.m. Ending a long and happy life, Mother Bray was approaching her eighty-seventh birthday. With her children gathered around her, she had given them an inspiring final message that was the result of the full, rich Christian life she had lived. The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Riley Jenkins, Mary was born in Zanesville, Ohio, on September 7, 1847. She was converted and united with the church at an early age in the city of Toledo, Ohio, and had remained a devout, active, and consistent Christian until her death. Mary married the Reverend Nathan L. Bray in Mount Vernon, Ohio, on October 8, 1872, and spent the entire period of his active ministry with him on various charges throughout the state of Indiana. For the benefit of his health in later years, the couple moved to Colorado, where, in 1916, in the city of Denver, Nathan Bray was translated. Some years preceding that date and through all the years following, Mother Bray spent her life with her children. The obituary for Mother Bray was written by Reverend H. Franklin Bray, her son, and his wife, Virginia Bray, as a tribute to her life of service in the church. In every charge where she, with her husband served, there grew up on the part of the people generally a very tender love and appreciation for her beautiful life. Because of her unusually sweet maternal spirit, through all her late and matured years, she was affectionately addressed by all who knew her as MOTHER BRAY. Some seven years ago, Mother Bray accompanied her son, Rev. H. Franklin Bray, to Idlewild, where in great comfort and joy she spent the closing years of her life. On Thursday evening, January 25, Mother Bray retired earlier than was her custom and on Friday morning, addressing her children, she said: “I have had a long and happy life and would like to go home. Be good children, serve the Lord, stay together and meet me in Heaven.” Funeral services for Mother Bray were held at the Tabernacle and were well attended, as there were groups of cars driving from Chicago and Evanston, Page 88 → Illinois. Because of his great admiration for the deceased and her family, the Reverend R. L. Bradby, pastor of Second Baptist Church of Detroit, who was accompanied by his wife, delivered the funeral eulogy. Dissecting her life experiences and Solomon's actions in Proverbs 10:7, with “The Memory of the Just Is Blessed” as his textual analysis, Bradby preached an eloquent sermon. Among other things, he stated with admiration and conviction, “Another sweet and beautiful life has gone home, but she has left us a legacy. No one can look back on her memory without feeling that there is such a life as a God-filled life.” The church, home, and society lost heavily with the passing of Mother Bray; hence, as noted by Reverend Bradby, there is much compensation to such a life as hers. Bradby stated that Mother Bray's “many friends feel that she is the happier and we all made better in heart and richer in soul when we reflect on her blessed life. No one who knew her could help but know that she had found the secret to the happy life.65

Five years after the death of Mother Bray, H. Franklin Bray who had pastored the church for over sixteen years, resigned due to failing health and physical illnesses. He died after suffering from an overwhelming stoke. But before ending his final administration in 1939, he contacted and held a conference with members of the Idlewild Community Tabernacle to discuss the future of that church. Together, they concluded and agreed to turn the church over to the Michigan Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Thus, the final official act of his administration came on September 2, 1939, when he turned over all the property of the church. Lela and Herman Wilson were active members of the old Tabernacle and the new Tabernacle AME Church. Herman Wilson served on the board of trustees for the church. Also under Bray's leadership, Farina Davis worked as church secretary. The church's membership grew, the church underwent three major renovations, and the membership was able to pay off its mortgage. Before retiring from his ministerial duties, Bray left a lasting legacy. The Reverend Robert L. Bradby, vice president of the ILOA, delivered Bray's eulogy, where he discussed his legacy, stating that Bray was an inspiration; a counselor, mediator, and administering angel for all; and prejudice toward no one. Nevertheless, the publication of the Idlewild Community Herald ceased shortly after the passing of Bray, as the ILOA became the new agency responsible for publishing and distributing the religious magazine. ILOA members voted that they could no longer afford to produce and publish it. During its 1939 convention in Idlewild on August 10 and 11, the ILOA made a number of other important decisions about Idlewild's future and Bray's legacy. Lot owners who traveled from diverse regions of the United States to Idlewild met in the beautifully remodeled clubhouse, which had been leased by the organization Page 89 → for a period of five years. Meeting again on the Island and in the clubhouse brought a joy to many of the members and their visitors. The organization was finally meeting under its own management of the clubhouse. “A fine spirit of fellowship and good will” prevailed as the session opened with a greeting by Irene McCoy Gaines, a respected Chicago and Idlewild resident, who presided over the meeting as acting president of the organization. A series of committee reports outlined the progress being made on cultural, infrastructural, and socioeconomic projects for future summer seasons in Idlewild: Mrs. Gaines presided and…gave a detailed report to the convention of work which had been done since the last annual meeting to restore the clubhouse porch, install a new lighting system, build new steps leading down to the beach, and to make the interior of the clubhouse more attractive. She gave special mention to the officers, board of directors, and members of the committee of management who had so faithfully cooperated in the new venture, and to the membership which has responded so loyally to every call for service. The club's convention was a success. Yates Township supervisor William Simpkins, who also became a member, greeted the general membership. Simpkins was followed by Edward Elsner and John Simmons, who spoke on behalf of the Idlewild Chamber of Commerce, and by Henry D. Williams, a representative of the Pittsburgh Courier. The new officers elected to serve the organization were introduced: Chicago's own Irene M. Gaines, president; the Reverend Robert L. Bradby of Detroit, vice president; Columbus's Mary E. Cox, secretary; Ethel Caliman, assistant secretary; and Florence Powell, treasurer. Mattie Henderson, Laura Cannon, Christine Smith, and Mattie Gates were elected to serve on the board of directors. As Gaines concluded her welcoming remarks, she demonstrated the influence and intensity of the ILOA. Committee reports were then presented. The Committee on Light and Roads, of which Mrs. Mattie M. Gates served as chair, reported on the circulation of a petition to county officials for reconditioning the southeast side of Lake Drive and recommended that efforts be made to have the township board assume the responsibility of paying for the installation of seven lights maintained by the association. Acting as chair of the Committee on Goodwill in the absence of Dr. Jordan, Mrs. Christine S. Smith gave an inspirational report as the keynote of the convention, welcoming new members; thanking township officials for lending two hundred new collapsible chairs for forums, the fashion show, and the luncheon; and acknowledging the services of the Idlewild Chamber of Commerce for cooperating with the ILOA on an extensive publicity Page 90 → project. In addition to publicizing in the Idlewild Herald, the ILOA ran feature stories about the upcoming event for nine weeks, beginning on or about May 15, 1940, in the Pittsburgh Courier. The Committee on Sanitation's report followed. At the invitation of Dr. Albert H. Johnson and Dr. Eugene Browning, cochairmen, a health engineer from Lansing discussed a new law passed by

the Michigan Legislature relating to sanitation in summer resorts. After inspecting the Island's toilet facility used by patrons of the ILOA's clubhouse, he reported that it did not meet the requirements of the new law, and he “agreed to bring men from Lansing to give a day's work and free demonstration in building a model outdoor toilet to serve as a pattern for all cottagers.” Mrs. Virgil Williams, the landlord, pledged “to build another” restroom facility. The Fashion Show Committee, with Mrs. Bayme Newby acting as chair in the absence of Mrs. Lottie Roxborough, discussed plans for the Sixteenth Annual Fashion Revue, which was presented on the evening of August 18 to a packed house. The Luncheon Committee, chaired by Mrs. Eleanora Rollins, reported on the annual luncheon at the clubhouse, which was to be served by Mr. and Mrs. Reuben Moore at sixty cents per plate. The menu consisted of chicken salad, olives, pickles, potato chips, hot rolls, iced tea, ice cream, and cake. The luncheon was held on the afternoon of August 22, at which time seventy-three plates were served, whereas at the luncheon, the fellowship soared to new heights, as members, guests, and friends from many states were introduced and as expressions of goodwill, appreciation, and pleasure were heard. The club's financial records were audited, and the Auditing Committee paid tribute to the splendid way in which the secretary and treasurer, Allie Jones and Martha Winn, had kept good records. The Memorials Committee, chaired by Miss Julia Lacey, made a motion, passed by members, for a fifteen-minute service during the Sunday forum that would memorialize the members of the organization who had passed during the year, at which Dr. Bradby would deliver the eulogy. After the passing of this ritualized act, several ad hoc committees gave reports. The special committee appointed to investigate the tearing down of one of the pillars at the entrance gate to Idlewild gave a report that resulted in a vote to have the pillar restored, with the cost billed “to the trespasser responsible for its destruction.” A permit had been obtained from the county road commissioner for rebuilding the pillar, and plans were underway “for its immediate restoration.” On the recommendation of Bradby, action was taken to petition the Pere Marquette Railroad to have the trains stop in Idlewild for passenger pickups and dropoffs. The Entertainment Committee, which Mrs. Louis B. Anderson chaired, reported on plans for a seasonal Friday-evening dance each week under the leadership of Mrs. Esther Caliman, with the Carew Orchestra, Page 91 → which was secured through John Simmons of Paradise Gardens for a moderate charge. In addition, a Wednesday-evening card party would be held each week on the clubhouse porch, under the leadership of Mrs. Alpha Adams. Activities for the older children were organized by Mrs. Fleetwood McCoy, and a program for smaller children was arranged by Mrs. E. Rollins.66 As Hank and Pamela Little DeZutter point out in the Chicago Reader, “One year earlier socialite Irene McCoy Gaines had written at great length about the need to start youth camps for the underprivileged in Idlewild.” Gaines—whose summer house bordered the lake the youths sought to swim in—wrote about the deplorable state of American youth, whom she described as unemployed, hopeless, “boisterous and uncouth,” the victims of appalling schools, vulgar entertainment, and “loose living in the home…conducive to crime.” One of her proposals was to develop a camp where “they can find clean streams—where they can be inspired by the majesty of trees and the songs of birds…and listen to the quiet music of the stars.”67 Collaboratively working with and independent from the ILOA, the Branch brothers of Idlewild Terrace, White Cloud, and the Idlewild Reality Company (which they founded) continued their efforts in promoting and sustaining the small resort town. In a 1936 essay published in the Idlewild Community Herald and entitled “Beautiful Idlewild,” the Branch brothers outlined many of the fine features that made Michigan an ideal vacation state and that made Idlewild a popular resort site: “IDLEWILD is one of the most beautiful spots in the great state of Michigan, which is recognized as one of, if not the most entrancing resort states in our Great Union States. It is renowned for its beautiful lakes of pure spring water, among which beautiful LAKE IDLEWILD stands out like a diamond among the gems of the earth. It is renowned for its sparkling streams of crystal waters, two of which practically border BEAUTIFUL IDLEWILD.” Discussing “its profusion of wild flowers and berries,” “its myriads of GAME FISH,” “its lakes and streams,” the article went on to call Idlewild “a HUNTERS' PARADISE” renowned for its “game of all kinds which roam through the woods.”68 The article designated Idlewild a beautiful spot “intended by nature as a playground for her children,” where one could “come and rest” a “poor, tired body,” an “overworked brain,” and “shattered nerves within her bosom.” Proclaiming that Idlewild was “no longer an experiment, but a reality,” “not a local enterprise nor dominated by the people of any one locality, but…NATIONAL in every respect,” the article boasted that there were “more than 5,000 lot owners scattered

throughout the United States and Canada” and that “practically every state is represented.” It added, “The large and ever-growing list of lot owners is composed of the thinking, progressive, active class of people. Page 92 → People who do things—and what they have done and are planning on doing at IDLEWILD are what have made BEAUTIFUL IDLEWILD the wonder and admiration of all visitors and the jealous pride of all lot owners.” In the various cities, members of the ILOA, who were active and, without exception, progressive, were the leading spirits of their communities, and their objectives focused on the physical, mental, and moral advancement of the membership. The club reported about the accumulation of funds to increase private club memberships and to encourage and promote spirited movements in Idlewild through annual conventions, Chautauquas, and competitive athletic meets and, eventually, the establishment of charitable and other institutions. The article concluded with an alluring image of the resort. THE AIR AT IDLEWILD is perfumed with the fragrance of the trees and wild flowers and laden with the properties provided by nature in their purest form, that restore, build up and invigorate those who will be come and breathe. The pure, cool, SPARKLING DRINKING WATER at IDLEWILD is the talk of all the visitors. If your health is poor, if you are run down, if your physician prescribes a rest, COME TO IDLEWILD.69 The IRC was using this promotional literature to attract a new class of African American vacationers. Idlewild was still a hit, as the new company significantly contributed to the racial uplift projects of the Idlewilders of the 1930s and ’40s. The ILOA relied on the use of the Athletic Field as one amusement for vacationers, and the IRA continued to purchase, develop, and sell properties to newer visitors for their vacationing pleasures. Although some members of the ILOA tried to distance themselves and their children from socializing and playing with waves of other African Americans of a lesser social and economic class, the race factor, as Frazier observed, socially isolated them as a result of their being rejected by “the white world” and consumed by “a world of makebelieve centered” around “the myths of Negro business and Negro [elite] society.”70 Consequently, as Walker and Wilson state, “it was virtually impossible to deny the reality that all, regardless of skin color and economic status, were in the same boat with respect to being Negro in America, where one drop of Negro blood made one a Negro.”71 This shared history, according to Drake and Cayton, represented the social glue that bonded these class differentiations within the community together. Outlining the social indicators that defined this group of black middle-class elites—their behaviors, values, and attitudes—Karyn R. Lacy explains, “As education grew in importance, it began to supplant ancestry as the central determination of membership Page 93 → in the black middle class. Moreover, mono-racial black men who earned college degrees and become successful black professionals began to marry women from the mulatto elite, thereby anchoring their membership in the emergent black middle class.”72 Lacy's contemporary black middle-class tool kit, which uncovers the multiple social identities of different groups of blacks who “construct and assert” their identities on the basis of income, occupation, and education, is instructive in discussing traits characteristic even of members of the ILOA. The management of these identities as a consequence of the massive outward migration of middle-class blacks from depressing residential areas highly concentrated with working-class blacks, an argument Wilson Julius Wilson posits, is, according to Lacy, based on “exclusionary boundary-work.” This identity rests on middle-class blacks' “belief that it is possible to minimize the probability of encountering racial discrimination if they can successfully convey their middle class status to white strangers.”73 On the flip side of this framing, Lacy argues that “middle-class blacks also engage in inclusionary boundary-work in order to blur distinctions between themselves and white members of the middleclass by emphasizing areas of consensus and shared experience.” Although Lacy frames this identity as a common practice among “middle-class blacks who engage in house-hunting activities” in white suburbia, I suggest that the values, attitudes, and behaviors of middle-class blacks who resided in the urban and suburban areas of the 1930s and ’40s and were members of the ILOA indicate that they engaged in similar practices within a given “social context” as a consequence of their notion of “perceived discrimination.” Members of the ILOA, the leading community-based organization in Idlewild, made significant contributions to the town's development through the promotion of outdoor and indoor recreational activities that vacationers,

including adults, teens, and children, could participate in on the Island and in Paradise Gardens and Idlewild Terrace. At the same time, they identified themselves as black when in situations where they perceived some form of racism and discrimination. A sampling of the impact of these two broad identities among the middle-class Negro socialites who participated in the activities of the ILOA, particularly those who were responsible for managing employees or patrons in the workplace, unfolded annually during the Depression and World War II, as hundreds of vacationers who traveled by train to Idlewild witnessed. At the age of eighty-seven, Joseph E. Ford of Grand Rapids, who was fondly recognized as the mayor of Idlewild as well as an admired figure in the country, disassociated himself from blacks in the city but not as their conductor on the train. Ford, who had served thirtytwo years as a custodian in the Senate in Page 94 → Lansing, was known for bringing hundreds of Grand Rapids Club members to Idlewild annually. Dr. Lorenzo R. Nelson,, who was visiting his mother in Chicago with his wife, Blanche Juanita Crawford Nelson, and their daughter, America Nelson, was known for engaging in inclusionary work when attending to white patients and white business leaders in the area. Like Christine Smith, past president of the ILOA and a longtime summer resident, who was sailing to Africa for an indefinite time, the Nelsons perceived that race bias was operational.74 So did Lottie Roxborough and her son, Charles, of Detroit, who spent their weekend at the Elsner farm while visiting with friends in the area.75 At this point, Lottie had purchased a cottage in Idlewild; however, it was a year later before she purchased the Rosanna Tavern. The reason for the name, explains Charles Sonny Roxborough, was that “the lady we bought it from was Negro clubwoman Rose Warner, who called it Rose's Tea Room. It was a good name, so we added ‘Anna’ and kept the same first name because it was a good business.” Senator John Roxborough, his wife, Lottie, and their children had been vacationing in Idlewild since the early 1930s.76

The Colorful Joseph A. Downing: Idlewild's East Indian Prince and Psychic Although Idlewild was known for its progressive lot owners, it also was home to tricksters and imposters. Race politics, as manifested through individual acts of racism and institutional discrimination policies of the twentieth century during the post–World War I era, the Great Depression, World War II, and the modern civil rights movement, had presented opportunities for thousands of African Americans, like Joseph A. Downing, to use trickery as a tool to escape and/or navigate the race problem in twentieth-century America. African Americans discovered, as did the Reverend Wayman Routte, former pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church of New York, avenues to navigate the racial landscape and/or ways to assimilate into the dominant culture by passing as East Indians, illustrating how one could outwit the contradictory polices inherent in the system of Jim Crow segregation and the legal and social conventions used to classify and discriminate against them as second-class citizens. Recalling that when he first went to Mobile, Alabama, “as just a plain and decent colored man,” he “was insulted and Jim Crowed when he sought just ordinary services,” Routte concluded that “such conduct, on the part of whites, strange to say, only happens in a democracy.” Nearly four years later, after returning to Mobile, renting “a purple turban” and wrapping it “neatly around his head,” and refusing “to speak Page 95 → the English language,” Routte not only presented himself “as a Hindu” but also was successful in commanding the respect of white Mobile, where many whites “bowed in giving him the freedom and courtesy of the city.” Lucius C. Harper, in his weekly Chicago Defender column “Dustin' Off the News,” explained how the incident developed. He ate in all the swell restaurants, walked and lounged in the lobbies of the best hotels, questioned whites and Negroes about the color line wherever he found it convenient and strolled over the whole city like a foreign potentate. The turban worked like magic. Reverend Routte said I just told them I was an apostle of human relations seeing how other people lived.77 These and other cleverly orchestrated acts and colorful narratives, which were used as an act of resistance and to outmaneuver the system of racial bigotry, ignorance, and violence, were commonly practiced among African Americans in the North while traveling in the South during the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s. Reaping all of the benefits and the privileges associated with whiteness, Joveddah De Rajah's successful lifestyle as an East Indian prince, vaudeville entertainer, impostor, con artist, and popular Hindu reader and lecturer signifies what Eric Lott defined as a “signifier of the crossed line, of racial trespass.” De Rajah was born in Joliet, Illinois, in 1886 to the surname Joseph A. Downing, to Edward Downing of Virginia

and Alice A. Downing of England, Canada. He was one of three children. Although his older brother, Eugene, grew up in Peoria, Illinois, Joseph, “of coal-black visage,” was born in “some small town in Illinois,”78 near Peoria, and apparently raised as a youth and teen in Edwardsville, Illinois, in Madison County.79 The memory of Peoria, one of the “sundown towns” of the Midwest,80 left a long-lasting stain and imprint on the life and worldview of the Downing family. The daily horrors and incidents of terror that the family witnessed as resulting from the white racial intimidation, humiliation, and discrimination that black families like themselves encountered shaped young Joseph's philosophy on life and his career decision to get into show business by pretending to be a mind reader from Asia. Reading vicariously about Hinduism in America while witnessing widespread practices of racial segregation and classism, as well as learning about Gandhi's ability to inspire millions of people around the world, De Rajah, like other African Americans during the post–World War I era and the Great Depression, was able to negotiate a cultural space for himself as an entertainer, passing as an East Indian prince. Susan Nance, author of How the Arabian Nights Inspired the American Dream, 1790–1935,81 critiques the racial politics of the day and the African Page 96 → American community's response to them, illustrating how “the issue of race was an important one since critics would rate the potential for miscegenation in the radio swan's relationship. To African Americans Downing demonstrated that perhaps race was a matter of culture not biology and exposed the common but seldom-discussed phenomenon of fair African Americans who passed for and lived as whites or Asians without discovery.”82 The astute Prince Joveddah, identifying himself as “Roman divinity, French nobility and Hindu royalty all in one, ”83 toured the American Keith and Orpheum vaudeville circuits in Oregon, Rhode Island, Michigan, Montana, Massachusetts, Seattle, California, Pennsylvania, and Colorado between 1918 and 1937. Offstage, the prince only associated with men and women of affluence and upper-class social standing. But while working the circuit for twenty years as an oriental mind reader and spiritual healer and as a radio announcer and lecturer, De Rajah was amazingly spiritual, attractive, persuasive, and appealing to unhappy single and married wealthy white women, who it appears he courted and eventually conned. For many radio audiences his lectures attracted and appealed to, he was truly admired for answering thousands of perplexing questions. Using Buffalo, New York, as his headquarters, De Rajah marketed his profession through his book The Open Door: Laws of Life,84 his weekly radio program on WHN (1040 AM), and the fee-based courses and public lectures he booked. The mind reader's popular self-published work featured a “Conscience Mirror” checklist on the back cover, which was to be filled out and sent in to him for a “scientific reading and analysis.” Excerpts from letters once on file in his office are testimonials to De Rajah's ability to captivate audiences. In one letter, John A. Diel writes, “Your short but powerful addresses have stilled a long felt want in my life. I knew there was something wrong with me, but somehow could not get at the bottom of my troubles, until I read and listened to your wonderful and indeed inspiring messages; then by degrees there unfolded within me latent powers, which I never dreamt of possessing. It is therefore with deep gratitude that I wish to inform you how much these talks mean to me—they are priceless.” Another fan, Jessie Cornell, adds, “It is a joy to express my appreciation for admittance into your Wednesday evening class. While perhaps appearing somewhat undemonstrative at time of closing, be assured of my sincerity when I say how deeply your every word touched me. How hopeful I am for results because I do so want to attain financial independence. I am one who is truly a negative, and how pitiful. Everything to do with but no DO. I left your studio very happy and feel that all who were in attendance did also.” As he was a promoter of New Age thought, “What ails you today should not ail you” was De Rajah's philosophy on matters Page 97 → of love, happiness, success, and peace on this earth, both on and offstage, and was evident in his persona. The Chicago Defender jokingly commented about receiving a letter of January 10, 1925, by stating, “We had a fine letter from a lady who writes a fine hand. She sent it all the way from 1745 Lydia Ave., Kansas City, MO., at which address she declares that she and India Allen are getting their march. Louise must have thought that we are a Prince Mysteria or a Joveddah de Rajah and could smell out her last name; but nay, nay, Louise, it can't be done.” De Rajah's credibility and message of hope, inner peace, spirituality, and happiness rested almost entirely on his confidence and “nerves” to act as an East Indian prince, ultimately proving him to be a successful con man, imposter, and African American trickster. De Rajah, now widely known as a credible philosopher and psychologist, was admired fondly in Buffalo and had

a fairly large radio audience. An entrepreneur, he also operated his “thriving correspondence-course business until his operation was finally shut down by the police.” Buffalo is also the city where Page 98 → the prince first met Frances Springer, while living in the Fairfax Apartments with her. Like other con artists, vaudeville entertainers, entrepreneurs, businessmen and businesswomen, and pimps and playboys of the postwar period, De Rajah was widely known for his smooth talking voice and persuasive tone and demeanor, his dialect spoken in an Indian accent, and his gentlemanly mannerisms. Armed with these skills and the facial features of an East Indian mystic and spiritual healer, De Rajah was heard “from [other] radio stations in New York and environs, such as WHN, WPCH and WMCA,” where “in one year he received over eighty thousand letters from wistful and eager admirers.”85 For his courses, “he charged fifty dollars for six lessons by correspondence or four lectures delivered in person.”86 The smooth-talking De Rajah was so persuasive with the language used in advertisements to market his shows that he was widely known for convincing consumers to believe his statement “If there is anything you want to know—problems of business, love and life—ask Joveddah.” Business continued to pick up to such a degree that, to assist him with the daily operation of the thriving correspondence course and business he had established, “he engaged a private secretary, a mere youth in college, to conduct the correspondence course and answer the yearning letters. Taking his apprentice to Brentano's bookstore, Joveddah bought him (the student) eighty dollars worth of cheap books on love, marriage and fortune telling, and bade him to go to work. The boy worked with a will, knowing full well that he held in his hands the fate of many a tender maiden. Soon the master was prosperous, and the apprentice content with his share of the loot.”87 De Rajah had been favorably known to the New York police, who made “a habit of calling on” him for help when they were “searching out criminals or missing persons.”88 But he eventually had to leave New York, as “the police and the prince did not see eye to eye in what constituted public welfare.”89 Among his many secrets to success as an imposter, De Rajah once revealed that “you've got to arm yourself with the proper credentials in case a showdown comes,” meaning you had to have evidence, such as a birth certificate from India or some other form of documentation, in order to play a role convincingly. Among his most amusing experiences while pretending to be from India were his trips in the South, especially in Florida, where he resided in the fashionable hotels and bathed in the surf with white Northerners. De Rajah explained how he always kept his turban on90 and held steadfast on claiming the core ethnic practices and principles of East Indian culture. Another incident occurred in a traffic court case that resulted from his being stopped for a bad taillight while driving through Central Park in New York City. The white mainstream press had reported how De Rajah “razzed” the magistrate when asked to identify himself. Page 99 → Claiming to be “the first genuine prince of royal blood,” the prince, dressed in a colorful silk robe, “brought a thrill of interest” as he rapidly responded when asked to remove his turban, stating that “he couldn't since it was never done in India and to do so would bring upon him the wrath of his father's for countless ages back.” As court observers and reporters anticipated a showdown between the prince and the magistrate, Frederick B. House,91 “an exception” was “made” in the case, but not without a follow-up question from the court about the identity of “those with him.” “The princess is my wife,” he said, “but she is only one of three I have with me during my travels.” “Is that possible?” gasped the magistrate. It was explained then that the prince had violated the law and wanted to make amends. “I am sorry, your honor,” said the self-style prince. “That being the case, ” said the magistrate, “and since you are the first real prince we've ever had here, your fine will be $2.” The prince gave his address as Simla, India.92 Magistrate House, who handled all traffic violations in the borough of Manhattan and placed much confidence in the records of the traffic patrolmen, imposed a fine on De Rajah for the nonfunctional auto taillight, as opposed to a charge of polygamy. House was highly credible on traffic matters in the city.93 De Rajah, a gigolo, was first married to a black woman whose birth name remains unknown and who died from unknown reasons in an unknown location. He eventually married two additional times to two different white women who were widely traveled and from affluent backgrounds. Each of these marriages ended in divorce, through suits brought either by him or by them, and each were “apparently induced in part, by financial

consideration.”94 De Rajah added his second and third wives to his performances onstage. When he played in Boston in the early 1920s, for example, where he appeared with the Happy-Go-Lucky Company at Waldron's Casino, along with Princess Alga, his second wife, Nina De Rajah starred as an East Indian princess who possessed great “psychic powers.” The performance, billed and marketed as Joveddah De Rajah, the “Burmah prince,” along with his princess, Princess Alga, dazzled live Boston audiences, as the interracial couple was finishing their American tour successfully. Several Boston newspapers reported on how the prince's mystic abilities developed: “When he reached the age of 18 the prince decided to enter the priesthood in the temple of the god Siva, where he served his novitiate. He attained the ranking of yogi, or high priest, and thousands of Hindus traveled great distances to see him and beseech him to prophesy regarding their futures. Eventually his fame spread to Europe and he was induced to make a tour and demonstrate his powers Page 100 → to the public.”95 When making these public appearances, De Rajah always answered “questions put to him by persons in the audience” and would “foretell future events.”96 Princess Alga, who was said to have been traveling from Hindustan, India, demonstrated “the marvels of her wonderful power over the human mind” at the Lyric Theater in conjunction with her husband, the prince. Working with the Happy-Go-Lucky Company, the gimmick worked well for the racially mixed couple, as they entered and navigated a world in America free from the pressures and consequences of racism. Princess Alga was identified as “one of the very few High Priestness of the Goddess Kali and the only one who has ever appeared before the American public.” The princess, a young woman only twenty-four years old, was so refined and delicate that it was difficult for audiences to believe that she would be able to stand the hardships and tortures that a novitiate to the goddess Kali must go through to become a member of the priesthood. Princess Alga claimed to be known from “all over India as a clairvoyant with miraculous powers to see into the future and where learned men of all nations came to consult with her. She is able to reveal the mysteries of the future as well as those of the past, and all those who see her will realize that she is no ordinary woman.”97 Oriental dancing flourished as the shows featured oriental themes, from belly dancers to magicians and so-called psychics, in theaters and auditoriums that offered Greek and Middle Eastern food and drinks. “Audiences for whom belly dancing was a respected skill and part of their culture” may have expected authenticity, according to Cullen, but “allowed for artistic variation.” Along with an increased interest in belly dancing, mind readers like De Rajah captured the American imagination. Armed with very able assistants who sprang up after World War I, De Rajah embraced both the authentic and fraudulent qualities of a performer. His fame and notoriety as a mystery worker and healer of lost souls spread across the United States. A common practice in the trade for mind readers involves the skills of a faithful assistant to unravel the mystery of secrets. De Rajah, known for discussing details about human behavior, razzled and dazzled the minds and hearts of audiences as he elaborated on matters pertaining to human relationships. His understanding of the psychology of men and women persuaded them beyond imagination. With the aid of his charming assistants, De Rajah captured their hearts. Assistants passed through the audience handing out pencils and pads of papers while Joveddah stood onstage gazing into his crystal ball. What made his act superior to run-of-the-mill mentalist was that he often expanded his remarks beyond answering the specific questions people wrote on the papers they handed to his assistants. That required research. (Cullen, Vaudeville, Old and New, 575) Page 101 → As part of a century-long fascination honoring all things oriental, most American audiences, especially women, found his philosophy on peace, love, and happiness magical. However, this same fascination from the techniques used to assist Prince Joveddah in mastering his trade, which came from a rival mind reader, also landed him in trouble with the public and law. The rival mind reader, Alexander, had published a pamphlet in 1921 that revealed some key codes used to ensure believability for various types of magical acts. De Rajah mastered these techniques in his acts. Calling to Joveddah from their positions in the audience, his assistants read the questions submitted to them by audience members and conveyed the answers in a few terse words or code (or gestures).

Sometimes, the assistants had the audience members whisper the question into their ears. If the question was a usual one, Joveddah divined the question as well as the answer. Questions that called for simple direct answers such as a date, number or place were easily coded; questions requiring more elaborate responses required prior research on a number of people who were expected to attend a specific performance. The local theatre manager was often a source of information, and he pointed out to the assistants where certain people were sitting in the audience. (Cullen, Vaudeville, Old and New, 580)

Typically, the frequent rehearsals for these shows ensured a polished performance for most opening nights. During a 1918 tour in Michigan, De Rajah's presentation at the Empress Theatre in Grand Rapids was called “the smoothest act of the kind ever seen,”98 and that in Muskegon was touted as “a performance unlike anything heretofore witnessed on a vaudeville stage.”99 De Rajah became closely acquainted with Frances Springer, a white woman who lived in Buffalo and whom he romanced throughout a yearlong courtship. De Rajah continued to pose as an Indian prince or a prince of Tibet, conducting lectures and classes in psychology and oriental philosophy in which love and happiness were dominant themes, and Frances became infatuated with him. Frances persuaded Joveddah to spend long weekends with her in different locations—Toronto, Ontario; Miami, Florida; Atlantic City, New Jersey; and other exclusive watering places—paying all of the expenses and introducing him to many of her friends and acquaintances as Prince Joveddah, an oriental Indian prince of blood. Frances knew Joveddah was not who she pretended him to be. She “induced and persuaded” him “to leave his wife [Nina]” and stay with her in another location in Buffalo, in a quiet and beautiful Homer Avenue house. After over a year of dating under adulterous terms, Joveddah and Frances got married in Chicago on June 3, 1932.100 The couple apparently did not stay long in Chicago. Page 102 → Downing, a public entertainer and radio broadcaster for several years before and after his marriage to Frances, had invested heavily in over eighty acres of property he purchased in 1923 in Idlewild, Michigan. In 1924, prior to his marriage to Frances, the prince had an inn built from his lucrative income and earnings, which featured readings and belly dancing, as well as a luxurious house next door.101 The respectability of Prince Joveddah, according to H. Franklin Bray, the pastor of the Idlewild Community Church and the editor of the Idlewild Herald, was high. De Rajah was considered “one of the most popular men in Idlewild and for that matter throughout the country wherever he is known. We have been extremely grateful for the additional and remunerative employment which work on his estate has made possible that winter for the men of the community.”102 The perception among yearround and vacationing Idlewilders was that De Rajah was an owner who was admired and remembered “as a lavish entertainer, a philanthropist to needy children, and to the poor.”103 De Rajah was fondly known for hosting “some of the swankiest parties which the swanky Idlewild summer resort ever boasted,” on the grounds of his estate, and “not only were summer evenings whiled away at Joveddah's elaborate parties, but at Christmas time, and in dead of winter his hospitality brightened up many a night for those fortunate enough to be on his guest list.”104 De Rajah had the inn built in the mid-1920s at a cost of approximately thirty-five hundred dollars. The inn served meals and was considered a place “where he offered entertainment along the lines of his calling to patrons who came from the cities rather than from the local community, seeking amusement during such seasons of the year as the inn.”105 The inn was enlarged and refurnished with funds received from Frances, and the house located “about 250 feet north from the inn,” where they resided for several years beginning on August 30, 1932, was renovated at her expense. Alongside these architectural developments, a “nine hole golf course” and “an athletic field containing a perfect baseball diamond with dugout and all the professional accouterments” were installed.106 As the estate was being redeveloped, De Rajah brought more belly dancers and his vaudeville style of entertainment to Idlewild, as “the couple managed the business jointly,”107 employing local residents as maids, carpenters, butlers, and groundskeepers. Prior to marrying Frances and relocating to Idlewild, De Rajah had been mixed up in a series of extramarital

affairs with married white women from January 1927 to February 1929, which eventually led to a complicated legal case in court. A Chicago Defender article reporting on the details surrounding one set of charges indicated that Charles Halliday of New Brunswick, New Jersey, filed a suit for fifty thousand dollars in superior court, charging alienation of affections Page 103 → against him. De Rajah, the radio lecturer, who claimed he was born in Tibet, the son of royal parents, was brought up on charges for winning over Wilhelmina Halliday from her home by his lectures on the philosophy of love. Wilhelmina Halliday, who had fallen ardently in love with the prince, had also filed a suit for breach of promise for twenty-five thousand dollars against De Rajah, “alleging that he refused to marry her after making love to her and that he is the father of her [seven-month-old] child.”108 The prince had been in a romance affair with Mrs. Halliday for well over a year. The affair began months after “she heard him lecturing over the radio on Love, Philosophy and Happiness.”109 She was becoming “madly infatuated with Joveddah through his lectures,”110 so much so that she invited him to her home, even though she was “living with her husband, Charles Henry Halliday.”111 When the prince “accepted the invitation,” “the mad love affair began.”112 Over the course of their relationship, “Mrs. Halliday came to Chicago and lived for two days with Joveddah at the Trenler hotel, the evidence revealed. She had visited him frequently at his studio in New York, where he conducted classes in philosophy. She gave him money, she said, and it was during these visits that acts of adultery took place which caused her husband to the file suit for divorce against her.”113 As the affair intensified, Mrs. Halliday “traveled about the country, going to Vancouver, and writing ardent love letters to Joveddah. Shortly after the child was born she named him as the father and named the infant Joveddah De Rajah, Jr. The alleged prince denied he was the child's father and sought to cast the woman aside.” After learning that the prince had no intentions to marry her, Mrs. Halliday traveled to Chicago and filed a formal complaint on a “bastardy charge on advice of her attorney, Barry Samelow.” De Rajah's attorney, Violette N. Anderson, moved to “prove the charge false upon an affidavit purported to have been sworn to by Mrs. Halliday, absolving Joveddah from the charge.” The affidavit read, To whom it may concern: This is to certify that I, Wilhelmina Halliday, thoughtlessly made a statement to my husband, Charles Henry Halliday, also my lawyer, Louis R. Frutkin, that was untrue, and now realize the great injustice done Prince Joveddah. I wish to retreat and hereby swear that said Prince Joveddah and myself, known as Mrs. Wilhelmina Halliday, had no undue, intimate or immoral associations; that his actions toward me have been only those of a gentleman, teacher and advisor, and were respectful at all times. This statement or affidavit is made of my own free will and accord, with an honest effort to vindicate a gentleman I have so unwittingly wronged, and who has given no cause for me to do so. This statement is true, so help me God.114 Page 104 → Although the document bore Mrs. Halliday's signature and she swore under oath before the court when questioned, Judge Jonas “in rendering his decision characterized Mrs. Halliday as being a victim of delusions, and her ardent letters to Joveddah as the remaining of a distorted mind.” The court evaluated the evidence, including a love letter written by Mrs. Halliday, who “believed herself the spiritual soulmate of Joveddah,” stating, My Own, Beloved Joveddah: I was glad to get your post card and letter. As you may be leaving Chicago any day now, I am hoping that this letter will arrive early enough for you to get it before leaving. As I know you will be waiting for it, darling. I am simply longing to hear your dear voice own the phone. The love from the depth of my soul is just calling, calling to you; lover, and sometimes I hear you answer, too. When you reach the top of the mountain of where your lover awaits you now, then I will know our love has come true. You'll belong to me—I'll belong to you. What a glorious realization of love and happiness will then be ours, darling! Just pure, true love, uniting the hearts and loves of two devoted lovers. The marriage tie is useless without this union of hearts which makes the tie complete, without love to bind us. I am in fairly good health. I hope you will be here soon now, darling. I can only send out the love call. The answer rests with you, love. Heaps of fond true love and kisses. Always yours. Ahamanda.115

The Chicago Defender also published excerpts from a detailed letter she wrote earlier that was offered as another exhibit item in the case. Dated December 31, 1927, and mailed from Vancouver, it read, My Darling: If I should begin to tell you all that have happened since my arrival in Vancouver it would take simply pages for that alone. However, I feel that you fully understand it all without me having to tell you, dear. It is exactly 3 p.m. here and midnight with you. My incense is burning away. As it burns I watch the smoke rising heavenward. I am just wondering how long it will be before you will light up your incense for me again, beloved. That was a little thanks offering to the gods. Whilst it burns, my soul may breathe peacefully in that love which they so kindly have given to me. Well, here I am just waiting for you, darling. I am still waiting for a letter from you, beloved. Won't you try and squeeze just two short minutes and write one sweet word to your lonely little girl, whose heart is aching and almost breaking for you, Joveddah, darling? You may never realize how much I loathe and dread to be separated from you. I could never make you fully understand, for when it comes I am almost at a loss how to explain Page 105 → fully myself. There never was a rose without a thorn. The sweeter the love, the sharper the thorn. Else there would be no love. You have said I should not feel this way, darling. Then, if I should conquer this feeling in my soul I must first destroy that love and then cast it from me. That is the only alternative for me. For I cannot deceive myself. Well, darling, this letter is already very long, so I must finish. Goodnight, my sweet beloved. I kiss you and embrace you with all the love that is in my soul and thank the gods for that sweet communion of soul speaking to soul and of the love that is yours. Dear, darling Joveddah, my love is all for you. Always yours. Ahmanda.116 On the day of the judge's decision, De Rajah sat back in his chair scratching his purple turban, running nervous fingers through his glossy locks, as piles and piles of credible evidence was being stacked against him. Judge Edgar Jonas of the Court of Domestic Relations found De Rajah guilty and ordered him to pay Wilhelmina Halliday “$1,100 for the support of the baby.” The supreme court denied Joveddah a new trial, after his attorney, Violette Anderson, announced “her intention to appeal to the higher tribunal.” Rendering the final ruling, Judge Jonas reasoned that since the child had “Colored blood in the veins,” was of a “light complexion,” and “had Negroid features,” “Joveddah must be the father.”117 The details supporting this ruling and the denouncement of De Rajah's views on peace, prosperity, love, eternal joy, and happiness as a bunch of hokum as far as Charles Halliday was concerned called De Rajah's ethics into serious question. The guilty verdict, if enforced, would have completely wiped him out financially. Had it not been for an agreement he reached with Wilhelmina involving the child after the court's ruling, he would have had to file for bankruptcy. In the end, De Rajah did not have to pay for the support of the baby as ordered by the court. Differences were smoothed out, according to a follow-up Chicago Defender article. This was accomplished during their many drives together in De Rajah's car since his trial on Mrs. Haliday's charges of bastardy. When their agreement was reached the couple, with their respective attorneys, Violette N. Anderson for De Rajah and Bailey Samelow, representing Mrs. Haliday, appeared again before Judge Jonas. De Rajah announced that he had legally adopted Mrs. Haliday's baby as his own, but the child is still with its mother, whom De Rajah said he is paying to care for it. With the approval of Mrs. Haliday Judge Jonas dismissed the bastardy charge against De Rajah. A pending confidence game charge against the defendant, instituted by Mrs. Haliday, was also dismissed.118 Page 106 → Within a year after the Halliday case came to a close, De Rajah married Frances, and the couple spent a few months living in Chicago, where, as Nance reports, De Rajah continued to work as “an oriental prince, or as an entertainer and broadcaster in night clubs and cafes,” “in which, on occasions, he was assisted” by Frances. “Soon after the public learned of the Haliday's case,” Nance writes, “De Rajah had also gotten himself into similar trouble, with another white woman, Olive Fink, a 45 year old divorcee who also considered herself de Rajah's fiancé.” Nance discusses the details surrounding this encounter.

Olive Fink gave up her story to the police after she and Downing were arrested for failure to pay a saleswoman who had been marketing their lessons in mystical psychology on commission. De Rajah explained [Mrs.] Fink told me once that through her medium she was informed that she and I would be together forever, but I interpret this to mean in our work. I never spoke of love to her. At least two interpretations were possible here: de Rajah as pseudo-swami, womanizer versus de Rajah as helpless subject of female irrationality. Either way, de Rajah got to the crux of it when he told the police, I'm afraid that Mrs. Fink has confused a spiritual union with a physical one. Such confusion enraged many American men who saw the turban as a the sign of a sexualized con game, and it may have been in these days that the hackneyed story of the fortunate-teller who advises women customers, I see a tall dark man in your future, was born. Men such as Downing/de Rajah nonetheless served as a promise of a new identity in a market economy by connection to Oriental wisdom. The mystic could be anti-modern since he flattered not technology, rationalism, science, or xenophobia but crossed over seemingly ancient ways of being to people who sought to dissent from modernity as spiritual consumers, even if only temporarily.119 Indeed, the market was ripe for this consuming public that valued oriental wisdom and mystic spiritualism. Sincere or not, De Rajah, according to Nance, “was not persuasive with customers because he could predict the future but because he told people things he should have had no way of knowing about his client's present life.”120 Staying at first-class hotels while residing in Chicago, De Rajah continued to earn a modest salary, despite the fact that most of his “money was lost through playing the races or in other forms of gambling.”121 De Rajah continued to receive letters from other women, which was becoming a burden and grossly upsetting Frances, who had come to expect an exclusive relationship with the prince. On November 18, 1937, while the couple was living in Idlewild, one Ethel Smith had written Joveddah about catching the mumps and dealing with several other maladies; she couldn't eat, laugh, sleep, or talk for Page 107 → five days. Her glandular swelling was irritated by bad weather. When one side of her face and glands became well, the other side pained her. When she attended a garden party and an entertainment event at a church, she felt she was treated like a leper. She mentioned that “Keyser,” who was home for nearly a month, avoided Smith so that she would not contract her illness; only Gehm and one other person dealt with Smith, who wished Joveddah well and called his last letter “a real tonic for me and more than welcome.” Smith told Joveddah that they were to think of, speak of, and treat each other the same way, and she also appreciated the input he provided so that she could respond to the questions and comments of church members in Buffalo about the “far-fetched” 1937 film Lost Horizon.122 She declared the adaptation of James Hilton's utopian novel “the best picture I've ever seen. I forgot I was sitting in a theatre seat and lived along with the characters.” Smith continued, I know your class members and real friends wouldn't give a D—where you came from for they love you for yourself, but neighbors and church goers become “District Attorneys.” I don't give a hang about their opinions, but it is nice to be able to give them a sane and intelligent answer. It gives me a sense of satisfaction to be able to put them in their place. I said I would ask you regarding it but was told you'd simply evade it and give me no answer. You simply must see that picture. The film, which conveyed a fantasy theme about a group of Americans whose plane crashed in the Himalayas, stranding them in a kingdom filled with peace, love, and harmony, reminded Smith of De Rajah's words of wisdom. She found inner peace and an immediate appeal in the film, and upon receiving a letter from him, she craved more comfort from him. Smith ended her letter, “Please be a GOOD BOY and KEEP SWEET. Make it easy for me to see only the Divinity within you. Now I sound like your maternal grandmother, so it's time to stop. Love from all the gang.”123 As such letters poured in, mounting marital troubles brought the prince's lavish lifestyle to a sudden halt. The dissolution of his third marriage and the accompanying financial difficulties would severely cripple him and would only trigger more bad news for Joveddah De Rajah. As these events were sure to unfold, Frances and Joveddah declared themselves separated, living on their estate but in separate dwellings. The family court proceedings took well over a year before the couple was finally divorced. The court had ruled in favor of Frances, noting that she was a woman of some education and outward appearances of familiarity with the usual social

manners. Adding that Frances also appeared before Page 108 → the court as the “temperamental and nervous type, emotional, excitable and unstable in disposition and character,” Judge Max E. Neal, a respectable judge in Lake County history, ruled in Frances's favor but noted that her “moral responsibility is low” and that “the defendant's [Joveddah's] is [even] less” credible.124 The court reasoned that De Rajah, who was “prompted by a desire for gain,” has “lived a life of fraud and deception” at the expense of a “gullible” public. Judge Neal then made his ruling based on the facts of the case and the specific concerns and requests that were made in the petition before the court. Weighting the evidence on the issue of the property, Judge Neal first noted that at the time of the marriage, Joveddah “was heavily in debt and had no means except an interest in eighty acres of sand land in Yates Township, on which was a semiabandoned combination home and tavern in a badly dilapidated condition; that this real property had little or no value in its existing condition and was subject to several years' delinquent taxes.” Second, he stated that because of Joveddah's lack of the financial means to redevelop the dwellings on the property, Frances De Rajah, at the request of Joveddah, “had erected a home on the eighty acres at her expense in the neighborhood of $10,000”; that the “home was furnished from furnishing owned by her prior to her marriage and purchased by her from her private means at various times since”; and that since Joveddah “was without employment,” Frances “rebuilt, repaired and refurnished the combination home and inn which was located” on the property owned by Joveddah. Third, Judge Neal ruled on the union between the couple that “during all of the time” they “lived and cohabited together as husband and wife,” Frances “always treated” Joveddah “with kindness and consideration and performed all of her wifely duties, and tried and employed her best effort to please” Joveddah, but without avail; that “his conduct toward her became so cruel and inhuman that she fears it is no longer safe for her to live and cohabit with him as wife, and for such reason she has not lived with” Joveddah “since their separation on the date of August 30, 1936”; and that because of Joveddah's “continual abuse of” her, “the bodily violence inflicted by him upon her, his threats to take her life and his apparent plan to terrorize and abuse her in order to get possession of her property, she fears and believes, and has good reason to fear and believe, that he will carry said threats into execution and injure, incumber or dispose of her property interests unless restrained from so doing by the injunction of this court.” Fourth, he stated that “the real estate formerly in the sole name of” Joveddah and “described according to” Frances “was finally placed in joint names of the parties hereto because of the fact that practically its entire value was due to the investment of her private means therein; that as previously stated, she rebuilt, repaired and refurnished said property for tavern purposes in the expectation that the defendant Page 109 → (aka. Joveddah) would conduct such business and earn sufficient to contribute to their support; that said tavern business has been conducted for approximately a year and has resulted in a net loss which has been bare by this plaintiff (aka. Frances) and that said defendant, because of his neglect and absence therefore, forced this plaintiff to do most of the work in connection therewith.”125 Ironically, as the Chicago Defender would report, De Rajah had returned to Chicago by the summer of 1939, “seeking employment,” a “broke man.” The Defender observed, “The once wealthy host was penniless. But he was still with friends, and he started a radio program, over Station WHIP, in which he starred as the Brown Brother.”126 As the program was met with little success, De Rajah “was compelled to make his home with friends to whom he, himself had been kind in better days.” The once-gifted linguist, noted world traveler, and confidant of millionaires, who “sat as guest in the drawing rooms and hotel suites of the nation's wealthy,” died on January 13, 1940, in Chicago. Joveddah, “after living in grandiose fashion for nearly twenty years,” died on a plain iron cot in a pauper's ward of the Cook County Hospital.127 Capturing the period in which his acts were driven by the demand of a new consumer market, Edward Lee Curtis and Danielle Brun Sigler illustrated how “Orientalist fraternal rituals and theatrical performers helped to contribute to its rise by marketing practices of black urban practitioners who created what they called Oriental and African Mystic Science.”128

Markings of a Post–World War II Renaissance in the Black Eden of Michigan De Rajah died a year prior to the Japanese surprise bombardment on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and the U.S. entry into World War II. The North American economic downturn of the Great Depression had exceeded the 26 percent decrease in the workforce after World War II. As a series of military attacks were underway, Dr. Lorenzo Raymond Nelson and his wife, Blanche Juanita Crawford Nelson, who had gotten married on July 6,

1930, were to be stationed in North Africa. However, in Idlewild, Mrs. Nelson and their daughter, America Elizabeth Nelson, purchased the house on the De Rajah estate from Frances Springer, formerly Frances De Rajah. The Nelsons thus became the new owners of the spacious mansion-like home. Springer had retained sole ownership of the inn for about five years before selling it to Mary Willis, Charles and Viola Parker, and Jewett Harris. These new owners of the postwar era named the former inn the El Morocco Club, running it as an afterhours Page 110 → club.129 By the summer of 1945, as African American servicemen were returning from World War II, many of them from Chicago and Detroit were partying all night long in the El Morocco Club, just as the Nelson family was settling in their new house on part of the former De Rajah estate. Prior to serving active duty in the U.S. Army from 1940 to 1945, Dr. and Mrs. Nelson had been active as the main medical providers in Lake County. Dr. Nelson served as a medical examiner in Lake County and as chief of staff at the Reed City Hospital. He had also ended a career in providing medical services to the camp men and to many of the families in the three intersecting western Michigan counties of Lake, Osceola, and Newaygo. In addition to having the most active medical service in the area, where Blanche assisted Dr. Nelson as his nurse, the Nelsons, primarily through the management objectives of Blanche, invested in real estate and attempted to manage rental housing and, eventually, a grocery store, a restaurant, a hotel, and two motels.130 At the time, vacationers like Mrs. Rosa Williams from Chicago spent their entire summer months in Idlewild, enjoying the clubhouse and the sandy beach on the Island and attending fashion shows, cabarets, and Saturday-night dances at the Paradise Club in Paradise Gardens. Without the benefit of being able to listen to Gabriel Heater discussing issues on the radio, Williams did not sit idly in her cottage; she frequented the club dinners to hear from the newer arrivals the news about how Heater persuasively reported the facts of the day.131 As World War II was being fought, she and other community members were writing their families with updates about the war in Europe and outdoor life in Idlewild. For African Americans, who were always questioning their place in World War II, where “they repeatedly equated Nazi racism, American white supremacy, and European imperialism,” the war produced “skepticism as well as heroes.” Remaining a “strictly segregated” institution, the military had limited African American soldiers “to labor brigades and inferior base conditions.” Nell Painter, a retired Edwards Professor of American History at Princeton, offers a balanced and critical assessment about the treatment African American soldiers endured during the war. The Second World War brought African Americans jobs, but it also confronted them with familiar problems: segregated and exclusionary armed forces, bans on black officers, and racial discrimination in the workplace. Their responses, too, were familiar: protest and struggle. However, the 1940s were not the 1910s or the 1890s or the 1869s. By the early 1940s, black Americans had acquired enough self-confidence, experience, and allies as workers and citizens to protest effectively against all-toopervasive discrimination. Now protest bore some fruit—in defense jobs and in the armed services.132 (Painter 2006, 242) Page 111 → For the remaining years of the decade, African American war veterans “expressed their deep determination to exercise their rights as American citizens who had defended their country against foreign enemies.” With the Army Air Corp's establishment, by the last year of the war, of “a small flight school for thirty-three black college men under the command of West Point-educated Captain Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.,” the U.S. military gave desegregation a nod of approval. At the end of the war, in August 1945, Americans everywhere celebrated as the economy went into high-growth mode: “Job opportunities drew 1.6 million Southerners to Detroit, Chicago, New York, as well as to the West, where black people had been living since the late nineteenth century…. Full employment raised black men's and women's incomes, in dollar amounts and in relation to white incomes” (Painter 2006, 254). Between the opportunities provided to African Americans who worked in automobile factories in Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw133 and the growth of new businesses, many veterans found themselves a part of a growing and prosperous middle class as new hotels and motels were being constructed. Road travel during the precarious 1950s

and ’60s also represented a period when African American professionals, salesmen, entertainers, and athletes were increasingly on the move for work, vacations, and family visits. In preparation for the changing landscape, the National Park Service's Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary observed, Storeowners, motel managers, and gas station attendants recognized early on that even the poorest travelers required food, automobile maintenance, and adequate lodging. Just as New Deal work relief programs provided employment with the construction and the maintenance of Route 66, the appearance of countless tourist courts, garages, and diners promised sustained economic growth after the road's completion. While military use of the highway during wartime ensured the early success of roadside businesses, the demands of the new tourism industry in the postwar decades gave rise to modern facilities that guaranteed long-term prosperity.134 As America transitioned from a wartime economy to a peaceful one, “its citizens faced a wide variety of conflicts and concerns.” Wartime wages and price controls were being lifted. The GI Bill had provided veterans with health care, education grants, and home and business loans, while massive consumerism invaded the pocketbooks of hardworking American citizens, who began to buy more homes, new automobiles, televisions, air conditioners, and many other modern amenities. The suburbs, filled with identical houses, began to spring up all over the country as well. However, to the average African American factory Page 112 → worker, policy racketeer, motorist, and war veteran during the postwar period, a vacation was an adventure to Idlewild, which was accentuated by mom-and-pop grocery stores, hotels, motels, rental cottages, all-night diners, nightclubs, afterhours clubs, and frequent restroom facilities. Advertising these services frequently in the Negro Travelers' Green Book, both Woosley C. Coombs of the Casa Blanca Hotel and Phil Giles of the Giles Hotel on the Island sought to cater to the emerging clientele. The property where the Casa Blanca Hotel sits was originally purchased and owned by former Detroit attorney and judge Joseph A. Craigen. The hotel itself was built and owned by W. C. Coombs, a building contractor traveling from Detroit, who was originally from the West Indies. In 1945, Craigen sold part of the property he had purchased in Idlewild Subdivision 4, consisting of lots 1–4 and 26–28 on block 12, to Woolsey and Ivy Lee Coombs, but the deal somehow went bad. Craigen and Coombs were both from the British Caribbean. Craigen was from Guyana, and Coombs was from Jamaica. After purchasing the property from Craigen, Coombs built the hotel in 1949 and opened it as the Casa Blanca Hotel in 1950, with several single rooms on the first, second, and third floors. The basement contained a kitchen in the southern end, a boiler room, and an area for banquet seating to the north.135 After Coombs completed the project, with guests booking rooms at the new hotel, he refused to pay Craigen the balance he owed him. Responding to a letter written by Mrs. Ivania Coombs, Craigen attempted to navigate through a web of deception as he tried to reason with her. I received your letter and while I am here in Kalamazoo for a few days I thought I would answer it. First I want to say that as far as I am concerned there is no misunderstanding. It is simply a matter of business and we should not lose any friendship about it although nine times out of ten when you lend people money, there is always a falling out when time comes to be paid. You know I had no desire to own a hotel. I do not have time or the inclination to operate it. I was only helping your husband out after he got himself in a jam. You remember him telling me that if he got $8,000.00 he could finish the Hotel so as to help him I got him the money. He wanted it for 6 months because he was sure of finishing the Hotel and paying me back. I knew then he couldn't pay it back in 6 months so I voluntarily made the note for 1 yr. It is now over two years and I have not received a penny and the Hotel isn't finished. Craigen's documentation of the events surrounding the loan with 6 percent interest and the building of the hotel seems not to affect Coombs's thinking. Consequently, Craigen motioned for one-third interest in the ownership of the hotel. Page 113 → Page 114 →

Now, for the papers that I drew up for you to sign giving me 1/3 interest. I want you to know that I didn't approach your husband to make the bargain, he approached me and suggested that I buy 1/3 interest at that time for $15,000.00 and that we would get together and finish it. I remember when I brought the papers and gave it to him he asked me to leave it so he can look it over. I did, and I remember when I asked him about the papers in your presence you said not to sign it for he would have enough money to pay me when the mortgage became due. There was not one word said to me about you not listing the terms of the agreement. It is customary when people are entering into an agreement and either party does not like or does not agree as to the terms, they sit down, discuss it and come to some mutual agreement. But you and your husband said not one word about the papers to me from that day to now. I heard that he said that my price was too cheap and it wasn't my price but his. The reason for me wanting to supervise the running of the Hotel was for the purpose of making it successful so all of us can make some money in it I did not want to lose it. Expressing some doubts in Craigen's perceptions of Coombs as a businessman, due to his demeanor in customer relations, the letter continues, Your husband will never make a success with the Hotel for he cannot get along with people. He goes into a tantrum cusses people out and wants to fight and threatening to kill. He has no business sense, for if he had he could have finished that Hotel two years ago. In other words he is not suited to deal with the public and if you are going to be successful with business the public is always right. For example some time ago some people from Chicago was admiring the Hotel and they were peeping in as anyone would do and Mr. Coombs cussed these people out and picked up a rock to strike one of the women. His whole attitude in dealing with other people is not just right and it's going to take a diplomat and a person who is easy to get along with to make success of any business. And another thing Coombs knows everything no one can tell him a thing. He has told me some time last year that the bands would let him have the money. I went to the bands and asked the manager and he told me that he did not promise W.C. anything of the kind. In fact the man told me that I was foolish to put any money in the Hotel and let me say this Mr. Smith told me the time I was giving W.C. the money not to do it and he said this also “you may be doing this because of friendship but you may become enemies before you get your money Page 115 → back” therefore I do not believe that W.C. has any promise from any bank to get any money. Any good business man would have gotten somebody to be his partner by this time so as to be making something out of his investment but your husband does not want anybody else. He wants to be able to say “it's my Hotel”—but saying it's “my hotel” is not going to finish it. I think Mrs. Coombs that I have waited long enough anyone else would have foreclosed on it over 1 year ago. It is simply a matter of business and more so I need my money to make my own investment. Discussing the importance of protecting his investment, Craigen expressed his concerns and reasons for suggesting some kind of partnership with Coombs, stating that the current management of the hotel may also threaten its success as a popular lodging facility. And again I say there is no misunderstanding and there need not be any falling out. For if I owe someone and they want their money I won't fall out with them because they ask me for it. I would do all I can to pay for it, but someone has written me from Idlewild and told me that your husband has threatened what he is going to do to me if I try to take the Hotel. Again I say I do not want it although he told me when he was getting my money if I don't pay you, you can have the building and in the next breathe he told a lot of people that I don't have a penny in it. He has even written the newspaper and threatened to sue them because they mentioned in the paper that I was building a Hotel in Idlewild. I never told anyone that the hotel was mine nor have I told anyone that I had any money in it. People just assumed it because W.C. would ask my advice in front of them and they thought I had an interest in it. I hope that I have explained myself sufficiently. W.C. wrote me a letter asking how the money was spent—now he knows exactly what was done and by my records he got more than what he signed for. I'll be in Idlewild this week and if you care to I shall be glad to talk to you. Yours

truly [unable to read signature]136

The Casa Blanca, which opened for occupancy in 1950, accepted guests only in the summer and on the weekends. Summer guests paid seven dollars per person per day to stay at the hotel, which had shared bathrooms. It was common for five hundred people to be turned away over a typical Fourth of July weekend. With the addition of the Casbah Cocktail Lounge and a small dining room in the lower levels of the hotel during the summer of 1956, the Casa Blanca served choice liquor, including beer and wine, and delectable meals in an exquisite dining salon. Hotel guests with advanced reservations for accommodations were Page 116 → assured rooms.137 While Mrs. Coombs was one of the cooks, W. C. Coombs employed local citizens and out-of-town employees by way of word-of-mouth recommendations from his hotel guests, such as Sunnie Wilson of Detroit.138 The Casa Blanca Hotel, which was built by Coombs in 1949, was essentially owned by him until the early 1980s, when Blanche J. Nelson purchased the hotel. The Nelson family occupied the structure as a hotel, day care, and/or their home until the early 1990s. As Idlewild was marching into the last two decades of the ladies and gents era, when the men wore silk suits, white shirts, and black ties and the ladies styled and profiled in long silky gowns and mink fur coats, World War II veterans were returning home from the war and eager to have some fun in the sun and at the nightclubs and afterhours joints into the wee hours of the morning. Percy Davis of Chicago was one of those veterans vacationing annually in Idlewild in the postwar era. Drafted straight out of college into the U.S. Army for military training, Davis attended officer candidate school and was commissioned as second lieutenant in the army in February 1943. He was shipped overseas to the European theater of operations, which included France, Germany, Belgium, and England. There, he was promoted to first lieutenant as a platoon leader and later to captain, before leaving the military after thirty-seven years and returning home. During the early years, before purchasing property in Idlewild, Davis just vacationed there, playing cards from house to house and dancing at house parties in different cottages. “We spent some time on the beach with the kids, where there was a roller skating rink on the public beach,” he recalls. “The other thing was nightclubbing, and I recall how we always wore a jacket and tie and we would go either to the Paradise Club or to the Flamingo Club.” Davis remembers “always thinking that the owners of these places made money and would take their profits out of the community. They brought entertainment here, but I don't know if they loved Idlewild as much as I would have liked for them to have.” He also recalls visiting the after-hours nightclub over on Nelson Road, the El Morocco Club, the former site of De Rajah's Inn. “Well, after enjoying the entertainment in the nightclubs,” Davis adds, “we would drive out on Nelson Road before turning in, because we didn't have a time schedule. We were on vacation.”139 At the same time, year-round Idlewild residents and their Yates Township School District Board realized that the old barracks-style schoolhouse addition that had been funded by the Works Projects Administration and built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the late 1930s was no longer adequate and that it was time for a change. That change would be best manifested through years of the laborious efforts and entrepreneurial genius of Phil Giles, who marketed Idlewild as the resort capital of America.

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3 Phil Giles Enterprises Promoting Tourism and Economic Development in the Resort Capital of America Although Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, Lela and Herman Wilson, the Branch brothers, and other entrepreneurs deserve recognition for Idlewild's development, the booming years of economic development and tourism from the late 1940s to the early 1960s was largely due to the efforts of Detroit hotel owner and nationally known showman Phil Giles.1 An astute businessman and cultural impresario, Giles transformed Idlewild into a leading example of postwar black enterprise, cultural affirmation, and cooperative economic success. He held multiple positions at once (including activist member of the Rotary Club, showman, entrepreneur, business owner and manager, president of the Idlewild Chamber of Commerce, and supervisor of Yates Township), forging a composite identity that could both promote and protect his vision of Idlewild. Significantly, his promotion of Idlewild appropriated the consumer ethos and modern aesthetic of suburbia for the purpose of advancing a new national black identity; this vision made business opportunities available for other African American entrepreneurs, while allowing black consumers to participate in cultural institutions managed by black acumen and valorizing black talent. In this context, Giles's Flamingo Club (an expansion of the Flamingo Bar that included a dining room and a stage) plays a prominent role in articulating the postwar aspirations of African Americans, the new terms of their struggle with an American identity. These entrepreneurs—heralding from Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, Indianapolis, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Muskegon, Saginaw, Flint, Lansing, Page 118 → Los Angeles, and St. Louis—found in Giles a helping hand and found in the Flamingo Club a model institution of entertainment; in turn, they, alongside Giles, used the material resources of Idlewild, inspiring new personal affiliations and encouraging seasonal and year-round residents. This chapter explores the commercial and political contributions of Phil Giles to the halcyon days of Idlewild—days of a black leisure practice that was both “nationalistic” (fighting for self-determination within all aspects of African American life) and “consumerist” (rethinking black identity largely through a middle-class style of living). Yet even as the fortunes of Idlewild seemed to reach a zenith, Giles's devotion to his own vision would wane, and Idlewild's social life would suffer at the very moment when the movement for racial equality gained national momentum. Bringing forth some of the internal contradictions surrounding class divisions and conflicts among the leaders and residents as well as Idlewild's complex relations to the dominant national culture, this chapter explores the extent to which the Flamingo Club was the alpha and omega of Idlewild's indoor entertainment and outdoor recreation, as well as how Giles helped to create economic opportunities and raise racial awareness among African American entrepreneurs and vacationers. This pattern of thought in Michigan's touring industry was also manifested among white politicians, business Page 119 → leaders, and club goers and has since led to contemporary discussions about stimulating Idlewild's economy and celebrating its history as a national treasure that deserves to be preserved. The black institutional structures that Giles established, marketed, and managed paved the way for the development of Idlewild as one of the most famous black resort towns in the United States. As an entrepreneur, Giles was effective in operating and promoting a resort hotel with more than twenty rooms and the Flamingo Club, in leasing other businesses alongside the beach of Idlewild Lake, and in designating Idlewild the resort capital of America. Giles was a catalyst for economic change at a time when civil rights activists were challenging Jim Crow segregation throughout the South and the North. Despite repeated calls for an ideology of racial uplift and a self-help philosophy, Giles's many efforts among some Idlewild residents and businessmen and businesswomen were ignored and contested, which resulted in internal divisions and tensions along class and color lines, creating divergences that led to socioeconomic decline in Idlewild, as well as a false sense of economic security among some Idlewilders.

Narrative of a Visionary and Progressive Postwar Thinker Phil Giles was born on July 26, 1903, in Ocala, Florida, to George P. and Ruth M. Giles. Of the 45,943 people living in Ocala, only 22.14 percent were black. At the age of twenty, Giles married Blossom, his first of three wives, and migrated to Detroit as part of a wave of African Americans participating in the Great Migration. Giles relocated to escape the horrors and humiliations of southern racism as well as limited employment opportunities. In Detroit, Giles found work as an auto mechanic, and the couple gave birth to two children, Phillip J. Giles Jr. and Sally Y. Giles.2 Giles lived and worked in two overlapping lower areas of Detroit known as Paradise Valley and Black Bottom, located on the eastside of Downtown. Marked by overcrowding, these areas were livable but with somewhat depressing conditions. As Detroit News staff reporter, Vivian Baulch writes, despite “a degree of poverty among some residents of the area, there was a tremendous amount of cultural unity, excitement and class mixing in Black Bottom.”3 Baulch continues, “The potential for professionals, hustlers, and working class individuals and families to survive in close knit neighborhoods and to make a living was reasonable and sustainable for a city the size of Detroit.”4 The end of the Great Depression brought an expanded job market to Detroit as weapons for World Page 120 → War II were built in the city. Despite widespread practices of racism and segregation, the number of African American entrepreneurs was increasing.5 Giles eventually owned three different commercial properties in the area. Seeking to take advantage of the area's booming job market by entering hotel management, he “pawned his clothes for $400 to lease a hotel” on the eastside of Detroit near the newly constructed Ford Motor Company plant. Giles managed “such a lively business that he bought it, another building next door to it, and three years later acquired a third hotel in Idlewild.”6 Giles arrived on the Idlewild scene in 1947, after Trixie Griffin, a retired dancer from the Island's Purple Palace, invited him to the area. Giles was so impressed with Idlewild that he purchased the old Oakmere Hotel and what would become Dude Ranch from Ada Blanche Williams, owner of the old Idlewild Clubhouse. These properties, originally owned by the Idlewild Improvement Association, had been centerpieces on the Island. After two years of renovation, the Giles Hotel officially opened for business. The hotel and a modern motel that was walking distance from it were open annually from May to December. The motel reflected the spirit of the postwar era, which was a period of growth in the United States. In June 1956, Ada sold the old clubhouse to Nute and Flora Mae Polk from Detroit. The clubhouse had been next to Giles's hotel, and the recreation scene on the Island was transforming. An experienced hotel owner with a vision, Giles labored and promoted economic development and tourism in Idlewild, working cooperatively with other owners of lodging facilities and businesses, such as the Polks. Giles had accumulated considerable property and wealth on the Island. Under his leadership, this new growth and development represented an innovative era of racial uplift, cultural unity, and economic nationalism in the African American resort community. Realizing that to put Idlewild on the map, he needed to work collaboratively with others, he leased some of the properties he owned; steadily invested in the hotel, entertainment, a menu featuring soul food, and excellent service; and offered reasonably priced outdoor leisure and recreational facilities to African American vacationers. The “carefully planned cuisines,” sold at reasonable prices, were so good that they tempted “the most delicate, fastidious appetite(s).”7 This presentation solidified the consumer ethos of the resort scene that Giles sought to establish and sustain.

Phil Giles Enterprises: Marketing a Black Consumer Ethos Giles took advantage of the tourism market of the 1950s era, which brought with it greater competition, higher performer fees, television, modern air-conditioning, Page 121 → and changing tastes. Phil and Beatrice, his second wife, were married in 1953. Giles and Bea would divorce six years later, and he would become a single man again by 1960, but while together, they created a recreational scene where two thousand people crammed on to the tiny Island on any given weekend throughout the summers of the 1950s. Giles built Dude Ranch, which was later converted into the Flamingo Bar. Giles had plans to renovate and expand Dude Ranch into a bar and then to build on to that a nightclub and restaurant that would seat five hundred guests. The liquor license for the bar was put in Bea Giles's name. Phil Giles, the creative founder of Phil Giles Enterprises, controlled everything else. Giles was the kind of hotel owner, manager, and businessman who reasoned that rather than try to manage a series

of properties individually, he needed to operate everything under one name, except, of course, the liquor license for the bar and a few buildings and concessions he leased to others. Attending a meeting of the National Hotel Association just days before the 1954 holiday season was to start in Idlewild, Giles sat down in the Jade Room of the Southerland Hotel and pledged to offer “better accommodations and services to travelers.”8 He understood the importance of catering to the needs and sensibilities of a diverse group of patrons and vacationers traveling to Idlewild. Some of these sensibilities emerged out of the black prosperity and militancy of the late 1940s, as well as the great migrations of the periods surrounding the two wars. In creating and marketing an atmosphere of rest and recreation, Giles understood “the great responsibility entrusted” to him to make the vacationing experiences of travelers a pleasant one.9 One could explore nature with activities from introspective walks to ecotourism; these activities appealed to northern migrants with memories of rural environs and to black urbanites with fantasies of an American wilderness never seen. One could rent horses, canoes, motorboats, and bicycles built for two from Lynne Johnson's Rent-a-Bike. Tennis, softball, and volleyball were available at most of the hotels and postwarconstructed motels. Giles courted African Americans to stay at his hotel, located on the Island of Idlewild Lake, offering a private beach connected to the main beach, rooms for just $3.50 to $5.00 per night for two people, and hot and cold water in each room (the motel rates were slightly higher, as all of the guests had private bathrooms with hot and cold running water).

The improvements Giles made on the Island not only appealed to the tastes and pleasures sought by a growing number of educators, politicians, hustlers, and factory workers who became the new working middle class; they also catered to the comfort and sanctity of a social circle of successful middle-class African Americans who “belonged to several boards and elite black organizations.”10 An exemplary patron was Helen Guy, a graduate of Ohio State University and a Page 122 → Cleveland public school teacher, who stayed at the Giles Hotel for the first time in May 1952. Guy, joined by George R. Hicks of Dayton, Ohio, a payroll auditor, who had vacationed in Idlewild since 1946, enjoyed a full day of recreation, fishing in Lake Idlewild, horseback riding “along the woodland bridge path of the lake shore,” and “sipping vintage champagne from chilled glasses”11 at both the Paradise and Flamingo clubs. So did retired Michigan Court of Appeals judge Myron H. Wahls, who fondly remembers going out on the porch of the second floor of the hotel and playing Della Reese's “Time After Time.” Telling the story in an interview with Ted Talbert, Judge Wahls vividly recalled, I went up there one weekend. I think it was the Labor Day weekend. I think it was in 1955. I worked at Lincoln Mercury and we were working a lot of over-time, and I had a big check. I mean a fat check, and some of us drove up to Idlewild for the Labor Day weekend. And boy we had some fun. At the time Della Reese had just recorded “Time After Time.” I think it was a big hit, and we were staying at Phil Giles' Hotel, and they had a little porch on the second floor that you could go out on. I remember taking a record player out there and setting it up and putting Della Reese's “Time After Time” on there, to draw people. Page 123 → People would come up, and we would dance. We had a lot of fun. I remember that. Boy, it's quite an institution, quite an institution.12 Relating to Judge Wahls's description of “quite an institution,” John Meeks recalls spending his summers in Idlewild when the Island was the place where everybody went to play. Meeks notes, “Idlewild was a meat house for plenty of sinful activities.”13 For adult men and women, married and single, it meant getting serviced. Many people frequented the Island to play, to honeymoon, and to engage in extramarital affairs. Idlewild, located far away from the cities in the middle of woods in western Michigan, was a place where men and women let their hair down and partied. Some even found love in the woods. Reimagining the scene, Meeks recalls summer visits where vacationers met and married their spouses. I remember going up there one summer when a car full of women drove by asking, ‘What time does the party start?’ I remember hollering back it started now. The women then parked their car and joined us. Back then if there was a cottage party going on, you didn't have to know the owners, you just joined them. Large numbers of weddings happened as a result of men and women meeting in Idlewild. For instance, John Reynolds, Dickey Adams, Isola Graham, and even Phil Giles met and married their spouses after meeting in Idlewild.14

Giles did this twice, meeting and marrying his second wife, Beatrice, and then his third, Betty Harris. His production assistant, Otis Eugene Stanley, met his wife, Grace Seaton, at the Flamingo Club on July 3, 1960.15 Kristin Palm of Detroit's Metro Times reminds us that three of the Four Tops married three of the Braggettes of the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue, and one of Detroit's legendary jazz musicians, Thomas “Beans” Bowles, chair of the Graystone International Jazz Museum, met his wife there.16 The facilities that Giles owned and operated catered to the desires of a black consumer culture of the civil rights era, and whatever happened in Idlewild remained in Idlewild. Members of this “imagined community” desired anonymity during their vacations in the woods. Cheating spouses, secret lovers and admirers, and new prospects for summer fun played in Idlewild. Adam Green's Selling the Race, which examines black-appeal radio and black radio audiences of the 1940s, discusses the idea of evoking a new “imagined community”: “One can think of the struggle to legitimate black consumption as a key—though understudied—point of entry for blacks into the emerging social order of the American Century.”17 The link between the creation of imagined black communities Page 124 → and black consumerism, which Green makes persuasively, seems relevant to explaining the appeal of Idlewild, where black consumers and patrons of the resort could participate in all sorts of activities and practices of commercialism, consumerism, and consumption. To complement the beachfront resort hotel and concession stands, Giles built a first-class nightclub and bar across the road, on the Island. Before the bar, Giles had built a riding stable, which he called Dude Ranch. The stable may have proven to be a profitable business, because of his experience of being raised on a farm with horses in Florida; however, the profits from owning a liquor license were more enticing. Perhaps he intuitively felt the contradictions that were manifesting between the rural fantasy he was cultivating in Idlewild and urban centers such as Chicago and Detroit. Whatever the reason, Giles converted Dude Ranch into the Flamingo Bar, with an outdoor garden, in 1949. On the properties next to and across the road from the Purple Palace, Giles built lakefront eateries and a children's playground adjoining the hotel. He built a grill that was noted for its twenty-six-cent hamburgers, a barbecue stand, and a shrimp hut, giving literal flavor to a festive atmosphere, in anticipation of his next project—the bar and nightclub that would attract thousands of tourists to the Island. Giles used flamingos, local birds on Idlewild Lake, to come up with the name of and decor inside the nightclub. The decor of the nightclub, including pink flamingos as a motif painted on the walls and mirrors, would become famous. Discussing these changes and upgrades made on the Island in the June 1955 issue of Idlewilder's Magazine, publisher K. D. Davis wrote, “Phil Giles the builder has hit the jack pot this time. He gave the Island a facial look. The little concessions off the street enlarged and modernized the grill and built a huge and I mean huge cabaret 140 feet long and 80 feet wide. He tore out the patio, knocked out the tavern wall and his work crews were going so fast they had to go back when roofing and tear out a board because the man installing the air conditioner pipes got built in. An elevated stage for dancing matinee and nite top bands and entertainers was constructed. Really a stupendous feat. It will make the Island night live and best of all it will be walking distance for round the lake folk who have lent out the car.”18 Commenting on the completion of the projects, Ziggy Johnson recalled Giles's generosity when, for “the first time in 20 years, [his] mother [had] decided to come and pay [him] a visit and witness one of [his] shows”: “Phil Giles made a little lady happy on her birthday by inviting all of her friends to the Flamingo Patio for champagne, and to top it off Giles fed everyone. And they say, little things mean a lot.”19 For management purposes, the collaboration with other entrepreneurs allowed Giles to concentrate on the nightclub Page 125 → and hotel, while leasing most of the smaller operations he owned to relieve the burden of having to manage them himself. The Phil Giles Grill and Bennie Fields Concession served the finest of foods, cafeteria style, and stayed open twenty-four hours. The grill served breakfast all day at very moderate prices. The Phil Giles Motor Boat Ride, complete with a dock and seats for seven, was “an Art Braggs Concession,” and offered “dock space for your boat if you would like to bring it.”20 Idlewild's reputation as a major entertainment center was, as Jennifer Machiorlatti writes, “at the heart of why this resort area is most remembered.” Phil Giles and Arthur Braggs made similar and different contributions, and both men were responsible for this reputation. Both understood and recognized the socioeconomic factors of the time. Page 126 →

With the popularity and draw of entertainers, an increase in expendable income mainly due to wartime prosperity, and improvements in transportation, and lodging facilities, many more people could visit or purchase land in Idlewild, not just well-to-do black professionals. The middle class was expanding throughout America and expendable income was prevalent.21 For Machiorlatti, the point is that the expansion of middle-class African America was really the result of whitecollar managers and accountants, the bureaucratic class, those in the media, and union members whose income became tied to inflation, not hustlers and racketeers. Among the Idlewilders, the entrepreneurs of the town were tapping into and helping to create the same black economic nationalist impulse that John Johnson's Ebony and Jet were evoking and helping to create. This pattern of thought illustrates important relations between Johnson and Giles as visionary entrepreneurs. For Giles, Idlewild was fulfilling the middle- and working-class African American's dream in the tourist industry, as part of a continuation of a “concrete example of African American nationalist theory and praxis.”22 He understood the cultural fabric of this prosperity, that growth of the media meant the emergence of national stars, and that the show business industry meant heady business for tourism in Idlewild and across the states. Michigan's tourism industry was generating an audience amounting to over 2.5 million nationwide and sizable revenues annually. Phil Giles Enterprises focused on different kinds of black entertainment and consolidated the economic development of the resort. The nightlife of the Flamingo Club—symbolizing, from another angle, the affirmation of urban black identity within Idlewild's play with signifiers of suburbia—became rural Idlewild's signature attraction. The “small production” entertainment operation that Giles hosted in the Flamingo Club consisted of a musical headliner, a comedian, and chorus girls. Sunnie Wilson, in his autobiography Toast of the Town, recalls how the entertainment was “good but not anything you would see in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. Most of the groups came out of Detroit and Grand Rapids, primarily small groups and combos with musicians.”23 One particularly popular vocalist who regularly sang at the club is Alberta Adams, “Detroit's Queen of the Blues.” Adams's performances were always sociable, engaging, and interactive.24 Wilson recalls, “Singers and entertainers at the club worked three shows a day. Sometimes the club had more whites than blacks.”25 Giles contracted entertainers that brought blacks and whites into more intimate contact, by creating an atmosphere of overlapping points of appeal for racially integrated audiences during the civil rights movement of the 1950s. Throughout the period, many “whites attended Page 127 → the [Flamingo] club,”26 and the biggest draw for them was the music and performances of popular entertainers. The Lake County Historical Society's pictorial book Lake County, 1871–1960 displays a photograph of Dorothy and Edward Kreidler and some of their friends “enjoying a show at the Flamingo Club” in 1959.27 In the summer of 1960, as the attraction spread, Emil and Shirley Wenger of the Wenger Insurance Agency in Baldwin frequented the club. Giles marketed Idlewild as one of the largest and most fabulous entertainment centers. To spread the word about Idlewild's outdoor activities available to vacationers during the summer months, as well as for deer hunters during fall hunting seasons, he frequently purchased quarter-page advertisements that were displayed in the Michigan Chronicle, Detroit Courier, Detroit Tribune, Chicago Defender, and Cleveland Call and Post, and he made a number of public service announcements on commercial radio stations in Detroit and other nearby urban cities. “In the fall hunters from all parts of the country” came to Idlewild for wildlife of all kinds and opportunities to hunt “partridge, woodcock, waterfowl or rabbit.”28 As the bar was enlarged to a five-hundred-seat nightclub and cocktail lounge in 1955, press releases circulated about upcoming entertainment attractions at the Flamingo Club. In his Michigan Chronicle column, Ziggy Johnson fanned the flames of anticipation, explaining how the locals were “eager to find out just what Phil Giles was doing in the line of expanding the interior of the Flamingo Club.”29 The black press advertised Giles choices of up-and-coming local, regional, and sometimes international artists who were to appear at the club. No doubt the apex of Giles's exhaustive promotional campaign was an Ebony magazine story in 1952, which heightened the town's reputation as the resort capital of the America. The media coverage he received in Ebony highlighted the escape-from-the-city, middle-class sensibility of the resort, as opposed to its sophisticated evocations of black cosmopolitanism. This coverage included a photograph with a caption that read, “Speeding over clam waters of Lake Idlewild, party of vacationers share motor boat with Phil Giles, owner of the oldest hotel in Idlewild, favorite

Michigan resort for Negroes. Vacationers enjoy boating, swimming and fishing in lakes. Lake shore is dotted with sumptuous summer homes, most of them owned by socialites from six Midwestern states.”30 Illustrating how the number of popular vacation spots for African Americans had evolved from the days when the pioneers of some of the oldest resorts in the nation camped in tents, Ebony put the spotlight on Idlewild and Giles. Calling the resort Michigan's “summer playground for Negro America,” Ebony at once conjured ideas of consumer freedom and new black communities, recognizing Giles as a pioneer and touting Idlewild as a “wellordered, organized Page 128 → community offering vacationers everything from pleasure boating to nightclubbing.”31 Phil Giles Enterprises represented “a property investment of over $1 million.”32 Yet, unlike the many “dozens of vacation spas” that had “opened all over the U.S. in recent years” to cater to “an ever-increasing Negro trade,” Idlewild existed “as an unincorporated, year round community that was pioneered in the colorful tradition of early American homesteaders.”33 An innovator and visionary, Giles, unlike the entrepreneurs at other African American vacation designations, strategically invested large sums of money into the infrastructure of Idlewild. Showcasing the Island as a lucrative business enterprise, Giles dreamed of and used his economic clout to pave the way for profound social change and economic development. Like the pioneers and old settlers of the 1920s and ’30s, such as Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, members of the Idlewild Improvement Association, and Lela and Herman Wilson of Paradise Gardens, Giles altered Idlewild's place in modern American history, using the same sense of adventure, anticipation, and innovation that laid the foundation.

Giles as an Astute Businessman Promoting Tourism and Entertainment The Flamingo Club attracted many prominent acts, not-so-prominent talents, and famous personalities during the middle to late 1950s. For example, performances by guitarist Artrola Thurman, oriental impresario Luther Thompson, exotic shake dancer Viviane, blues recording star Sonny Carter, Larry Wrice and the Flamingo AllStar Band, and other talents and acts were promoted in the Michigan Chronicle. An advertisement that appeared in the Chronicle to announce the grand opening of “Phil Giles' Flamingo Club May 25th” boasted of an “All Star Stage Show, featuring Charley Aikens' Dansations, exotic dancer, Utilda Dix, Blues vocalist, Helen Calloway, Prince O' Cari, fire dancer, and music by Don Costello's Flamingo Band, with Prince Moss as emcee.”34 In the next month, Giles brought the popular La Vern Baker to the Flamingo Club,35 and by early July, there was a return of the Charles Aikens dancers, the sensational Dutch and Dutchy, and Don Costello's band.36 In the Idlewilder's Magazine issue of July 27, 1956, readers learned of the debut of Little Miss Muffet at Giles's Flamingo Club, in a show emceed by Cha Cha Hogan and showcasing regional talents Dutch and Dutchy, Betty Brisbane, and the Four Diablos.37 The importance of showcasing these kinds of eclectic acts—snake dancers, fire dancers, exotic dancers, and comedians—was to appeal to the variety of tastes desired by the club's patrons. By the summer of 1957, Bea Giles, the lovely first lady, had become manager Page 129 → of the Flamingo Bar and purchased numerous advertisements in K. D. Davis's Idlewilder's Magazine, the Detroit Courier, and the Michigan Chronicle to promote the unique shows appearing at the Flamingo Club. Appearing that summer were singing star Jean DeeShon, comedian Della Wiggins, the Flying Ace, Afro-Cuban dancer Denia De Soto, and the Dancing Spices chorus line, with Trixie Terry as the show's producer. Although she was known as a popular dancer and performer in retirement, Trixie “the Toiler” sometimes took the place of scheduled dancers who, for one reason or another, could not perform. In one recounting, Trixie replaced two Dancing Spices, Peggy Prentiss and Marie Glover, who had been thrown from Sergeant Johnson's horses and were in the hospital.38 On Friday, May 29, the Flamingo Club featured Kenny Martin, Artrola Thurman, Laura Johnson, Floretta, Doris Hines, and Luther Thompson and the Flamingo Dancers. Giles also regularly hosted Sunday matinees for youth. The Phil Giles Theatrical Agency recruited shake dancers, such as Black Velvet, the exotic pleaser and teaser who catered to a patriarchal ideology of black sexuality and pleasure for men and to an era in which the black female body represented, to use the language of Deborah Willis and Carla Williams, “an ideal, a fantasy, a stereotype, and, ultimately, herself.”39 Black Velvet, who was extremely popular among the crowds, appeared live at both the Flamingo and Paradise clubs and once alongside headliner B.B. King at both nightclubs in the summer of 1958. The 1959 summer season encouraged Phil and Bea Giles to recruit Luther Thompson and the Flamingo Dancers to tour booked midwestern cities in Ohio, Missouri, and Indiana. Audiences danced to the music of Jimmie Burton

and were spellbound by Thompson, the spectacular fire and oil dancer, as well as the Flamingo Dancers. Thompson led the tour as the main star of the Phil Giles Flamingo Follies.40 During a stop in Cleveland, Ohio, they performed at Gleason's Musical Bar for a two-week Christmas show that took their stay well into the New Year, ending on January 3, 1960.41 It appeared as though the Phil Giles Flamingo Follies were in competition with the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue, but in reality, they were working collaboratively to attract tourists and to keep the crowds entertained during and between shows. In addition to featuring nationally and internationally known stars, Phil Giles introduced some of the most sensual exotic shake dancers and gifted performers to tour the club. Giles's Flamingo Club opened every summer resort season early and ended before the winter season took full effect. He did this to appease all kinds of appetites—those of summer vacationers and fall hunters. Giles opened the 1961 summer season with Earl “Count” Belcher and his band. The club, which had increased its seating capacity to accommodate more Page 130 → than five hundred guests, also featured Little Willie Smith as the emcee for the Flamingo's all-star show; Viviane, another shake dancer, who kept the audience wondering what garment she would lose next; and blues singer; Leatha Jones.42 The show drew large crowds, and the patrons joined together and staged line dances. The Flamingo Club's 1962 summer season featured this form of dancing and several floor shows.43 The popular staff, including Trixie Aldrich (a longtime Idlewild resident), Audrey Bullett, Edith McKinney, Otis Stanley, and “Mama” Helen Curry, worked as dancers, bartenders, barmaids, production assistants, talent agents, and entertainment coordinators for the Phil Giles Theatrical Agency. The agency recruited and promoted singers, dancers, novelty acts, and a complete show with chorus lines and bands, advertising with the motto “You've tried the rest, now get the best.” Trixie and Helen served as jacks-of-all-trades, as they especially helped with the smooth management of the delightful and congenial nightclub surroundings on the Island, located directly across the road from beautiful Idlewild Lake. Trixie, as one Detroit News reporter stated in 1986, “still has stage presence. She greets her visitors dressed in a shimmering blue caftan which clings like silk to her still shapely body. At 69, she looks exotic. Her soft laughter is infectious. I don't know any place I'd rather spend my retirement years than here.”44 In the period when Trixie danced at the Flamingo Club, it offered the latest sounds, dancing, food, and drinks, alongside the suburban staple of air-conditioning and a large television set. Unlike the Paradise Club, the Flamingo Bar stayed open until two in the morning and thus put a finishing touch on the day and night for the typical Idlewild vacationer from May 1 to December 1. Many of the patrons at the Flamingo Club, after leaving a show at the Paradise Club, would head to the El Morocco Club and party well into the morning. However, Joe Louis, Congressman Charles Diggs, and Senator John Roxborough only attended the Flamingo Club. Detroit was known for enticing celebrities like Joe Louis, Sammy Davis Jr., and Duke Ellington to frequent the Flame Show Bar, the Gotham Hotel, and other popular nightspots. The heavyweight champ, Congressman Diggs, and Senator Roxborough were regular summer visitors of Idlewild. As Joe Louis was winning bouts to retain the heavyweight championship, Idlewild, through his manager, Roxborough, was able to lower him into its social scene, to see the shows at the Paradise Club and the Flamingo Club. Roxborough even set up training camps for Louis in nearby counties. Giles's goal was to make Idlewild one of the most famous African American resort towns in the United States. Traveling around the nation, Giles made Idlewild known to all who would listen, including those who read newspaper advertisements he purchased in the black press and in the Negro Travelers' Green Page 131 → Book, the national, cross-regional traveling guide used by African American vacationers to locate places to lodge and eat during segregation, places “where they would be welcome without fear of humiliation.”45 Implied in the Green Book was a national identity shared by African American vacationers that resisted the limits of racial segregation and discrimination. Giles and other entrepreneurs attracted thousands of tourists to Idlewild by advertising their businesses in the guide. Many found this method and promotion of tourism, leisure, and recreation extremely instrumental in attracting black vacationers and in stimulating the Michigan economy. A major reason for the resort's popularity, explains June Brown of the Detroit News “was the freedom from discriminatory practices that were prevalent in larger urban areas and the white resort areas. Because Blacks could not eat in white restaurants, stay in white hotels or vacation at white resorts, other blacks made a successful living by providing these services. Eventually, thousands of black vacationers solved the problem of segregation in tourism by making Idlewild.”46

Yet Idlewild was not just about the resistance of Jim Crow segregation, economic nationalism, and a middle-class exterior. When it came to entertainment, Giles wanted Idlewild to cross class and racial lines. Purchasing most of the property on the Island through Phil Giles Enterprises and using the mass media to showcase and promote the black talent at the club, Giles linked the ownership of capital to the cultivation of a wider black cultural identity based on media-popular stars (John Johnson's Ebony and Jet made a similar connection). Giles staged and hosted dinner dances and fashion shows organized by chapters of the National Idlewilders Club or the Maxine Powell Finishing and Modeling School. Detroit's Sunnie Wilson, one of the founding members and the first president of the Detroit Idlewilders Club, would help out from time to time. Sunnie recalls, “Sometimes I would serve as emcee.”47 Wilson joined a group of longtime friends from Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Flint, Lansing, and St. Louis during the summer of 1952 to discuss organizing the national social club that would celebrate their love and friendships. Agreeing among themselves to organize Idlewild chapters in their cities, some friends convened in Chicago and called themselves the Original Chicago Idlewilders Club. However, because of an internal conflict and differences of opinion, they later split up and organized as two separate chapters, the Original Chicago and Chicago Inc. clubs. The idea for the Detroit Idlewilders Club was also born in the summer of 1952 while these friends were sitting around at the Giles Hotel. This group of friends was having such a beautiful relationship while drinking and talking that they vowed to “carry it out all thru the year.”48 When they returned to Detroit, Sunnie Wilson called a meeting at the Mark Twain Hotel to formulate plans to Page 132 → organize a club, and by the fall of 1952, an election meeting was held one Sunday afternoon at the home of Joseph and Velma Branham in Arden Park. Those attending this initial meeting elected Wilson as president. The vice presidency went to Attorney Joseph Craigen, with Joseph Branham as treasurer, Evelyn Solomon as financial secretary, Isola Graham as recording secretary, Attorney Willis Graves as parliamentarian, and David Brantley as chaplain.49 The motto of the club was “to mutually pledge to aid and support charitable and civic endeavors that promote social entertaining and recreation.” Sometime later in 1953, Wilson “financed the purchase of the Detroit Idlewilders clubhouse from a doctor out of Chicago.”50 Afterward, Wilson writes, “I turned it over to the organization. Each Detroit member owns a share of the clubhouse. Over the years, noted members of the Detroit Idlewilders have included [Congressman] Charles Diggs, Jr., Herbert Taylor, Dr. Robert Bennett, and pioneer businesswoman Maxine Powell.”51 The club was a part of the stability of Idlewild, and besides building loyalty and maintaining friendships, the club established social and cultural traditions in Idlewild through an entire week of annual celebrations. They created a national body and became the National Idlewilders Club Inc., comprised of frequent vacationers who were organized into chapters, structured as social and fraternal organizations, by the city or region within the state from which they hailed—Detroit, Original Chicago, Chicago Inc., Cleveland, St. Louis, and Mid-Michigan. Their main activities involved hosting annual conclaves and the August National Idlewilders Week celebrations and generally preserving a reservoir of memories and tales about Idlewild. Kenneth Davis, also a founding member of the Detroit club, published an article in Idlewilder's Magazine forecasting the 1958 summer scene as the stage was being set for the grand opening of the newly renovated Giles Flamingo Bar. Capturing the essence of this through the lens of race and class and rural and urban intersections during the Memorial Day weekend in Idlewild, Davis also congratulated Attorney Craigen, a former Detroit Garveyite, for suggesting that the Detroit Idlewilders Club should purchase and open the clubhouse and build a new parking lot across the road from the clubhouse, which could be used by all of the club chapters. Phil Giles reopened the door between the bar and nite club and will operate as before. The Memorial Day teenage dry run was for that week only. Memorial Day drew the largest crowd ever and that leads to the belief that a good season follows. Automotive news say more Mark III cars have been sold to us in the past 6 months than all previous years combined. Then the Big Party Champagne fountain ran longer than usual indicating the recession is really on. One Page 133 → of the big picture windows in the Idlewild Club Bar is broken (always something). Attorney Joe Craigen is to be congratulated for his selection of the parking lot purchase for the Idlewild Club. It is located on the opposite side of the club house road just before reaching the small gate. It is high and level so that there will be no muds on the puddles to walk there while the land exactly across from the club house

is low and scopes and diffs down at a steep angle. His selection is real choice “You'll see.”52

Within this culture, owning bigger and classier automobiles, which were also almost always convertibles, signified social status and a symbol that one had arrived. The opening of the club and the construction of the new parking lot was marketed to cater to the tastes of those who owned the fancy cars, who were decked out in long dresses, fur coats, silk suits and ties, and fancy crocodile and alligator leather shoes, and who consumed large quantities of expensive alcoholic beverages. Giles, one of the pioneering members of the Detroit Idlewilders, was a staunch supporter of the activities and programs of the National Idlewilders Club through the Detroit, Cleveland, and Original Chicago chapters. Each chapter is known for developing elaborative line dances, orchestrating events, and staging floor shows at the Flamingo Club. Giles also sponsored modeling venues arranged by members of the National Idlewilders Club and the Maxine Powell Finishing and Modeling School. These events enabled personal relationships to unfold between patrons and some of the entertainers. George Kirby, for example, attended one of Maryellen Wilson's surprise parties for Joyce Porter with Elizabeth Cole Elsino and Helen Lawhorn of the Chicago Idlewilders. In one of the Dottie Rose Style Shows hosted at the Flamingo Club in 1963, everyone wore paper clothes, such as paper pantsuits and hats. At the time when he owned and managed the club, Phil Giles worked along with Lela Wilson, Henry Brown, and Woolsey Coombs, three of the town's leaders, who were recognized as women and men of honesty, integrity, and high esteem. He also worked collaboratively with other black entrepreneurs of the 1950s and ’60s who attracted the crowds on the Island, such as Nute Polk of Detroit, who introduced a galore of fun for adults and teenagers with Polk's Roller Arena. To further promote Idlewild's attractiveness to potential vacationers, Giles realized that the Island needed to better cater to the recreational activities of the resort's families, and he therefore gave attention to the children and teenagers. Giles's third wife, Betty remembered, “He wanted Idlewild to have everything you would have at a resort.”53 Giles thus supported Polk's plans to purchase and convert the old clubhouse into a skating rink, so that while the parents Page 134 → made memories drinking, seeing live shows, and dancing across the road in the Flamingo Bar and Club, their children could make memories on the wooden floors at Polk's Roller Arena. Polk's rink was small but popular among families, youth, and adults. Polk furnished skates and offered free skating instructions for beginners. The rink was advertised as the teenagers' meeting place. Many baby boomers remember the two best skaters, Grand Rapids judge Ben Logan and Idlewild's Stumpy Burrell, who were always competing on the rink: “No one would get in their way because they would be sporting precisions and flying from one end of the rink to the other gliding across the floor.”54 Bill Owsley of Indianapolis, a longtime seasonal resident, remembers the gray dust patrons would acquire on their hair and clothing before leaving the rink, as well as walking along the long red wooden railing separating the rink from the walkway, the skating rental office, and, near the rear of the building, a refreshment counter serving soft drinks, ice cream, candy, and popcorn. Nute Polk owned Polk's Roller Arena for nearly twenty years, serving the recreational needs of Alan, Jessie, Gloria, and Deborah Haugabook and the teens of many other families. Marketed for kids from ages six to sixty, Polk's rink was “the sports palace” and “the site of star-studded family fun and entertainment galore.” The Island, complete with musical tunes as well as skating and concession stands, represented a site where simultaneous histories unfolded weekly, sometimes at the same time, though in different buildings just across the road from each other. The black commercial district Giles built housed several other thriving businesses. With the exception of Polk's Roller Arena, Giles owned the Island under the name Phil Giles Enterprises and rented space on the beach side to other vendors. He owned three concession stands; the Phil Giles Grill; the Shrimp Hut; Otis Harris' Shooting Gallery; the space occupying Gibbons' Dairy and Realty; a tiny K.D. Photography Shop, which sold souvenir pictures, copies of Idlewilder's Magazine, and photos for other occasions on the beach and at cottage parties; and the Giles Hotel. Next to the hotel was a penny pitch. On the other side of the road stood the famous Flamingo Bar, with an outdoor patio connected to the Flamingo Nightclub, alongside a cottage and Giles's restaurant. Gladys Smith, who had bought the restaurant from Giles, renamed it Gladys' Home Cooking. Located across the road from the Giles Hotel, Gladys' Home Cooking opened for business in the summer of 1958, serving delicious barbecue meals from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. Across the road, serving the teenage crowds as they exited Polk's

Roller Arena, was Tucker and Son's Grill, which was located on the beach of Idlewild Lake. Tucker and Son's Grill was considered a favorite eating place for the teens and a refuge for adults, who, particularly in the wee hours of the morning, enjoyed the “delicious short order delicacies Page 135 → served 24 hours per day.”55 Tucker and Son's Grill, owned by Tempie Tucker, and the Flamingo Bar and the Giles Hotel, owned by Phil Giles, remained open twenty-four hours daily during the summer resort and hunting season. Lodging was another thriving business in Idlewild in which Giles became involved. With the development of the motel, a product of the postwar era, Giles promoted business for over eighty different rentals, including motel establishments and rental cottages, stating, In this peerless resort you can find hotel, cottage, and motel accommodations to fit every purse and taste. Many of our cottages, hotels and motels are encircling our lakes thus giving you private lake frontage and private beach privileges if you so desire. Others are nestled under the protective branches of our lovely trees. Most of the hotels, motels and cottages offer every modern convenience. All, however, are set in backgrounds of charm and loveliness.56 For lovers of nature, Idlewild's scenic views and pleasures—“the surrounding woods with its stands of tall, stately pines, and mighty oaks, ““shy graceful birds,” “delicate wild flowers whose beauty and gentle fragrance permeate the air,” and “bounteous supply of several species, fleet little rabbits, comical looking porcupine, sly raccoon and best of all the elusive, graceful deer”—and its “nature hikes and picnics” were perfect ways to “forget the hustle and bustle of the city.”57 During the 1959 season, the shows Giles showcased at the Flamingo and the shows produced by Arthur Braggs in the Fiesta Room at the Paradise Club were reciprocally measured against one another. The black press had even tried to create a competition between the two producers. A caption in Jet magazine on October 16, 1958, stoked a rumor that spread through the African American community in the Midwest that Phil Giles, who had “apparently [been] encouraged by the success of Arthur Braggs' 1958 Idlewild Revue, hire[d] the Luther Thompson Flamingo Dancers and tour[ed] the Midwest,” mainly states such as Ohio and Indiana. Giles promoted up-and-coming professional artists, but the talent on his roster was of a more experimental quality, less established, less bona fide by critical and commercial success, than the stellar headliners of Braggs. Another difference between the two nightclub managers rested on the fact that the Flamingo Club opened in May and closed after the hunting season in December, whereas the Paradise Club opened in May and closed in September. This meant that Giles catered to a diverse audience with an eclectic range of tastes as compared with that of the more upscale crowds visiting Braggs's Paradise Club. The night shows showcased at Giles's Flamingo Club were primarily local and regional entertainment, while the shows that Braggs produced targeted Page 136 → and showcased national and international stars achieving some commercial success as professional artists. Yet, as if usurping these structural categories of tastes, the crowds liked the idea that they could see the shows at both nightclubs on any given night. On the one hand, they liked seeing up close the famous artists appearing in the Fiesta Room, a product that the Phil Giles Theatrical Agency in Detroit did not pursue. On the other hand, Giles offered a daring mixture evoking a kind of carnival; headlining two nightly shows at the Flamingo Club over the 1960 Fourth of July weekend were the amazing sixty-four-year-old Caledonia Young, interpretive dancer Lester Goodman, exotic shake dancer Queenie Buckner, vocalist Paul Williams, comedian Gip Roberts, the singing sensations the Valdoros, Luther Thompson and the Flamingo Dancers, and Charles Hooks and the Flamingo All-Stars, with Larry Wrice at the drums. Investing heavily into the infrastructure of the resort town, Giles laid the foundation for the musical culture of Idlewild to flourish. He secured the capital, assembled the creative team he needed to recruit and produce the shows, commissioned local acts in Detroit, hired top regional performers, and booked a few first-class shows through the Phil Giles Theatrical Agency. Both Giles and Braggs invested in Idlewild's entertainment life, knowing it was Idlewild, not either of their clubs alone, that signified the dignity and cultural resonance of the resort. Thus, they worked together; no matter whose nightclub the black and white vacationers attended, the

arrangement that had been established collaboratively between Giles and Braggs facilitated their patrons' attending all the nightspots in one evening, their clubs as well as the El Morocco Club and Walter Johnson's Hyde Park Villa, another after-hours spot. This was possible by careful coordination of the scheduled shows while the clubs were open. For many patrons, freedom of choice in their entertainment was not as important as the experience of the community. The shows became a counterpart to the friendships developed in the clubs and on the beach. Giles was a catalyst for social and economic change, not only in the role of musical impresario, but in fostering Idlewild as an enclave for black entrepreneurs, creating a cooperative business environment. At the same time that this cooperation revised capitalism while leaving its structures intact, it gave new values to the act of consumption among African Americans; both production and consumption were treated by Giles, as much as by the club patrons, as deeply social, as bringing new communities together. This political side to Giles's vision emerges when we consider his efforts to build the community not only from the outside in but from the inside out, through holding political office. Along with the many successful projects he had brewing on the Island for Page 137 → well over a decade, he had also been elected Yates Township supervisor. During the fall of 1951, with the sudden death of the former supervisor, Henry L. Brown, Phil Giles was nominated, appointed, and, a year later, elected Yates Township supervisor during a special election in early April, an elected position he held until 1958.58 As township supervisor, Giles vowed to improve Idlewild's landscape significantly and to actualize these plans by advertising and marketing the resort town to attract more tourists and business investors: these early efforts put Idlewild on the map as the resort capital of America. One of the first tests of Giles's public leadership was to address major traffic concerns of township officials, residents, summer guests, and vacationers. The summer traffic had become so heavy that some concrete actions had to be soon enforced. Giles deputized eight township residents to help to keep the traffic moving and made several requests to the state of Michigan for additional support. When it was clear that he needed to control the traffic, Giles deputized Nute Polk and about seven to eight others to maintain traffic control on the Island and the strip. Betty Harris, Phil Giles's third wife, commented that he did so because “He didn't want Baldwin involved unless there was something serious going on.”59 The new traffic cop on the strip on the corner of Bridge Street and Lake Drive, Officer Stiles from Chicago, had no trouble, making women drivers heed the stop sign. But as K. D. Davis explains, “As for tickets, they seem to be handing him cards.”60 Giles had to increase these efforts and to put more pressure on the state and ultimately to get help in establishing a police department in the resort town. The support of the eight deputies who were recruited as township constables and Officer Stiles meant that Giles was controlling the flow of traffic on the small Island (namely, the strip) and in other sections of downtown Idlewild, near Dan Ware and Son's Grocery. To put this problem into a social perspective, throughout the 1950s, Idlewild was becoming the largest and most popular African American resort town in the nation, attracting more than fifteen to twenty-five thousand vacationers on any summer weekend annually from Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana; indeed, this summer season growth in Idlewild ran parallel to the growth of Chicago as the cultural capital of black life and business and the efforts of black urbanities to challenge the lines of segregation in their cities. With road improvements, the development of the highway, and more people owning automobiles, Giles, through the use of the services of a ghostwriter employed by the Idlewild Chamber of Commerce as part of a promotional campaign, provided directions on how to get to Idlewild in a brochure encouraging African American vacationers to travel by automobile and train. Page 138 → Excellent highways for which Michigan is justly proud and the facilities of one railroad make Idlewild easily accessible to the most distant traveler. With the procurement of a Michigan road map you can easily route yourself to this resort. If however, you would like assistance in routing your trip you have only to send a stamp-enclosed letter to the traffic committee, Idlewild Chamber of Commerce, Idlewild, Michigan and we will be glad to furnish you with any needed information.61

The tourists were traveling from such cities as Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Lansing, Flint, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Muskegon, and Saginaw on weekends during the summer months. At its peak of popularity between 1955 and 1962, “Idlewild could attract as many as 20 to 25,000 during a busy summer weekend to its many lakes, streams, and open forests.”62 Up to three thousand automobiles filled the area. The hiring of a national guardsman who worked detail to control the traffic helped some. However, during the shows on the Island at the Flamingo Club, the automobiles were lined up bumper Page 139 → to bumper on both sides of the road along and in front of the nightclub, from bridge to bridge, in front of the Giles Hotel, Polk's Roller Arena, and the picnic area. On the opposite side of the road, there was parking to the right of the club and in front of the club and Gladys' Home Cooking. Bill Owsley, a teen skater and longtime seasonal resident, comments, “Whenever people would be double-parked that's when Nute Polk and other deputies would tell them to move on.”63 He also recalls one incident when a group of guys from Detroit were changing clothes from the trunk of their Cadillac while double-parked in front of Polk's Roller Arena and were forced to move on without any argument. By the summer of 1955, the tune changed. Jet magazine had published an article about Giles's hiring of Officer Patricia Hoskins, who had been recognized as the first African American mounted policewoman in the United States. The new traffic chief made additional hires to immediately address the summer traffic crisis. Controlling traffic was part of maintaining effective movement of consumers through the town. That black deputies acting as police officers were protecting this freedom of movement held special meaning for African American vacationers who were struggling against the de facto walls of segregation in their cities. Recognizing the achievement of President Dwight Eisenhower in terms of improvements in the federal highway system, Giles evoked Idlewild as a place where African Americans could move freely through spaces both private and public. With the traffic mildly under control, Giles planned comprehensive attractions for vacationers, showcasing Idlewild as a major traveling destination and unique vacation package that offered an array of activities, such as nightly shows at the Flamingo Club, Sergeant Johnson's horseback riding, and rented paddleboats and excursion boats that took patrons around Idlewild Lake. The unique saga Giles wanted to create provides significant insight into how the history of African American leisure and recreation intersects with the history of African American entertainment, entrepreneurship, consumerism, and cultural consumption. In Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940–1955, in a discussion on “black-appeal radio” and black radio audiences of the 1940s, Adam Green charts the development of an “imagined community” by discussing the simultaneous rise of commercialized black music and the Johnson Publishing Company, which represented one of the most important black enterprises established in Chicago during this period. Johnson's publication attracted substantial corporate advertisements by serving as the gateway for Ebony's African American consumer market. Green's thoughtful analysis about the commercialization of black music illustrates how black Chicagoans transformed the Windy City by “fashioning institutional, entrepreneurial, market-driven, and national forms of black culture.”64 This cultural link that Page 140 → Green makes, which took the conceptual framework of “selling the race” to the proverbial next level, seems relevant to the imagined community that Giles and others sought to create in Idlewild. Changing race and class dynamics of the 1950s and ’60s was critical to Giles success to serving the new consumer market. He employed working-class local residents. Recalling the consumer atmosphere he created, Betty Harris, a native Idlewilder, states, “Phil had a set of concession stands. Dad [Otis Harris] ran the shooting gallery. My sister, Edith McKinney, worked at the Flamingo Club as a barmaid, and at the grill. We all worked for him. He employed local people to serve the tourist and vacationers. All the jobs went to the local people. In fact, just about all the local businesses employed local people, including Leona Simmons at Lee Jon's, Pearl's Bar, and Sonny Roxborough over at Rosanna's Tavern.”65 Historian Lizabeth Cohen's Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 is instructive for understanding this culture, as she links themes of consumerism and consumption to Chicago's reputation as a city of labor militancy. Cohen advances a compelling argument about the impact of consumerism as Chicago became a center of labor strikes, with more strikes than any other city in the United States, particularly in the mass-production industries of steel, meatpacking, ready-made clothing, and agricultural equipment.66 Before this, Chicago's manufacturing economy had been stable. The city had produced more food items, furniture, telephone equipment, agricultural implements, railroad supplies, iron, and steel than any other city in America. Similarly, in Detroit, automobile baron Henry Ford had integrated his employees into a

middle-class culture so that the company could develop new ideas. As Cohen points out, Ford, who was not a humanitarian when it came to race, made his employees happier and gave them more time “to find out what is going on in the world” by shortening their workdays and weeks. This new consumer market that was developed by Ford and other commercial leaders created a higher demand for products and an increase in consumer spending habits. The chain stores, standard brands, motion pictures, and radio stations did not themselves compete with what the working class already valued. The impact of this development for Giles explains how higher wages paid by manufacturing companies to unskilled and semiskilled workers marked the success of the chain stores and vacation locations such as Idlewild as a reflection of fundamental changes in middle- and upper-class practices of consumerism. Consequently, Giles encouraged a sort of consumer dignity, publishing a 1955 brochure, Come to Beautiful Idlewild for a Real Vacation, to promote the black resort town as an imagined utopian community and attract even more tourists. The brochure, with ads from practically every business and religious congregation in Idlewild, Baldwin, and Scottsville, Michigan, showcased Idlewild as Michigan's resort Page 141 → Page 142 → capital of America. The brochure in its entirety discussed the services provided through the Idlewild Chamber of Commerce, noting that it “takes great pleasure in inviting you to the cool, pleasant environs of this great national playground [w]here Nature has lavished beauty, grandeur, loveliness, in blue inland lakes surrounded by sandy stretches of beach, lush green valleys and cathedral forests.”67 As for the location, the brochure stated, “This great vacation empire is near your home by bus, train, or splendid paved highways.”68

In describing the delightful summer days, pleasant “nights with cool lake breezes sweeping through carrying the fragrant scent of pine trees and wild floral life making sultry, sleepless nights something relegated into the unknown,” the brochure highlighted “exhilarating summer land all outdoors” as a playground with “the finest fishing on the continent, swimming, hiking, skating, horseback riding on unusual trails, picnicking in virgin forests, amusement park, motor boats and other recreations.” By urging inquiring vacationers to explore “the friendliness and hospitality and night entertainment you can find in Idlewild among thousands who call it their vacation home,” it added, “The nights can be equaled nowhere else. There is a skillful blending of the openhearted welcome of the north woods with the sophistication of the city that produces a sincere feeling of good fellowship. It is then that our night clubs and taverns come into their own. Owned and operated by reputable local business men, these clubs obtain for your enjoyment the most scintillating floor shows and the best bands that can be procured. It is at these spots that influential men and women the country over meet and fraternize.”69 The biggest draw implied in the brochure was the idea behind the economic nationalist agenda that Giles promoted, noting, Idlewild is the largest and best-known Afro-American resort in the world. It boasts of a property valuation over $1,000,000. Idlewild is controlled by Negroes. All township officials are of our race. The same applies to our post office and local businesses. Here you can enjoy the vacation of your dream, free from the embarrassing discriminatory and petty prejudices you might encounter elsewhere. If you have never been here before you will be astounded at the pleasure and relief you will experience at residing at a place which you can thoroughly enjoy secure in the knowledge that you are wanted.70 Finding suitable accommodations that were opened to African Americans while vacationing in northern Michigan was not an easy task. Giles understood that discrimination in the resort business, among white resort owners, was the general rule.71 The brochure, which was used to offset the ascribing of social pathologies, promoted the development of Idlewild as an institution that offered Page 143 → a safe haven for African American vacationers who desired to enjoy Michigan's great outdoors. No vacation is complete without good fishing. You can make a catch like this right in front of your cottage door. Of course even when fish are plentiful as they are in our Lakes, you must be skillful and patient to take them. There are always skilled fishermen visiting Idlewild who are willing to teach you the arts and tricks of being a good fisherman…. It is here that swimming is at its incomparable best. Two cool, limpid spring-fed lakes with sand-swept beaches are at your disposal. Our lakes are tested annually by the State Department of Public Health to ensure your swimming to be safe from any possible contamination. Should you desire to learn to swim, instructions in swimming are given at

each beach daily. Special care is exercised in watching out for the welfare of the tiny tots on these beaches. Here they can play in the shallow water and on the sand with perfect safety and enjoyment.72

To complement the joys of leisure and recreation, the brochure also encouraged vacationers to embrace the religious services of the different denominations Idlewild had to offer. While here should you find the need for religious solace, you'll find your church no matter what the denomination, and you'll find a sincere, hearty welcome. Many of the churches have early Sunday services you can attend and still have many hours left to play. Some of our churches have special summer services at which time well-known forums are conducted where addresses and talks by leading speakers and educators of our day are heard.73 For Giles, the objective of this brochure was to expose Idlewild's vacationers to the range of services and resources the resort had to offer them. Indeed, Green illustrates how most analyses of black histories tend to assume that political identities for African Americans are mobilized by worker's rights, civil rights, or international struggle against imperialism (or a combination therein), as opposed to consumer rights. Giles understood this cultural shift in thinking and how Idlewild parallels (in time and in some qualities of lifestyle) the white movement to suburbia.74 In taking Green's thesis a step further, this parallel would essentially signal a radical redefinition of American identity from the vantage of middle- and working-class African Americans who were being excluded from the social status and privileges of suburban life due to white control of real estate firms, banks, land, and the government. In Idlewild, Giles wanted Page 144 → African Americans to claim the same consumer dignity, conveniences, and modernism offered by white suburbia. In a visionary way, this kind of thinking included a wider range of classes, particularly for those who did not have mortgages or own their own homes. To this extent, Giles's exclusive catering to the “resort” or “entertainment” market may have meant that middle-and working-class African Americans could never fulfill the larger aspirations that brought many of them there. Nevertheless, this did not prevent him from creating a positive first impression of Idlewild. Consequently, Giles staffed the Idlewild Chamber of Commerce with travel counselors who not only welcomed new vacationers to the resort town but also helped them with routings and provided important information on different points of interest, events, and road conditions. By assisting these new vacationers, the chamber promoted travel to and from Michigan and significantly helped in generating revenues for the town, county, and state. The state of Michigan, through the Michigan State Highway Department, now known as the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), had reported in 1936 that the traffic flow heading to Idlewild on U.S. Route 10 east of Baldwin was 732. By 1946, the traffic flow on Route 10 east of Chase was approximately 3,696 automobiles.75 By the early 1950s, MDOT established Act 51 of Public Acts of 1951 to establish a commission for various counties in the state to have jurisdiction over their own roadways. Act 51 was also used to help the state determine how much money counties would receive for road construction and design. By a letter of February 7, 1955, sent to Superintendent William L. Matson of the Lake County Road Commission in Baldwin, Michigan, S. F. Coffman, the state's supervising engineer, stated the data required to determine the “design standards for estimating local road needs.”76 Because of the great variance in traffic served by the heavy traffic roads, Matson asked for mileage of “the roads by traffic groups for the purpose of establishing the design standards for estimating local road needs.”77 In Yates Township, the highway commissioner petitioned for the resurfacing of existing pavements and roadways within its borders, as more Americans desiring to travel to the area had access to automobiles. Because more Americans were taking family vacations in the area, the plan for state and county officials was to improve the roadways that had access to various vacation locations in western Michigan.

Giles, Racial Uplift, and Cooperative Economics Giles pioneered the nightclub era in the 1950s, fought for black entrepreneurs to gain entry to the hotel and tourist industry, and was extremely successful Page 145 → in outlining a cohesive and autonomous black township government that catered to an interracial clientele. He made Idlewild one of the most famous African American resorts in the United States; to do so, he traveled the nation, promoting Idlewild's resources and pleasures as a

chance not to escape but to build a new community. The blossoming of clubs for Idlewilders was a natural product of this vision. In addition to fostering business relationships with a sizeable number of organizations, Giles was also the first African American in Lake County to join the Baldwin Rotary Club. As a member of the Rotary Club around the same time as Bob Smith of Baldwin's Lake-Osceola State Bank and Ernie Wenger of the Wenger Insurance Agency, Phil Giles pledged to provide a service to the needy. Within the spirit of fellowship, friendship, and high ethical standards, Giles's membership as a volunteer would elevate his stature in the county by providing a service to the needy that would make changes and shape the course of history. Ninety-five percent of the employees he employed and supervised were from Idlewild, and many of them and other local residents were furnished with their clothing and food needs, as well as receiving help with their electricity bills. Always concerned about the general welfare of his fellow man and woman, Giles gave the residents something to be proud of as he cared about the goodwill and beautification of the resort town. He built the nightclub, brought entertainment to the Island, paved roads, installed streetlights, and motivated and inspired the youth to feel good about such services as pool halls, skating rinks, pinball machines, and an atmosphere where families could enjoy the pleasures of swimming and sunbathing on Idlewild's beach. As Giles sought patrons to be the bloodline of the resort that circulated through the organism of Idlewild and helped Idlewild grow by embodying the larger organism of black America, he sought to link the business community much as vertebrae are linked in a sturdy backbone. Opening the many new buildings and businesses on the Island, he attracted other businesses to the summer resort town. Giles was successful not only in acquiring and developing land but also in leasing and selling land to other entrepreneurs, offering them outstanding opportunities to do business with some of the same targeted consumers and banks, by showcasing their products and services, advertising new renovations, and maintaining industry trends. Black communities like Idlewild, as viable institutions, enabled Giles and other entrepreneurs to establish a cooperative setup, a commercial district that thrived and worked closely together. These spaces, Melissa HarrisLacewell explains, “are generally marked by a constant physical space that has regularly changing memberships. Black public spaces are unique because African Americans come together in these arenas because of their blackness in a way that can, but does not necessarily, happen in other counterpublic arenas. In organizations Page 146 → individuals come together because of the particular mission of the organization.”78 As a visionary leader, Giles, through the development of the Phil Giles Enterprise, created a separate space for African Americans based on the understanding “that race is a sufficient condition for togetherness.”79 Hotel and motel owners shared customers whenever their lodging facilities were full to capacity. The postwar boom and widening of the black middle class facilitated the growth of black-owned businesses in Idlewild, which by 1959 included three hotels, forty motels, fifty rental cottages, three bars and taverns, five service stations, six grocery stores, seven variety stores, eight restaurants, the two nightclubs, and at least two after-hours spots, Buck Brooks's El Morocco Club and Walter Johnson's Hyde Park Villa. Idlewild had a robust commercial community and numerous commercial accounts with Lake-Osceola State Bank in Baldwin and the Wenger Insurance Agency. Whenever the Giles Hotel, the major Idlewild hotel, was full, vacationers who defined themselves as middle class could regularly depend on a variety of other choice accommodations. For their comfort and pleasure, they could choose Woolsey Coomb's Casa Blanca Hotel or Lela Wilson's Paradise Hotel in beautiful Paradise Gardens. Coomb's Casa Blanca Hotel provided private suites for its patrons, but with community bathrooms. Open yearround for men and women of good taste from all parts of the world, the Casa Blanca Hotel treated its new customers just as it did its old customers. Known for its courteous and efficient attention to all of its guests, the Casa Blanca had reasonable rates and an informal dining room and lounge bar with twenty-four hour service. Meals and drinks were expertly prepared, and the service was prompt. The rooms had been planned for the guests' comfort, providing a homey and restful atmosphere for the traveler. In Paradise Gardens, the Paradise Hotel, fondly known as the Heartbreak Hotel, provided lodging accommodations for big-name stars, showgirls, and chorus lines. The entrepreneurs with commercial interests who attracted this class of African Americans witnessed a rise in consumer behaviors among black vacationers in Idlewild as there was an increase in the number of hotels and motels available, cottages rented, and businesses established. They marketed their facilities and services in the black press, and this transformation signaled opportunities for economic exchanges during the summer, as

thousands of tourists poured into the rural town. The Idlewild scene captured the imagination not only of the middle-class culture but also of working-class African Americans. Many tourists purchased souvenir booklets, magazines, brochures, postcards, hot meals, and cold beverages while celebrating at these facilities. However, after weekend evenings ended in the Flamingo and Paradise nightclubs, Page 147 → the crowds headed for the El Morocco Club, which did not open until two in the morning. It was located on Nelson Road, in a wooded area of the township, and “people didn't go to El Morocco's to see a show. They went to have the fun of their lives.”80 There was also the Hyde Park Villa right on the Idlewild lakefront, a supper club with fifty rooms modernly equipped. Every feature of a Hyde Park Villa guest room was refreshing to relax in at night and delightful to live in by day. There was a dockside patio, dancing, and a dining room that was modern, spacious, and popular for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The motel served a wonderful combo and matchless cuisine. Although smaller, the two other popular motels were Morton's Motel, and the Sweetheart's Motel. Morton's Motel offered brunches, cookouts, and drinks, while the Sweetheart's Motel provided meals served with menus, silverware, and napkins, and the tourists were there able to engage in secret love affairs.

Stepping Out of the Spotlight: The Legacy of Phil Giles and the Flamingo Club The founding president of the Idlewild Chamber of Commerce, Phil Giles, gave Idlewild and the Island a complete face-lift as America's most famous resort. However, after laboring for many years and pouring money into major investments, Giles resigned from his municipal position and the commercial scene, feeling that his labors on behalf of the resort town had gone unappreciated. The visionary thinking and creative genius of Phil Giles did not go without some criticisms; residents mounted complaints involving petty jealousies over practically every new project he tried to bring to the area. Confirming this account of Giles's contributions and the criticisms he received, K. D. Davis wrote, in a short article with a photograph displaying a number of parked and cruising automobiles in front of Giles Hotel in the February 1958 edition of Idlewilder's Magazine, Phil Giles, who is busy renovating his hotels here, was questioned about his plans for Idlewild vacation season. He paused long enough to say he had no plans. He tried to build the place up, tried to inspire the Idlewilders and got no cooperation; advertised in Ebony, the papers and by radio, and put much money and labor into Idlewild and his efforts seemed unappreciated and received only criticism. So he is stepping out of the lead spot, intending to just have a private cottage there and be an Idlewilder visitor and enjoy the place he loves. Well no matter how you look at it, the Island will long be a Phil Giles monument, and regardless of any opinion he truly rates Triple A for effort.81 Page 148 → It appeared that despite the monumental plans Giles had set for the continued revitalization of Idlewild, tension arose between his ambitious leadership objectives and uplift ideals, on the one hand, and the social and psychological barriers that some members of the Idlewild community placed before him, on the other. The social forces working against Giles's plans were too strong to overcome. He wanted to secure the status of Idlewild for middle- and working-class African Americans. But these plans resulted in what Kevin Gaines, author of Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century, referred to as a “suffocating reality” for Giles's uplift ideology and a “faulty construction that offered little protection during a difficult period.”82 Giles wanted to move the Idlewild community forward; however, some individual community members wanted the township and business community to maintain the status quo. The opposition was too strong. Frustrated, disappointed, hurt, depressed, and disgusted by these decisions, Giles warned members of the township board of his decision to exit the scene. The accounts of these decisions vary. Some suggest that Giles's health may have failed him and that this is what led to his resignation. Others argue that he was pushed out of the scene and unappreciated, despite the fact that he was the major source for reappropriating Idlewild's social and economic status. None of this mattered—at least that is how it was reported in the minutes of Yates Township clerk Patricia Hoskins. However, Giles's resignation as township supervisor did not become effective until June 17, 1959. Before officially resigning, Giles, presiding over the April 15, May 15, and May 23 board meetings, approved

decisions regarding the appointment of James Brown as fire chief and Meyer Mitchell as police commissioner. A motion was also made by Trustee Coombs as Giles's divorce proceedings were in progress, stating that “the name of George P. Giles, Sr. be dropped from Class C License”83 and replaced with Beatrice Giles's name. Following the Yates Township Board's meeting of June 15, 1959, board trustee Woolsey Coombs was requested to chair the meeting, since the supervisor was not in attendance, as he was reported to have been ill. In Giles's absence, several decisions were made regarding some repairs of the roof of the fire department, as well as changes in the resurfacing of the road in Stewart's Subdivision. Beyond statements he made in K. D. Davis's Idlewilder's Magazine, the exact reasons for Giles's resignation and the sources of the criticisms and the social forces that led to it were never clearly disclosed. However, the official reasons stated by Giles himself, the only supervisor in the Yates Township Board's history to have served three consecutive terms, were briefly documented in his resignation letter, in the following contradictory terms. Page 149 → Due to the fact that my Detroit Business will require one hundred per cent of my time, I do hereby tender my resignation as Supervisor of Yates Township to be effective immediately. You have been a fine and cooperative board and I have enjoyed working with you. Very truly yours, George P. Giles84 During a special meeting called on June 17, 1959, Giles's resignation letter was read by the clerk. A motion that Giles's resignation be accepted with regret was made by Trustee O. C. Andrews and seconded by Trustee Coombs. The motion carried, and Andrews quickly moved to elect Coombs as the acting chairman. The motion was seconded by John Simmons. With regrets, the board voted to allow Coombs to serve as township supervisor for the remaining two years of Giles's term. As Bea Giles, who owned the liquor license, took over the management of the nightclub and bar, she soon learned it was too much to handle. Lacking the experience to continue the business from where her ex-husband left off, Bea sold the bar to Ben Logan of Dayton, Ohio. However, Logan was unable to maintain the operation for long. The life of the former famous nightspot only survived for approximately five years before closing down. The Flamingo Club building has stood for more than sixty years as the last bastion of hope for entertainment in Idlewild and as the one site with the most promise to revitalize the resort town. The Giles Hotel and the two transit hotels that Giles owned in Detroit went to Betty, who sold them. Giles died at Harper Hospital on May 25, 1963, after suffering a heart attack. “Mr. Idlewild,” as the popular businessman was widely known, was sixty years of age when he passed.85 An affable person, Giles was one of the original members of the Detroit Idlewilders Club.86 In chapters 6 and 7, we revisit Giles's monumental legacy, which, according to Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, helped to make Idlewild a national treasure. Before returning to this discussion on the importance of the Flamingo Club as the cultural pulse of the Idlewild community, a pulse felt across America and listened to with intent by African America, chapters 4 and 5 chart the contributions of Arthur Braggs and the entertainment scene he created at the famed Paradise Club.

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4 Arthur “Daddy” Braggs and the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue Making Entertainment and Civil Rights History during the Cold War Without the kind of nightlife that was introduced to Idlewild by Arthur Edward Braggs during the 1950s and ’60s through the Paradise Club, Idlewild would not have been recognized as the most famous African American resort town in the United States and the world. Joining Giles in attracting and working collaboratively to entice thousands upon thousands of black and white vacationers to Idlewild annually, Braggs produced some of the greatest large shows of the period. Braggs was widely known and is remembered for producing classy big revues that entertained western Michigan residents traveling from neighboring Mason, Lake, and Newaygo counties and thousands of African American vacationers to Idlewild on a weekly basis and on every weekend during the summers from the 1950s to the mid-1960s. These shows, featuring big-name headliners who performed in Idlewild and toured the nation as the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue, were performed in many segregated cities. From September to May, beginning as early as the summer of 1957 and ending after the summer of 1964, Arthur Braggs and these vaudeville-style Idlewild revues were making civil rights history during the Cold War. The shows were not only historic but also fast-paced and clean performances. To produce these shows, Braggs, the talented and creative middle-aged showman, built the right team and overcame many challenges, obstacles, and setbacks, as this chapter seeks to reveal. In this Page 151 → chapter and chapter 5, I discuss the entertainment scene in Idlewild and chronicle specific tours of the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue, documenting the routes they took as they performed in parts of the South, in most of the urban cities of the Midwest and the East Coast, and in Canada. The strategy Braggs used to produce and direct these shows that toured nightclubs, theaters, auditoriums, burlesque houses, and the “Chitlin' Circuit” (the popular sites where “African American touring shows played primarily to black audiences”1) illustrates nearly a decade of success in producing first-class shows during a critical period in the history of show business. Braggs was making history in elevating African American performance culture. The various incarnations of the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue toured the South, the Midwest, the East Coast, and Canada from 1955 to 1964, during the years following the 1954 mandate by the Supreme Court to desegregate public schools, overturning the “separate but equal” justification for legal segregation. This was also the period of protests over the brutal Mississippi beating and lynching of Emmett Till and the subsequent publication in Jet of a photograph of Till's murdered body, as well as the arrest and social protest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, sparking the yearlong Montgomery bus boycott and the nation's first listening to Dr. Martin Luther King, innumerable civil rights and voting rights campaigns (including student sit-ins on college and university campuses), and the fight of the Congress of Racial Equality's Freedom Riders to integrate public transportation systems by utilizing the interstate highway system in the South. As these various mass demonstrations were occurring and shaping the national black consciousness, Braggs had to address the dangers associated with a black touring revue traveling on the interstate highway system during the civil rights movement, the Cold War, and the rise of the American Mafia, which was likewise known for patronizing the entertainment industry. Braggs understood the kind of entertainment that black and white vacationers and African American community stakeholders sought and how to use this cultural understanding to his advantage to produce a caliber of new and up-and-coming stars. Reading contemporary African history, he also found collaborators to contribute to a transnational alliance to allow East African students to study in the United States and Canada.

Narrative of a Creative Entrepreneur and Showman Arthur Edward Bragg Jr. was born on October 31, 1912, in Fort Towson, Oklahoma,2 to Arthur E. Bragg Sr. and Rosie Butler. Bragg, who would eventually Page 152 → change the spelling of his last name by adding an s, was born and raised in a small rural town in Choctaw County. Fort Towson had a black population of 10.9 percent, which was higher than that in the county. For the Bragg family and the entire state of Oklahoma, the 1920s

represented a tumultuous period that would be etched in historical memory. By late May and early June of 1921, a race riot in Tulsa, which is about twenty-five miles from Fort Towson, was shut down by the National Guard. Arthur Bragg Jr. was only eight years old when the riot occurred, but the aftermath of the event left a permanent mark in his mind-set. His personal memories of black Tulsa, a thriving area with over six hundred black-owned and black-operated businesses that had been destroyed by white mob killings, lootings, and fires, would play a significant role in his development as a black man in American society. The Ku Klux Klan had claimed a state membership of close to one hundred thousand, though the Klan was outlawed in 1923, when Governor John C. Walton declared martial law. This period of violence culminated in Walton's impeachment and conviction on charges of incompetence, corruption, and abuse of power. Different from Fort Towson, with its rural life, “Tulsa was a boom city in a boom state.”3 Oil had made the state prosperous. Prospecting began in 1882, and the first commercial oil well had been drilled at Bartlesville in 1897. The famous Glenn Pool gusher, near Tulsa, had been struck in 1905. Oil wells had produced more than forty million barrels annually when Oklahoma entered the Union, and the state led others in oil production. Tulsa's population size, though small compared to the size of cities in other states, was responsible for the city's rapid growth. The black presence in Oklahoma dated back to the late nineteenth century, when former slaves or enslaved descendants belonged to Indian nations. Historian Jimmie Lewis Franklin explains how, with the end of the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century, “segregation in Oklahoma was a central feature of black life from statehood until the eventual dismantling of the system.”4 Even with the development of all-black towns in the state of Oklahoma and an increasing black population in Tulsa, due largely to black migration, “passage of restrictive housing ordinances in local Oklahoma communities” and negative attitudes “about intimacy between the races” prohibited many black and white “persons from acquiring property in an area where his race was decidedly in the minority.”5 Despite these Oklahoma residential segregation laws, a sizable number of black men and women thrived in business. Black farmers owned and cultivated land. In addition to the black migration to the state, “black operated barbershops, cleaning establishments, cafes, grocery stores, rooming houses, blacksmith shops, and a variety of other businesses” Page 153 → attracted “a professional class of doctors, lawyers, dentists, teachers, clergymen, and real estate salesmen, along with a large number of common laborers.”6 At the age of twenty-seven, after changing the spelling of his last name, Arthur Braggs, who lived in Roseboro, Oklahoma, married Leodell J. Johnson on January 14, 1935, in Hot Springs, Arkansas.7 Less than a year later, as the Depression was affecting meaningful employment opportunities and living conditions for black laborers all across the country, the young couple, along with Braggs's mother, Rosie Butler, his brother, Peter J. Braggs, and Peter's daughter, Jewel Braggs, decided to migrate to Saginaw, Michigan. The Braggs family dreamed that they would achieve the success of finding work and a decent place to live. They first resided in a rented house on North Third Avenue in the city, before eventually settling into another section of the neighborhood and in a larger dwelling on 710 North Franklin Street, in a section of the city where large concentrations of African Americans resided.8 The Franklin Street residence was located in a close-knit neighborhood. Community members worked for the same companies, watched one another's kids, and collectively endured and witnessed the harsh realities of racism and discrimination that occurred in northern cities such as Saginaw. A diverse combination of middle-class businessmen and businesswomen formed the leaders of the community, including some who owned and managed barber shops and beauty salons, worked in the factory as autoworkers, and participated in illegal operations. These people were the kind of leaders who took pride in the upkeep and greater welfare of their neighborhoods.9 Braggs was viewed as a street person in the neighborhood, known to relatives, friends of the family, and associates as “Uncle Fat,” Mr. Braggs, or Art Braggs. A heavyset muscular man who stood five feet and eight inches tall and weighed approximately two hundred pounds, Braggs was also revered as a wonderful role model to some of the children growing up in the neighborhood, because he cared about, taught, and took a liking to them as would a supporting blood relative. Helen Hughey, one of the teens who remembers him, fondly recalls how he kept the kids off the streets and agreed to serve as manager of a teen club that she and other teens founded in the early 1950s, called the Knights and Maidens. Braggs kept involved in the group through “sponsoring bag races, foot races, and bike races for the smaller children, and organizing dances and booking bands for the skating parties” the teens hosted at the Parkway Arena, located near Bay City Highway, just before Michigan Route 13.

Hughey of Saginaw adds, “He was wonderful for us. We went to him and asked if he would be our manager and he agreed, but made us promise to keep the place up after the Page 154 → skating ended. I later worked for him at the Paradise Club as a cashier for three summers.”10 The Hickory House Restaurant, which was owned by Braggs, was located on Washington Street. Braggs dreamed of achieving success in a city where local laws created obstacles for its black citizens. He understood early on that it would take a great deal of hard work and some luck to fulfill his dream to do something significant that would be memorable. In the early 1940s, Braggs was employed as a machinist at one of the General Motors transmission plants. After working as a skilled manual laborer for nearly a year, Braggs opened an “upstairs” gambling house in a building nicknamed the “Busy Bee.” Here Braggs met Lorenzo “Memphis Pete” Short of Saginaw, John White of Detroit, and Ed Bracey of Lansing, Michigan. He became business partners with Bracey in the policy racket and entertainment industry. Always making sure to participate in the legitimate business arena—that is, always careful to stage a legitimate front as advised by his attorney—Braggs purchased the Parkway Arena skating rink, where he and Bracey laundered money from their illegal numbers operations as they slowly moved up the entertainment hierarchy, hosting weekly dances and staging shows with big-name entertainers. At first, these entertainment ventures were held at the skating rink. Within a few years, Braggs and Bracey successfully recruited, promoted, and booked an impressive list of stars, such as Ike and Tina Turner, Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, B. B. King, James Brown, Etta James, Little Ester Philips, Sonny Stitt, Lionel Hampton, Jackie Wilson, and Della Reese. These two visionaries of the black entertainment industry also began promoting bigger shows for adult audiences and larger crowds at the Saginaw Auditorium.11 Although the shows they hosted and booked used someone else's name to keep their names out of legal and financial matters, Braggs was always connected as sports promoter and listed in the promotional literature, to attract the patrons. Some of the profits earned from these shows enabled the Braggs-Bracey partnership to make substantial contributions to many of the social causes, community events, and activities of local groups and organizations, as well as to pay off the police in Saginaw so that the partners could stay in operation. Braggs supported sporting teams, social events, and many civic and religious organizations.12 Thomas Reppetto, author of American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power, compared the role Braggs served in the black community of Saginaw to that of Bumpy Johnson in New York's Harlem. Black policy bosses almost always gave back to their communities, enabling those placing bets to win big and to pay their bills, buy nice things, and put food on the table for their families. Braggs also made many contributions to the Saginaw Policeman's Ball, the Page 155 → Shriner's Circus, and the Fireman's Ball, as well to neighboring softball teams and black churches. Braggs and Bracey, like other black policy bosses, were men of substance who contributed significantly to the local economy of their depressed community. They paid off cops and politicians, kicked in on a regular basis to support local church groups and charities, and provided thousands of jobs in their industry to trusted members of the community. They were widely known and admired, but they also were disliked and unwanted in various neighborhoods. If they were forcibly displaced, there was always the possibility that the customers just might stop playing policy.13 Braggs and Bracey shared a vision and developed a plan to invest earnings from their numbers rackets heavily into the shows that Braggs would produce. Between the summer seasons of 1952 and 1964, Braggs and Bracey funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue, making a major renovation of the Paradise Club and investing in the shows Braggs produced there and while touring the revue, often without ever making a respectable profit or breaking even. Braggs was in his late thirties or early forties when he first vacationed in Idlewild in 1950. He opened a small gambling and eating spot in a cottage he rented, calling it the White Castle. Then he and Bracey devised a plan, invested funds, and were able to lease, manage, and renovate the Paradise Club. Lela G. Wilson, who owned the nightspot, was quite fond of Braggs. In 1952, Lela and her husband, Herman Wilson, leased the club to Braggs. Rumor has it that Braggs first met Lela Wilson and Leona Simmons while the women were touring Oklahoma in the early 1930s as part of a midwestern and southern excursion to promote Idlewild. If this narrative holds true, Lela must have believed that Braggs had what it would take to rescue Idlewild's rich cultural legacy and to cooperatively work with Phil Giles Enterprises and Woolsey Coombs of the Casa Blanca Hotel in marketing the famous black resort town. She may have recruited Braggs to the area because she saw great promise in him, as

Idlewild was on the verge of becoming a major American vacation destination. Whatever the account, the opportunity to lease the club enabled Braggs to make a significant contribution in the arena of black show business. At the time Braggs secured the Paradise Club lease, he was recognized as a sports promoter.14 By 1955, according to the Saginaw City Directory, he was listed as a dance promoter. By 1959, he was recorded as co-owner of L&B Music Company.15 These various identities and occupations, each connected to the entertainment industry, allowed Braggs to learn about the ins and outs of show business and where to recruit talent. The popular Detroit entertainment Page 156 → scene offered at the Flame Show Bar, a host of other Detroit nightclubs, and the Gotham Hotel represented the ideal setting for Braggs to put the final touches on his plan to attract, recruit, and book big-name stars. The jewel of these venues was the Gotham Hotel on the east side of Detroit, where Braggs wined and dined with some of the stars and up-and-coming talents. In Detroit's Paradise Valley, Ernest Borden (nephew of the Gotham's owner, John White) explains, “In November of 1943, two black entrepreneurs, John White and Irving Roane, bought the nine-story Gotham Hotel—located at John R Street and Orchestra Place—from a Danish businessman, Albert Hartz. The purchase of the [Gotham] hotel was indeed an unprecedented accomplishment in breaking through the color barriers of this era.”16 From 1943 to 1963, the Gotham Hotel was the “in” place to be for many local dignitaries, national celebrities, and just plain folks out for dinner on a Sunday afternoon. John White ran a clean operation, one of the finest hotels in the city and the largest owned by an African American, and was considered not only a successful black businessman around the nation but also a big-time gambler. White played the numbers and had reserved one of the top-floor penthouses exclusively for gambling with his cronies.17 At the Gotham, Braggs would host lavish parties in a private suite while networking with White and many guests of the Flame Show Bar to recruit some of the stars. This is where the idea to create the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue was visualized. While staying at the Gotham, Braggs picked acts and some of the most gracefully shaped, tall, and beautiful women to join the show. He named these beauties the “Fiesta Dolls.” He also felt that the production needed a chorus line, so he recruited more women, the Ziggyettes, whom he and Ziggy Johnson called the Braggettes. Where did Braggs find all this talent? According to an interview published in the Michigan Chronicle, Braggs replied to this question, “I get most of my talent from the dancing schools here in Detroit. The show provides an outlet for these youngsters with ability.”18 Joe “Ziggy” Johnson, owner and instructor of the School of Theater in Detroit, a dance studio for youth, assisted Braggs in organizing and producing the first Broadway-type showgirls production in Detroit. Together, they groomed and scouted new acts and talents and recruited some of the most beautiful and charming young sweethearts in the city. They sported these ladies in stylish outfits, fancy wigs and hairdos, and glittering jewelry. Braggs had strong connections with other policy racketeers in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. He had contacts with John White, Ed Wingate, Junior Pace, and Ed Cumming of Detroit; Ed Bracey of Lansing; Lorenzo “Memphis Pete” Short, Ted Wilson and his brother Preacher Wilson, James Shirley, and Bill Lewis of Saginaw; and Ted Rasberry of Grand Rapids. These Page 157 → men were managing their own betting operations in their respective cities and were eventually shut down by the middle to late 1960s and early ’70s. They were firmly established businessmen who frequented many of the shows with big-name entertainers that Braggs hosted at the Paradise Club. Braggs would often extend a formal invitation to some of these leading figures of Michigan's underground economy. In a telegram invitation sent to John White, Braggs wrote, Congratulations to: John J. White and those staging the fabulous Gotham Appreciation Week. At your leisure this summer, why not come north and spend your vacation with us and witness our gigantic array of stars that will appear at Club Fiesta on beautiful Paradise Lake, Idlewild, Michigan. How is this for Broadway talent coming to the “woods”? The following is the lineup for the coming season at Club Fiesta in Idlewild: Little Willie John, Arthur Prysock, The Four Aims, Bill Doggett and his combo, Ruth Brown, T-Bone Walker, The Dyerettes, The Ziggy Johnson Dancers, Lavern Baker and Pinkney Roberts, the fashion plate emcee. Sincerely, Arthur Braggs, your host.19 As a policy boss, Braggs used laundered profits from his illegal operations to create one of the best nightspots in Idlewild and one of the best black touring revues in the United States.20 Braggs also used his contacts from these illegal operations to help build up the Paradise Club. Although manager of the whole operation, Braggs had

everything put in someone else's name. He obtained the lease to the Paradise Club through George “Pappy” Stewart of Lansing, whose daughter, Maria, signed the lease and secured the new liquor license that was required, which had previously been listed under the name of John Simmons. The leasing agreement between Braggs and Stewart's daughter was worked out behind the scenes through Braggs's contacts with Bracey, who was his silent partner. Braggs had a dream to make the Paradise Club a memorable rural-meets-urban nightlife experience, the “Summer Apollo of Michigan.” The creative ideas he shared were far ahead of their time. From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, Braggs employed various musicians to add variety to the shows to be produced. He contracted the services of Finnis Newborn's orchestra, Paul Williams's band, Paul Bascomb's band, Choker Campbell's band, Larry Wrice and his Chicago All-Stars, the Red Saunders Band, Count Earl Belcher and the Detroit All Stars, and Knight Butler and his orchestra. In addition, Braggs was able to convince Joe “Ziggy” Johnson, a Chicagoan by birth, to serve as house emcee at the club and, at one point, as one of the main producers of the shows at the club and on the road.21 His close contact with Ziggy helped him to recruit his signature headliner, Della Reese. Making Page 158 → use of Ziggy as producer, emcee, choreographer, and master of ceremonies, Braggs also contracted the services of Pinkney Roberts, the flashy dresser and smooth-talking Philadelphia-born word wizard who always understood how to please the crowds. Braggs was one of the first producers to introduce an emcee onstage during a given performance. During his final years of producing shows, Braggs had the emcee making the announcements from backstage. Braggs captured the spirit of the nightlife scene in Idlewild and in the cities where the revue toured. Hiring some of the very best dance instructors in show business, including Ziggy Johnson, Lon Fontaine, and Julian Swain, Braggs was always discovering new ways to engage audiences by presenting something unique.22 Page 159 → His shows were, without a doubt, outclassing the shows appearing at the Flamingo Club. Braggs, entrepreneur, playboy, business owner, policy boss, and showman, introduced top-notch shows, a producer's success he realized after renovating the Paradise Club in 1952 and expanding it to accommodate more patrons in the dining area near the stage in the Fiesta Room. The club always attracted a capacity crowd, although the expansion was really about the setup of the 220-seat Fiesta Room and the staging area where the bands, dancers, comedians, and stars performed. Braggs's creative genius as a producer and a manager of a staff of sixteen was likewise first-rate. He employed many of the local residents and consulted the expertise and services of close associates in Saginaw and other cities in Michigan to train everyone he had hired, from valet parking attendants, chefs, waiters, waitresses, cigarette girls, barmaids, bartenders, and cashiers to doormen, making sure that they had the skills it would take to properly meet, greet, and serve the guests of the club. Braggs did not accomplish this success all on his own. His good friends had no problem helping him out when he needed their help. For example, Boots Baxter, who ran the catering services for the Saginaw Country Club on Gratiot Avenue, a private club for wealthy whites, and was a master when it came to serving food and waiting bars, held a few training sessions for the kitchen and bar staff, and from time to time, he frequented the club to see how they were doing. The club had a menu to attract and satisfy the patron's appetite, and the chef, Zach Doyle, who was considered one of the best black chefs in the country, served steaks, seafood, and a variety of fine cuisines. Chef Doyle was from Atlanta and thus used soul food to prepare many unforgettable eating experiences for the patrons. The food was excellent, and the service was timely. As for the aesthetics of the shows, Braggs offered patrons colorful bright lights, designed by a professional light and stage man, and a disc jockey to assist with the quality of the sound equipment for the live music. Patrons seated in small front-row tables with white tablecloths circling the stage in the Fiesta Room had an excellent view of the flashy and expensive costumes, a dancing emcee onstage whose clever announcements introduced different segments of the shows, and an array of talented black artists, including jazz dancers, showgirls, comedians, musicians, and singers appearing weekly. Because of his perfection, Braggs insisted on creating the right mood and atmosphere for the patrons of the nightclub. He created the show business persona he had imagined, which additionally created an imagined community for the audience. He produced first-class shows to capture the audiences' full attention and imagination. The caliber of entertainment was far better than the shows appearing in many of Page 160 → the bigger cities and performed on the Island. Sunnie Wilson, who witnessed these shows,

adds that Braggs “booked big-scale productions,” bringing Idlewild “national stars and acts” that were so good that “those who couldn't get in for the first performance waited outside for the second show.”23 Summer after summer, Braggs was able to attract big crowds to see famous stars who were releasing song hit after song hit nationally at the same time that they were performing those hits in the Fiesta Room. Although many of the youth were not old enough to see the shows in the club, Betty Harris, then a teen, remembers the “Peepers Club” being allowed to peep to see the shows: “Daddy Braggs held me responsible for keeping everyone silent. It was fun too. I remember seeing Crying Tommy Brown who would fall out on the floor, T-Bone Walker, George Kirby, and Della Reese, who was my favorite. They had showmanship.”24 Braggs cultivated the skills and talents of the revue by keeping the members well-groomed, in shape, and polished. The hairstyles of the showgirls were professionally done, when they weren't wearing wigs. The custommade costumes worn by the beautiful showgirls and dancers were colorful and glittering, designed by professional designers from Chicago and New York, and as good as any you would see in Las Vegas and New York. The performances were polished and first-rate, featuring precision and accuracy. In the background were bright lights, quality sounds, and sighs of amazement from large crowds. Producing these great shows, however, meant staying competitive, and that meant lots of rehearsals. Rehearsals were held daily and on a regular basis between shows during the summer and on weekday afternoons during the fall and winter months while on tour and on the road. Revue members who missed and/or were late for rehearsals were charged a fine that would be deducted from their already-low wages. The job of the Fiesta Dolls, explains Carlean Gill, was simply to look tall and beautiful. However, the Braggettes, who performed fast-paced and acrobatic shows in fabulous costumes, danced and swung in high-heeled shoes. The rhythmic movements of these dancers' performances were executed through the power of gestures. Laced in fabulous costumes, they, too, were beautiful and professional. For Braggs and Ziggy Johnson, timing meant everything. The show had to work like clockwork. The dancers and showgirls had to execute everything with grace and precision and style. To help establish the revue as a respectable production, Braggs made gradual improvements along the way. At first, he shopped for a headliner while frequenting the Flame Show Bar in Detroit, which was owned and operated by Morris Wasserman. The Flame had opened on June 24, 1949, and was marketed as a black-and-tan nightclub that deviated from the standard model of the old Frolic Show Bar, which showcased white entertainers like Jackie Gleason as well as Page 161 → black ones like Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Roy Hamilton, Sarah Vaughn, Lavern Baker, and T-Bone Walker.25 The Flame was the “Las Vegas spot” in Detroit. People came from everywhere to see the shows and for the lights and glitter, valet parking, fine food, and good service. As Bjorn and Gallert report in Before Motown, “Entry to the Flame was on a first come, first served basis—unless, of course, you offered the doorman a gratuity.”26 After retaining the services of a headliner, Braggs stated, “We had a three piece band in the place. I felt that people wanted more entertainment, so I discussed the proposal with Ziggy. He agreed.”27 The first chorus line was from 1952 to 1954. Working the Paradise Club with their parents' permission, the Ziggy Johnson Dancers, which included four Detroit female teenagers (Clineice Townsend, Inez Clinkscales, Donna Harvey, and Valaida Talley) and one male (Clifford Fears),28 began their careers as dancers at the Ziggy Johnson School of Theater before finishing high school. Performing in such Detroit landmarks as Club Rondevoo, the Zombie Lounge, and the Latin Quarters, these young dancers became hooked on show business. Originally named the Ziggyettes, they invited their parents up to Idlewild to see the shows. Ziggy Johnson, who trained them, also acted like a father and was extremely protective. He made sure the girls were not hanging around in the clubs and were well looked after during the many summer seasons they performed in the Paradise Club. They stayed at the Heartbreak Hotel, formally known as the Paradise Hotel, which was located across the road from the club. The nickname Heartbreak Hotel had been acquired because the showgirls who stayed there broke the men's hearts. The 1955 summer season represented a memorable moment for the history of the Paradise Club. Braggs introduced young male vocals and female dancers who exhibited skills and professionalism. He brought on board the Four Tops, known then as the Four Ames. The young Detroit vocal group was fresh out of high school and appeared with Della Reese, T-Bone Walker, the Dyerettes, and Ziggy Johnson's Ziggyettes, who were the original Ziggy Johnson Dancers.29 Clifford Fears, the only male of the Ziggyettes, was graceful in the execution of bodily movements, and so were Inez, Clineice, Donna, and Valaida. The girls had some prior experience as the original

Ziggy Johnson Dancers, having trained with Ziggy Johnson and toured with the show Highlights produced by Olivette Miller.30 The summer of 1955 represented a golden year for the teens. “They had the best of show,” Ernie Davis explains,31 adding, “The club was beautiful, and they had white tablecloths on the tables, and lights shining on Paradise Lake. The atmosphere was simply outstanding, and everyone was on vacation.”32 Glenn Hawkins, who was a teenager during the summer of 1955, helped Braggs keep the club cleaned between shows. He recalls, “There were two Page 162 → shows per night, one at 9 p.m. and a second one at midnight, which ended at 2 a.m.”33 Hawkins reflected on other memories he had while vacationing at the resort and not working, noting, “During the day, I'm a good roller skater and we use to go to the Island, the roller rink, and the beach. Along the pathway to the Island going around Idlewild Lake and over to Baldwin Road, where there was this big tree that everyone had to be careful, right by there was a cottage where I did meet one of the Jones brothers who used to come up from Mexico.”34 He recalls that he and his friends used to see some of the shows at night during the summer. The shows “would open with Joe “Ziggy” Johnson, then a few songs by the Choker Campbell Band, and then a few dance routines by the Ziggyettes and the Dyerettes, which featured Gloria Broussard Wilkes, Clarice, White Pruitt, Shirley Hall Bass, Muriel Wilson Foster, and Vera Wilson Mann, and the culture was engaging.”35 The summer of 1955 marked a turning point for the Paradise Club, as Braggs surprised everyone with the kind of shows he could produce. It also illustrated something special about the experiences of the people who frequented Idlewild. Discussing the summer scene conjured up memories not only about the shows but also about Hawkins going over to “Lookout Tower” because “it was a good place for engaging in sexual relations with one of the showgirls. I was seventeen years old and I had lots of fun. I saw T-Bone Walker, B. B. King, Della Reese, and other stars like it was nothing, upfront and in living color. Arthur Braggs sported a dark blue Cadillac as Della Reese was just getting started. Bobby Lewis would then come out and sing.”36 As the show in the club captured everyone's attention, Glenn Hawkins also remembers seeing the Four Tops with his friend from Grand Rapids, Johnny English: “These guys could sing, man, and they were all arranged differently and singing in different genres.” After the show ended, Hawkins and English would run out and clean the club: “We would make three to four hundred dollar a night, finding money on the floor and from tips. Johnny and I had to clean everything and after we finished we would count everything and split the money.”37 The shows at the Paradise Club were not the only happenings. The whole area prospered. As Hawkins put it, “The majority of the profits went to surrounding areas because Idlewild could not accommodate everyone. The impact was evident in White Cloud, Woodland Park, Baldwin, Chase, and Reed City because there were nearly 25,000 people. People parked wherever they could and would walk to consume the atmosphere. Everybody had a vehicle; everyone was mobile.”38 The black elite class would come to Idlewild to party and share information. As Hawkins suggests, “Idlewild was the reason these individuals had so much fun. I was hanging out with teenagers so I do not recall everything that Page 163 → was going on.”39 In addition to the presence of elites, the policy men would frequent Idlewild as well: “Everyone was there from Chicago and Detroit, and we were skating at Polk's.”40 The year 1955 was indeed a pivotal year for Hawkins: “I got a chance to deal with some glamorous women. They were professional women, respectful women who loved to dance. You had a chance to talk to well-educated blacks who were real. They were all doing very well. It was a great summer.”41 Hawkins remembers watching Clifford Fear perform onstage in the Fiesta Room. “Youngblood,” as Fears was known, “was up there doing his thing and everyone understood that he was gay but didn't care.”42 The club was filled to capacity every night, and on some nights, “there were more white people in the club than blacks. It wasn't about race, it was like fun. There was a lot of black money up there too, successful black Americans.”43 While managing shows in the newly renovated Fiesta Room in the nightclub, Braggs extended formal and informal invitations to many of his associates, the major numbers men of the Midwest, who did not mind spending money as the revue played to record crowds. As one of the major nightspots in western Michigan, Idlewild was the location to be in between the Fourth of July and Labor Day. Rueben Smart of Grand Rapids, who worked for Ted Rasberry and Frank Lamar, recalls seeing all the big shots in the Paradise Club. Rasberry, who was determined to get into the Negro Leagues through the Detroit Stars, decided in 1955 to purchase the Kansas City Monarchs. Like Braggs, who laundered funds from his illegal numbers operation into entertainment, Rasberry, as

a policy king in Grand Rapids, poured thousands into baseball, the Detroit Stars and the Kansas City Monarchs, to keep the league going.44 Ted Rasberry and his wife, Edith, owned a cottage in Paradise Gardens and would attend many of the shows at the club, joining the ranks of other Michigan policy kings. Sitting and watching Jackie Wilson and other stars onstage, Rasberry, John White, Ed Wingate, Freddie Ginyard, Buddy Rose, Ed Bracey, and Lorenzo “Memphis Pete” Short, among other numbers men, were accompanied by a few off-duty police officers, many of whom served as their bodyguards. Dick Mask, who worked as a waiter in the club, recalls seeing Buddy Rose, John White, Buckwheat, and a lot of other numbers men out of Detroit having a ball: “I just called them businessmen because they were all that. The ladies dressed up, the gents dressed up, and it was like going to one of them places in Detroit or Chicago or New York. They would be clean from head to toe.”45 Introducing the revue to nightlife audiences in the Paradise Club, Braggs entertained an audience crossing race, class, occupational, and gender lines, people who wanted to get a closer look at their favorite celebrities appearing and performing there. The audience, which consisted of lawyers, judges, politicians, Page 164 → prizefighters, beauticians, barbers, insurance agents, hotel owners, factory workers, hustlers, and pimps, was truly mixed. These audiences also included several white couples from neighboring Reed City, Cadillac, Chase, Ludington, Webber, and Baldwin, many of whom were leading citizens and businessmen and businesswomen in their counties and villages. Among the African American clientele, the snobbiest of classism became apparent as many of the black elites referred to other businessmen and the hustlers as gangsters and hoodlums. Dick Mask recalls being offended but polite when serving many of the lawyers and judges who defined Braggs and his associates as “gangsters.”46 Yet, despite the class divisions and tensions, as Ben Wilson, a retired Western Michigan University professor, states in an interview with Emery King of WDIV in Detroit in the documentary Idlewild: A Place in the Sun, “All the pretentiousness along class lines quickly disappeared when Jackie Wilson or Della Reese would perform at the Paradise Club.”47 Leaving Detroit one summer evening in May from the parking area near the Page 165 → Gotham Hotel, Ziggy Johnson, Arthur Braggs, and James Casablanca headed to Chicago for one of the shows at Roberts Show Lounge and Club Delisa. On a scout for new dancers and talents, the trio had already seen two shows in Detroit. Scouting, for these gentlemen, meant observing a show, picking up some ideas, and bringing those ideas back and incorporating them into a show. It also meant that as the new season opened at the Paradise Club, Braggs was convinced that the shows would be well attended and that the crowds would be pleased. The first two weeks featured T-Bone Walker Sr. and T-Bone Walker Jr. and, of course, Della Reese as headliner. It was simply a fun place. Mask states, I was at the bar talking with one of the barmaids who was making a killing from tips because the bar would open around noon and be going on all day. She would be going until around 6 p.m. I remember when Della Reese got a telephone call. The phone rang and I happened to get it, and they wanted to speak with Della. So I came out into the showroom area and said, “Della, New York's calling.” I watched her as she came out of that telephone booth jumping sky-high, talking about, “I got one, I got one.” She did. She named that song, ‘That Reminds Me.’”48 The revue's performances during the Sunday matinee from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the air-conditioned Fiesta Room was also first-rate.49 Reflecting on several of the matinees Braggs hosted for youth, Mask recalls, “We had a good thing for young people on Sundays. We had matinees and they had a ball. The mammas and the daddies would attend the matinees to eat. The kids would come to drink kiddy cocktails. We would serve up a ton of pink lemonade made up by the gallon. We would also have to get on Chef Doyle and tell him to set a plate aside for us because they would rush us and, man, they would eat up everything he would have back there in the kitchen.”50 Braggs would delete the shake dancers from the matinees, when, Mask remembers, “all them dancers from the Flamingo Club and their kids, man, they would rush us.”51 Sandra D. Crithon-Merkerson, who had been tapdancing since she was three, remembers performing as a sixteen year old at the Paradise Club during one of the matinees. A member of the High Steppers, a group from Saginaw, she recalls, “We couldn't wait to get to Idlewild to see all the stars when we did the matinee. I remember seeing Della Reese too. We were sitting outside the skating rink on the Island and we saw her, and I remember one of the girls saying, ‘Who's that?’ Then someone

else answered, ‘That's Della Reese.’ She was a tall woman, nice figure, and she was smiling and looking real pretty. It was sort of a magical place to see the stars. And then another member said, ‘If that's the way to live, that's Page 166 → the way I want to be.’”52 Although the children were not allowed to perform at the regular shows, because they were underage, they did enjoy the live music and the costumes the showgirls wore. According to Crithon-Merkerson, “They had a cigarette girl waiting on you hand and foot. It was fabulous. If you had money being black that was the place to hang out. Everybody was there; you saw many stars. I remember seeing Brook Benton too.”53

Widely popular among the youth and adult talents of the revue, Braggs was known for developing, fostering, and enhancing personal relationships with the performers and employees working for the club and while touring the revue. The young performers, in return, took all of their problems to Braggs: their family problems, their personal problems, and their show business concerns. Abdul “Duke” Fakir, the only surviving member of the original Four Tops, remembers “Daddy Braggs” quite fondly as a father figure, close friend, producer, and business manager years before Motown's Berry Gordy employed Maxine Waters, who groomed the group. Dickey Adams of Chicago, who spent many summers vacationing in Idlewild, remembers the friendly atmosphere that Braggs created when the revue was in Chicago: “The last time I saw Braggs's revue perform was Page 167 → in Whittling, Indiana. They had come through Chicago and ended up staying with me for two or three days after the bus broke down. Two of the showgirls had gotten word to me that they were going to be in Indiana before heading to Oklahoma. A friend of mine joined me and we drove his 1964 Chevy to Indiana to see Arthur Prysock. I remember when we came over to the bus, Prysock stating, ‘So you cats are from Chicago,” and we said, “Yes.” We had a nice conversation. We weren't in the show room; we were at the bus and had a drink together.”54

The Tours of the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue The 1956 shows were well received but confined to the Paradise Club. By the start of the 1957 season, which followed the scouting excursions and clever use of famous headliners like Della Reese and T-Bone Walker, the shows were classy and in increasing demand.55 The overarching momentum for the 1957 edition of the revue began slowly. The lovely Fiesta Dolls had joined the revue (with Ricky Ford as the leading beauty attraction), to appear with the stars weekly and on weekends from the Fourth of July to Labor Day. Philly's Pinkney Roberts, as emcee, and Little Willie John, as headliner, did quite a show on the same weekend when Lavern Baker had an engagement at Phil Giles's Flamingo Club. Detroit's Little Willie John opened the show in the Fiesta Room, singing his signature hit song “Fever,”56 the same song that Peggy Lee hit the charts with a year later. The show was great and was perfected during the remaining of the summer season at the Paradise Club. Clifford Fears of the Braggettes and Little Willie John did not join the scheduled tour of the revue. Fears left for Europe, and Little Willie John was scheduled to work in the studio and to tour and perform his up-and-coming hit. So Braggs learned early on that, as a producer, he would have to alternate between bands, emcees, choreographers, showgirls, chorus girls, and headliners to keep the shows going on the road and to keep something interesting and exciting going on to attract the patrons. John Bankston, founding publisher and editor of Faces in Places, the Grand Rapids African Americans' news source, published a special edition of the magazine in 1956 in which he offered brotherly acknowledgment of the many accomplishments of Arthur Braggs and the nation's former heavyweight champion Joe Louis.57 Bankston, who was fondly known as “Dear John” in Idlewild and some Grand Rapids circles, understood that Braggs was in the business of showcasing famous stars and producing great shows. As editor and publisher of Faces in Places, he advertised widely to help spread the news about the weekly Page 168 → appearances of top-name performers in the Fiesta Room.58 Bankston also knew that Braggs financed the shows of the revue. Braggs covered all of the expenses for a cast of thirty-one to forty famed stars, musicians, singers, dancers, showgirls, models, comedians, choreographers, and makeup artists,59 and he would help them in whatever manner he could to promote the shows he was producing. After the revue concluded the show that Labor Day weekend, the 1957 revue began its tour in Detroit, where it played the Flame Show Bar for two weeks. It also toured with the Spinners, then known as the Detroit Spinners, for one night at the Crispus Attucks Post of the American Legion in Grand Rapids.60 Continuing after the stint at the American Legion hall with the Spinners, the revue toured for one week at the Orchid Room in

Kansas City and ended the season with two weeks of shows in the Rose Room in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Braggs's list of responsibilities had grown from purchasing costumes to covering all the expenses, including gas and repairs of the revue's bus, trailer, and several automobiles; making loans to revue members who needed cash; lodging; meals; the low wages for everyone, including the revue's publicists; and the insurance costs and dues for the musicians. It was practically unheard of for an African American showman of the 1950s and early 1960s to achieve such a list and with so much success. Most of the mainstream venues, in one way or another, did not cover this kind of news as mainstream. America was permeated by racism, racial discrimination, and Jim Crow segregation. The exceptions, of course, were those nightspots in northern and southern cities and towns and in Canada that were either owned, managed, or operated by an African American, a Jewish business owner, or the mob. Back then, Carlean Gill explains, there were all kinds of backdoor negotiations and deals that Braggs had to address as the revue's producer. One involved locating in advance separate and appropriate lodging facilities for the mostly teen male and female revue members, who stayed either in the private homes of personal friends and business associates or in small boarding rooms. Staying in a white-owned hotel or motel while on the road and playing the major cities for about thirteen weeks was out of the question. As the new summer season began, the 1958 revue opened with Dinah Washington, who was sensational. She was joined by a band featuring her husband, Eddie Chamblee. Like all other visitors, she enjoyed Idlewild. She partied at the Foot Long Dog Bar-B-Q, the Idlewild Club, and everywhere. Her three children—Granson Chamblee, Chantel Chamblee, and George Chamblee (who aspired to be a drummer)—lived it up along with Robert Aulbin. Dinah's singing was superb until Big Crowd Night, when “Idlewild's laryngitis” cut her off in midshow, after which she had to go home for treatment.61 After the summer season ended,62 the revue began with a two-week tour Page 169 → in Detroit at the Flame Show Bar. Ziggy Johnson's column for the Michigan Chronicle on September 7, 1957, explains how Della Reese's “And That Reminds Me” had soared to the top, doing even better than the same recording when sang by Kay Starr. Before she opened at the Flame for September 6–20, many Detroiters had been encouraged to see “Della Reese on the Ed Sullivan Show.”63 Della was quickly becoming a superstar, which meant that Braggs had hit the jackpot when he convinced her to headline the show. Braggs had romanced Reese. Although Braggs was married, he courted her, as well as a lot of other different women before, during, and after their relationship. He had a reputation as a playboy but still managed to convince Della to go on a date with him one evening after a show she performed at the Flame. “That night Daddy Braggs was in the audience for the first time without an entourage, just his driver,” said Reese. “On my way out, saying hello to other guests I knew, I stopped by to say good evening to him. He bought me a drink and took me home. We dated a few times, and as Ziggy had claimed, Braggs was every bit the sweet, considerate gentleman. My defenses lowered, I liked him lots.”64 Over the course of several months, the black press had been observing the mutual attraction between Reese and Braggs. Braggs had even traveled to Chicago to see Della perform at Roberts Show Lounge. For the next summer season Page 170 → in Idlewild, she volunteered at the club, even though she was “the star act, the headliner, with the entire show designed around” her. Braggs set her up well. She remembered, “In one of my show stoppers, staged by Braggs, I sat on a stool in a spotlight, cocktail glass in hand, and sang ‘One for my Baby,’ creating a mood the audience went crazy for. Another crowd pleaser was ‘There Will Never Be Another You’ and the closing number brought down the house. It was ‘Headin’ Home,' a song I later recorded and was well known for.”65 For the most part, Braggs treated Della well. He had bought her “a white and black Thunderbird” in July 1958.66 Although they shared some “marvelous time[s] together” as a couple, his relationship with her ended in a breakup because he refused to commit to an exclusive relationship. Della claims that when she learned that Braggs had no intentions of divorcing his wife, Leodell, and that he was having an affair with Norma Washington, who was captain of the new chorus line, she Page 171 → was “pissed.” Norma had been hinting around that she had been sleeping with Braggs, and Della wanted Braggs to discontinue the fling. Writing about their romantic love affair, Della discusses her decision to remain in the relationship with Braggs, which had no future, and the mishandling and alleged firing of the insensitive, competitive, and uncontrollable Norma. After the breakup, the former couple continued to be friends. However, the ending with Norma Washington was not completely a done deal.

She dropped so many hints that the two of them were sleeping together, I got in my car, a gift from him—a white and black Thunderbird—the first four seater they made, and sped over to Bragg's mammoth sized trailer. The large live-in recreation vehicles had just come out and Daddy's was probably the biggest in existence in the early fifties. When I told him how unhappy I was with his choice of new companion, he spoke down to me in a way I felt was disrespectful, and that made it worse for me. So, on my way out of his trailer, I got the biggest brick I could find and I broke every window in his beautiful Lincoln Continental. The next morning I woke up at the rented house where I was staying that summer and went outside to find my beloved Thunderbird with every window broken out of it. Braggs fired the chorus girl, had both our cars' windows fixed, and we resumed our relationship. Sad to say, he was never able to make the kind of commitment I needed. But, nonetheless, after we broke up as a romantic couple, we remained the best of friends for the rest of his life.67 By April 1959, Fears, lead male dancer for the Braggettes, had joined the newly organized Katherine Dunham Troupe, which was to immediately set sail for a tour in Europe. Sporting a gray derby that summer, Braggs began talking about the 1960 edition of the Idlewild revue, with plans to recruit Fears, who had returned from Europe, to do the choreography for the revue.68 But this never materialized, as Fears was badly hurt and died on his arrival back to Detroit. Braggs continued to recruit new talents for the revue. Eddie Lou Goodlow, traveling from Oklahoma to Detroit, was introduced as a new addition to the Fiesta Dolls, and Ricki Ford, the captain of the Fiesta Dolls, was successful in recruiting Carlean Gill. The three of them were showcased weeks later as the beauties set to grace the Fiesta Club during the summer season. These changes occurred within a week before Ziggy's Youth Colossal, where Braggs would premiere the 1960 edition of the revue at the Latin Quarter on June 14.69 As the 1960 edition began in July, Norma Washington, who had served as captain of the Braggettes, continued to work as a member of the revue, even though Braggs had officially demoted her and ended their relationship. That Page 172 → summer, most of the rehearsals and shows were performed almost daily, except for Mondays. Patiently, Norma watched Braggs intensely as he was increasingly appearing interested in Gill. Washington waited for the right moment to take the opportunity to discourage Gill from talking nicely to and about Braggs. Wining and dining Gill throughout the summer, Braggs wondered why Gill was not responding to him so readily. Gill was taking in the new scene and wanting to meet and befriend other revue members, other than Ricki Ford, whom she had already known from high school in Ferndale. She befriended Roger Fluker and Norma Washington. As Braggs observed these interactions from a distance, including several visits that Gill received from a male high school friend in Ferndale, he deeply desired her and soon began to write her, sharing his thoughts. In one letter he wrote that summer, he made it clear that he was falling hopelessly in love with her. The letter, which reveals much about Arthur's true inner feelings for Gill, reads as follows: Hi Honey. Feel awful lonely and blue to-nite even a little bit disgusted. Life is so full of surprises. I love you very much; I guess by now you know that, I have tried every way in my power to show you how I feel. Please let me be your friend and if there is ever anything I can do all you have to do is ask. I wish I could make you see how I feel maybe someday you will. Picked up the phone a hundred times to call you but what's the use, without faith there is no love, without trust there is none, I don't want you to make me bitter and I think you would if deceive me again. Love you very, very much more than anything or anyone else in the world. I guess I always will. Arthur Braggs was writing like he was becoming madly in love with Gill. He saw the twenty-year age difference between them as a nonissue. He also saw the relationship as a mutually agreed-on partnership that would only benefit Gill and himself. Braggs would repeatedly say to Gill that if given the opportunity, he could make her fall madly in love with him. After the breakup with Della Reese and Norma Washington, the relationship Braggs sought to develop with

Carlean Gill was gradually growing. Similarly, his producer success and innate vision as a first-rate showman continued to attract attention. Braggs's ideas about producing great entertainment had also grown out of a dream he had years ago as a teenager. He dreamed of producing Page 173 → classy entertainment and clean and fastpaced show business. But to create that kind of touring revue, he would need to attract widespread attention and expand the quality of the venues they toured as well as focus primarily on developing and producing top-notched shows with diverse themes and big-name stars. Ziggy Johnson, who had been assisting Braggs and observing how he was managing his operation, reported, “Arthur Braggs did what some felt couldn't be done. While others knew the show they saw in Idlewild this past summer could be good entertainment anywhere—and the SRO sign hanging nightly in front of Norris Wasserman's Flame Show Bar, the show in its first week has topped the all time record of Bill Doggett and that is doing something as Doggett was so great in Idlewild that even the fish came to the shores to listen to his sounds and got caught. The Braggs vehicle has another week at the John R Bistro and will probably head for Tulsa.”70 Heading to the Rose Room in Tulsa, the 1958 edition of the revue did another one-night show in Grand Rapids at the Crispus Attucks Post of the American Legion and one at the Michigan Theatre in Flint. In addition to these appearances, they did a two-week tour at Roberts Show Lounge in Chicago, as part of its Parade of Stars campaign, featuring T-Bone Walker Sr., the Rhythm Kings, the Four Tops, Black Velvet, Pat Taylor, the Braggettes, the Fiesta Dolls, and Larry Wrice's orchestra. As the Braggs entourage arrived in Tulsa, the scene had been set. Braggs, a native Oklahoman, had booked the revue in the Rose Room through contacts he had established with its owner, Alphonso Williams, who had recently purchased and opened the nightclub early in 1955. Williams, like Braggs in Saginaw, ran a policy racket in North Tulsa. The Rose Room, one of the hottest spots in the city, offered some of the best nightlife entertainment.71 North Tulsa was also known as a thriving area dominated by a black community with over six hundred small-business establishments. Kicking off the Oklahoma tour, Della Reese would be singing before a packed house at a time when she sold more records on the market than other artists. Della had been one of the only artists besides Al Hibbler who could readily sell records in three market fields: jazz, pop, and blues. The superstar persona that she celebrated also helped to raise increased awareness about the 1958 Idlewild revue. This happened the same season that Red Saunders's band performed with the revue. At the time, Saunders's band had been considered one of the leading bands on the Chicago jazz scene. The Four Tops also toured with the 1958 edition of the revue, as the group had worked with Braggs for three summer seasons before this one. The Tops had often performed as either an opening act or as backup singers with artists such as Della Reese, Brook Benton, Arthur Page 174 → Prysock, and popular organist Bill Doggett, who had cut one of the biggest hits of all time in 1956 with his two-part song “Honky Tonk.” The famous blues guitar man T-Bone Walker rejoined the revue that year as well. The star of the show, Della Reese, was to set the house on fire. In preparation for her appearance, an article published on the front page of the Oklahoma Eagle on September 19, 1957, with the headline “Della Reese Is Top Attraction in Forthcoming Revue Here,” stated, “One of the outstanding attractions of the star-studded Idlewild revue starring at the Rose Room September 23 for a two week period is sleek-lined, provocative Della Reese, who was seen over the Ed Sullivan show less than two weeks ago.”72 On opening night, Della, the star of the Idlewild revue, sang her latest hit, “And That Reminds Me.” The review of the show presented in the article, written by Claude Taylor, a staff writer for the Oklahoma Eagle, explains the scene in vivid details, including the successes of all of the show's stars for two weeks, and interprets how Braggs expertly presented the production in Tulsa's formerly famous Rose Room. For the first time in its Page 175 → long and colorful history, North Tulsa brought within its realms a real show of entertainment. Taylor wrote, “In fact, this writer labels the show a smash hit. Alphorns Williams has brought to the Rose Room a star-studded revue similar to those frequently presented in plush nightclubs in the country's larger cities. The Idlewild revue, which kicked off Monday night for a two week engagement, features class, style and stamina by all of its performers, and groups.”73 Braggs's revue was a show brilliantly planned, expertly performed, and well received. It was simply terrific. With Della's stardom on the rise, it was common practice for her to join the revue in between, during, or before shows as it was touring different venues. Leaving Tulsa on October 6, the revue headed to Kansas City, Missouri, to do a show on the historically famous Vine Street at the Orchid Room. Before October 11, 1957, the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue had been

booked to do a one-week tour at the Orchid Room. During a “stopover in Kansas City,” Reese, the now famous nightclub singer, was a brief visitor as she dropped in at the Orchid Room, where she was seen enjoying the opening of the revue and chatting with Braggs.74 As she was currently enjoying top honors for her hit tune “And That Reminds Me,” Della Reese was on her way to fill engagements in New York.75 Before I discuss other specific experiences of Braggs as showman and producer of the revue, the marketing of the revue's shows deserves some brief comments. Tommy Roy, a popular western Michigan disc jockey who had worked as a radio personality for WKLA in Ludington, was hired by Braggs.76 WKLA was an affiliate of ABC, which was owned and operated by Ray Plank, who migrated to Ludington from Alma, Michigan. Roy served Braggs's revue as publicity man for the shows he produced from the fall of 1959 to the end of the summer of 1963. Roy came on board at the right time, during the civil rights movement, at a time when the white mainstream press in the United States refused to cover the shows that Braggs and other black showmen produced. In response to these conditions, Braggs, like many others, relied on the black press to advertise his revue, and he was quite successful in doing so. He secured the professional services of Roy to handle all the publicity, promotion, and public relations to appeal to white music lovers, write articles, purchase radio announcements, and advertise about the revue's shows in the white press in Mason and Muskegon counties. The WKLA radio station broadcasted some of the shows in the Fiesta Room live. From coast to coast, these live broadcasts from the Paradise Club aired on Saturday nights over the ABC radio network.77 WJLB also broadcasted some of the shows live. Station WXYZ in Detroit handled most of the network arrangements for WKLA. The broadcasts of the shows were fed through a network in Chicago. Roy served as announcer, handling the ABC Page 176 → chores at Idlewild, while Willie Bryant served as the show's host. The engineers were Chuck Hagerman, Don Hack, and Ray Plank, all of Ludington. A typical opening and closing for the ABC radio show, which reached several hundred stations, read like the following: Good evening. Along the vast ABC network, from the Fiesta Room of the Paradise Gardens in Idlewild, Michigan, the home of the oh-so-happy feet, the ABC radio network, in cooperation with the United States Treasury Department and the American Federation of Musicians' James C. Petrillo, president, bring you Rhythm on Parade. Buy U.S. savings bonds now for your future! And now, here he is your host for Rhythm on Parade for this evening, the former mayor of Harlem, Willie Bryant.78 The Rhythm on Parade show had also previously been reported in K. D. Davis's Idlewilder's Magazine during the summer of 1956. Bobby Mumbles was a stand-in for Ziggy. Along with the big hands he received during the show, Mumbles was joined by Gloria Lynn, who sang a sad song. Pinkney Roberts, “who never appear[ed] in the same outfit,” was showcased, as ABC announcer Willie Bryant was pacing the show, making his announcements so fast that Pinkney “couldn't change fast enough.”79 The following week, another show, featuring Bill Doggett and his trio, Frank Brown, the Spence Twins, the Four Tops, and Paul Williams's band, was broadcast. Bryant introduced Ziggy Johnson as the show's producer and Pinkney Roberts as the fashion-plate emcee.80 Although the Rhythm on Parade show originally emanated from the Flame Show Bar in Detroit, it was the Paradise Club that helped ABC to decide on the Idlewild location instead, since more big-name headliners were aired live from the Fiesta Room for several summer seasons. These show series began the first Saturday in July and ran through Labor Day. At the conclusion of Labor Day weekend, the revue would bury the show, signaling the opening of the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue touring season on the black-and-tan entertainment circuit.81 The Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue introduced some of the best-known acts to the Detroit public. For instance, after burying the show in Idlewild, the revue toured Bill Pierce's Club El Sino. Ziggy Johnson wrote, “As I sit here and listen to Della Reese sing, ‘The Party's Over,’ she couldn't be singing a more fitting song, for this is Labor Day on the island…. Many are tagging their boats on the back of their cars and as Della would sing, ‘Headin’ Home.' To some this has been a short season; to others, well, it means it's Labor Day and back to the mines…. It'll be nice to know that the gang I worked with here in Page 177 → Idlewild at the Fiesta will be appearing at Bill Pierce's Club El Sino. Yes, Arthur Braggs is taking the entire production into the valley spot and things show-wise should jump around our town.”82 The opening-night crowd that gathered at Club El Sino came from beyond Gratiot Avenue for two full weeks straight.83 The Michigan Chronicle, in an article titled “Idlewild Revue Still

Hot at Club El Sino,” noted, “Arthur Braggs' 1958 Idlewild Revue is the hottest thing to hit town since the discovery of Joe Louis, the ole Brown Bomber. Booked into Club El Sino, which was located in the heart of what was once fabulous and flourishing Paradise Valley, the second edition of Arthur Braggs' Idlewild Revue offerings stood up and fought Sam Cooke's appearance at the town's top spot, the Flame Show Bar, like a champ.”84 By actual count, the girlie revue was outdrawing the handsome young vocalist who set feminine hearts aflutter with his recorded version of “You Send Me.” The 1958 Idlewild revue, like its 1957 version, was fast and talentloaded, with costumes of silk, satin, velvet, and sequins costing over six thousand dollars and with a host of pretty girls. The Michigan Chronicle reported, “A full 70 to 90 minutes of the most enjoyable entertainment seen in these parts since fair haired Leonard Reed had the town swooning at the long Page 178 → departed Club Congo in the early 40's, there's little doubt that this show will not again lighten up the streets of Paradise Valley and return Bill Pierce's Club El Sino to the forefront of the nation's top night spots. Pierce, himself, admits he has to follow the Idlewild show with something top notch and he is going on a full scale operation.”85 Although this opus had a glittering star along with sensational supporting acts, the big attraction was the six lovely ladies in the line, as well as three dazzling showgirls and Inez Clinkscales, who performed a couple of routines on her toes to the theme of “Dancing in the Dark.” Larry Wrice and his Chicago All-Stars played a lot of tuba. Larry had a cat on the organ that made “sitting still kinda difficult.”86

A few months before Braggs kicked off the 1959 edition, blues musician B. B. King, who traveled to Detroit to get married to his sweetheart, Sue, would perform a one-night show at the club in Idlewild. King insisted that the Reverend C. L. Franklin of New Bethel Baptist Church officiate their marriage vows in a private ceremony at the Gotham Hotel. The road was my turf. But if you're living on the road, said Sue, and I'm waiting at home, it'll never work. I want to be your wife and be with you wherever you are. I love you, B. Felt so good to hear a woman say that. Felt so good to be able to satisfy a woman as sensuous and smart as Sue. I was thrilled she accepted my proposal. If there was one man I wanted to marry me, though, it was my favorite preacher, C. L. Franklin. And that's what happened. In June of 1958, Sue and I went to Detroit and got married in the Gotham Hotel. It was a private ceremony with just a couple of witnesses and Reverend officiating. My fabulous drummer Sonny Freeman was there by my side.87 Braggs convinced the king of the blues to do a one-night show while staying at the Gotham. Phil Giles also booked King for the Flamingo Club after the Paradise Club shows ended. The B. B. King appearance, along with the appearances of Della Reese and T-Bone Walker, set the pace for the 1959 edition of the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue. At both Idlewild nightclubs, B. B. King, the former Mississippi plantation worker, performed alongside the exotic dancer Black Velvet on the evening of July 3.88 Braggs was always scouting for new acts to bring to the club, whether they were already known or something new and exciting to the show business audience. Barbara Wilson, who worked as the art director for Ziggy's School of Theater, explained in Idlewilder's Magazine how she began her career as a professional singer, thanks to Braggs and others. Page 179 → Singing as a career was an idea that never entered my mind. However, this winter a singer friend of mine Vicki Nelson, heard me singing at a party and suggested that I try professional singing. I laughed and didn't think seriously about it until June. I went to Bristoe Bryant's Recording Studio, and made some record dubs backed by some other friends of mine, Lillette Harris and Eugene Taylor. Ziggy Johnson heard them, and he told me, he was going to spot me in his annual June Show. Incidentally, I had worked as the art director for Ziggy's show the past two years but I was a little hesitant, about singing in the show, but with a bit of encouragement from Clifford Fears and my family I appeared. Now, I am overjoyed that I did sing in Ziggy's Show because Mr. Arthur Braggs heard me. From that day on wonderful things began to happen. Mr. Braggs thought I had promise, so

he decided to book me in the Fiesta Room in Idlewild. So with a job in the future, I went and convinced Sax Kari to write some arrangements for me. So with the help of God and my many friends here I am in my first professional job, signing in the Fiesta Room of the Paradise club. I don't know what the future holds for me, but with faith in Mr. Braggs, my friends, and above all—God, I may make it.89

That summer, Della Reese had also performed in the Fiesta Club in August, amid a packed house. As Ziggy Johnson recalled, she stopped the show cold: “The former Detroit choir singer has changed her format in the extent she is definitely supper club caliber. With an assist from her accompanist-partner Kirk Stuart, she puts across several clever duets. With apologies to Nat King Cole as we change a line of his song, Della Reese won't be looking back.”90 Leaving the Detroit and Chicago scene, Braggs's 1959 Idlewild revue rolled into Columbus, Ohio, for a two-week show at the Copa Club, located in the city's historic Mount Vernon Avenue area.91 As Ed Lentz noted, for more than two quarters of a century, the Mount Vernon Avenue neighborhood was “an established social and cultural center for the African American community of the City of Columbus,” and its fortunes had “waxed and waned with those of the city and the nation.”92 During the postwar era in Columbus, this African American residential and commercial district housed a sizable “number of jazz nightclubs and other music-making environs among several thriving businesses”93 that catered to them. The “Mount Vernon Avenue area was the center of Black cultural life and activity” and “became the Lenox Avenue of New York's Harlem” for black Columbus. The nightclub scene in the area, where Tommy Paige's famous Copa Club was located, was extremely strong. Under Raleigh Randolph's management of the club, the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue brought Page 180 → “back show business as it was once known—chorus girls, beautiful costumes [and] production ideas.”94 The show was “fast and effective from the first sound of drums with Larry Wrice, leader of the terrific Chicago All-Stars. Della Reese, the only featured performer ever to appear twice in a month on the Ed Sullivan show, was never better as she w[ore] her striking gowns and sang the songs which made her famous.”95 In addition, “in the hour and a half show was blues singing T-Bone Walker, Pat Taylor, Sonny Carter, the Fiesta Dolls, the Braggettes, and the Wrice Orchestra.”96 One by one, the revue's parade of stars rocked the house, and as reported by Ziggy Johnson, “since this is the capitol of Ohio,” it might have been wise had someone warned Governor O'Neil and his legislature “to get their business finished or prepare to take a vacation while this unit [wa]s in town. Cause they're real swinging, if you dig what I means.”97 After leaving the Mount Vernon Avenue scene in Columbus, Braggs's revue played Cleveland at the Chatterbox for another two weeks and Indianapolis at the Flamingo Supper Club for five nights, before ending in Detroit at the Flame for another week.98 Featured in Indianapolis was a ritzy, fast-moving show with the outstanding T-Bone Walker, Black Velvet, the Four Tops, ten beautiful dancing girls, and Sonny Carter as emcee. According to all reports, Braggs had set some kind of record before reopening at the Flame. Playing to capacity at Club El Sino three months earlier, he broke business records. Covering the story, the Cleveland Call and Post reported, “For a show to play the same town so closely is, itself, a rare thing, but to come right back in a competitive spot is even more unusual. To say that the wisenheimers are watching for the results is putting it mildly.”99 The revue presented “a fast opening featuring the Braggettes,” who set a pace that was not to subside until the emcee announced, “Well, that's it. How did you like it?” Jerry Butler, who at one time was the original lead singer for the Impressions, vividly recalls how badly the Four Tops had beaten him onstage when he later performed in the club. “Man, they were so good. They were so polished,” he remembers. The Four Tops picked up the pace and kept things moving until a thin agile dancer introduced as Mona Desmond hit the stage. The Call and Post reporter wrote, “This girl is, as the saying goes, something else. If she has a peer in this business I have yet to see her. She turns, spins, stands on her head, and displays a trained knowledge of ballet, acrobatics and a varied theatrical background. Betty ‘Bebop’ Carter, a way out singer does a good job but, unfortunately, does not get through to the audience that likes melodies and tunes they can hum and whistle. Her reception is, however, very big with those who dig her. Three extremely tall and striking showgirls are featured in the production number along with specialty dancer Etta Cummings.”100 The Rhythm Kings, featuring Kenneth Mitchell, Page 181 → Sonny Montgomery, and Bobby Murphy, were bringing back memories of the Nicholas Brothers, the Berry

Brothers, and other featured acts of the past era of show business. They sang, clowned around, strutted, and just about wrecked the place with their antics and daredevil routines. A newcomer named Jimmy Mitchell filled the star spot rather well. His songs were well paced and uniquely arranged. A former gospel singer who displayed certain intonations, Mitchell conveyed a deep emotional arrangement that only a trained spiritual singer could display. The young, handsome, and well-dressed Mitchell showed great promise. Comic Pat Taylor performed his act from various positions in the audience, coming up with some pretty healthy laughs. For quite a few seasons, Larry Steele's popular Smart Affairs show had stood alone as the leading road show that was booking as a nationwide attraction. But this season, the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue had been muscling its way into the spotlight. The show hit the road, letting Larry Steele's show know that it would have to move over and share the spotlight.101 With one thousand miles separating Detroit from New York, Larry Steele was making history with Smart Affairs on Broadway, while Arthur Braggs was doing likewise in Paradise Valley at the Flame Show Bar.102 The Idlewild revue made a strong showing toward returning show business to the days of dancing girls, comics, tap dancers, and creative production ideas. The Idlewild revue was playing to record crowds at every midwestern nightclub. Ziggy Johnson had served as emcee interchangeably, as did Maurice King's orchestra and Larry Wrice's band, which supplied most of the music early on. Although the three men were not a part of the regular troupe, they played an important role. As the 1959 touring year ended, Braggs had come to make “two major changes in the Revue. He changed his band and singing group, replacing Larry Wrice for Earl Count Belcher's band, and the Tornadoes occupied the spot held by the Four Tops.”103 Earl W. Belcher, a.k.a. Earl Count Belcher and his band played in Idlewild at the Flamingo Club in 1957 and on tour with the revue from January 1959 to January 1960.104 The season for the 1960 edition of the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue began in July 1959, roughly two months before the tour season would officially begin. For Braggs, the 1960 revue season would involve a series of highs and lows, a challenge, and a blessing in disguise for the remaining years of his tenure as a showman. A high was the summer season in Idlewild, which opened on July 3rd with Count Belcher's band. However, the incident that set the scene for a series of setbacks began in December 1959 as the revue was beginning the Orchid Room tour in Kansas City, Missouri. Kansas City was known as a major jazz hotspot on the Chitlin' Circuit. At the midpoint of a fairly successful tour, Page 182 → a dark cloud would soon surface, as the rest of the cast of forty-one learned about three missing Detroit band members of the Count Belcher Orchestra, who had not returned from a gig at the Black Orchid Casino in Montreal. Eddie Lou Goodlow, one of the three showgirls of the 1960 revue, reflects on what happened after the Montreal show ended. While on their two-week vacation between shows, “some revue members made jokes about their absence, even though no one really knew or paid much attention about missing them or…something serious happening to them. But by the time we arrived in Kansas City and they didn't show up, everyone began to worry.”105 The summer season in Idlewild had opened on July 3 with Count Belcher's band,106 Ziggy Johnson as emcee, and a diverse and impressive list of stars and entertainers that changed weekly over the summer and during the tour season. The star of the revue often performed for a two-week period with two shows per night, and there was a change in the headliner each week.107 The tours for this edition of Braggs's Idlewild revue began at the Flame Show Bar in Detroit and the Faust Club in Peoria.108 Although Braggs's revue finished the previous season with appearances in Chicago, Columbus, Tulsa, Indianapolis, and Detroit, Braggs had ended the touring season early and received a contract for twelve weeks in Australia. The only obstacle that kept him from signing the contract revolved around a hassle over band equipment for his six-piece band. “They want me to use a local band, but I want to take my band with me,” explained Braggs. “These boys have been with me all the season and they know the style of music we want.”109 Due to the contractual stalemate, Braggs never signed the contract; this meant that Braggs was not able to expand the internationalization of the revue's tours beyond Canada in the same way as Larry Steele did with his Smart Affairs. As Adam Green notes, black histories assume that political identity for African Americans is mobilized by consumer rights, as “a list of postwar artists emerging from the Windy City over time—Sam Cooke, Muddy Waters, Mahalia Jackson, Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, Joe Williams, Curtis Mayfield, Jerry Butler, Chaka Khan, and Earth, Wind, and Fire—makes clear the city's preeminent role,

together with Detroit and Memphis, in moving black music toward an especially soulful identity.”110 Like black appeal disc jockeys Jack Cooper and Al Benson of Chicago, who promoted innovative sounds over the airways of commercial radio, Braggs was tapping into black talent by using Idlewild's exclusive catering to the resort and entertainment industry in Michigan and elsewhere around the country. The 1960 season of the Idlewild revue encouraged Braggs to finally hire a professional publicist, Tommy Roy, who would be responsible for scouting the circuit, locating housing, and encouraging various promoters to book the show. Page 183 → The promoters, in return, would purchase weekly advertisements to be published in the Chicago Defender, Michigan Chronicle, Grand Rapid Times, Oklahoma Eagle, Baltimore Afro-American, and New York Amsterdam News. Roy handled weekly advertisements in two major western Michigan newspapers, the Ludington Daily News and Muskegon Chronicle. Ads and articles about the performers were used to promote the revues' local and regional tours. But at the national level, it was the black press that essentially and inescapably played an integral part in the show business world, not only as the record keeper but also as the eyes, ears, and voice of African American readers in the shadow of the racism and discrimination that shaped mainstream America's media. For example, the Chicago Defender proudly advertised and promoted the shows at Roberts Show Lounge that season that featured the legendary blues guitarist T-Bone Walker, Chicago's Rhythm Kings, and Detroit's Jackie Wilson. The shows of these artists were well advertised and attended by the club's promoters. Black Chicagoans understood where they could get their news about weekly entertainment events that catered to their interests. Braggs, Roy, and members of the revue understood that the black press—both newspapers and radio stations—was essential to the marketing of the shows the revue performed. Roy worked endlessly behind the scenes to promote the shows of the revue. Although successful student sit-ins had been staged in Oklahoma City in 1958 and in St. Louis in 1959, the spread of mass demonstrations throughout the South in 1960 was not quite enough to ensure safe travels for the revue, even though these campaigns, marches, and sit-ins did help to increase greater awareness about racial discrimination among the white public and racial consciousness among African Americans in rural and urban areas nationwide. The long and boring bus rides traveling to northern and southern cities and towns in those days involved sharing stories of the fight for equality, in the form of the gains and the setbacks, as well as of the hopes and the aspirations of those who struggled to improve the general welfare of twenty-two million African Americans. The extended bus trips to and from these sites gave revue members plenty of time to share juicy stories about all kinds of topics for their group amusement and cohesiveness, as they navigated Jim Crow segregation in the South and practices of racial discrimination in the North during the civil rights movement. As the revue toured some of the other venues that season, they shared jokes about different racial encounters, played practical jokes and games on one another, developed long-lasting and meaningful relationships with each other, and held numerous critical conversations about current events in the news. Telling jokes about racism during one southern road trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma, comedian Page 184 → George Kirby, the multitalented performer and mimic who nicknamed the producer “Daddy Braggs,” was fondly remembered for his impressions of John Wayne, Jerry Lewis, Ella Fitzgerald, Pearl Bailey, and Sarah Vaughn. Shifting attention about blacks and whites away from the belief that racism was a “prevailing” and “persisting problem,” Kirby joked about a common human concern that crossed racial lines. Focusing on U.S. racism and racial subordination as silly systematic social constructs, Kirby and Levi Stubbs poked fun at the misguided racist comments they heard, especially when it came to the subject of food and lodging. Valaida Tally, Jo Ella Keough, and Betty Jo Cave recall experiencing several incidents of racism while on tour with the 1962 edition of the revue, whenever their bus broke down, as it did once or twice traveling on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. “I remember this one time when we stopped at this one white-owned restaurant,” explains Valaida, “and the guy said, ‘We don't serve colored people here,’ and Levi responded, ‘We don't eat colored people either.’”111 Following that particular southern tour, Braggs's 1960 revue, featuring a cast of thirty-one, performed at the Black Orchid Casino at 892 St. Catherine Street in West Montreal, Canada. The club, which was upstairs, had a dining room on the first floor. The owner, a Jewish man named Meyer Dunn, purchased advertisements that read, “The 1960 Idlewild Revue is playing the Black Orchid Casino and praying that this club is one to be reckoned with on the local circuit. The show has a cast of 31 talented people in it, including singers, dancers, comedians, and a

chorus line. The show has a lively and steady pace and it is one of the better entertainment treats in town this week.”112 After completing the engagement on December 7, 1959, three Detroit musicians, members of Earl “Count” Belcher's orchestra, checked out of their Montreal hotel. As they were returning to Detroit in the car of trumpet player Henry Purifoy after visiting with a few fellow musicians employed at the Esquire Club, they got in a tragic accident. A heavy snow on the night of December 7 forced Purifoy's car to skid on icy roads and plunge into the cold waters of Canal Soulanges near the St. Lawrence Canal, thirty miles southwest of Montreal, Canada. They disappeared without a trace for months. The city of Montreal, which had been at the center of the snowstorm that had brought wintry weather to Quebec City and eastern Ontario, had “enjoyed relatively fine weather” the day before the storm. On the day of the storm, “[s]leet driven by 30 mile-an-hour winds that gusted to 40 pelted Quebec City all day” and caused some minor damages. In eastern Ontario, communications were “snarled by four inches of wet snow.”113 But in Montreal, where the weather office said the storm was centered, drivers experienced “nothing worse than high winds and light rain.”114 Purifoy and those traveling with him disappeared on Page 185 → the night of December 7, 1959, leaving everyone to wonder what might have happened to them after a successful performance in Montreal. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police worked closely with the Detroit Police Department, the immigration authorities, the U.S. consulate in Canada, and the Detroit Federation of Musicians Local 5, at the request of the missing musicians' families. After nearly five months of searching, the bodies of the three Detroit musicians and the wife of one of them were found.115 Trumpet player Henry “Hank” Purifoy, drummer Eddie “Chip” Grant, and saxophonist Harold Wallace and his wife, Beatrice Green Wallace, were pulled from the thaw of the St. Lawrence Canal. Meanwhile, Braggs and several revue members stopped in Detroit for a few days while on vacation before the revue headed to their next engagement at the Orchid Room at Twelfth and Vine Streets in Kansas City, Missouri.116 The Detroit Federation of Musicians Local 5, a chapter of the American Federation of Musicians, of which all three deceased musicians were members, released the details to all of the Detroit newspapers. In addition, the Associated Press and the United Press carried the story. News wiring had been released by the Detroit Police Department and F. L. Petrie of the Washington, DC, law firm Van Arkel and Kaiser, which issued a U.S. government memorandum to Millard Case, deputy undersecretary of labor, requesting information pertaining to the American musicians missing in Canada. The law firm also requested information from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; Robert H. Robinson, deputy associate commissioner of travel control; the Immigration and Naturalization Service authorities; the U.S. consulate in Canada; Lee Anderson of the Identification Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Robert Campbell in the State Department's Special Services Division. There was an official declaration from the Canadian Department of Authority concerning the disappearance of the four American citizens, as well as an inquiry from Representative Charles Diggs Jr. of Michigan, who had been deeply distressed to learn of the loss. Both sources asked for continuous reports on the progress of the case and conveyed their heartfelt sympathies to family members and the federation's president. Congressman Diggs's administrative secretary, Dorothy E. Quarker, prepared a statement by way of Western Union to express his sadness on his behalf, as he was out of the country. Weeks earlier, the federation had written a letter that sought to assure the families that “every effort” was “being made to determine their whereabouts or fate.”117 With absolutely no leads two days after the Kansas gig, which headlined Earl Grant, had ended, the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue had appeared at Roberts Show Lounge for three days around New Years' Eve. Della Reese, Johnny Hartman, Dick Gregory, Crip Heard, Victor Barbara, and Red Saunders opened. By January 6, Jimmy Mitchell Page 186 → headlined the revue.118 Some weeks after the Kansas City tour, Braggs, forced to change bands due to the missing musicians, contracted the services of Larry Wrice and his orchestra again,119 as the international search continued. A letter dated February 17, 1960, addressed to Henry Kaiser, attorney for Van Arkel and Kaiser, and written by Eduard Werner, president of Local 5, reported the persistent search: “Dear Henry: Thanks for your very prompt attention to the matter of the ghastly disappearance of three of our Colored musicians on their way from Montreal to Detroit. I believe now we have done everything we can, but have yet heard a thing about their whereabouts. I shall be happy to keep you advised of further developments.”120 It had taken five months for members of the revue to learn what had actually happened to Count Belcher's missing

band members. Their bodies had been found when divers uncovered them as the icy waters from the canal had thawed, and family members were able to identify them.121 Revue members, having just returned to Detroit, witnessed the marriage vows of Clineice Townsend and lead singer Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops on March 26, 1960. On a sad day in April, two weeks after the lovely couple's marriage at New Grace Church in Detroit, attending physician and coroner Jean Huilleuis had released the autopsy report. The mystery surrounding the three missing musicians ended as the Canadian coroner reported on the accidental drowning. The investigation had finally been laid to rest. For the remainder of the season, Braggs and his revue were recuperating from the tragic death of the band members and the changing of bandleaders. As the 1960 tour season ended, Braggs prepared for the 1961 edition. The 1961 season, like the 1960 season, represented a historic moment complete with a series of major successes, challenges, and a few structural setbacks for the tours of the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue. The season began with a Fourth of July parade in Idlewild. An advertisement appearing in the Grand Rapids Times published news about a bus excursion to Idlewild to witness “the July 2nd & 4th opening of the season.”122 Leaving Kelly's Drive-Inn in Grand Rapids at 6:00 a.m. and returning from Idlewild at 10:00 p.m., the excursion was sponsored by Naomi Chapter.123 The Grand Rapids Times also published an advertisement about the shows staged and directed by Lon Fontaine, who had just ended his contract with Larry Steele's Smart Affairs and had been recruited by Braggs. On August 28, the one-legged phenomenal tap dancer Will Gaines, along with Dave Turner, Mona Desmond, and Jerry “the Iceman” Butler, performed nightly for one week only. Singing “For Your Precious Love, ” which ranked 327 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the five hundred greatest songs of all times, Butler, who had signed with Vee-Jay Records while a member of the Page 187 → Impressions, also sang “He Will Break Your Heart.” Butler remembered Curtis Mayfield performing with him as he thought about how phenomenal it was at the time to experience first-hand how a black man [such as Braggs] would have that kind of organization.”124 The Grand Rapids Times displayed a full-page advertisement marking Idlewild as “Michigan's favorite vacation spot,” spotlighting coming attractions with Jackie Wilson, “the Nation's No. 1 Attraction,” and Lorez Alexander.125 Arthur Prysock and George Kirby were showcased in the final week of the summer season.126 About all this, Ziggy Johnson wrote, First of all I must tell you about the spectacular show I'm a part of—the 1961 edition of the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue, and as I said before it is without a doubt, the most colorful, well-paced show that I have ever been a part of. Arthur Braggs imported Lon Fontaine to stage and direct and together they have come up with the greatest show to ever be seen on this island. Folks from this side and the other side of the tracks are simply amazed at seeing a show with costumes costing up to $6,000, with stars such as Dakota Station, Bill Doggett, Roy Hamilton, and coming soon, such names as Lorez Alexander, Jackie Wilson, George Kirby, only to enhance the already star studded show that includes, The Four Tops, Mona Desmond, The Harlem Brothers, The Lon Fontaine Trio, the six lovely Braggettes, and the four beautiful Fiesta Dolls, who in my opinion are without a doubt, four of the most attractive sepia models in the country today. My hat is off to Arthur Braggs, for it took him exactly ten years to come up with what he really wanted to offer his visitors to the island of Idlewild.127 Johnson's comments about the lineup for the tour illustrate both the reception and the reputation Braggs's revue received as a showcase of star-studded performers. Carlean Gill, one of the leading showgirls for the Fiesta Dolls, discusses the typical kind of welcoming reception Jackie Wilson enjoyed onstage and offstage in Idlewild: “Jackie Wilson was known for bouncing, jumping, falling to his knees, and laying flat on his back while singing and shouting romantic messages in the lyrics of his songs at the Paradise Club.”128 Susan Morse of the Detroit Free Press, discussing Wilson's energy-charged and animated aesthetic performances, noted how he would toss microphones around, throw cuff links to the crowd, and strip off his shirt, driving the women in his audience out of their seats, as he paraded down the aisles and back to the stage. At the Paradise Club, he always sang “Lonely Teardrops” and “Doggin' Around.” Similarly, the Four Tops had also produced songs of love and happiness in hit after hit that appeared on the top ten list, like “Baby I Need Your Loving,” “I Can't Help Myself,” and “Reach Out.” Indeed, Braggs was instrumental in showcasing stars. Page 188 →

The 1961 revue began its tour for two weeks at Haig's Lounge in Detroit. Arthur Prysock, accompanied by a cast of thirty, headlined the show.129 The baritone vocalist rocked the house. The revue then returned to the Black Orchid Casino in the heart of Montreal, Canada. Initially, the revue was only scheduled to perform there for one week. However, subsequent advertisements indicate that the show was held over for a total of three weeks due to excellent reviews. The Montreal Gazette described the revue as “the best show [the Black Orchid Casino] has booked so far this season.”130 The Gazette characterized the cast of the show as being “filled with singing, dancing and comedy with specialty and novelty acts tossed in for good measure. It should not be missed by anyone who likes the finer things in nightclub entertainment. It is a delightfully musical show that has something in it to suit everyone's taste.”131 The Black Orchid Casino had launched its new season with the fast-paced production of the Idlewild revue, which the Gazette further noted was “filled with color, sound and rhythm and when it is over it would take a very jaded nightclub goer indeed to say that he hadn't been entertained. If the show is swift it is also loud. No one dozes Page 189 → off when the Idlewild cast is on stage. They bounce around most merrily to a constant driving beat from the excellent show band. When they dance they dance with gusto and when they sing, they really let the audience know they can handle a lyric.”132 Returning to Ludington from an extensive twenty-four-day promotional tour on behalf of the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue of 1961 and some of the nation's greatest names in show business, Tommy Roy successfully booked shows in Cleveland; Washington, DC; Baltimore; New York City; Boston; Buffalo; Toronto, Canada; and London, England (where the revue was scheduled to play the Embassy Club). After the show in Montreal, Roy first arranged for movement “on to Cleveland before the starting of a six week long string of theater dates.”133 In Cleveland, at the Circle Ballroom, the SKD Club promoted an “Extravaganza, The Spectacular Idlewild Revue Circle.”134 The east coast theatrical tour, which followed, first hit the Baltimore Royal Theatre, followed by the Howard Theatre, a one-nighter at the Casino Theatre in Toronto, and then the Apollo Theater in New York's Harlem, with much of the tour ending at New York's London Chop House on the day after Christmas Day.135 At the opening at the Baltimore Royal Theatre, Roy Hamilton and comedian and mimic George Kirby were the headliners. Word was quickly spreading that Braggs's revue was a serious competitor to Larry Steele's Smart Affairs. In an article appearing in the New York Amsterdam News, one staff writer had the following to say about the Roy Hamilton/Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue of 1961: When showman Arthur Braggs gets an idea he isn't one to let anything stand in his way to accomplish his aim. If he did then he wouldn't today be producing his Idlewild revue show that created a sensation when he conceived it five years ago at his Michigan resort café in Idlewild. When Braggs was a kid many years ago big shows featuring plenty of long stemmed beige dancing beauties, comedians, bands and singers were all the rage. But in the last twenty years there has been a decline in this type of show business and outside of producer Larry Steele, Braggs is the only one trying to revive a lost tradition that brought laughter to thousands in theatres and night clubs. From the moment he threw open the doors the public flocked in, and each summer have returned for more of the same. And now for the first time Braggs will take his revue on a nationwide and night club tour as he's convinced his show is entertainment in the best tradition of show business…. For Braggs this venture represents a big gamble. He's tied up over $25,000 of his own money in musical arrangements, costumes and choreography. He feels that if crowds flock into theatres to see his Fiesta shows then he might pave the way for other such productions to follow.136 Page 190 → Following the show at the Apollo, Braggs received a nice compliment from Frank Schifman, the owner of the theater, about the revue: “Mr. Braggs you have without a doubt one of the cleanest, fast-moving shows that has appeared in the Apollo Theater. Please come back next year.”137 This left Braggs feeling rather happy. About a week before performing at the Apollo Theater and New York's London Chop House, Braggs and his Idlewild revue headed to Toronto to perform a one-night show at the old Casino Theatre. Traveling on the evening of November 27, 1960, the forty-cast revue was making civil rights and Cold War performance history as it did a benefit show to garner international support for the education of East African students. Kenya had just gained its

independence under Mobutu Seseko, who was installed as president by the United States. The Central Intelligence Agency was said to have taken part in the slaying of Patrice Lumumba, the legitimate prime minister of Zaire (Democratic Republic of the Congo), whom the West (the United States) disliked due to his communist and Eastern European leanings. This was the scenario all across Africa, where divisions wrought by colonialism from Europeans were now being replaced by division between capitalism and communism (the United States versus the USSR), with rapacious consequences to these countries. When two bulls fight, as a Kiswahili saying goes, the grass suffers. The Africans were the grasses and the United States and the USSR were the bulls fighting during the Cold War. Working collaboratively with Harry Belafonte, chief spokesman for the African American Students Foundation (AASF), this international campaign and educational fund-raising rally “was a 100 percent voluntary effort.”138 The owners and managers of the Casino Theatre, Murray and Lillian Little, were hosting and sponsoring the event “free of charge.”139 An hour after ending one of the shows scheduled for a three-week engagement at the O'Keefe Centre for the Performing Arts, which featured Belafonte along with South African songstress Miriam Makeba, who was making her debut tour of the United States and Canada, Belafonte delivered a rousing public address that marked a compelling historical moment in twentieth-century African, Canadian, Caribbean, and U.S. history. This transnational collaboration also positioned Belafonte as a trailblazer in Cold War politics and wrote Braggs's Idlewild revue into the annals of local and global connections during the Cold War and the civil rights eras. Braggs may also be logged into the history of the African diaspora performance arena of the 1960s. Belafonte, who was widely known in Toronto for his calypso-style music and hits like “The Banana Boat Song (Day-O)” and “Matilda,” as well as his humanitarian views, was working in an international partnership with Toronto's Pierre Berton when both inserted Cold War politics into Page 191 → the performances of the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue. Representing Sidney Poitier and other foundation members while speaking at the event, Belafonte was very persuasive in convincing white and black Canadians that they must do whatever they could to assist East Africa. Stating that these African peoples “are only asking, after years of degradation, to have their rightful place in humanity,” Belafonte revealed both his desire and his passion to make a contribution for the betterment of human civilization.140 Prior to this appeal to their humanity, Pierre Berton, one of Canada's popular personalities who was a former Toronto Star reporter and a prolific author in world politics and Toronto's broadcasting history, introduced Belafonte to a mixed audience of black and white citizens of the greater Toronto community.141 Showcasing his booming voice, towering stature, and trademark bow tie, Berton, who later compared apartheid South Africa with Nazi Germany and challenged Canadian prime minister John Diefenbaker to lead a Commonwealth revolt against apartheid, made a compelling case for Canadian support of the education of East African students. During the twenty-five minutes of his speech, Belafonte urged the “capacity crowd at the Casino Theatre to support with their donations the African Students' fund of Canada to provide a Canadian education for African students.”142 Despite the Cold War politics of the times, Belafonte, who had already helped to raise sixtyfive thousand dollars for the first airlift of 250 East African students to New York, spoke straight to the point. A small number of these students had already been “distributed to Canadian and American universities,” where twenty of them had been “currently studying in Canada.”143 In the speech, Belafonte argued, “Your contributions to the African Student fund [will help to] maintain these 20 students,” and he added that “20 students are not enough for a country the size of Canada…. The fund will need $15,000 this year to look after these 20 students.”144 As an artist and a civil and human rights activist who had been accustomed to “enjoying a relative amount of success,” Belafonte reasoned that he was not immune “to the pain of suffering in the world.”145 In an effort to create an atmosphere of international cooperation and inclusion, he said, “One of the subjects of the great debates of today is the future of the African countries…, but the African countries themselves have a brilliant concept of their future—one of peace and privacy.”146 At the O'Keefe Centre for the Performing Arts, which booked the Belafonte Enterprises Inc. production, Belafonte was accompanied by South African singer Miriam Makeba and the Vocal Four (William Eaton, Wanza King, Sherman Sneed, and William Stewart). This performance was produced by Phil Stern, from November 21 to December 3, 1960. The O'Keefe had a seating capacity of thirty-two hundred and was modeled after the famous Royal Page 192 → Festival Hall in London, England. Spacious and comfortable, many of its seats were equipped with hearing aids.

Minutes before the delivery of Belafonte's speech, Pierre Berton stated that “he saw a great many Negro university students” while he was in Moscow earlier in the year and that there was a “growing need for teachers in the Congo.”147 Ending, he asked, Are they going to be trained by the West or by the Communist countries?” Complimenting Berton's pressing rhetorical question, Belafonte indicated that he, too, “had witnessed the thousands of African students studying in Moscow,” adding that “there are some 20,000 African students in the USSR and they are only there because it is the only place they can go for an education. They hear glowing accounts of this hemisphere, but when it comes time for action—there is none.”148 The compassionate tone of the moral declaration Belafonte issued to the brown and tan audience also suggested a potential solution, when he stated that “if some of the taxes of Canada and the U.S. were used for a peaceful program for these students, our countries would stand in the forefront of humanity,” particularly since “the internal affairs of all countries, whether U.S. Canada, France, Algeria or the Congo, are inseparable and have a direct relationship with each other.”149 The essence of a transnational democratic society, according to Belafonte, involves representation. Within this context, he went on to say, “The great guilt of this hemisphere are the people who don't make an effort to find out and know what is going on in the world and what is needed. These African people are not asking for your charity, benevolence or sympathy. They are only asking, after years of degradation, to have their rightful place in humanity.”150 The divisive actions of European colonialism were evident as African nations, like many other developing nations, were caught between the politics of the East and the West. The widespread fear of communism had an impact not only on Africa's future but also on the slow attainment of civil rights in the United States, where King and other civil rights activists, such as Belafonte, were branded communists for advocating on behalf of the rights of African Americans. Belafonte's effort on behalf of the AASF for East African students not only involved progressive moves and views aimed to advance Western nations and their citizens but also came as a backdrop for Africa's independence struggle and the emancipation of East Africa, which began after World War II, in 1945. The international gestures were also important for African Americans as they labored to attain their civil rights in the United States. Belafonte's address, which directly or indirectly emphasized a spirit of Pan-Africanism, was intended to create a collaborative effort that would advance contemporary ideas regarding the interconnectedness of people of African Page 193 → descent in the world, in a similar manner as the Pan-African philosophies of Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Malcolm X. Garvey's “Africa for the Africans” and “Ethiopians Unite” slogans linked the fates and destinies of Africa and African Americans.151 This spirit of unity among Africans and compassion for members of the human species, irrespective of where they come from (the Ubuntu spirit of human interconnectedness), connected the human brotherhood, a point Belafonte so eloquently articulated. The idea of providing educational opportunities for East African students so that they could become their own leaders and lead their particular countries had been pursued through Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, who argued for self-reliance for oppressed African people if they are to develop. Hence the role of an artist in a community was clearly rendered through Belafonte's actions and his address. What are the implications of this for artist-activists today? The idea of combining artistic talent with political activism, as Belafonte and Arthur Braggs illustrate, signifies the idea that “we are because I am, and because I am, we are.” This also signals the importance of the community and communal relations in an international, regional, continental, and intercontinental context. Pan-Africanism, which had been reignited after World War II, helped Africans and African Americans realize that their fate rested at the hands of the same colonists. This, in turn, created an atmosphere in which Africans and African Americans realized that they had a “tie that bound them together” despite their differences in geographical locations. Additionally, the U.S.-Kenya based campaign for the airlift, which had been spearheaded by the AASF and the labor activist Tom Mboya, represented an effective transnational collaboration and campaign to provide training for East African students to run their country as part of a larger effort to end colonialism in Africa. Beginning in the late 1950s, “a series of airlifts from East Africa” from 1959 to 1963 were planned to help students—such as environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, Barack Obama's father (a former Kenyan government economist), and more than seven hundred others—study at American and Canadian colleges, universities, and high schools. This bottom-up approach to developing a transnational collaborative program unfolded as there was a need, centered on human rights, for global action and intercultural/ethnic

support. Many of those students returned home to a postcolonial, independent East Africa and became nation builders—cabinet ministers, members of parliaments, founders of clinics and schools. Coordinated by the AASF, the airlifts were made possible in 1959 by a fund-raising effort led by such notables as Jackie Robinson, Harry Belafonte, and Sidney Poitier and by a large grant in 1960 from the Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation. Collected by former executive director Page 194 → Cora Weiss and donated to the Michigan State University Libraries, the archives of AASF have made it possible for author Tom Shachtman to write Airlift to America: How Barack Obama Sr., John F. Kennedy, Tom Mboya, and 800 East African Students Changed Their World and Ours, published by St. Martin's Press. These airlifts to America were conceived by Kenyan trade unionist and statesman Tom Mboya and William X. Scheinman, a young white American entrepreneur and jazz aficionado. Through the AASF, which was founded and run by Scheinman, along with a board of directors that included Cora Weiss, Theodore W. Kheel, George Houser, Frank Montero, Mrs. Ralph Bunche, Buell Gallagher, Jackie Robinson, Sidney Poitier, and Harry Belafonte, the program was instrumental and successful.152 After the Toronto and New York engagements, Braggs's publicity manager, Roy, booked a show in the Roxbury section of Boston, Massachusetts. Formerly billed as the Trinidad Lounge, the newly renovated Basin Street South was owned and managed by Johnny McIlvaine, a fellow numbers man and good friend who was like a brother to Braggs. McIlvaine, who was widely known as a small-time policy man, as well as for his close associations with an Italian hit man for South Boston's Irish Mob moved quickly to book the revue after seeing them perform at the Apollo. McIlvaine had remodeled the old Trinidad Club (which he and Ralph Charles had purchased from John Martarrano, a well-known Italian-born Boston mobster) and was opening it under the new name Basin Street South. McIlvaine wanted to open the new club in style with the 1961 revue. He wanted the club to attract a parade of patrons and future billings of famous headliners. Thinking about the prospects, he had planned on charging patrons a four-dollar minimum to see the show, until he read a letter he received from Roy, dated Tuesday, December 20, 1960, and mailed from Ludington, Michigan, but on Detroit-Leland Hotel letterhead. In the letter, Roy outlined the revue's arrival plans and briefly discussed some of the details he was just learning about the location for the upcoming show in Boston. Dear John: Just a word to advise that I will be in Boston sometime on the 26th (Monday). We had originally planned to be there sooner, but with all the mix-up with the holidays and such, my arrival will be just a little delayed. Actually, if I would get there sooner, there probably isn't a thing we could do Saturday-Sunday-or-Monday anyway because of the long holiday weekend. However, in all probability you are going ahead with the promotion of the “Idlewild” date. At my last contact with Mr. Braggs, I understand that Page 195 → you were moving the show to another location. Not knowing where that would be, I will call you immediately when I get to Boston. I will be in this northwest Michigan city through Christmas Eve, and will leave the following morning for the East. At the moment, we are snow-bound and the stuff is still falling, so let's hope we get dug out by Christmas. I understand you have your share of it too. I am enclosing a number of things which should be of some help to you. They are as follows: newspaper ads in various sizes, which may be of some aid to you, and the latest Columbia Record by the Four Tops.153 Leaving the New York scene a few days after Roy's letter was written and mailed, the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue headed to Boston, arriving two days before their New Year's Eve engagement.

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5 Blazing Flames, the Big Comeback, and the Revue's Exit from the Idlewild Scene Tantalizing Mexican Dance Tales and the Tracks Of all the cities the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue toured, Boston would stand out because of the group's experiences on New Year's Eve and three weeks into the 1961 calendar year, which would undoubtedly become one of the most horrific and celebrated narratives in the revue's history. Despite the setback from a blazing fire that destroyed nearly everything the revue owned within the first three weeks, the shows that Braggs produced a month after the Boston tour ended would transform the revue, adding to its menu a unique array of international character and style with a Mexican flavor. The incorporation of this flavor to the revue, through a unique mixture of black and brown beauties and their tantalizing Afrocentric dance tales, appealed to thousands of African American vacationers, seasonal entrepreneurs, and residents in Idlewild and to audiences throughout the United States during the social protests of the civil rights movement. This chapter suggests that Braggs's successes and setbacks from the close of the 1961 revue season to 1980, occurring at the same time as an escalation in a number of civil rights protests spreading throughout the nation and the federal government's war on illegal gambling, would undoubtedly result in a period of economic decline in Idlewild, resulting in its ability to appeal to its former consumer market. As the Civil Rights Act of 1964 changed the mind-set and Page 197 → landscape in practically all of black America, this social transformation would ultimately lead Braggs to exit the Idlewild scene, a social scene slowly fading into economic decay. The Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue and the shows Braggs introduced at the Paradise Club, where the creation of the imagined community was so visible with respect to show business, would result in the unfulfilled promise of Idlewild. This would eventually lead Braggs to venture into other moneymaking activities and projects. However, in Boston on New Year's Eve of 1961, three years before the legislative boom, Braggs and members of his 1961 Idlewild revue would showcase some of the classyist, engaging, and experimental shows to hit the black entertainment scene. Before the economic changes of civil rights legislation, the vision of Idlewild and its influence continued to appeal to vacationers like a rising star, due largely to the success of Braggs's revue. The day following the opening night of the Idlewild revue's appearance at Basin Street South, a brand new Boston nightspot, George Clarke, a staff writer for the Boston Daily Record, wrote a favorable New Year's Day review of the Idlewild revue, labeling it as “one of the swingin-est hottest shows ever to play in a Boston nightspot, a show famous from coast to coast in theaters, nightclubs, restaurants and hotels.”1 Admittedly, Clarke emphasized that he had been uncertain about exactly what to expect from the revue's show. But after seeing the show on opening night, he wrote the following review: It's called the Idlewild Revue—Arthur Bragg's Idlewild Revue, to give its full title—and it is now still mindful of Larry Steel's smashing, slashing revue recently at the Show bar, your reporter went to the new spot with some misgiving. What he found is as good a show of its type as ever played anywhere, a show which once again evoked memories of New York's Harlem, memories of the Cotton Club, the Ubangi, the Nest, Small's Paradise, Dickie Welles' and all the rest. There are forty persons in it, which includes one of the swingingest bands ever, headed by Choker Campbell, who, himself, has a reputation of note. There are six Braggettes, dancers as pretty as you'd ever want to see, and four Fiesta Dolls, show girls, stately and beautiful. Heading the cast is a New England favorite, Arthur Prysock, tall, dignified, handsome, who does ballads as well as rock ’n’ roll, and in the show he does both. Featured are Tequila Davis, a platinum headed beauty; Dell St. John, a blues singer, protégée of Dinah Washington; the Four Tops, a singing group of four young men, recording artists; the Harlem Brothers, comedy and dancing; Roger Fluker and Howard Kenny, dancers, and the lead dancer, Lon

Fontaine, also choreographer of the ensemble numbers. The show starts fast and never slackens…. It travels in its own bus, Page 198 → and after two weeks here goes to Buffalo, to the Town Casino, to the Holiday House in Pittsburgh, and so on, right up until time to begin rehearsals for the new show. Man, it swings!2

The revue was outstanding. The show, which was produced and directed by Braggs and staged and choreographed by Lon Fontaine, had been booked for three weeks but was unexpectedly interrupted by fire midway into the third week. The sparkling and flashing sepia show had been billed as the forerunner of a larger season of touring companies with shows and big names. The fast-moving talented revue had only run for an hour and a half the evening before the fire began. Variety's Guy noted that patrons got “their money's worth, with everything from an exotic to rock n roll to show-wise production numbers with tall stemmed Negro femmes reminiscent of the old Cotton Club days.”3 Arthur Prysock, the star of the show, did some terrific baritone vocalizing renditions of his big hits “Very Thought of You” and “I Get the Blues.” The Four Tops were swinging with “Only Have Eyes for You,” “Still of the Night,” and “September in the Rain,” and Lon Fontaine was first-rate, singing and performing dancing scores with precision.4 The disturbing news about the Basin Street South fire interrupted Braggs's celebrated successes of the first two and a half weeks of the tour. The costumes, shoes, and cosmetic attires of the revue had been downstairs in the cement-walled basement. The musician's instruments, musical scores, and props used for the show had been on the main floor of the club. Everything had been destroyed by the fire, which occurred on January 20, 1961, starting at approximately 2:35 a.m. and in full flame by 2:59. The fire department had received a two-alarm call from an outsider, who reported that “a fire had broken out on the first floor of a confined building at 1846 Washington Street.”5 Lon Fontaine, who remembers being urgently awakened and told about the fire, explains in his autobiography, Star Dancing, The show went off as planned, a tremendous night; Great New Year's Eve celebration. The owner of the club gave Duke, T-Man and I a house to live in. Every night, after the show, the three of us gave a party. At one of those parties, the club owner brought a wealthy woman. She somehow got around to talking, to me, about my performance. She thought I should make a recording. She said she would put up the money if I would do it. I asked Duke and the Tops if they would help me. However, it was during the last week we were in Boston, [as] the snow had piled up in the streets, about five feet. At about five o'clock, in the morning, I heard someone banging on the downstairs door, shouting, “Wake Page 199 → Page 200 → up! Wake up!” It was Levi Stubbs. “Get dressed quick and wake up. Duke and T-Man, the club is on fire.” The four of us ran through piles of snow. When we got to the club, it had burned down to the ground along with all our costumes and music scores. All I found of mine was a half burnt shoe.6 Fontaine believed that someone put a torch to the club.7 Whether there was any truth to this or not, the only property Braggs's revue had remaining after the fire was the bus.8 Two weeks after the incident, Jet magazine estimated that total losses the revue incurred at well over forty-five thousand dollars: “Destroyed were all instruments, costumes, music scores, trunks and personal clothing of the stars in the show.”9 Revue members were unharmed, but the local papers reported the death of firefighter Arnold Reis from smoke inhalation. Nearly twelve inches of snow had covered most of Boston when the fire occurred, and the temperatures were hitting ten to fifteen degrees below zero. The cause of the fire was reported as “undetermined” and/or “unknown, ”10 though city service officials suspected wrongdoing. In the Boston Globe, the Boston Fire Department's arson squad stated on record that it was beginning to investigate the cause of the “two-alarm fire” that swept the nightclub in the Roxbury Page 201 → area and killed one of its own. It had taken eight engines, five ladders, three fire chiefs, and nearly twenty firefighters and several hose streams to extinguish the blaze.11 Allegedly, the fire either started because of a burning cigarette butt, thought to have been thrown into a trash bin half full of ice used near the barmaids' pickup counter on the first floor of the lounge, or it was started in the basement by an arsonist.

According to a report filed on January 20, 1961, in the Boston Fire Department's Fire Prevention Unit, as indicated by Elliot Belin, a former firefighter himself and the Boston Fire Department's lay historian, the “first floor Basin Street South Café fire” started “in [the] basement,” the “first floor collapsed,” and weather conditions were “snowing” and “very cold.”12 However, according to Ronnie McIlvaine, who had been in charge of the service bar, mixing drinks for the waitresses, the fire started on the main floor. He recalls, “We had a trash bin with lots of ice in it that we used to empty the ash trays, and apparently the fire was caused because one of the staff did not check the trash bin to make sure all the cigarette butts had been safely put out. The basement was used for storage of the liquor and as the dressing room for the performers. One section of the basement had been used as the men's dressing room and the other side for the women.”13 The fire consumed all of the assets of the club's owner, Johnny McIlvaine, and forced him to tap into his savings. After paying the required expenses expected of a Boston business owner, the cost of the plywood to board up the damaged building, and other expenses that drained the limited savings he had acquired and earned from hosting the show at the club, McIlvaine, a small-time hustler, never recuperated from the fire. The financial impact devastated future investment plans for the club and put a serious dent into McIlvaine's operation. All that had been left from the contents of the interior of the building were broken, half-full and full bottles of poisoned liquor. The Boston fire and police departments' investigations intensified after the death of the fireman and the injuries of three others. For Johnny McIlvaine, the brief success of the two-week stint of the revue at his Basin Street South signified that good business opportunities were to be found in a predictive growth pattern in the American economy, where show business and entertainment industries would skyrocket into “high growth.” The nightlife scene in the Roxbury and South End area proved that Boston had become one of the country's leading centers of the blues. The clubs were crowded every night in 1961 as black and white fans, especially college students, attended the shows. The nightclubs had presented opportunities to invest in a new enterprise that was within the reach of Boston's Irish Mob and within its familiar pattern of confiscation and control.14 The building where the former Basin Street South nightclub stood was renovated and consequently Page 202 → became a lounge a year or so later, under the same club name but with different club policies, management, and ownership. Like other Boston business leaders, investors, and entrepreneurs of the early 1960s, mob bosses looked for ways to expand their operations and to set trends for newer kinds of investments.15 The fire also impacted Braggs's touring company. For Braggs, the original cast of forty had dwindled down to approximately twenty. The 1961 revue had crumbled as Lon Fontaine and his trio, including Faye Ray and Frances Nealy, headed east and west to the cities of New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. Bettye Jo Alvis and Ricki Ford headed east to join Larry Steele's Smart Affairs. Roger Fluker returned to Detroit. However, Braggs's revue headliner, Arthur Prysock, as well as Braggs's leading showgirl, Carlean Gill, and her Fiesta Dolls team of Jo Ella Keough and Betty Jo Cave, stayed. The Four Tops (Levi Stubbs, Abdul “Duke” Fakir, Lawrence Payton, and T-Man), the Braggettes (Clineice Stubbs, Valaida Talley, and Inez Fakir), Teeco and Duke of the Dancing Harlem Brothers, comedian Willie Tyler, and Choker Campbell's band also stayed in Boston. The band had to borrow some equipment from the musicians in Boston. Arthur Prysock, who was already popular with the crowds in Boston, and Braggs, who had the help of his friend McIlvaine, managed to make arrangements with the owner of Louie's Lounge for a contract with a smaller version of Braggs's revue. The Boston fire had nearly destroyed the Idlewild revue, but Braggs made a comeback, laundering revenues from his Saginaw policy operations and from contacts in Grand Rapids, Lansing, Flint, and Detroit to keep the revue going. Tommy Roy received a telephone call from Braggs the day after the fire on January 21, 1961. Roy had been stationed in Chicago, wrapping up the final details for the next venue at Roberts Show Lounge. With the news about the fire and all the losses, Roy canceled the Chicago, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh bookings. Packing up and saying good-byes, he composed a note on a George Kirby postcard to his sweetheart, Phyllis Vaught, back in Ludington, Michigan, stating, “Dear Phyllis, Basin Street Club in Boston destroyed by fire—entire Idlewild Revue wiped out. Have nothing left but our bus. [I] will be home shortly. Regards, Tom.”16 Braggs ordered new costumes to be shipped by train from New York City in preparation for the new engagement at Louie's Lounge, while Carlean Gill's Fiesta Dolls and the Braggettes shopped for shoes in one of Boston's finest retailers. Some of the new costumes Braggs ordered arrived but not completely intact. The costumes had been

either lost or damaged. With only four or five days before the revue was to appear at Louie's, Braggs ordered a few more new costumes, which arrived just in time. The show went off as planned, but not without a few expected minor glitches. Prysock was fabulous, and the famous Page 203 → Weepin' Willie, who served as house emcee at both Louie's and Basin Street South, introduced him. Weepin' Willie, once a show manager back in the early to middle part of the 1950s, was one hell of a bluesman. Willie started off fronting a band from Trenton, New Jersey. When the manager of Louie's Lounge in Boston heard him sing, she asked him if he and his band would play the club in Boston.17 The day after the last show at Louie's Lounge, McIlvaine hit the numbers.18 Celebrating the big win the next day, Johnny and Bonita McIlvaine, Braggs and Gill, and another couple who were close friends to the McIlvaines rented a small private airplane and flew to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to see one of Larry Steele's Smart Affairs shows at Club Harlem. Lola Fontana was on stage that night, and Braggs and a host of friends he knew from other cities had fun partying. Drinking, eating fried foods, and celebrating the night away, the group also toured one or two of the other nightclubs on Kentucky Avenue. But Club Harlem was the centerpiece of Kentucky Avenue, known for hosting notable stars that regularly used it to freely showcase their skills and as a springboard to stardom. Among the notable acts to perform there were Moms Mobley, Slappy White, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr., Billy Daniels, Sarah Vaughn, Sam Cooke, and Cab Calloway;, and some of the beautiful showgirls of Larry Steele's Smart Affairs were regularly featured acts.19 During the early hours of the next morning, the couples returned to the small city airport and flew back to Boston, where Braggs would resume planning for the upcoming revue. From March 1 to approximately April 14, 1961, Braggs and Gill vacationed in Mexico. The long vacation in Mexico City and Acapulco represented the perfect opportunity for Braggs to recuperate and to woo Gill. In the dwellings where they stayed in both cities, Braggs romanced Gill and made sure she stayed pleased and happy. He hired a maid for her and a chauffeur to take them everywhere they needed to go, and he planned a host of romantic activities and adventures to occupy their time and her attention. Standing in front of the hills, with a view of the rising sunset and villas on the shore of a tropical lake, Braggs and the twenty-three-year-old Gill, who, at five feet seven and 137 pounds, was tall and willowy, stacked (34-24-38), and poised, took in the sun and the many sights that part of the country had to offer them. After soaking in the scenic views of beautiful Acapulco and a night show at Antonio Zaoala's Lamira Firegod Club, Braggs and Gill ended the evening of March 28 in a remote location far up into the mountainous region. While in Mexico City, the couple ran into Edward Jones, one of Chicago's Jones brothers. Returning to Acapulco, Gill spent the rest of the day in the villa and on the beach, while Braggs dashed back to Mexico City to meet with Jones Page 204 → in private to discuss news about policy racketeering in the states. The details surrounding their meeting were not discussed, as Gill never interfered with or asked questions about Braggs's business affairs. This meant, as Gill emphasized, that she did not have any knowledge about Braggs's business contacts and interactions, so that if she were ever to be questioned by the police or federal agents, she had no information to share. It was a unique arrangement that they had worked out when it came to Braggs's involvement with racketeering and show business affairs.20 Also, while in Mexico, Braggs had an old friend flown in from Chicago to serve as tour guide, someone he knew very well and worked with in the past, who could help with the driving and who could speak fluent Spanish. He also had Roger Fluker flown in from Detroit. Braggs knew that Fluker could intelligently observe the performance they had just seen at the Firegod and could advise how Leon Escobar and his Mexican dancers could fit into the show back in the states. Fluker could help create a layout for the upcoming revue season, and he was less expensive to hire than someone like Lon Fontaine. While vacationing in Acapulco, Braggs and his entourage—his chauffeur, his tour guide, Gill, and Roger Fluker—did some nightclubbing to catch another performance by Leon Escobar and his Mexican dancers at the Lamira Firegod Club. Braggs had already been impressed and immediately wanted to connect and discuss the possibility of officially inviting Leon Escobar to the United States to join the next tour season of the revue. Meeting the next day, Braggs and Escobar agreed to certain terms and conditions, and as Gill put it, “Contracts were signed [and] a salary advancement was made.”21 Braggs was able, through the authority and courtesy of the Mexican and U.S. governments, to invite Escobar and the Mexican dancers to the United States to join the 1962

Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue. As the spring season was ending, Braggs had completed all of the required paperwork to make the invitation official, and Leon Escobar and his Mexican dancers had officially booked an arrival in Detroit to become a part of the 1962 revue. The trip to Mexico represented an important moment in the revue's history and another major turning point for Braggs as a showman and producer. In June, before the revue's season had officially begun, Braggs introduced the Mexican dancers to Ziggy Johnson during one of his rehearsals. Ziggy, in return, invited the Mexican dancers to perform during his school's annual thirty-minute recital, which was being hosted at the Latin Quarters in Detroit. The show, according to Ziggy, “put the crowd into frenzy. It was something never to be seen in these parts before and my hat is off to impresario Arthur Braggs and the renowned Senor Escobar for the most exciting stories ever seen in these parts.”22 Leon Escobar and his choreography staff of Aida Casablanca, Pablo Reynolds, and Senor Cuban Pete carried the performance through their paces. Page 205 → The 1962 revue was so good that before leaving the resort town, Braggs had already received bookings to tour a series of theaters, ballrooms, nightclubs, and auditoriums.23 Ludington's Tommy Roy, in association with Braggs, handled all of the publicity, promotion, and public relations for this edition of the revue,24 as Braggs was about to stage an enormous vaudeville-style production number, employing the choreographic styles of Julian Swain, a well-known dancer and choreographer, and the skillful Senor Leon Escobar of Acapulco, an experienced Mexican choreographer with knowledge in contemporary dance, classical dance, and folkloric dance.25 The most notable folkloric form that Escobar preferred was what he referred to as the primitive African techniques of Katherine Dunham. “I would like to explain to you,” Escobar said to Felipe Segura in Mexico City in an interview and conversation on dance, “that between all the companies that came and went, there came one that, shall we say, broke my shackles and set me free. It was black ballet by Katherine Dunham.”26 The 1961 summer season opened on a weekend in May, with the modern sound of ABC-Paramount singing star Betty “Bebop” Carter, outstanding Page 206 → comedian Willie Lewis, the Harlem Brothers, the Braggettes, the new Fiesta Dolls, Choker Campbell's new band, and Julian Swain as lead choreographer. Gill, who had just won the Miss Bronze Beauty title in Detroit a year ago, led the Fiesta Dolls after Ricki Ford left the revue early into the spring. Comic Bill “Winehead Willie” Murray, nicknamed after the song “Winehead Willie, Put the Bottle Down, ” joined the revue, along with bluesman T-Bone Walker Sr. Recalling that Swain worked magic as choreographer, that Braggs invested thousands of dollars into the costumes, and the recruiting of six tall, light-skinned girls for the show, Murray explains, “It was a beautiful melting pot. As well as the parade of girls and the ponies, we had chorus boys, too, and everyone lined up for the opener. Two supporting acts came after that, and by then the audience was geared for the production number, the Watusi Wedding Ritual, which was allotted thirty minutes. The show lasted two hours, with the star appearing just ahead of the finale, as the audience sat spellbound.” The shows that Braggs, Swan, and Escobar produced, jointly and individually, in Idlewild and on tour, presented a wonderful choreographic journey, supplemented by a display of exotic and glamorous costumes, mixed with a tranquilizing mood. Creative and dynamic dance patterns and movements were expressed through an engaging and interactive narrative, embodied in fascinating traditional rituals, religious themes, and beautiful Afro-Mexican sounds of music. Dancing, for Mexicans, as for African Americans, is closely linked to their music, culture, and performing arts. Their music and dancing, which appealed to the common man and woman on the streets, was also quite popular among the elite culture and seemed to sustain community and public interest in Mexico. The Mexican dancers performing with the revue (Ofelia D'Oliver, Aida Casablanca, Gloria Navarro, Sara Lilia Sanchez, Araceli Gamboa, Zaima Beleno, Francisco Fierro, Carlos Gaona, and Papio Reynoso) were outstanding, 27 and at least four of them were quite famous ballet dancers in Mexico City. Ofelia D'Oliver, Aida Casablanca, Gloria Navarro, and Carlos Gaona were national attractions in the city. Gaona, one of the leading male dancers to join the international tour with Escobar, was considered an established performer. Being well versed in the delicacies of creativity, professionalism, and talent, Gaona was Escobar's star attraction.28 Gaona, Aida Casablanca, and Ofelia D'Oliver would lead the major performances of the Mexican dancing crew while touring

with the revue. They had been introduced to the Detroit and Idlewild crowds as an exciting addition to the revue through the super production The Possessed (Los Poseidos), which was performed nightly in the Fiesta Room from opening night of the summer season through Labor Day. The production was directed Page 207 → by Braggs, staged by Escobar, and choreographed by Swain and Escobar, and the cast included Escobar as director and Zaima Beleno as vocalist. The unique stage setup and dance movements that were executed through the first set of dancers included Carlo Gaona, Ofelia D' Olivar, and Pablo Reynoso. The dance duet was performed by Francisco Fierro and Aida Casablanca, and they were followed by dancers Gloria Navarro, Sara Lilia Sanchez, and Araceli Gamboa. “They were good,” adds Percy Davis, who witnessed one of their shows at the club, although there were more elaborative ones performed by other artists in Acapulco.29 Braggs invested heavily in the dazzling costumes for the show and thought long about the creativity he would suggest for the revue's superb performances on stage. The bright, colorful, and classy costumes he purchased were designed by Lou Eissle of Variety, and the jewelry was designed by Coro of New York City. The lighting had been controlled by Larry Jones. On the night of the show, which was narrated by Xaima Beleno, the performance opened with a brief introduction in which Beleno asked the audience to sit back and relax. Beleno signaled for the audience to enjoy the show and to imagine The Possessed, an African ritualistic drama about a love affair in the land of the Ruanda Urundi, located in the very heart of the mysterious Belgian Congo, among the tribes of the Watusis. The story was about African warriors who it is believed descended from the old Egyptians. The lights dimmed, and as the dancers appeared on the stage slowly and graciously, the narrator opened the story by saying, “These people celebrate their ceremonies with rites that surpass all of the other tribes of the Black Continent.” The narrator continued, “Now let's turn our imagination so we are transported to the mystery and beauty of the jungle. Let's hear the tom-tom of the African drums which announce a great pagan ceremony that we will be able to see by penetrating through the darkness of the night. Beautiful African maids held prisoners deep in the jungle are freed by their captor and under the magic powers of the night. After their dance they go back to their cages, and disappear in the darkness.”30 The narrator mentioned the movement patterns as the “two lovers of the Kikuyu tribe dance the sacred tree to purify their love and to offer their future children to the god of the birds and leopards who governs their love from the top of Mt. Mikeno. The dance of the lovers is interrupted by the minister of the tribe who sings and presents the rites of an African wedding. The newly married couple dance before the witch of the tribe who plays a very important role in this ceremony.”31 He then paused and said, “He calls the gods of the earth and heaven, and makes all the members of the tribes become possessed by his black magic, so that the souls of the newlyweds may be liberated from the evil spirits in accordance with the mysterious African Page 208 → rites. After very much research and study, Leon Escobar and his company presented a modernized version of the ceremonies without taking away from it all the beauty and mystery of the real ceremonies and dances of Africa.”32 Contextualizing the details surrounding the story line connected to the dance performance, Escobar internationalized the acting and dancing techniques in The Possessed, stating, The first show was called “Possessed,” because it was about witchcraft, it was an African rhythm where everything started with customs, and ended with the whole tribe. There was a girlfriend and a boyfriend, they got married, and I would bewitch them. Their generation would be good and everyone would end up being possessed. Each dancer would end up possessed by a spirit which would either be a living being or an animal, eventually everybody would get into that…. I mean, they would act because I always made sure the dancers acted. As much as possible, whether I danced well or not, I always tried to act it out, not simply dancing with clean dance techniques. The virtuosity was applauded, but I'm convinced that incorporating virtuosity with the acting completes, compliments and convinces, and if you add instruments, well then we are speaking of the kind of language that the great productions from the United States or Germany or France speak.33 This popular production, along with its unique story line, master of ceremony, elaborate costumes, and dance movements, was successful in capturing the imagination of the audiences that witnessed it. However, as the new touring season began, Braggs exchanged bands between Choker Campbell's orchestra and Lloyd Price's nineteen-piece orchestra, to present the right sound to compliment the show. He wanted to perfect the exotic scenery and magical effects that carried the show for the patrons at the Paradise Club and that lured in

those audience members on the tour who desired the hypnotizing effects of the cross-cultural narratives and dance performances. Week after week throughout the summer, the revue of 1962 had featured a festival and parade of stars. Opening the July 21 show direct from a previous engagement in Nassau in the Bahamas for one week, for example, was a star whose song had just topped the charts, Brook Benton. A few special teenage matinees were presented over the summer so that young patrons and their parents could see Benton, the Leon Escobar Dancers, Epic Records singing sensation Roy Hamilton, Jackie Wilson, and Vee-Jay Records star Jerry Butler. Jackie Wilson, who had been attracting large crowds, was returning to the western Michigan resort town, for his first public appearance after “a fan [had] Page 209 → Page 210 → shot [him in] his New York apartment.”34 Wilson had been on the critical list, and it had taken him a few months to recuperate. His one-night engagement at Sear's Court in the preceding October had almost resulted in a riot, as the crowds surged to the bandstand when his hits “All My Love,” “Doggin' Around,” and “Alone at Last” were sung.35 From August 13 through Labor Day, George Kirby, Etta James, and Lavern Baker headlined the show at the Paradise Club, although it was Wilson's live performances that drew long lines, comprised of vacationers wanting to see him again.

Those wanting to see Jackie Wilson perform and to participate in a full day of Idlewild celebrations during the weekend of August 26 filled ten busses leaving Detroit from the Gotham Hotel. With full busloads of Detroiters, Sidney Burch, president of the Idlewild Excursion Committee, wanted the vacationers to also experience the annual Idlewild parade that began approximately at noon. This particular annual parade, which was celebrated with bright colors and costumes, included floats, bands, and a number of famous personalities from all across the nation. In promoting the excursion, Burch wrote, “Special beach dancers and the largest outdoor barbeque ever held in [Western] Michigan [will be] woven into the day's events. Phil Giles, Arthur Braggs and Lela Wilson [will be] presented silver citation awards by the Idlewild excursion committee for their outstanding contributions in the development of Idlewild as a summer resort.”36 The tour that followed once again began at the Flame Show Bar.37 The music critics acclaimed the show for its uniqueness; its beautiful, talented cast; and its top-drawer production. It moved with bullet velocity. Its color was a panorama of brilliance, but it was never flashy or gaudy. The girls were feminine, well formed, and provocative.38 The show was such a hit that Randolph Wallace, owner of Chesterfield Lounge, had the revue “as his dinner guests, and the spread he had on the table, was consumed by the Mexican dancers as if it were their own food. It was a real down home spread Mississippi style.”39 The two-week show at the Flame, which achieved the same kind of show business success that Larry Steele's Smart Affairs had been celebrating, moved on to the Circle Ballroom in Cleveland, where the Leon Escobar Dancers introduced The Possessed to a different audience.40 Displayed before a packed audience, just like at the Paradise Club, the dancing, the music, the lavish costumes, the scenery, and the settings of the superb Leon Escobar Dancers were all terrific.41 The Mexican dancers brought in an Afrocentric theme, using the Katherine Dunham technique, which they were apparently already exploring in Mexico. This cultural mixing between Mexican-style dancing and the Dunham technique embraced modernist variations of African dance, lending an escapist, erotic quality to The Page 211 → Possessed that may have evoked primitivist stereotypes. This monumental show was so well received among mixed audiences that the same kind of exoticism and aesthetic that reigned in France during World War II found innovative ways to celebrate black achievement as it was being presented by the revue through the performances of the Leon Escobar Dancers. The show was popular on the racially segregated Chitlin' Circuit and in demand in a few other mob-run operations, as well as in some of the legitimate white nightclub establishments in the United States and Canada. The show not only surmounted musical, racial, and class barriers but also opened the doors for these black and brown performers. For example, as these artists and performers were breaking new ground in the mob-run establishments, the nightclubs became great levelers to erase racial and class barriers. Similarly, but with a different twist, during the revue's second tour to Montreal and their first tour to Toronto, Ziggy Johnson, writing from Montreal, discussed in great detail their traveling experiences from Detroit to Toronto and from Toronto to Quebec, emphasizing the kind of reception they received along the way, at the Canadian border, and upon their arrival in the city. Montreal is beautiful country in every respect. From the dressing of the women to the historical ports

where so many tales can be told. The people here know no color and the prejudice American is alone. A pretty brown skin girl is like a precious gem, and the foreigners are typical of the American brother ranging from an ebony hue to a chalk white. What are they? What title do they hold? Isn't a question to be asked here. People just go their way with their eyes set on pleasure and the necessary means of survival, the almighty dollar. Couldn't really tell the story of being here unless mentioned how we got here.42

Although the French audiences in Montreal appreciated and celebrated the talents of the revue, this fact was ignored as the revue approached the port authorities. The trip to the nightclub in Montreal was not as pleasant, as the revue approached the Canadian border through the Port Huron entry as opposed to through what one would think would have been the simplest entry point, the Windsor entry. The bus was pulled over by the custom authorities and delayed for four hours. Traveling to Toronto, Quebec, and Montreal to perform for an all-white French-speaking audience in a recreation vehicle that had just come out and was considered one of the biggest in existence at the time, along with a bus and two cars, meant no easy entry for showman Arthur Braggs during this racially charged period. In his weekly Michigan Chronicle column, Ziggy Johnson did not explicitly label the conduct of the port authorities as racist Page 212 → and discriminatory, but the implications he made both illustrate and signify the intensity of the situation during this critical moment of civil rights performance history in the mid-twentieth century. We left Detroit in a caravan. Bus, trailer, a couple of cars and headed for Port Huron to cross over into Canada at that point. Why we didn't go through Windsor, I don't know. Nor do I know what the custom authorities thought Arthur Braggs has in his Bus, but whatever they thought, they managed to keep us at the border for four hours. And whatever the revue had in the bus is here now. Costumes and all. By the time we got to Toronto, the caravan was split up. Why, we were worse than the group that left Detroit called the “59ers.” Each car arrived separately but we managed to put everything together for the opening and now Montreal theater-goers are saying they've never seen anything like the Idlewild Revue of 1962.43 Being met so unwelcomingly when crossing the Canadian border for the sole purpose of bringing a pleasurable experience to the predominately all-white audience that desired and sought out the opportunity to appreciate firstclass black entertainment represented an ironic moment. In Canada, the audience wanted to understand what it meant to be black in a white-owned, white-controlled country that prided itself as a nation of equality, good race relations, and equity in social justice. Once the revue arrived in Montreal at the Black Orchid Casino, Ziggy learned that the casino had “all the earmarks of the Flame Show Bar back home,” and the Jewish owner, Meyer Dunn, reminded him of Morris Wasserman, “affable and in the know” and “a manager who gets about.”44 Good black entertainment was widely welcomed and desired, as demonstrated by the fact that the Idlewild revue was scheduled to end the Black Orchid tour much sooner but was held over for several more days. The extended performance at the Black Orchid Casino made the revue slightly late for the next show at the El Morocco nightclub, also in Montreal.45 Preparing show after show, night after night, the revue had been in constant demand during the 1962 tour season. For example, from October 20 to 29, after leaving Canada, the revue performed at the Regal Theater and Roberts Show Lounge in Chicago. “Lured by the rhythmic, insistent beat of drums” at Chicago's Roberts Show Lounge, choreographer Julian Swain and Ofelia D'Oliver of the Leon Escobar Dancers performed “a primitive dance” that demanded much attention in the midwestern world of show business.46 The revue toured Big Wilt's Smalls Paradise, located on Seventh Avenue at 135th Street in the newly renovated downstairs Wilmac Room, from October 31 to November 9.47 This Page 213 → particular New York tour symbolized something new and exciting by the time the revue hit Big Wilt's Smalls Paradise. It was so exciting that a Jet magazine staff writer, taking advantage of a planned photographic opportunity, jokingly reported on “Wilt Chamberlain show[ing] Carlean Gill and Ricki Ford that tall, lanky basketball players” could do “The Twist,” too, noting, “They just have more to twist.”48 “The Twist,” a twelve-bar blues song that gave birth to a dance craze, was written and originally released in 1959 by Hank Ballard and the Mid-nighters as a B-side to “Teardrops on Your Letter,” but their version was

only a moderate 1960 hit, peaking at number twenty-eight on the Billboard Hot 100.49 The song and the dance were popular during the early 1960s, when the song was reproduced and released by Chubby Checker, whose single became a smash hit, reaching number one on Billboard's Hot 100 on September 19, 1960, for one week, and then setting a record by being the only single to reach number one in two different chart runs, when it resurfaced and topped the chart again on January 13, 1962, for two weeks.50 The endless hours of hard work and preparation that Braggs and Julian Swain brought to the season's colorful revue in Oklahoma's Rose Room paid off as they filled the club with capacity crowds.51 When they returned to the Midwest, the revue played the Flame Show Bar again on Friday, January 12, for two weeks. At the Flame, the revue's headliner was T-Bone Walker. However, during the last five days, Braggs presented an all-star show, a cast of forty talented stars, with Ziggy Johnson as emcee and the Choker Campbell Orchestra. The Leon Escobar Dancers were, of course, also one of the attractions of the revue. One dancer, Aida Casablanca, was featured in the black press after the revue played the Flame in Detroit. As she struggled to speak English, this Mexican dancer humored fans, as did the “tan ventriloquist dummy Walleye Jones (visiting the troupe with his voice, Allen Young),” who had “such an enviable perch that he” was “too excited to talk.”52 The revue closed the Flame show and headed to the Tivoli Theatre in Chicago, where the show received rave notices and reviews. Another one of Leon Escobar's dancers, Araceli Gamboa, was covered in Jet, “swinging into the torso-twisting tempo of the Twist”53 with diminutive Maru Smith, as Braggs and the sponsor, disc jockey Ric Ricardo, looked on. Opening another show a week later, on Monday, January 29, at the Pink Poodle Lounge in Indianapolis, Leon Escobar and his Mexican dancers, along with singer Lonin Sattin and a cast of forty others, continued to break new ground in black show business in the Midwest.54 This show and the ones to follow it, just like in the Idlewild, Detroit, and Chicago appearances, was both crafted and marketed to promote “18 Beautiful Girls of All Nationalities.”55 Beautiful and shapely Jo Ella Keough, former Naptown girl and native of Springfield, Kentucky, was one Page 214 → of the eighteen lovely ladies featured in Braggs's fabulous revue. Julian Swain had done it again at the Pink Poodle, cleverly grooming and presenting an array of dancing teams of men and women sporting bright, elaborate, and colorful wardrobes that cost in excess of seven thousand dollars. The show, which was considered one of the best on the road at the time, drew capacity crowds.56 Just months before Braggs would end the 1962 season in June, the revue headlined the fabulous exotic shake dancer Lottie “the Body,” “the girl with the correct curves, who took all of Naptown by storm during her appearance at the Pink Poodle several months ago, and who had ’em hollerin' for more at last year's Recorder Christmas Benefit show.”57 The Pink Poodle was one of the mob-run stops where the revue played along the way.58 The club, which was owned by William Zaphiron, was run by a Russian Jewish gangster known as “Tuffy, ” aka Joe Mitchell,59 who controlled several prostitution rings, drug-dealing operations, and policy racketeers. The Pink Poodle was located in the heart of the African American community in Indianapolis. At the time of Mitchell's management of the Pink Poodle, African Americans were prohibited from attending any of the white nightspots in Indianapolis due to racial barriers. With Tuffy Mitchell's operation in this section of the city, the club was able to accommodate the entertainment needs of a middle-class and working-class African American clientele. Back in Detroit, a few months before the revue's touring season would end, the numbers men were being pressured to shut down their operations. As the feds and police departments in all of the major cities in the state began to increase their investigations and crackdowns on the illegal gambling rackets, an interview was published in the Detroit Courier on February 3, 1962, in which one of the Chicago Jones brothers issued a warning to go legitimate.60 Because of these warnings and the successes and setbacks of the revue's 1962 edition, the year 1963 would be marked as a pivotal period in Detroit's as well as Idlewild's history. Riding on the heels of a few civil rights victories stood urban renewal in Detroit as well as a significant decline in entertainment and show business. In addition, collaboration between the federal government and local law enforcement induced pressure, honing in on the illegal gambling operations of the numbers men. However, Aretha Franklin recalls that as the city was undergoing these changes, “the Chrysler Freeway was being built right through Hastings due primarily to the city's urban renewal efforts.” The Queen of Soul's father, the Reverend C. L. Franklin observed how one Catholic church, only one block away, was saved from demolition,” while his was “being torn down for the highway.”61 A series of other activities marked the decline in the city and elsewhere. The demise and end of Paradise Valley

signaled an end to much of the nightclub Page 215 → scene in Detroit as well as the destruction of the comfort zones that so many black businessmen and businesswomen and civic leaders had come to enjoy and appreciated for so many years. In Detroit, Idlewild, and other Michigan cities, more bad news came in the form of continued socioeconomic decline from the construction, despite some progressive civil rights activities. The Congress of Racial Equality's Freedom Riders and their campaign to end racial discrimination on the public transportation interstate highway system were sweeping all across the South. The number of mass demonstrations, student sitins, and arrests of those protesting other civil rights violations as a result of the tension and turmoil of the period had gradually increased. After the social protests of the 1960s were fully underway, the eventual decline of the show business scene in Idlewild soon followed. As this battleground for change and reform was taking place on local, regional, and national levels, Braggs was opening another fabulous summer resort season of star-studded black entertainment, with Lloyd Price and his nineteen-piece orchestra at the Paradise Club on July 8. The first week of the summer resort season began with Lavern Baker as the headliner. Then the singing star Damita Jo, who had recently appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, performed, and by August 3, Brook Benton led the show. Recognized as a show business giant, Benton was characterized by Billboard as “an excellent performer with a versatile talent as a singer and composer.” In addition, Cash Box called him “a phenomenon,” since he had “12 consecutive hits in 21 months, four of which sold over a million copies,” making him “the first ballad singer to have this consistency.” The Chicago Sun Times added that he “sings up a storm.”62 The weekend crowd loved him. Then, from August 17 through August 23, another Detroiter, Aretha Franklin, headlined, although she had just barely turned eighteen. Franklin was recognized as a singing sensation on the Ed Sullivan Show and the Tonight Show. Her soulful, soaring, and electrifying voice was heard up close and personal before a packed audience on that first and last time she would tour the Paradise Club. She recalled, “I seemed to perform at key nightspots—the Paradise in Idlewild, the Copacabana in New York, the Coconut Grove in L.A—just before they closed. I wasn't twenty one—I was barely eighteen—but rules were bent, and I sang at the club where Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, T-Bone Walker, Sam Cooke, Arthur Prysock, and so many others had sung before me.”63 Her impression of Paradise Club was that “the shows were a must—a sepia version of the June Taylor Dancers, gorgeous showgirls.”64 Her older sister, Erma, would later join Lloyd Price during the Idlewild revue's fall tour season, at Roberts Show Lounge in Chicago and the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Performing from August 24 through Labor Day, George Kirby, the Rhythm Page 216 → Kings, and the Three Leggers buried the show.65 Kirby was known for imitating songs (e.g., “Eep, Ipe”), as well as for vocal trombone and string bass imitations. Stealing the show, he “as usual sang, danced, and did flying somersaults.”66 John Meeks, a retired teacher for the Detroit public school system, businessman, and entrepreneur in Idlewild, watched Kirby in amazement and notes, “Man, he was one of the most talented mimics I have ever seen. He could imitate almost any actor. The thing is you could turn your back and listen to him and he could sound exactly like Louie Armstrong. That's how good he was at imitating other show people, like John Wayne, Ella Fitzgerald, and the Lone Ranger. He was just a good carbon copy of others, but especially Louie Armstrong. To see his voice change from one character to another was also amazing. But most of his stuff was copying other people's.”67 An excellent comedian, Kirby was a good vocalist as well, though he got few opportunities to sing on a record.68 During the final week, in one of the revue's last rehearsals, some revue members were fooling around and watching a live television broadcast of the elegant Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, on August 28. This speech, which clearly commanded everyone's undivided attention, sent shock waves down the spines of some revue members. This was especially the case near the closing of King's famous speech, when he stated, “And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”69 On hearing these final words, someone commented, “They are going to kill him.”70 The resort town's premier nightspot, which booked big-scale productions, had just linked “the post–World War II Black freedom movement” to the world of black show business, an important observation raised in Vincent Harding's Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement. As

Harding illustrates, the black freedom struggle as exemplified through King's speech conjured up not only themes of freedom, equality, and the security of racial justice but also the link between the arts and activism in breaking barriers in American life. The optimism conveyed by King's speech was manifested through the revue's performances during the new tour season. The first venue of the tour was Roberts Show Lounge, where Lloyd Price headlined with Erma Vernice Franklin, the beautiful twenty-one-year-old sister of Aretha Franklin.71 Born in the Crescent City at the foot of the Mississippi River, Price, who fronted a fifteen-piece Page 217 → band, inherited his musical talent from his parents. Both were gospel singers. Within a matter of months in 1952, Price had his first big hit, “Lawdy, Miss Clawdy;” another recording that sold two million copies; and a third best seller. From then on, the New Orleans native's career skyrocketed, as he and his band headlined alongside the Shirelles and Little Willie John.72 Price had been working the circuit performing “in nightclubs, and making television appearances on such shows as the Ed Sullivan and Dick Clark shows.”73 Leaving Roberts Show Lounge during this turbulent period, the revue toured the recently redecorated and modernized world famous Apollo Theater in Harlem for one week, where Price and Franklin inspired the crowds. The stars the revue showcased continued to command the attention of mixed audiences while on the road—so much so that as the new touring season was beginning, Brook Benton and Stepin' Fetchit were seen shaking hands as Benton congratulated him on his opening in the club. Seen discussing the new dance sensation the “Bossa Nova Twist,” the seventy-one-year-old Fetchit was still at his peak.74 The first stop on the circuit with Fetchit was Louie's Lounge on Washington Street, which by then was considered the largest nightclub in south Boston. The 1964 edition of the revue toured Boston for one week with Fetchit and Knight Butler and his orchestra.75 After an outstanding performance, the revue headed to Cleveland for a show at the Vagabond Room for one week.76 From there, they performed at the Rose Room for a show on November 22. The one and only T-Bone Walker, Oklahoma's favorite blues musician, was the headliner.77 At the time the revue opened at the Rose Room, President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas, Texas, as his entourage traveled along a street lined with waving people. Dallas, “that unrivaled bank and bastion of anti-Kennedy sentiments,” had been “the only large American city to favor Richard Nixon over John Kennedy in the 1960 election.”78 Ten days after Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963, the newspapers covered Malcolm X's expulsion from the Nation of Islam by Elijah Muhammad, as the revue continued to tour the nation. After Malcolm X delivered a December 1 speech at the Manhattan Center in New York entitled “God's Judgment of White America,” his statement in response to a reporter's question, “It's just a case of the chickens coming home to roost,”79 dominated newspaper headlines. One week following Kennedy's assassination, Braggs and members of his revue returned to Detroit, on November 29, 1963. Upon arrival, members of the revue went out drinking with Dinah Washington before making a road trip to Texas. A day or so after leaving Motown, Braggs was advised to turn around. The revue's show in Dallas had been canceled, since federal agents were denying any entry or exit from the city, because the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Page 218 → Secret Service were still investigating the scene of the crime where the assassination of the president had occurred. Explaining some of the events surrounding the cancellation, Ziggy Johnson commented, “Just a few days ago Arthur Braggs headed that way, only to find the engagement had been cancelled out. This, of course, will work many hardships on many of the current touring shows since Dallas, Texas has always been main stop for the big bands and shows. Some fellows are saying the town resembles Phoenix City while others in the know say there is much class and culture in Dallas, the home of some of the nation's best dressed women.”80 It appears as though the revue was getting close to the Dallas gig before Braggs called the promoter to confirm the date and the approximate time of their arrival and was notified of the cancellation and the reasons behind it. Relating to the venue of the Dallas cancelation, Ziggy commented, “I had a show at Abe and Pappy's Club on Commerce Street, exactly one block away from the scene of the recent shooting.”81 As the news came of the tour's cancelation as a result of the government's investigation of the president's assassination, the 1964 edition of the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue was ending its season tours. En route to Detroit, Braggs and his entourage pulled into a gas station to fill up their gas tanks for the rest of the ride back. After paying for the gas, Braggs picked up a copy of the New York Times for December 15, 1963, which featured a front-page photograph and story about the death of Dinah Washington. The headline read, “Dinah Washington, Blues Singer, Is Found

Dead.”82 Detroit was not quiet three months after the death and funeral services of Dinah Washington, as the 1963 year brought about more bad news. This time the news focused on John White and the Gotham Hotel, which had been raided repeatedly regarding charges of illegal gambling. According to Ernest Borden, author of Detroit's Paradise Valley, it seemed “to most of the people around at the time” that the raid of the Gotham by the FBI and the Detroit Police Department “was criminal in itself.”83 Detroit police commissioner George Edwards, having written several enthusiastic letters to U.S. attorney general Robert Kennedy about White, had vowed, like Kennedy years before him, to fight organized crime. Edwards, who grew up in Texas, had first learned “about the gambling haven [at the Lesod Club] from a friend of his wife, who complained that it was operating openly across the street from the Detroit Women's Club.”84 Watching the Lesod Club, Edwards had heard from African American civic and church groups about other activities in the city, as one man asked, “How can I teach my children to support law enforcement when the Gotham stands there in full operation and in plain view?”85 The Gotham, a city landmark that catered to “African Americans shut out Page 219 → of the city's upscale white establishments,” made money by “having reserved the top floor penthouse for gambling.”86 Commissioner Edwards reasoned that stronger actions needed to be taken against John White, since the hotel had remained open despite repeated and frequent raids. As Borden noted, “The hotel had a reputation as being the finest Negro hostelry in the United States. It had excellent restaurants and rooms and suites.”87 Although gambling was defined as a problem, it was not the only illegal activity occurring in the city, which also contained the social problems of prostitution, drug dealing, and illegally administered abortions. But to demonstrate to the African American community that the “police were serious about helping them to clean up their neighborhood,” Edwards wanted to bring anyone down for “illegal gambling activities,” and many policy operations were shut down88 (ironically, in a few years the Michigan Lottery Commission would institute its own version of numbers running). Edwards, without taking into account the existing problem of police corruption, targeted illegal gambling as the problem to tackle, in order to restore public trust in law enforcement.89 Nine months into the investigation, another decision was made that ended the standstill. Public officials used a different set of reasons to justify the closing of the Gotham; the hotel was razed, ostensibly to create room for “urban renewal.” The successes of new civil rights legislation, as well as the interest of federal and state government officials and local law enforcement agencies in urban renewal in many northern cities, such as Chicago and Detroit, had signaled that Idlewild would experience a predictable socioeconomic decline with the big loss of the Gotham. Consequently, Braggs reasoned that despite the push for urban renewal and the new civil rights legislation, the revue could continue to headline in Idlewild and elsewhere. The classy and professional package that he had put together was far better than the shows seen anywhere in the country (with the exception of the rival shows of Larry Steele's Smart Affairs). Braggs was convinced it was the nightlife that drew thousands of black vacationers to Idlewild from all over the nation. He believed that the crowds would continue to visit the club to see the entertainment, despite the fact that desegregation meant competition over the booking of big-name stars who toured Idlewild. In Idlewild, blacks might have claimed the consumer dignity, conveniences, and modernism offered by suburbia, but in a visionary way that represented a wider range of classes, including those who did not like Braggs or what he represented; it signaled divisions within a viable imagined black utopian community. Braggs's suggestion to evaluate some of what would become unintentional consequences of the new federal legislation fell on deaf ears among his enemies and supporters. Ruth Burton, a longtime Idlewild seasonal resident from Lansing, Page 220 → explains that it was very different back then to hear one's favorite stars on records when one could see them live and in person at the club: “I had heard notable names performing on records but the most memorable moments were when I could see them in person. They were memorable because they were well known names and stars who were not in the white suburban communities but they were certainly in our community, and it was great to see them on stage.”90 Discussing Braggs's stature as a creative genius and pre-Motown entrepreneur, Della Reese, in Angels Along the Way: My Life with Help from Above, described “Daddy Braggs,” as he was fondly known, as “a splendid entrepreneur, a fantastic impresario with an innate vision for putting together shows. Real shows. He had a costume designer, choreographer, full orchestra, dramatic lighting and sound systems, beautiful tall showgirls,

fast-dancing chorines, and great concepts around the show he built. Braggs was one of those rare geniuses born too soon, at the wrong place at the wrong time.”91 Yet, despite the fact that he understood and warned that collaboration among business leaders and community residents was needed to reinvest into the town's infrastructure to make it more competitive, his ideas were rejected and dismissed. The final curtain fell on Braggs's style of entertainment in Idlewild and elsewhere when the community rejected his ideas during a Yates Township meeting about reinvesting in the infrastructure of the town. Several members attending the meeting told Braggs, “Idlewild will be Idlewild with or without you.”92 Carlean Gill recalls the expression on Braggs's face, as he was quite surprised and somewhat disappointed when this happened. Unlike the segregated Saginaw black community during the 1950s, this reaction by certain members of the Idlewild community was a case of reasoning by emotion rather than reasoning out of a necessity to continue to fulfill the Idlewild promise. The last show Braggs produced at the Paradise Club played on the last weekend of August 1964. Braggs wanted the town to clean up around the lakes, to remove the debris, and to renovate dwellings to make Idlewild more attractive and competitive. The town's rejection of these suggestions marked the beginning of the end of show business at the former utopian summer resort. The attitude of the residents, who should have listened and supported Braggs (as well as Phil Giles back in 1959), would lead the Idlewild economic engine into the dark ages. The economy in Idlewild began to decline in 1965, just as Giles and Braggs had predicted. Coombs, one of the only remaining entrepreneurs who were capable of making a contribution, was exiting from the scene due to illness. The number of middle-class vacationers had decreased, as had the frequency of visitors. With Braggs's exit from the scene, Motown bandleader Choker Campbell organized and toured the seventeen-person Idlewild Review, which survived for Page 221 → approximately two and a half years. Braggs returned to Saginaw and continued his business endeavors, including the numbers rackets. While managing the Hickory House Restaurant, Braggs decided to fully invest in the racetrack business. The racetracks had influenced him over the years, as he attended some of the top tracks regularly. Those frequent returns to the tracks suddenly encouraged him to heavily invest in the business of horse breeding and racing. Purchasing a stable inside a large red barn, with five horses, and a moderately large farm sitting on nearly five acres of land, Braggs worked with Ron Roman. He and Carlean hired jockey Timothy Kelly from the Charles Town Race Track in West Virginia. Braggs earned sizable winnings on a few occasions, and he lost some big bets, too. Tommy Roy, his former publicist, had signed a three-year contract back in the fall of 1963 with the “Queen of the Blues,” Dinah Washington, to do publicity, promotion, and public relations for a new club she was about to open in Chicago, but with her unexpected death, Roy went to work as a publicist for Lloyd Price in New York, again under a three-year contract. From 1965 to 1968, Choker Campbell leased the Paradise Club, under Grant Cobb's licensed management. He first leased the club from owner Lela Wilson. Later, when she became ill, he leased it from her nephew Harrison Wilson. Campbell also leased the El Morocco Club, in an attempt to keep the after-hours entertainment business going between both clubs. In an attempt to revitalize the nightclub scene, Campbell extended the period the Paradise Club stayed open, so that it was open from May 15 to December 31, as opposed to Labor Day. The club offered free recorded music for weekday listening and dancing pleasures, and on weekends, one of Michigan's hottest deejays spun the records. The “Man from the Moon,” Bill McCune, spun records from May 26 to July 1. Thereafter, Campbell, the famous Motown band leader, showcased what he defined as the beautiful Broadway production of the Idlewild Review, with a cast of seventeen. Campbell also had a patio built with a view of Paradise Lake, for lounging pleasures. For a while, these additions, alterations, and minor renovations kept some of the loyal admirers, most notably many members of the National Idlewilders Club coming annually before, during, and after Idlewilders Week. Prior to the commercial success of Motown, Larry Steele's Smart Affairs, and Don Cornelius's Soul Train, Arthur Braggs produced stars who would work for institutions that played a major role in the racial integration of popular music. Braggs helped to polish the acts of Della Reese, the Temptations, the Spinners,93 the Four Tops, Jackie Wilson, ventriloquist Willie Tyler, and Betty Jo Alvis, stars who appeared in sitcoms and popular feature films, won Grammy Awards, and went on to perform at major venues, including the Latin Quarters and other popular nightclubs. Betty Jo Alvis, for Page 222 → example, appeared in shows with notables such as Nat King Cole, Sam Cooke, Sammy Davis Jr., Roy Hamilton, Chubby Checker, and Marvin

Gaye. Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul,” who toured the Paradise Club in the early years of her career, has eighteen Grammys, has sold more than seventy-five million records, was the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and is the winner of a Presidential Medal of Freedom. The late “At Last” Etta James, who died of terminal leukemia and dementia on January 20, 2012, in a Los Angles hospital, also performed at the Paradise Club as one of Daddy Braggs's talented icons. Reflecting on the times, Tommy Roy, who worked as Braggs's publicity man, notes, I recall hosting the very first coast-to-coast radio network show for Etta James…[who] was in the midst of a week's engagement at the Paradise Club in Idlewild. It was back in the 1950s when she was a newcomer to the trade and what for her was the beginning of a wonderful career…. Etta James had the ability to break down racial and cultural barriers. She did it her way! Hers was a legendary voice and her current recording of “At Last” was her only million seller. Etta James loved Idlewild and Idlewild loved Etta James. And so did I and the many hundreds who showed up nightly to catch her act. Even after all these years have gone by, I remember Etta James because she was a pretty remarkable woman and artist.94 Braggs's departure from the resort scene signaled not only the end of first-class shows at the club and tours of the revue but also, as will be discussed in chapter 6, the beginning of a period of middle-class abandonment and socioeconomic decline of the socially isolated rural poor. Perhaps more significant than President Lyndon B. Johnson's signing into legislation the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the broader African American community, which assumed the comforts of freedom and equality, bought into the concept of integration.95 Idlewild, like other African American resorts, became an unintended victim of the gains resulting from the civil rights movement. Interestingly, during the early 1970s, seven to eight years after leaving Idlewild, Braggs appeared on a prerecorded PBS special, Paradise Club: Summer of ’58, along with Della Reese, Jackie Wilson, and George Kirby. Braggs understood that progress meant hard work and wisdom. As he was being recorded for the show, Braggs had not forgotten about the sacrifice he made to change the landscape in Idlewild, which was unappreciated and dismissed, as he discussed the role of the Paradise Club. “The 60 minute television show produced in 1974 for Public Broadcasting stations by WTTW Chicago, tried to recreate the atmosphere during the summer of 1958 Page 223 → at the Paradise Club…. The club, complete with middle-aged patrons sitting at tables, had been set up in the TV studio.”96 During a three-minute interview backstage, the stars and Braggs engaged in a conversation about integration and socioeconomic decline in Idlewild. George Kirby conducted the interview with Braggs and asked him to explain what exactly happened, stating, “Daddy Braggs, if the people in Idlewild had only come together and listened to you things may have turned out a bit differently.” Braggs replied, “Yeah I tried to tell them. But they wouldn't listen. Oh well!”97 Before this time, Braggs had learned through the rumor grapevine that his wife, Leodell, was having an affair with one of his close associates. Looking beyond the affair, Braggs continued to do business with Lorenzo “Memphis Pete” Short, even though their every movement was being detailed.98 The Federal Bureau of Investigation's surveillance of Braggs, his wife, and his associates in Saginaw, including Memphis Pete and his wife, Mamie Short, and others, such as John White and Ed Bracey, in neighboring major cities in the state, was part of a larger sweep on illegal gambling and racketeering in the United States. The bureau opened its files on Braggs around 1967, four years after arresting him with the intent to gather additional information about his illegal activities. One of the bureau's objectives was to maintain contact with local law enforcement officers and to gather specific evidence from informants regarding Braggs's activities. Agents had reported that Braggs was a well-known independent numbers operator. However, life in Saginaw for a businessman making lots of money from an underground policy operation was not all it had been cut out to be, and Braggs began contemplating another moneymaking venture that was less risky. The cracking down of illegal gambling operations in Michigan during the middle to late 1960s and the entire 1970s would essentially dominate the strategic agendas of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. Policy banking maintained a long history in African American communities, dating further back than Harlem in the 1920s and ’30s; Chicago in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s; and Detroit and other midwestern cities, such as Cleveland and Columbus, in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. It “was particularly attractive because, although illegal, it

was a non-violent endeavor that yielded more profits than other entrepreneurial enterprises, and was widely accepted by [most] members of the community and tacitly sanctioned by local government.”99 Braggs understood, as Ed Jones had advised earlier, that it was time to get completely out of the business, as the illegal operation meant continued conflicts with the law. He was not paying taxes on the profits he earned, although he consulted a local attorney to advise him on how best to invest some of it to avoid imprisonment. Because he favored horse racing at the tracks, he moved slowly to exit the declining Saginaw policy operation. Page 224 → Consequently, Braggs exited the numbers business and became modestly successful in the racetrack business. Della Reese recalls, “A few years before he died, I went back to Detroit and spent every day for a week going to the racetrack with him. Daddy Braggs was older now but just as distinguished, with the same magnetism, and vision. As the owner of several racehorses, he was still a successful, wealthy man. Braggs had few regrets but there was one he told me about. On one of those days as we watched the horses lined up at the gate, he reached over to take my hand, held it for a minute in his and then said quietly, not really looking at me, ‘You were the woman of my life. I was a fool to let you go.’”100 On October 30, 1982, seven years after the special broadcasting of the WTTW interview where Braggs discussed his earlier prediction about the declining economic situation in Idlewild, he passed away at age sixty-nine in Chester, West Virginia, while visiting the Waterford Park racetrack.101 Braggs died from a cardiac arrest. Funeral services for the famous showman, producer of stars, and entrepreneur were held in West Virginia, although he was buried at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Saginaw.

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6 Turning the Entertainment Economic Engine Off Socioeconomic Decline and Unintended Consequences during the Post–Civil Rights Era By the fall of 1964, just over a year after Phil Giles's passing and a month after Arthur Braggs exited the scene, Idlewild's entertainment heyday was over. Although there were several attempts to restore the kind of entertainment Braggs had introduced to Idlewild, the economic engine was turned off. Like other black vacation locations in the United States, such as Highland Beach and American Beach, Idlewild had thrived during Jim Crow segregation but was experiencing a predictable socioeconomic decline on the footsteps of desegregation. The entertainers and performers were gone, many joining the likes of the famous stars—Della Reese, Jackie Wilson, the Four Tops, and George Kirby—who had already crossed the color line to perform at major venues in big-city hotels, casinos, and resort areas. Observers like Sonny Roxborough have suggested that Idlewild's business leaders were unprepared to compete with mainstream establishments because most of the town's residents were simply unready for the change. The same entrepreneurs who had helped Idlewild become a prosperous black resort contributed to its becoming a casualty of the legal and social progress made by integration and the civil rights movement. This chapter unravels some of the mysteries and misunderstandings surrounding this decline and argues that several other socioeconomic factors contributed to it, including (1) a sudden shift in African American attitudes and mind-sets about the way government and industry Page 226 → would work after the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; (2) the failures of seasonal business owners to be competitive by reinvesting in the town infrastructure as well as the economic and social life of Idlewild; and (3) patterns of ineffective and self-serving leaders with no intentions to revitalize the township.

Civil Rights Victories and Shifts in Black Attitudes, and Mind-Sets In Black Eden, Lewis Walker and Ben C. Wilson correctly comment that integration and the civil rights movement presented “severe challenges” for Idlewild by initiating changes “that not only crippled its economic base but also resulted in profound consequences for virtually every aspect of the Idlewild community.”1 Idlewild suffered as more and more blacks went into the white community for leisure and recreation. At the same time, whites who had formerly patronized the resort also stopped coming, now able to enjoy the same entertainment opportunities in their own communities. This lack of economic correspondence had long-term consequences for the vitality of Idlewild and served as another instance of unequal relations.2 While the legal and social gains emanating from the civil rights movement may have helped alter societal norms and perceptions regarding major structural changes in American life, these victories did not necessarily include opportunities for economic development for African Americans. Reminding us of this error in political thinking, Walker and Wilson write, “African Americans, in their rush to integrate, lost one of their most precious and vital core values—a blend of caring and sharing that had served the group, both individually and collectively, since before emancipation.”3 Both liberal and conservative public officials failed to provide any definitive outcomes that would address the problem, essentially fulfilling what former New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan defined as a new phase and a new crisis.4 The result of the legislation was the opening of a closed segment of the domestic market, but the economic windfall blew in only one direction. A floodgate was opened and black customers flooded into stores, hotels, restaurants, and resorts where they had formerly been prohibited. In the process, they neglected black businesses in their own neighborhoods. In return, however, whites did not come across the open economic borders to spend their money in black establishments. For them, the segregationist borders had always been open—at least unofficially.5

This also meant that the African American business communities in various urban cities and regions of America were not capable of producing and sustaining Page 227 → wealth and property acquisition. Many businessmen and businesswomen were no longer in positions to adequately cater to the consumer market in African American communities, neighborhoods, and townships and in larger urban centers with heavy black populations. The challenges Idlewild confronted at this point echoed what was happening nationally as Dr. King broke from the cabal and consciously became, if not more revolutionary, at least a radical integrationist—and a very creative one at that. The system the controversial King was confronting had more to do with the persistence of institutional racism and economic power than anything else. The collective struggles that various civil rights organizations encountered had failed to create, outline, develop, and advocate a sustainable mechanism in negotiations concerning the creation of a viable middle-class structure that would be connected to and economically dependent on the African American underclass. Both Giles and Braggs were responsible for bringing the entertainers to Idlewild and showcasing the place as the resort capital of America. The caliber of entertainment they brought to the resort also created a fertile ground for other black institutional establishments, such as Buck Brooks's El Morocco Club, Walter Johnson's Hyde Park Villa, and W. C. Coombs's Casa Blanca Hotel. But once these leaders vacated the scene and sold or gave away their properties, a vacuum was created, and there was no one else with the experience necessary to fill the void. The decade during which Giles served as Yates Township supervisor was not without some criticisms, as observed in chapter 3. The complaints about his leadership were mounting by people who were unskilled in examining politics and the local economy and therefore were not very accurate in their assessments. As argued in chapter 3, every significant project Giles attempted to bring to the area was criticized by these members of the community. This came despite the fact that he inspired Idlewilders, marketed and advertised the place in the black and white press (in Ebony, the Michigan Chronicle, and the Muskegon Chronicle), and invested heavily in the infrastructure of the town. This negative depiction of his projects, in addition to the signing of the new civil rights legislation, resulted in a decline of middle-class vacationers and a rise “of a sizeable and growing black underclass.”6

Middle-Class Abandonment and Failures of the Business District to Be Competitive As global economic restructuring brought the disappearance of industrial jobs, unemployment and the dislocation of urban workers increased in many midwestern cities. This shift in the economic outlook among working-class black Page 228 → families, coupled with an increase in crime, teen pregnancy, and high school dropout rates, brought added class tensions to the African American community. The social glue that once bonded class-based differentiations within black communities and residential spaces of the Black Metropolis of the 1930s and 1940s had been achieved through intraracial unity and community collaborations. However, as class statuses and relationships changed in the 1970s and ’80s, the values of the black middle class and the black underclass clashed. In examining the African American neighborhoods of Chicago, William Julius Wilson's The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy discusses the scholarship of “liberal urban analysts,”7 heated and misguided arguments and debates among liberal and conservative policy makers, and the severe impact of the black middle-class abandonment on poor black neighborhoods. Pointing to a host of social problems in these areas, including increased violence, teen pregnancy, out-of-wedlock births, and the declining influence of politicians, who did nothing out of fear of either contributing to “racist arguments” or being accused of blaming the victim for the mounting social pathologies, Wilson explains how black middle-class “professionals no longer” desired to “live in ghetto neighborhoods” and “moved increasingly into mainstream occupations outside the black community.”8 Different from “black middle-class professionals of the 1940s and 1950s,” who were doctors, teachers, lawyers, social workers, and ministers and who “lived in higher income neighborhoods of the ghetto and serviced the black community,” the black middle-class exodus of the late 1960s onward signaled a social isolation among inner-city residents who would be “locked into a culture of poverty and a culture of welfare.”9 In addition to abandoning residents who were trapped in the urban wastelands of the Midwest, many middle-class professionals during the civil rights revolution and Johnson's Great Society programs also abandoned their ties, including their properties and businesses, to black vacation locations like Idlewild.

The decline of Idlewild thus evolved as a result of middle-class abandonment, social isolation of the poor and retired residential population, and a failure of the business and political leaders to reinvest in the infrastructure of the community. This meant that Idlewild was at a crossroads and quickly moving backward as opposed to forward. One of the first noticeable results was middle-class abandonment, a wave of petty crimes, and poor police and community relations. A second major result was the failure of local leaders to reinvest in the infrastructure of the town. When this occurred, businesses changed ownership. For example, after the divorce of Phil and Bea Giles, when the Flamingo Club was turned over to, managed, and operated by Bea, it fell into disarray and became unfit for human use. “She wouldn't even clean the toilets. I remember Page 229 → back in those days,” explains Norman Burns, a longtime resident and former supervisor, “when I would go in the men's room and the toilets were filthy. Oh God, were they filthy.”10 Under Bea Giles's management, the bar was below the standards Phil Giles had established. Ben Logan of Dayton purchased the Flamingo Club from Bea11 and tried to bring it back to life but failed. With these events and the severe illness of Dr. Nelson, Idlewild was on the verge of breathing its last breath. The Nelson women, primarily Blanche Nelson and her daughter America Elizabeth Nelson, were partly to blame for the decline of Idlewild, when they took control of everything just as the pioneering Dr. Nelson was becoming increasingly disabled. These women were responsible for allowing everything Dr. Nelson had acquired to be put in jeopardy and to fall into disrepair. Everything he had owned was going downhill, as workers and renters were destroying the Nelsons' property because the women did not pay workers for their services and failed to respond to maintenance-related complaints. Acting as slumlords of sorts, with good intentions and no experience, the Nelson women were now in charge of managing Wilson's Grocery, the Sweetheart's Motel, lakefront properties on Lake Drive, the Casa Blanca Hotel, and other properties spread throughout Lake County. The different properties were desperately in need of repair, and the women did not understand how to maintain the prime real estate Dr. Nelson had acquired. At one time, the property empire that he had accumulated had earned him the respect of being not only a great doctor about whom people spoke fondly but also the largest property owner in the entire county. As Blanche Nelson and her daughter America were putting their finishing touches on Idlewild, the writing was on the wall. The women continued to collect rent from tenants without making any improvements. The destruction resulting from their poor management was affecting everything the family owned. Prior to establishing a reputation in three western Michigan counties as a distinguished physician and wealthy property owner, Lorenzo Raymond Nelson and Blanche Juanita Crawford had been married since July 16, 1930. They and their daughter America migrated to Idlewild in 1932. The family came to Lake County because Dr. Nelson was assigned to serve as the camp doctor for the Civilian Conservation Corps at Camp Baldwin (Company 1691) and other camps in western Michigan. Dr. Nelson was the only medical doctor in Lake County, and he also served as medical examiner in the county as well as chief of staff at the Reed City Hospital. Norman Burns explains, “Dr. Nelson was respected by all. He delivered half of the people many years ago around here. [The Nelsons] accumulated a great deal of wealth. They accumulated a lot of land, and I mean a lot of land. That was one of the things that they did. They bought Page 230 → a lot of land. Both of them [Lorenzo and Blanche] purchased a lot of land.”12 In addition to managing the most active medical practice in the tricounty area and purchasing lots of real estate, the Nelson couple managed rental housing and owned Wilson's Grocery, a restaurant, and several motels in and outside of Idlewild, including the Casa Blanca Hotel. The Nelsons were also active with the Tabernacle AME Church under the leadership of C. S. Graine, R. L. Miller, Charles M. Curry, and Joseph Gomez, and they made many contributions to the growth and development of the Idlewild community. After the death of both her parents, everything was left in America's hands, which led to the deterioration of all of the properties the family owned. Norman Burns recounts, “She's highly intelligent. She's an educated person, but she sat on all this land and would not sell it. People would come up and attempt to purchase some of the land. Then, first thing off the bat, she'd say, ‘Well that's valuable land.’ If it's worth $20,000, she would ask for $100,000 for it. Therefore, the land never sold.”13 At the end of the Nelson era, in the 1990s, with the collapsing of the Paradise Club and the bulldozing of the Paradise Hotel, Wilson's Grocery was the only Nelson-era structure still standing in Paradise Gardens on that side of Wilson Drive. Down the road, the Rosanna Tavern was the only popular sports spot that stayed open in Idlewild year-round, so with the 1984 closing of the Flamingo Bar on Williams Island, there was a different set of problems involved in restoring a new business community.

Idlewild would be damaged even more by an invasion of sex-crazed deer hunters and money-seeking pimps and prostitutes. Sonny Roxborough, a native of Idlewild and the owner of the Rosanna Tavern, recalls the signs of the economic decline in the following manner: We never thought the day would come when legal segregation would be gone. They sent men up here from the Detroit Free Press to interview me about what happened to Idlewild? “I said integration.” They jumped. They say integration is beautiful. I said, “Yeah, but not for black businesses here.” They did not leave us because it was black or white. It was because we were not competitive. We were telling people to bring your own laundry, and furnish your own towels because we figured we had a strangle hold. I never figured that the day would come when they could go where they wanted for less money. They could go to the Holiday Inn, anywhere.14 Black entrepreneurs like Roxborough in all-black towns such as Idlewild were no longer in the position to attract and benefit, without the income they had once received from the tourists that the entertainment market brought Page 231 → them and that they were accustomed to when Phil Giles and Arthur Braggs drew the crowds. The entertainment engine that had shaped the social character, cultural identity, and economic landscape of the town was turned off. With so many “closed motels, abandoned nightclubs and for sale signs,”15 the business leaders had failed to improve services, lodgings, restaurants, and entertainment facilities in order to compete with the expanded Michigan tourist market. These factors were exacerbated by the fact that those in charge did not see the value of businesses that tailored to vacationers seeking better services. This represented one of the major factors that led to the socioeconomic decline of Idlewild. John Meeks, former owner of Morton's Motel and founder of the Idlewild African American Chamber of Commerce, commented, Well things slowed up I would guess in the early sixties. Things started showing signs of diminishing. And everyone has their view on why this happened, but there are several things that I believe very strongly that was part of the problem. One was that in the sixties your top entertainers were able to get work in areas that paid the kind of money that Idlewild just wouldn't be able to pay. So, I think they lost some of the top entertainment through that; they were just priced out of their reach. And then the civil rights movement would have changed attitudes in America that gave people that visited Idlewild more options to visit other places.16 With the absence of entertainment as a major socioeconomic factor to entice and to cater to the vacationers, by the middle to late 1970s, Idlewild would endure another slow and gradual social and economic decline. As people were beginning to stop vacationing there, Idlewild's economy began to weaken, as buildings went uncared for, some vacationers stopped visiting, and many of its historic structures were abandoned and torn down. As these infrastructural changes were unfolding under the administrations of W. C. Coombs, Alfred Thomas, Harry Solomon, Mary Robinson, and Bernard J. Winburn, the Giles Hotel on the Island was demolished in the late 1970s, the Paradise Club fell to the ground in the late 1980s, and Polk's Roller Arena on the Island was bulldozed in the early 1990s.17 The 1968 Detroit riot had represented the culmination of the turbulent times, as it had impacted both U.S. domestic and foreign policies. The assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and two civil rights leaders, Dr. King and Malcolm X, followed by the assassination of Robert Kennedy, brought trying times for everyone in America. The deaths of these leaders had a powerful impact on race relations in the United States, as did the limitations of the Page 232 → civil rights movement as a major domestic force for reform. The primary foreign threat seemed to be the intensifying Cold War, since Fidel Castro had gained power in Cuba in 1959 and developed a Communist regime that seemed to pose a serious threat to the United States. But after King's assassination, the Institute of the Black World (IBW), an independent pragmatic nationalist organization, sponsored a series of intellectual workshops and a conference in Idlewild that would mark a critical episode in twentieth-century African American history. The series of intellectual discussions focused on pragmatic concerns, issues, and topics surrounding African American culture, history, and social organization. The IBW had planted its seeds in the sandy soils of the memories of the Idlewild community as a national landmark in American history. Despite the contributions and the historical significance of the IBW's visibility in the preservation campaign to celebrate Idlewild's reputation, the civil rights victories of the early 1960s did play their part in

contributing to its demise, and the economic shift that resulted was not the only source responsible for the financial and social decline of the town. As the 1960s progressed, the term of Yates Township supervisor W. C. Coombs ended, and Alfred Thomas was elected to serve as the new township supervisor. During the Thomas administration, symbols of social protest both within and outside of the African American community, such as popular slogans and the Afro hairstyle, were being sported by numerous entertainers and sociopolitical figures. Prominent examples for the hairstyles and fashions of the era include political activist Angela Davis; actress Pam Grier; running back Jim Brown; rock musician Jimmy Hendrix; soul music artist Marvin Gaye; most members of the Last Poets; the Watts Prophets; the O' Jays; Earth, Wind, and Fire; the Jackson 5; and the Supremes. As the Afro's popularity began to wane by the mid-1970s, its radical edge appeared in Idlewild and helped that community to become, as it had been in the 1920s, a safe haven for intellectuals in black studies to meet, discuss, and outline a progressive black agenda. This time, the IBW was planning for what would become the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, in 1972. The occasion that marked this period of socioeconomic decline in Idlewild represented one aspect of the residual of internal colonialism in this country. Catherine Burke-Brooks, a member of one of the first groups of Freedom Riders to venture from Alabama into Mississippi on greyhound bus trips that helped to change America, had migrated to Detroit along with her husband before eventually relocating to Idlewild. Her husband, Paul Brooks, the inventor of the Afro Pic comb and another civil rights veteran, had opened a factory in Detroit and later moved it to Idlewild during the summer of 1970.18 Paul Brooks, who was one of the Freedom Riders to test non-violence Page 233 → in Monroe, North Carolina, had worked with Robert F. Williams and James Foreman when the historic 1961 riot in Monroe, North Carolina, broke out. As an increasing number of African Americans were becoming more politically aware and active as admirers of traditional African culture and wanted to reclaim their African heritage, this led Brooks to make the traditional African comb available and start Picel Products Inc. of Detroit. His fusion of the material culture for the industrial comb with the design of the traditional comb was designated a “Pan African Industrial Comb.” This link between black culture and resistance was developing as Robert and Mabel Williams had just relocated to the Idlewild area from Detroit in 1970. Two years after King's assassination and a year after Williams returned to the United States, there were causes for some new energy in the town. Vincent Harding, embracing Dr. King's legacy of speaking truth to power, along with other senior members, had organized the IBW as an offshoot of the King Memorial Center. In the conceptualization of the institute, Harding, who was joined by doctors Stephen Henderson, Lerone Bennett, Gerald McWorter, William Strickland, and Council Taylor and poet A. B. Spellman, the IBW Planning Staff, discovered that “the out-spoken commitment on the part of several of us towards radical change, towards Black solidarity and towards Black control of Black institutions gave many persons a great deal of difficulty.”19 Early in the summer of 1970, the confrontation between members of the IBW Planning Staff and the King Center and its ties to the establishment nearly exploded, and “the Planning Staff reexamined certain basic assumptions concerning its mutually shared political and philosophical views, concerning its relationship to the King Center” and a variety of related issues, and ended the relationship. During the summer of 1969, three members of the Planning Staff (McWorter, Spellman, and Rushing) had decided to resign.20 So the organization's reexamination of its mission essentially led the members to identify their focal commitment and commit “to respond to the need of the peoples of African descent to control the definitions of our experiences—past, present and future.”21 This marked the official separation from the King Center on September 1, 1970. Defined as an organization with the intentions of “developing scholarship in the service of struggle,” the “group of national and international scholars and scholar-activists at IBW sought to provide an intellectual underpinning to the burgeoning Black Consciousness and Black Studies movements and, most especially, to study black and American history for their respective insights into the struggles of the past and the possible nature of the struggle to come.”22 As members of the IBW Planning Staff, doctors Robert Hill, William Strickland, Stephen Henderson, Vincent Harding, and Howard Dotson used King's memory Page 234 → to develop a curriculum surrounding his life, by incorporating it into “the history of protest, the history of the civil rights struggles, [and] the history and culture of Black people.”23 By acting as “a catalyst, a kind of obstetrician to a new way of thinking,”24 the IBW planning staff hosted a November 1969 conference in Atlanta for directors of black studies, and on March 24,

1970, it held its larger conference, the findings of which were defined as the “Black Agenda” in October in Idlewild.25 As early as May, the IBW's planning document, “Towards a Black Agenda,” was mailed, along with forty invitations, to a selected list of individuals who would critically assess the working paper. Outlining a threestage process, IBW staff encouraged its reviewers, first, “to identify and analyze the key problems besetting Black America and the manner in which they are interrelated; second, to propose the soundest conceivable strategies for coming to grips with those problems; and third, to identify or seek to create the agents who can best follow through in implementing the necessary change.”26 By July, letters had been sent to sixty-five potential participants about a three-day conference in Idlewild. The goal of the three-day working session was to further develop the Black Agenda. Some of the scholars, artists, and activists who would participate in the three-day conference included James and Grace Boggs; the Reverend Albert Cleage; Hoyt Fuller; Addison Gayle; Gilbert Noble; and Drs. John Bracey, Jeff Donaldson, Andrew Billingsley, DeWitt Dykes, Charles Hamilton, James Turner, Alphonso Pinkney, and Alvin Poussaint. A total of thirty-five participants attended the Idlewild conference and participated in many of the intensive discussions, organized into work groups representing eight areas. Serving the mission of the institute and the objectives of the Black Agenda, this small network of African American men and women who had committed themselves to the tasks of “research, analysis, planning, and advocacy” consisted of the following chairmen: Lerone Bennett, Stephen Henderson, Robert Browne, Robert Vowels, Chester Davis, Andrew Billingsley, Caute Parris, Robert Hill, William Strickland, and Leon Watts. Out of the conference, this group of leaders would ultimately assist in outlining a set of concrete plans that would elevate black America in “the struggle towards national liberation.”27 The list of topics that the eight work groups tackled over the course of three days included education, economic development, political organization, health and welfare, communications, cultural definition and survival, organized religious resources, and Pan-African history and relationships. In addition to designating a chairman and electing a recorder, each group was responsible for submitting a written summary report of its activities to an IBW staff member before the conference concluded. Although it had already been determined that the conference would not end until the participants fully defined the problems and fully Page 235 → identified a program to solve the problems, each group was expected to begin its discussion by developing a basic sense of agreement about the nature of the problems facing black America, the reasons for these problems, and what could be done to overcome them. The second major task for the different work groups was to define and to develop a list of structural relationships and then identify some key resources, both human and material, that could actualize a system to make it possible for the network they represented to achieve its short- and long-term goals. It was also expected that an outline identifying a set of hard assessments, hard planning, and hard commitments would be included in each group's summary.28 Paul Brooks was the philanthropist who absorbed all the on-site expenses for the conference and the travel expenses for “individuals who could not pay for their own” travel.29 To cover the housing needs for the conference participants, Brooks set them up at the Casa Blanca Hotel, which was owned by the Nelson family.30 Paul and Catherine Burke-Brooks had moved Picel Products Inc. to Detroit in 1969 and relocated it to Idlewild less than a year later. Setting up the operation in the old El Morocco Club (which was formerly Prince Joveddah De Rajah's inn), the factory helped “to bring some long-sought increase in employment to Lake County.”31 After making three million combs, the plant folded (after being in business for only three years and with the suppliers suddenly discontinuing deliveries).32 However, the hosting of the “survival symposium” for the IBW would support the goals of the factory during its first year in operation. In the end, everyone—the world-renowned scholars, intellectuals, artists, and political activists—enjoyed the wonders of the woods and what remained of the formerly famous and beautiful Idlewild before departing and shifting their pragmatic black nationalist agenda to the planning of the 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana.33

Sex-Crazed Deer Hunters and the Commercial Sex Enterprise A month after the three-day October conference of the IBW think tank concluded, Idlewild would endure yet another hit to the economy, as it began to become overburdened with streetwalkers during a series of annual deerhunting seasons. A host of black and white deer hunters traveled to Idlewild specifically to gain access to young female and male prostitutes, a practice that had a history in Idlewild and Lake County but had been previously kept private. Robert and Mabel Williams, who had relocated from Detroit to neighboring Pleasant Plains

Township a few months before the 1970 deer season opened, were living Page 236 → just a quarter of a mile from the scene of all the happenings in Idlewild and witnessed how the visits of the hunters represented not only an economic boost for some of the local businesses but also a demon in disguise. The events surrounding the hunting season signified a major public embarrassment for the townspeople who were known as decent, upright, and respectable citizens in the community. Mabel Williams comments, When the black middle-class professionals began deserting the resort, many white hunters and fishermen, gamblers, and black pimps and their stables of prostitutes did just the opposite. They pumped a few dollars into the resort. However, most of the dollars ended in the hands of pimps and prostitutes from Detroit, Indianapolis, Battle Creek, Chicago, and other places. In the late 1960s and 1970s, it was not unusual to see ladies in red working deer-crossing areas, tributaries of the Manistee River, and many inland lakes. During the height of the deer season, some panderers brought or rented mobile homes to be used as brothels on wheels, especially if the beds were already occupied at the Eagle's Nest. Many ladies were on a first-name basis with their customers…. Furthermore, some white customers felt that they had been initiated into true manhood after being with a black woman. Occasionally, such fellows would carry more than wild game home.34 Prostitution “had made the area somewhat a legend.”35 The profession not only was considered socially deviant but was also recognized as a commodity through the sale of sexual services that were being performed in Idlewild by pimps, young females, and males. The behaviors of these prostitutes, their johns, and their pimps were overwhelming for this small northern rural Michigan town. Within the historical perspective of separate and unequal facilities and the various discriminatory practices that African American vacationers endured during the New Negro movement and the Great Depression era, the practice of prostitution carried a very different meaning for African Americans than the scene described in Idlewild during the 1970s. Along with shifts in the objectives of those who participated in the commercial enterprise, the kind of sexual services that were going on during the post-civil rights era had gone far beyond what the residents and the entrepreneurs managing commercial recreational properties in Idlewild understood. This sex market scene represented an invasion and had thereby changed the social landscape, because both old and new measures of leisure and recreation dramatically shifted as the residents responded to these changes. With these sudden shifts in the political and economic Page 237 → landscape came the deterioration of certain properties. This included an abandoned pool hall on the Island, various eating establishments, and over three dozen motels and cottages, many of which were being demolished. The prostitution problem in Idlewild, which lasted for nearly two decades, crippled the identity of the town. In this light, the history of prostitution in Idlewild runs counter to the claims of commercial sex historians who have “attempted to rescue prostitution from the literature of deviancy and crime.”36 Seeing prostitutes as ordinary young women confronting limited possibilities and making rational and sometimes desperate choices, historian Timothy Gilfoyle argued that the concept of integration, which replaced the concept of marginalization in these studies, has helped to frame prostitution within the context of a larger narrative that centered around political and economic questions as opposed to questions of gender and sexuality. In an effort to resurrect the town from the invasion of out-of-town prostitutes and deer hunters, Yates Township supervisor Harry Solomon, who was fondly known as “a man of action and a community catalyst,” moved rapidly to improve conditions on the Island, around Lake Idlewild, and among many of the surrounding properties.37 At the time of these efforts, the old Flamingo Bar was owned by Ben Logan Sr., who purchased it from Bea Giles in 1963. Next to the Rosanna Tavern, the Flamingo Bar was known, under Logan's management, as one of the most popular sports spots in Idlewild, even though both establishments had become “notorious hangouts for prostitutes and deer hunters.”38 In an article appearing in the Grand Rapids Press, one reporter wrote, “Every night [observers] saw a steady stream of couples going from the bars into rented cabins or trailers the prostitutes used as temporary housing.”39 Ben Logan Sr., who passed in 1979, was from Dayton, Ohio. After his death, the Logan family continued to manage the bar until 1984, when Jeanne Logan and her son, Ben Logan Jr., sold it back to Yates Township officials, near the end of the Winburn administration. Ben Logan Jr., who had lived in Grand Rapids, had been working the bar on a part-time basis for approximately four years. According to Logan, who had

been attending law school, Our biggest season quite frankly was the hunting season. We owned about four bars in Dayton, Ohio, and what we would do is we'd make arrangements with our staff there in Dayton too, and it was almost kind of, oh I don't know what to call it, an extra benefit for the waitresses to come to Idlewild and work. And we would select about three to five of our top waitresses and barmaids, ones that were, you know, independent and had the ability to operate the establishment without a great deal of supervision. We would bring them to Idlewild, and Page 238 → they would stay there during the summer and help run the nightclub with me or possibly with my father. Mostly I ran it, because my father was still running the businesses in Dayton and because I was in this general area attending law school. I ran it during the summer and during deer season.40 When an incident occurred up there, Logan recalls, “We had to tighten things up. My father had always run a very clean place. Well during the deer season there was always the issue of prostitutes coming up.” This season presented quite an amazing challenge for men, women, and children of the community. Logan continues, And so he [Ben Sr.] took the position that prostitutes could not operate out of our club, you know, but if they wanted to operate outside, you can't control outside. And so the prostitutes would kind of operate on the Island, and in some instances they would get close to the Flamingo, and we ended up with a citation from the law enforcement indicating that my father was involved with the prostitution aspect or was not doing enough to keep the prostitutes away. Well, you know, his position was that's not his job, he's not a policeman, and so there was a case that they implemented that later ultimately it was dismissed.41 The scene internally in the bar had extended outside, where young prostitutes were targeting the johns as they exited the bar. Illustrating how this nearly changed everything in Idlewild, Logan states, During deer-hunting season, by the way, work was so busy the first weekend of deer season it was unbelievable. We grossed over thirty-five thousand dollars the first three days of the deer-hunting season on any given weekend (that is, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday). I mean, it was just an unbelievable experience. Lines were out the door down back toward the bridge, you know, not toward where the hotel is or toward Rosanna's, but in the other direction, toward Lake Drive.42 Decked out in colorful and flashy hot pants, shiny vinyl boot tops, fishnet stockings, and, oftentimes, go-go boots, female dancers appeared on both sides of the stage at the Flamingo Bar. These high-energy go-go dancers were not only eye-catching but also appetizing for some of the men, black and white, who frequented the bar. The striptease shows were a hit. The strip dancers, employed especially to entertain the deer hunters during the late 1960s and mid-1970s, included some who seductively danced in miniskirts, while others did Page 239 → the boogaloo in their hot pants and go-go boots, as an alluring added attraction to entertain the bar's summer patrons and the deer hunters during the deer-hunting season. Occasionally, the bar also showcased female impersonators for its seasonal patrons and lap dances for the hunters. Although this style of entertainment was tailored for the male patrons exclusively, it was not presented as a topless affair or intended to showcase full-blown stripper shows. But Logan recalls having to interfere on one occasion to prevent an unruly drunken hunter from aggressively seeking access to some of the women, even though many of them knew how to handle him. The dancers did receive tips from their hunter onlookers. The sexual scene at the Flamingo Bar differed from the one presented at the Rosanna Tavern, which stayed open year-round and served as a hangout spot for the prostitutes; the Flamingo Bar had to obtain a special three-day permit to sell liquor during the deer-hunting season and to hire some of its strippers. Of the incident that nearly got out of hand while he was working the door at the bar, Logan recalls, We were charging, as I recall, three to five dollars. I don't remember which amount, and we were making money hand over fist. I was working the door and the bar or wherever I needed to be, and all

of a sudden I looked up onstage and one of the hunters went onstage and grabbed [chuckles] one of the dancers and picked her up and was hollering, “How about giving me a piece of ass.” Then he pulled out a big knife, one of those big bowie knives, and I looked up there and said [god oh mighty no]. He was drunk, and, you know, I didn't know what he was going to do. I then ran up onstage and grabbed him and pulled him down. Then we got to talking, and I said, “Come on over to the bar and let me buy you a drink, and we'll resolve this.” He said, “Can she come?” And I said, “Well, after she finishes dancing, I'll ask her to come over.”43

Because the prostitutes had been known for hanging around outside the bar, Michigan state police began arresting them and even tried to charge the bar's owner, because they were on his premises. This charge ultimately was dismissed, although the incident itself carried a negative stigma that fortunately did not impact the bar's business, as fewer people were frequenting the spot.44 After years of putting pressure on the Michigan State Police and the Lake County Sheriff's Department, the concerns of the residents were finally being addressed, as the police and sheriff's departments began making arrests. Initially, the majority of the arrests were of women from out of town, as Lake County sheriff Lonnie Deur had advised that his main areas of concern were the bars in Idlewild: the Rosanna Tavern, which operated as a year-round establishment, Page 240 → and the Flamingo Club, which generally functioned through a special permit issued on a weekend basis. The sheriff also reported that these commercial sex activities had spread to the Baldwin area and north of Baldwin. Deur felt that infiltrating these locations with undercover officers and securing evidence suitable for criminal prosecutions would possibly deter future activities of this nature. Consequently, he furnished a total of six men who would patrol the area between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and midnight, and after midnight, two marked patrol units with a total of four men would be on the scene if needed. Prosecutor Edward Duckworth of Lake County was contacted with reference to the use of county funds for the investigation. Deur had requested that five hundred dollars be provided as “flash money” that would serve as evidence to secure all arrests. Prosecutor Duckworth advised that he could foresee no problems in obtaining this money and would be in contact with Lake County Circuit Court judge Charles Wickens on November 9, 1977. It had been further determined that the Lakeview and Newaygo posts of the state police would each furnish two men for the investigation. The Reed City post also supplied two uniformed officers and a marked patrol unit to assist the operation.45 The locations within Lake County that were checked were the Rosanna Tavern and the Masonic Temple on Forman Road in Idlewild and Government Lake Lodge, Ski's Bar, C-Mar Disco, Crossroads Inn, and Club M-37 in Baldwin. Officers working in an undercover capacity were able to observe, apprehend, and arrest six female prostitutes on charges of accosting and soliciting at the Rosanna Tavern. The five women and a juvenile were from Michigan and Ohio.46 As the prostitution escalated and attributed to Idlewild's decline during the season, Sheriff Deur was forced to take additional actions to reduce the social problem. The police increased the number of women arrested, particularly those who resided in Idlewild and Muskegon and were turning tricks to make ends meet.47 The media's reporting of the townspeople's severe reaction to the problem made national news, with the result that Johnny Carson poked fun at the accelerated crisis at Idlewild.48 Vaughn Hamilton recalls sitting at home in front of his television set on November 24, 1977, as snow and thick sheets of ice covered many of the roads in Idlewild, and intensively watching as Johnny Carson opened his special Thanksgiving show with a joke about the problem in Idlewild: “Today being Thanksgiving, President Carter and family at Thanksgiving dinner, Vice President Mondale, deer season opened in Idlewild-Michigan, and Woody Hayes.” In his usual statesmanlike yet comical mannerism, Carson stated, Page 241 → Now this item I'm going to tell you about was in the paper, so you don't think I'm making it up. You couldn't make this up. It's a little rustic community of Idlewild, Michigan, perhaps some of you read this in the paper.

The deer season opened there. And they have a rather unusual problem. The game warden, well what happened. How can I phrase this, I don't want to offend you. A lot of prostitutes showed up in this little town because of deer season and all the guys were out in the woods, and the game warden has arrested 18 prostitutes in the past week. That's kind of weird, isn't it? I mean, the guys are out looking for game or a girl whose game, one of the two. But it's true. One of the girls left early, she already had her limit, I understand. The wives got suspicious because one of the hunters came back had a bleachblonde strapped to the fender of his car.49 Reports that Carson had retrieved from newswires about the arrests and court appearances of nearly fifteen women and two men made Idlewild a prime target. Carson had a field day with these reports of women and men from Grand Rapids and Monroe, Michigan, and Toledo, Ohio, who had been arrested and had appeared in the Grand Rapids court. For years, the word had been out that Idlewild was the place to go for some hot action during deer-hunting season. To the dismay of many of the local residents, the “action” did not refer just to deer hunting. Prostitutes from Chicago, Detroit, Toledo, and Grand Rapids paraded along local roads and inside local bars each year.50 The only newspaper to follow the story was the Grand Rapids Press.51 However, it wasn't until after numerous complaints poured in from the residents and from Robert F. Williams that Michigan state troopers from the post at Reed City, working in partnership with the Lake County sheriff's deputies, considered getting involved. From 1972 to 1979, the hunting seasons left negative feelings, memories, and fears in the mind-sets of Idlewild residents who lived in the resort community year-round. Norman Burns, a longtime resident and former Yates Township supervisor, recalls witnessing prostitution in the area prior to the 1970s, when deer hunters and everyone used to “come up here.” He explains, “I didn't know what was going on when I was young in the 1950s and all that, about prostitution and all that stuff, about buying a girl here. I figured you just have to go out there and get you a girlfriend, and you got whatever you could get. I had no money myself. Nobody I knew had the money to go out and buy girls and spend the money on them.”52 But as Burns matured and relocated to the area as a citizen near retirement, he contextualized the character of a different prostitution scene in Idlewild. In effect, the situation surrounding Page 242 → the commercial sex industry within “the world of work and working-class culture”53 had developed a stinging impact and new meaning in Idlewild. Burns captures the essence of the situation, noting, In the late 1960s and early ’70s, oh man, it was deer-hunting time. They used to bring girls up from Chicago, and someone said as far as Los Angeles, in motor homes. There'd be more white hunters in there than any black hunters. It was so bad that Percy Davis said that his wife was going into Leona Simmons's Leejon's to get her Sunday paper and (the deer hunters just thought everyone was a prostitute, see) they hit on her. But Percy Davis is a strict sucker, boy. He was a retired police officer. He got his Magnum 47 and put it on his hip, was going to hunt him down. Just incidents like that made it so that women were not safe to go around and be by themselves without the johns hitting on them.54 The negative experiences of respectable women in the small township who were being mistaken by white hunters as prostitutes was disturbing and upsetting to the entire community.55 Also commenting on the deer season and the community's reaction to the behaviors of these hunters, Mabel Williams notes, Well that was great for the economy. The people and the merchants were really happy to see them come. But when the deer hunters were in town, it was almost impossible for ordinary women to walk around, because they felt humiliated and assaulted by the deer hunters looking for real dears. This is because there were people who were bringing prostitutes into the area. They were coming in from Chicago. They were bringing them in from Indiana, from Detroit. They would put the prostitutes up in little motels around the bars in Idlewild, and they would bring motor homes with prostitutes. Inside the motor homes wasn't so bad, but it got [so] bad as years passed by that they were turning tricks as they stayed in cars, in open sight of the community people.56 When the residents first reported these activities and incidents to the Lake County Sheriff's Department, their

complaints were ignored and/or dismissed. The department's refusal to end the problem bothered and inspired Rob Williams not only to publicly object but to act succinctly in a pragmatic manner. About Rob's reaction to the prostitution problem and scandal in the area, Mabel Williams recalls, This one particular year, the pimps came to the community with young girls and black children, girls and boys. They were utilizing these girls and boys as prostitutes Page 243 → for the hunters. It had gotten so bad that open sexual acts could be seen day and night in cars outside the bar [i.e., the Rosanna Tavern] in Idlewild. You could see these children being exposed like that to these hunters. Rob got really upset about this and called the police. First, when he called the police, they said, “It's just the hunters. They're having fun, and you know there is nothing we can really do about it.”57 According to Mabel, Rob, convinced that something needed to be done to end the prostitution problem and the child abuse scenario, “called the state police, and they had the same attitude,” then he told them, “Well it's children that they are using here,” and he said, “Maybe if we call the FBI, they will come in and do something about it because this is awful.”58 Determined to rid the community of the disgrace, Rob then called the FBI. According to Mabel, “The FBI told him, ‘It's a local matter and you need to talk to your local police and/or the state police. They'll have to handle the situation, because it is not in our jurisdiction.’ And Rob asked them, ‘Don't you get involved when children are transported from one state to another?’ He said, ‘Isn't that called white slavery when you transport children from one state to another for prostitution?’ And they tried to say, ‘But you need to go through your local authorities,’ and Rob said, ‘That's alright, don't come. I've got some boys down in Detroit. I'll call the fellas in Detroit, and they'll come up here and deal with it.’”59 This statement finally motivated the FBI to do something. Mabel went on to say, When he said that, they said, “Oh no, you wait, we'll see what we can do.” Within minutes before the hunting season was over, the police had come in and arrested hunters for soliciting, and I don't know if they did anything with those pimps who were bringing those children into the community, but they arrested a series of hunters that year. And they were embarrassed, because they were just regular John Does when they came to Idlewild, but they were Dr. this or Mr. that when they went back home. And when they got arrested, that cut way down on the kind of activities that had been going on in the past. So he was very much in the background by moving to make things happen.60 Apparently, Rob Williams was instrumental in motivating the Lake County Sheriff's Department, which was working in collaboration with the state police in Reed City, to significantly reduce the rampant commercial sex problem in Idlewild. The strategies and tactics employed by these law enforcement units involved, first, increasing the number of arrests of women and, later, arresting the johns, many of whom were husbands and did not want their wives to find Page 244 → their names and photographs published in the papers, where they also feared that their families, relatives, and neighbors might read about their mishaps. Along with some of the arrests and court appearances, district judge Richard I. Cooper of the Seventy-Eighth District Court notified several of the residents of Yates Township and requested that they attend many of the hearings. Approximately fifteen Yates Township residents, male and female, would appear at these arraignments. On many occasions, Judge Cooper permitted Yates Township supervisor Harry Solomon an opportunity to recite the views of the residents, prior to sentencing. (The Solomon administration, governing more than forty years after the death of Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, honored the achievements of the pioneering doctor and entrepreneur by naming the Island in his honor in 1977.) In one instance, Judge Cooper put five women on notice, stating that continued prostitution in Idlewild would not be tolerated. This came after Solomon stated, “This is a situation that has existed for years. It has turned into a hazard for respectable women in our community. This can become a cancer that spreads unless something is done to stop it.”61 The arrests of the women took place on Sunday in the Rosanna Tavern. State police detective George Pratt predicted that the arrests would probably result in about half of the prostitutes and their pimps leaving. “The other half,” he said, “will continue to work the area.”62 After this hearing ended, the state police and Sheriff Bob Blevins intensified their response to earlier concerns raised by the township's supervisor and the residents, as a strategy to reduce the number of complaints and offenses. A tricounty police crackdown was requested, to begin arresting the hunters. Sunny Roxborough, the former owner of the

Rosanna Tavern, adds, During the deer season the girls were here then. The girls were here. These fellows come here with money—with money to spend. They did not want to carry nothing back. The only way they broke it up was instead of putting the girl's name in the paper they put the man's name there, too. So how this man's wife feels say oh this man was picked up for prostitution. That did it. That eliminated it. We had no more trouble and no more money.63 The prostitution crisis was clearly a sign of Idlewild's further decline. The deer-hunting season, the prostitutes and their johns, and the local and regular out-of-town guests and customers contributed to the decline. This represented one of the final stages of the problems of the 1970s and mid-' 80s, a community crisis that would significantly impact future possibilities for tourists to vacation in Idlewild. In the end, the prostitution problem represented one of the dominant Page 245 → factors that influenced outsiders to judge the town and its people, for tolerating the circus. Eric Freedman, a writer for the DetroitNews, reported, during the period, that “the nightclubs that featured Count Basie and other musicians were gone, [and] so were the restaurants and stores.”64 Perhaps the biggest change to impact community and family life in the township involved the national economy and the lack of local industrial job prospects for young people. Along with the civil rights victories, the many rebellions of the late 1960s emerging from the Black Power movement (which exploded with the 1968 assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.), the Vietnam War, and the national recession in the early 1970s, the many economic changes occurring around the nation from the Nixon administration to the end of the Reagan-Bush eras significantly impacted the ability of business owners and managers to be competitive with business leaders operating in mainstream white vacation outlets in the United States. This signified a clear message that Idlewild would suffer a significant social and economic decline. Between the years 1970 and 1992, the adult children of many of the pioneering families (e.g., the Hamiltons, Wilsons, Wyatts, Daniels, Pellums, Washingtons, and Barnetts), who were born in the town, began relocating to other cities in the states of Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, to find suitable employment, affordable housing, and a quality education, to care for their children and families. Despite the resiliency of many of the families and residents of the community, according to author Michael C. Dawson, the economic forecast facing the nation, which “had its origins in the middle 1960s and accelerated in the 1970s,” was crippling the economy in Yates Township. Ideological and political shifts that accompanied the social transformation of the decade of the 1960s were “decisively accomplished in the 1980s by a number of extraordinarily conservative regimes including those of Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl and Ronald Reagan.” Then, with the successful election of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, the American voter would witness a timely redefinition of “the acceptable in American political discourse.” This era of American politics would signal a period in twentieth-century U.S. history during which civil rights leaders and organizations, feminists and other advocates of women rights, labor unions, gay rights activists, and those who opposed American militarists' intervention in the developing world were all pictured as outside of the bounds of acceptable, patriotic American discourse. They were portrayed by the Reagan administration as wild radicals and/or despicable opportunists who threatened the republic, American culture and the family. Further, Reagan's advisors Page 246 → as Bush's during 1984 were masters of invoking racial symbols in the guise of treasured American values in order to further politically divide the citizenry and isolate African Americans.65 It appears that a critical aspect of the Reagan administration's ideological onslaught on the African American community, according to Dawson, “was a massive ideological attack on the fruits of the Civil Rights Movement.”66 These attacks, when considered in their totality as assaults, were designed to dismantle all of the victories from the civil rights gains of the mid-1960s, which, from the essence of the new legislation, would significantly impact an oppositional subaltern in the United States and the voices of the citizens of Yates Township. Against the aftermath of a right-wing “backlash of historic proportions,” an aftermath that had “the so-called progressive party adopting much of the logic of its rightist predecessor,”67 Idlewild's population from the early to

late 1980s and into the early 1990s was characterized by an increasing number of new retirees, many of whom had visited the resort area during its glory days and wanted to help the township's supervisors and their administrations to develop a viable revitalization plan. The support of several supervisors, beginning with Harry Solomon's administration, led to the organization of a planning commission, a zoning board, an economic development corporation, and a few other community initiative projects that would encourage, propose, and implement solutions that would improve the township's overall infrastructure. Consequently, at the conclusion of Solomon's term, several state and federal Community Development Block Grants had been obtained for demolition, roadwork, and other structural changes that would improve the condition of the town. These grants eventually resulted in a modest makeover of Williams Island. But the Vietnam War and the severe economic situation of the late 1960s and 1970s also sparked an interest in the African American freedom struggle, in which Idlewild played a small role through the presence of the IBW, as well as the efforts of a few of Idlewild's newer residents, business owners, and community leaders.

The Audrey Bullett Administration and a Decade of Growing Pains The tenure of Yates Township supervisor Audrey K. Bullett, which dominated most of the 1980s era, represented a period of growing pains, marked by inexperienced but inspired leaders who initially gave the best they had, despite the fact that none of them had administration experience with collecting taxes and the myriad of duties and responsibilities of running a small township effectively. Page 247 → Percy Davis, one of the two trustees who served on the township's board at the end of Supervisor Bernie Winburn's term in office and during all of Bullett's administration, describes the times as characterized by a kind of “laid-back” attitude toward budgeting, as well as unrestricted spending and the planning of a viable community.68 Jeff Davenport, a fireman for the Yates Township Fire Department, characterizes and sums up the Bullett administration in more descriptive and elaborative terms. When I first came to Idlewild, I wanted to join the fire department. Audrey Bullett was the supervisor. That was around 1986–87. At that time the township was in terrible financial shape, but during that year the finances of the township lapsed because people weren't paying their taxes. They were starting to, as they say, filter out. They still owned the property, but they wouldn't pay their taxes on their properties. And then, as the township had to move forward with economic growth, we couldn't, because we didn't have a major tax base. Our whole survival was based on taxes, you know, residential taxes. And what happened over those years were people waited for three years to pay their taxes in order to keep their place and then, once they pay their taxes up, then we get a burst of money. But now that we got this burst of money, Audrey Bullett robbed Peter to pay Paul basically to keep the township afloat. There were great rumors that she was stealing money. Well I did not see her steal money, just, from what I observed, she maintained the infrastructure of the township. Sure she might have took money out of this bank account to cover the bills from another bank account, and she bounced back and forth because, like I said before, the tax money was not coming in. And then they made the big Audrey Bullett scandal about her stealing money, blah blah blah, and then Norman Burns came in.69 Audrey Bullett has been a lifelong seasonal and permanent resident of Lake County, Pleasant Plains Township, Yates Township, and the community of Idlewild. Kenneth Cole and Elizabeth Atkins reported in the Detroit News that “the parents of Audrey K. Bullett” built a cabin at Idlewild in 1927,”70 and Thomas BeVier later reported that Bullett's family moved to Idlewild from Chicago in 1951, when she was fourteen years old, “a time when the area was in its heyday.”71 Once firmly settled in the community as a year-round resident in the late 1950s, Bullett held a variety of positions. Before becoming a community leader, she worked as a waitress at the then famous Flamingo Club in Idlewild. She began her professional career as a librarian for the Yates Township Library in 1962 and held that position until 1964. She then worked in the Lake County Treasurer's Office from 1964 to 1965 and for the Lake County Clerk and Register of Deeds Page 248 → Office in 1967. Bullett was married to Ricardo Bullett, who died in the 1970s. She was the first African American to hold a position in the Lake County courthouse, a position she held until 1981. In 1981, Bullett began attending Ferris State University, where she earned a B.S. in public administration in 1984. Bullett was elected Yates Township supervisor in 1984.

The Bullett administration, which lasted from 1984 to 1992, had mixed reactions from the residents, other public officials, and business leaders.72 During the first term of her tenure, Bullett led a board that spearheaded a number of important projects regarding improvements in transportation, garbage pickup and drop-off, property taxes, fire and safety concerns, and crime patrol. The support of the competent board had led to the establishment of Dial-ARide, the construction of the Henrietta Summers Senior Center, the activation of the Idlewild Lake Association, the creation of a new location for the fire department, and Detroiter John Meeks's purchase of Morton's Motel. During the first meeting of the new board on December 10, 1984, the township's business got off to a fast start as Harrison Wilson presented an application for support of Dial-A-Ride, a local transportation system for senior citizens, presenting “section 18 of the contract [under consideration] that gives the township $8,889.00 for the first quarter of the fiscal year for operation.”73 A motion to adopt the Dial-A-Ride resolution was made by Davis and seconded by Edna McKinney, which was followed by some discussion before the board approved the motion and addressed a series of other topics and discussions, revolving around such issues as the garbage situation (which called for continued deliberations of the Community Development, Planning, Solid Waste, and Environment Committee for a decision) and an inventory of all property and insurance owned by the township.74 At its first meeting of January 1985, the board addressed another topic of concern, involving the number of breaking and entering occurrences in the township. The Citizen Crime Patrol, working in collaboration with one of the local constables and fire chief Delbert Dotson, whose patrol car was in poor condition and had over one hundred thousand miles on it, shared “engraving pencils” with “anyone wishing to engrave their property in case of theft.”75 In addition, Davis and Jean Harris motioned for board approval to purchase two transceivers for the constables, noting that the Lake County Sheriff's Department was a member of the Extended Purchasing Program and therefore able to purchase the equipment and supplies at a discount. They further suggested that the supervisor should call the state of Michigan for information regarding Yates's membership in the program and to request funds for the purpose of purchasing a new patrol car and other needed equipment. Ending a series of Page 249 → meetings, the board discussed the possibility of a fee for public use of Lincoln Park and concluded that the matter should be turned over to the Auditing and Financing Committee to designate a fee for application for the campground. Two years into the first term of the Bullett administration, questions were raised concerning outside loitering around the B&S Bar. In an effort to maintain a decent atmosphere for the owner's customers, the board encouraged the owner to prohibit loitering. But the most pressing issues came from the citizens during citizen time at board meetings. Freda Lindsey, for example, questioned the procedure of land sales at one meeting, as Bullett was being accused of refusing to sell land to local residents with business interests and of repopulating Idlewild with an overabundance of low-income people. Norman Burns claimed, “I call myself an investor in Idlewild because I built my house here and I have a business here, although my business is not based in Idlewild. My business yards are in Cherry Valley across the street from Yates Township on U.S. 10. Why? Audrey K. Bullett would not let me build anything here close to me, like out there. I said, ‘Don't worry about that, I'll find me a place to put my business. That's no problem.’”76 Meeks adds, “She did not transform Idlewild into anything worthwhile; she tried to make it into a blue-collar community with ghetto people. She didn't believe in cleanup either. She told one guy who complained about his neighbor's blight across the street from where he lived to build a fence if he didn't want to see the blight from his neighbors' yard.”77 At the board's meeting on February 6, 1986, another critical issue emerged, as Bullett “discussed with the public whether the township could afford or want a police department.”78 Concern over this topic developed after Officer Delbert Dotson shot and killed an intruder and went to trial in the case of The People v. Dotson. Although the public made no comments about support for Dotson, several board members complimented him for serving the town for twenty-seven years and mentioned that the township did have an insurance policy on him and that he did provide protection for the community. With Deputy Dotson suspended and on paid leave and with Hurschel Johnson serving as his temporary replacement, Harrison Wilson commented in “a brief speech about future protection from the Lake County Sheriff's Department.”79 Consequently, the board elected a task force that would investigate that option as a possibility. Another pointed demand for change came as Bullett, other township officials, and some of the leading citizens

organized a planning commission, a zoning board, and a few other township initiatives as a way to encourage solutions to pressing problems that would improve life experiences in the town. Carrying over from the Solomon, Thomas, and Winburn township administrations, Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) were obtained for demolition, Page 250 → additional roadwork, and other structural changes. As chapter 7 will discuss, Yates Township supervisor Norman Burns, whose administration followed that led by Bullett, commented about how Bullett had obtained a grant through the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to renovate the old Flamingo Club and that there was no accountability about how the money had been spent other than the expenses for a new roof. Under Bullett's administration, a thirty-year agreement had been entered, in which the DNR had designated the use of the building only for wildlife preservation. The U.S. Department of the Interior had listed four things that could be done to the old Flamingo Club building, stating that it could be used to facilitate outdoor recreation, as a nature center, or as a maintenance building or that it could be destroyed. Perhaps the most pointed suggestion raised by Bullett involved her redefining what she imagined Idlewild to be by framing it as a retirement community. It was Bullett's perspective that the township was becoming populated by citizens in retirement. As the population size increased slightly from 746 in 1980 to approximately 785 residents in 1990, Bullett argued that Idlewild was becoming a retirement community, as a result of thirty-nine new retirees relocating to the area. Using the 1990 U.S. Census for Yates Township, which illustrated that 74 percent, or 510, of the residents were African Americans and that 274 of them were of European ancestry, Bullett created a narrative surrounding the demographic data as opposed to reporting the facts, which indicated that only 160 persons were sixty-five years of age or older. Bullett did not address the fact that there were over 146 persons under the age of eighteen and 273 individuals between the ages of twenty-one and sixty-four.80 By insisting on connecting Idlewild to the idea of a retirement community, Bullett was able to frame an explanation and to avoid discussions about improving the infrastructure and economic forecast of the community. Rather, the retirement argument she strategically advanced called, in effect, for limited improvements, due to a lack of long-term planning for sustainability, which would allow the community to die. Backed by statistical data, Bullett was not interested in revitalizing and marketing Idlewild as a major tourist location in the state of Michigan. She had been partially responsible for a dwindling tax base and a host of unpaid debts. According to Norman Burns, who challenged Bullett in the upcoming election, a group of elders encouraged him to run for the township supervisor's position because of Bullett's mismanagement. When she took over from Bernie Winburn (since she was Bernie's right-hand assistant) there was $76,000 in the bank. She bragged at a township meeting as Page 251 → we all sat right there and heard it, well you all had $76,000 in the bank, but you don't have it anymore cause I've been spending it. She said, you guys got a supervisor that'll spend some money. I do know how to spend some money. Well she spent all that and spent our future too. It just so happens that there was enough of the old fathers around here who realized that she was doing wrong and did something about it. That's when they pushed me to become supervisor.81 After losing the November 1992 supervisor's election to Burns, the outgoing Bullett was feeling the pressure. She later claimed that she experienced political persecution that literally drove me into political exile in my own home. I experienced embarrassment, anguish, and anger that broke my physical body, my mental health, and my social development, and made me withdraw from even the closest circles of social activity including my church. I have many friends that stood by me and spoke out on my behalf and some that spoke privately, however many of the people that I had befriended, protected, and sheltered from the storms just plain oh abandoned me and left me to the political assassination that my opponent started in early 1992.82 Failing to acknowledge that Yates Township was literally broke, Bullett attempted to destroy important township records, as some residents “reported finding a dumping area” where “some of the garbage that had been dumped were Yates Township records.”83 Shortly after Norman Burns became Yates Township's new supervisor, he

expressed his displeasure, stating, “I am appalled that someone would dump township records like that.”84 To make matters worse, Burns was also forced to make a difficult decision: all township accounts were frozen, and payments to debtors were being negotiated. Reflecting all that had gone wrong with her tenure and the 1992 election bid, Bullett concludes, “Had I known then what I know today I would not have run for office in 1992, but would have retrieved my body and soul and fled from the demons that sought my destruction.”85 However, according to Burns, another perspective about the situation, indicates that Bullett was not all that innocent. He recalls, “I walked in the office one day and that [a note] was on my desk. A voodoo doll was hanging with pins in its heart and in its groin on the front door. I don't have the voodoo doll anymore because the state police took it for crime evidence.”86 The note began, “Champion of men and gods, Nurssri, strong one, destroyer of the wicked, lend thy mighty power to my curse.” Burns describes the note further by stating, Page 252 → Then it mentions your name 3 times, and then it says, “May all the gods curse you, the sun, moon, and stars, curse you, earth, wind, fire, water curses you. Your deeds and plans shall die. The furies of the night shall lie in wait to wet thy vengeful power; you are cursed from this hour. Let it be done by decree; begin the ancient law of 3. 3 times I pierce thy flesh and bone, 9 times, you fool, you shall groan. Evil reaped from evil sown, in your grave you shall be thrown. 3 × 3 you shall atone.” And then there is a picture of a doll with some needles in it.87 After reading the note, which was sent as a curse, Burns simply shook his head and commented about the vengefulness of the message, as he pledged to restore accountability in township affairs.

Championing Civil Rights and Contesting Human Rights Abuses Before Bullet's defeat in the 1992 election, African American families living in Yates and other nearby townships in Lake County had been feeling the effects of racism through reported racist assaults. Many of the offenses that victims were encountering were human rights abuses ranging from police brutality, arbitrary arrests, and penal offense charges in which they were presumed guilty before a public trial. In addition, some inmates in the county jail encountered incidents of cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment in and outside of the penal system. Robert F. Williams's activism, although gradual and strategic, was illustrated throughout the 1980s while he served as a board member of FiveCAP Inc. At age sixty, Williams petitioned the county government to change its policies, as he collected, arranged, and bound a series of published newspaper articles from the Lake County Star, Detroit Free Press, Grand Rapids Press, Lansing Star, Big Rapids Pioneer, and Ludington Daily News. The collection of articles covered over twenty years of troubling times and inhumane encounters between the police and black citizens in the area. The report, which was published in 1985 and designated an official report for county officials, the FBI, and the governor's office, enabled the FiveCAP board to document and systematically organize detailed descriptions of the history of racist incidents in the county that involved police brutality, failed attempts on the part of leaders to investigate community-police conflicts, and repeated efforts by the courts, county commissioners, and the county's Civil Rights Commission to resolve the problem. The evidence FiveCAP presented gave voice to this small population of marginalized African Americans who had been silenced by the local media and the Lake County Sheriff's Department. Williams took it upon himself to Page 253 → act as their spokesperson, and by bringing all the incidents together in an organized report, he illustrated that a pattern of injustice had been plaguing the county. Up until that time, the county's governance had seen it as merely a series of random and unrelated incidents.88 By the mid-1970s, the Lake County Republican Party brought in Sheriff Deur to control the African American communities of Baldwin and Idlewild. Under Deur's leadership, tensions between the police and the African American community came to a head following the sheriff's botched arrest attempt of Ruby Nelson, also known as Ruby Nelson Chatman, an African American widow and mother of three small children, who had moved from Chicago to Baldwin in 1971 after the death of her husband. Nelson, who had been arrested for shooting the deputy sheriff as he approached her front porch, had first purchased a modest home in the white section of Baldwin and immediately became the victim of the wrath of local racists. Despite numerous complaints to the Lake County

Sheriff's Department, Nelson received no protection from the local authorities. Ruby Nelson's family eventually relocated to Idlewild, where Mrs. Nelson continued to be harassed. Nelson's car tires were slashed, there was an attempt to run her over, and her children were being harassed in school. Gregory P. Kelley, a reporter for the East Lansing Star, published an article stating, On one occasion, Nelson refused to answer a postal clerk's question about her social security mail. An argument ensued, ending with her handcuffed and in the custody of the sheriff's deputy. Last October, she went to the Baldwin school to investigate her son's report that a teacher's aide had choked him. An argument began with school officials, and the sheriff's department was called. Nelson was not only handcuffed but had a belt wrapped around her and was forcibly taken to Traverse City for a psychiatric examination. A psychiatrist there found her mental condition satisfactory and no treatment being required, she was released within the hour. A few weeks later, however, a local probate judge ordered another psychiatric examination.89 Deur set out to implement the court-ordered psychiatric examination but was shot by Nelson in the process of the arrest.90 Nelson was charged with intent to commit murder in connection with the shooting of the sheriff. After waiving her right to a preliminary examination before Judge Charles Wickens of the Lake County Circuit Court, Nelson was transferred the next morning to the Center for Forensic Psychiatry, as an outpatient for observation, on June 22, 1978.91 As more complaints were mounting against the sheriff's department, the Ruby Nelson Legal Defense Fund was established to cover legal expenses. Page 254 → Along with Williams, the Reverend Ellis Davis, the Reverend Henry Stovall, and James T. Nelson organized the People's Association for Human Rights (PAHR) and the legal defense campaign. Williams then contacted one of his longtime friends, attorney Ernest Goodman of Detroit, to defend Mrs. Nelson. Goodman served as Nelson's lead attorney, and Henry J. Dongvillo of Scottsville, Nelson's court-appointed attorney, served as his consultant.92 The Nelson case ultimately illustrated the full extent of the sheriff's department's dismissive attitude toward black citizens of Lake County. The sheriff depicted Williams as merely a troublemaker who was using the Nelson incident as a publicity stunt to garner media attention. In opposition to this characterization, Williams positioned himself as a defender of the rights of black residents. He argued that the more the residents learned from circumstances surrounding the Ruby Nelson case, the more questions they raised about the Sheriff's Department and the treatment of certain residents. As the situation intensified, many residents found it difficult to comprehend the treatment of Mrs. Nelson, who was eventually found not guilty for reasons of temporary insanity on May 22.93 Two months before the verdict was announced, however, Deur was honored during a Government Day banquet as “Rotarian of the Year.” Criticizing the gesture of the Rotary International for honoring Deur, Williams published an editorial stating, Until learning of the local Club's selection of Rotarian of the Year, I labored under the misconception that those professing to possess these most noble of human qualities would be the last citizens to attempt to white-wash and glorify naked violence, brutality and terror. Local Rotarians have compromised the International, insulted womanhood and reduced Rotarian manhood to the level of Stone Age brutes. Naming one charged through community rumors with, among other things, breaking down the doors of a widow's home and publicly assaulting the weaker sex reflects on the moral and intellectual state of this community's business and professional elite…. But for the Rotarian to crown him as the best of manhood they have to offer surpasses the limits of morbid cynicism. Such sinister and spiteful acts drag Lake County to the brink of lunacy. And on how tragic a mockery it makes of Rotarian traditions while rendering such a grave disservice to this ante-bellum and deeply racist community.94 The editorial was persuasive in questioning the integrity of the Rotary Club's decision to honor Deur. Another resident disgruntled over the club's decision to honor Deur was Ethel Johnson, secretary of the Ruby Nelson Legal Defense Fund, who stated, “If presenting the award to Mr. Deur is the final Page 255 → action that the Rotary takes, the citizens of Lake County must consider the Rotary's actions as a callous slap in the face from a previously significant group of county leaders.”95

In addition to these public condemnations, there were recalls, protest meetings, grand jury investigations, and a governor's taskforce. Several former employees of the sheriff's department told of numerous acts of violence and abuse, and significant social change resulted. The citizens heard about numerous illegal, violent, and reckless acts committed by Sheriff Deur. This was followed by a major lawsuit heard in the federal district court of western Michigan, which alleged that “several individuals including Lake County Sheriff Deur and eight members of the department violated the constitutional rights of Frank Prince, one of the state prisoners who had been lodged at the Lake County Jail.”96 A recall petition was circulated contesting the sheriff's actions. Between the internal discord within the sheriff's department, which resulted in the resignations of several key personnel, and the editorials that were written by Robert Williams and Ethel Johnson, Deur was eventually recalled and removed from office.97 As PAHR was becoming more influential as a group outside the establishment's social and political structure, there was more work to be done to improve race relations. With the election of Sheriff Robert Blevins, the prostitution problem was reduced. Duhr and Blevins, working in collaboration with the Michigan State Police, helped to reduce the prostitution problem. Although some citizens talked about Blevins as if he had a tail like an animal and even blackballed him right out of the county, the most stinging effect came as police brutality in the county was gradually on the increase. Blevins was backed by Edward Giese, chairman of the Lake County Republican Party, and elected at a time when the atmosphere in the county was dominated by an “us against them” mentality.98 Initially, the new sheriff courted African American citizens of Yates Township by eliminating the prostitution problem and convinced the Yates Township supervisor, then Audrey Bullett, that it would be in the best interest of the Idlewild community to incorporate the township police into the Lake County Sheriff's Department. In addition, there were many incidents of brutality in the county involving the sheriff's deputies and members of the African American community, such as the one involving the beating of a black commissioner by sheriff's deputies. Although the commissioner filed a lawsuit against the county, the outcome of the suit was never disclosed. Another incident involved an automobile firebombing of the black director of the Lake County Ambulance Service, who had underbid the sheriff for the ambulance contract. Alleged telephone threats to the ambulance director's office before and after the bombing were linked to the sheriff's department, although this information Page 256 → was based on circumstantial evidence. No one was ever arrested or charged in connection to the firebombing incident. However, when the ambulance service did come under the control of the sheriff's department, residential concerns were raised about officers determining whether or not an ambulance was really needed to respond to certain emergency calls. With each new development, more racial disharmony and strife occurred. According to Audrey Bullett, Galloway's book The Bulldog: A True Story documents a host of half-truths and fairy tales about these years.99 However, under his administration, tensions continued to brew and boil, until black resident James Wilson was shot to death on the side of the road by one of the sheriff's deputies. Incidents such as these continued until 1984, when the white business establishment in Baldwin felt that the economy would eventually be destroyed. These sentiments were intensified as more white tourists felt threatened when visiting the area. As a result, white leaders of the community sat down with the Democratic leadership and the African American leadership to draw up a peace plan that included electing a retired Michigan State Police officer on the Democratic ticket who would ensure fairness and help to restore racial harmony in the area. By this time, an increasing number of new retirees, many of whom had visited the area during its prime, relocated there and helped with the development of other revitalization efforts, just months before the 1992 November election between Audrey Bullett and Norman Burns. As election day was approaching, a newspaper article was published in the Lake County Star about a disturbance at a tent during the Trout-A-Rama event, involving an unknown black man who had been arrested for possessing a gun.100 Not reported in the same article was news of off-duty drunken deputies who cursed, insulted, and pulled guns on innocent black women and children for no apparent reason other than their skin color. The new editor of the Lake County Star, Denise Smith, was under pressure not to publish information about certain events concerning black residents in the county. To make matters worse, Smith decided, against established practice, not to print a letter to the editor about the alleged cover-up. However, the sheriff's version of the event was printed. As the situation worsened, approximately seventy-five black and white county residents gathered on the steps leading up to the front entrance of the Lake County Courthouse. Religious leaders and the Civil Rights Commission expressed hope that the grievances could be resolved.101 Organized by the Robert Sharber Defense Committee,

the local chapter of the NAACP, and Citizens for a United Front, the group prayed and called for the end to a rash of incidents, including deputies pulling their guns on children, stopping cars for no apparent reason, and making racial and sexual insults to black women going to Page 257 → and from work and school. Frances Barkley read a public statement that night that was published in another issue of the newspaper, stating, “It is our hope, by the power of mass prayer, to arouse the conscience of the good people in this Community, with the hope of enlisting them in sincere efforts to improve race relations in Lake County and prevent the feared incidence of mass violence inspired by local people.”102 The Lake County Star's publication of a letter to the editor dated September 18, 1980, drew more attention to the situation in Idlewild and the surrounding area. The letter, written and signed by a number of the employees of the sheriff's department, read as follows: We know that in these troubled times that you are very busy and perhaps you haven't had the time to spend on the citizens of Lake County who believe they are above the law. Please Lord, direct the members of this Department when they make traffic stops to protect all the people from the few who disregard the safety of others in Lake County, as you usually do, so with this in mind we offer this prayer: Lord, please direct and guide all the members of this Department, give them the strength to stand up under the pressure of a few people. Please Lord, be with each member of this Department when they are told that everything they do stems from hate instead of duty.103 The letter sought to appeal to the anger and resentment of the citizenry of the county. News coverage of the event ultimately motivated the sheriff to respond, claiming, “I feel hurt, because I feel it's the duty of the only newspaper we have in Lake County to report the news and the facts, commonly called the truth…. I felt angry when one man, a county commissioner uses his elected office to agitate a situation and in fact, attends a rally for the purpose of, in his words, bringing the people one step closer to a North Carolina and two steps from a Miami”104 As a gesture to end the conflict, several meetings between the community and Sheriff Blevins were held and mediated by the Civil Rights Commission. The outcome was published in the Lake County Star on February 5, 1981. However, no efforts to live up to the terms of the agreement were carried out by Sheriff Blevins. By 1982, reports of mistreatment by deputies toward black inmates in the county jail became a frequent occurrence, and Williams was asked to get involved. One inmate, Irshaad Totes, wrote a letter to Williams requesting that he “come to the county jail to talk with” him.105 The letter stated, “They [Blevins] won't allow you to come here to talk, they don't want you to talk with us because they are afraid of what you might say [truth]. But you can come and visit 2 or 3 Page 258 → inmates at a time on Thurs. or Sundays from 1 to 8pm.”106 As Totes continued to make his plea for Williams's help, he added, “On Tuesday May 11, 1982, they jumped on an inmate from Jackson Prison, Sgt. Dan Rose and CO Ken Smith. They immediately took him (Steve Neal #140076) to Jackson without any medical treatment he was bleeding in the head, and face area from the kicking, hitting by both the officers. Some of the black inmates did not like what happened and Sheriff Blevins asked them if they wanted to go back to Jackson and 5 immediately went.”107 Totes went on to note, “I filed a civil complaint against the Lake County Jail for the double standard etc. that they have for black inmates here as you probably know. Hopefully you will find the time to come and talk with me.”108 Williams not only responded to Totes's request but also helped to publicize and end the mistreatment of black inmates. Including refusing prisoners food and medical treatment, poor ventilation, and watering prisoners down during the winter months and then opening the windows, the stories told by inmates and some employees to Williams were clear examples of human rights violations and abuses. In addition, Williams observed that there were poor security practices under Blevins, which resulted in three or four escapes from the county jail. However, the most disturbing incident to occur was a reported rape of a black female prisoner by a white male prisoner. The sheriff's response to the incident was that she wanted it. However, as Williams and the black community continued to question the safety of women in the county jail, Idlewild resident Debra Webb eventually told the Star that it was “a ploy intended to get something on the county in hopes of getting a lighter sentence.”109 Webb used race as an excuse to further condemn the white power structure in Baldwin. Williams's persistence to do the right thing paid off. Ultimately, the changes Williams petitioned for helped to improve the living conditions for African Americans,

and this shift was made clear with the election of Robert Hilts as sheriff. Sheriff Hilts operated in an honorable manner, acting quickly and in a manner responsive to all races when problems occurred. Although the tourism market in Idlewild had already collapsed prior to this period, African American vacationers who lived in cities spread throughout the midwestern region of the United States continued to maintain ties to the community through frequent visits and their involvement in the activities of the National Idlewilders Club.110 The National Idlewilders, consisting of middle-and working-class African Americans from different midwestern cities and states, represented by two Chicago clubs and by the Cleveland, Detroit, and Mid-Michigan clubs, pledged to organize a series of annual celebrations during the second week of August and throughout the year. Over time, these activities have undoubtedly increased the town's visibility, regionally and nationally. Page 259 → Every year after the summer of 1953, even after the civil rights victories of 1964, Idlewild has drawn a sizable pool of vacationers, who do not mind spending their money. The Idlewilders clubs, which had been important to the social fabric of seasonal life in the community, represented a valuable “pool of human resources in furthering the tasks at hand,” according to an argument presented in the Yates Township Master Plan.111 With local chapters in six cities, the National Idlewilders, the National Idlewild Lot Owners Association, and the National Idlewild Lake Association continue to call for cleanup in the town and to annually celebrate rich musical and narrative traditions the second week in August. Although the Idlewilders of 1992 were not bringing famous entertainers to the area, they hosted an array of indoor and outdoor musical activities that many who flocked to Idlewild considered lively and festive. For some, vacationing at Idlewild represents a homecoming of sorts, as the storytelling, camaraderie, and fellowship are unique. Every year, these vacationers take a trip down memory lane and relive special moments experienced there, such as the fashion shows at the Flamingo Club, the all-night parties they would attend at Hyde Park Villa and the El Morocco Club, and the parties they would host in their cottages. In addition to the camaraderie and fellowship shared, a different club each day assumes responsibility for putting on the day's and night's events. The club's activities range from grilled breakfasts to cookouts, evening parties, and late-night gatherings. At these gatherings, vacationers take the opportunity to reacquaint themselves with old friends and, in some cases, old flames. The stories told when old friends reconnect are vivid and rich in history. The narratives have probably helped more than anything else to preserve and sustain the community's musical traditions despite the previous period of socioeconomic decline.

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7 Idlewild—the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Music Festivals, Infrastructural Changes, a Historic Preservation Ceremony, and a Centennial Celebration By the fall of 1992, efforts to revitalize Idlewild were gaining momentum. In the process, however, Idlewild encountered some major setbacks and challenges that promised to jeopardize the 2012 centennial celebration. This chapter explores how the key players in this revitalization effort came together to embark on this important project and why they were convinced that Idlewild was worth restoring. The chapter also examines Idlewild's potential for reestablishing itself as a popular resort town and solidifying itself as a national treasure in the American tourism industry. Although the work of former Yates Township supervisors Phil Giles, Harry Solomon, Alfred Thomas, and Ben Winburn should be credited for planting the initial seeds for Idlewild's restoration, the Norman Burns administration set the pace for Idlewild's progress towards its centennial celebration, by supporting infrastructural changes and economic development to promote tourism. This chapter argues that four major initiatives developed as a result of the Burns administration have helped to lure tourists to Idlewild: a reintroduction of musical traditions, changes to infrastructure, new historic preservation projects, and the 2012 centennial celebration. However, despite the efforts of other elected officials, state representatives, and community residents, these initiatives may not be enough for Idlewild to sustain its accomplishments in the twenty-first century, largely due to class divisions and different opinions on what should be the identity of the town. Consequently, I shall argue, like Walker and Wilson, Page 261 → that despite the progress made over the last two decades, Idlewild suffers from a crisis of leadership, accountability, and vision that threatens its continued development and growth.

Music, Tourism, and the Social Transformation of Idlewild One of the resort's time-honored traditions is Idlewilders Week, which, as the previous chapter mentioned, continued to promote musical and narrative traditions in Idlewild. One of the most effective marketing efforts of the National Idlewilders has been to promote Idlewild-related events and activities year-round in their respective cities through the hosting of annual conclaves. For example, groups such as the Detroit Idlewilders and Cleveland Idlewilders might host a conclave or banquet near their city and invite other Idlewilder groups, city dignitaries, and relatives and friends. John O. Meeks, the founding president of the Mid-Michigan Idlewilders, was instrumental in raising the profile for these traditions. He worked with the next president, Jesse Brown, to bring the Contours to Idlewild on two different occasions. Meeks was also instrumental, through contact with entertainment attorney Gregory J. Reed and his associates, in arranging a historic tour by Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.1 With the purchase of Bill Morton's historic Morton's Motel in 1989, Meeks would introduce fresh ideas to attract newer and younger vacationers to Idlewild. The contributions Meeks made echo those of Phil Giles and Arthur Braggs, who turned Idlewild into the Las Vegas of Michigan by showcasing Idlewild as the resort capital of the United States. While Meeks is not quite in the same league as Giles and Braggs, he sought to return Idlewild to its former glory by tapping into its musical traditions. He consistently labored over a twenty-year period to revitalize Idlewild and to return it to its former glamour. Contesting the notion that Idlewild is a retirement community, Meeks bristled at the idea, stating, “When people drive 200 miles, they want food, they want recreation, they want to visit a historic place…. Would you drive 200 miles to visit a retirement home?”2 Being a visionary who saw a need to upgrade the town's motel accommodations, Meeks was creative in promoting historic Idlewild. So after he purchased the twenty-one-room Morton's Motel, the momentum began. After owning the motel for approximately three years, he closed it and began a major renovation project in the fall of 1992. Investing over two hundred thousand dollars in the renovation of the motel, Meeks began the project by installing new doors, windows, and air-conditioning, as well as a small banquet lounge, an outdoor courtyard, and a commercial kitchen. The idea was

to offer vacationers decent Page 262 → accommodations and enable small groups to prepare and serve full-course meals while celebrating in Idlewild. Meeks also acquired a series of other properties in Idlewild to accommodate the increasing number of vacationers to the resort area,3 including the Casa Blanca Hotel;4 several rental cottages; a smaller set of motels, such as Paradise Lake Motel; and the former East Meets West building. He acquired the East Meets West building during the summer of 2000, for the purpose of promoting the existing local businesses and attracting newer ones to the Lake County area, and designated it the headquarters for the Idlewild African American Chamber of Commerce (IAACC). Not only did Meeks work to revitalize the defunct chamber of commerce that was originally founded by Dr. Daniel Hale William and Phil Giles, but within a year's time, he developed a major website for the IAACC. According to an entry published on the IAACC's web page, entitled “Update: A Context for Understanding Idlewild,” the organization grew under the Meeks leadership from one to ten business members. In addition to purchasing his own businesses in Idlewild, Meeks regularly contributed funds to support community activities. At the time of these developments, the main musical entertainment in Lake County was Baldwin's Sounds from the Forest, organized by Tim Scully of World Class Jazz Productions. Sounds from the Forest regularly featured famous entertainers at the Baldwin Pavilion throughout the summer weekends and on some weeknights. For example, Scully was first to pick up and book the legendary bass player Eddie Albert Calhoun, who was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and grew up in Chicago's South Side, playing with primitive makeshift instruments.5 The history of Eddie Calhoun's career, which spanned five decades, reads like a who's who of modern music.6 His name became commonplace in jazz circles, and he became renowned for his signifying syncopated rhythms and improvisation. Working with Scully as his agent and appearing quite consistently throughout the area during the 1990–93 calendar years, Eddie Calhoun could be seen and heard outdoors, at clubs, and at fund-raisers and festivals throughout Lake, Mason, and Newaygo counties. In addition, Calhoun's All Star Blues Review, which featured some of the finest blues musicians in the Midwest, performed a combination of classical and traditional blues.7 Due to his connection with Calhoun, Scully was also able to get a number of the musicians from the All Star Blues Review to perform throughout western Michigan. Calhoun intentionally relocated to Idlewild for the purpose of revitalizing its musical traditions. He continued to work with Scully on some materials for an upcoming album and brought visibility to Lake County and Idlewild through his music and performances. He passed away in 1994 in his Idlewild cottage Page 263 → located on Paradise Lake, but not without leaving a mark that would influence the future of music and entertainment in the area. Impressed by Scully's work with Calhoun in Idlewild and Baldwin, Meeks contracted him to do for Idlewild what he had done for Baldwin. Meeks was the first business leader in the area to bring red-hot musical performances back to Idlewild. Working with Scully to book Muskegon guitarist and bluesman Rick Hicks and his band at Morton's Motel, Meeks had Idlewild rocking during one of Scully's Sounds from the Forest concerts. Hicks and his band drew a record crowd. Terrance J. Herd attended the event and reported, Lake County is becoming synonymous with good music. That music has a huge history in the area, and it was very apparent at the historic Morton Motel, in Idlewild, this past Saturday. A crowd of nearly 600 turned out for the first annual Jazz and Blues in Idlewild concert. The festivities got under way as five bus loads of “Friends of Jewel” (Wayne County Commissioner Jewel Ware), arrived in Idlewild. They had traveled from Detroit, to have a good time and answer the question: Where is Idlewild?” The crowd of 307 passengers buzzed with excitement as many of the guests shared their stories of annual trips to Idlewild, 40-years ago, with others.8 To accompany the musical entertainment, Meeks sold fish and barbecue dinners under a large tent and made space for several vendors to engage the crowd attending what he considered the best event in Idlewild in thirty-five years. But for the “Friends of Jewel,” the event represented something more, it was an opportunity to reminisce about Idlewild's glory days. Herd continues, The listeners were all ears as they were filled in on the details of fun, friends, and family picnics on Williams Island; the flamboyant attire of revelers at Phil Giles' Flamingo Club, and the music and

dancing that made Idlewild a required stop on any tour of the north. Those were the good old days, said one veteran who recalled how he used to shake a leg.9

Even with a minor rain that slightly interrupted the performance, the concert was enthusiastically received. Yates Township supervisor Donel Brown claimed that the day's “activities will lead us successfully into the future” and that it represented “a new beginning for Idlewild entertainment.”10 In addition to hosting annual music concerts at Morton's Motel, Meeks served as host and cook for an army of poets traveling to Idlewild from around the country to participate in annual Poetry in the Woods festivals. During Page 264 → the Poetry in the Woods events, which were organized by Timothy Pharaoh Muhammad, a Detroit poet, autoworker, and black nationalist, Meeks lodged and fed such notables as Dick Gregory and the New Yorkbased Last Poets. The Last Poets were known for putting spoken word to music and drums, which makes them an ideal reflection of the narrative and musical traditions of Idlewild. One of the things that kept Idlewild vibrant beyond its heyday was the memories embedded in the stories shared about Idlewild. Thus, events such as Poetry in the Woods and the various music festivals highlight Idlewild's rich narrative and musical traditions. After the collaboration between John Meeks and Tim Scully, who organized the first annual blues and jazz concert at Morton's Motel, Gad Holland, a Detroit attorney and jazz enthusiast who founded the Detroit-based Idlewild Foundation, would host three consecutive years of summer jazz festivals. Until the hosting of these festivals began in 2002, it had been thirty-five years since there were any entertainment and performances in Giles's Flamingo Club and Braggs's Paradise Club in Idlewild. The Idlewild Foundation, which consisted of twenty lawyers and other professionals, was “established as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization designed to educate the public about the unique history of Idlewild and to hopefully attract people to Idlewild.”11 The first of the three jazz festivals held was organized in August 2002. Developed two months after the blues and jazz concert at Morton's Motel, it was supported through a grant by the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Arts. The festival featured the Jazz Crusaders. The Crusaders performed their Grammy Award–winning “Street Lights” during their encore. The Los Angeles–based Crusaders were the headlining act for the event. This brought a dozen excellent bands to the area. Over twelve hundred people filled Williams Island Park to see the popular group led by Wilton Felder and Wayne Henderson.12 The second annual jazz festival, in 2003, featured vocalist Spanky Wilson, who worked and lived in Paris (Michigan), and the Jazz Crusaders, as well as the West Michigan Jazz Masters, the Guymon Ensley Quartet, Rick K. Brazil and Beyond, the Diego Rivera Quartet, the Lyman Woodard Quartet, and others. The Idlewild Historic Cultural Center played an important role during Holland's jazz festivals, offering films featuring many jazz greats, music workshops and pony rides for the children of adults attending the festival, and local transportation through a shuttle service from its parking lot to the bandstand, using Yates Township's Dial-A-Ride bus services. After the fifth annual Idlewild Independence Parade and four successful years of “jazzing up” the summer entertainment for vacationers, Holland and the Idlewild Foundation discontinued working the Idlewild festivals. Holland reasoned Page 265 → that “the freedom to travel about is taken for granted and thus, many people do not go anywhere. This is the Idlewild enigma. This explains why the only people that travel to Idlewild today are the people that own summer homes and cottages.”13 Despite the positive publicity Holland brought to Idlewild through these annual jazz festivals, he was harshly criticized by various members of the Idlewild community who claimed he was making a profit and not giving any of the earnings back to the township. Holland noted, “Musicians and entertainers performing on the chitlin circuit are relics of the past. The Flamingo Club and the Paradise Club were on that route. To compete today, we have to operate on a global perspective because the musicians are not limited to playing only on the chitlin circuit. However, it is a reality that has to be addressed if Idlewild wishes to compete on the open market.”14 The community did not seem to take into account the expenses involved in bringing to the area top-notch jazz musicians and thus assumed that the crowds each summer should have generated more direct funds for the township. These critics did not appear to understand the economic benefit to the local businesses taking advantage of the money the tourists were spending outside of the festival venue, thus spurring the local economy.

At the request of Yates Township supervisor Donel Brown, FiveCAP Inc. agreed to keep the tradition going on behalf of the township by organizing summer jazz festivals as “a marketing program to promote tourism.”15 FiveCAP, led by executive director Mary Trucks, is a multimillion-dollar private, nonprofit community action program, or what Walker and Wilson defined as an organizational space occupying “a central place in the aspirations of the Idlewild community.”16 After hosting this festival in celebration of Idlewild's musical roots, Trucks, like clubwomen Violette N. Anderson and Irene McCoy Gaines, continued to offer a forum for promoting tourism to Idlewild. Trucks offered “a stage to the entertainers and a wide range of music to the audience,”17 as the next set of annual musical festivals would eventually become another of the benchmark objectives of the Enterprise Community (EC) spearheaded by FiveCAP.18 The township saw the tourism associated with the festivals as an opportunity to spark the economy through increased lodging and purchases of goods and services. Capturing the essentials of the festivals, Mary Trucks explained, Well the music fest has been a growing success. We've seen the music fest from the first year to this year become an event, and the people plan; they're buying their tickets more in advance. The attendance is up four-fold, and it was, and, you know, it's just that it's easy. It was definitely a success. Our intent was to create an event that people could look forward to, give them a reason to come back, to come to Idlewild and celebrate Idlewild's history, its entertainment history, Page 266 → and would introduce people who had never been to Idlewild but had heard of it or maybe had not heard of it but would experience it for the first time. And this would be the draw, and it worked. People from out of town and surrounding areas, if you have an Idlewild Music Fest T-shirt, will go, “I've heard of that.” That's what we want to hear them say, or “We attended,” or “We look forward to it” or “I plan to go. I've heard that it's a good festival.” We've sold more advance tickets this year than in prior years. I definitely think that we have created an annual event, and that was our objective.19 During its heyday, Idlewild benefited from vacationers seeking recreation and respite from Jim Crow segregation. However, in more recent years, it benefited from state support and the rise of niche tourism, through which music has become a significant component marketed to tourists as part of an expanding tourist industry.20 Niche tourism highlights what is referred to as a tourist “icon,” “an abstract or tangible person, place or activity which serves as the focus of visits to tourist destinations.”21 According to Lucy L. Henke, professor of marketing and legal studies, “Music which is indigenous to a region, if successfully elevated to the level of icon, may serve to attract tourists to the site of origin of the music.”22 Business and civic leaders have found niche tourism to be useful in marketing their interests. Music tourism, as a brand of niche tourism, became increasingly popular after the death of Elvis Presley and the realization that thousands of tourists frequented Graceland annually. The hosting of these music festivals have greatly assisted organizers in rural and urban communities in terms of generating expenditures from monies spent on accommodations, transportation, employment, food, and other goods and services. Graceland generated annual revenues of three hundred to four hundred million dollars for the country music market.23 Other towns and cities across America, such as Memphis's Beale Street and Idlewild, are finding this brand of tourism useful in their attempts to market and make an economic impact on their community. In what follows, I explain the situation surrounding the hosting, organizing, and accountability of the leadership and vision behind the history of the music festivals in Idlewild, which can be seen as an attempt to celebrate both the ethnic and musical heritages there. In their essay, “Music, Tourism, and the Transformation of Memphis,” Chris Gibson and John Connell assert, “Music tourism is…one catalyst for memorializations of people and cultural movements.”24 This is exactly what is at work with the various festivals being held in Idlewild—they are attempts to remember the musical heritage of Idlewild's heyday. According to Gibson and Connell, “Even small towns have touted their cultural attractions widely, because of Page 267 → their potential economic importance and the positive image that this provides, but sometimes also because they have little else to offer.”25 This seems to be the case with Idlewild, which lacks the economic engines that other heritage tourism sites seem to successfully market. While leaders in Idlewild's businesses and community agencies, such as John Meeks and Mary Trucks, may not have been particularly versed in the framework of niche tourism, they practiced it by drawing on the town's rich musical legacy while hosting annual music concerts and festivals.

After Holland's departure from the Idlewild scene, Yates Township officials, Supervisor Donel Brown in particular, asked FiveCAP to assume responsibility for the jazz festivals, because of its earlier involvement with aspects of the festivals.26 The township wanted FiveCAP to take the lead in promoting the annual event and to provide the upfront monies. According to Trucks, When the township supervisor came to us and shared a letter that they had received from the jazz-fest thing, saying, “We need thirty thousand dollars from the community, or we will not be doing the jazzfest,” that was the motivation, and said, “Will you help us?” Now we always understood that that means would you help us in terms of the organizational support that we need in terms of the financial advance of the funds in order to make this go, because with the music fest you basically are going to pay 50 percent of your cost months in advance…. We understood what they were asking of us, so we did it, because it was consistent with the EC benchmark which said that we were going to create an event that drew people to Idlewild and back to Lake County…. We were able to create some jobs and paid some of the local people to work during the festival. We even offered to local people who wanted to be vendors, if they were a nonprofit organization, church, or whatever, we would give them a free space for the first few years to come in and use that event too, as either a private person or an organization, to make money.27 The 2005 and 2006 Idlewild Music Festival committees, which consisted of Trucks, Donel Brown, Freddie Mitchell, Denise Bellamy, John Meeks, Mabel Williams, Esther Ward, and Vedra Gant, were financially supported by Deborah Smith-Olson, president and CEO of Lake-Osceola State Bank, and by the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs Mini-Grant Program administered by the Arts Council of Greater Grand Rapids. This support developed as a result of the fact that there was an increase in attendance and vendor participation over the previous festivals.28 Hundreds of music fans flocked to Williams Island to attend the 2005 Idlewild Jazz Fest, which presented “a wide variety of Page 268 → styles from the Latin sound of Juan Daniel Castro's Bolero Jazz Project to harpist Onita Sanders.”29 In addition to the performances of the headliners, the legendary pianist Mose Allison, saxophonist Eric Alexander, and trumpet/flügel-horn phenomenon Jeremy Pelt appeared. Although there was no gate count available, organizers and observers “agreed that numbers were well above those of the first two [2003 and 2004] jazz festivals” organized by Holland and the Idlewild Foundation.30 “What we're trying to do is pay tribute to those who preceded us by recognizing what they've done and put[ting] their name in light so people get a good idea of Idlewild.”31 An article appearing as a follow-up to the event in the Lake County Star displayed a photo gallery of the performers and their performances on Williams Island. The performers included the Grand Rapids-based Bolero Jazz Project, the Billy Foster Trio, and Carl Cafagna.32 Using a form of niche tourism as a draw, the new committee marketed the music festival by capitalizing on the history of the town as a way to attract tourists in a rapidly expanding Michigan tourist industry. During the summer of 2006, Idlewild had two festivals: the third annual Idlewild Jazz Festival, organized by Holland, and the Idlewild with a New Attitude Festival, sponsored by Meeks at Morton's Motel. The Idlewild Jazz Festival, which attracted an enthusiastic audience, featured jazz, blues, soul, and R & B bands. As the Lake County Star reported, “The show got under way with strong performances from two well-known local talents: Doll Fox and Torrey Warren, who wowed the crowd with their strong vocal interpretations.”33 The “Bottom Line Blues Band,” “Sounds of the Motor City,” and “Priscilla Price and the Pocket Band—all of who weighed in with strong sets had ticket-holders clapping and cheering. The dynamic Price, long a favorite with Idlewild insiders, brought fans to their feet with her signature style, while people lucky enough to remember the great days of Motown reveled in a red-hot look back at some of the best top-40's hits of the Twentieth Century, including songs by the Temptations, the Four Tops, the Supremes, and Stevie Wonder.” Others, including the blues quartet Catnip Blues, Organissimo, Johnny Reed and the Houserockers, and Root Doctor “continued with their own high-power blues and soul renditions.”34 Although it is difficult to determine the number of tickets sold, the Yates Township supervisor and festival committee spokesperson added, “We recouped our investment through ticket sales.”35 The second festival, a one-day event at Morton's Motel that occurred a month earlier, “featured top west Michigan talent. Grand Rapids' singer Mary Rademacher teamed up with trumpeter ‘Sweet’ Willie Singleton and the Mark Kahny Band to delight a crowd of 400 who gathered on the motel grounds to enjoy fine food, vendors and great music.”36 This festival, which was sponsored by the Idlewild African Page 269 → American Chamber of

Commerce, reflected Meeks's view that entertainment draws tourists and that tourists help to spur economic development. Having regularly vacationed in Idlewild during its heyday, Meeks believes music should be not a special event in the town but an engaging occurrence. Thus, Meeks once again teamed up with Scully, who was able to book Rademacher, since she was already in town “to play her annual gig at Sounds from the Forest.”37 Up to this point, the official Idlewild Music Festival was coordinated and supported by local business leaders, the nonprofit community, and the faith community of Lake County. While this degree of community support is commendable, the festival lacked significant corporate sponsorship, a symbol of success when festival experts are consulted. For example, Stephen A. King notes in his study of blues festivals that most blues festivals are funded by corporate sponsors, local businesses, and individual contributors and that corporate sponsors might account for at least 50 percent of some festival operating expenses.38 Although unable to attract this level of support, the festival grew as the relatively small business community contributors in Lake County expanded. To encourage continued support from local businesses, the festival offered food services, vendors, and music for everyone. Some Idlewild business owners sold brats, hot dogs, and barbecue ribs. Others prepared deep-fried fish, jerk chicken, curry pork, and goat with red beans and/or peas. Road Runners Variety Store and other local businesses, such as the Red Rooster Lounge and Morton's Motel, significantly benefited from the pool of people attending the festivals, as tourists made purchases in their establishments before and after the festival ended. Trucks explains, “We also understood that…there was going to be an economic benefit for them and we also understood that it was an economic benefit for Baldwin. And the people on the main-street of Baldwin will tell you that they economically benefitted from that music fest.”39 In addition, the music festival committee opened each celebration with a free gospel extravaganza. By providing a variety of music styles, the committee achieved two important objectives. First, they fulfilled public funding requirements by including a free public event as part of the music festival. Second, they expanded their listening audience. The fourth annual Idlewild Jazz Festival in 2007 opened with a variety of gospel sounds, including the choir of the First Baptist Church of Woodland Park. The weekend ended with headliner Ramona Collins, who was accompanied by the Kris Johnson Music Ensemble. Collins not only established “an intimate rapport with the crowd as she entered and exited the stage” but also demonstrated musical genius as she performed such classic hits as “Watermelon Man” and “Body and Soul.”40 The electric and acoustic guitars of the Gary Tu Trio set the mood for the weekend festival. The Chicago Samba, a Brazilian Page 270 → band, followed these performances by introducing their signature Caribbean Carnival sounds and their red-hot dancing styles.41 The fifth annual Idlewild Music Fest in 2008 featured the legendary blues singer Bobby Rush and at least seven other musical artists, including the Ark Band, Johnny Reed and the Houserockers, Lady Sunshine and the X Band, and a group known as Daybreak. Capitalizing on the soul genre, the R & B Station and Maurice Davis took center stage. Shelia Landis and the Brazilian Love Affair and the Funkilinium rocked Williams Island just moments before Rush ended the festival with a set of magnificent blues performances. The theme used to promote the sixth annual festival in 2009, “Rediscovering Musical Roots,” attracted “bus loads of visitors from far away as Ohio,” as well as local and regional music enthusiasts, “with the sounds of rhythm and blues, jazz and soul.”42 Onstage for the two-day event were Lavel Jackson, Fernando Jones, Joe McBride, and the Noteworthy Soul Band, which were followed by Organissimo, the Tricia Moore Quartet, Marvin Sease, Root Doctor, and Maurice Davis.43 Although some performers were amateurs, the crowds seemed to Page 271 → have enjoyed the performances. In addition, the youth benefited significantly from the personal contact and lessons from the artists during the workshop at the cultural center. More than five thousand spectators had attended the annual festival, which represented a threefold increase in attendance. The music festivals continued the summer after the 2008 election of a new supervisor, George Walker. The pressing question those working through FiveCAP posed concerning the new supervisor was whether the new leadership would support them. Over the last six years, the music festival had benefited from a constant flow of growth without FiveCAP requesting any upfront money from the township. Despite this positive track record, Mary Trucks was concerned about rumors: “We had people saying, ‘Well now we should rent the Island to the music festival people.’ So I called the supervisor and said, ‘Are you going to give us the same support? If not, then

we will not be able to go forward with the festival.’ At some point he [Walker] came back and said, ‘Will you do it again?’ So we said we would do it again.”44 However, despite this conversation and FiveCAP's previous success, there would be a change in the committee leadership. The committee for the seventh annual music festival met and decided “that local people (whether trained or not) should organize the event. The township no longer needed FiveCAP's help.”45 With this change in leadership, the Walker administration ended Yates Township's relationship with FiveCAP. The leading source of support for the township's infrastructural changes, who also met music festival objectives, simply responded to Supervisor Walker's decision to end the progressive partnership with FiveCAP, the fifth-largest community action program in Michigan under Title II of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, by commenting, I know from many years of working with communities that things go in cycles, and I call it moving into the dark ages when after a while things change, you know, the players change. When the players change and new people come on board, they have their own ideas. Some people are just against progress because they didn't think of it. Whatever, but when the players change, you are either going to lose support or gain support. With FiveCAP we took advantage of a progressive cycle.46 Although FiveCAP did not completely exit the scene, the composition of the committees for the seventh and eighth annual festivals did change. Along with the dismissal of FiveCAP, Executive Director Mary Trucks, Deborah Smith-Olson,47 and John Meeks were not reappointed and did not serve as members of the committee. Committee member Denise Bellamy of Road Runners Page 272 → Variety Store, who had been with the festival's organizing committee since the beginning, was elevated to serve as the chair. Although Bellamy was an experienced member of the committee, she lacked the professional staff support that Trucks had through FiveCAP to assist with securing contracts for artists, developing marketing materials, and other important aspects of discharging her duties. More importantly, with the dismissal of FiveCAP, the township no longer had the infrastructural capacity related to upfront expenses of the festival. The township had never had to support the festival financially until the seventh annual festival. With the appointment of Bellamy as festival planning chair, a loan of ten thousand dollars was awarded to the Lake County Merrymakers, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, on behalf of the committee for the seventh annual festival. This, on top of 25,000 dollars through state of Michigan support, enabled the committee to ensure the return of the Noteworthy Soul Band, Priscilla Price, Joe McBride, Ed Stone and the Flowmasters, the Tricia Moore Quartet, Robin Stone, and T. J. Hooker-Taylor.48 The Lake County Star did not report exactly how many people attended the 2010 annual July event, although the seventh annual music festival was advertised as “big” and “better than ever.”49 However, attendance was significantly lower for the seventh annual music festival than it had been for the fifth and sixth music festivals. That Williams Island was spacious signified fewer vendors and lower attendance, yet the township continued to financially support the new festival committee. The township board contributed additional funds to support the eighth annual festival, designating the funds once again as a loan to the Lake County Merrymakers. Along with contracting organizational support from a promotional company in the Detroit area, the festival committee repeated the lineup from the seventh annual musical event, with the exception of the Reality Band, Kevin Collins, Freddie Cunningham, and Serieux.50 A week following the Fourth of July weekend celebration, the eighth annual music festival was reported as a “rousing triumph…. as enthusiastic crowds assembled on Williams Island for great performances and wonderful community spirit.”51 Only one thousand tickets sold, yet the Lake County Star reported that “visitors to Idlewild came from as far away as Ohio, Illinois, Kansas and even Nevada,” with four buses “chartered from Detroit,” to see “several outstanding bands and the First Baptist of Woodland Park Youth Choir.”52 Cappy Beins Fischbach of the Lake County Star also reported a repeat of the artists from the previous year's performance. Lady Sunshine's “no-holds-barred rendition of ‘You been steppin’ out while someone else been steppin in' drew waves of raves from the [Baby Boomer] audience.”53 The festival ended with a wonderful display of colorful fireworks over Idlewild Lake. Page 273 →

Although the local event was modestly successful, the township and the organizers from the initial festival committee encountered community opposition regarding the hosting of the annual music festivals on Williams Island, because of concerns over street closures. Trucks explains, “You go to Taste of Chicago and they close down streets all over the place and we can't close down one little street for two days to benefit the community? But it's got to be done.”54 This dissatisfaction with the committee's preparation for the music festivals unfolded as some residents with different philosophies about the community's identity voiced their opinions. There were essentially three different factions in the community: some who saw Idlewild as a resort community, others who saw it as a retirement community, and yet another group who saw it as an Eden-like community. Each of these groups of residents had different visions of how to redevelop Idlewild: as an entertainment resort, a sanctuary for retirees, or an undeveloped rural resort town.55

Infrastructural Changes and Developments Yates Township supervisor Norman Burns, whose term began immediately following the election on November 2, 1992, took great pride in acknowledging his role in setting the stage for John Meeks's renovation of Morton's Motel and establishing the foundation to restore Idlewild. In Burns's opinion, there had been a lot of people coming up to Idlewild and talking about what they were going to do, but one person “followed through and completed exactly what he said he was going to: John Meeks, who purchased the motel and put a lot of money in that investment. And now he's seeing it pay off for himself.”56 When Meeks said that he would never get his money back if he lived to be one hundred years old, Burns responded, “Well, you're going on seventy-eight years old and you're seeing your investment being paid for. How does that feel?” According to Burns, Meeks said, “It feels good. If Idlewild had not gotten all cleaned up and everything, I would have never gotten my money back from the purchase of the property.” Burns said, “That's right.”57 For Burns, it was not only clear that Meeks was making a difference through his investment in the community. As the new supervisor, Burns defined the work of his administration as restoring the town fiscally. It was under Burns's leadership that the township's attention turned toward paying off debts and away from building projects and unnecessary purchases. By focusing on managing the township budget, removing blight, renovating and selling existing vacant township properties, and working to increase community pride among the residents and business community, Burns Page 274 → was reversing the damage done under the Bullett administration and also creating a promising future for Idlewild. Discussing some of the specific details surrounding his decisions and efforts to improve township services and to support business leaders interested in redevelopment, Burns states, I took office in November 1992. I'll never forget it in all my life. There were debts. There were bills to be paid, like the policemen and the hourly rate people who worked for Yates Township, plus the elected officers' salaries of $3,800, and there was only $350 in the bank. I said, ‘How on earth can I ever do this?’ Well, it just so happened that some state revenue check come in. I think it was probably about eight or nine thousand dollars, something like that, which covered those bills. There was not one record in the office. It was a blank office, and my wife, Marilyn Burns, had been working for the township, for Audrey Bullett, for at least six years at that time, so she knew where some things could be found. Katherine Pore was the clerk. Eloise Wilson was the treasurer, and she gave me no help at all. Katherine helped a little, but if it wasn't for my wife, Marilyn, there wouldn't have been anyone in the office who would have known where to find important records.58 Despite the limited cooperation Burns received from some of the existing township officials, his efforts to improve the financial standing of the township proved successful. Burns, whose uncle was former supervisor Alfred Thomas, worked in Grand Rapids as an apprentice carpenter for General Motors before serving as township supervisor. A longtime seasonal resident in the area, Burns had a summer cottage in Idlewild for nearly forty years before eventually purchasing his lakeside property, and while in semiretirement, he operated a small construction business. At the end of his first term in office, Burns had managed to balance the township's budget and upgrade the response time of the fire department. Into his second four-year term, the Burns administration continued to repair roads and install streetlights, as well as oversee rehabilitation and demolition of over twenty-five houses, removal of nearly eight junk cars, and the installation of

a new waste transfer station. Many vacant properties belonged to Dr. America Nelson and had been a problem for the township due to their state of decay. Because Nelson had failed to pay nearly six years of tax assessment fees and other debts, some of her property, such as the Casa Blanca Hotel, were auctioned off by the state of Michigan. The Casa Blanca was sold to Sandra Joubert through one of the state's tax auctions, and then Joubert sold the hotel to Meeks. To save the historic site, Meeks Page 275 → cleaned the interior, boarded up all the windows, and removed many of the unattended trees and debris surrounding the exterior of the property.59 Other properties formerly owned by Nelson had also been purchased, which made Burns very happy, as the unmanaged property had been a detriment to the community. The accomplishments achieved under Burns ensured a successful second four-year term but did not prevent some criticisms of the administration. As Burns's position as supervisor was coming to an end, he was confronted with questions from a group of residents known as the Concerned Citizens about the monitoring of the Yates Township transfer station, Lincoln Park, the sewer project, a communications tower, and a Yates Township fire truck. Julia M. Carr, one of the leaders of the group, went so far as to submit an open letter to the Lake County Star. Labeling an agreement reached with Trucks concerning the sale of tax-reverted land to FiveCAP as a “sweetheart deal,” Carr tagged the agreement as “a financial disaster” for the residents. Carr's letter referenced the township's agreement to sell Lincoln Park to FiveCAP for one dollar in order to develop Duvernay Park Apartments. The land deeded for Lincoln Park was designed to be used as a park for perpetuity; however, when Burns sold the property to FiveCAP, the promise of another park in its place was abandoned. Idlewild, which is situated in a mixed-income township, is as diverse demographically as it is socially. Despite census accounts of Yates Township as below the poverty line, I rely on data other than a government-sponsored statistical account. Like Andrew Billingsley, I take a wholistic perspective with respect to an accounting of the class of the people living in the community. This “takes into account the totality of African American family life” in the town,60 which includes the income status of diverse seasonal and year-round family structures. According to the 2000 census, there are approximately 714 year-round residents, with an average of 308 households residing in Yates Township. The median income for a household was $20,417, while the median income for a family was $25,179. Of the 186 families, the per capita income was $13,570. About 27.7 percent of families and 30.6 percent of the population live below the poverty line, including 53 percent of those under age eighteen and 10.7 percent of residents age sixty-five or over.61 The racial makeup of the township's population was 51.26 percent white and 42.02 percent African American in 2000. Of the 308 households in the township, 24.7 percent had children under the age of eighteen living with them, 40.9 percent were married couples living together, 15.9 percent were femaleheaded households, and 39.3 percent were considered nonfamilies. The average household size was 2.3, and the average family size was 2.86. Despite these findings, a majority of middle-class residents who are seasonal residents live around either Idlewild Lake or Paradise Lake. Based on Page 276 → these results, the income background of Idlewild's seasonal and year-round residents, as opposed to the number of residents of Yates Township, suggests that Idlewild is a mixed-income middle-and-low-income-class rural town. A number of recent manuscripts investigate how differences in urban and suburban African American neighborhoods unfold as well as the changing patterns of race and class conflicts within them. In my reading of the contemporary urban studies of Mary Pattillo, Michelle Boyd, and Derek Hyra, an intriguing alignment of an Idlewild-Chicago-Harlem connection for redevelopment in a rural area emerges. Drawing examples from Pattillo's Black on the Block, Boyd's Jim Crow Nostalgia, and Hyra's The New Urban Renewal, which systematically examine some of the challenges and consequences of redevelopment in Chicago's North Kenwood, Oakland, and Bronzeville Districts and in New York's Harlem, I attempt to illustrate how similar patterns involving race and class conflicts and divisions revolving around redevelopment of community resources are occurring in vacation areas such as rural Idlewild. These redevelopment initiatives in the three black urban neighborhoods are useful models for understanding how class conflicts and divisions are intensified in Idlewild over community resources. By referencing these scholarly works, I am electing to revisit some critical issues of race and class to frame the contemporary history of Idlewild.

Although the successful infrastructural changes and economic development projects in Idlewild have not resulted in any form of gentrification as of this date, some of the complex issues surrounding its revitalization and historical preservation efforts are related to problems occurring in the 1990s in low-income inner-city black neighborhoods that have been documented by Pattillo, Boyd, and Hyra in discussions on intraracial class conflicts and divisions among mixed classes of African American residents in Chicago's North Kenwood-Oakland and Douglas-Grand Boulevard neighborhoods and in New York's Harlem neighborhood. By pointedly highlighting “the pivotal frontline role that middle class African Americans”62 played in transforming the life experiences of one of Chicago's lower-class African American neighborhoods, Pattillo focuses on gentrification, class stratification, and community formation, to describe the troubling neighborhood in terms of the “politics of blackness and the politics of cities in which African Americans are asserting their rights and wants.”63 Pattillo concludes that black middlemen and middlewomen play the role of arbiters in negotiations between the powerless and the powerful over changing dynamics surrounding the concepts of racial uplift and respectability. Pattillo, whose work develops from Frazier's Black Bourgeoisie (1957) and Wilson's Truly Disadvantaged (1982), points Page 277 → to the behavior, positively and/or negatively, of middlemen and middlewomen who work alternatively to mediate or exacerbate racial and class inequality in mixed-income black neighborhoods. By focusing on the leadership behavior of Yates Township supervisors from the Burns administration to Walker's administration and other leaders as black middlemen and middlewomen, I seek to understand some of the complications of race and class in rural politics, involving many appointed committee chairpersons and individuals who agreed with whatever Supervisor Walker requested of them out of loyalty and fear, rather than positioning themselves as independent thinkers and voting and governing as honest and committed policymakers and with a unique set of engaging ideas that would encourage tourism and long-term economic development. Similarly, by using the Douglas-Grand Boulevard neighborhood in Chicago as another model for understanding racial uplift, class divisions and conflicts in Idlewild, and the restoration of historic structures, I draw on Boyd's Jim Crow Nostalgia to discuss a similar pattern occurring around issues of race, class, and economic justice with respect to designating concepts of community identity and tourism. In Yates Township, there are class-based tensions, like in Bronzeville, concerning some of its residents and the supervisor's leadership, accountability, and vision. In Bronzeville, as Boyd points out, the “dilemma of intraracial division is…not new,” and “black elites have consistently attributed the problem of white racism to the improper social behavior of the poor.”64 One dominant view of the impact of racial segregation, deteriorating housing conditions, increased unemployment, and an overabundance of displaced workers is that the leadership class attributes blame to the well-deserving poor and creates new opportunities for “urban gentrification projects”65 that benefit upper-income white investors as opposed to black entrepreneurs. The direction in which the township leadership is heading prompts the same community reactions and perceptions about racial uplift and the recognition, designation, and preservation of important historic sites and structures. In addition to identifying some class-based inner-city residential attitudes involving redevelopment, Hyra also explores the actions of middle-class power brokers and the powerlessness and fights of lower-class residents concerning the subject of community improvements. Hyra investigates “the role intraracial class antagonism plays in the economic development of [these] inner-city areas.”66 His study illustrates the extent and the impact of intraracial class antagonism and mobilization “in shaping the landscape of today's inner cities.”67 In acknowledging how most urban areas undergoing redevelopment experience “an influx of white residents”68 and how the cities of “Harlem and Bronzeville are revitalizing without drastic racial changeover,”69 Hyra argues, Page 278 → Class antagonism is important to the redevelopment of these communities. The attitudes and beliefs of the black middle class translate into political actions associated with rising property values and the displacement of the black underclass. Middle-class African Americans—those who have lived in these communities for some time and new arrivals—are creating and reinvigorating institutions and organizations that make community improvements coincide with their preferences.70 Hyra's argument suggests that middle-class African Americans in these urban communities tend to “dominate various local organizations and institutions.” However, in rural communities such as Idlewild, it is the middle-

class African American leaders who tend to dominate township boards, social clubs, nonprofit organizations, community action agencies, and “religiously affiliated community development corporations, which are critical to the development process.”71 What is most instructive about Hyra's findings is that although some of the middleclass members of these organizations tend to be sympathetic toward the needs of working-class and underclass residents, other members tend to be “more concerned with community improvements than with mentoring and supporting members of the underclass in their neighborhood.”72 In Idlewild, there tends to be common agreement with community improvements. However, another one of Hyra's findings suggests that middle-class residents tend to serve as “dominant political forces in these communities.”73 Forecasting Idlewild's past and future and the meaning of redevelopment in a rural resort town, middle-class middlemen and middlewomen tend to dominate the political scene in Yates Township. By recognizing the aspirations of middle-class African American leaders as insider perpetrators and identifying working- and lower-class members as victims of marginalization, this discussion brings greater clarity to commonalities shared by some of the residents of the urban landscape of Bronzeville and Harlem and in rural Idlewild. As increasing numbers of upper-class African Americans obtain positions in institutions, Boyd warns communitybased stakeholders of the dangers ahead as some middle-class leaders elect to pursue individual desires for wealth or have a limited vision of collective racial uplift and progress. This nostalgic vision of black identity and neighborhood revitalization of the Douglas-Grand Boulevard community of Chicago's Bronzeville links “the place-marketing strategy that Bronzeville coalition members used” to some current revitalization efforts in Yates Township. Under Yates Township's former leadership, the Walker administration, the dominant topics raised during township meetings tended to center around the town's reemergence as a unique tourist destination in Michigan Page 279 → and reveal how efforts to encourage tourism, economic development, and revitalization tend to result in class conflicts, tensions, and divisions. Idlewild, just like Bronzeville as marketed through the tools of heritage tourism, becomes a site of tension and conflict, and Boyd informs us of how community elites used history to promote a unified racial front when their efforts actually resulted in “intraracial class conflicts.”74 The criticisms mounted by Julia Carr and others came despite the fact that the township's vision for social change was being partially implemented, which points to another problem surrounding redevelopment in Idlewild. For nearly three decades, Yates Township had been struggling with an overabundance of people living below the poverty line, lack of quality housing, limited employment opportunities, an aging or nonexistent infrastructure, and a fairly large human services gap. However, Burns's partnership with Mary Trucks of FiveCAP would represent a major development opportunity for the Idlewild community. As the partnership talks developed, FiveCAP worked with the township toward improving its infrastructure. Understanding the critical purpose that FiveCAP served, to motivate the poor through public and private resources, Burns took great pride in the achievements that were being made with that organization's help: “Our work with FiveCAP helped us to achieve economical and social independence through a wide range of community services it provides, including affordable quality housing for low- and moderate-income persons in the area.”75 Burns had recognized the extent to which FiveCAP could act as both an advocate and administrator for Idlewild; it had served over forty programs that promoted self-sufficiency for families and individuals in Lake, Manistee, Mason, and Newaygo counties, while utilizing federal, state, and local resources to assist in their efforts. FiveCAP also had plans to evaluate long- and short-range programs for residents of Lake County, which would benefit Idlewild. FiveCAP's executive director, Mary Trucks, was a catalyst for the development of a series of other major infrastructural initiatives in Lake County. She acquired the Federal Enterprise Community zone designation for Lake County, the first such designation in rural Michigan. This federal designation had been crafted specifically for rural communities experiencing pervasive poverty. Establishing a board consisting of community leaders, a cross section of business owners, civic leaders, and residents, FiveCAP was responsible for leading a series of initiatives, over a course of fifteen years, with “focused community effort, hard work, dedication and inspiration.”76 Although the U.S. Department of Agriculture provided the overall support for the Enterprise Community projects that FiveCAP led, most of the federal funding opportunities were developed through Page 280 → the Office of Community Services under the Department of Health and Human Services. The federal designation of Lake County as an Enterprise Community essentially led to the installation of a two-phase sewer

system, brought natural gas to the area, aided the building of affordable housing and the renovation of a permanent historic cultural center, to encourage tourism, economic development, and the construction of the $2.4 million Duvernay Park Apartments. Midway into the ten-year strategic plan, FiveCAP and the Lake County Enterprise Community (LCEC) submitted a proposal, known as the Lake County Homes Initiative 2002, and was awarded one of eighty-one grants in the amount of half a million dollars to secure fifty housing sites. In announcing this award, “HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo said such programs help the residents of rural America become participants instead of spectators in our nation's booming economy.”77 In the short time span following the announcement of the Enterprise Community Empowerment Zone (ECEZ) opportunity, an enormous amount of community action planning and efforts occurred. Through the determined work of FiveCAP, the Lake County Enterprise Zone (LCEZ) board, its local partners in Baldwin and Webber, and two administrations of Yates Township, the strategic planning committee developed a set of “benchmarks [that] were organized in[to] three principle areas: Economic Development, Affordable Housing, and Human Services.”78 These community-based initiatives essentially resulted in a successful application, which earned them a grant of three million dollars. The LCEZ's final report highlights an impressive list of accomplishments and improvements that were set into motion for critical infrastructural projects in Lake County during the years between 1994 and 2009. FiveCAP not only led the initiative to get the Enterprise Zone funding but also made a very serious commitment to developing Idlewild so that it would be on par with the village of Baldwin as a desirable place to live and vacation, as well as a desirable place to make some kind of economic investments. For example, the sewer project, materializing as a result of an initial agreement made between the Wackenhut Youth Correctional Facility, Webber Township elected officials, and the village of Baldwin, benefited the residents of Yates Township.79 Like the sewer project, the development of natural gas lines, another benchmark of the EC strategic plan, provided employment opportunities for the residents. According to Yates supervisor Norman Burns, the development of natural gas lines emerged as “people went above and beyond duty to get it accomplished.”80 However, bringing the sewer system, natural gas, the cultural center, and affordable housing to Yates Township did not come without criticisms from various Page 281 → local community sources, which suggests a resistance to change and the manner in which it was being implemented. Trucks explains, We brought in natural gas. We not only wrote the grant, we paid for it, and it cost nothing to the township to bring natural gas there. The same people who opposed the first phase of the sanitary sewage system, they opposed the natural gas and they opposed the scattered single-family housing which is some of the most beautiful in Idlewild. But most people, many people I should say, who are against things don't know when they have acted against their own self-interest.81 Despite the mounting criticisms resulting from these initiatives and the internal conflicts coming from the residents and some township officials regarding the multimillion-dollar investments, Trucks labored to bring sustainable projects to Idlewild. The criticism heightened as some of these projects were actualized, particularly the cultural center, as “a threepronged Enterprise Community initiative aimed at utilizing the Idlewild experience to develop a convention center, end-destination spot for tourists, and a vibrant community center.”82 The lack of a shared vision regarding the use of the newly renovated Idlewild Historic Cultural Center unfolded when certain members of the Friends of Historic Idlewild wanted the facility to be open year-round for workshops in line dancing as opposed to being a museum-like cultural center for tourists. Contextualizing the conflicts FiveCAP encountered from community residents and members of the organization, Trucks notes, And you know some people who were opposed to this improvement of the cultural center do not want to support it and will not support it financially. They want to be able to treat it as if it is a public building that they can use for free. That's their big issue, and, you know, that's not an education issue. That's just one of those issues where you have your point of view but it's not the reality.83

FiveCAP was able not only to obtain the cultural center but also to renovate and expand it. The purchase of Lincoln Park, involving another sort of tension, enabled FiveCAP and the EC board to bring affordable housing to Idlewild through the building of the Duvernay Park Apartments. The way certain members of the community felt about that expense increased their criticisms of Trucks and the FiveCAP/EC efforts. Responding to some of this criticism, Trucks states, Page 282 → Duvernay Park Apartments is a beautiful facility meeting a great need in the community. Most of the residents are people from Idlewild. The second largest group moved from the Baldwin area. This was unheard, people moving from Baldwin to Idlewild. And a few tenants moved to the area from out of area. Many people say that they feel fortunate to be able to find quality housing in Lake County and Idlewild. We built single-family houses, multifamily rentals, natural gas, sanitary sewer, the Music Fest, and, of course, the Idlewild Historic and Cultural Center, and a business loan to bring a store to Idlewild again. We are gratified to have been the motivation and inspiration for other state and local individuals to work to bring Idlewild back to a vibrant community.84 The twenty-four-unit housing development, which was named in honor of the late Terrence R. Duvernay, former head of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, offered two- and three-bedroom apartments “with a blend of carefree living and convenience.”85 The convenience included mini-blinds, dishwashers, frost-free refrigerators, central air-conditioning, individual washers and dryers, balconies, cable television hookups, and other amenities. This costly development fulfilled one of the goals of the EC strategic plan: to provide affordable housing in Idlewild. Illuminating another complaint Trucks received for developing the multimillion-dollar complex in the village, former Yates Township trustee Willie Ross describes the agreement in these terms: Duvernay apartments were built on the old Lincoln Park. The agreement was that it would be built there but we would get equal value in land, but not just in land but that it would be a park. Then there was a pumping station for the sewer station that was built on the property without the board's consent. Donel Brown signed the paperwork that we would take care of that and that we would be there. Well, they want us to pay. They will pay the electric bill, but they want us to maintain the pumping station, and if a generator or anything goes bad, we would replace that. Well she doesn't pay taxes per say. If all of her apartments are full, she pays this amount. But if any of them are not full, are empty, she pays a greatly reduced rate, which I do not feel is proper. I have a home here, I have a place here, people have businesses here, they pay taxes. We have yet, Duvernay has been over there 7, 8, 9 years, and we have yet to get the land for the park. There is no park. She has yet to come through.86 As Ross describes the situation with FiveCAP, he refers to Mary Trucks as if she were FiveCAP. This interchanging of Trucks with her position as executive director of FiveCAP fed into some of the community's existing hostility Page 283 → toward Trucks, as they saw her as being too powerful and not keeping her word. Despite the criticism surrounding the completion of projects, some newer members of the township agreed with the projects once they could see some successful results. Trucks noted that once FiveCAP brought in affordable single-family housing and the Idlewild Historic Cultural Center, other people wanted not only to become involved but to take the lead. As Idlewild's dream of revitalization was materializing, Yates Township supervisor Donel Brown, who was equipped with a balanced budget and a surplus of funds from the Burns administration, witnessed the seeds for a partnership with FiveCAP and a new partnership with the state being planted during his first and second terms. An initial million-dollar investment was provided by the state's former Department of History, the Arts, and Libraries (HAL) through a USDA and National Park Service Preserve America Grant for cultural revitalization, historical preservation, and tourism and economic development. Brown, a 1995 retired employee for Michigan Consolidated Gas Company in Muskegon, relocated to Idlewild on a full-time basis with his wife. Before the couple moved to Idlewild, Brown had some knowledge about the area through his wife's parents, who lived there. After serving as a trustee for four years, Brown was prompted to run for supervisor because of his belief “that if you feel that there is

something not being done…you should get involved and try to help to see that it happens.”87 When Burns opted not to run for reelection, Brown chose to run because of his concern regarding what direction the township might take under other leadership. One of the critical concerns that motivated Brown's run for office was the dispute regarding the sewer system. Although some residents requested septic tanks in preference to a sewer system, Brown believed that it was “forward thinking to put in a sewer because everyone in this community recognizes that one of our greatest assets is our water. The lake and its health is what this community is basically about.”88 Brown was also concerned about the housing situation, particularly housing problems resulting from absentee owners who did not comply with township ordinances. He notes, “Many residents were paying good money to landlords with poorly maintained properties. They were paying as much to those landlords as they would pay for the new apartments that we have.”89 For Brown, tackling the landlord problem was one of the avenues for improving housing conditions for the residents and, in turn, beautifying the community. After Brown's first term in office, he offered the following assessment: “We've done the things that we said we were going to do, as we were working on increasing decent housing and ridding ourselves of the dilapidated properties, bringing entertainment for family use, where possible, and we've done that through the Page 284 → festivals that we've had.”90 In essence, Brown continued the work of the Burns administration, but not without some shortcomings. Brown's concerns with the housing crisis, which had developed during the Burns administration, were met with mounting criticisms from some residents. Brown boasted that his administration had an open-door policy. I think one major thing that has taken place…is there was a change in attitude of the people and how they felt about the area. Before there was not a great deal of communication between property owners, and we think we've changed that. We have established an open-door policy in the township, and people are free to come in and seek information and just ask questions and spend time talking to the people that work here.91 The residents did in fact meet with Brown in the township office on numerous occasions. The members of several educational institutions, including West Shore Community College, Ferris State University,92 Eastern Michigan University, and Grand Valley State University, found great satisfaction in working with Brown as the supervisor. Trucks also worked very closely and quite effectively with the Brown administration, putting some of the finishing touches on infrastructural projects and housing developments. In fact, while FiveCAP addressed the need for affordable housing, the Brown administration focused on inadequate housing due to absentee homeowners. According to Brown, some of the properties that were built in the 1940s and ’50s were abandoned and slowly deteriorating. The township sought to respond to resident complaints about the dilapidated buildings by securing grants to demolish these buildings. While these efforts were partially successful, the housing situation continued to be a source of frustration for the Brown administration; however, the administration did achieve some success by continuing the township's partnership with the LCEZ. Some of the priorities set forth in the original Enterprise Community planning document had been successfully addressed, including developing a marketing program to promote tourism in Lake County, managing a permanent historic cultural center, implementing a strategic plan that provided critical assistance to public education through a mileage campaign, bringing a water sewage system and natural gas, and creating a Head Start program at the Robert F. Williams Community and Family Service Center. Vedra Gant, executive director of Yates Township's Dial-A-Ride and board member of the former EC, expressed her concern about the end of the EC as follows: Page 285 → When nothing else was moving in this area, the Enterprise Community was doing projects. There was consistent planning going on, strategic moves were being made and plenty of community building activity was happening. Even without the EC designation we need to focus on keeping Lake County moving. With the EC we learned valuable lessons around priority. Sometimes it might be your priority, sometimes it might be mine but the decisions had to be around a benefit for the whole community.93

Before phase 1 of the EC designation had been completed, a project that took ten years of hard work, the LCEZ board, under the leadership of Mary Trucks, managed to get a five-year extension to continue its work, which eventually ended on December 20, 2009. The LCEC federal designation may have ended in 2009, but their efforts continued through the establishment of the Lake County Coalition for Economic Progress (LCCEP), a group that included those formerly on the LCEC board of directors. The goal of the LCCEP was to promote tourism and economic development throughout Lake County. One of their priority areas of investment was Idlewild's Historic Cultural Center. News quickly spread about a proposal that LCCEP submitted to the Yates Township Planning and Zoning Commission to expand a parking lot and to construct an outside exhibit as an added tourist attraction for the Idlewild community. The commission, which was appointed by Supervisor Walker, voted it down, claiming that “Warrior” Trucks was becoming too powerful and that the center was not staying open enough for residents' use and had nothing to do with the township. When asked about the negative vote, Trucks remarked on the missed opportunity, And we wrote the grant for funding the first phase of the Idlewild sewer system. FiveCAP/EC brought in natural gas to Idlewild. We wrote the grant and we paid for it. And it cost nothing to the Township to bring natural gas in. FiveCAP/EC brought in quality rental and affordable single family housing in addition to the Idlewild Historic and Cultural Center94 This appears to be a case in which township officials voted against their own self-interest, as LCCEP had the funds to cover the expenses of the expansion project and simply needed zoning approval. The proposed project would have enhanced tourism by bringing more attention to the walking and driving tours of Idlewild's historic sites and by providing valuable parking space for tourists. Page 286 → Nevertheless, the commission's negative vote seems to be linked to certain members' animosity toward Trucks. That Walker's commission did not make a clear distinction between Mary Trucks as an individual and the mission of FiveCAP as a private nonprofit community-based action agency is troubling, since, in the end, the township did not benefit from potential tourism revenue associated with the proposed expansion. Prior to the vote regarding the expansion of the parking lot, the Yates Township Planning and Zoning Commission had recommended more off-street parking, yet it turned around and voted against a proposal that encouraged off-street parking. Trucks added, It would have been a $100 thousand dollar investment in Idlewild in an end-destination tourist attraction. They voted it down. We're not asking them to reconsider; we're going to reprogram those dollars into other things to benefit the community…. We'll probably do some things to enhance the facility inside, things that do not require their approval. And then we will reprogram any additional dollars left to some other activity in the community, to benefit Lake County…. The dollars will not be un-spent. It's unfortunate. I think it was misguided of the current officials.95 The leadership of the township missed an opportunity in 2010 by voting not to approve the expansion of the parking lot and outdoor exhibition surrounding the cultural center, which would have beautified a critical section of Broadway Avenue by removing trees and expanding the outdoor exhibit. This decision exemplifies the township's tendency to act neither responsibly nor proactively in improving the community. At a time when the township was making decisions to encourage tourism and economic development, the refusal to support the enhancement of the exterior of the cultural center as well as the outdoor exhibit, which would have come at no expense to the township, seems shortsighted and inexplicable. Considering that three major Idlewild establishments were closing down, the expansion would have represented a comeback. Unfortunately, the poor decision regarding the Idlewild Historic Cultural Center expansion was not the first instance of mismanagement by township officials who claimed to be in favor of economic development. Years before, the township had to call for a majority vote to dismantle the Idlewild Economic Development Corporation because the outgoing supervisor, Audrey Bullett, would not relinquish control of the organization, which left the business climate in Idlewild “rather dismal.”96 Ideally, economic development corporations should

help to spur business growth and employment opportunities. But when the Idlewild corporation was dismantled, this left a vacuum in Page 287 → Yates Township's local economy. In addition to the lack of a credible business organization, Idlewild suffered from a limited employment pool. As Walker and Wilson noted regarding the business picture, Page 288 → [Idlewild] has been on a steady decline since the enactment of the Public Accommodations Act, which had a direct negative impact on the community's employment picture…. The few entrepreneurs who have invested in businesses in the district are confronted with a persistent issue—the quality of employees, especially first-time employable young. Many who are employable have developed a dependency on general assistance as fast money. Consequently, some have not developed an acceptable work ethic and they lack reliability, dependability, loyalty, trustworthiness, and competency. Without a doubt, this is a concern for entrepreneurs who have invested their capital in the community.97 Over this peak period of decline into the twenty-first century, the lack of reliable employees made “it difficult for any business to consider investing new capital.”98 Local business leaders—such as John Meeks (Morton's Motel), Norman Burns (Burns Construction), Larry and Judy Portis (Larry's Nursery and Landscaping), Bill McClure (Red Rooster Lounge), Dana Joubert-Hayes and Sandra K. Joubert (Idlewild Grocery Store), Denise Bellamy and Freddie Mitchell (Road Runners Variety Store), Patricia Williams (Williams' Court), and Rosalind Carter (Sha Rhon's Hair and More)—had no economic development corporation to turn to in order to address their local business owners' concerns, such as attracting more tourists, expanding goods and services, finding qualified employees, and developing their businesses. Idlewild businesses struggled to flourish without an economic development corporation. However, the real change in the tide occurred in 2009 when Meeks sold Morton's Motel to Wayne County commissioner and chairwoman Jewel Ware, who also purchased the Idlewild Party Store and the Red Rooster Lounge. Ill-equipped to run a series of business establishments, Ware found herself in a situation in which her business prospects in Idlewild did not fare very well. Commissioner Ware eventually closed all three businesses, after being denied a liquor license in the summer of 2010 because she had convicted felons managing and operating the bar and the party store, which sold beer, liquor, and wine. According to state law, felons are forbidden from handling, managing, and operating such establishments. There was a brief disruption in lodging accommodations as rumors surfaced that Ware was threatening to allow the motel, the store, and the popular nightspot to remain closed. The closing of these establishments seemed to signify that there would be Page 289 → little movement and progress; however, the reopening of Morton's Motel under new ownership and new management has brought renewed hope regarding Idlewild's potential.99 The motel is owned by a small group of partners, who claim that the source of their motivation to reopen the old motel was a commitment to good management and service. Among the partners who have pledged to preserve the history of the motel are longtime Idlewilders Emma Jean Clark, Judith Griffins, Freddie Mitchell, Denise Bellamy, and Dr. David Jones, as well as a few silent partners. Equipped with a larger kitchen, a conference room, an upgraded picnic courtyard, a canopied patio, and refurbished guest rooms, the new Morton's Motel comfortably accommodates family reunions, special events, and small music concerts. A key feature of this newly renovated motel is added amenities such as cable television, free Wi-Fi, complimentary breakfasts, beverage machines and snack counters, kitchenettes, and access to Paradise Lake for swimming and fishing. Although the reopening of the motel signified significant progress, there was still the problem with the foreclosure of the bar and the closing of the party store. This was a situation in which a functioning economic development corporation might have provided guidance and support toward preventing the problems that led to the closures. Thankfully, in June 2012, McClure was able to regain ownership of the bar after it went into foreclosure. Yet the township's infrastructural changes and developments, such as the sewer system, natural gas lines, new and affordable housing, renovation and expansion of the cultural center, and refurbishment of Morton's Motel, were

not sufficient to meet other critical economic concerns of the community, such as the need for an economic stimulus that would be essential to the town's viability and sustainability.

Contextualizing Historical Preservation Efforts in Idlewild While progress was being made with regard to infrastructural changes, efforts were also under way to preserve Idlewild's historical significance. For over thirty years, various staff members of the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) for the state of Michigan had been encouraging Idlewild community residents and stakeholders to update their inventory nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places. The original form had been prepared in 1978 by Delores Killens as a result of her involvement with the Harry Solomon administration and was approved by Lawrence Finfer of the Michigan History Division of the Michigan Department of State in 1979. But according to SHPO director Brian Conway, the earlier nomination included only a part of Idlewild and provided Page 290 → inadequate descriptive and historical information by today's standards. On May 20, 2003, SHPO staff members traveled to Idlewild at the request of Ken Davis of the Manistee National Park Service in Baldwin, Michigan, to present a seminar designed to share introductory information and sample documents as well as the importance of reestablishing historical recognition for Idlewild and the tax incentives available to owners of historic properties. In 2005, a few weeks following the seminar, the Yates Township Historic District Commission was organized and began meeting. “With funds from the National Park Service's Preserve America Program we were able to hire Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group of Jackson to thoroughly document Idlewild and its nationally significant history,” Conway stated.100 He added, “The district will now include 1,301 structures on 2,535 acres, nearly four square miles in three townships.”101 With the dedicated efforts of the state of Michigan to date, more than a million dollars has been invested in the rescue and recovery of Idlewild as a national treasure in the history of twentieth-century America. As the Yates Township Historic District Commission continued to convene its meetings over a period of two and a half years, a resource team of experts organized several public hearings in Idlewild. Initially, these meetings were organized by Betty Boone, director of cultural economic development for HAL; Brian Conway, SHPO officer; Mary Trucks of FiveCAP; and Everett L. Fly, a landscape architect and team member from San Antonio, Texas, who helped to lay the groundwork for other historic African American communities (e.g., Eatonville, Florida) and who served on President William Jefferson Clinton's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. This national resource team, which also included Stephen L. Carter, Perry Howard, N. Y. Nathiri, Lydia C. Charles, and Dr. Gloria House, prepared a final report entitled “Idlewild: Lake County, Michigan Cultural Economic Development Readiness Initiative,” which stated that Idlewild was not only “the largest land based historically African American resort ever assembled in the United States” but also “one of the six most complete African American resorts remaining in America” and “a rare and valuable national resource with physical and cultural significance.”102 In 2009, the Idlewild Partnership Team received a grant of five hundred thousand dollars from the Michigan State Housing Development Authority to be used by elected officials in Yates Township and the Idlewild Partnership Team “for demolition activities to assist with blight elimination.”103 Funds from the federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program were used to “assist in eliminating blight from this historically significant and severely economically challenged community.”104 When announcing the grant, former Michigan governor Jennifer M. Granholm noted that the funds would “not only Page 291 → preserve an important aspect of our state's history, it would help to create jobs and build a thriving community.”105 About the state's position on and involvement in the revitalization of Idlewild, Dr. Bill Anderson, who served as executive director of HAL, notes, Its greatest asset in my opinion, as I shared with the governor, is in a tourism economy. It has great natural resources, and then I began talking about its special cultural resource, and I believed then, as I believe now, that it's hard to imagine any other more rural place in Michigan that has a greater cultural legacy than Idlewild does. And so we continued that conversation, and that turned into the development of what we normally call the governor's transformational initiative for Idlewild. And we put together a team, and our Department of History, Arts, and Libraries and the Department of the

Michigan Economic Development Corporation were the leads on the effort to look at how the state of Michigan could provide some resources and assistance to revitalize Idlewild and to give it a stronger economic base to build upon.106

Considering the fact that there is very little industry in Lake County and not many prospects to grow an industrial base given its location, Anderson's comments point to the fact that Idlewild's greatest assets are in the tourism economy. Thus, it made sense for the state to capitalize on Idlewild's centennial as a moment to highlight its rich cultural history. Anderson observes, We were looking out to the year 2012 because that's the centennial year, and so, basically, the question was, “What would you like your community to look like and be in the year 2012?” And out of that we crafted a vision, and that vision was formally adopted by the Yates Township Board of Trustees and supervisor, and at the top of the list in terms of visioning the future were two particular items: one is to clean up the blight and secondly to preserve the historic assets.107 A number of action steps resulted through the state of Michigan's involvement. Anderson noted four major action steps to be taken: inventory historic assets, create a cultural management plan, complete an economic development plan, and clean up blight. The cultural management plan would entail clearly defining the boundaries of the national register district and establishing a walking/driving tour with five state historical markers. A collaborative partnership between the state and the Idlewild community was established for the purpose of designating the five historic markers. A grant of ninety-three thousand dollars was awarded to put up the markers for tourists, Page 292 → to complement plans for a centennial celebration in 2012. The federal dollars used to recognize and restore the township also supported the marker celebration. The Idlewild Historic District's nomination, which was prepared as part of Michigan governor Jennifer M. Granholm's Idlewild, Michigan Transformation Initiative, involved multiple state departments. HAL's Office of Cultural Economic Development and the State Historic Preservation Office led the effort. During the public ceremony held on August 29, 2009, markers were unveiled at five locations: (1) the entrance to Idlewild at Broadway and U.S. Route 10, (2) Dr. Daniel Hale Williams's House, (3) Williams Island and the Flamingo Club, (4) Wilson's Paradise Gardens and the former Lela and Herman O. Wilson House, and (5) the Lot Owners Association's clubhouse. “The dedication of five state historical markers, in one community, on one day is unprecedented,” said Laura Ashlee, coordinator of the state's historical marker program, who continued, “With funds from the National Park Service's Preserve America Program we were able to hire Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group of Jackson to thoroughly document Idlewild and its nationally significant history.”108 Having these historical markers displayed for public viewing will not only protect and enhance the history of Idlewild but will also allow tourists to enjoy learning about a critical period in American history. Page 293 →

Preparing for the Centennial Celebration In addition to preserving the history of the community, the Yates Township Board of Trustees and supervisor, in collaboration with other partners, crafted a vision to celebrate Idlewild's centennial. As early as 2007, this group of planners sought to help foster community cultural awareness and economic development through the state's Cultural Economic Development Strategy Committee, which began focusing on how the arts and culture could be enhanced in Idlewild. By the end of the year, the governor's office had established the Idlewild, Michigan Transformation Initiative, to continue to leverage the township's unique strengths and to attract new investment and economic growth. Two major objectives for the initiative involved developing a transformative economic development plan for historic landscape management and assessment and marketing Idlewild “as a high-value cultural tourism destination.”109 As part of the initial planning, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, as a member of the Idlewild, Michigan Transformation Initiative team, unveiled the Lake Idlewild Park/Access Site, which included a handicapped-accessible fishing Page 294 → pier, a drinking fountain, a rest area for cyclists and

walkers, a public wild-flower garden, and public toilets. Designed as a peaceful and quiet atmosphere, the new park was developed to add to the wonders of Idlewild. A Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund account was created to fund the acquisition for the development of the public park, from “proceeds from oil, gas, and mineral leases and royalty payments at state-owned lands.”110 The park was established to compliment some of the other outdoor recreational opportunities that tourists seek, such as fishing, boating, bird-watching, and sightseeing. A goal of the strategic planning objective of the Idlewild, Michigan Transformation Initiative was to create a master plan that included historic landscape management and wayfinding assessment. Thus, Idlewild continued to receive state support as a federally designated National Historic Register Community and National Enterprise Community. This led to a grant of seven hundred thousand dollars for blight removal, conversations relating to cultural revitalization and historical preservation, the development of walking and driving tours, and discussions about how best to promote tourism and economic development. To market the historically significant rural town as a cultural heritage tourist location, “preserve its historic and natural resources, and revitalize the local business and regional economy, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) and the State of Michigan retained JDA (a.k.a. Jacobsen Daniels Associates, LLC Planning and Implementation Consultants) to develop a sustainable economic development action strategy.”111 Responding to this undertaking, Jacobsen/Dan-iels Associates provided a five-year plan of action that included forty-one different projects organized under seven main initiatives, from community projects for developing the central business district to creating an area-wide transportation vision linking local hiking and biking areas with a U.S. Route 10 Heritage Route. Governor Granholm announced two grants for Lake County's Yates Township, which were made available through the MEDC from funds provided by the federal CDBG program to cover expenses for a feasibility study of the old Flamingo Club and the renovation of the Henrietta Summer Senior Center. “Dynamic communities are essential to Michigan's continued economic success,”112 Granholm stated. She continued, “This investment in Idlewild will accelerate our plan to preserve and revitalize the Idlewild community, enhance economic growth, and help meet the needs of Idlewild residents today.”113 The grant of $46,450 to assist Yates Township in the preparation of a feasibility study and development plan for the historic Flamingo Club could serve as a catalyst for future growth of the township and the preservation of Idlewild.114 Page 295 → For example, Percy Davis, a yearround Idlewilder since the early 1960s and former Yates Township trustee for three different administrations (the end of the Winburn administration and all of the Bullett and Burns terms), envisions retaining the exterior of the Flamingo Club while converting the interior into a little theater for music and acting. He claims, “If you came to me and said, ‘I want $1000. I want you to buy a seat. We'll put your name on it,’ I'd give you that thousand dollars to get it off the ground, to get it working. And this is culture. And without culture we ain't nobody, we ain't nothing.”115 The second grant, for $573,596, was earmarked to fund the rehabilitation of the Henrietta Summers Senior Center, to allow the center to accommodate the township's growing senior population and meet the accessibility requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Some of the funds would also help the township provide supplemental meals for seniors and add office and storage space. “The CDBG program is a good resource to help communities facilitate job growth and business development,” said MEDC president and CEO Greg Main. “The MEDC is pleased to partner with Yates Township and Lake County officials in planning a path for future growth,” Main continued.116 “Our partnership with the MEDC has enabled our community to obtain needed technical assistance, envision a new sustainable economic future and create the required business plans to guide our journey toward prosperity,” said Yates Township supervisor George Walker, who added, “With the support of the MEDC, we have crafted a viable economic development action strategy and master plan. This partnership will help us transform our community.”117 Since redevelopment in Idlewild will not develop overnight, the state's efforts through grant dollars will not be enough to leverage without the support of private contributions. Bringing together, despite this shortcoming, a host of other recommendations through the Idlewild, Michigan Transformation Initiative, Jacobsen/Daniels Associates announced funding for “arts, historical, and cultural programs” that “would highlight the city's rich past.”118 According to a summary narrative, the firm also “identified potential grant funding sources and conducted case studies of similar communities,” which were completed and packaged “into one cohesive document” that provides “direction for the city and partner agencies to navigate through the current laws, regulations, funding sources, and policies so the desire and interests of the

public can be realized.”119 The development of the project “was also coordinated with the State Historic Preservation Office, Michigan Department of Transportation, Michigan Humanities, Arts, Libraries, Yates Township and City of Idlewild and provided realistic action steps for implementing the strategy.”120 Through this partnership with the state, Idlewild has been presented with a set of important opportunities, as Michigan has Page 296 → more miles of shoreline than any state in the United States. Former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, who hosted Current TV's The War Room, added another vision for Idlewild's successful promotion of tourism and economic development through these efforts. I'd imagine, post-renovation, a national push, with targeted efforts to attract those who want to stay for a week or two and experience fishing, boating, picnicking, nightlife, music, festivals, lectures, and the unique history of the place. There could be a push toward the academic elite, those interested in civil rights, families, those who care about the great migration north, who love music by the great African American entertainers who played at Idlewild and who are the inspiration for today's music. It could be remarkable!121 A formal 2012 Idlewild Centennial Commission was also set up by executive order of the former governor.122 However, according to Dr. Bill Anderson, “while the responsibilities of the Idlewild Centennial Commission will complement the work of Governor Granholm's Idlewild Transformation Initiative, the commission's role is separate and different from that effort.”123 The commission, which consisted of twenty-one members who met over a period of three years, was designed to outline a set of viable programs for the celebration. Membership was based on a rotation of two to three years. Dr. Anderson, who initially headed HAL and the Idlewild Centennial Commission, outlined some of the essential objectives of the commission as follows: What I hope will happen, and I think most people agree, is that some of the things will be celebratory but hopefully there will be some things that come out of the centennial celebration that are legacy projects. In other words, after the parades and the homecomings and the festivals and whatever, …there is going to be some enduring things that result from that.124 Granholm remained convinced that Idlewild possessed “enormous potential if the resources are available.”125 As the former governor and her team of planners continued to understand how redevelopment happens and is sustained in a northern rural township, the formal Idlewild Centennial Commission was organized under Anderson's leadership. Unfortunately, with the retirement of Anderson a year later, the leadership of the commission was turned over to Betty Boone. During the first year of Boone's leadership of the commission, a series of events were being considered. In the process of developing a precentennial and centennial planning schedule, Page 297 → commission members sought to consult community residents for some ideas, leadership, and resources. During one of the precentennial meetings held at the Henrietta Summers Senior Center, with more than sixty residents in attendance, the commission announced several upcoming precentennial events to generate interest. The National Idlewilders Conclave, which was held in Idlewild on June 3–5, 2011, was one of the kickoff activities for the precentennial events. It was followed by a precentennial Fourth of July parade, the eighth annual Idlewild Music Festival, and a precentennial writers conference on August 20. As for some of the preliminary centennial projects, the list included a conference of writers and poets and the eighth annual Poetry in the Woods festival. A centennial brunch126 and a reunion of some of the famous entertainers and showgirls were included on the centennial celebration schedule, which was expected to “educate thousands and serve generations to come.”127 To this end, the commission was charged with developing several signature projects. One of the ideas from this discussion that carried the greatest interest was a centennial festival of the arts. Under a broad umbrella, the commission claimed that this project would involve several events as part of a yearlong celebration. In addition to this suggestion, the Dennos Museum Center at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City hosted the exhibition Welcome to Idlewild: The Black Eden of Michigan from January to March, to encourage public interest.128 The results of the planning for the first six months on the commission's calendar, however, which was based on feedback from the community, focused solely on a series of local events that attached the word centennial to established community events, such as the Kwanzaa Celebration, the Martin Luther King Jr.

Birthday Luncheon, and a brunch and a senior citizen pancake breakfast. The local arm of the Idlewild Centennial Commission, which was cochaired by Mildred Annette Kyles, apparently did not view attracting tourists as critical to their planning and hosting of these early centennial celebrations. This made sense with regard to the first six months of the year, considering that most seasonal residents and tourists are generally only in the area during the summer months. But to take full advantage of this centennial moment, the planning need to take into account tourists and seasonal residents. The commission apparently did not consider including working with other townships to really booster the occasion. The fortieth annual Blessing of the Bikes in Baldwin, the unofficial kickoff to summer in Lake County, drew record crowds of an estimated forty thousand people as Father Ron Schneider opened the events with six words, “Ladies and Gentleman, start your engines.”129 Considering the Lake County Star's highlighting of the Lake County events schedule, as well as the annual participation of the MidMichigan Idlewilders, the Lake County Page 298 → Merrymakers, and other groups with Baldwin organizers, the local Idlewild Centennial Commission subcommittee could have profited from working with the organizers of the Blessing of the Bikes and Trout-A-Rama events to attract some of those tourists to Idlewild.130 During the early stages of the commission's planning, some of the suggestions were not brought to the entire commission. Consequently, many suggestions did not get accepted and/or were not even heard. The suggestions adopted were included on the “2012 Idlewild Centennial Events Tentative Calendar,” which was released in April. However, as the commission met over the spring, a more elaborative list would emerge to include other activities. This includes a one-day personal development workshop for youth, an awards presentation, and a boat regatta on Idlewild Lake on June 30.131 What followed, as a result of the determination of a few residents and former showgirls, are a series of attractions that would draw some additional tourists to the area during the months of July and August. The July calendar included what the subcommittee of organizers defined as “the Centennial Opening Reception and Awards Presentation,”132 an annual Idlewild Independence Day and Centennial Parade,133 a Birthday Celebration, a Mid-Michigan Idlewilder's Centennial Dance, an arts and wine festival, the ninth annual July music festival,134 a fashion show, and a taste fest, as well as other community-based activities up to December 31. However, the four events that were supposed to set the pace for the months of July and August were the annual Fourth of July parade,135 the July music festival, the Idlewild Centennial Jazz and Blues Celebration, and the Paradise Club Reunion saluting Arthur “Daddy” Braggs. The Idlewild Independence Centennial Day Parade, decked in bright colors and banners and sponsored by the Mid-Michigan Idlewilders, the Idlewild African American Chamber of Commerce, and Yates Township, featured musical entertainment, games for kids, face painting, food, and a big crowd. Ending the day with a dance for adults, the Idlewild Lot Owners Association joined in on the fun.136 The Idlewild Music Festival attendance appeared to be diminishing, however, with only five busloads of Detroiters and a low vendor turnout that meant the event broke even.137 The Idlewild Centennial Jazz and Blues Celebration, which was billed to showcase an impressive list of performers, such as Betty Joplin, Harvey Thompson, Rick Hicks, Kathy Lamar, and Eric Schneider, was delayed, postponed, and renamed the Dedication of the John Meeks Park and Concert, after a series of miscommunications evolved between John Meeks and Yates Township supervisor George Walker.138 During the planning stages of the event, after weeks of unsuccessful attempts to obtain an application to apply for a permit, Meeks was told, by way of a handwritten note from the clerk, Page 299 → to follow a set of steps to host the event for less than 450 people. Meeks felt that these were the same restrictions that are outlined in the township ordinance for music festivals such as the one held annually on Williams Island. This made it “impossible to move forward”139 at that time, Meeks explained. The free event was to be presented by the Idlewild African American Chamber of Commerce and was scheduled to take place on August 4, 2012, at John Meeks Park, located at Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Idlewild Boulevard. The IAACC was founded during the summer of 2000 for the purpose of promoting existing local businesses and for attracting newer ones to the Lake County area. According to Meeks, president of the IAACC and a retired Idlewild businessman and resident, the event was postponed due to some unnecessary restrictions placed on the organizers of the event. A release cited a lack of cooperation by Yates Township in issuing a permit for the free event that would have promoted the historic Idlewild community…. Some of the restrictions include concert goers being

prohibited from parking on public streets even though no other events during the recent Centennial Celebration were subject to this regulation. There was also a requirement that there be a minimum of 350,000 dollars insurance for each person attending this event which was being limited to 450 people by IAACC. No other Centennial event seem to have these and other restrictions and Meeks plans to seek advice from other sources as to how to proceed with moving forward later this summer with the Idlewild Centennial Jazz and Blues Celebration. According to Meeks, it's difficult to understand why anyone would not want a free concert promoting Idlewild and the Centennial but I may be slowed down but not halted from providing this event for the public.140

News spread over the Internet in the form of a news release dated July 24, 2012, just a few days before the Yates Township Democratic primary, with the headline, “Free Music Concert Postponed Indefinitely in Historic Idlewild, Michigan.” The announcement set off a firestorm of rapid responses condemning the township for creating roadblocks. Kyle G., a member of the chamber's web page wrote, “John, This is sad for Idlewild and sad for the potential growth of the community. These roadblocks unfortunately come from small minded people who refuse to realize possible future revenue and revitalization for the betterment of all who live in Idlewild.” Another writer, Ken Clouse, stated, “I called George Walker and left a message on his voice mail. Stand Down Mr. Walker, Stand Down! This is what I told him. I expressed my disgust at his shameful acts. I also told him I will be sending his shameful disregard for the Page 300 → most monumental event in Michigan this year to the 150 people I have on my email list. God bless you John, and keep up the good work.” Then Charmaine wrote, “My goodness. We are all planning to attend. Maybe we'll come up there anyway. I am leaving for South Africa August 12–25th, that's why I reserved this time…. So sorry and disappointed about this.” After the hosting of this event, rumors spread around the community about the impact this event could have on Walker's reelection bid. The second event to draw public attention in August to Idlewild's centennial celebration was organized by Nicole Braggs, daughter of Arthur Braggs, who hosted the Paradise Club Reunion in honor of her late father's contribution and the legacy he established in developing artists who had a lasting impact in entertainment. The reunion began on August 24, with a meet and greet at the Greektown Casino Hotel in downtown Detroit. Embarking on a trip down memory lane, passengers on a deluxe motorboat enjoyed a delightful picnic in a beautiful ocean park setting. Then, on Sunday evening, reunion guests convened for dinner, celebrating the centennial milestone with a special tribute to Arthur “Daddy” Braggs and a guest presentation. The two events were followed by a list of annual and new local activities, such as National Idlewilders Week. As the historic community of Idlewild continued to celebrate its centennial, a new group, the Idlewild Community Development Corporation (ICDC), was organized to ensure greater accountability in the management of state funds. The ICDC, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, was developed to promote, preserve, and protect the heritage and resources of historic Idlewild by providing opportunities to foster economic growth. In response to the mismanagement of state funds to the township, ICDC's vision and objectives are to develop and implement strategic community capacity building by (1) identifying and assessing community needs; (2) identifying, inventorying, and leveraging community assets; (3) cultivating effective local, regional, state, and national strategic partnerships and collaborations; (4) providing viable responsive community projects and programs; (5) implementing and promoting best practices; and (6) fostering community prosperity. Different from the township's management of resources, ICDC interfaces with local residents through a series of planned community assessment meetings that seek to create opportunities for interested community stakeholders. State support for precentennial celebration events initially began in 2010. A year later a check in the amount of thirty-four thousand dollars for centennial expenses was issued but not well accounted for or documented. As a result of these unaccounted-for state funds in the amount of thousands of dollars and Page 301 → the misuse of the Idlewild Centennial Commission's “legally protected Logo for commercial merchandise”141 that was “sold to the public by local vendors,”142 a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization was asked to oversee funding for the centennial celebration. These funds were originally assigned to the Idlewild Citizens Committee on behalf of the Idlewild Centennial Commission. Confirming these observations in a memorandum addressed to the commission, the local committee and its chair, Mildred A. Kyles, the director of Cultural Economic Development for the

Department of Michigan State Housing Development, Betty Boone, indicated that “since the transfer of this logo from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) to our state commission,”143 she had learned over the course of several months that the logo was not being used for the distribution and production of “noncommercial banners, signage, stationery, brochures, posters, [and] programs, etc.”144 Consequently, the misuse of the logo warranted the designation of ICDC as the source of local funding requests. Boone noted that since official permission had not been requested for such use she would be “monitoring vendor sales of centennial merchandise for possible logo copyright/trademark infringement.”145 As indicated on its web page, the mission of ICDC is to promote the identification, preservation, and protection of the historic route and resources that inform the world about the contributions of the community to the region and to promote successful opportunities and a better quality of life for regional citizens. However, since ICDC was recognized as an official source for community and economic development it appears that this decision did not sit well with the local committee chair, who, according to several community residents, refused to submit receipts for outstanding unpaid bills for local centennial events on behalf of the centennial commission. Rather the local committee chair submitted receipts for several thousand dollars to the outgoing township supervisor, claiming she felt uncomfortable dealing with ICDC.

A Lack of Leadership, Accountability, and Vision in Yates Township The fact that the ICDC had to be formed in response to certain township officials' mismanagement of state funds for the centennial celebration points to the continued leadership problems in Idlewild. Although it has been over a decade since the publication of Walker and Wilson's Black Eden, the same social, political, and economic conditions that they spoke of continue to persist. Despite the significant progress made after decades of decline, Idlewild's future is significantly Page 302 → compromised by a lack of leadership, accountability, and vision. According to Walker and Wilson, Between 1960 and 1990, internal bickering and the transference of leadership at the resort exacerbated an already troublesome set of relationships. Personality difficulties proved to be a major problem, with many people unwilling to run for township offices, yet always ready to criticize. As often seems to be the case, those most critical of the system lacked political skills, while those with political skills lacked the vision needed to succeed. Township administrators began to lose their power base due to abrasive personalities and conflicting visions of the future.146 Although the principal figures have changed in recent decades, Walker and Wilson's observations remain accurate. Attending township meetings during the first two years of Walker's term as supervisor often seemed akin to attending a Broadway play, as some leaders and residents would posture and grandstand as if auditioning for a leading role. This point will be particularly evident in my discussion, later in this chapter, of Walker's administration and his interactions with certain township residents who have been critical of his opinions and handling of township affairs. In Black Eden, Walker and Wilson observed a number of factors during the Burns administration, from 1992 to 2000, that explain the historic problem of a lack of leadership and vision. The different factions and voices of opposition in the community over two decisions made during the Burns and Brown administrations resulted from outbursts during township meetings and poor administrative decision making. The first decision involved the controversy over repurposing the Flamingo Club as a nature center, which developed when the Michigan Department of Natural Resources halted the contract to lease the club to the National Idlewilders. According to an article that appeared in the Lake County Star, John Meeks had “originally attempted to have the property leased to the Mid-Michigan Idlewilders for use as a private club/lounge. At some point during the negotiations between Meeks and the Yates Township Board the sponsoring association was changed to the National Idlewilders. The terms of the lease agreement were for 49 years with a 30 year right of first refusal.”147 Donel Brown, the next Yates Township supervisor, characterized the agreement that former supervisor Audrey Bullett made with the DNR this way: “Well what was proposed back then was that the back part of the Flamingo would be opened up with a stair-walker going down the wooded area Page 303 → behind the club, which would be called a

sanctuary.”148 Brown also noted that “the front part would be remodeled” so that Mid-Michigan would open it as a clubhouse. “And they were prepared to spend quite a lot of money if they got control of it,” he said, adding, “But I think, even though there were times when I disagreed with Pam [Ross], I think that she was right on target…. It would've probably been much more difficult to deal with the agencies [DNR and the U.S. Department of Interior] had we gone ahead and done it that way, because they would've said that you guys seem to deny the fact that we have anything to do with this.”149 The DNR had eventually been contacted regarding the ongoing negotiations between the National Idlewilders and the supervisor, which developed over a two-year period. “Both the DNR and the U.S. Department of the Interior maintain restrictions on the use of the property as the result of a grant received by Yates Township from the Land and Water Conservation Fund.” Apparently, during the final stage of the contractual agreement, “the DNR was notified,” and “Jeanne Powers of the Financial Services Divisions Grant Management Section of the DNR faxed a response to the Yates Township Clerk,” Pam Ross.150 The response stated, I am advising you that the Township should not enter into a lease of the property to the National Idlewilders, Inc…. Under the terms of the Land and Water Conservation Fund agreement entered into by Yates (projects 26-00632 and 26-00935), property interest may not be conveyed for non-public outdoor recreation, non-outdoor recreation uses (public or private) may not be made of the property, and non-eligible indoor recreation facilitates may not be developed without National Park Service approval.151 As explained in chapter 6, a document had been signed that indicated that the U.S. Department of the Interior had identified four things that could be done to the old Flamingo Club building, which did not include the indoor plans of the National Idlewilders. The department stated that the site could be used to facilitate outdoor recreation, as a nature center, or as a maintenance building or that it could be destroyed. The agreement made during the Burns administration was disrupted due to an earlier agreement made by Bullett, who had encumbered the progress of future administrations with her lack of foresight and progressive thinking. However, the biggest challenges Idlewild faced, according to Brown, involved the township's need to create a community of collaborators and partners as opposed to a community with the many factions that existed. Page 304 → The biggest challenge is trying to get the community, the factions of the community, to become single-minded about what we want this community to be. If we had become single-minded from thirty to forty years ago, we should have everything within this community that we need, and we could have, but we were never able to decide what it is we really want.152 The second decision, the Lincoln Park controversy, also speaks to Brown's point, as well as supporting what Walker and Wilson identified as a lack of community solidarity. The park, which was to become the Duvernay Park Apartments, was not usable and was beyond repair, according to Burns and Brown. The well was in bad condition, and the bathrooms needed to be replaced. As a member of the EC's board, Brown added that as part of an economic plan to improve the housing situation in the area, the board needed five to ten acres of land in order to complete a project of that magnitude. The closer the project came to some kind of agreement with the township, the more intense this small faction of concerned citizens in the community became. They issued many public complaints to the board and the supervisor. However, the most glaring example of an absence of good leadership and vision developed when George Walker assumed the office of supervisor in November 2008 and refused to continue the work that the EC board had recommended regarding the start of phase 2 of the sewage system project. This example also includes changing leadership of the annual music festivals, a series of missed opportunities to move the community forward, and matters concerning Walker's interactions with fellow board members and some community residents.

The “King George” Walker Administration

Under the Walker administration, the township pursued some viable projects, including major repairs of key paved roads, designating a series of five state historical markers, demolishing old homes, planning for two major renovation projects, bringing broadband Internet services to the area, building a new access park, and allegedly making plans for a downtown business district. Together, these projects cost well over five million dollars. It appeared, considering these upgrades, that Idlewild was on the verge of a major resurgence. However, despite the millions of dollars spent on the township through the EC designation and FiveCAP, the building of new and affordable homes, the Duvernay Park Apartments, and the expansion and renovation of the Idlewild Historic Cultural Center, progress had actually been limited, for no good reason. Rather than build on the successes of previous administrations and the relationship that Page 305 → the township had formed with FiveCAP, the Walker administration missed a perfect opportunity by opting to go it alone and start from scratch. This decision ultimately led to a loss of some of the momentum to improve the community's infrastructure and to designate the town as a major tourist attraction. Next to discontinuing the township's twenty-year relationship with FiveCAP and hosting three failed annual music festivals that did not bring any growth in attendance, any economic development, or new tourists to the area, there were other signs that the township was lacking in leadership, accountability, and vision, such as purchasing unnecessary buildings, dividing the community, and mismanaging the township's budget. One of the most apparent signs of a lack of leadership was the constant bickering that persisted at township meetings during Walker's first two years in office, which led to a petition to recall him. Although the petition to recall Supervisor Walker appeared on the ballot, there were not enough votes to remove him from office. Soon after the vote defeating the recall, another set of unpopular incidents occurred months into the third year of Walker's watch, many similar to those encountered during the Bullett administration, involving the supervisor making unnecessary large purchases without consulting and seeking board approval. This example of Walker's inability to adhere to Michigan township policies and procedures led to other conflicts that he encountered with different board members. The law regarding Michigan townships indicates that they are expected to promote economic development and manage growth and change. They must meet the demands for greater levels of municipal services while confronting citizen's opposition to increases in taxes. They must respond to a myriad of demands to protect the environment, improve roads, cut government waste, and provide public safety services, to name only a few.153 As a middleman who “reimagined both people and place through nostalgia for its segregated past,”154 Walker contributed to government waste without seeking board approval, demonstrating an apparent lack of leadership by appointing unqualified individuals to organize and manage important community development projects. The Yates Township board consists of a supervisor, clerk, treasurer, and two trustees, and these elected officials are responsible for making township decisions. Under the advisement of Yates Township clerk Doris Strouse, however, who was the only elected official with some background knowledge of township policies, Walker also ignored other policies and procedures, as well as township ordinances. In Managing the Modern Michigan Township, Kenneth VerBurg, Page 306 → consultant for the Michigan Township Association, provides a set of general principles to help township officials understand the workings of township government and the policy issues and problems they face, in straightforward readable style that is instructive for analyzing Walker's duties and responsibilities as Yates Township supervisor at meetings. Focusing on current legal and administrative practices, VerBurg writes, The responsibility to preside at meetings, perhaps more than any other, gives the supervisor public recognition as the chief elected township official. But the law also accords supervisors this standing as well in that only supervisors by their sole action can call a special board meeting…. Other than chairing the meeting, though, the supervisor has no special authority as a member of the township legislative body.155 Regarding other administrative practices, VerBurg adds, “The budget act, of course, does not give township supervisors the entire budgetary power, but it does give them the responsibility to make the important first budget proposal; This power to propose gives supervisors a substantial platform from which to exercise policy

leadership.”156 Considering that the duties and responsibilities of township supervisors are defined by law, Walker's administrative record as the chief agent responsible for any legal actions pertaining to the township deserves additional systematic probing into his performance and discretionary authority. Born in the small town of Dublin, Georgia, George Walker grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and later relocated to Detroit. “His wife, Geraldine (Jerry) grew up in Detroit.” However, in 1993, the year marking the couple's thirteenth anniversary of marriage, George and Geraldine bought a cabin on the property he and Jerry owned, “drove up on weekends, stayed in the[ir] mobile home, and renovated the cabin. For two years, they worked, clearing the road in front of the house.”157 While the couple was renovating the cabin, they started looking for a place to retire. Realizing that they “owned property in a beautiful place they dearly loved,” the Walkers and their golden retriever, Audrey Rose,”158 moved into their new house. Walker's presence as a retired Detroit Edison employee and supervisor, Idlewild homeowner, and Yates Township employee had been low-key years before the state expressed an interest in and commitment to restoring the historic African American resort town in rural Michigan. As early as the summer of 2005, after retiring to Idlewild, Walker served two or three years as Yates Township zoning administrator under the Brown administration. Walker was in office when Catharine Patricia Patterson complained about “the illegal and Page 307 → corrupt goings-on” and the burning down, destruction, and demolition of the dwelling at 6229 South Pansy “by Donel Brown, George Walker, John Barnett and their crooked cronies.”159 Patterson's concerns were continuously ignored by Walker as zoning administrator from 2003 to 2006 and when he was elected supervisor in 2008. During the summer of 2007, after resigning as zoning enforcement officer, Walker founded and served as president of a community action organization called Positive Images. Then, as Donel Brown's term as supervisor was coming to an end, Walker attended township board meetings, introduced himself, and made the objectives of the organization known to the public. Because of this involvement in community affairs, Walker was asked to become a partner in the Idlewild, Michigan Transformation Initiative. Some residents claim that Walker's interest in the township's revitalization efforts developed in the summer of 2007, shortly before former Michigan governor Jennifer M. Granholm made a special visit to Lake County during the July 2007 Idlewild Music Fest to symbolically issue a check and announce state support “to leverage the community's unique strengths so it can attract new investment and economic growth.”160 With Brown's second term coming to an end within months of the November Page 308 → election and with various candidates vying for the job, Walker entered the race, outlining a manageable set of reasons in 2008 for why he was running for the township supervisor position. Walker stated that he had “specific goals in mind: Blight Removal, Economic Development, Controlled Growth, Balanced Budget, Enforcement of Yates Township Ordinances and Preservation of the Historic African-American Community of Idlewild.”161 According to Jeff Davenport, a neighboring township resident, Walker made statements about changes that he was going to make if he were to get elected and how he was going to get the people in the township to work together.162 However, Davenport says, “Once he got into office everything that he said got thrown out the window. I mean, I've been going to a lot of township meetings for over the last twenty years and this current administration argues about everything.”163 Walker's leadership style in Yates Township board meetings raised other concerns, being described by some as akin to a television reality show.164 Leadership, according to Fred Fischer, founder and director of the International Development Institute for Organization and Management, involves “a set of pragmatic, role-oriented concepts and behaviors.”165 In Walker's reelection bid for a second term during the primaries, he cited specific achieved goals: “the completion of the Yates Township Master Plan, renovation of the Henrietta Summers Senior Center, purchase of the Yates school building for the Township Office, dedication of 5 Historical Markers, Fire Service Cost Recovery Ordinance and restructuring of the Township Assessor's Office, to name a few.”166 He also mentioned certain pragmatic projects and principles, such as “the ability to work in many areas, with many people while conducting the business of the township,” as necessary skills for a supervisor, as well as the need to work with others that can assist the township “to grow as a viable community in the State of Michigan.”167 According to most leadership experts, the ability to work well with others comes alongside the facilitation of leadership traits and competencies

as well as a leader's ability to use power effectively and good negotiating skills. This ability relates to both personal and collective governing competencies that Walker and other Yates Township supervisors before him seem to be lacking. The Michigan Township Association's list of the top ten duties and responsibilities of township officials includes a set of guiding stipulations that all township board members are to be “knowledgeable of the procedural and statutory requirements for scheduling, noticing, conducting and recording meetings.”168 Effective leaders understand the importance of effective personal and public communication skills during regular township board meetings. However, according to Davenport, it became increasingly clear that the Walker Page 309 → administration had a lot of learning to do. Alan Keith of Genentech explains that leadership “is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.”169 For example, by limiting participation of certain community members in discussions about township business and affairs, Walker behaved as a resident as opposed to a leader. The dismissal of FiveCAP as a respected recognized community action agency and the act of silencing certain concerned citizens during township meetings was evident when Walker discontinued the township's working relationship with Trucks, executive director of FiveCAP, and later encouraged, according to some residents, a vote of the planning and zoning commission to reject a proposal for the expansion of the culture center's parking lot and outdoor exhibit. Gone were the days when progressive black women leaders could work with men in power in the Idlewild community. In fact, as part of a discussion emerging through a series of third-party e-mail exchanges, Sandy Crandall, former president of the Lake County Chamber of Commerce, wrote that Walker wanted nothing to do with Mary Trucks.170 Walker, like the three supervisors before him, acquired a number of critics, with Davenport being his principal agitator and detractor and the primary architect of the recall petition. Davenport claimed that the controversy between himself and Walker developed as follows: The supervisor had gone out and purchased a building without securing board or the electors' approval. Then he went out and purchased another building. This time he wanted the support of the electors. But yet he had just purchased one building, and now he was purchasing another building. I didn't like the way the supervisor was operating. I didn't like the way he was doing his job. I didn't like the way he was allowing the fire chief, who is also the zoning administrator, to dictate certain procedures in the township. So I went to several meetings and I questioned the supervisor and the board on certain procedures and policies, and each time I was shut down.171 This sort of dominating behavior during township meetings is not in accordance with the mission statement of the Michigan Township Association, which states that the interest of the organization on behalf of 1,242 townships is to foster “strong, vibrant communities; advocate legislation to meet 21st century challenges; ethical practices of elected officials who uphold the traditions and unique characteristics of township government and the values of the people of Michigan.”172 According to the Charter Township Act and the Open Meeting Act, Davenport had every right to raise questions about the township's business Page 310 → during the meeting. The fact that he was “shut down,” as he phrased it, is troubling, particularly because “the uniform chart of accounts published by the Michigan Department of Treasury”173 requires the supervisor to develop and follow the township's budget, although “all township board members play a role in adopting, monitoring and amending the budget.”174 Walker's failure as a policy maker to respect the citizenship rights of a resident with questions about the budget encouraged Davenport to think “at that point that it was time for a change.” He recalls, “I did a little more research and decided that I was going to spearhead the recall for Supervisor George Walker.”175 The public's response to the recall was mixed. Bill McClure, a Lake County Star correspondent, urged Yates voters to go to the polls on August 3, 2010, at the new location at 6437 South Nelson Road as opposed to the old location at the Henrietta Summers Senior Center, to cast their votes. Then claiming that “each administration inherits problems from the prior,”176 McClure's commentary signaled a vote against the recall. Resident Jimmy Dean's reasons for supporting a vote against the recall were framed in broader terms. Dean explained, George Walker, Jr., the Yates Township supervisor is on the August 3 ballot to be recalled because of

a petition filed by Mr. Jeff Davenport. Mr. Davenport's major complaint is that the supervisor is not facilitating the Yates Township Fire Department's business. Davenport has tried to get on a fire department in Lake County. His attempts have been unsuccessful. His real target is the Yates Township Fire Department and he's attacking the Yates Township Supervisor to get the department. Supervisor Walker has made great progress and is moving the community forward in the short time he has been in office. A vote to remove him from office will be the biggest mistake this community could make and stop progress in its tracks. Vote no on the recall question on August 3 election. Let's keep this community moving forward.177

For Dean, the recall petition was Davenport's personal vendetta. However, Gloria Cummings, another resident, viewed the leadership of Walker quite differently, stating, Mr. Walker has allowed Chief Barnett to do as he please in this township, he, Mr. Walker, allows the maintenance personnel to turn in any amount of hours they wish with no documentation whatsoever as to what job they were on, how many hours, etc. The position of the maintenance personnel is supposed to be a part time job so how can they work week after week with forty or more hours turned in by each of the two employees? Mr. Walker has yet to allow the board Page 311 → to vote on anything pertaining to the Y.T.F.D. as will show in the minutes of the monthly meetings, thus again showing he makes solo decisions and brings nothing to the board.178 Supporting Davenport's recall petition, Cummings concluded, “Mr. Walker has not met his statutory duties nor has he given above and beyond them.”179 Frustrated and disappointed about having his name appear on the primary ballot on August 3, 2010, as a candidate for recall, Walker questioned the wording of Davenport's petition, stating, “If people vote honestly on the things Mr. Davenport claims in his petition, they will be voting on that specific wording. Some people may want me gone for whatever reason, but those reasons aren't on the ballot. I hope people will respect the process, and vote according to what is actually on the ballot.”180 In the petition, Davenport alleged that “the performance activities have not met the statutory duties that are required of the supervisor.”181 In response to these charges against him, Walker stated, “I can't think of any statutory duties that I have as supervisor that I have not met. On the other hand I'm doing a lot on my own time that is not required of me by statute. Truth is, I am doing above and beyond my statutory duties. I get paid for fulfilling a 20-hour part-time elected position. I estimate that I actually dedicate between 45–50 hours a week to this township.”182 Walker's point about time committed to the township may be valid, although every township supervisor understands that reality going into the position. A second argument presented in Davenport's petition was that Walker failed in illustrating “appropriate conduct facilitating Yates Township Fire Department business.”183 Replying to this specific charge, Supervisor Walker stated, I have no idea what Mr. Davenport is referring to here. I am not the facilitator in any way of the Yates Township Fire Department. There is no YTFD business that is my duty or job to facilitate, control or decide in any way. I am not the facilitator, coordinator, overseeing person, supervisor, or any other controller of the YTFD. The YTFD reports to the Yates Township Board, of which I am one member. The…chief, John Barnett, reports to the board every month. He does not report to me. He submits his bills and invoices to a review of the clerk, treasurer, and me—three people.184 Responding to the public accusation, Chief John Barnett wrote, “One angry person in our community with a serious ax to grind, supported by a small group with various agendas, has made a career out of spreading lies about people who try to improve our community in any number of ways. Please vote on the language Page 312 → stated on the ballot, not for what is not said. What is on the ballot is unclear, rambling and simply inaccurate and untrue. George Walker deserves better than this.”185 Although Walker survived the recall attempt, Davenport's charges put his leadership back into the local spotlight. At a special winter township board meeting, Walker outlined a need to amend the budget, stating, “We [the

township] would be over budget before March 31, due to the purchase of the Yates Middle School building, repairs of the parking lot, new windows, wages, operating supplies, furniture, electricity and heat for the building.”186 At another township meeting months before the March 31 board meeting, in response to the purchase of the old Nelson Middle School building for $130,000, and the earlier purchase of a nursing home building for $65,000, Davenport asked questions about wasteful township dollars. Although the funding to purchase what would eventually become the new township hall “was taken from reserve funds not included in the budget amendment,”187 the fact that the supervisor made the initial purchase of the old nursing home without consulting the board and then had the audacity to purchase a second building, which the township could have purchased for one dollar during the previous administration, was what initiated the conflict between himself and Davenport. Davenport's attempt to recall the supervisor came with some personal cost, as he appeared, according to himself, to be the target of retaliation. Davenport describes his continuing conflict with Walker as follows: And once I got the documentation I decided to go forward with the recall. Since then I've been met with a lot of retaliation. I've had two fires, two structure fires, one recently in January of this year [2010], and we basically lost everything, and we are currently building now and we are still moving ahead with the recall. I'm not intimidated, nor would I want to be intimidated…. So we decided to go ahead and recall George Walker based upon his inappropriate activities to the police and the fire chief.188 Another concern raised by Davenport involved getting information through the township office under the Freedom of Information Act. Davenport acknowledged, “My reasoning for recalling George Walker was to make him accountable for the things that he's done; and at the polls he's got to come and tell us as our leader what he plans to do differently if he is to remain in office.”189 Although the recall petition did make it to the ballot, Davenport's attempt to remove Walker from office was unsuccessful. Yates Township voters were asked Page 313 → to determine whether to approve or vote down the recall of supervisor George Walker. The final vote count, as reported in the Lake County Star, was 57 votes for the recall and 137 votes against the recall, a count short of approximately 81 votes for passage.190 Raising yet another set of frustrations with the Walker administration, Edmond Curry, another resident, and Yates Township trustee Willie Ross expressed concerns about the closing of the library, the moving of the township office, the fire department, and the Nelson School purchase. Curry states, “But then for them to be politically correct, they need to establish library hours for the young people. The way it is now the library opens at a time when kids are at school. Kids around here do not get out of school until 2:45 and the library closes at 2:00. So I don't understand who they're servicing.”191 The purchasing of the old Nelson School represented perhaps the most glaring example of the supervisor's failure to comply with sound decision making. Along with the purchase of the building, Walker “asked for an approval for an additional $12,000 for furniture needed for the township offices,” stating, “We have applied for two grants, one for office furniture and other items needed in the building and the second one for the construction work on the building. No motion was made, but there was an agreement made to spend what we have and wait for the grants.”192 The fact that these and other purchases exceeded the dollar amounts requested raises some additional questions “directly related to the collective actions of elected officials as representatives of the community.”193 The first time a motion was made to make the purchase, the motion was defeated in order to investigate costs for carpeting. The second time the motion was presented to the board for vote, there was no second, so the motion failed again. The next week, according to a source who wishes to remain anonymous, there was a furniture delivery. At the following township meeting, the motion was made again and resulted in a split vote, with two votes for and two against. One of the nay voters voted yes after the delivery was made, to save the supervisor “from looking like a clown if the trucks would have had to return the furniture to the company's warehouse.”194 The set of purchases through Great Lakes Office Products of Big Rapids for $20,660 included $4,958 for new furniture for a conference room, $4,763 for furniture for the clerk's office, $5,731.50 for furniture for the supervisor's office, $4,650 for chairs for the senior center and the township office, and $459 for a speaker

phone.195 Expressing his concerns about Walker's inability and/or refusal to seek board approval in critical moments like this one, Trustee Ross adds, Page 314 → There are so many other little things that are going on, bids being made without any information being given to the board. The board is in charge of everything. Everything is supposed to come before the board, and we've even had special meetings where we've stopped one or two of the board members from spending money that they had no business spending, you know. Just because the township voted yes that we can buy property, it doesn't mean that we can go out and buy buildings for the township without informing them that this is what we are going to do, but this is what happened. It was bought prior to explaining to them what we're doing. And then we turn right around four or five months later and we buy a school. We should have bought the school first. Now we've got a piece of property over there that we've got to do something with and $135,000, and then we spent $65,000 over there. This is not a rich township. As you see, there is no industry. I'm talking to the board about building an infrastructure.196 This kind of behavior, according to the research on leadership skills of public officials, makes one not a leader but, rather, a boss. Walker's tendency to act like a boss rather than as a leader led to his appellation as “King George.” The township was in need of a servant leader, but many felt that they had a dictator instead. This reality became clear when Philip Clay, another former trustee, officially resigned from the board during the March 31, 2011, township board meeting, noting in his resignation letter, It is with regret for me to have to give up my position as Yates Township Trustee. When my work was overlooked, and the Township Supervisor made all of the decisions, even when the Board casted a vote NO. I thought a lot more could have been accomplished, in the first (2) two years. I want to live and work in a democratic society, not under a dictator. When Mr. Walker allowed his wife, Mrs. Walker, access to money that was in a Township bank account (before he was elected) and sued our Treasurer and Yates Township. It was the nail that sealed my decision. I have given this Township my time and money, (The Pride, Camp Idlewild, etc) through volunteering in a positive way, only because I cared.197 This letter, which Clay revised after he was threatened that he could be sued for certain language in his initial letter, ended with a postscript stating, “My first resignation letter was given to the Board, during the Annual Meeting. I cannot prove that Township lawyers were used and the CC section is removed, because I never sent them out. I was angry when I composed the letter. Apology is offered.”198 Although Clay may have overstated his point regarding the township's attorneys, Page 315 → his comment about Mrs. Walker “regarding additional work she put in on the transcript for the Oral History Project in the amount of $2,400.00”199 seems accurate based on the minutes of the township board meeting of March 31, 2011, and a detailed account outlining the actions of township treasurer Colleen Carrington. According to the board's minutes, Supervisor Walker “asked for a motion to pay Geraldine Walker the $2,400.00 for the work on the Oral History. [Township clerk] Doris Strouse [now deceased] made a motion to have George Walker put back on the bank accounts as a signatory.”200 Strouse's motion was defeated, since there was no second. However, after Mrs. Walker filed a motion to sue the treasurer and the board, under the advice of legal counsel, the board settled the dispute out of court and paid her. The real story surrounding the oral history project, according to the thorough report, contains many more interesting details. Yates Township was awarded a grant by the state of Michigan in the amount of $24,000 for the purpose of developing the 2008 Idlewild, Michigan Oral History Project. Ten percent, or $2,400 dollars, of the total grant amount was to go to Yates Township as grant administrator, $2,400 was for transcription services for fifty transcriptions, and an additional $450 was for difficult audio. Gloria House, professor of Africana studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, serving as project director for the grant proposal, sent a letter dated

September 15, 2008, to Esther Ward, then Yates Township treasurer, providing her with outstanding receipts and commenting, “Notice that there is a sum allocated to the Township for administration of the grant monies.”201 On October 24, 2008, House sent a memorandum to Betty Boone, Yates Township, and Ward, stating, “Assuming the Township has withdrawn the funds allotted for Grant Administration, $2,400.00 all other line item amounts have been applied.”202 Sometime in early November, Ward deposited $2,400 in the Yates Township General Fund bank account. The check was written on the Oral History account. Doris Strouse, Yates Township clerk, prepared a check in the amount of $2,400 and presented it to Carrington, newly elected treasurer, to deposit it back into the Oral History bank account. Carrington redeposited the funds pending audit of the grant.203 From December 2008 to August 2009, Treasurer Carrington did two additional things: first, she prepared monthly financial reports indicating that there was a balance of $2,400 in the Oral History account; second, she made contact with Jim Beelen of the Michigan Township Association, who, on April 7, 2009, e-mailed her back a statement from Michigan Compiled Law 41.75, which stated that all claims against the township must be approved by the township board at a regular board meeting and that only after the township board authorizes payment can the clerk and the treasurer sign.204 Page 316 → Approximately one year after Geraldine Walker performed the transcription services, she presented Carrington with a letter from House requesting that the township “pay her the $2,400.00 remaining balance that was listed on the financial reports in the line item for the Oral History Project.”205 After auditing the Oral History account and related memos and letters sent to Esther Ward, Carrington redeposited the $2,400 in the General Fund account and informed Supervisor Walker and his wife, Geraldine, that this was “township funds according to the information available.”206 On October 5, 2009, Carrington was hand delivered a letter by George Walker dated October 3, 2009, signed by Geraldine Walker, and indicating that copies had been sent to all of the board members as well as Betty Boone, accusing Treasurer Carrington of providing misinformation regarding check-paying procedures and threatening to request that the matter be placed on the agenda for the board meeting of October 19, 2009. A written memorandum from Supervisor Walker was also hand delivered to Carrington, stating that the issue would be put on the agenda. Two days before the scheduled board meeting, an e-mail sent by Gloria House to George Walker, Geraldine Walker, and Colleen Carrington directed the township to pay Mrs. Walker the $2,400 that she had previously allocated to the township for administration services. Tensions grew after an affidavit and claim was filed by Geraldine Walker, naming Carrington, Yates Township treasurer, as defendant. The reason stated for the claim was failure to pay an overdue bill, and Walker was requesting $3,000. A hearing was scheduled for November 4, 2010. A referral letter had been mailed to the township board “Re: Geraldine Walker vs. Yates Township” from the township's attorneys, recommending that the township consult the services of Attorney James Talaske to handle the case. After making contact with Attorney Talaske's office, Carrington was advised that the case could go to small-claims court and that she should move the case there if all charges were dismissed from the township and the township treasurer. During the hearing, the judge requested that Mrs. Walker and Treasurer Carrington sign a statement that the case would not be taken any further than the hearing and that both parties would accept the court's actions. Under advisement of her attorney, Carrington agreed, provided that if all charges were not dismissed, then the case would need to go to district court. The judge then asked Mrs. Walker if she was suing Treasurer Carrington, and she replied yes. The judge also asked if this matter was concerning the township, and she replied yes. The judge directed Treasurer Carrington to the district court. A notice to appear in court was prepared and delivered to the township office for a civil pretrial scheduled for the morning of December 13, 2010. Page 317 → Following this court appearance notice, a letter was sent to Carrington from Strouse, Yates Township clerk and Freedom of Information officer, indicating that Mrs. Walker was requesting copies of all correspondence regarding the Oral History Project grant. An e-mail was sent two days later to Strouse from Carrington, responding to the request for information. Included in an attachment to this e-mail was a letter from House to Mrs. Walker that attempted to clarify that she was requesting that Mrs. Walker be paid the additional amount only if the

board approved. House again stated that the money in question was for administrative fees belonging to the township. However, on the day of the November 15 board meeting, the matter was not brought up for discussion.207 In addition to a threat made by the supervisor, which I discuss later, Mrs. Walker's attorney requested, beginning on December 9, 2010, and again on February 4, 2011, that the case be adjourned and rescheduled for March 15, 2011. In the meantime, on February 4, without township approval, Strouse prepared a check in the amount of $2,400 made payable to Mrs. Geraldine Walker, and the new treasurer, Jacqueline Patterson, signed the check.208 This did not end the conflict, as Attorney Talaske provided a copy of the check to Mrs. Walker and her attorney, stating that Carrington should pay legal fees since she should have paid Walker sooner. A copy of the letter was sent to Attorney Christina Mims, who was informed that the reason the case was being postponed until March 15, 2011, was to provide enough time for the check to clear. However, in court, Walker's attorney resigned, stating that he no longer wanted to represent Mrs. Walker. The case regarding the $2,400 was dismissed, although Walker refused to drop the case, even though she had been paid. Added to the case, however, was a charge against the township for failure to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. Mrs. Walker stated in court that she wanted to proceed with this part of the case. As reasons for his request to resign, her attorney stated that Mrs. Walker hung up on him during a telephone conversation and that there was a breakdown in the attorney-client relationship. Two months later, on May 26, 2011, the board voted to settle the FOIA lawsuit against the township out of court by paying Mrs. Walker $700.209 Good leaders lead by example through a process that fosters effective two-way communication; however, leadership, communication, and accountability regarding the Idlewild oral history project was in short supply during the Walker administration. Other township observers suggest that Walker's social skills were unprofessional, as he has missed other opportunities to present the township in a positive light. When Rick Snyder, then candidate for Michigan governor, toured the resort town with a busload of supporters and investors, he made a request of Supervisor Walker to remove the covering on the markers. Page 318 → According to two sources, the supervisor responded that he “didn't have time to remove them.”210 Perhaps Walker rethought this dismissive response after Snyder's election as the new governor of the state of Michigan. This episode is indicative of the unprofessional interpersonal and public communication skills that Walker displayed as an elected official. Supervisor Walker also established a reputation of intimidating others during township meetings. In one instance on November 16, 2010, observers repeatedly claimed that Walker referred to former Yates treasurer Colleen Carrington as a “bitch.” Although the incident report for the civil complaint made against Walker by Carrington does not mention the utterance, the report filed by Deputy Bradley Nixon of the Lake County Sheriff's Department details the deputy's disturbing observations. In the narrative section of the report, Nixon writes, “Carrington stated that George backed her up toward the entrance of her office with his finger in her face shouting at her. She stated that he did not make any direct threats but told her that he was threatening her. Colleen stated that he did not touch her but did have his finger in her face [with a piece of paper] and would not move it.”211 The report was filed for information purposes only; however, in an interview, Colleen Carrington, now Lake County commissioner, verified the details documented in the incident report, stating, “I thought he was going to hit me,”212 and that there were others (including Doris Strouse, Al Webb, and Gwen Webb) who witnessed Walker's intimidating behavior as a bully on the day of the event.213 In general, Walker demonstrated a tendency to act on his own rather than as part of a team. Expressing serious concerns about the kind of leadership style exemplified by Walker, Ross explains, Mr. Walker won as supervisor. We've done a lot of good things, but a lot of things have just been a one-man show. But we can't have a one-man show. We are a board. It's supposed to be voted on. But a lot of things are getting done and then brought to the board. The last tanker truck they got they told the board after they had already picked it up and took it and had it repaired and then they brought a $13,000 bill to the board. I said, “Hold it, I'm the liaison officer. Who told him to go get a fire truck? …You should have brought it to the board first.” Well, the other trustee voted to pay, the clerk voted to pay, and he voted to pay, so we were outnumbered three to two. I would've never done that. You can't do that.214

Using power responsibly as an elected official represents one of the major hallmarks of public leadership. According to Fred Fischer, who teamed up with Page 319 → Professor David Tees of the University of Texas at Arlington to develop a series of training manuals for local elected officials, the one competency “that affects just about everything elected leaders do”215 involves effective decision making. Fischer notes, “Elected officials have been known to work with incompetent organizations, misuse civil society institutions for less-than-honorable reasons, and enable their buddies to get rich. Given this sordid side of a nevertheless honorable competency, elected leaders must recognize that trust is at the heart of all enabling ventures.”216 Walker's decision to purchase structures, furniture, and other items without seeking board approval represents a serious breach of public trust. Like those of many previous Yates supervisors, Walker's administration has been marked by what seems a lack of essential leadership and interpersonal communication skills. Elected leaders are often able to promote their vision via a strategic plan; however, Walker has been unsuccessful in outlining a strategic plan that would address the township's vision. Ross characterizes the supervisor's failure to outline a strategic planning document as follows: When we first got in office and after the audit and everything, I actually thought that we were going to sit down, identify these problem areas, come up with a plan in order to take care of the problem areas. One was the fire department, one was the maintenance department, one was the treasurer, and one was the clerk as far as record keeping. There was an opportunity for Mr. Walker to do all of that with the support of the board. And it wasn't done.217 Despite hosting various meetings about what to do with the old Flamingo Club and spending forty-seven thousand dollars for a feasibility study, nothing substantial has been done with the property and/or the structure. A feasibility study is a fine first step, but without the right commitment and implementation, it is merely a waste of state and federal tax dollars and of township officials' and citizens' energy and time. Walker's inability to share a strategic plan for the township and to implement it represents a missed opportunity, as the situation surrounding his leadership exemplifies the larger point Lewis Walker and Ben Wilson make regarding the community's lack of vision.218 This lack of vision continues to be the greatest internal threat and challenge to the future of the community. Under Walker's leadership, Idlewild did not have a shared vision of its promise or potential, nor did it have a strong, talented leader with a plan and the proper credentials, education, public speaking skills, persona, and integrity to bring the township together and to raise the township's profile. An effective leader will be a good listener Page 320 → and communicator who can build bridges, motivate all constituencies, and assist in spurring creativity, innovation, economic development, and a shared vision as the principal agent in the township. This point signaled a resounding response on the part of the voters during the August 8, 2012, primary election. In the most hotly contested race at the township level, Ronald Griffin upset incumbent supervisor George Walker Jr. in the Yates Township Democratic primary. Griffin's margin of victory was just twenty-two votes. Unofficial tallies gave Griffin eighty-eight votes, Walker sixty-six votes, and Yates Township trustee Willie Ross a third-place finish.219 Two of three trustee candidates won in November 2012 as well as the unopposed Democratic candidates—Griffin for supervisor, Patterson for treasurer, and Webb for clerk. Yet it appears they cannot work together as a collective group on behalf of the greater good of the township. This comes in spite of the fact that new leadership could put the finishing touches on reviving tourism and spurring economic development in contemporary Idlewild. As scholars, historians, sociologists, and geographers have cautioned over a twenty-year period, unless Idlewild “can be revitalized or transformed in a substantial manner in the very near future, it runs the risk of becoming a client community.”220 At this point, Idlewild's stakeholders need to determine an identity as a community, whether it be as a resort community or retirement community, and if the latter, what kind of retirement community. Will it strive to be like the money-generating resort retirement communities in Florida or Arizona? Or will it become a dying and old folk's retirement community turned ghost town? More important, with the completion of the Yates Township Master Plan, renovation of the Henrietta Summers Senior Center, purchase of the Yates Township Elementary School building for township offices, and restructuring of the township assessor's office, the township needs to establish a viable economy. In my opinion, a tourist economy has the most potential for showcasing the town's rich history; however, as a heritage tourist site, Idlewild would need to consider a collaborative approach to fully capitalize on the prospects of niche tourism. Considering all the facts surrounding

the historic circumstances that gave rise to Idlewild, I concur with Lewis Walker and Ben C. Wilson, who observed a decade ago that “its history should never be forgotten.”221 Because of the efforts of Norman Burns, John Meeks, FiveCAP and the EC, and the Idlewild, Michigan Transformation Initiative team, some progress has been made through new project developments and the incipient development of niche tourism, although not as an effective tool to attract tourists. Idlewilders will need to work harder and to work together much more effectively as a community in order for Idlewild to reach its full potential. Idlewild has some critically important internal Page 321 → dynamic issues to address, including educating and inspiring an ill-informed and inactive public, countering the history of a lack of leadership, and establishing and following a solid vision of how best to sustain its heritage and musical traditions in an ever-expanding tourism industry and market. Additionally, the previous township administration left a number of unfinished projects. A parks and recreation plan in progress, the extension of the sewer line (phase 11, including around Paradise Lake), continued blight removal, and finding the right professional to host the annual July music festival will require the immediate attention of the new township leadership.

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Epilogue Myths, Realities, and Possibilities of Revitalizing Michigan's “Black Eden” Idlewild is a national treasure and holds an important place in the histories of Michigan, leisure and recreation, consumerism, entrepreneurship, and race and class. This book has attempted to explore the essential characteristic traits and features of the middle- and working-class African Americans at Michigan's “Black Eden.” My objective was to explore Idlewild's development, particularly how its leadership—black and white men and women of substance—managed to achieve and sustain the history, cultural identity, and marketability of the rural black enclave throughout all major periods of the resort's history. Now—over a hundred years after the founding of Idlewild—one cannot help but to consider the possibility of its rebirth into an appealing tourist attraction in Michigan. For this to happen, contemporary leaders must dispel the myths surrounding their community, discontinue its romanticization, and develop short-and long-term plans to address decade long problems, including poverty, blight, and a lack of economic development or resources. Chicago's Bronzeville, like Idlewild, has a rich cultural history, making both sites intriguing ground for discussions of the myths and historical untruths about redevelopment and revitalization. In Jim Crow Nostalgia: Reconstructing Race in Bronzeville, Michelle Boyd illustrates the problematic diminishment of authenticity that can occur in communities when black elites, pursuing an agenda that caters to their self-interests, attempt to romanticize cultural history for the sake of remarketing a place as a heritage tourist destination. Black elites and decision makers in Idlewild have similarly relied on mythic narratives and recycled media representations to promote the historic town, rather than embracing the realities of its entertainment and social history. Distorted Page 323 → facts and historical inaccuracies have been prevalent in accounts of Idlewild, particularly regarding the roles played by the Idlewild Resort Company, Harlem Renaissance writers like Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, and a star-studded cast of black entertainers, including James Brown, Bill Cosby, Sammy Davis Jr., Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Stevie Wonder, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Wilt Chamberlain. In reality, neither historical nor biographical records substantiate the presence of these figures in Idlewild. A systematic search through Hurston's letters reveals no references to an Idlewild visit.1 No posters, handbills, historical newspaper articles, or photographs situate the “Godfather of Soul” at the resort; neither do any of the interviews I conducted with surviving showgirls and dancers who performed in Idlewild and toured with the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue. Similarly, analyses of both Stevie Wonder's and his mother's biographies dispel the myth that the teenage prodigy performed at the Paradise Club. While Sugar Ray Robinson and Wilt Chamberlain owned popular nightclubs in Harlem—and may have hosted Braggs's revue at them—neither ever made an appearance in Idlewild, nor did Sammy Davis Jr. Unlike the restoration efforts in Chicago's Bronzeville, which “drew sharp lines between middle-income and lower-income residents, and increased tensions between community leaders and black elected officials,” Idlewilders from mixed income classes and backgrounds have shared in attempts to reinvent the community by falsely claiming these famous personalities as part of the town's cultural history. While similar problems surround restoration efforts in Bronzeville and Idlewild, the causes and the impacts are slightly different. In Black Eden, published more than a decade ago, Lewis Walker and Ben C. Wilson argued that there should be a number of aspects to revitalization efforts in the Idlewild community, some of which have since been implemented. One of these aspects, clarity about the community's identity, continues to be problematic, and Idlewild remains at a crossroads.2 Competing ideas and conflicting community values regarding racial uplift ideology have created centralizing concerns revolving around the community's decisions on complex, long-term plans surrounding Idlewild's present conditions and future prospects. Walker and Wilson note that a paradigm shift in Idlewild will require various stakeholders coming together, “acknowledging their differences and rivalries” in order to “venture beyond the past and focus on the present and the future prize: a revitalized Idlewild community.” While announcing a major grant to Historic Idlewild from the state of Michigan, former governor Jennifer Granholm stressed the value of this end goal. Page 324 →

Idlewild has enormous potential if the resources are available. Its history and its geography could be used to attract specific target markets, to make it the Black Eden again. But there is no question that without sustained focus, leadership and commitment, and a deep pocket, this important opportunity will be squandered.3 Leadership, vision, accountability, and resources beyond state and federal support remain urgent needs in Idlewild. While the township's former leadership already drafted a master plan for revitalization, strategically implementing that plan will require a major fund-raising campaign, which, in turn, requires that township leaders work together on commonalities involving tourism and economic development, as opposed to competing with one another over dwindling state and federal resources and support. The transition from the administration of Yates Township supervisor Audrey Bullett is indicative of the type of infighting that is currently preventing leadership objectives from being successfully implemented. After losing the November 1992 election to Norman Burns, Bullett insisted on maintaining control of the township and the Idlewild Economic Development Corporation. Bullett had a vision for economic development in the community, and her initiatives had included the completion of an industrial building and the partial renovation of Lincoln Park. She also supported the construction of a hundred-room hotel on the outskirts of the town. However, Bullett's refusal to cooperate with her successor, Norman Burns, resulted in the issue being placed on the ballot. Burns won the public's vote to cease the economic development corporation's operations for a seven-year period. The next Yates Township supervisor, Donel Brown, failed to develop any plans for the reestablishment of the corporation. Compounding matters, Brown's successor, George Walker, also did little to develop an economic development corporation. Perhaps a new economic development corporation would only contribute marginally to Idlewild's revitalization efforts, but it would certainly push forward another inch toward a breakthrough. Still, there remains optimism for the dream to revitalize Idlewild. The development of a comprehensive marketing and economic development plan is critical. Recently, Michigan State University (MSU) launched a graduate student practicum to assist the historic Idlewild community with the development of such a comprehensive strategic plan for the enhancement of heritage tourism and economic development. Working in partnership with ICDC for four months, the five graduate students produced a 175-page blueprint for tourism and redevelopment of Idlewild, which outlined short- and long-term physical development, marketing, preservation, and special events plans. Two years ago, North Carolina State University undertook a landscape architecture practicum Page 325 → in Idlewild that also focused on community and economic development. Besides determining funding sources, grant proposals need to be developed and submitted to public and private funding agencies for support of programs like music festivals, demolishing dilapidated properties, renovating the Flamingo Club and the Casa Blanca Hotel, start-up payroll funds, and a variety of other ventures, such as developing a downtown Idlewild and making available for tourists a variety of outdoor activities. These types of urban upgrades fit into what Jennifer Granholm, discussing rural areas like Idlewild, called the “cool city” concept. Leveraging talent and resources was cool. Respecting the locals was cool. Prisons, on the other hand, are not cool…but they do provide jobs, which are cool. Basic infrastructure isn't “cool” per se, but it enables the fun stuff to happen. In Idlewild, we can envision a rebirth of the resort town with upgraded buildings and new ones, the Paradise and Flamingo clubs, original artifacts and buildings upgraded and historically respected, summer festivals featuring talent from all over the country—including from Interlochen nearby. We wanted Idlewild to be the place where African American families in particular would choose to summer and to share a bit of history. But all of this vision depended upon finding new resources at a time when the auto industry was in meltdown. Not unsurprisingly, Idlewild's decline has mirrored the decline of the domestic auto industry, including the diaspora from the industrial Midwest of the African American middle class. But I still harbor hope for Idlewild, as do many others.4 Such improvements have been implemented in Detroit through the renovation of farmers markets and redevelopment of parks along the Detroit River. Other cities, such as New York's Harlem, have renovated row houses or upgraded their main street facades. In Listening to Harlem: Gentrification, Community, and Business, David J. Maurrasse discusses how development and community empowerment impacts cultural change, raising

important questions regarding residential participation. Local communities applied local processes to compete for grants and loans, and this bottom-up strategy included the participation of diverse populations, such as young people, artists, talented locals, business leaders, and area residents. An important challenge, however, is that resources are essential for promoting tourism. A community needs strong regional and state partnerships to compete for the scarce marketing dollars available. Townships are uniquely disadvantaged to go it alone. Even in small communities like Idlewild, tourism is the primary export to boost seasonal job opportunities. While, to date, Idlewild's leadership has not taken concrete steps to actualize a blueprint for the town's continued success, a number of external contacts and resources are already in place and just Page 326 → need nurturing to potentially jump-start such efforts. Among these assets is the state's recent support for the development of an agency independent of the township to advance the quality of life and promote the struggles for social justice in the region's underserved communities. The mission of the Idlewild Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, is to bring the tools of community development together through collaboration to ensure neighborhood and community improvements in the region. Such an organization could and should work parallel to the strategic planning of the township by monitoring the progression of economic development projects, such as the creation of a heritage trail to grow cultural tourism. A second external contact is Idlewild's former partnership with FiveCAP Inc. New township officials should engage FiveCAP to reintroduce the agency's proposal to expand its parking lot and outdoor exhibition. A third external force important to redevelopment efforts would involve developing better relations with the Lake County Board of Commissioners, which recently encouraged residents to consider the importance of the county, villages, and townships in the area and adopt a new visual promotional campaign. A final external contact would engage the Lake County Chamber of Commerce, the Lake County Historical Society, and the Lake County Museum Committee. Collaboration with these sources would provide officials, residents, clubs, and nonprofit organizations opportunities to promote activities in a systematic and organized manner. For these efforts to find success, contemporary Idlewilders will need to learn how to be good township citizens, promoting a professional atmosphere and sound business practices. Historic Idlewild could become a destination that attracts Americans of diverse backgrounds as have Interlochen, Michigan, or Williamsburg, Virginia—providing tourists with a unique vacation experience filled with outdoor family activities and entertainment for all ages. Studies of the marketability of popular tourist attractions like these have revealed what experts refer to as niche tourism, a five-stage strategy that has been outlined by Lucy L. Henke.5 For the first stage, trained experts identify and define individual historic icons and specific on-site agents who can associate their products with famous individuals. The second stage, which emphasizes marketing, involves framing the target market for promotion of the icon, including analysis of the icon's key features and attributes. In this stage, tourism marketing managers identify ways in which the icon is perceived as different from other tourist attractions. The third stage of the model calls for an identification phase, which involves explaining the significance of the icon to engage tourists in activities such as festivals, films, walking/driving tours, parties, and readings centered on the area. This stage allows the tourist to personally connect with the rich history Page 327 → and various roles that the icon represents and occupies. The fourth stage, a merchandizing plan phase, includes not only development of fee-based souvenirs and memorabilia but also the exchange of other artifacts related to the icon. Here is where the township could find ways to rebuild relations with FiveCAP and to partner with them in some capacity, working with the Idlewild Historic and Cultural Center. Finally, the stage of broader community use of the icon's attraction with the on-site population establishes a link and commitment to the icon as a tourist attraction. During the main tourism season in Idlewild, leaders should consider sponsoring monthly music festivals as opposed to a single annual festival. Idlewild currently draws thousands of tourists to the area annually for at least four different occasions: a Fourth of July parade, music festivals, Idlewilders Week, and Labor Day weekend. It would be useful to consider the development of a calendar of events for the months of June, July, August, and September, which could be published in the media to promote various events and attractions, and the use of fixed signage in at least four major entry points into the community, especially in the parking lot of the Idlewild Historic Cultural Center. This would visually display the cultural identity of the community, sustain promotional plans,

capture the public's attention, and promote economic development, rather than rely on some idealized version of the past as a means to encourage tourism in the community. Another development that ICDC leaders should encourage is corporate sponsorship of music festivals and events. Examining the expansion of Memphis's annual Blues Festival, Stephen A. King has observed that “most blues festivals are funded, in part, by corporate sponsors, local businesses, and individual contributors.” In general, he argues, “corporate sponsors, including Philip Morris, the Miller Brewing Company, and Bryan Foods, typically underwrite at least 50 percent of the costs to fund and operate the Delta Blues and Heritage festival.” More important, King notes, the proceeds earned from most of these festivals have been historically used to improve local communities, to offset costs for badly needed infrastructural changes, repairs, and upgrades, and to encourage economic development opportunities that would improve business districts.6 Profits from funds earned through these activities could support student scholarships, township economic development projects, the arts, maintenance and facility cleanup, and the development of a permanent performance stage on Williams Island. If strategic plans are implemented and such a vision is executed properly and with integrity, all will benefit. Residents (year-round and seasonal), public officials, township and county taxpayers, private investors, and business leaders Page 328 → and their employees should engage in regular community conversations, rooted in sound reasoning and a collective effort, on how best to promote the resort community and to serve the needs of tourists. Situated in a rapidly changing political and commercial business environment in Michigan, Yates Township residents will need to always remember, recognize, honor, and respect the efforts of those who serve the greater welfare of the township's needs and interests.

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Notes Introduction 1. H. H. Thweatt, “The Best Summer I Ever Spent,” Crisis, August 1917, 169–70. 2. W. E. B. DuBois, “Hopkinsville, Chicago, and Idlewild,” Crisis (August 1921): 158, 160. 3. JoAnn Conrad, “Mapping America: Re-creating in the Cartographic Imagination,” Cultural Analysis 9 (2010): 11. 4. John Kasson, Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978), 3. 5. Susan Sessions Rugh, Are We There Yet? The Golden Age of American Family Vacations (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008), 69. 6. Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004),10. 7. Ibid., 211. 8. Michael C. Dawson, Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 10. 9. Harris-Lacewell. Barbershops, Bibles, and BET, 22. 10. Ibid. 11. See Lawrence Otis Graham, Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class (New York: HarperCollins, 1999); Myna Armistead,” Lord, Please Don't Take Me in August: African-Americans in Newport and Saratoga Springs, 1870–1930” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1999); Frank Stephenson, Chowan Beach: Remembering an African American Resort (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006). 12. For discussions of black upper-class resorts, see Arthur Railton, African Americans on Martha's Vineyard, special ed., Dukes County Intelligencer (October 1997); DeNeen L. Brown, “Oak's Bluffs, Mass.: A Place in the Sun; A Community on Martha's Vineyard Is Summer's Home for Elite Blacks,” Washington Post, August 20, 2012; Marsha Dean Phelts, An American Beach for African Americans (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997); Russ Rymer, American Beach: How “Progress” Robbed a Black Town—and Page 330 → Nation—of History, Wealth, and Power (New York: Harper Perennial, 2000) and American Beach: A Saga of Race, Wealth, and Memory (New York: HarperCollins, 1998); Jack E. Nelson, Raymond L. Langston, and Margo Dean Pinson, Highland Beach on the Chesapeake Bay: Maryland's First African American Incorporated Town (Highland Beach, MD: Highland Beach Historical Commission, 2008); Carroll Greene Jr., “Summertime in the Highland Beach Tradition,” American Vision, May/June 1986, 46–50; Mark S. Foster, “In the Face of ‘Jim Crow’: Prosperous Blacks and Vacations, Travel, and Outdoor Leisure, 1890–1945,” Journal of Negro History 84, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 130–49. 13. John Fraser Hart, “A Rural Retreat for Northern Negroes,” Geographical Review 1 (April 1960): 147–68. 14. Pehyun Wen, “Idlewild: A Negro Village in Lake County, Michigan” (master's thesis, University of Chicago, 1972), 70–87. 15. Frances Hill, “Her Middle Name Is Spunk: Meet Lela Wilson,” Negro Digest, November 1963, 66–67. 16. Helen C. Chesnutt, Charles Waddell Chesnutt: Pioneer of the Color Line (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952);Robert B. Stepto, Blue as the Lake: A Personal Geography (Boston: Beacon, 1998), 30–33. 17. Benjamin C. Wilson, “Idlewild: A Black Eden in Michigan,” Michigan History, September/October 1981, 33–37, and The Rural Black Heritage between Chicago and Detroit,1850–1929: A Photograph Album and Random Thoughts (Kalamazoo: New Issues Press, Western Michigan University, 1985). 18. Lewis Walker and Ben C. Wilson, Black Eden: The Idlewild Community (East Lansing: Michigan State University, 2002). 19. E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie: The Rise of a New Middle Class in the United States (New York: Collier Books, 1962), 162.

20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., 176. 22. Wilson Jeremiah Moses, “E. Franklin Frazier and Others: Religion, Assimilation, and Black Separatism, ” in The Wings of Ethiopia: Studies in African-American Life and Letters (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990), 107. 23. Lewis Walker and Ben C. Wilson, Black Eden: The Idlewild Community (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2002), 5. 24. Electronic interview via e-mail exchange with Jennifer M. Granholm, host of Current TV's The War Room, July 29, 2012.

Chapter 1 1. Susie J. Bantom, “The Story of Idlewild,” Idlewild Community Herald, special souvenir edition (July 1929): 1–3. 2. Lake County Historical Society, Lake County, 1871–1960 (Chicago: Arcadia, 2009), 128 pages.Page 331 → 3. Irene McCoy Gaines, “The Idlewild Story,” 1963 Idlewild Yearbook (produced and compiled by K. D. Davis) (Detroit, 1963), 1. 4. Ibid. 5. Lewis Walker and Ben C. Wilson, Black Eden: The Idlewild Community (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2002), 6. 6. Ibid. 7. John S. Hausman, “New Book Looks at Mainstream KKK in 1920s Newaygo County and Michigan.” Muskegon Chronicle, April 9, 2011, 1–6. 8. In an exploration of the history of the Michigan Klan as a mainstream movement, Craig Fox explains how KKK divisions in neighboring Newaygo County were “not the secretive, night-riding terrorists of the 1860s or the 1960s, but a sort of crude, quasi-respectable lodge organization that linked patriotism, Protestant religiosity and defense of traditional morality with an ugly brew of anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant, racist rhetoric” (Everyday Klansfolk: White Protestant Life and the KKK in 1920s Michigan [East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2011], 138). 9. Fox, Everyday Klansfolk, 158. 10. Ibid. 11. “Idlewild is Newest Summer Resort Here,” Lake County Star, December 31, 1915. 12. Bantom, “Story of Idlewild,” 1–3. 13. Ibid. 14. “Idlewild the Scene of Activity Preparing for Season's Opening,” Lake County Star, June 2, 1916, 1. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Bantom, “Story of Idlewild,” 1–3. 18. “Heard among Resorts and Resorters,” Lake County Star, August 4, 1916. The management had arranged a week of filming for the week of August 22. 19. Notes from Mary Ellen Tyus about Mary Ellen Cox, “The Doghouses,” Idlewild Public Library, in Ronald J. Stephens, Idlewild: The Black Eden of Michigan (Chicago: Arcadia, 2001), 22. 20. Stephens, Idlewild, 1–3. 21. Ibid. 22. Susie J. Bantom, “Idlewild,” Lake County Star, August 4, 1925, 3. 23. Susie J. Bantom, “Idlewild,” Lake County Star, June 5, 1925, 3. 24. Susie J. Bantom, “The Story of Idlewild,” special souvenir edition, Idlewild Community Herald (July 1929), 3. See also “Idlewild Is Newest Summer Resort Here,” Lake County Star, December 31, 1915, 3. 25. “Plan Chautauqua and Camp Meeting,” Lake County Star, January 31, 1919, 1. 26. “Plan Chautaugua and Camp Meeting,” Lake County Star, January 31, 1919, 1. 27. Ibid. Lemon continued to serve as manager of the corporation, with Albert Flogaus as secretary and

treasurer. Lemon, Wright, and Sanders were in charge of the sales end.Page 332 → 28. “Idlewild,” Lake County Star, April 25, 1919. 29. “Idlewild,” Lake County Star, September 25, 1925. 30. Susie J. Bantom, “Idlewild,” Lake County Star, February 12, 1926, 3. 31. “Build Hotel on River: E. G. Branch to Erect Fishing Quarters for Idlewild Summer Guests,” Lake County Star, March 12, 1920, 1. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Steven Fredrick Jones, “Woodland Park: Newaygo County's Hidden Black Gem,” Michigan History, March/April 2010, 44. 35. “Idlewild Resort Company Office Sold in Bankruptcy,” Lake County Star, March 9, 1928, 3. 36. “Idlewild, Letter to the Editor, by Dr. H. F. Bray, et al.,” Lake County Star, March 16, 1928, 3. 37. “Idlewild Co. Is Clear,” Lake County Star, April 6, 1928, 1. 38. Letter from Wilbur M. Lemon, Idlewild Resort Company, Chicago, to L. E. Griffin, Michigan Securities Commission, Lansing, July 30, 1927, 1, State Archives of Michigan. 39. Letter from Charles A. Wilson, attorney, Chicago, to Michigan Securities Commission, Lansing, August 11, 1927, 1, Idlewild Resort Company, Idlewild, MI, State Archives of Michigan. 40. “Idlewild Co. Is Clear,” Lake County Star, April 6, 1928, 1. 41. “Branch Bros. Buy Idlewilds Heights Property Developed by Dr. Bray Goes to Owners of Idlewild Terrace; Face Value is about $140,000,” Lake County Star, March 31, 1930. 42. Wilson Jeremiah Moses, “The New Negro and America's Changing World Mission,” in Black Messiahs and Uncle Toms: Social and Literary Manipulations of a Religious Myth (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), 118. 43. Ibid., 110. 44. Ibid., 113. 45. Ibid., 115. 46. Ibid., 121. 47. Wilson Jeremiah Moses, “The Lost World of the New Negro, 1895–1919: Black Literary and Intellectual Life before the Renaissance,” in The Wings of Ethiopia: Studies in African-American Life and Letters (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990), 207. 48. Ibid., 218. 49. Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 28. 50. Ibid., 27. 51. Patricia Hill Collin, “Feminism in the United States,” in Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 742. 52. Ibid.Page 333 → 53. Harris-Lacewell, Barbershops, Bibles, and BET, 37. 54. Collin, “Feminism in the United States,” 742. 55. Evelyn Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993). 56. Deborah Gray White, Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894–1994 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999). 57. Darlene Clark Hine, Speak Truth to Power: Black Professional Class in United States History (New York: Carlson, 1996), 43. 58. Ibid. 59. E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie: The Rise of a New Middle Class in the United States (New York: Collier Books, 1957), 6. 60. Describing how resorts catered to “the styles and tastes of their residents—some modest, some snobbish, some open, some down-home, and some seedy,” Lawrence Otis Graham writes, in Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), that black middle-class patrons of three or four generations viewed “the new Black professional families and the new non-professional Blacks

or whites [as] intrude[rs] upon the resorts that they carved out on their own three generations ago.” He continues, “Whether it's because these new visitors are disrespectful of the traditions that preceded them or because they are new faces and names that fail to share the same college and social club affiliations, the black elite holds on tightly to its history in these vacation communities.” 61. Venetria K. Patton and Maureen Honey, eds., Double-Take: A Revisionist Harlem Renaissance Anthology (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001), xxxii. 62. Nella Larsen's Passing (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1929) discusses racial passing. One of the protagonists mentions that she will be going away for the weekend to Idlewild. Larsen also published Quicksand and Passing, ed. Deborah E. McDowell (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000). 63. Perry A. Hall, “Perspectives on Interwar Culture: Remapping the New Negro Era,” in Jeffrey O. C. Ogbar, ed., The Harlem Renaissance Revisited: Politics, Arts, and Letters (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2010), 201. 64. Ibid. 65. Walker and Wilson, Black Eden, 4. 66. Ibid., 33. 67. Michael C. Dawson, Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). 68. Michael C. Dawson, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994, 6). 69. Ibid., 7. 70. Ibid., 8. 71. Ibid. 72. Catherine R. Squires, “Rethinking the Black Public Sphere: An Alternative Vocabulary for Multiple Public Spheres.” Communication Theory, November 2002, 451.Page 334 → 73. Michael C. Dawson, “A Black Counterpublic? Economic Earthquakes, Racial Agenda(s), and Black Politics,” in The Black Public Sphere, ed. the Black Public Sphere Collective (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 203–4. 74. Ibid., 201. 75. St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton, Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City, vol. 1 (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 8. 76. Ibid. 77. Ibid., 12. 78. Ibid. 79. Ibid., 24. 80. Ibid., 115. 81. August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, Black Detroit and the Rise of the UAW (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 4. 82. Ibid., 5. 83. Ibid. 84. Mark S. Foster. “In the Face of Jim Crow: Prosperous Blacks and Vacations, Travel, and Outdoor Leisure, 1890–1945” Journal of Negro History 84, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 130. 85. Informal interviews with James E. Smethurst and Gary Holcomb, Arts and Power in Movement: International Conference on Rethinking the Black Power and Black Arts Movements, University of Massachusetts–Amherst, November 18, 2010. 86. Kathleen A. Hauke, “The Passing of Elsie Roxborough,” Michigan Quarterly Review 22 (Spring 1984): 155–70. Besides producing Hughes's play, Elsie wrote three plays: “Wanting” (1935), “Flight” (1936), and “Father Knows Best” (1936). As an aspiring writer, notes Hauke, Elsie “charmed Hughes as she had charmed Joe Louis some years earlier.” Elsie also sought to pass as white and live incognito, under the name Pat Rico in the summer of 1939 and as Mona Manet by World War II. 87. “Mortgage Warranty Deed of Idlewild, Government Lot Four of Section Five and Government Lot Four of Section Six in Township Seventeen, North Range Twelve West; said property being Island in Idlewild. Also Lots numbering One, Two and Twenty Nine of Thirty-Four inclusive in Block Two Hundred ninetyfive; Lots numbered Thirteen to Twenty-one inclusive in Block Three hundred; and Lots numbered Fifteen

to Eighteen inclusive in Block Three hundred twenty; all of Idlewild No. Four, according to the recorded plat thereof.” Lake County Abstract Office, Baldwin, MI. 88. Idlewild Improvement Association, Idlewild: The Idlewild Improvement Association, Inc. (Baldwin, MI, 1923), 4. This booklet was prepared by the Clovis E. J. Foucher Advertising Company, Chicago, Illinois. 89. Rather than sleep in a tent, Williams stayed with friends on many of his early trips to Idlewild. On one occasion, he stayed in Idlewild for four days and apparently traveled to Colorado from there. See “Dr. Williams on Fishing Trip,” Chicago Defender, September 22, 1917, 1. On September 29, 1917, the Defender also reported about his return Page 335 → from Idlewild and the Rocky Mountains, with a stop at the Grand Canyon, where he brought his wife “a tub of fish and other game.” 90. Biography of Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, 1858–1931, Provident Hospital Archives, in The History of Provident Medical Center and Provident Hospital of Cook County (Chicago: Public Affairs and Community Services, 2003). 91. “Dr. Dan H. Williams, Noted Surgeon, Dead,” Lake County Star, August 7, 1931, 1. 92. Ibid. 93. Advertisement, Chicago Defender, October 18, 1913, 14. 94. “Death Claims Dr. Dan Williams,” Chicago Defender, August 8, 1931, 1. 95. Ibid. 96. “Dr. Dan H. Williams, Noted Surgeon, Dead,” Lake County Star, August 7, 1931, 1. 97. Ibid. 98. Ibid., 2. 99. The clubhouse had a great stone fireplace, built from cobblestones. The fireplace was designed by Fred Pollaski of Chase and had a large portrait of Washington overlooking it. The clubhouse had a lobby, an indoor dining room, and “a screened porch café.” Chicago's Charles R. Pointer and M. Bohannon managed the hotel and the clubhouse with the aid of Lulu Allen, who worked as “a librarian at Howard University” during the winter months, and Bessie Smith, who worked “in Chicago's public schools, as assistant and hostess.” The clubhouse's dining room was operated under the management of Anna L. Jones, “the popular caterer of Chicago and Evanston, Illinois, who has had unlimited experience in all services.” The delicatessen was handled by Lucy Manson, wife of David Manson, who “carried a complete line of home baking as well as refreshments and smokes.” See “Idlewild,” Lake County Star, July 7, 1925, 3. 100. Helen Buckler, Daniel Hale Williams: Negro Surgeon (New York: Pitman), 273. 101. Ibid., 259. 102. George F. Dechow, “Dr. Dan Found His Rest in Idlewild,” Lake County Star, August 7, 1969, 1. 103. “Wife of Dr. Dan Williams Buried,” Chicago Defender, September 6, 1924, 1: “Alice Lee Williams, who died at the age of 58, at her residence in Chicago Saturday afternoon after an illness of seven years, was active in literary circles in Chicago and Washington, D.C.” 104. Idlewild Improvement Association, Idlewild: The Idlewild Improvement Association, Inc. (Baldwin, MI, 1923), 1–7. 105. Susie J. Bantom, “Idlewild,” Lake County Star, September 25, 1925, 3. 106. “Paradise Gardens,” Lake County Star, July 23, 1926, 3. 107. Ronald J. Stephens, “Garveyism in Idlewild, 1927 to 1936,” Journal of Black Studies 34, no. 4 (March 2004): 462–88. 108. Smith-Irvin cited in Paul Lee, “Garveyism in Michigan: The Early Years,” Michigan Citizen, September 1–7, 2000, A8.Page 336 → 109. Charles Zampty cited in Lee, “Garveyism in Michigan,” 2. 110. Ibid. 111. Ibid. 112. Ibid. 113. “News and Views,” Negro World, June 4, 1927, 6. 114. Lee, “Garveyism in Michigan,” A8. 115. Interestingly, in the literature on Idlewild, there is no acknowledgment of Garvey's organization and its importance to the Idlewild community. The scholarship of Wilson (1985), Graham (1999), and Walker and Wilson (2002), for example, appears too preoccupied with discussions concerning the infusion of a Black middle-class elite clientele in Idlewild, neglecting to address the nationalist tendencies of the community's

history. Perhaps this oversight is because of the conflation of nationalism with the working class. 116. Lake County Abstract Office, Baldwin, MI, deed of property for Wilson's Paradise Gardens, lots 9, 10, 11, and 12, block 13 (1927), 1–86. 117. Ibid., 10. 118. Robert Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983–2011), lxxi–lxxii. 119. Lee, “Garveyism in Michigan,” A8. 120. Tony Martin, Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1976), lxvii, 6n1, 14. 121. Hill, Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, 316, 318n4, 341, 448, 962; “Rev. A. G. Taylor Speaks,” Blackman, August 31, 1929, 5. 122. Hill, Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, 472. 123. “Heard in Idlewild,” Lake County Star, April 19, 1929, 4. 124. Ibid. 125. Randall Burkett, Garveyism as a Religious Movement: The Institutionalization of a Black Civil Religion (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1978), 196. 126. Ibid., 3. 127. Ibid., 195. 128. A. D. Smith, “News and Views of the U.N.I.A. Divisions,” Negro World, May 11, 1929, 3. 129. Ibid. 130. “Heard in Idlewild,” Lake County Star, August 3, 1929, 3. 131. “Heard in Idlewild,” Lake County Star, November 2, 1929, 4. 132. “Heard in Idlewild,” Lake County Star, May 31, 1929, 3. 133. “Heard in Idlewild,” Lake County Star, May 24, 1929, 2. 134. “Thousands Attracted at Edelweiss Park,” Blackman, August 26, 1929, 5. 135. “Rev. A. G. Taylor Speaks,” Blackman, August 31, 1929, 5. 136. Ibid. 137. Ibid. 138. “L.A.T.H.,” Blackman, August 31, 1929, 12.Page 337 → 139. “News and Views of U.N.I.A. Divisions,” Negro World, August 3, 1929, 2. 140. “News and Views,” Negro World, November 2, 1929, 3. 141. “Some Delegates Write,” Blackman, October 21, 1929, 7. 142. “News and Views,” Negro World, January 25, 1930, 3. 143. Randall Burkett, Black Redemption: Churchmen Speak for the Garvey Movement (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989), 63. 144. Ibid., 66. 145. H. H. Thweatt, “The Best Summer I Ever Spent,” Crisis, August 1917, 169–70. 146. W. E. B. DuBois, “Hopkinsville, Chicago, and Idlewild,” Crisis (August 1921): 158. 147. Ibid., 160. 148. Idlewild Resort Company, Beautiful Idlewild (Chicago), 3. 149. Ibid., 11. Published in the company's Beautiful Idlewild brochure, Madame Walker's letter was dated December 23, 1918. 150. Alelia Bundles, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madame C. J. Walker (New York: Scribner, 2001), 269. 151. This is according to an article that appeared on the front page of the Cleveland Gazette on June 16, 1928. 152. Deborah White Gray, Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894–1994 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 27. 153. Ibid. 154. Ibid. 155. Ibid. 156. Ibid. 157. Ibid.

158. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, ed. Darlene Clark Hine, Elsa Barkley Brown, and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 1:35. 159. See http://mulattodebate.websitetoolbox.com/post/Violet-Anderson-Lawy___. 160. “Mrs. Violette Neatly-Blackwell Has Begun Divorce Proceedings Against Her Husband Amos Preston Blackwell,” Broad Axe, September 29, 1906, 2. 161. Notable Black American Women: Book II, ed. Jessie Carney Smith (Detroit: Gale Research, 1996), 13. See also “Miss Violette N. Anderson Successful Court Reporter, Who Has the Honor of Being the First,” Broad Axe, June 5, 1920, 2; and “Attorney Violette N. Anderson United in Marriage to Dr. A. E. Johnson, the Beautiful Wedding,” Broad Axe, August 21, 1920, 3. 162. Comment posted on Mulatto.org: Debate and Free Speech Board at http://mulattodebate.Forumchitchat.com/post/Violette-Anderson-Lawye…See also “Attorney Violette N. Anderson Highly Honored Member of the Chicago Bar, She Being the Only,” Broad Axe, July 29, 1922, 2. 163. See http://mulattodebate.websitetoolbox.com/post/Violet-Anderson-Lawy___; and “Woman Admitted to Supreme Court,” Advocate, February 26, 1926, 7.Page 338 → 164. “Rites Today for Dr. D.H. Anderson,” Chicago Defender, May 5, 1960, A2. 165. See http://mulattodebate.websitetoolbox.com/post/Violet-Anderson-Lawy___; and “Attorney Violette N. Anderson: The First Colored Woman Graduate from Any Law School within the State of Illinois,” Broad Axe, June 26, 1920, 1. 166. Notable Black American Women: Book II, 13. 167. “Attorney Violette N. Anderson United in Marriage to Dr. A. E. Johnson, the Beautiful Wedding,” 3. 168. See “Chicago Woman Named Assistant Prosecutor,” Appeal, December 30, 1922, 2; and “Miss Anderson Honored: Named as Prosecutor,” Chicago Defender, December 30, 1922, 1. 169. Notable Black American Women: Book II, 13. See also “Admitted to Practice before Supreme Court,” Boston Daily Globe, March 25, 1926, 13; and “Mrs. Johnson Will Practice before the U.S. Supreme Court,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 20, 1926, 7. 170. See http://www.msozetas.org/birch.php. 171. “Big Summer Resorts Prepare,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 19, 1930, A6. 172. See http://www.msozetas.org/birch.php. 173. Ibid. See also “Zeta Phi Beta Mourns Death of Its Dynamic President, Violette Anderson Johnson,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 1, 1938, 9. 174. Ibid. 175. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, 476. 176. Finding aid, Irene McCoy Gaines papers, 1893–1968, Chicago Historical Society, 3. 177. See The Dirksen Congressional Center web page at http://dirksencenter.org /print_emd_earlyadvocateCR.htm. 178. Irene McCoy Gaines papers, Chicago Historical Society, 1893–1968. 179. “Mrs. Irene M. Gaines Lost Her Cottage at Idlewild—It Being Destroyed by Fire,” Broad Axe, August 28, 1926, 1. 180. Ibid. 181. See http://keywiki.org/index.php/Irene_Gaines. 182. During the letter writing campaign of the mid-to-late 1940s, both Rose and Devere Warner wrote letters to various sources soliciting financial support for a building fund for the Stewart Alexander Post. For example, on February 20, 1946, Rose wrote Baldwin banker Robert Smith. See box log of box 102 of the private collection of Barbara Johnson, who currently resides in the old Warner cottage. Also, in box 102, Rose Warner wrote Sandy A. Smith of Cleveland, Ohio, March 19, 1946, concerning “some lots owned by you in Idlewild,” block 297—lots 10–13, while Devere wrote Fred Sampson, also of Cleveland, on March 19, 1946, after writing Percy Langston of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, regarding lots 14–17 in block 297, Idlewild, and discovering that the property had been sold to Sampson. Outlining the Veterans of Foreign Wars' desires to locate a site to build “their own Post Headquarters,” they wanted to know “if these lots are for sale and the price of same.” Other letters in the Johnson collection include a written response from Sandy Smith, stating that after further investigation he learned that “the…lots…are worth $400.00 or $100.00 each” and stating, “I am sorry if I have misled you in Page 339 → the matter of value, but have never seen them and had no idea of their value.” Although the couple's campaign was challenging, they

were successful in acquiring the property to build the post headquarters. 183. H. Franklin and Virginia Bray met and were married in Kentucky. After settling in Idlewild, the couple had a son named Charles. 184. “Death Joins in Closing Pastorate: Rev. H. Franklin Bray Dies Same Week He Retires from Pulpit,” Idlewild Community Herald, October 1939, 2. 185. Obituary of Harry Franklin Bray, Idlewild Community Herald, October 1939, 3. 186. Bray was quite active before migrating to Idlewild. While he was pastoring in Colorado, the Chicago Defender reported of his tours to Chicago, where he spoke on behalf of Snelson and Stewart at various churches (“News of Churches,” May 19, 1917, 4) and on behalf of Dr. A. J. Carey, pastor of the Institutional Church (“Union Revival Meeting,” June 9, 1917, 10). On his activities while serving as superintendent of the Sunshine Rescue Mission, see the following Chicago Defender reports: “News of the Churches,” June 8, 1918, 12; “News of the Churches,” August 10, 1918, 12; “Evangelist Bray to Return,” May 3, 1919, 15; “News of the Churches,” May 24, 1919, 12; “Evangelist Returns from Iowa,” June 21, 1919, 10; “Churches,” December 25, 1919, 10; “Rev. Bray at Springfield,” May 29, 1920, 12; “Churches,” June 15, 1920, 10. 187. See “Idlewild, Michigan,” Chicago Defender, July 1, 1922, 4; “Idlewild, Michigan,” Chicago Defender, August 26, 1922, 5 (for details about the outdoor services). 188. The Idlewild Community Herald was established in April 1923 and admitted by the U.S. Post Office Department as a second-class mailing by October 1927, according to church records and other publications. 189. Letter to Rev. H. Franklin Bray, Church of Christ, Idlewild, from Howard C. Lawrence, secretary, Michigan Governor's Office, Lansing, May 2, 1929, 1, record group 49, box 103, file 1, Governor Fred Green Files, State Archives of Michigan. 190. Letter to Rev. H. Franklin Bray, Church of Christ, Idlewild, from Howard C. Lawrence, secretary, Michigan Governor's Office, Lansing, July 26, 1929, 1, record group 49, box 103, file 1, Governor Fred Green Files, State Archives of Michigan. 191. Letter to Rev. H. Franklin Bray, Church of Christ, Idlewild, from Howard Lawrence, secretary, Michigan Governor's Office, Lansing, August 6, 1929, 1–2, record group 49, box 103, file 1, Governor Fred Green Files, State Archives of Michigan. 192. Grace Bradley, “Governor and Party Visit Idlewild Resort,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 17, 1929, 10. 193. Ibid. 194. Ibid. 195. Ibid. See also Angela D. Dillard, Faith in the City: Preaching Radical Social Change in Detroit (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007), 85. 196. Grace Bradley, “Governor and Party Visit Idlewild Resort,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 17, 1929, 10. 197. “Thousands Hear Gov. Green Speak; State's Executive Attends Dedication of Idlewild Tabernacle” Lakewood Acres News, September 1929, 3 (extract from address). 198. Ibid., 4.Page 340 → 199. Ibid. 200. Ibid. 201. Elizabeth Anne Martin, Detroit and the Great Migration, 1916–1929 (Ann Arbor: Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, 1993). Martin, having combed through microfilm reel 3 of the Second Baptist Church Records at the Bentley Historical Library, provides evidence for Bradby's influence in helping blacks find work in the labor market in Detroit. 202. Idlewild,” Lake County Star, August 14, 1926, 3. 203. Ibid. 204. Ibid. 205. Letter to Governor Fred W. Green from Rev. R. L. Bradby, Second Baptist Church of Detroit, June 8, 1929, 1, record group 49, box 31, file 5, Governor Fred Green Files, State Archives of Michigan. 206. Letter to Rev. R. L. Bradby, Second Baptist Church of Detroit, from Howard Lawrence, secretary, Michigan Governor's Office, Lansing, June 10, 1929, 1, record group 49, box 31, file 5, Governor Fred Green Files, State Archives of Michigan. 207. “Governor Green and Bishop Vernon of Detroit Are Featured Speakers This Summer,” Lake County Star July 8, 1927, 3.

208. Ibid. 209. “Idlewild,” Lake County Star, July 23, 1927, 3. 210. The Cleveland Gazette reported that Attorney and Mrs. Green were in Idlewild “preparing for the opening of the club house there in which they are interested” (“Cleveland Social and Personal,” July 16, 1927, 3). 211. “Cleveland,” Cleveland Gazette, July 24, 1926, 3. 212. William Pickens, “Idlewild,” Detroit Independent, September 16, 1927, F4. 213. “Governor Green and Bishop Vernon of Detroit Are Featured Speakers This Summer,” Lake County Star, July 8, 1927, 3. 214. Ibid. 215. Ibid. 216. Ibid., 4. 217. Ibid. 218. Ibid., 3. 219. Susie J. Bantom, “Idlewild.” Lake County Star, August 5, 1927, 3. 220. “Governor Green and Bishop Vernon of Detroit Are Featured Speakers This Summer,” Lake County Star, July 8, 1927, 3. 221. Letter to Adelbert Branch, president, Idlewild Resort Company, from Howard Lawrence, secretary, Michigan Governor's Office, Lansing, August 28, 1929, 1, record group 49, box 103, file 1, Governor Fred Green Files, State Archives of Michigan.

Chapter 2 1. Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, A'lelia Walker, and Charles W. Chesnutt all died during the early years of the Great Depression.Page 341 → 2. Throughout the 1920s, the ILOA controlled much of the Island's business affairs through the support of the IIA. By 1924, the ILOA had established local chapters in eight different midwestern cities. 3. “Idlewild Seeks an Executive,” Cleveland Gazette, April 25, 1931, 1. 4. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corp helped these leaders to actualize their initial dreams, ideas, visions, and preservation concerns for Idlewild. 5. Adam Green, Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940–1955 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 9. 6. See “Chicago during the Great Depression,” Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com/business /081024-great-depression-photogallery,0,5754970.photogallery. 7. See dtenews.com/Michigan History, pp. 1–4. 8. Michael Dawson, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 6. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid., 8. 11. Ibid., 7–8. 12. Ralph W. Hauenstein,, Intelligence Was My Line: Inside Eisenhower's Other Command, as told to Donald E. Markle (New York: Hippocrene Books, 2005), 7. 13. Ibid. 14. Richard M. Hughes, “The CCC for Young Men,” Idlewild Community Herald, May 1939, 1. 15. Hauenstein, Intelligence Was My Line, 7. 16. Hughes, “The CCC for Young Men,” 1. 17. Hauenstein, Intelligence Was My Line, 7. 18. Ibid., 8. 19. Ibid., 9. 20. Ibid., 11. 21. Ron Chepesiuk, Black Gangsters of Chicago (Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2007), 45. 22. Ibid., 59.

23. Nathan Thompson, Kings: The True Story of Chicago's Policy Kings and Numbers Racketeers; An Informal History (Chicago: Bronzeville Press, 2003), 136–37. 24. Lake County Abstract Office, Baldwin, MI, title for George Jones's deed of property for Idlewild number 2, lots 1–8, block 128, plat of Idlewild 2 being part of sections 5–6 and 7–8, 17–12. 25. Lake County Abstract Office, Baldwin, MI, McKissack Jones's deed of property for Idlewild number 4, lots 1–3 and 32–34, block 293. 26. Ed Becker and John Tuohy, “Teddy Roe,” [email protected], 1999, 1. 27. For more information about Congressman Dawson's political career, see Illinois State Historical Library, Illinois Blue Book, 1969–1970, ed. Paul Powell, 71; Illinois State Historical Library, Illinois Blue Book, 1945–1946, ed. Edward Barnett, 113; Biographical Page 342 → Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–1989 Bicentennial Edition (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1989), 885; Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, ed. Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel West, vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan Library Reference USA), 727; Willmoore Kendall, “The Two Majorities,” Midwest Journal of Political Science 4 (November 1960): 317–69. 28. Thomas Reppetto, American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power (New York: Henry Holt, 2004), 238. 29. Chepesiuk, Black Gangsters of Chicago, 63. 30. Ibid., 66. 31. Ibid., 69. 32. Ibid., 72–73. 33. Ibid., 76. 34. Ibid., 78. 35. Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 25. 36. Ibid. 37. “News and Views,” Negro World, January 25, 1930, 3. 38. Ronald J. Stephens, “Garveyism in Idlewild, Michigan,” Journal of Black Studies (March 2004): 462–88. 39. “News and Views,” Negro World, August 3, 1929, 3. 40. “News and Views,” Negro World, September 6, 1930, 3. 41. “News and Views,” Negro World, November 8, 1930, 3. 42. “News and Views,” Negro World, October 25, 1930, 3. 43. Ibid. 44. Mary G. Rolinson, “The Garvey Movement in the Rural South, 1920–1927” (PhD diss., Georgia State University, 2002), 254. 45. “News and Views,” Negro World, September 7, 1930, 3. 46. Winston James, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early TwentiethCentury America (London: Verso, 1998), 138. 47. See ibid.; Deborah Gary White, Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894–1994 (New York: Norton, 1999); Ula Y. Taylor, The Veiled Garvey: The Life and Times of Amy Jacques Garvey (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002). 48. Raymond Mohl and Neil Betten, Steel City: Urban and Ethnic Patterns in Gary, Indiana, 1906–1950 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1986), 82. 49. “News and Views,” Negro World, November 22, 1930, 3. 50. Ibid. 51. See “Heard in Idlewild,” Lake County Star, April 26, 1929, 3; “News and Views,” Negro World, November 22, 1930, 3. 52. “Heard in Idlewild,” Lake County Star, January 9, 1931, 4; January 16, 1931, 4; “News and Views,” Negro World, March 14, 1931, 3. 53. Paul Lee, “Garveyism in Michigan: The Early Years,” Michigan Citizen, September 1–7, 2000, A8.Page 343 → 54. Robert Hill, ed., The FBI's Racon: Radical Conditions in the United States during World War II (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1995), 664. 55. Interview and personal communication with Leonard Wyatt, June 12, 2002.

56. Hill, FBI's Racon, 664. 57. Tony Martin, Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1976). 58. “Heard in Idlewild,” Lake County Star, June 12, 1936, 2. 59. “Heard in Idlewild,” Lake County Star, November 13, 1936, 2. 60. “Heard in Idlewild,” Lake County Star, June 12, 1936, 2. 61. The Life and Times of John (Jay) Calvin Pellum (Idlewild: printed by the Pellum family); interview with Mother Elizabeth Pellum of Grand Rapids, August 13, 2009. 62. Irene M. Gaines, “In Memoriam to the Founder of Idlewild Community Tabernacle Reverend H. Franklin Bray,” in Twenty-First Anniversary of the Idlewild Tabernacle, compiled by Charles M. Curry (Idlewild: Tabernacle A.M.E. Church, 1944), 2. 63. “Idlewild to Have School of Industry,” Lake County Star, April 6, 1934, 3. 64. Ibid. 65. “Mother: Idlewild Loses Its Oldest and Most Beloved Mother,” Idlewild Community Herald, March 1934, 8. 66. “Idlewild Lot Owners Meet,” Idlewild Community Herald, September 1939, 9. 67. Hank DeZutter and Pamela Little DeZutter, “Black Eden: These Parts: Idlewild, MI—Before the Civil Rights Act,” Chicago Reader, June 3, 1993, 1–3. 68. “Beautiful Idlewild,” Idlewild Community Herald, June 1936, 2. 69. “Beautiful Idlewild,” Idlewild Community Herald, June 1936, 9, 3, 1. 70. E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie: The Rise of a New Middle Class in the United States (New York: Collier Books, 1957), 222. 71. Lewis Walker and Ben C. Wilson, Black Eden: The Idlewild Community (East Lansing: Michigan State University, 2002), 67. 72. Karyn R. Lacy, Blue-Chip Black: Race, Class, and Status in the New Black Middle Class (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 29. 73. Ibid., 75. 74. “Heard in Idlewild,” Lake County Star, February 10, 1939, 2. 75. “Heard in Idlewild,” Lake County Star, September 27, 1940, 2. 76. “Heard in Idlewild,” Lake County Star, December 26, 1930, 3. 77. Lucius C. Harper, “What the Power of a Rag Does in a Democracy: Dustin' Off the News,” Chicago Defender, November 29, 1947, 1. 78. Ernest Allen Jr., “Identity and Destiny: The Formative Views of the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam,” in Muslims on the Americanization Paths?, ed. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and John L. Esposito (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 203nn. 79. 1900 U.S. Census (Joseph A. Downing). 80. See James W. Loewen, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005).Page 344 → 81. Susan Nance, How the Arabian Nights Inspired the American Dream, 1790–1935 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 238. 82. Ibid. 83. Allen, “Identity and Destiny,” 203–4nn. See also Wendell Thomas, Hinduism Invades America (New York: Beacon Press, 1930), 220. 84. Joveddah De Rajah, The Open Door: Laws of Life (Buffalo, NY: printed by the author, 1928). 85. Thomas, Hinduism Invades America, 219. 86. Ibid. 87. Ibid. 88. Seattle Daily Times, January 2, 1920, 10. 89. Thomas, Hinduism Invades America, 219. 90. Harper, “What the Power of a Rag Does in a Democracy,” 2. 91. Frederick B. House was born at Cooperstown, New Jersey, on January 27, 1862. The successful legal career of House led him to the newly established traffic court, where he became the presiding magistrate of the court in New York City. See summary, National Civic Review 6 (1916): 313.

92. “Prince Razzles Judge: Royal Traffic Law Breaker Ceremoniously Pays Fine,” Oregonian, December 10, 1921, 12. For other reports of the case, see Times-Picayune, December 11, 1921, 23; “Indian Prince Haled into New York Court,” Seattle Daily Times, December 11–22, 1921. 93. See “To Summons Employers to New Traffic Court: Magistrate House Intends to Inflict Punishment on Owner If It Can Be Proved That He Ordered Speeding,” New York Times, June 18, 1916. 94. Opinion of the Court, 3, in State of Michigan in the Circuit Court for the County of Lake, Frances De Rajah, Plaintiff, v. Joveddah De Rajah, Defendant, February 19, 1938, Circuit Court Judge Max E. Neal, Courtesy of the Lake County Historical Society. 95. “Burmah Prince Displays Mystic Powers in Boston,” Boston Traveler, 1930–31. 96. Ibid. 97. Opinion of the Court, 3, in State of Michigan in the Circuit Court for the County of Lake, Frances De Rajah, Plaintiff, v. Joveddah De Rajah, Defendant, February 19, 1938, Circuit Court Judge Max E. Neal, Courtesy of the Lake County Historical Society. 98. “The Theaters,” Grand Rapids Press, October 8, 1918, 10. 99. Advertisement, Muskegon Chronicle, August 8, 1920, 4. 100. See State of Michigan in the Circuit Court for the County of Lake, in Chancery, Frances De Rajah, Plaintiff, v. Joveddah De Rajah, Defendant, 2. 101. The property was described as “the North Half of the Southwest Quarter of Section Four (4), Township Seventeen (17) North, Range Twelve (12) West Lake County, Michigan, containing approximately 27.75 acres and having as its North boundary line the North line of said Northwest Quarter of the Southwest Quarter, as its West boundary Page 345 → line the West line of said Northwest Quarter of the Southwest Quarter, as its South boundary line a line equidistant from the home building and inn building on said premises, and its East boundary line the East line of said Northwest Quarter of the Southwest Quarter of Section Four (4).” Lake County Abstract Office, Baldwin, MI. 102. “Mystic Marries Wealthy White Woman, Builds Idlewild Home: Modern Mansion Attracts Curious,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 16, 1932, A9. 103. Ibid. 104. Ibid. 105. Ibid. 106. Ibid. 107. State of Michigan in the Circuit Court for the County of Lake, in Chancery, 4. 108. “Husband Sues Radio Love Lecturer for $50,000 Balm,” unknown newspaper, 1937 (courtesy of the Lake County Historical Society). See also George Kinney, “$50,000 Fly in Prince's Joy Ointment,” unknown newspaper, 1937 (courtesy of the Lake County Historical Society). 109. “Prince Joveddah Loser in Court Tilt with Woman,” Chicago Defender, February 2, 1929, 1. 110. Ibid. 111. Ibid. 112. Ibid. 113. Ibid. 114. Ibid. 115. Ibid., 2. 116. Ibid. 117. Ibid., 1. 118. “Joveddah Gets New Relief by Adopting Child,” Chicago Defender, February 23, 1929, 1. 119. Nance, How the Arabian Nights Inspired the American Dream, 238. 120. Ibid. 121. State of Michigan in the Circuit Court for the County of Lake, in Chancery, 6. 122. Lost Horizon was one of Frank Capra's best films, ranking as a masterpiece. See the following film reviews for more information: “Lost Horizon,” in The Motion Picture Guide, L–M, 1927–1983 (Chicago: Cinebooks, 1986), 1733–34; Harold Meyerson, “Lost Horizon,” in Magill's Survey of Cinema: English Language Films, ed. Frank N. Magill (North Carolina: Salem Press, 1993), 1006–8; Richard Raskin, “The Three Endings of Capra's Lost Horizon,” 1–6, at http://pov.imv.au.dk/Issue_22/section_2/artclA.html. 123. Ethel Smith, letter to De Rajah Joveddah, November 18, 1937, Idlewild, MI.

124. Court records, Lake County Circuit Court, Baldwin, MI. 125. Ibid. 126. “De Rajah, Once Wealthy, Dies on Pauper's Cot,” Chicago Defender, January 20, 1940, 1. 127. Ibid.Page 346 → 128. Edward Lee Curtis and Danielle Brun Sigler, The New Black Gods: Arthur Huff Fauset and the Study of African American Religions (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 128. 129. Jet, September 8, 1955, 13. 130. Ronald J. Stephens, Idlewild: The Black Eden of Michigan (Chicago: Arcadia Publishing, 2001), 109. 131. Letter from Rosa Williams to her mother, Louise Williams of Chicago, August 20, 1943, in the private collection of Cheryl Evans. Gabriel Heater was a Jewish radio announcer during the 1940s, heard every Sunday. His show reached its peak during the war, when thousands of listeners tuned in to hear his commentary about the conflict. 132. Nell Irvin Painter, Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 242. 133. Ibid., 254. 134. The Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary, Route 66, Postwar Years: 1945–1960 was adapted from a Route 66 Special Resource Study, which was produced by the National Park Service's Heritage Education Services and the National Park Service Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program, in partnership with the American Express and World Monuments Fund Sustainable Tourism Initiative and the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Office. 135. The conflict between Coombs and Craigen over the construction of the hotel intensified when Coombs refused to repay Craigen. See AKT Peerless Environmental and Energy Services, Phase 1 Environmental Site Assessment of the Former Casa Blanca Hotel (prepared for the Lake County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority and John O. Meeks) (Lansing, 2010), 13. 136. Letter from Joseph A. Craigen to I. Coombs, on letterhead of the State of Michigan Workmen's Compensation Commission, Lansing, MI, May 4, 1949, in the author's private collection. 137. Letter from Joseph A. Craigen to I. Coombs, March 18, 1952, in the author's private collection. 138. Letter from Joseph A. Craigen to W. C. Coombs, May 23, 1950, in the author's private collection. 139. Interview with Percy Davis of Idlewild, 2009.

Chapter 3 1. “Summer Resorts: Michigan's Idlewild Is Nation's Oldest Summer Playground Owned by Negroes,” Ebony, June 1952, 107–14. 2. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States (Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930), T626, Detroit, Wayne, Michigan, roll 1046, 21B, enumeration district 375, 983.0, accessed on Ancestry.com. 3. Vivian Baulch, “Paradise Valley and Black Bottom,” Detroit News, August 7, 1996.Page 347 → 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. “Summer Resorts: Michigan's Idlewild,” 114. 7. See Come to Beautiful Idlewild for a Real Vacation: It's Yours to Enjoy (Idlewild: Idlewild Chamber of Commerce, 1955). 8. Chicago Defender, “Hotelmen Pledge Improved Service,” December 25, 1954, 4. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid., 7. 11. “Summer Resorts: Michigan's Idlewild,” 107. 12. See Ted Talbert, Idlewild: A Place in the Sun (Detroit: WDIV-TV, 1995). On April 1, 1982, Wayne County Circuit Court judge Myron H. Wahls was elevated to the Michigan Court of Appeals through an appointment by Governor William Milliken. Wahls, who was appointed as the court's first African American judge, was born in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, on December 11, 1921. He was a member of the National Bar Association, the American Judicature Society, the American Trial Lawyers Association,

and the American Civil Liberties Union. 13. Telephone interview with John Meeks of Idlewild, June 4, 2011. 14. Ibid. 15. Obituary of Dr. Otis Eugene Stanley, June 20, 1934–July 12, 2012, the family of Dr. Otis Stanley, Jr. 16. Kristin Palm, “Rebirth of a Resort,” Metro Times, July/August 6, 1996, 22. 17. Adam Green, Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940–1955 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2007). 18. “Phil Giles the Builder Has Hit the Jack Pot This Time,” Idlewilder's Magazine, June 1955, 8. 19. “Zig and Zag with Joe Ziggy Johnson,” Chicago Defender, September 4, 1954, 20. 20. “Phil Giles the Builder Has Hit the Jack Pot,” 8. 21. Jennifer A. Machiorlatti, “The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of a Black Community” (paper prepared for a history class with Darlene Clark Hine at Michigan State University, 1989), 15. 22. See Sundiata Keita Cha Jua, America's First Black Town: Brooklyn, Illinois, 1830–1915 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000, 6). In Crisis of the Negro Intellectual: A Historical Analysis of the Failure of Black Leadership (New York: William Morrow, 1967), Harold Cruse makes a similar argument about this meaning of black economic nationalism. 23. Sunnie Wilson, Toast of the Town: The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson, with John Cohassey (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998), 140. 24. According to the website of the Blues Nexus, the ultimate blues connection, Alberta Adams is a blues, jump blues, and Chicago blues singer who has long been the undisputed “Queen of the Blues” in Detroit. 25. Wilson, Toast of the Town, 141.Page 348 → 26. Ibid. 27. Lake County Historical Society, Lake County, 1871–1960 (Chicago: Arcadia, 2009), 43. 28. “Phil Giles the Builder Has Hit the Jack Pot,” 8. 29. “Zig and Zag with Ziggy Johnson,” Chicago Defender, June 23, 1956, 14. 30. “Summer Resorts: Michigan's Idlewild,” 107. 31. Ibid., 109. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Michigan Chronicle, May 26, 1956, 8. 35. “Zig and Zag with Ziggy Johnson,” Chicago Defender, June 23, 1956, 14. 36. “Zig and Zag with Ziggy Johnson,” Chicago Defender, July 14, 1956, 14. 37. Idlewilder's Magazine, July 27, 1956, 12–13. 38. Idlewilder's Magazine, July 20, 1957, 4–5. 39. Deborah Willis and Carla Williams, The Black Female Body: A Photographic History (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002). 40. Advertisement, Michigan Chronicle, May 23, 1959, 4. 41. See advertisement, Cleveland Call and Post, December 19, 1959, 6; Cleveland Call and Post, January 2, 1960, 6. 42. “Idlewild Abounds with Fun, Good Fun and Relaxation; Variety Is the Keynote for the Vacationer at Idlewild, Mich.,” Detroit Courier, July 22, 1961. 43. Advertisement, Ludington Daily News, June 30, 1962, 13. 44. Alex Kotlowitz, “Remembering Idlewild: A Resort Town's Shining Past Rusts in Peace,” May 6, 1984, Detroit News. 45. Susan Sessions Rugh, Are We There Yet? The Golden Age of American Family Vacations (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008), 70. 46. See Machiorlatti, “Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of a Black Community,” 4, citing June Brown, “Idlewild, Once a Black Tourists' Mecca, to Recall Glory Days,” Detroit News, February 24, 1984, 5A. 47. Wilson, Toast of the Town,, 141. 48. Detroit Idlewilders Conclave, History of the Detroit Idlewilders, souvenir booklet, 2. 49. According to the archival records of the Detroit Idlewilders Club Inc., those attending the initial meeting were Attorney Joseph Craigen, Sunnie Wilson, Attorney Willis Graves, Winola Burch-Conway, Isola Graham-Winburn, Lee Wilmer, Evelyn Solomon, John Hill Mattocks, Asa Canadia, Jimmy and Maxwell

Hickman, O. E. Fite, Mary B. Watkins, Theresa King, Sadie Brown, Roscoe Wroten, Dr. Andrew Jackson, Kenneth and Viola Davis, Beatrice Fleming, Clarence Brown, Dick and Inez King, Bob Austin, David Brantley, Sue Mills, Judge Lucile Alexander-Watts, and Floyd Thompson. 50. Wilson, Toast of the Town, 144. 51. Ibid. 52. K. D. Davis, Idlewilders Magazine, July 1955, 3. 53. Interview with Betty Foote, August 13, 2009.Page 349 → 54. Telephone interview with Bill Owsley, September 17, 2010. 55. The Tucker and Son's Grill placed an advertisement in the 1963 Idlewild Yearbook (produced and compiled by K. D. Davis) (Detroit, 1963), 40. 56. Come to Beautiful Idlewild for a Real Vacation. 57. Ibid. 58. “Biennial Spring Election April 6 to Present Lively Contest,” Lake County Star, April 3, 1953, 1. Candidates were, for supervisor, George P. Giles Jr. and Jess Barnett; for clerk, Kittie Lindsey and Beatrice Taylor; for treasurer, Mary L. Taylor and Ethel Gilmore; for justice of the peace, J. Roy Brown; and for constables, Henry Shawver, Orlan Campbell, Mango King, Isaiah Miller, William Jones, Ronald Haithcock, and George Gilmore. 59. Interview with Betty Foote, August 13, 2009. 60. K. D. Davis, Idlewilders Magazine, July 1955, 3. 61. Come to Beautiful Idlewild for a Real Vacation. 62. Trevor W. Coleman, “Once Upon a Time in America: Locals Struggle to Preserve Idlewild, Once a Thriving Michigan Resort Haven for the Black Intellectual and Cultural Elite,” Crisis, May/June 2003, 38. 63. Telephone interview with Bill Owsley, September 17, 2010. 64. Green, Selling the Race, 12. 65. Interview with Betty Foote, August 4, 2012. 66. Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 12. 67. Come to Beautiful Idlewild for a Real Vacation. 68. Ibid. 69. Ibid. 70. Ibid. 71. Patricia L. Pilling, “Segregation: Cottage Rental in Michigan,” Phylon 25, no. 2 (1964): 191–201. Here Pilling discusses the availability of cottage rentals in Idlewild and in southwest Michigan, at a time “when one of the party is Negro, as my friend Mildred Sirls and I found when we tried to obtain temporary housing in southwest Michigan for ourselves and my three children in August of 1962” (191). 72. Come to Beautiful Idlewild for a Real Vacation. 73. Ibid. 74. Green, Selling the Race. 75. Compilation of Design and Construction Data for Concrete Pavement on the State Trunk Line System, rev. ed. (Lansing: Michigan State Highway Department, 1955). 76. Ibid. 77. Letter by William L. Matson, February 7, 1955, “State Highways–Highway Needs Studies, 1938–1955,” record group 70–51, microfilm reel 1071, State Archives of Michigan. 78. Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 8.Page 350 → 79. Ibid. 80. Interview with John Meeks, August 13, 2009. 81. K. D. Davis, Idlewilder's Magazine, February 1958. 82. Kevin K. Gaines, Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), xxi. 83. See the minutes of the Yates Township Board meeting, May 23, 1959, Yates Township Office. 84. George P. Giles, resignation letter, presented on letterhead of the supervisor of Yates Township to the Yates Township Board, June 16, 1959 (courtesy of Yates Township supervisor Donel Brown, who allowed

me to sort through boxed township board records in the basement of the old fire station in Idlewild). 85. Giles's funeral services were held at Holy Cross Baptist Church on Linwood Street in Detroit, with the Reverend Nathaniel Howard officiating. 86. “Mr. Idlewild Rites at Holy Cross Church, Phil Giles,” Michigan Chronicle, May 25, 1963, 1. Giles was the second nationally known Detroit Idlewilder to die within a week's time.

Chapter 4 1. Preston Lauterbach, The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock ’N’ Roll (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011). The Chitlin' Circuit, according to Lauterbach, is a term that “was strictly a word-of-mouth phenomenon, with precedents in Southern black culture…. True to the chitlin' circuit's underground status, the phrase didn't appear in the black press until a December 23, 1972 Chicago Defender article about Ike and Tina Turner” (305 n. 10). 2. The name of the state was derived from the Choctaw Indian words okla humma, meaning “land of the red people.” Oklahoma is bordered on the north by Colorado and Kansas, on the east by Missouri and Arkansas, on the south and southwest by Texas (with part of the line formed by the Red River), and on the extreme west by New Mexico. The total estimated boundary length of Oklahoma is 1,581 miles (2,544 kilometers). The state's geographic center is in Oklahoma County, 8 miles (13 kilometers) north of Oklahoma City. 3. Scott Ellsworth, Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982). 4. Jimmie Lewis Franklin, Journey toward Hope: A History of Blacks in Oklahoma (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982), xiii. 5. Ibid., 50. 6. Ibid., 23–24. 7. Hunting For Bears, comp., Arkansas Marriages, 1820–1949 [database online] (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2004), accessed on Ancestry.com. Leodell Johnson was born on October 5, 1912, in Idabel, Oklahoma. See the obituary that appeared Page 351 → in the Saginaw News for Leodell Braggs, who passed on June 10, 1986. Saginaw News, June 11, 1986, sect. E9. Funeral services for Leodell Braggs were held at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Saginaw, MI. 8. See the 1936, 1937, 1938, and 1939 editions of the Saginaw City Directory, Saginaw Public Library. 9. Interview with Robert “Moe” Woods, Saginaw barber, December 2, 2009. 10. Interview with Helen Hughey, Saginaw, December 12, 2009. 11. Interview with Jewel Braggs, December 10, 2009. 12. Interview with Jewel Braggs, December 11, 2009. 13. Thomas Reppetto, American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power (New York: Henry Holt, 2004), 239. 14. See Saginaw City Directory, 1952, 51, Saginaw Public Library. 15. See Saginaw City Directory, 1955, 63; Saginaw City Directory, 1959, 68, Saginaw Public Library. 16. Ernest H. Borden, Detroit's Paradise Valley (Chicago: Arcadia, 2003). 17. Policy gambling (i.e., playing the numbers) was “a type of lottery that originated in New York during the depression. In policy gambling the bettors would place their money on one or more numbers that they hope[d] would be among those that were picked in a drawing of twelve numbers between 1 and 78.” Mark Haller, “Policy Gambling, Entertainment, and the Emergence of Black Politics: Chicago from 1900 to 1940, ” Journal of Social History 24, no. 4 (Summer 1991): 719. Policy gambling, which was “of primary importance in explaining black achievement in gambling and nightlife entertainment in many northern cities” (ibid., 724), emerged as a result of “the systematic discrimination that blacks faced in seeking legitimate jobs and the resulting attractiveness of those illegal or marginal paths of mobility that were open to them” (ibid., 719). As a policy racketeer, Braggs, explains Carlean Gill, “couldn't own anything because the Internal Revenue Service would come get it” (interview with Carlean Gill, September 15, 2000). Braggs's tax attorney, Frank M. Polasky, helped to protect his interest, even though the Saginaw Police Department and the Internal Revenue Service had been watching him and his connections to the illegal gambling business with operations opened throughout the state. 18. Interview with Arthur “Daddy” Braggs, Michigan Chronicle.

19. Quoted in Ernest H. Borden, Detroit's Paradise Valley (Chicago: Arcadia, 2003), 70. 20. Interview with Frank M. Polasky of Saginaw, Braggs's attorney, December 11, 2009. Polasky, a tax attorney, noted that Braggs ran a clean operation. After Braggs learned that the federal government was watching him as far back as the late 1940s, Polasky took on Braggs as a client, with the understanding that Braggs would come clean with him. Polasky published an article about illegal gambling and taxation. 21. Advertisement, Idlewilder's Magazine, August 20, 1955, 12. 22. See comic Bill Murray's interview in Helen Oakley Dance, The T-Bone Walker Story: Stormy Monday (New York: Da Capo, 1987).Page 352 → 23. Sunnie Wilson, Toast of the Town: The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson, with John Cohassey (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998), 140. 24. Interview with Betty Foote, August 5, 2012. 25. Lars Bjorn and Jim Gallert, Before Motown: A History of Jazz in Detroit, 1920–1960 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 72. 26. Ibid., 73. 27. See Michigan Chronicle, June 5, 1959, 5. 28. Advertisement, Idlewilder's Magazine, July 1, 1955, 19. Idlewilder'sMagazine was published by K. D. Davis of Detroit from 1952 to 1964. Davis had two offices, one in Idlewild and a main office in Detroit, at 275 Ferry Street, which was not far from the Ziggy Johnson School of Dance. 29. See Dance, The T-Bone Walker Story. Dance writes, “In the summer of 1956 T-Bone starred in the Idlewild Revue. It was the first of many times he was booked at this island resort two hundred miles north of Detroit. After the summer season the show went on the road and toured for three months, as did Larry Steele's Smart Affairs out of Chicago.” 30. Interviews with Clineice Stubbs, September 3, 2004, and July 14, 2009. During the first interview, Clineice had this to say about the Highlights production: “Our toes literally touched Broadway in a beautifully choreographed finale danced on pointe wearing top hat and tails.” 31. Telephone interview with Ernie Davis, November 7, 2011. 32. Ibid. 33. Telephone interview with Glenn Hawkins, March 3, 2011. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. Brent Kelley, The Negro Leagues Revisited: Conversations with 66 More Baseball Heroes (North Carolina: McFarland, 2000), 339. 45. Interview with Dick Mask, August 13, 2000. 46. Ibid. 47. Ted Talbert, Idlewild: A Place in the Sun (Detroit: WDIV-TV, 1995). 48. Interview with Dick Mask, August 13, 2000, 6. 49. Advertisement, Muskegon Chronicle, July 8, 1960, 8 (same advertisement, Muskegon Chronicle, July 11, 1960, 19; July 13, 1960, 26); Muskegon Chronicle, July 15, 1960, 18 (same advertisement, Muskegon Chronicle, July 18, 1960, 10; July 20, 1960, 33). See also Page 353 → Ludington Daily News, July 22, 1960, 6; Muskegon Chronicle, July 22, 1960, 18 (same advertisement, Muskegon Chronicle, July 25, 1960; July 27, 1960, 12; July 29, 1960; August 1, 1960, 20; August 3, 1960, 8); Ludington Daily News, August 5, 1960, 2. 50. Interview with Dick Mask, August 13, 2000. 51. Ibid. 52. Telephone interview with Sandra D. Crithon-Merkerson, August 28, 2011.

53. Ibid. 54. Telephone interview with Dickey Adams, June 23, 2010. 55. Dance, The T-Bone Walker Story. 56. See Ziggy Johnson, “Zagging with Ziggy,” Chicago Defender, June 23, 1956, 14. Born William Edward John on November 15, 1937, in Cullendale, Arkansas, Little Willie John (his stage name) was an American R & B singer of the 1950s and early 1960s. His biggest hit, “Fever” (1956), was even more famously covered than the original song produced by Peggy Lee in 1958. In 1966, John was convicted of manslaughter and sent to Washington State Prison for a fatal knifing incident after a show in Seattle. Little Willie John died at the age of thirty-one from a heart attack on May 26, 1968. 57. John Bankston founded Faces in Places in 1950 while in Idlewild, Michigan, after K. D. Davis offered him a position as staff writer in Grand Rapids, Michigan. On July 8, 1957, Faces became the Grand Rapids Times. 58. Bankston had been stationed at Camp Davis in North Carolina while serving in the U.S. Army with Kenneth Davis, the publisher of Idlewilder's Magazine. 59. John Bankston, “A Look Back: The Birth of the Grand Rapids Times,” Grand Rapids Times, November 7–13, 1997, 1, 12. Bankston had been seated at a table in the Fiesta Room of the Paradise Club, admiring a show in Idlewild, when he was approached by a cute little lady with camera in hand who asked if he wanted his picture taken. That got him into the publishing business. Bankston joined the staff of Idlewilder's Magazine, and within a year, he learned about layout, how to develop photographs, and how to sell advertisements. Six months after their partnership, Davis passed, and Helen Springer, the photographer, became manager of the Detroit office. Bankston published Faces in Places as a monthly magazine for nearly two years. 60. Carlyle C. Douglas. “The Spinners: After 20 Years, R & B Group Is Sitting on Top of the World,” Ebony, July 1976, 48. 61. See “Zagging with Ziggy,” Michigan Chronicle, May 4, 1957, 5; advertisement, Idlewilder's Magazine, July 3, 1957, 25. The cover of the July 1957 issue of Faces in Places featured two outstanding personalities, Joe Louis, former heavyweight champion of the world, and Braggs, international club owner and promoter. The two men were highlighted as popular figures. 62. The season ended during the weekend of August 28–31, 1957. See Idlewilder's Magazine, August 1957; Michigan Chronicle, August 31, 1957, 6. 63. Ziggy Johnson, “Zagging with Ziggy,” Michigan Chronicle, September 14, 1957. According to Ziggy, Della was told by her New York manager that all future bookings were to be held up because of her recent rating in Cash Box magazine.Page 354 → 64. Della Reese, Angels along the Way: My Life with Help from Above, with Franklin Lett and Mim Eichler (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1997), 150. 65. Ibid., 150–51. 66. Excerpt published in the Eguiar of Idaho (Idaho Falls), July 17, 1958, 9. 67. Reese, Angels along The Way, 152. The breakup was also mentioned in the Nevada State Journal, November 13, 1958, 4. 68. “Zagging with Ziggy,” Chicago Defender, May 2, 1959, 7. 69. See Michigan Chronicle, June 5, 1959, 5. 70. Ziggy Johnson, “Zagging with Ziggy,” Michigan Chronicle, September 14, 1957, 5. 71. Interview with Ed Goodwin of the Oklahoma Eagle, July 27, 2009. 72. See “Della Reese Is Top Attraction in Forthcoming Revue Here,” Oklahoma Eagle, September 1958, 1, 4A. 73. Claude Taylor, “Idlewild Revue Called Smash Hit by Eagle Scribe Taylor,” Oklahoma Eagle, September 26, 1957, 1, 4A. 74. See the photo of Braggs and Della Reese, with caption, in the Call (Kansas City, MO), October 25, 1957, 8. 75. When the show ended in Tulsa, the revue headed for Chicago, where it did two weeks at Roberts Show Lounge beginning on October 22, 1957. 76. Radio World, June 9, 1999, 3; Ludington DailyNews, June 10, 1999, 5. 77. Acknowledgment letters from the American Broadcasting Company dated July 6, July 17, and August 9,

1956 (courtesy of Tommy Roy). 78. Transcript of the Rhythm on Parade show, September 1, 1956, private collection of Tommy Roy. 79. Advertisement, Idlewilder's Magazine, July 27, 1956, 13. 80. See advertisement, Idlewilder's Magazine, August 17, 1956, 12. 81. Letter from Tommy Roy to the author, February 29, 2004. 82. See Michigan Chronicle, September 6, 1958, 10; advertisement, Michigan Chronicle, September 5–19, 1958. 83. Michigan Chronicle, September 13, 1958, 10. 84. Ibid. 85. Ibid. 86. “Roberts Show Club in Chicago, Illinois for Two Weeks,” Chicago Defender, September 22, 1958; Chicago Defender, October 3–10, 1958, 16; “Records, TV Shots Aid Della Reese in Rise to Stardom,” Michigan Chronicle, September 13, 1958, 10. 87. B. B. King, Blues All around Me: The Autobiography of B. B. King, with David Ritz (New York: Avon Books, 1996), 191. 88. Ziggy Johnson commented on the show in the Michigan Chronicle (May 10, 1958, 7) and Idlewilder's Magazine (July 4, 1958). 89. Barbara Wilson, Idlewilder's Magazine, July 1955, 6. 90. Michigan Chronicle, August 30, 1958, 11. 91. “Idlewild Revue at the Copa Club,” Ohio Sentinel, October 11, 1958, 3. The Copa Club was located on Mount Vernon Avenue on Columbus's Near East Side, in the mostly Page 355 → African American section of the city. Although vibrant throughout the early 1960s, Columbus's Near East Side neighborhoods experienced economic decline by the 1970s, primarily due to local government abandonment. 92. Edward Lentz and William T. McDaniel, Listen for the Jazz: Key Notes in Columbus History (Columbus: Arts Foundation of Olde Towne, 1992), 5–15. 93. “Idlewild Revue at the Copa Club,” 3. 94. Ibid. 95. Ibid. 96. Ibid. 97. Michigan Chronicle, September 20, 1958, 10. 98. Cleveland Call and Post, October 21, 1958, 7C. See also the advertisement published alongside the article “Idlewild Revue on Way to Chatterbox,” Cleveland Call and Post, October 18, 1958, 6C. 99. Ibid. 100. Ibid. 101. “Smart Affairs Joined by Idlewild Revue as Top Traveling Shows,” Chicago Defender, October 11, 1958, 23. 102. Michigan Chronicle, January 10, 1959, 9. 103. See Pittsburgh Courier, January 17, 1959, 22. The Michigan Chronicle published the same news release, “Art Braggs Changes Revue,” adding, “Belcher is the fastest rising young band around. The Tornadoes have had an up and down career” (January 24, 1959, 11). 104. Belcher, who was born on June 12, 1917, in Columbus, Ohio, was an outstanding musician. By 1946, Belcher had joined the Youngstown Federation of Musicians Local 242 in Ohio. Relocating to Detroit at the end of the fifties, Belcher invested in a membership with Local 5 of the Detroit Federation of Musicians to “solicit” work, and he stated that he had been promised an engagement. Belcher transferred to full membership with Local 5 after losing Clancy, as reported in a letter of January 30, 1948. The new membership became effective on August 27, 1947. In 1951, he married Elizabeth Belcher, and after a divorce in 1960, they raised their daughter, Earlette Marie Davis, jointly until his death in 1963. On September 7, 1948, the Detroit City Directory, 1958 notes that Earl and his wife, Elizabeth Belcher, lived at 8218 Burnette Avenue on the west side of the city of Detroit. During the course of his membership with Local 5, Belcher was expelled and reinstated at least four times. On October 21, 1959, he was expelled, with the termination remarks “National Treasury $1,000.” On January 19, 1960, he was reinstated, but by then Braggs had changed bands again. On March 4, 1961, he was expelled, with the termination remarks “National Treasury $1,000.” On May 1, 1961, he changed beneficiaries from his wife (as a result of

divorce) to his mother, Anna Bell Felder. On May 31, 1961, he was expelled and reinstated again, with the termination remarks “National Treasury.” Detroit Federation of Musicians. 105. Interview with Eddie Lou Goodlow of Broken Bow, Oklahoma, September 8, 2003.Page 356 → 106. Earl Belcher was a popular bandleader in Detroit. See Bjorn and Gallert, Before Motown;Michigan Chronicle, March 5, 1949, and August 20, 1949. 107. Idlewilder's Magazine, July 4, 1959, 19. 108. “The Flame Show Bar in Detroit for Two Weeks,” Michigan Chronicle, September 19 and 25, 1959, 5. See also advertisement for the Faust Club in Peoria, Illinois, Peoria Journal Star, October 2, 1959, A-17. 109. “The Flame Show Bar in Detroit for Two Weeks.” 110. Adam Green, Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940–1955 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 13. 111. Telephone interview with Valaida Tally, August 3, 2000. 112. See Montreal Gazette, November 13–14, 1959, 27; November 20, 1959, 15; November 21, 1959, 25; November 22, 1959; November 27, 1959, 17. 113. “Fine Here; Blizzards East, West,” Gazette, December 8, 1959, 1. 114. Ibid. 115. Following the investigation of the Detroit Federation of Musicians, Jet magazine (January 7, 1960) reported trumpet player Henry “Hank” Purifoy, drummer Edward Eddie “Chip” Grant, and saxophonist Harold Wallace, three members of Earl Count Belcher's Orchestra, along with Wallace's wife, Beatrice, missing as of December 7, 1959. On April 16, 1960, the Detroit Free Press reported that the Canadian authorities found the missing bodies of the three musicians. This was also reported by Russ Cowans of the Michigan Chronicle on April 23, 1960. 116. Interview with Eddie Lou Goodlow, September 8, 2003. 117. Fact sheet released about the missing persons of the Detroit Federation of Musicians Local 5, with further information published in Keynote, Notice of Annual General Meetings of the Membership, February–March, 24, 11; April 1959, 24, 12; May–June 1959, 25, 1. 118. Advertisement, Chicago Defender, January 2, 1960, 13. 119. Advertisement, Chicago Defender, January 16, 1960, 32. 120. Fact Sheet released about the missing persons of the Detroit Federation of Musicians Local 5, with further information published in Keynote, Notice of Annual General Meetings of the Membership, February–March, 24, 11; April 1959, 24, 12; May–June 1959, 25, 1. 121. “Four Bodies Identified as Detroiters,” Detroit Free Press, April 16, 1960, 2. 122. Grand Rapids Times, June 25, 1960, 3. 123. Ibid. 124. Telephone interview with Jerry “the Iceman” Butler, June 9, 2010. 125. Grand Rapids Times, August 6, 1960, 6. 126. Grand Rapids Times, September 3, 1960, 6. 127. Ziggy Johnson, “Zagging with Ziggy,” Michigan Chronicle, August 7, 1960, 17. 128. Interview with Carlean Gill, Saginaw, July 19, 1999. 129. Michigan Chronicle, September 10, 1960, 10, and September 24, 1960, 4. 130. Montreal Gazette, October 8, 1960, 9.Page 357 → 131. Montreal Gazette, October 1, 1960, 24. 132. “Idlewild Revue Back in Town,” Montreal Gazette, October 6, 1960, 10. 133. Ludington Daily News, October 8, 1960, 10. 134. Cleveland Call and Post, October 15, 1960, 6C. 135. Jet, October 20, 1960, 65. 136. “Bragg-Produced Show Headed for New York,” New York Amsterdam News, October 29, 1960, 18. See also Washington Afro-American, November 5, 1960, 15; New York Amsterdam News, November 12, 1960, 17. 137. “Zig and Zag with Ziggy Johnson,” Chicago Defender, December 27, 1960, 17. 138. Ibid. 139. “Belafonte Doesn't Sing a Note, Pleads for African Students,” Toronto Daily Star, November 28, 1960, 1; Karen Bell, “The Four-a-Day (History of the Casino Theatre in Toronto, Ontario),” Performing Arts and

Entertainment in Canada, Winter 1996, 23; “Casino Theatre Closes Its Doors,” Toronto Star, August 2, 1962. 140. Interview by Vicki Daitch, Schomburg Library, May 20, 2005, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program. 141. See Berton's obituary, “Goodbye, Pierre Berton,” November 30, 2004, in the CBC Digital Archives. See also the Pierre Berton, 1920–2004 Papers in the William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections of McMaster University's libraries, at http://library.mcmaster.ca.archives/findaids/fonds/b /berton.htm. 142. “Belafonte Doesn't Sing a Note,” 1. 143. Ibid. 144. Ibid. 145. Ibid. 146. Ibid. 147. Ibid. 148. Ibid. 149. Ibid. 150. Ibid. 151. Mandela was tried and condemned to twenty-nine years in jail in South Africa. 152. Weiss donated the AASF materials to the African Activist Archive in Special Collections at Michigan State University Libraries. 153. Following my interviews with Johnny's son, Ronnie, and his daughter, Bonnie, on September 20, 2009, Bonnie shared a copy of the short letter written by Tommy Roy.

Chapter 5 1. George Clarke, “Around Boston Idlewild Revue a Very Smart Show,” Boston Daily Record, January 2, 1961, 3. 2. Ibid. 3. Guy, “Basin St. South, Boston,” Variety, January 16, 1961, 67. Guy covered the Basin Street South performance of the revue on January 6.Page 358 → 4. Ibid. Guy wrote that the Idlewild revue of 1961 opened at the newest nightclub in Boston, Basin Street South, which was built on the site of the former Trinidad Club, as a 250-seater. 5. Fire Record, January–June 1961, file P&I, vol. 1, box 211, Boston Fire Department, City of Boston Archives. 6. Telephone interview with Lon Fontaine of New York City, October 3, 2004. 7. Ibid. 8. Lon Fontaine, Star Dancing: The Life and Times of an American Dancer (New York: 1st Books Library, 2003), 163. 9. Conflicting reports were published on the exact losses from the Boston Basin Street fire. Jet magazine reported that “a flash fire, caused by faulty wiring, completely destroyed the new Basin Street South club in Boston and $40,000 worth of lavish costumes, wardrobe, orchestral instruments, musical scores, scenery, props, etc., of Arthur Braggs' 40 member Idlewild Revue of 1961” (“Idlewild Revue Equipment Lost in Boston Fire,” February 2, 1961, 58). The Michigan Chronicle reported that “losses estimated to be $45,000 were incurred when fire broke out in a night club where Arthur Braggs' Idlewild Revue was scheduled to open. Destroyed were all instruments, costumes, music scores, trunks, and personal clothing of the stars in the show” (“Art Braggs Revue Hit by Blaze,” February 4, 1961, 4). 10. See Fire Record, January–June 1961, file P&I, vol. 1, box 211, Boston Fire Department, City of Boston Archives. 11. Ibid. 12. See Boston Globe, January 21, 1962, 5, regarding the snowstorm that hit Boston the early morning of the fire. An important argument advanced in the article is that despite the threat of the storm, President John F. Kennedy appeared in the city the next day anyway.

13. Interview with Ronnie McIlvaine of Jacksonville, Florida, October 13, 2009. 14. Thomas Reppetto, American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power (New York: Henry Holt, 2004), 160. 15. Ibid., 161. Interestingly, the mob, under the ownership of John Martorano, ended up opening a different kind of club in the same location a year later. The Boston City Directory did not report a listing for the name of the club's owner in 1960 and 1961; however, in the Business Certificate Index for 1959–61 in the City of Boston Archives, the Office of the City Clerk listed Rocco La Martina as the owner. The Basin Street South nightclub reopened in 1962 and listed Joe Fezzullo as the manager of “the lounge.” Years later, the Boston Globe attributed ownership of the nightclub to members of the Martorano family. A 1997 obituary for Mary Martorano, who worked for her husband's nightclub, Basin Street South, states that Mrs. Martorano was survived by two sons, John and James. In a subsequent article on John Martorano, one of the gangsters in Irish mobster Whitey Bulger's crew, as well as allegedly “Winter Hill's seasoned hitman” (see Dick Lehr and Gerard O' Neill, Black Mass: The True Store of an Unholy Alliance between the FBI and the Irish Mob [New York: Public Affairs, 2000], 64, 141), the Boston Globe Page 359 → reported that Martorano was the owner of the lounge. The contact between John Martorano, the Boston Police Department, and the Boston Fire Department illustrates how, as Reppetto points out in American Mafia, “police-political-organized crime alliances of the time were part of a complex system designed to maintain the equilibrium of all the groups involved.” 16. On May 7, 2004, Tommy Roy shared a photocopy of the postcard with me. A note on the back read, “They called me immediately to inform me of the fire and to cancel other engagements.” 17. After Weepin' Willie and his band came to Boston, they never looked back. 18. Interview with Bonnie McIlvaine of Boston, December 10, 2009. An interview with Ronnie McIlvaine, who was vacationing in Florida, took place a week later, on December 18, 2009. 19. Interview with Sid Trusty of Atlantic City, New Jersey, October 16–17, 2004. Sid was recognized as the local historian of black history in Atlantic City. 20. The author held a total of six interviews with Carlean Gill. The sixth was held in Saginaw on September 3, 2009. 21. Interview with Carlean Gill of Saginaw, September 3, 2009. 22. See “Zagging with Ziggy,” Michigan Chronicle, June 7, 1961, 13. Ziggy Johnson writes that Leon Escobar had the most marvelous and extraordinarily beautiful dancers. 23. See “Idlewild Revue Headlines Top Professional Showmen,” Ludington Daily News, June 25, 1961, 5. 24. The publicity campaign that Roy managed was strong, as the number of advertisements published in western Michigan newspapers was thicker than the previous summer. I here list the summer 1961 advertisements by date: July 3: Muskegon Chronicle, 10; Ludington Daily News, 10; July 5: Muskegon Chronicle, 10; Ludington Daily News, 4; July 6: Muskegon Chronicle, 10; July 7: Muskegon Chronicle, 4, 8; Ludington Daily News, 4; July 10: Muskegon Chronicle, 4, 10; Ludington Daily News, 8; July 12: Muskegon Chronicle, 14; Ludington Daily News, 3; July 14: Muskegon Chronicle, 8; Ludington Daily News, 3; July 16: Muskegon Chronicle, 14; July 17: Muskegon Chronicle, 8; Ludington Daily News, 8; July 18: Muskegon Chronicle, 8; Ludington Daily News, 3; July 19: Muskegon Chronicle, 40; Ludington Daily News, 2; July 21: Muskegon Chronicle, 8; Ludington Daily News, 2; July 22: Grand Rapids Times, 7; July 24: Muskegon Chronicle, 20; July 26: Muskegon Chronicle, 22; Ludington Daily News, 2; July 28: Muskegon Chronicle, 8; Ludington Daily News, 3; July 31: Muskegon Chronicle, 13; Ludington Daily News, 3; August 1: Muskegon Chronicle, 8; August 2: Ludington Daily News, 3; August 4: Muskegon Chronicle, 8; Ludington Daily News, 3; August 7: Muskegon Chronicle, 20; Ludington Daily News, 3; August 9: Muskegon Chronicle, 18; Ludington Daily News, 2, 3 (photo advertisement on 3); August 11: Muskegon Chronicle, 8; Ludington Daily News, 3; August 14: Muskegon Chronicle, 8, 14; August 16: Muskegon Chronicle, 33; Ludington Daily News, 6; August 18: Muskegon Chronicle, 18; Ludington Daily News, 3. 25. Over the course of his career and while working the theater circuit, Leon Escobar learned modern dance with Anna Sokolow, Guillermo Keys, and Xavier Francis; classical Page 360 → ballet from Serge Unger; Spanish dance from Oscar Tarriba; and Mexican dances from Marcelo Torreblanca. 26. Leon Escobar, interview with Felipe Segura, August 31, 1987, 1, Interview Conversations on Dance, Cendza Dance Center, Mexico City. 27. In his weekly column “Zagging with Ziggy,” Ziggy Johnson noted to his readers, “Now all you have to

do is put the names with the dancers and then you've got it made. You see I could speak Spanish but I ain't. Why? Because the Spaniards didn't come close to Natchez. Eh, Nannie? Nor did they come near the homes of Ricky Ford, Carlean Gill or Jo Ella Keough but you would never know it” (Chicago Defender, September 23–29, 1961, 7). 28. Anadel Lynton, “Carlos Gaona,” Una vida dedicada a la danza, Cenidi-Danza Jose Limon 22:39–46. See also Margarita Tortajada Quiroz, Frutos De Mujer: Las Mujeres En La Danza Escenica (Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2001), 438–42; Danza y Poder (Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes,1995), 435, 467–70. Quiroz discusses Gaona's artistic career as a leading figure in Mexican dance history. 29. Interview with Percy Davis of Idlewild, October 5, 2010. 30. See the handbill of The Possessed, which was shared with members of the audience, for a summary of the story line of the show, in the author's private collection. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. “Jackie Wilson Returns Friday to Idlewild,” Muskegon Chronicle, August 10, 1961, 14. 35. Ibid. 36. “Idlewild Planning Gala Celebration,” Michigan Chronicle, August 5, 1961, 5. An advertisement on page 2 of the August 12, 1961, issue of the Michigan Chronicle read “Idlewild Excursion Fun for Everyone.” To reserve bus seats in order to see Jackie Wilson, patrons were advised to purchase their tickets early at the House of Beauty, the Gotham Hotel, Joe's Record Shop, and Carl and Emma's Record. 37. See advertisements, Michigan Chronicle, September 9, 1961, 8, and September 16, 1961, 9. 38. “’61 Idlewild Revue Sizzled at Flame,” Michigan Chronicle, September 23, 1961, sect. 2, 4. 39. Michigan Chronicle, September 30, 1961, 14. 40. In one of the numerous interviews I held with Carlean Gill (July 19, 1999), she noted that the Mexican dancers would often dance so hard that they would faint a few times backstage after a show at the Paradise Club because of the difference in the altitude in Michigan. She also stated that it took a great deal of paperwork for Braggs to get them through customs. 41. Cleveland Call and Post, September 23, 1961, 7A; advertisement, Cleveland Call and Post, September 30, 1961, 2A.Page 361 → 42. “Zagging with Ziggy,” Michigan Chronicle, October 7, 1961, 5. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid. 45. Grand Rapids Times, October 14, 1961, 9. 46. Jet Magazine, November 16, 1961, 33. 47. Advertisement, New York Amsterdam News, October 28, 1961, 18. 48. New York Amsterdam News, November 4, 1961, 20; Jet Magazine, November 30, 1961, 33. 49. Billboard's Hot 100 Chart, July 18, 1960, Billboard.com, cited in Wikipedia. 50. Billboard's Hot 100 Chart, 50th Anniversary, Billboard.com, cited in Wikipedia. 51. “Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue Tops in Entertainment at Rose Room,” Oklahoma Eagle, December 14, 1961, 2A. See also advertisement, Oklahoma Eagle, December 21, 1961, 1A, 6A. 52. See photograph and caption of Isaac Sutton, “Who Needs Talk?” Jet Magazine, September 1961, 37. 53. Ibid. 54. Advertisement, Michigan Chronicle, January 20, 1962, 4. The Flame Show Bar was located at 4264 John R Street, on the corner of Canfield Street, in Detroit. The first show started at 9:30 p.m. 55. “Bill Doggett Opens Monday at Poodle,” Indianapolis Recorder, January 27, 1962, 12; “Idlewild Revue Ends Saturday,” Indianapolis Recorder, February 10, 1962, 12. 56. See advertisements, Indianapolis Recorder, January 20, 1962, 20; February 12, 1962, 13; March 29, 1962, 20. 57. “Art Braggs Revue Set for Flame” and advertisement, Michigan Chronicle, January 13, 1962, 4: the article reports that Braggs is to bring his 1962 edition of the Idlewild revue into the Flame Show Bar on Friday, January 12, for a two-week run. See Jet, January 18, 1962, 32, regarding the Twist story at Chicago's Tivoli Theater. The Pink Poodle was located at 252 North Capitol Avenue in downtown

Indianapolis. See advertisement, Indianapolis Recorder, January 27, 1962, 12; Indianapolis Recorder, February 12, 1962, 13; advertisement, Indianapolis Recorder, March 29, 1962, 20; Indianapolis Recorder, May 12, 1962, 13; Indianapolis Recorder, May 19, 1962, 13; “Idlewild Revue Packin' ‘Em in Nitely at Pink Poodle with Timi Yuro,” Indianapolis Recorder, May 19, 1962; Indianapolis Recorder, May 26, 1962, 12; Indianapolis Recorder, Special Matinee Tuesday at the Poodle, “Where Idlewild Revue Is Tops,” May 29, 1962. 58. Telephone interview with Jo Ella Keough of Indianapolis, Indiana, July 13, 2010. Keough grew up in Indianapolis and knew Tuffy's reputation quite well. 59. See Indianapolis City Directory, 1960 (Indianapolis: R. L. Polk, 1960). 60. “Wealthy Ex-Chicago Racket King, Jones, Says Go Legitimate,” Detroit Courier, February 3, 1962, 5. 61. Aretha Franklin, Aretha: From These Roots, with David Ritz (New York: Villard, 1999), 99. 62. The music news quotations were published in a press kit produced by Tommy Page 362 → Roy, who lives in Ludington, Michigan, and mailed them to me following a series of informal telephone conversations we held over a period of fifteen years. 63. Franklin, Aretha: From These Roots, 94, 99. 64. Ibid., 99. 65. Photo, article, and advertisement, Grand Rapids Times, July 7, 1962, 6; photo, article, and advertisement, Grand Rapids Times, July 14, 1962, 10; Grand Rapids Times, July 21, 1962, 8; Idlewilder's Magazine, August 1, 1962, 8; Grand Rapids Times, August 4, 1962, 8; Ludington Daily News, August 7, 1962, 3; Grand Rapids Times, August 11, 1962, 8; advertisement, Grand Rapids Times, August 25, 1962, 7. 66. Idlewilder's Magazine, June 1962, 10. 67. Interview with John Meeks of Idlewild, June 3, 2010. Meeks recalls seeing Kirby once at the Paradise Club. 68. Besides recording “Legs Keep Getting Bigger,” with Red Saunders's band in 1949, Kirby recorded “Ice Man Blues” with Tom Archia in 1947. 69. Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have a Dream,” in The Voice of Black Rhetoric: Selections, ed. Arthur L. Smith and Stephen Robb (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1971), 184–88. 70. Interview with Valaida Benson of Detroit, March 7, 2001. Benson was one of the original Ziggy Johnson Dancers and of the Ziggyettes. She was also one of the original Braggettes of the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue and a former spouse of Obie Benson of the Four Tops. 71. See “Lloyd Price Band Brings Big Names back to Roberts' Saturday,” Chicago Defender, September 17, 1962, 17; advertisement, Chicago Defender, September 22, 1962, 10; caption with photograph of Erma Franklin, Chicago Defender, September 19, 1962, 17. 72. Advertisement, New York Amsterdam News, September 29, 1962, 17. 73. Grand Rapids Times, July 7, 1962, 6. 74. Grand Rapids Times, August 24, 1963, 8. 75. Advertisement, Boston Daily Record, September 16, 1963, 11. 76. Cleveland Call and Post, September 28, 1963, 10. 77. See Oklahoma Eagle, November 14, 1963, 1 (the revue performed on November 22–25, 1963, at the Rose Room); advertisement, Oklahoma Eagle, November 21, 1963, 1. 78. Max Holland, The Kennedy Assassination Tapes: The White House Conversations of Lyndon B. Johnson regarding the Assassination, the Warren Commission, and the Aftermath (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 3–8. 79. Benjamin Karim, Remembering Malcolm, with Peter Skutches and David Gallen (New York: Carroll and Graf, 1992), 145. 80. Ziggy Johnson, “Zagging with Ziggy,” Michigan Chronicle, December 7, 1963, B5. 81. Ibid. 82. “Dinah Washington, Blues Singer, Is Found Dead: Box of Pills Near Her Bed Prompts Autopsy in Detroit,” New York Times, December 15, 1963, 79. See also “Night Train Lane's Wife Dies,” Chicago Tribune, December 15, 1963, D1; “Singer Dinah Washington Page 363 → Dies; Overdose of Pills Is Suspected,” Washington Post and Times Herald, December 15, 1963, A9. Van G. Sauter, “Singer Dinah Washington Dies,” Detroit Free Press, December 15, 1963, 3A; Anthony Ripley, “Pills Checked in Death of Dinah Washington,” Detroit News, December 15, 1963, 12D.

83. Ernest Borden, Detroit's Paradise Valley (Chicago: Arcadia, 2003); “15 in Gotham Hotel Raid Found Guilty: Repercussions from the Nov. 9 Raid on the Gotham Hotel,” Detroit Courier, January 12, 1963, 1–3; Luther Webb, “Urban Renewal Price Was Expected to be $500,000,” Detroit Courier, May 18, 1963, 1, 16. 84. Mary Strolberg, Bridging the River of Hatred: The Pioneering Efforts of Detroit Police Commissioner George Edwards (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998), 199–206. 85. Ibid., 200. 86. Ernest Borden, Detroit's Paradise Valley (Chicago: Arcadia, 2003), 10. 87. Interview with Ernest Borden of Columbus, Ohio, September 10, 2009. 88. Interview with John Meeks of Idlewild, August 21, 2009. 89. Strolberg, Bridging the River of Hatred, 199–206. 90. Interview with Ruth Burton of Idlewild, August 31, 2011. 91. Della Reese, Angels along the Way: My Life with Help from Above, with Franklin Lett and Mim Eichler (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1997), 147. 92. This statement was made by several residents during a special township board meeting in the summer of 1964. 93. Shortly after their successful 1963 appearance in Idlewild, Michigan, the Spinners were offered a contract with Motown Records. During their tenure at Motown, they released ‘Sweet Thing’ (1966), ‘I Always Love You” (1967), and ‘Yours Truly’ (also 1967), all hits.” “Spinners Grow in Popularity,” Wichita Times, February 20, 1975, 7. 94. Tommy Roy, “Tommy Roy Recalls Etta James,” Ludington Daily News, February 8, 2012, 1. 95. Lewis Walker and Ben C. Wilson, Black Eden: The Idlewild Community (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2002); Sunnie Wilson, author (with John Cohassey) of Toast of the Town: The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998), advances a similar argument on the subject. 96. Soundstage no. 108, The Paradise Club, Summer of ’58, Window to the World Communications, Inc. d.b.a. WTTW/Chicago, June 1, 1996. 97. On January 14, 1975, WTTW aired The Paradise Club: Summer of ’58. As the show closes, George Kirby, Jackie Wilson, and Della Reese do some impromptu blues singing that Reese turns into “Every Day I Have the Blues.” There are alto and tenor sax solos during this number, and a blues riff continues under the credits. 98. See report submitted to the director of the FBI, to the attention of the FBI Laboratory, on September 29, 1970, on gambling activities of Arthur Edward Braggs in Detroit and Saginaw. Federal Bureau of Investigation. 99. Shirley Stewart, “The World of Stephanie St. Clair,” master's thesis in Women's History, Sarah Lawrence College, 2010. 100. Reese, Angels along the Way, 144.Page 364 → 101. Although Braggs died at 7:20 p.m., he was not pronounced dead until 7:30 p.m., according to his death records. West Virginia State Department of Health, Division of Vital Statistics, medical examiner's certificate of death.

Chapter 6 1. Lewis Walker and Ben C. Wilson, Black Eden: The Idlewild Community (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2002), 116. 2. Sunnie Wilson, Toast of the Town: The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson, with John Cohassey (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998), 134. 3. Walker and Wilson, Black Eden, 130. 4. James T. Patterson, Freedom Is Not Enough: The Moynihan Report and America's Struggle over Black Family Life, from LBJ to Obama (New York: Basic Books, 2010). 5. Walker and Wilson, Black Eden, 130. 6. Patterson, Freedom Is Not Enough, 152. 7. William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 20. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid., 20–21. 10. Interview with Norman Burns, October 17, 2000. 11. By 1986, it became the B & S Bar and was owned by James N. and Sharon A. Davis of Ypsilanti, Michigan, and managed by Freddie Warren. 12. Interview with Norman Burns, October 17, 2000. 13. Ibid. 14. Rose Hammond interviewed Sonny Roxborough on July 1, 1995, and shared a copy of the transcript with the author. The quotation from the interview appears by permission of the Run With It Company. 15. John J. O'Connor, “At Idlewild, We Don't Talk about Yesterday,” Grand Rapids Press, December 6, 1970, 9. 16. Interview with John Meeks, August 16, 1993. 17. Interview with Audrey Bullett, October 16, 1992. 18. Interview of Freedom Rider Catherine Burke-Brooks by Kermit Eady and Earnest McBride, Empowerment Hour Online University, December 11, 2010, at http://www.kermiteady.com. 19. Vincent Harding, IBW and Education for Liberation, with an IBW Historical Overview, Black Paper 1 (Chicago: Third World Press, 1973), vi. 20. Ibid., vii 21. Ibid. 22. Bill Strickland, “Critik: The Institute of the Black World (IBW), the Political Legacy of Martin Luther King, and the Intellectual Struggle to Rethink America's Racial Meaning,” in Radicalism in the South since Reconstruction, ed. Chris Green, Rachel Rubin, and James Smethurst (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 167–73.Page 365 → 23. Interview of Stephen Henderson in A Howard Reader: An Intellectual and Cultural Quilt of the AfricanAmerican Experience, ed. Paul E. Logan, with a foreword by H. Patrick Swygert (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), 320. 24. Ibid. 25. See Harding, IBW and Education for Liberation); Institute of the Black World Collection, Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division, Schomburg Center for Research on Black Culture, Harlem, New York. 26. “Black Agenda Progress Report,” November 16, 1970, 1–4, Vincent Harding Papers, collection 868, box 22, folder 7, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University. 27. Ibid. 28. “Towards a Black Agenda,” May 1, 1970, 1–7; “Black Agenda Progress Report,” August 18, 1970, 1–7; “Black Agenda Progress Report,” November 16, 1970, 1–7—all in Vincent Harding Papers, collection 868, box 22, folder 7, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University. 29. “Towards a Black Agenda,” 6. 30. The menu, which was quite amusing for most meat-eating guests, included whole wheat raisin bread with organic beets, raw corn, raw vegetable juices, fresh organic beef bacon, different nuts, teas, honeys, and bee pollen. 31. O'Connor, “At Idlewild, We Don't Talk about Yesterday,” 9. 32. Interview of Freedom Rider Catherine Burke-Brooks by Kermit Eady and Earnest McBride, Empowerment Hour Online University, December 11, 2010, at http://www.kermiteady.com. 33. For more detailed accounts of the business of the IBW, see the following works by Derrick E. White: “New Concepts for the New Man: The Institute of the Black World and the Incomplete Victory of the Second Reconstruction” (PhD diss., Ohio State University); “An Independent Approach to Black Studies: The Institute of the Black World (IBW) and Its Evaluation and Support of Black Studies,” Journal of African American Studies 16, no. 1 (March 2012): 70–88; “Black World View: The IBW's Promotion of Pragmatic Nationalism, 1969–74,” Journal of African American History 95, nos. 3–4 (Summer 2010): 369–91; “IBW,” in Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Cultures, vol. 1, ed. Carole Boyce Davies (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2008), 573–74; “Liberated Grounds: The Institute of the Black World and Black Intellectual Space,” in We Will Independent Be: African American Place-Making and the Struggle to Claim Spaces in the U.S., ed. Leslie M. Alexander and Angel David Nieves (Boulder:

University of Colorado Press, 2005); The Challenge of Blackness: The Institute of the Black World and Political Activism in the 1970s (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011). See also the following works by Stephen Ward: “Ours Too Was a Struggle for a Better World: Activist Intellectuals and the Radical Promise of the Black Power Movement, 1962–71” (PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin); “Scholarship in Context of Struggle: Activist Intellectuals, the Institute of the Black World (IBW), and the Contours of Black Power Radicalism,” Black Scholar 31, no. 3–4 (Fall/Winter 2001): 42–53.Page 366 → 34. Interview with Mabel R. Williams, November 9, 1999. 35. Ibid. 36. Timothy J. Gilfoyle, “Prostitutes in History: From Parables of Pornography to Metaphors of Modernity, ” American Historical Review 104, no. 1 (February 1999): 117–41. 37. Arlene Hecksel, “A New Spirit Gives Lift to Idlewild,” Grand Rapids Press, October 23, 1977, 19A. See also Denise Smith, “Housing Units Possible,” Lake County Star, February 16, 1978, 7. 38. Tim Bulson, “Red Light Era Has Gone out at Idlewild,” Grand Rapids Press, November 18, 1984, A1. 39. Ibid. 40. Telephone interview with Ben Logan, September 9, 2009. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid. 45. Complaint 62-2462-77, November 7, 1977, Township of Yates, County of Lake, State of Michigan. Michigan State Police Department. 46. On November 12, 1977, officers investigated prostitution activities in Idlewild and other areas in Lake County. 47. On November 13, 1977, as evident in complaint 62-2462-77, undercover police officers arrested several people on the premises of Rosanna's Bar. Warrants were obtained through Seventy-Eighth District Court magistrate Patricia Bromley. 48. The original airdate of Johnny Carson's Thanksgiving show was November 24, 1977. Prior to the airing of the show, a writer for the Muskegon Chronicle wrote an article, published on Thanksgiving Day, entitled “Idlewild Prostitution Results in 20 Arrests by State Police” (Muskegon Chronicle, November 24, 1977, 4). 49. An excerpted transcript from the Carson show was provided as a courtesy by Jeff Sotzing of the Carson Entertainment Group. 50. In an article with the headline “Michigan Deer Hunters Are Also Stalked; ‘Something You Get’ With…, ” the New York Times (November 21, 1978) stated that Idlewild drew a large number of black deer hunters who stayed in burgeons that were empty the rest of the year. 51. See “5 Prostitutes Plead Guilty in Lake County,” November 15, 1977, Grand Rapids Press, B3; “Hunting Season Spoiled for Three GR Prostitutes,” November 23, 1977, Grand Rapids Press, 4B; “Vacation Money for the Hookers,” November 16, 1978, Grand Rapids Press, 1A, 2A. 52. Interview with Norman Burns, October 17, 2000. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid. 55. According to complaint 62-2462-77, dated November 7, 1977, a total of twelve females were arrested on charges of accosting and soliciting. 56. Interview with Mabel R. Williams, November 9, 1999.Page 367 → 57. Ibid. 58. Interview with Mabel R. Williams, October 23, 2002. 59. Ibid. 60. Interview with Mabel R. Williams. See also Ronald J. Stephens, “Narrating Acts of Resistance: Explorations of Untold Heroic and Horrific Battle Stories Surrounding Robert Franklin Williams's Residence in Lake County, Michigan,” Journal of Black Studies 33, no. 5 (May 2003): 675–703. 61. “Hunting Season Spoiled for Three GR Prostitutes.” 62. Interview with Detective Sergeant George Pratt, August 11, 2009. 63. Sunny Roxborough, interview by Rose Hammond. The quotation from the interview appears by permission of the Run With It Company.

64. Eric Freedman, “Idlewild Was Nation's Largest Resort for Blacks,” Detroit News, July 15, 1994, B1. 65. Michael C. Dawson, “A Black Counterpublic? Economic Earthquakes, Racial Agenda(s), and Black Politics,” in The Black Public Sphere: A Public Culture Book, ed. Black Public Sphere Collective (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 218. 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid., 219. 68. Letter from Percy Davis to the author, October 6, 2010, outlining what Davis considered to be the making of a period of growth from 1980 to 1998, eighteen years of energy and imagination including the two terms of Norman Burns's administration and unparalleled in Idlewild's young history. 69. Interview with Jeff Davenport, May 29, 2010, 10. 70. Kenneth Cole and Elizabeth Atkins, “Idlewild Rocked in Its Heyday,” Detroit News, January 31, 1992, 4F. 71. Thomas BeVier, “Idlewild Shakes Free of Past,” Detroit News, March 3, 1991, 3B. 72. Ronald J. Stephens, Maureen Keaveny, and Venetria K. Patton, “Come Colour My Rainbow: Themes of African Womanism in the Poetic Vision of Audrey Kathryn Bullett,” Journal of Black Studies 32, no. 4 (March 2000): 464–79. 73. Minutes of the Yates Township Organizational Meeting, December 10, 1984, 2. Yates Township Office. 74. Ibid. The meeting was called to order by the new supervisor, Audrey K. Bullett. Along with board members, fourteen citizens were present. See also Minutes of the Yates Township Board Regular Meeting, January 2, 1985. 75. Minutes of the Yates Township Board Regular Meeting, January 2, 1985. 76. Interview with Norman Burns, October 17, 2000, 28. 77. Telephone interview with John Meeks, June 13, 2000. 78. Minutes of the Yates Township Board Regular Meeting, January 2, 1985, 2. 79. Ibid. 80. United States Census Bureau, American Fact Finder. Retrieved January 31, 2008. 81. Lake County Star, June 20, 2002, 7. 82. Audrey Kathryn Bullett, “An Interpretation of the Poetry of Audrey Kathryn Bullett from the African American Prospect,” August 7, 1999, 1–4. Cited in Stephens, Page 368 → Keaveny, and Patton, “Come Colour My Rainbow.” Despite the financial crisis, trustees Percy Davis and Jean Burton Harris were proposing solutions to what appeared to be a mounting financial management problem from the Bullett administration. The debts to be paid, including the police salaries, the hourly rates for people who worked for Yates Township, and the salaries for the elected officials, amounted to $3,800, and the township only had $350 in the bank. 83. Interview with Norman Burns, October 17, 2000. 84. Craig Beilfuss, “Yates Township Records Found in Dumping Site,” Times of Lake County, April 27, 1993, 3. According to Beilfuss's article, several bags of township records, which consisted of past tax rolls from the Yates Township offices, past tax assessments from the township, and many envelopes addressed to the township, were found at the site and turned over to the Michigan State Police. One resident, Pat Williams, the owner of Williams Court, had even written a letter (dated March 30, 1992, about nine months before the November election) to the attorney general, Frank J. Kelley, stating that land was being bought and sold with “no record to verify sales” and that the chief of police was hired and his salary was set by Supervisor Bullett without the approval of the Yates Township Board. 85. Bullett, “Interpretation of the Poetry of Audrey Kathryn Bullett.” 86. Interview with Norman Burns, October 17, 2000. 87. Ibid. 88. Stephens, “Narrating Acts of Resistance.” 89. George P. Kelley, “Justice over Racism: Lake County Women Released,” Lansing Star, July 5, 1978, 1. 90. The People of the State of Michigan v. Ruby Nelson, Lake County Circuit Court, May 22, 1979. 91. Ibid. 92. D. L. Karasienski, “Miles Angered by Questioning: Goodman Faces Contempt of Court Charges,” Lake County Star, January 5, 1978, 5. 93. The People of the State of Michigan v. Ruby Nelson, Lake County Circuit Court, May 22, 1979.

94. Robert F. Williams, letter to the editor, “Williams Questions Rotary's Choice for Award,” Lake County Star, April 20, 1989, 5. 95. Ethel Johnson, letter to the editor, “Deur Needs Help,” Lake County Star, June 8, 1978, 4. 96. Ronald J. Stephens, “Narrating Acts of Resistance: Explorations of Untold Heroic and Horrific Battle Stories Surrounding Robert Franklin Williams' Residence in Lake County, Michigan,” Journal of Black Studies 33, no. 5 (2003): 675–703. 97. Letters to the editor poured in as more citizens made complaints about the sheriff. See R. L. Hamrick, letter to the editor, “Problems in Department Prompted Resignation,” Lake County Star, July 13, 1978, 4. 98. Denise Smith, “Blevins Wins Sheriff's Seat,” Lake County Star, October 4, 1979, 1. 99. G. Galloway, The Bulldog: A True Story (Morley, MI: Deerfield, 1994).Page 369 → 100. Denise Smith, “Deputy Draws Suspension following Beer Tent Incident,” Lake County Star, August 7, 1980, 3. 101. Stephens, “Narrating Acts of Resistance.” 102. Denise Smith, “Pray for Peace,” Lake County Star, September 11, 1980, 4. 103. Ibid. 104. Sheriff Blevins, “Don't Believe All the Trash You Read,” Lake County Star, September 27, 1983, 4. 105. Ibid., 678. 106. Ibid. 107. Ibid., 679. 108. Irshaad Totes, letter to Robert F. Williams, May 12, 1982. 109. Mike O'Connor, “Inmate Recants Rape Charge,” Lake County Star, January 14, 1982, 1. 110. Ronald J. Stephens, Idlewild: The Black Eden of Michigan (Chicago: Arcadia, 2001), 95–102. 111. Yates Township Planning Commission, Yates Township Master Plan (Scott, Bagby and Associates, Registered Community Planners, 1993).

Chapter 7 1. See letter from Gregory J. Reed to Keeper of the Word Foundation, c/o Jess Brown and John Meeks, September 17, 1999, “Re: Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee Reception and Joint Book Signing on September 18, 1999”; letter from Gregory J. Reed and Associates, P.C., to Jess Brown c/o John Meeks, September 29, 1999, “Re: Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee Historic Tour”; letter from Gregory J. Reed to Jess Brown and John Meeks, November 18, 1999, “Re: Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee Historic Tour, scheduled for September 18th from 12 noon to 3 p.m. at the Robert Riffe Youth Center.” Over 150 patrons attended the event and purchased copies of the couple's book for fifty dollars per copy. See “Idlewild Celebration Features Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee,” Michigan Chronicle, September 8–14, 1999, D2. 2. Mike Hughes, “Idlewild: Longtime Fan Keeps Investing in Idlewild,” Lansing State Journal, January 14, 2010, 1.This article was first published on July 9, 2006. 3. Interview with John Meeks, July 29, 2009, 2. 4. The Casa Blanca Hotel had been utilized as a doctor's office and residence by the Nelson family throughout most of the 1980s, prior to being vacated. In 1994, the property was still owned by the family, but due to a failure to pay their property taxes, the state of Michigan owned the property from at least 1998 through 2000. When the state turned the property over to be sold at an auction, Saundra Joubert purchased the hotel. Since 2002, John Meeks has owned the vacant property. See AKT Peerless Environmental and Energy Services, Phase I Environmental Site Assessment of the former Casa Blanca Hotel (prepared for the Lake County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority and John O. Meeks) (Lansing, 2010), 11.Page 370 → 5. “I Still Get a Thrill,” A Birthday Celebration Honoring the Legendary Eddie Calhoun, November 12–13–14, 1993, The Douglas Dunes Resort, A World Jazz Production, Held in cooperation with the Saugatuck/Douglas Visitors Bureau and the Douglas Dunes Resort. 6. Eddie Calhoun has been included on hundreds of recordings on a dozen record labels, including Columbia, Phillips, Reprise, and Mercury (to name a few), “thus solidifying a career spanning five decades.” His career also included touring the world with Erroll Garner for thirteen years, which brought him into contact with such renowned artists as Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie, Harry

Belafonte, Della Reese, and Jackie Gleason. 7. Interview with Marsha Ross Starks, May 20, 2010. 8. Terrance J. Herd, “Music Returns to Lake County: Sounds of Summer Draw Crowds in Baldwin and Idlewild,” Lake County Star, June 20, 2002, 1. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid., 13. 11. Letter from Gad L. Holland, attorney at law, to Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, March 9, 2009, “Re: MCACA Grant #09-PP0006-ZZ,” 2. 12. Bret M. Fischbach, “All That Jazz: Idlewild Festival Sizzles,” Lake County Star, August 15, 2002, 1. 13. Letter from Gad L. Holland, attorney at law, to Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, March 9, 2009, “Re: MCACA Grant #09-PP0006-ZZ,” 3. 14. Ibid. 15. “Tourism: Sharing Our Gifts,” in Lake County Enterprise Community: A Final Report, December 2009 (Baldwin, MI: FiveCAP), 22. 16. Lewis Walker and Ben C. Wilson, Black Eden: The Idlewild Community (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2002), 188. 17. “Music Comes Alive in Idlewild,” Lake County Star, July 10, 2008, 3. 18. See the flyer “About Idlewild and the Lake County Enterprise Community,” released by the Lake County Enterprise Community (Baldwin, MI; in the author's private collection). The program's federal designation ended in December 2009; however, efforts continue by the Lake County Coalition for Economic Progress, formerly the Lake County Enterprise Community Board of Directors. 19. Interview with Mary Trucks, September 10, 2009. 20. See Chris Gibson and John Connell, “Music, Tourism, and the Transformation of Memphis,” Tourism Geographies 9, no. 2 (2007): 160–90. 21. Ibid., 161. 22. See Lucy L. Henke, “Music Induced Tourism: Strategic Use of Indigenous Music as a Tourist Icon,” Journal of Hospitality and Leisure Marketing 13, no. 2 (2005): 4, 6. 23. John Connell and Chris Gibson, “Music and Tourism: The Blues, the Bizarre, and Big Business,” Geodate 17, no. 2 (May 2004): 2. 24. Gibson and Connell, “Music, Tourism, and the Transformation of Memphis,” 165. 25. Ibid., 166–67.Page 371 → 26. During a Yates Township meeting held in Idlewild, John Meeks asked who would organize future festivals, and Loretta Adams of the Henrietta Summers Senior Center initially agreed to do it, prior to Trucks volunteering. 27. Interview with Mary Trucks, September 10, 2009. As a recipient of a loan from the Lake County Enterprise Community's Intermediary Relending Program through FiveCAP Inc., proprietor Freddie Mitchell was thrilled about the opportunity to expand her business. 28. “Encore! Idlewild Jazz Festival Dazzles Again,” Lake County Star, August 14, 2003, 1, 14. See also “Jazz Festival Picks up the Beat for Another Awesome August Event,” Lake County Enterprise Community Newsletter 8 (Summer 2003): 4. 29. Bret M. Fischbach, “Big Crowds Attend Idlewild Jazz Fest,” Lake County Star, August 25, 2005, 1, 22. 30. Ibid., 22. 31. Emmy Parsons, “Festivals Revive Idlewild's Heyday: Weekends Bring Back Last Century's Traditions,” Traverse City Record-Eagle, July 13, 2007. 32. Brett M. Fischbach, “Jazz Acts Continued from Last Week,” Lake County Star, September 1, 2005, 19, 20. 33. Cappy Beins Fischbach, “Idlewild Music Fest Draws Nice Crowd; Delights Fans,” Lake County Star, July 20, 2006, 1, 13. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. Brett M. Fischbach, “Mary Rademacher Featured at Idlewild with a New Attitude Festival,” Lake County Star, August 17, 2006, 1, 3. 37. Ibid.

38. Stephen A. King. “Blues Tourism in the Mississippi Delta: The Functions of Blues Festivals,” Popular Music and Society 27, no. 4 (2004): 462. 39. Interview with Mary Trucks, September 10, 2009. 40. Brett M. Fischbach, “Top Talent Wows Crowd at Idlewild Jazz Fest,” Lake County Star, July 26, 2007, 1. 41. Ibid., 6. 42. “Idlewild Music Fest: Rediscovering Our Musical Roots on Idlewild Lake, Williams Island,” flyer, July 10–11, 2009. Idlewild, MI. In the author's private collection. 43. “Idlewild Music Fest Set to Go This Weekend,” Lake County Star, July 9, 2009, 12. 44. Interview with Mary Trucks, September 10, 2009. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid. 47. Deborah Smith-Olson, president and CEO of Lake-Osceola State Bank, who has a rich history of financially supporting many of the infrastructure and music festival projects, as well as home owners seeking loans to either purchase or upgrade their properties, managed various bank locations in Baldwin, Luther, Irons, Tustin, Reed City, Wellston, and Big Rapids. The bank, which was chartered in 1908, was initially managed Page 372 → by her grandfather, Robert E. Smith, who had two sons, Robert S. and Curtis Smith, before the operation of the banking institution was turned over to Smith-Olson. 48. Jim Crees, “Idlewild Music Festival Kicks off This Week,” Lake County Star, July 8, 2010, 1. 49. Ibid. 50. Jim Crees, “Idlewild Prepares for the Eighth Annual Idlewild Music Festival,” Lake County Star, July 8, 2010. 51. Cappy Beins Fischbach, “Music Festival a Huge Success,” Lake County Star, July 14, 2011, 1, 17. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 54. Interview with Mary Trucks, September 10, 2009. 55. Walker and Wilson (Black Eden, 150–51) define these different categories as (1) resorters or people who come to Idlewild primarily between Memorial Day and Labor Day, where the relevancy of skin color has disappeared in place of economic status; (2) year-round retired resorters or people who live in Idlewild permanently on fixed incomes, either through their pensions or social security checks; (3) commuters or people who live there year-round but work outside the community; and (4) underclass residents or people who are on general assistance and live in Idlewild on a year-round basis. 56. Interview with Norman Burns, October 17, 2000. 57. Ibid. 58. Ibid. 59. State of Michigan in the Circuit Court of Kalamazoo County, Alphonse Lewis, Jr., Plaintiff, v. Kalamazoo County Probate Court, Estate of Blanche J. Nelson, Honorable Susan L. Dobrich, Attorney Grievance Commission, Defendants, File 99-580-AS. Files for the estate of Blanche Nelson, 1995 (L.I.P.)-2000 (Deceased), were attached to the motion. In the Lake County Circuit Court, similar motions were filed by Attorney Lewis, which listed more than seventy-five items, including property taxes, estate expenses, unpaid attorney fees, deeds of property, and other listings. 60. Andrew Billingsley, Climbing Jacob's Ladder: The Enduring Legacy of African-American Families (New York: Touchstone, 1992, 18). 61. American FactFinder, United States Census Bureau (retrieved January 31, 2008). 62. Mary Pattillo, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 21. 63. Ibid. 64. Michelle R. Boyd, Jim Crow Nostalgia: Reconstructing Race in Bronzeville (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), xvi. 65. Ibid. 66. Derek S. Hyra, The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 131. 67. Ibid.

68. Ibid.Page 373 → 69. Ibid. 70. Ibid. 71. Ibid. 72. Ibid., 136. 73. Ibid., 141. 74. Ibid., 130. 75. Interview with Norman Burns, October 17, 2000. 76. Lake County Enterprise Community: A Final Report, 4. 77. “EC, FiveCAP, Habitat Join Forces: Housing Needs a Priority as Millennium Approaches,” Lake County Enterprise Community Newsletter 4 (Summer 1999): 1. 78. Lake County Enterprise Community: A Final Report, 4. 79. See “Wackenhut and Enterprise Community Sign Agreement to Hire Residents,” “Correctional Facility Impacts Economy Business,” and “Sewer Projects Continue to Expand Infrastructure,” Lake County Enterprise Community Newsletter 4 (Summer 1999): 4–5. 80. “It Was A Wonderful Year for Yates Township,” Lake County Enterprise Community Newsletter 4 (Summer 1999): 12. 81. Interview with Mary Trucks, September 10, 2009. 82. “Recent Activities Enliven Tempo of Historical and Cultural Center Progress: Funding Application Being Developed; Sketch of Complex Available,” Lake County Enterprise Community Newsletter 7 (Summer 2002): 4. 83. Interview with Mary Trucks, September 10, 2009. 84. Ibid. 85. Ibid. 86. Interview with Willie Ross, May 21, 2010. 87. Interview with Donel Brown, June 22, 2004. 88. Ibid. 89. Ibid. 90. Ibid. 91. Ibid. 92. Kaytlyn L. Sheldon, “Idlewild: Creating a Historical Record,” Lake County Star, July 30, 2009, 3. 93. “Getting from Here to There,” in Lake County Enterprise Community: A Final Report, 17–18. 94. Ibid., 17. 95. Interview with Mary Trucks, September 10, 2009. 96. Interview with John Meeks, August 21, 2009. 97. Walker and Wilson, Black Eden, 130. 98. Ibid., 139. 99. After Commissioner Ware closed the motel, she took the commercial kitchen, and the motel remained closed for nearly two years. The motel was purchased by a group of Idlewild investors and reopened under new management the last week in July 2011.Page 374 → 100. “Idlewild's Role in Michigan County's Heritage Recognized with Nomination to National Register of Historic Places: Three State Parks, Detroit Financial District among Other Sites Nominated,” news release, September 22, 2009. 101. Ibid. 102. Idlewild: Lake County, Michigan Cultural Economic Development Readiness Initiative, iii. Lansing, MI. 103. Michigan State Housing Development Authority, “Governor Granholm Announces Funding for Idlewild Demolition Projects,” news release, March 4, 2008, 1. 104. Ibid. 105. Ibid. 106. Telephone interview with Bill Anderson, December 3, 2008. 107. Ibid. 108. “Idlewild's Role in Michigan's County Heritage Recognized with Nomination to National Register of

Historic Places: Three State Parks, Detroit Financial District among Other Sites Nominated,” news release, September 22, 2009. 109. Idlewild, Michigan Transformation Initiative Community Cultural Economic Development Readiness Organization and Roles Chart, 2. 110. “Lake Idlewild Park/Access Site Development Plan, Summary of DNR Presentation from the June 25, 2008 Open House,” http://www.michigan.gov. 111. Michigan Economic Development Corporation, “Granholm Announces $620,000 in Grants for Historic Idlewild: Grants Will Support Rehab of Senior Center, Fund Feasibility Study of Flamingo Club Renovation,” press release, November 2, 2009. 112. Ibid. 113. Ibid. 114. Ibid. 115. Interview with Percy Davis of Idlewild, May 28, 2004. 116. Michigan Economic Development Corporation, www.TheMEDC.org. 117. Ibid. 118. The Michigan Economic Development Corporation, a partnership between the state and local communities, promotes smart economic growth by developing strategies and providing services to create and retain good jobs and a high quality of life. For more information on MEDC initiatives and programs, visit the website www.TheMEDC.org. 119. Ibid. 120. The state reporter/writer of the release characterized Idlewild as a city, which it is not. 121. Electronic interview via e-mail exchange with Jennifer M. Granholm, host of Current TV's The War Room, July 29, 2012. 122. Executive Order No. 2007-50, Idlewild Centennial Commission, Department of History, Arts, and Libraries, Lansing, MI, December 27, 2007, 1–4. 123. “Idlewild Readies 100th Anniversary Celebration,” Michigan Citizen, July 11, 2012, 1. 124. Telephone interview with Bill Anderson, December 3, 2008.Page 375 → 125. Interview with Jennifer Granholm, July 29, 2012. 126. Cappy Beins Fischbach, “Idlewild Centennial Celebration Continues with Brunch and Concert,” Lake County Star, May 31, 2012, 6. 127. Betty Boone, e-mail with attachment dated June 2011 to Idlewild Centennial commissioners, regarding Commission Timeline Draft as well as Public Planning Draft Document, June 20, 2011, 1. 128. “Welcome to Idlewild: Idlewild Featured in Dennos Museum Center Exhibit,” Lake County Star, January 5, 2012, 1. 129. Joe Martinez, “Blessing of the Bikes: 40th Annual Blessing of the Bikes Draws Record Crowds,” Lake County Star, May 24, 2012, 1–3. 130. Joe Martinez, “Rolling into Summer: Festivals, Concerts Highlight Lake County Events Schedule,” Lake County Star, May 17, 2012, 1–2. 131. Ann Walters, “Idlewild Hosts the Idlewild Centennial Opening Reception,” Lake County Star, June 28, 2012, 6. 132. Ibid. Idlewild Plaques, which were to be hung in Yates Township Hall, were made to commend the contributions of several individuals, including Audrey Bullett, Helen Buckles, Charles Chesnutt, the Elder John C. Pellum Sr., John C. Pellum Jr., Sergeant Albert Johnson, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, and Dr. Lorenzo Nelson, as well as to honor some of the first African Americans to hold certain positions in the county, including Nelson Willis, the first African American elected to serve as prosecuting attorney in Lake County, and the Elder John C. Pellum, who was the first African American to serve on the Lake County Road Commission. 133. Jim Cress, “Idlewild Centennial Parade Set to Go,” Lake County Star, July 5, 2012, 3. 134. Joe Martinez, “Music Festival Helps Celebrate Historic Centennial,” Lake County Star, July 5, 2012, 5. 135. See “Despite Heat, Idlewild Celebrates Independence,” Lake County Star, July 12, 2012, 3. Despite a national heat advisory and temperatures that approached triple digits, hundreds of participates attended the annual celebration, led by Lake County sheriff Robert Hilts, Dial-A-Ride, and a big float belonging to LakeOsceola State Bank in Baldwin.

136. Jim Crees, “Idlewild Centennial Parade Set to Go,” Lake County Star, July 5, 2012, 3. 137. Joe Martinez, “Music Festival Helps Celebrate Historic Centennial,” 5. This article of July 5 appeared almost one week before the weekend of the festivals. However, no article was written in the edition of the paper that followed the weekend event. Rumors circulating from within the community suggest that the festival committee broke even, which explains why the Lake County Star did not write its usual follow-up article about the festival. When the editor of the local newspaper was asked about the number of tickets sold, the editor advised asking the organizers of the event. 138. Joe Martinez, “Idlewild Jazz Music Festival Delayed,” Lake County Star, August 2, 2012, 3.Page 376 → 139. Interview with John Meeks. 140. Press release, John O. Meeks, “Free Music Concert Postponed Indefinitely in Historic Idlewild, Michigan,” July 24, 2012. 141. Electronic message from Betty Boone to Idlewild Centennial Commissioners, July 9, 2012. 142. Ibid. 143. Ibid. 144. Ibid. 145. Ibid. 146. Walker and Wilson, Black Eden. 147. Buck VanderMeer, “Department of Natural Resources Nixes Lease of the Flamingo Club,” Lake County Star, October 21, 1999, 12. 148. Interview with Donel Brown, August 12, 2004. 149. Ibid. 150. See letter from Jeanne L. Powers, program manager, Land and Water Conservation Fund, to Yates Township supervisor Norman Burns, October 17, 1997, re 26-632/26-925, Williams Island Park Acquisition, in which Powers writes, “It was a pleasure to meet with you on my recent field trip, and to discuss with you and the trustees the future use of the building which formerly housed the Flamingo Bar. As we discussed, the Department of Natural Resources had previously approved use of the building for indoor recreation, and a youth boxing club would be in keeping with that prior approval. However, we would not approve of selling the building to someone else; the Township must retain control of the building. The Township could contract with someone else; say a club or nonprofit group, to run the boxing club, or other recreational activities. While I was there, I also wrote up post-completion inspection reports on our two Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) acquisition projects, and I am enclosing copies of the reports for your records. As in past reports, lack of signage is cited, as well as the future use of the former bar building. I am also enclosing information on where to order the permanent LWCF plaque. It appears the Township's affairs are on an upturn, thanks to your administration's efforts, and we look forward to working with you in the future.” A proposal submitted to the National Idlewilders by John Meeks and discussed on May 21, 1999, outlined reasons for the purchase of the club. As a result of that presentation, Luke T. Isler, national president of the National Idlewilders, wrote a letter, dated June 9, 1999, to Yates Township supervisor Norman Burns, outlining the results of the organization's vote, which was to accept the conditions of a long-term lease of the Flamingo property. 151. Ibid. 152. Interview with Donel Brown, August 12, 2004. 153. “Township Top 10: Responsibilities and Duties All Officials Must Know,” Michigan Township News, January/February 2009, 12. 154. Boyd, Jim Crow Nostalgia, xxx. 155. Kenneth VerBurg, Managing the Modern Michigan Township (East Lansing: Page 377 → Community Development Publications, Department of Natural Resources, Michigan State University, 1990). 156. Ibid. 157. Marquita Pool-Eckert and the Residents of Idlewild, A Taste of Idlewild Centennial Cookbook (Idlewild: Migon Communications, 2012), 95. 158. Ibid. 159. Documentation surrounding the dwelling of Catharine Patricia Patterson, 353 Driftwood Avenue, Unit 4, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3N 2P2, to the attention of Ronald J. Stephens, October 2011, 1–2. Patterson

included a package of systematically organized documents via certified mail, with letters and photocopies of relevant documents surrounding 6229 South Pansy, Idlewild, Michigan, Yates Township, Lake County, including a letter, dated November 22, 2009, to Tracy Sonneborn of the Office of the Attorney General of the state of Michigan, regarding certain township officials allowing the demolition of homes in a historic district through controlled fires by the township fire department, and a reply letter, dated January 15, 2010, from the attorney general, Mike Cox, acknowledging receipt of Patterson's complaint alleging unlawful activity on the part of these township officials and violations of the Freedom of Information Act and her request for an investigation to be conducted. Cox also indicated that his office was unable to advise Patterson or conduct the investigation that she requested. Also included were letters to Doris Strouse, Freedom of Information officer, dated July 28, 2009, requesting information about why Patterson's property was burned down by John Barnett, fire chief, as a fire training exercise on or about November 2003; a letter addressed to George Walker from Catharine P. Patterson, dated September 24, 2009, documenting a response to a telephone conversation held with him on September 22, 2009; a formal request under the Freedom of Information Act to the FOIA coordinator in Lansing, Michigan, for information pertaining to the demolished/burned down property; an undated reply letter from Doris Strouse indicating nonreceipt of a July 28, 2009, letter and the hourly rate for researching the problem; a February 18, 2010, letter addressed to John Barnett, fire chief, and George Walker, Yates Township supervisor, regarding the removal of debris from the property; a February 19, 2010, letter to the attention of Detective Sergeant Rios, state trooper of Michigan, regarding the property as well as various correspondences; and a copy of a Petition for Authorization to Consent to Destruction of Unsafe Dwelling and Sale of Vehicle to Anita McGruder and a Notice of Hearing as filed with the Wayne County Probate Court on August 13, 2003. Lake County Sheriff's Department. 160. Michigan State Housing Development Authority, “Governor Granholm Announces Funding for Idlewild Demolition Projects,” news release, March 4, 2008, 1. 161. “George Walker, Jr. Seeking Second Term as Yates Township Supervisor,” Lake County Star, May 24, 2012, 6. 162. Interview with Jeff Davenport, August 12, 2010. 163. Ibid. 164. Interview with John Meeks, August 10, 2010.Page 378 → 165. Cited by Fred Fisher, “The Twelve Competencies: Leadership Training for Local Government Officials,” http://www.interscience.wiley.com, National Civic Review 10:1002/ncr. 175 (Summer 2007). 166. “George Walker, Jr. Seeking Second Term as Yates Township Supervisor.” 167. Ibid. 168. “Township Top 10: Responsibilities and Duties All Officials Must Know.” 169 Fisher, “The Twelve Competencies,” 30. 170. E-mail message from Sandy Crandall to members of the Lake County Chamber of Commerce, January 11, 2010. Crandall discusses a lengthy conversation she had “with the team that is contracted with ECEZ” regarding her stand, and says that the position “of the Chamber Board is…the use of our billboards must have our Chamber website on it as a point of contact or we will go it alone.” She notes that she is sorry a partnership cannot be worked out. The lengthy e-mail message also discusses Idlewild, as she writes, “About Idlewild…. It is a draw and will be a bigger draw following its 100 year celebration if they continue to involve the locals in its planning from Lansing. People call the Chamber all the time asking about it and are disappointed when they visit. As for ECEZ benefitting Idlewild…I am told by Mr. Walker (supervisor of Yates) they want nothing to do with Ms. Trucks and her plans. They are NOT involved in this endeavor either. WHAT A MESS!” 171. Interview with Jeff Davenport, August 12, 2010. 172. “Mission Statement of the Michigan Township Association,” Michigan Township News, January /February 2009, 1. 173. “Township Top 10: Responsibilities and Duties All Officials Must Know.” 174. Ibid. 175. Interview with Jeff Davenport, May 29, 2010. 176. William McClure, “Use Your Right to Vote,” Lake County Star, July 29, 2010, 4. 177. Jimmy Dean, “Support George Walker,” letter to the editor, Lake County Star, July 29, 2010, 4, 5.

178. Gloria Cummings, letter to the editor, Lake County Star, July 29, 2010, 5. 179. Ibid. 180. Jim Crees, “Yates Supervisor's Argue Recall Claims,” Lake County Star, July 22, 2010, 1. 181. Ibid., 1, 10. 182. Ibid. 183. Ibid. 184. Ibid. 185. John Barnett, “Vote No on the Yates Recall,” letter to the editor, Lake County Star, July 29, 2010. 186. Minutes of the Yates Township Special Board Meeting, October 27, 2010, 1. Yates Township Office. 187. Ibid., 1. 188. Interview with Jeff Davenport, May 29, 2010.Page 379 → 189. Ibid. 190. “Voters Have Spoken,” Lake County Star, August 5, 2010, 1, 16. 191. Interview with Edmond Curry, May 20, 2010. 192. Interview with Willie Ross, May 30, 2010. 193. Fisher, “Twelve Competencies,” 30. 194. Interview with Willie Ross, May 30, 2010. 195. Although the invoices for these purchases, which were made on October 20, 2010, indicate that there was a significant savings, these savings do not give certain rights to make the purchases. This is the point Trustee Ross was making. See invoices 064861, 064863, 064862, 064608, 064539, and 064609 through Great Lakes Office Products, 840 Clark Street, Big Rapids, MI 49307. 196. Interview with Willie Ross, May 30, 2010. 197. Resignation letter from the desk of Philip A. Clay, trustee, to the Yates Township Board, Idlewild, Michigan, effective March 31, 2011. Yates Township Office. This is a corrected copy of a letter written a day or so earlier. 198. Ibid. 199. Ibid. 200. See Agenda for Yates Township Special Board Meeting, March 31, 2011. Yates Township Office. After the decease of Strouse, the election of treasurer Colleen Carrington as county commissioner, and the resignation of Clay as one of two elected trustees, Walker was able to appoint the following officials to serve the township: Jacqueline Patterson as the new treasurer, Marian Caldwell as clerk, and Ronald White as trustee, as well as Deborah Walker as deputy clerk and Kerry Graham as deputy treasurer. 201. This information was documented on August 8, 2011. The documentation outlines events surrounding Geraldine Walker's lawsuits against Yates Township and against Colleen Carrington, Yates Township treasurer. The information presented is factual and leaves rendering conclusions and opinions to readers. The first set of exhibited items to serve as documentation, dated May 2008–September 2008, includes budget details approved by the state of Michigan, statements from the Oral History account at Lake-Osceola State Bank, and a copy of a letter by Gloria House from September 15, 2008. Yates Township Office. 202. Ibid. See the copy of the memorandum. 203. Ibid. See the November 2008 bank statements from the Lake-Osceola State Bank for the Oral History account and the General Fund account. 204. Ibid. See the copy of Colleen Carrington's (the treasurer's) unaudited financial reports and a copy of Beelen's e-mail message. 205. Ibid. See the copy of Gloria House's letter presented on September 9, 2009, to Colleen Carrington. 206. Ibid. See the bank statements from the Lake-Osceola State Bank for the General Fund account and the Oral History account. 207. Minutes of the Yates Township Board Meeting, November 15, 2010. The documentation Page 380 → includes a signed third-party retainer agreement with treasurer Colleen Carrington, as well as audiotapes and videotapes from the board meeting. Yates Township Office. 208. See copies of court stipulations and orders for adjournments, dated December 9, 2010, and February 4, 2011, as well as a copy of Yates Township check #9496. 209. See Minutes of the Yates Township Board Meeting, May 16, 2011. Yates Township Office. 210. This information came from two separate telephone conversations with Willie Ross and Philip Clay.

211. Lake County Sheriff's Office Reporting Officer Narrative on Colleen Carrington, General Information, Tuesday, November 16, 2010, 12:05 p.m., Submitted by Deputy Bradley Nixon #439, Lake County Sheriff Department, OCA 2010-3556. Lake County Sheriff's Department. 212. Interview with Colleen Carrington, January 18, 2012. 213. Lake County Sheriff's Office Reporting Officer Narrative on Colleen Carrington, General Information, Tuesday, November 16, 2010, 12:05 p.m., Submitted by Deputy Bradley Nixon #439, Lake County Sheriff Department, OCA 2010-3556. Lake County Sheriff's Department. 214. Interview with Willie Ross, May 30, 2010. 215. Fisher, “Twelve Competencies,” 30. 216. Ibid., 31. 217. Interview with Willie Ross, May 30, 2010. 218. Walker and Wilson, Black Eden, 196. 219. Joe Martinez, “Griffin Edges out Walker in Yates Township Supervisor Race,” Lake County Star, August 8, 2012, 1. 220. Walker and Wilson, Black Eden, xii. 221. Ibid., 237.

Epilogue 1. Carla Kaplan, Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters (New York: Doubleday, 2002). 2. Lewis Walker and Ben C. Wilson, Black Eden: The Idlewild Community (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2002), 195. 3. Electronic interview via e-mail exchange with Jennifer Granholm, host of Current TV's The War Room, July 29, 2012. 4. Ibid. 5. Lucy L. Henke, “Music Induced Tourism: Strategic Use of Indigenous Music as a Tourist Icon,” Journal of Hospitality and Leisure Marketing 13, no. 2 (2005): 5–12. 6. Stephen A. King, “Blues Tourism in the Mississippi Delta: The Functions of Blues Festivals,” Popular Music and Society 27, no. 4 (2004): 462.

Page 381 →

Selected Bibliography Note: Works not included in the bibliography are cited in full at the first occurrence in each chapter's notes.

Primary Sources Books De Rajah, Joveddah. The Open Door: Laws of Life. New York: printed by author, 1928. Fontaine, Lon. Star Dancing: The Life and Times of an American Dancer. New York: 1st Books Library, 2003. Franklin, Aretha. Aretha: From These Roots. With David Ritz. New York: Villard, 1999. King, B. B. Blues All around Me: The Autobiography of B. B. King. With David Ritz. New York: Avon Books, 1996. Reese, Della. Angels along the Way: My Life with Help from Above. With Franklin Lett and Mim Eichler. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1997. Wilson, Sunnie. Toast of the Town: The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson. With John Cohassey. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998. Manuscript Collections, by Repository BENTLEY HISTORICAL LIBRARY

Robert Franklin Williams Papers, 1925–96. 10 boxes CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Irene McCoy Gaines Papers, 1893–1968. 7 document cases SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES, UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS

W.E.B. Du Bois Papers Page 382 → UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

Digital Collections of J. Willis Sayre Photographs CITY OF BOSTON ARCHIVES

Fire Record, January–June 1961, file P&I, vol. 1, box 211. Boston Fire Department STATE ARCHIVES OF MICHIGAN

Governor Fred W. Green Files, record group 49, box 31, file 5. Governor's Office, Lansing, MI Lake Idlewild State Park/Access Development Plan, June 25, 2008. Department of History, Arts, and Libraries Letter from Charles A. Wilson, attorney, Chicago, to Michigan Securities Commission, Lansing, MI, August 11, 1927, 1. Idlewild Resort Company, Idlewild, MI

Letter from Wilbur M. Lemon, Idlewild Resort Company, Chicago, to L. E. Griffin, Michigan Securities Commission, Lansing, MI, July 30, 1927 Interviews Dickey Adams, telephone interview, June 23, 2010 Betty Jo Alvis, telephone interview, September 3, 2009 Bill Anderson, telephone interview, December 3, 2008 Val Benson, telephone interview, July 23, 2010 Ernest Borden, September 10, 2009, Columbus, Ohio Jewell Braggs, December 10–11, 2009, Saginaw, MI Conklin Bray, telephone interview, July 7, 1993 Eloise Brewer, June 25, 1993, Idlewild, MI Sarah Brooks, August 28, 2004, Grand Rapids, MI Charlie Brown, August 19, 2000, Detroit, MI Donel Brown, August 12, 2004, Idlewild, MI Joe Brown, August 19, 1995, Idlewild, MI Salona Cleveland Brown, July 19, 1993, Idlewild, MI; August 19, 2000, Detroit, MI Audrey K. Bullett, May 4, 1993, Idlewild, MI; June 25, 1993, Idlewild, MI; July 26, 1998, Idlewild, MI Norman Burns, October 17, 2000, Idlewild, MI Ruth Burton, August 31, 2011, Idlewild, MI Jerry Butler, telephone interview, June 9, 2010 Frozen Byrd, June 30, 1993, Idlewild, MI; August 31, 1996, Idlewild, MI Eddie Calhoun, June 26, 1993, Baldwin, MI; June 29, 1993, Idlewild, MI; July 19, 1993, Idlewild, MI; October 3–4, 1993, Idlewild, MI Betty Jo Cave, telephone interview, August 3, 2000 Page 383 → Betty Chavis, telephone interview, August 2, 2010 Gladys Chipchase, July 7, 2000, Chicago, IL Emma Jean Clark, August 10, 1995, Idlewild, MI Bill Colden, telephone interview, July 23, 2000 Winola Conway, July 2, 1997, Detroit, MI

Sandy Crandall, telephone interview, January 13, 2009 Sandra D. Crithon-Merkerson, telephone interview, August 28, 2011 Edmond Curry, May 29, 2010, Idlewild, MI Helen Curry, August 2, 1993, Idlewild, MI; July 5, 2000, Idlewild, MI Leslie Daniels, telephone interview, July 2, 2010 Willet Daniels, telephone interview, December 6, 2009 Jane Lee Darr, telephone interview, December 14, 2000 Jeff Davenport, May 29, 2010, Idlewild, MI Earlette Davis, telephone interviews, May 19, 2009; May 29, 2009; July 1, 2009 Ernie Jean Davis, telephone interview, November 7, 2011 Farina Davis, June 30, 1993, Idlewild, MI; August 16, 2000, Idlewild, MI Percy Davis, May 28, 2004, Idlewild, MI; telephone interview, June 15, 2011 Oci Drake, August 26, 1999, Idlewild, MI De Witt Dykes, July 23, 2010, Detroit, MI Iris Eden, March 4, 1993, Baldwin, MI Cheryl Evans, telephone interviews, March 8, 2010; July 22, 2010; August 9, 2010 Warren Evans, August 7, 2000, Detroit, MI Duke Fakir, telephone interview, July 11, 1999 Roger Fluker, telephone interviews, July 10, 1999; January 20, 2001 Lon Fontaine, telephone interview, October 4, 2004 Betty Foote, August 13, 2009; August 5, 2012, Idlewild, MI Ricky Ford, telephone interview, July 9, 1999 Marshalean Garrett, October 3, 2009, Detroit, MI Carlean Gill, July 19, 1999, Saginaw, MI; September 3, 2009; Saginaw, MI; September 15, 2000 Eddie Goodlow, telephone interview, September 8, 2003 Ed Goodwin, telephone interview, July 27, 2009 Isola Graham-Winburn, June 23, 1997, Detroit, MI Jennifer M. Granholm, electronic interview, July 29, 2012 Gabrielle Greene, June 14, 2000, Detroit, MI

Felix Gullick, January 3, 2010, Grand Rapids, MI Charles Hamilton, September 16, 2000, Idlewild, MI Geraldine Hamilton, August 3, 2000, Flint, MI Vaughn Hamilton, August 8, 2000, Idlewild, MI Vincent Harding, July 23, 2003, Denver, CO John Fraser Hart, telephone interview, May 15, 2001 Donna Harvey, July 24, 2010, Detroit, MI Page 384 → Elizabeth Ann Hawkins, August 16, 2000, Idlewild, MI Glenn Hawkins, telephone interview, March 3, 2011 Iris Hill, July 26, 1996, Idlewild, MI Helen Hughey, December 12, 2009, Saginaw, MI; October 3, 2010, Saginaw, MI Joanne Jackson, telephone interview, September 3, 2011 Lillian H. Jones, July 7, 1993, Woodland Park, MI Steven Jones, July 30, 2007, Grand Rapids, MI Sandra Joubert, telephone interview, August 24, 2010 Jo Ella Keough, telephone interview, July 13, 2010, Indianapolis, IN Lotus “Joy” La Grone, February 12, 1994, Detroit, MI Oliver La Grone, February 12, 1994, Detroit, MI Alphonse Lewis, August 17, 2001, Idlewild, MI Harry T. Lewis, telephone interview, September 18, 2009 Joe and Fredna Lindsey, August 28, 2004 Ben Logan, telephone interview, September 1, 2009 John and Mary Martin, July 7, 1993, Bitely, MI Dick Mask, August 13, 2000, Lansing, MI Bonnie McVlaine, telephone interview, December 10, 2009, Boston, MA Ronnie McVlaine, telephone interviews, September 19, 2009, Jacksonville, FL; October 13, 2009, Jacksonville, FL John O. Meeks, June 27, 1993, Idlewild, MI; August 9, 2009, Idlewild, MI; August 21, 2009, Idlewild, MI; June 3, 2010, Idlewild, MI

McAllister Merchant Jr., August 31, 1999, Idlewild, MI James Miles, August 3, 2004, Chicago, IL; July 1, 2002, Chicago, IL Francelle Morrow, August 19, 1995, Idlewild, MI George Moultrie, telephone interview, July 1, 2009 Minnie Murphy, August 3, 2004, Chicago, IL America Nelson, August 8, 1993, Kalamazoo, MI Blanche Nelson, August 8, 1993, Kalamazoo, MI Bill Owsley, telephone interview, February 25, 2009 James Patterson, August 26, 1999, Idlewild, MI William Polk, telephone interview, July 12, 1993 Margaret Powell, August 14, 2010, Grand Rapids, MI Lieutenant Detective George Pratt, August 11, 2009, Reed City, MI JoAnne Branch Queen, August 4, 2000, Cherry Valley, MI Dottie Rose, July 26, 1998, Idlewild, MI Willie Ross, May 30, 2010, Idlewild, MI Tommy Roy, telephone interviews, September 13, 1993; November 7, 1993; December 3, 2000 Tim Scully, June 19, 1993, Baldwin, MI Diane Short, telephone interview, August 23, 2004 Johnny Slade, June 30, 1993, Idlewild, MI Page 385 → Laura Smith, September 11, 1993, Detroit, MI Susan Smith, August 19, 1995, Idlewild, MI Otis Stanley, July, 23, 2010, Detroit, MI Jerri Steinberg, telephone interview, July 23, 1994 Edgar Struble, telephone interviews, June 4, 2009; June 9, 2009; October 7, 2011 Clineice Stubbs, September 3, 2004, and July 14, 2009, Detroit, MI Julian Swain, telephone interviews, September 3, 2000; January 25, 2001 Janet Sykes, August 13, 2009, Idlewild, MI Valaida Tally, telephone interview, August 3, 2000

Lottie The Body Tatum-Graves, July 28, 1998, Detroit, MI Marilyn Taylor, September 11, 2009, Williamsburg, VA Fannie Thompson, October 7, 1993, Detroit, MI Vivian Thompson, August 31, 1999, Idlewild, MI Mary Trucks, telephone interviews, September 10, 2009; December 22, 2000 Jayne Truesdale-Bagley, June 28, 1993, Idlewild, MI Sid Trusty, October 16–17, 2004, Atlantic City, NJ James Tyson, August 3, 1993, Woodland Park, MI; July 12, 1993, Woodland Park, MI Najwa I Um'Rani (aka Arnell Pugh), telephone interview, October 5, 1999 Ola Mae Webb, September 16, 2000, Idlewild, MI Shirley Wenger, July 28, 2009, Baldwin, MI Mabel Williams, November 9, 1999, Lincoln, NE; July 7, 2000, Idlewild, MI Pat Williams, August 14, 1995, Idlewild, MI Herman Wilson Jr., telephone interview Maryellen Wilson, July 26, 1998, Idlewild, MI; July 5, 2000, Idlewild, MI Sunnie Wilson, June 11, 1993, Detroit, MI Robert “Moe” Wood, telephone interview, December 2, 2009 Leonard Wyatt, July 17, 1993, Idlewild, MI; July 7, 2000, Idlewild, MI; October 15, 2000, Idlewild, MI Documentaries Are We There Yet? Americans on Vacation. History Channel. Branch, Rollo. A Pictorial View of Idlewild. Idlewild, MI: Idlewild Resort Company, 1927. Davis, Coy. Whatever Happened to Idlewild. Grand Rapids, MI, 2001. Historic African-American Towns. High Noon Productions for Home and Garden Television, 2004. Idlewild: Rebuilding Paradise. Flint, MI: ABC 12. Idlewild, Michigan: A Black Historical Resort. Black Nouveau series. Milwaukee, WI. Soundstage #108. Paradise Club: Summer of 1958. Chicago: WTTW-TV, 1994. Talbert, Ted. Idlewild: A Place in the Sun. Detroit: WDIV-TV, 1995. Page 386 → Audio/Video Recordings (Interviews and Shows)

Idlewild: The Real Thing. An edition of Tony Brown's Journal, 2006. Johnny Carson Thanksgiving Day Special. NBC, November 24, 1977. Real Idlewild History: Top Music in Michigan. NPR, August 25, 2006.

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Maurrasse, David. Listening to Harlem: Gentrification, Community, and Business. New York: Routledge, 2006. Oliver, Melvin L., and Thomas M. Shapiro. Black Wealth, White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality. New York: Routledge, 1997. Painter, Nell Irvin. Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meaning, 1619 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pattillo, Mary. Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Page 388 → Patton, Venetria K., and Maureen Honey, eds. Double-Take: A Revisionist Harlem Renaissance Anthology. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001. Phelts, Marsh Dean, An American Beach for African Americans. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997. Reppetto, Thomas. American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power. New York: Henry Holt, 2004. Rugh, Susan Sessions. Are We There Yet? The Golden Age of American Family Vacations. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008. Rymer, Russ. American Beach: A Saga of Race, Wealth, and Memory. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. Stephens, Ronald J. Idlewild: The Black Eden of Michigan. Chicago: Arcadia, 2001. Stepto, Robert B. Blue as the Lake: A Personal Geography. Boston: Beacon, 1998. Strolberg, Mary. Bridging the River of Hatred: The Pioneering Efforts of Detroit Policy Commissioner George Edwards. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998. Thompson, Nathan. Kings: The True Story of Chicago's Policy Kings and Numbers Racketeers; An Informal History. Chicago: Bronzeville Press, 2003. Walker, Lewis, and Ben C. Wilson. Black Eden: The Idlewild Community. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2002. White, Deborah Gray. Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894–1994. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. Wilson, Ben C. The Rural Black Heritage between Chicago and Detroit, 1850–1929: A Photograph Album and Random Thoughts. Kalamazoo: New Issue Press: Western Michigan University, 1985. Journals Anderson, Tommy D., and Donald Getz. “Stakeholder Management Strategies of Festivals.” Journal of Convention and Event Tourism, 2008, 199–220. Foster, Mark S. “In the Face of ‘Jim Crow’: Prosperous Blacks and Vacations, Travel, and Outdoor Leisure, 1890–1945.” Journal of Negro History 84, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 130–149. Du Bois. W. E. B. “Hopkinsville, Chicago, and Idlewild.” Crisis (August 1921): 160. Gibson, Chris, and John Connell. “Music, Tourism, and the Transformation of Memphis.” Tourism Geographies, May 2007, 160–90.

Haller, Mark H. “Policy Gambling, Entertainment, and the Emergence of Black Politics: Chicago from 1900 to 1940.” Journal of Social History, 2003, 719–39. Hart, John Fraser. “A Rural Retreat for Northern Negroes.” Geographical Review 1 (April 1960): 148–68. Hauke, Kathleen A. “The Passing of Elsie Roxborough.” Michigan Quarterly Review 22 (Spring 1984): 155–70. Henke, Lucy L. “Music Induced Tourism: Strategic Use of Indigenous Music as a Tourist Icon.” Journal of Hospitality and Leisure Marketing 13, no. 2 (2005): 3–18. King, Stephen A. “Blues Tourism in the Mississippi Delta: The Functions of Blues Festivals.” Popular Music and Society, 2004, 455–75. Page 389 → Pilling, Patricia L. “Segregation: Cottage Rental in Michigan.” Phylon 25, no. 2 (1964): 191–201. Stephens, Ronald J. “Garveyism in Idlewild, 1927 to 1936.” Journal of Black Studies 34, no. 4 (March 2004): 462–88. Stephens, Ronald J. “Narrating Acts of Resistance: Explorations of Untold Heroic and Horrific Battle Stories Surrounding Robert Franklin Williams's Residence in Lake County, Michigan.” Journal of Black Studies 33, no. 5 (May 2003): 675–703. Stephens, Ronald J., Maureen Keaveny, and Venetria K. Patton. “Come Colour My Rainbow: Themes of Africana Womanism in the Poetic Vision of Audrey Kathryn Bullett.” Journal of Black Studies 32, no. 4 (March 2002): 464–79. Stepto, Robert B. “From Idlewild and Other Seasons.” Callaloo 14, no. 1 (1991): 20–36. Wilson, Benjamin C. “The Early Development and Growth of America's Oldest Black Resort—Idlewild, Michigan, 1912–1930.” Journal of Regional Cultures 2, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1982). Dissertations Armstead, Myra Beth Young. “The History of Blacks in Resort Towns: Newport, Rhode Island, and Saratoga Springs, New York, 1870–1930.” PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1987. Wen, Pehyun. “Idlewild: A Negro Village in Lake County, Michigan.” master's thesis, University of Chicago, 1972. Encyclopedias Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, vols. 1 and 2, ed. Darlene Clark Hine. New York: Carlson, 1993. Notable American Women: The Modern Period, a Biographical Dictionary, ed. Barbara Sicherman and Carol Hurd Green with Ilene Kantrov and Henrietta Walker. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980. Notable Black American Women, ed. Jessie Carney Smith. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992. Notable Black Women: Book II, ed. Jessie Carney Smith. Detroit: Gale Research, 1996. Newspapers and Periodicals from Abroad Blackman (Kingston, Jamaica)

Montreal Gazette (Montreal, Canada) Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, Canada) Una vida dedicada a la danza, Cuadernos 23, Cenidi Danza, Jose Limon (Mexico City, Mexico) U.S. Newspapers and Periodicals Baltimore Afro-American Black Dispatch (Tulsa, OK) Page 390 → Boston Advertiser Boston Daily Record Boston Globe Boston Traveler Broad Axe Call Chicago Daily News Chicago Defender Chicago Tribune Cleveland Advocate Cleveland Call and Post Cleveland Gazette Columbus Call and Post Crisis (New York) Detroit Free Press Detroit Independent Detroit News Ebony (Chicago, IL) Eguiar of Idaho Faces in Places (Grand Rapids, MI) Grand Rapids Evening Leader Grand Rapids Herald Grand Rapids Press

Grand Rapids Times Indianapolis Recorder Jet (Chicago, IL) Lake County Star (Baldwin, MI) Lakewood Acres News Ludington Daily News Michigan Citizen Michigan History Muskegon Chronicle Negro Digest Negro World (New York) Nevada State Journal New York Age New York Amsterdam News New York Times Ohio Sentinel Oklahoma Eagle Oregonian Peoria Journal Star Pittsburgh Courier Page 391 → Times of Lake County (Baldwin, MI) Times-Picayune (Oregon) Variety Washington Afro-American Washington Post Idlewild Newspapers, Periodicals, and Brochures Beautiful Idlewild (brochure, 1923) Challenger (1950)

Chatter Box (1950) Idlewild Community Herald (monthly news magazine, 1923–39) Idlewilder's Magazine (1952–64) Idlewild Lot Owner's Association Newsletter Idlewild Yearbook (1959–63) Life and Times of John (Jay) Calvin Pellum (brochure, 1992) Yates Township/Lake County Public Records Baird, Cotter and Bishop, P.C. Certified Public Accountants. Yates Township, Lake County Audit Report. March 31, 2012. Boone, Betty. “Idlewild: A Hidden Gem in Northern Michigan Re-emerges,” Heritage Matters: News of the Nation's Diverse Cultural Heritage. Spring 2011, 1–2. “Five County Anti-Poverty Program, Inc., Lake County Economic Profile.” unpublished report, FiveCAP, Baldwin, MI, 1996. “Idlewild: Lake County, Michigan Cultural Economic Development Readiness Initiative.” Lansing, MI. Lake County Resources Directory, 1998.A Listing of Human Service Agencies and Programs within Lake County, MI. Lake Idlewild Park Access Site Development Plan. Summary of DNR presentation from the June 25, 2008, open house. www.michigan.gov/idlewild. Michigan State University School of Planning, Design, and Construction Urban Planning Practicum. Tourism Development Strategy for Idlewild, Michigan, prepared by Cortney Dunklin, Corean Reynolds, Emilio Voltaire, Nathalie Winans, and Matthew Wojciechowski, Spring 2013. Original Incident Report, Lake County Sheriff's Department Police Reports, Michigan Department of State Police, Baldwin, MI, 1977–84. Phase 1 Environmental Site Assessment of Former Casa Blanca Hotel, Yates Township. Lake County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority and John O. Meeks, AKT Peerless Environmental and Energy Services, 2011. Scott, Bagby and Associates, Registered Community Planners. Yates Township Master Plan. Yates Township Planning Commission, 1993. Yates Township: Lake County Area Facilities Plan for Wastewater Collection and Treatment. Richard H. Keaft Engineering, 409 West Seventh Street, Flint, MI, 1999. Yates Township Parks and Recreation Master Plan, 2013–2017, Lake County, MI. Page 392 →

Page 393 →

Index A. H. Brott Lumber Company, 60 Adams, Alberta, 126, 347, n24 Adams, Dickey, 123, 166, 353n54, 382 Adonis, Joe, 80 African Americans, 3–5, 8–9, 12, 14, 17–19, 22–23, 28, 30–31, 33–35, 49, 52, 72, 82, 92, 94–96, 110–11, 117, 119, 121, 127, 136, 139, 142–46, 148, 153, 167, 182–83, 192–93, 206, 214, 218, 226, 233, 236, 246, 250, 252, 258, 276, 278, 332, 329nn11–12, 375n132, 387 African American studies, 11, 365n33 African diaspora, 49, 190, 325, 365n33 Afrocentric themes, 196, 210 Afro Pic comb, 232 Aikens, Charley, 128 Aldrich, Trixie, 130 American Beach, 5, 36, 225, 329n12, 387, 388 American College of Surgeons, 39 American Medical Society, 38, 39 Americans with Disabilities Act, 295 Anderson, Charles, 4 Anderson, Daniel Herbert (Bert), 56, 338n164 Anderson, Louis B., 37, 90 Anderson, Violette Neatly, 19, 23, 51, 54, 103, 105, 265, 337nn161–62, 338n165, 338n167 Anderson, Walter M., 66 Anderson, William “Bill,” 291, 296, 374n106, 374n124, 382 Andrews, O. C., 149 Apollo Theatre, 189, 190, 194, 215, 217 Armstrong, Lillian, 7, 19–20, 36 Armstrong, Louis, 7, 19–20, 36 Aron, Cindy S., 5, 386

Ashlee, Laura, 293 Auther, Ella, 26 Auther, Marian E., 26 Bailey, Pearl, 184 Baker, Lavern, 2, 157, 161, 167, 210, 21 Baldwin, Michigan, 13, 18–19, 40, 60, 65, 74, 76, 86–87, 127, 137, 140, 144–46, 162, 164, 240, 253, 256, 258, 262–63, 269, 280, 282, 290, 297–98, 334nn87–88, 335n104, 336n116, 338n182, 341nn24–25, 345n101, 345n123, 370n8, 370n15, 370n18, 371n47, 375n135, 383–85, 390–91 Baldwin Road, 41, 48, 59, 162 Ballard, Hank, 213 Baltimore Afro-American, 183, 389 Baltimore Royal Theatre, 189 Bankston, John, 5, 167, 353n57, 353n59 Bantom, Susie J., 60, 330n1, 331nn22–24, 332n30, 335n105, 340n219 Barbara, Victor, 185 Barber, J. D., 48 Barnett, John, 307, 311, 377n159, 378n185 Bascomb, Paul, 157 Basie, William “Count,” 245 Basin Street South, 12, 194, 197–201, 203, 357n3, 358n4, 358n9, 358n15 Bass, Shirley Hall, 162 Baulch, Vivian, 119, 346n3 Baxter, Boots, 159 Belafonte, Harry, 190, 193–94, 370n6 Belcher, Earl “Count,” 181, 356n115 Beleno, Zaima, 206–7 Belin, Elliot, 201 Bellamy, Denise, 267, 271, 288–89 Page 394 → Bennett, Lerone, 234

Bennett, Robert, 132 Benson, Al, 182 Benson, Renaldo “Obie,” 362n70 Benson, Valaida, 169, 362n70. See also Talley, Valaida Benton, Brook, 2, 166, 173, 208, 215, 217 Berton, Pierre, 190–92, 357n141 Big Wilt's Smalls Paradise, 212–13 Billingsley, Andrew, 234, 275, 372n60 Birt, Moody, 45, 84 Bistro, John R., 173 Black Arts Movement, 334n85 Black bourgeois, 7–8, 30–31, 276, 330n19, 333n59, 343n70, 386 Black Bottom, 33, 35–36, 119, 346n3 Black metropolis, 34–35, 71, 228, 334n75, 386 Black Orchid Casino, 182, 184, 188, 212 Black Panther Party, 12 Black Power movement, 12, 245, 334n85, 365n33 Black nationalism, 4–5, 30, 72 Black public sphere, 33–34, 333n72, 334n73, 367n65 Black Velvet, 129, 173, 178, 180 Blankenship, Oscar, 60 Blevins, Robert, 255 Boggs, Grace, 234 Boggs, James, 234 Boone, Betty, 290, 296, 301, 315–16, 375n127, 376n141 Borden, Ernest, 156, 218, 363n83, 363nn86–87, 382 Boston Globe, 200, 358n12, 358n15, 390 Bowles, Thomas “Beans,” 123 Boyd, Michelle, 14, 276, 322

Bracey, Ed, 154, 156, 163, 223 Bracey, John, 234 Bradby, Robert L., Sr., 86, 88–89 Bradford, Andrew L., 40 Bradley, C. Grace, 62, 339n192, 339n196 Braggs, Arthur “Daddy,” 6–7, 11, 123, 125, 129, 135, 143, 149, 150–51, 153, 155–57, 159, 161–87, 189–91, 193–97, 204, 210–16, 221, 225, 231, 261, 300, 323, 358n9, 361n51, 362n70; in loving relationship with Carlean Gill, 172 Braggs, Leodell J., 351n7 Branch, Adelbert, 5, 15, 340n221 Branch, Erastus G., 16–18, 60, 64, 68, 86, 332n31 Branch, Flora, 17 Branch Brothers, 17, 20, 25–29, 52, 91, 117 Branham, Joseph, 132 Branham, Velma, 132 Brantley, David, 132, 348n49 Braxton, Louise, 36 Bray, Conklin, 382 Bray, Harry Franklin, 5–6, 23, 26, 29, 36, 64, 339n185 Bray, Mary Frances, 58, 87 Bray, Nathan, 58, 87 Bray, Virginia, 56, 87, 339n183 Brisbane, Betty, 128 Bronzeville, 14, 33, 35–37, 78, 276–79, 322–23, 341n23, 372n64, 372n66, 386–88 Brooks, Buck, 146, 227. See also El Morocco Club Brooks, Paul, 232, 235. See also Afro Pic comb Broussard, Gloria, 162 Brown, Anita Patti, 19 Brown, Donel, 14, 263, 265, 267, 282–83, 302, 307, 324, 350n84, 373n87, 376n148, 376n152, 382 Brown, Frank, 176

Brown, Henry, 84, 133 Brown, James, 154, 323 Brown, James A., 148 Brown, Jess, 369n1 Brown, June, 131, 348n46 Brown, Ruth, 157 Brown, Salona Cleveland, 382 Brown, Tony, 385 Browne, Robert, 234 Browning, Eugene S., 90 Bryan Foods, 327 Bryant, Willie, 176 Bryon Brothers Orchestra, 65 Buckles, Hattie, 66 Bullett, Audrey K., 12–13, 130, 246–47, 255–56, 274, 286, 302, 324, 364n17, 375n132 Bullett, Ricardo, 248 Bunche, Ralph, 30, 194 Burke-Brooks, Catherine, 232, 235, 364n18, 365n32 Burkett, Randall, 47, 336n125, 337n143 Burns, Marilyn, 274 Burns, Norman, 5, 13–14, 229–30, 241, 247, 249–51, 256, 260, 273, 280, 288, 320, 324, 364n10, 364n12, 366n52, 367n68, 367n75, Page 395 → 368n83, 368n86, 372n56, 373n75, 376n150, 382 Burns Construction, 288 Burton, Ruth, 219, 363n90, 382 Bush, George, 245 Busy Bee, 154 Butler, Jerry, 2, 180, 182, 208, 382 Butler, Rosie, 151, 153 Caifano, Leonard, 80 Calhoun, Eddie, 262, 370nn5–6, 382

Caliman, Ethel, 89 Calloway, Cab, 203 Calloway, Helen, 128 Camp Baldwin, 72, 74, 76, 229 Campbell, Choker, 157, 162, 197, 202, 206, 208, 213, 220–21 Campbell, Robert, 185 Cannon, Laura, 89 Carr, Julia M., 279 Carrington, Colleen, 315–16, 318, 379nn200–201, 379n204, 379n205, 380n207, 380n211, 380n212, 380n213 Carson, Johnny, 240, 366n48, 385 Carter, Betty “Be-Bop,” 180 Carter, Rosalind, 288 Carter, Sonny, 128, 180 Carter, Stephen L., 290 Casablanca, Aida, 204, 206–7, 213 Casablanca, James, 165 Casa Blanca Hotel, 112–13, 116, 146, 155, 227, 229–30, 235, 262, 274, 325, 346n135, 369n4, 391 Casbah Cocktail Lounge, 115 Casey, Evelyn, 51, 56, 61 Casino Theatre, 189–90, 191, 357n139 Castro, Fidel, 232 Cave, Betty Jo, 184, 202, 382 Cayton, Horace R., 34 Chamberlain, Wilt, 213, 323 Chamblee, Chantel, 168 Chamblee, George, 168 Charles, Ralph, 194 Charles, Ray, 154 Chautauqua, 10, 23–24, 64–67, 92, 331n25

Checker, Chubby, 213, 222 Chepesiuk, Ron, 77, 341n21 Chesnutt, Charles W., 36, 59, 66, 375n132 Chesterfield Lounge, 210 Chicago Defender, 4, 17, 77, 95, 97, 102, 104–5, 109, 127, 183, 334n89, 335nn93–94, 335n103, 338n164, 338n168, 339nn186–87, 343n77, 345n109, 345n118, 345n126, 347n8, 347n19, 348n29, 348n35, 348n36, 350n1, 353n56, 354n68, 354n86, 355n101, 355nn118–19, 357n137, 360n27, 362n71, 390 Chicago Idlewilders, Inc., 131, 133 Chicago's North Kenwood-Oakland and Douglas–Grand Boulevard, 276 Chicago Reader, 91, 343n67 Chicago's race riot of 1919, 19 Chicago Sun Times, 215 Chicago Tribune, 71, 341n6, 362n82, 390 Chipchase, Gladys, 383 Circle Ballroom, 189, 210 Civilian Conservation Corps, 9, 60, 73–74, 116, 229; President Roosevelt's, 10, 72–73, 341n4 Civil rights movement, 2, 7, 12, 94, 126, 151, 175, 183, 196, 222, 225–26, 231, 232, 246 Clay, Philip A., 314, 380n210 Clark, Emma Jean, 289, 383 Clarke, George, 197, 357n1 Cleage, Albert, 234 Cleveland Call and Post, 127, 180, 348n41, 355n98, 357n134, 360n41, 362n76, 390 Cleveland Gazette, 69, 337n151, 340n210, 340n211, 341n3, 390 Cleveland Idlewilders, 261 Clinkscales, Inez, 161, 169, 178 Clinton, William Jefferson, 290 Club Delisa, 165 Club El Sino, 176–78, 180 Club Harlem, 203 Cohen, Elizabeth, 140, 349n66

Cold War, 3, 12, 150–51, 190–91, 232 Cole, Nat King, 154, 161, 179, 182, 222 Coleman, Apryl, 1 Collins, Kevin, 272 Columbus Call and Post, 390 Come to Beautiful Idlewild for a Real Vacation brochure, 140–41, 347n7, 347n56, 349n61, 349n67, 349n72 Community, 1–3, 6–10, 12–14, 18, 29, 31, 33–34, 36, 39, 41, 44, 46–47, 49–50, 52–54, 57–61, 63, 67–68, 71, 77, 80–83, 85–88, 91–93, 96, 102, 110, 116, 120, 123, 128, 135–36, 139–40, 145–46, 148–49, 151, 153–55, 159, 173, 179, 191, 193, 197, 206, 214, 219–20, 222–23, 226–28, 230, 232, 236–38, 241–50, Page 396 → 252–62, 265–67, 269, 271–73, 275–86, 288–95, 297–305, 307–11, 313, 319–20, 322–28, 329n12, 330n18, 330n23, 330n1 (chap. 1), 331n5, 331n24, 335n90, 336n115, 339n184, 339n188, 341n5, 341n14, 343n62, 343nn65–68, 343n71, 347n17, 347n21, 348n46, 356n110, 363n95, 364n1, 369n111, 370nn15–16, 370n18, 371nn27–28, 372n55, 373nn76–80, 373n82, 373n93, 374n109, 375n137, 380n1, 387–88, 391 Community-based research, xi, 6, 9, 11 Coney Island, 3 Connell, John, 266, 370n20, 370n23, 388 Conservatism, 4, 30 Contours, 261, 365n33 Conway, Brian, 289, 290, 293 Conway, Winola, 383 Cooke, Sam, 177, 182, 203, 215, 222 Coolidge, Calvin, 44 Coombs, Ivy Lee, 112 Coombs, Woolsey C., 133, 148, 155 Cooper, Jack, 182 Copa Club, 179, 354n91, 355n92, 355n95 Cosby, Bill, 323 Costello, Don, 128 Costello, Frank, 80 Cox, Ernest T., 21 Cox, Mary Ellen, 21, 59, 331n19 Craigen, Joseph A., 45, 112–13, 346n136, 346n137, 346n138

Crandall, Sandy, 309, 378, 383 Crawford, Blanche Juanita, 94, 109. See also Nelson, Blanche Juanita Crawford Crisis Magazine, 1–2, 6, 50–52, 70, 329nn1–2, 337n145, 337n146, 347n22, 349n62, 386, 390 Crithon-Merkerson, Sandra D., 165, 353n52, 383 Cronon, Edmond, 46 Crooked Lake, 16. See also Idlewild Lake Cuban Pete, 204 Cummings, Etta, 180 Cummings, Gloria, 310, 378n178 Cuomo, Andrew, 280 Curry, Edmond, 313, 379n191, 383 Curry, Helen, 130, 383 Daniels, Billy, 203 Dan Ware and Son's Grocery, 137–38 Davenport, Jeff, 247, 308, 310, 367n69, 377n162, 378n171, 378n175, 378n188, 383 Davidson, Jack, 64 Davis, Angela, 232 Davis, Chester, 234 Davis, Farina, 88, 383 Davis, Henrietta Vinton, 43, 82–83 Davis, Herbert, 40 Davis, K. D., 124, 129, 137, 147–48, 176, 331n3, 348n52, 349n55, 349n60, 350n81, 352n28, 353n57 Davis, Ossie, 261, 369n1 Davis, Percy, 116, 207, 242, 247, 295, 346n139, 360n29, 367n68, 368n82, 374n115, 383 Davis, Sammy, Jr., 130, 161, 203, 222, 323 Dawson, Michael, 4–5, 33, 72, 341n7 Dawson, William, 79 Dean, Jimmy, 310, 378n177 Dechow, George F., 39, 335n102

Dee, Ruby, 261, 369n1 DeeShon, Jean, 129 Delta Blues and Heritage Festival, 237 De Rajah, Frances, 108–9, 344n94, 344n97, 344n100 De Rajah, Joveddah, 6, 10, 95, 97; divorce proceedings between Joveddah and Frances, 344n94, 344n97, 344n100; illegitimate son, 103, 107, 235, 344n84. See also Downing, Joseph A. De Rajah, Nina, 99 Derrick, W. B., 39 Desmond, Mona, 180, 186–87 De Soto, Denia, 129 Detroit, 45–46, 60–61, 63, 70–73, 77–78, 84–85, 89, 110–12, 116–17, 119–20, 123–24, 126–27, 130–33, 136, 138–40, 149, 154–57, 160–61, 163–65, 167–69, 171, 175–76, 178–86, 188, 194, 202, 204, 206, 210–19, 223–24, 231–33, 235–36, 241–43, 248, 254, 258, 261, 263–64, 300, 306, 325, 330n17, 331n3, 334n81, 337n161, 339n195, 340n201, 340nn205–7, 340nn212–13, 340n219, 346nn2–3, 347n12, 347n24, 386–90 Detroit Federation of Musicians, 185, 355n104, 356n115, 356n117, 356n120 Detroit Free Press, 187, 230, 252, 356n115, 356n121, 390 Detroit Idlewilders Club, 131–32, 149, 348nn47–48 Page 397 → Detroit News, 119, 130–31, 185, 247, 346n3, 348n46, 367n64, 367nn70–71, 390 Detroit Spinners, 168 Detroit Stars, 163 Detroit Tribune, 127 Deur, Lonnie, 239 Diefenbaker, John, 191 Diggs, Charles, 130, 132, 185 Dillard, Angela, xii Dixon, Donna, 169; aka Donna Harvey, 161, 383 Doggett, Bill, 2, 11, 157, 173–74, 176, 187, 361n55 D'Oliver, Ofella, 206, 212 Donaldson, Jeff, 234 Don Cornelius' Soul Train, 221

Dongvillo, Henry J., 254 Dorothy A. Johnson Philanthropy, xii Dotson, Delbert, 248–49 Dotson, Howard, 233 Douglass, Frederick, 30 Downing, Alice A., 95 Downing, Edward, 95 Downing, Joseph A., 94–95, 343n79 Doyle, Zach, 159 Drake, St. Clair, 34, 334n75 Drums of Haiti, 36 Du Bois, W. E. B., v, 1, 30, 50–51, 193, 381 Duckworth, Edward, 240 Dunham, Katherine, 7, 171, 205, 210 Dunn, Meyer, 184, 212 Duvernay Park Apartments, 275, 280–82, 304 Duvernay, Terrence R., 282 Dyerettes, 157, 161–62 Dykes, DeWitt, 234 Earth, Wind, and Fire, 182, 232 Eastern Michigan University, 284 Eaton, William, 191 Ebony, 126–27, 131, 139, 147, 211, 227, 346n1, 353n60, 390 Economic decline, 2, 12, 119, 196, 215, 219, 222–23, 225, 230–32, 245, 259, 355n91 Economic development, xi, 7–8, 14, 23, 87, 117, 120, 126, 128, 226, 234, 246, 260, 269, 276–77, 279–80, 283, 285–86, 288–91, 293–96, 301, 305, 308, 320, 322, 324, 326–27, 374n102, 374n109, 374n111, 374n118, 391 Ed Sullivan Show, 169, 174, 180, 215, 217 Eisenhower, Dwight, 139 Ellington, Duke, 130 El Morocco Club, 109–10, 116, 130, 136, 146–47, 221, 227, 235, 259

Elsner, Edwyn, 60 Elsner, Isabel C., 60 English, Johnny, 162 Enterprise Community Empowerment Zone, ix, 280 Escobar, Leon, 7, 12, 204–5, 208, 210–13, 259n22, 360n26 Evans, Joseph, 61 Faces in Places, 167, 353n57, 353n59, 353n61, 390 Fakir, Abdul “Duke,” 166, 202, 383 Fakir, Inez, 202 Fears, Clifford, 161, 167, 169, 177, 179 Federal Bureau of Investigation, ix, 185, 217, 223, 363n98 Feminism, 4, 31, 332n51, 333n55 Ferris State University, 248, 284 Fetchit, Stepin, 217 Fierro, Francisco, 206–7 Fiesta Room, 135–36, 158–60, 163, 166–70, 174–76, 179, 188, 205–6, 209, 353n59 Finfer, Lawrence, 289 First Baptist Church of Idlewild, 85 First Baptist Church of Woodland Park, 269 Fischer, Fred, 308, 318 Fitzgerald, Ella, 184, 203, 216 FiveCAP, Inc., v, 13, 252, 265, 267, 270–72, 275, 279–87, 290, 304–5, 307, 309, 320, 326–27, 370n15, 371n27, 373n77, 391 Flame Show Bar, 130, 156, 160, 168–69, 173, 176–77, 181–82, 210, 212–13, 356nn108–9, 361n54, 361n57 Flamingo Club, 11, 14, 116–19, 122–23, 125–30, 133, 135–36, 138–40, 147, 149, 159, 165, 167, 178, 181, 228–29, 240, 247, 250, 259, 263–65, 293–95, 302–3, 319, 325, 374n111, 376n147 Flamingo Supper Club, 180 Flogaus, Albert, 16, 331n27 Fluker, Roger, 172, 197, 202, 204, 383 Fontaine, Lon, 158, 186–87, 197–98, 202, 204, 358n6, 358n8, 383

Fontana, Lola, 203 Foote, Betty, 137, 348n53, 349n59, 349n65, 352n24, 383. See also Harris, Betty Ford, Henry, 35, 43, 140 Ford, Joseph, aka senator/mayor of Idlewild, 22 Ford, Ricky, 167, 360n27, 383 Page 398 → Ford Motor Company, 35, 120 Foreman, James, 233 Foster, Muriel Wilson, 162 Four Diablos, 128 Four Tops, 2, 11, 123; Abdul “Duke” Fakir remembering Daddy Braggs, 166; known as the Four Aims, 161–62; performing, 173, 176, 180–81, 186–88, 195, 197–98, 202, 221, 225, 268, 362n70 Fox, Craig, 331n8 Franklin, Aretha, 214–16, 222, 361n61 Franklin, C. L., 178, 214 Franklin, Erma, 215–16, 362n71 Frazier, E. Franklin, 7, 31, 330n19, 330n22, 333n59, 343n70 Freedom of Information Act, ix, 312, 317, 377n159 Friends of Historic Idlewild, 281 Fuller, Hoyt, 234 Gaines, Harrison, 64 Gaines, Irene McCoy, v, 23, 36, 54, 57, 60, 89, 91, 265, 331n3, 338n176, 338n178, 381 Gaines, Kevin, 148 Gallagher, Buell, 194 Gamboa, Araceli, 206–7, 213 Gaona, Carlos, 206, 360n28 Garvey, Marcus, 29, 49–50, 193, 336n118, 336n120, 343n57 Garvey movement, 30, 31, 40, 42–5 Gates, Mattie, 89 Gaye, Marvin, 222, 232

Gayle, Addison, 234 Gentrification, 276–77, 325, 387 Giancana, Sam “Mooney,” 79–81 Gibson, Chris, 266, 370n20, 370n23 Giese, Edward, 255 Giles, Beatrice, 148; aka Bea Giles, 121; lovely first lady, 128–29, 149; mismanagement of the Flamingo Bar, 228–29; sold Flamingo Bar to Ben Logan, Sr., 237 Giles, Blossom, 119 Giles, Phil, 145–47, 149, 155, 167, 178, 210, 220, 225, 229, 231, 260–63, 347n18, 347n20, 348n28, 350n85 Giles, Phillip J., 119 Giles, Sally, 119 Gilfoyle, Timothy, 257 Gill, Carlean, 158, 160, 168, 171–72, 187, 202, 213, 220, 351n17, 356n128, 359nn20–21, 360n27, 360n39, 383 Gillespie, Dizzy, 370 Ginyard, Freddie, 163 Gladys' Home Cooking, 134, 139 Gleason's Musical Bar, 129 Glover, Marie, 129 Godfather of Soul, 323 Gomez, Joseph, 230 Goodlow, Eddie Lou, 171, 182, 355n105, 383 Goodman, Ernest, 254 Gordy, Berry, Jr., 166 Gotham Hotel, 130, 156, 165, 178, 210, 218, 360n36, 363n83 Graham-Winburn, Isola, 348n49, 383 Grand Rapids Day, 22, 64 Grand Rapids Times, 186–87, 353n57, 353n59, 356n122, 356nn125–26, 359n24, 361n45, 362n65, 362nn73–74, 390 Grand Valley State University, xii, 284 Granholm, Jennifer, 149, 296–97, 323, 325, 375n125, 380n2

Grant, Earl, 185 Grant, Eddie “Chip,” 185, 356n115 Graves, Willis, 132, 348n49 Great Depression, 4, 6, 10, 68–70, 72, 76, 83–84, 94–95, 109, 119, 236, 340n1, 341n6, Great Lakes Office Products, 313, 379n195 Great Migration, 32–35, 63, 119, 121, 152, 296, 340n201; outward migration, 93 Green, Adam, 11, 70, 123, 139–40, 182, 341n5, 347n17, 356n110 Green, William R., 66–67 Greene, Fred, v, 62 Gregory, Dick, 185, 264 Grier, Pam, 232 Griffin, Judith, 289 Griffin, Ronald, 320 Griffin, Trixie, 120 Guy, Helen, 121 Hack, Don, 176 Hagerman, Chuck, 176 Hall, George C., 37 Hall, Shirley, 162 Halliday, Charles Henry, 103 Halliday, Wilhelmina, 103, 105 Ham, Scott, xii Hamilton, Charles, 234, 383 Hamilton, Roy, 161, 187, 189, 208, 222 Page 399 → Hamilton, Vaughn, 240, 383 Harding, Vincent, 216, 233, 364n19, 365n26, 365n28, 383 Harlem, 14, 36, 44, 52, 77–78, 154, 176, 179, 189, 215, 217, 223, 276–78, 323, 325, 365n25, 372n66, 387 Harlem Brothers, 187, 197, 202, 206

Harlem's Cotton Club, 11, 197 Harlem Renaissance, ix, 30, 32, 36, 50, 323, 333n61, 333n63, 387 Harris, Betty, 123, 140, 160. See also Foote, Betty Harris, Jean, 248 Harris, Otis, 134, 140 Harris-Lacewell, Melissa, 4, 30–31, 145, 329n6, 332n49, 342n35, 349n78 Hart, John Fraser, 330n13, 383 Hartman, Johnny, 185 Hartz, Albert, 156 Harvey, Donna, 161, 383 Hauenstein, Colonel Ralph W., 74, 341n12 Haugabook, Deborah, 134 Havens, Frank, 19, 41 Hawkins, Elizabeth Ann, 64, 384 Hawkins, Glenn, 161–62, 169, 352n33, 384 Hawthorne, Ella J., 45 Hawthorne, John H., 45 Heard, Crip, 185 Heartbreak Hotel, 146, 161. See also Paradise Hotel Henderson, Mattie, 89 Henderson, Stephen, 233–34, 365n23 Hendrix, Jimmy, 232 Henke, Lucy L., 266, 326, 370n22, 380n4 Henrietta Summers Senior Center, 14, 248, 295, 297, 308, 310, 320, 371n26 Herd, Terrance J., 263, 370n8 Hibbler, Al, 11, 173 Hickory House Restaurant, 154, 221 Hicks, George R., 122 Hicks, Rick, 263, 298

Highland Beach, 5, 36, 52, 225, 330n5 Hill, Robert, 233–34, 336n118, 343n54 Hilts, Robert, 258; Lake County sheriff, 375n135 Hines, Doris, 129 Historical preservation, xi, 6, 14, 276, 283, 289, 294 Holland, Gad, 264 Honey, Maureen, 32, 333n61, 387 Hoskins, Patricia, 139, 148 House, Gloria, 290, 315–16, 379n201, 379n205 Houser, George, 194 Howard, Perry, 290 Howard Theatre, 189 Hughes, Langston, 36, 323. See also Drums of Haiti Hughes, Richard M., 60, 341n14 Hurston, Zora Neale, 323, 380n1, 387 Hyra, Derek, 14, 276 Identity, 7, 10, 12, 31–34, 47, 68, 72, 93, 99, 106, 117–18, 126, 131, 143, 182, 231, 237, 260, 273, 278, 320, 322–23, 327, 343n78, 344n83 Idlewild, Michigan Transformation Initiative, 293–96, 307, 320, 374n109 Idlewild African American Chamber of Commerce, xi, 262, 298–99 Idlewild Centennial Commission, 296–98, 301, 374n122, 375n127, 376n141 Idlewild Chamber of Commerce, 11, 89, 117, 137–38, 141–42, 144, 147, 231, 347n7 Idlewild Community Development Corporation, ix, 300, 326 Idlewild Community Herald, 60, 88, 91, 330n1, 331n24, 339nn184–85, 339n188, 341n14, 343nn65–66, 343nn68–69, 391 Idlewild Corporation, 286 Idlewild Economic Development Corporation, 286, 324 Idlewild Foundation, 264, 268 Idlewild Grocery Store, 288 Idlewild Heights, 15, 25, 27, 29, 58, 61

Idlewild Historic Cultural Center, 264; renovated, 281, 283, 285–86, 304, 327 Idlewild Improvement Association, ix, 10, 16, 69, 120, 128, 334n88, 335n104 Idlewild Lake, 1, 17, 20, 22, 36, 37, 39, 40, 51, 53, 78, 113, 119, 121, 125, 130, 134, 139, 275 Idlewild Lake Association, 248, 259 Idlewild Lot Owners Association, ix, 10, 23, 57–58, 69, 259, 298 Idlewild Reality Company, 91 Idlewild Resort Company, ix, 2, 4, 10, 15, 26–27, 52, 69, 323, 332n35, 332nn38–39, 337n148, 340n221, 382, 386 Idlewild Summer Resort Development Company, 27 Idlewild Terrace, 15, 23, 25–26, 28–29, 48, 64, 66–67, 86, 91, 93, 332n41 Page 400 → Institute of the Black World, ix, 232, 364n22, 365n25, 365n33 Integration, 4, 7, 23, 30, 221–23, 225–27, 230, 237 Internal Revenue Service, 79, 351n17 Jacobsen Daniels Associates, 294–95 Jackson, Mahalia, 182 Jackson 5, 232 James, Etta, 2, 154, 210, 222, 363n94 Jenkins, Riley, 87 Jet Magazine, 135, 139, 200, 213, 356n115, 358n9, 361n46, 361n48, 361n52 Jim Crow segregation, 20, 35, 43, 76, 94, 119, 131, 168, 183, 225, 266, 276–77, 322, 330n12, 334n84, 372n64, 376n154, 386, 388 Jo, Damita, 215 Johnson, Albert H., 90 Johnson, Albert “Sergeant,” 66, 375n132 Johnson, Emil, 27 Johnson, Ethel, 254–55, 368n95 Johnson, Fred E., 44 Johnson, George H., 27 Johnson, Joe “Ziggy,” 2, 124, 156–58, 160–62, 165, 169, 173, 176, 179–80, 182, 187, 204, 211, 213, 218, 347n19, 348n29, 348nn35–36, 352n28, 353n56, 353n63, 354n70, 354n88, 356n127, 357n137, 359n22, 360n27, 362n70, 362n80

Johnson, Laura, 129 Johnson, Leodell, 350n7. See also Leodell Braggs Johnson, Lyndon B., 222, 362n78 Johnson, Lynne, 121 Jones, Anna L., 335n99 Jones, David, 289 Jones, Ed, 77–82, 223 Jones, George, 78, 341n24 Jones, McKissack, 81, 341n25 Jones, Williams O., 45 Joubert, Dana, 288 Joubert, Sandra, 274, 384 Kaiser, Henry, 186 Kansas City Monarchs, 163 Kasson, John F., 329n4 Keith, Alan, 309 Keller, Mattie, 26 Kelley, Gregory P., 253 Kennedy, John F., 194, 217; assassination, 231, 357n139, 358n12; Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation, 193 Kennedy, Robert, 218, 231 Kenya, 190, 193–94 Keough, Jo Ella, 184, 202, 213, 360n27, 361n58 Khan, Chaka, 182 Khell, Theodore W., 194 King, B. B., 2, 129, 154, 162, 178, 354n87, 381 King, Emery, 164 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 12, 30, 216, 245, 297, 299, 362n69, 387 King, Maurice, 181 King, Stephen A., 269, 327, 371n38, 380n6

King, Wanza, 191 King Memorial Center, 233 Kirby, George, 133, 160, 184, 187, 189, 202, 210, 215, 222–23, 225, 363n97 Kohl, Helmut, 245 Kreidler, Edward, 127 Ku Klux Klan, 17, 152 Kyles, Mildred Annette, 297, 301 Lacy, Karyn R., 92, 343n72 Lady Sunshine, 270, 272 Lake County, Michigan, 13, 26–27, 40, 43, 108, 110, 127, 229, 235, 240, 252, 254–55, 257, 262, 280 Lake County Abstract Company, 27, 29 Lake County Board of Commissioners, 326 Lake County Chamber of Commerce, 309, 326, 378n170 Lake County Coalition for Economic Progress, 285, 370n18 Lake County Enterprise Zone, 9, 280, 284–85 Lake County Historical Society, 127, 326, 330n2, 344n94, 344n97, 345n108, 348n27 Lake County Merrymakers, 272 Lake County Museum Committee, 326 Lake County Road Commission, 144 Lake County Sheriff Department, 380n211, 380n213 Lake County Star, 18, 26–29, 39–40, 42, 46, 60, 64, 66, 84, 86, 252, 256–57, 268, 272, 275, 297, 302, 310, 313, 331n11, 331n14, 331n17, 331nn22–26, 332nn28–31, 332nn35–37, 332nn40–41, 335n91, 335n96, 335n99, 335n102, 335nn105–6, 335n123, 335nn130–33, 340n202, 340n207, 340n209, 340n213, 340nn219–20, 342nn51–52, 343nn58–60, 343n63, 343nn74–76, 349n58, 366n37, 367n81, 368n92, 368nn94–95, Page 401 → 368nn97–98, 369n100, 369n102, 369n104, 369n109, 370n8, 370n12, 370n17, 371nn28–29, 371nn32–33, 371n36, 371n40, 371n43, 372n47, 372nn50–51, 373n92, 375n126, 375nn128–31, 375nn133–38, 376n147, 377n161, 378nn176–78, 378n180, 378n185, 379n190, 380n219, 390 Lake Osceola State Bank, 40, 145–46, 267, 371n47, 375n135, 379n201, 379n203, 379n206 Lamar, Frank, 163 Lamira Firegod Club, 203–4 Lansky, Meyer, 80 Larry's Nursery and Landscaping, 288

Larry Steele's Smart Affairs, 186, 189, 202–3, 210, 219, 221, 352n29 Larry Wrice and his Chicago All Stars, 157, 178 Larsen, Nella, 32, 333n62 Last Poets, 232, 264 Latin Quarters, 161, 204, 221 Lawhorn, Helen “Maw,” 133 Lawrence, Howard C., 60, 339nn189–90 Leake, Ezra, 79 Lee Jon's Gift Shop, 155 Lemon, Wilbur M., 15–16, 23, 66 Leon Escobar Dancers, 208, 210–13 Lewis, Alphonse, 372n59, 384 Lewis, Bill, 156 Lewis, Bobby, 162 Lewis, Carey B., 66 Lewis, Jerry, 184 Lewis, Willie, 206 Lincoln Park, 249, 275, 281–82, 30, 324 Lindsey, Freda, 249 Little Ester Philips, 154 Little, Lillian, 190 Little, Murray, 190 Little Willie John, 2, 157, 167, 177, 217, 353n56 Locke, Alain, 30, 36 Logan, Ben, Jr., 237 Logan, Ben, Sr., 237 Los Poseidos, 206. See also Possessed, The Louie's Lounge, 202–3, 217 Louis, Joe, 130, 167, 177, 334n86, 353n61

Ludington Daily News, 183, 252, 348n43, 352n49, 353n49, 357n133, 359nn23–24, 362n65, 390 Lumumba, Patrice, 190 Luther Thompson and the Flamingo Dancers, 128–29, 135–6 Maathai, Wangari, 193 Machiorlatti, Jennifer, 125 Main, Greg, 295 Makeba, Miriam, 190–91 Manistee National Forest, 16, 73 Mann, Vera Wilson, 162 Manson, David, 37, 69, 335n99 Manson, Lucy, 335n99 Mark Twain Hotel, 131 Martarrano, John, 194 Martha's Vineyard, 5, 36, 329n12 Martin, Jim, 78, 81 Martin, Kenny, 129 Mask, Dick, 163–64, 352n45, 352n48, 353n50, 384 Masonic Temple, 240 Matson, William L., 144, 349n77 Maurrasse, David J., 325 Maxine Powell Finishing and Modeling School, 131–33 Mayfield, Curtis, 182, 187 Mboya, Tom, 193–94 McClure, Bill, 288, 310 McIlvaine, Bonnie, 359n18 McIlvaine, Bonita, 203 McIlvaine, Johnny, 194, 201 McIlvaine, Ronnie, 201, 358n13, 359n18 McKinney, Edna, 248

McLain, Richard W., 61 McWorter, Gerald, 233 Meeks, John O., v, xii, 113, 122–23, 138, 216, 231, 248, 261, 264, 267, 271, 273, 288, 298–99, 302, 320, 346n135, 347n13, 350n80, 362n67, 363n88, 364n16, 367n77, 369n1, 369nn3–4, 371n26, 373n96, 376n139, 376n150, 377n164, 384, 391 Meier, August, 34, 334n81 Memphis, regarding Beale Street, 266; and annual Blues Festival, 327, 370n20, 370n24, 388 Michigan Chronicle, 4, 127–29, 156, 169, 177, 183, 211, 227, 348n34, 348n39, 350n86, 351n18, 352n27, 353nn61–63, 354nn69–70, 354nn82–83, 354n86, 354n88, 354n90, 355n97, 355n102, 355n103, 356n106, 356n108, 356n115, 356n127, 356n129, 358n9, 359n22, 360nn36–39, 361n42, 361n54, 361n57, 362n80, 369n1 Michigan Consolidated Gas Company, 383 Michigan Department of Natural Resources, 293, 302 Page 402 → Michigan Department of Transportation, 144, 295 Michigan Economic Development Corporation, ix, 291, 294, 301, 374n111, 374n118 Michigan Lottery Commission, 219 Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund, 294 Michigan State Highway Department, 144, 349n75 Michigan State Housing Development Authority, 282, 290, 374n103, 377n160 Michigan State Police, 239, 255–56, 366n45, 368n84 Michigan State University Museum, xii Middle class, 8, 11, 72, 111, 118, 131–32, 140, 163, 227, 322, 325, 336n115, 341n8, 343n70, 343n72; black intellectuals, 1, 2, 7, 15–17, 19, 22–23, 30–33, 35–37, 42, 50, 52, 67, 70, 91–93, 95, 126–27, 143, 146, 153, 162, 211, 275–78; class conflicts, 8, 9, 14, 34, 70, 118–19, 164, 228, 260, 279; middle-class abandonment, 7, 12, 222, 228, 236; politicians, 14; and upper class, 4–6, 29, 68, 96, 220, 329nn11–12, 330n19, 333n57, 333n60, 333n68; and working class, 3, 10, 12, 35, 121, 140, 144, 148, 214, 219, 227, 242, 258, 323, 364n7, 372n55, 372n62, 386–88 Migration, 30; immigration, 185 Miller, Olivette, 161 Miller Brewing Company, 327 Mitchell, Freddie, 267, 289, 371n27 Mitchell, Jimmy, 181, 185 Mitchell, Joe, 214

Moms Mobley, 203 Montero, Frank, 194 Montgomery, Sonny, 181 Montgomery bus boycott, 151 Montreal Gazette, 188, 356n112, 356n130, 357nn131–32, 389 Moore, Reuben, 90 Morrow, Francelle, 384 Morton, Bill, 261 Morton's Motel, 147, 231, 248, 261, 263–64, 268–69, 273, 288–89 Moseley, Beauregard, F., 19 Moses, Wilson Jeremiah, 4, 8, 29, 330n22, 332n42, 332n47 Motley, Oliver W., 83 Motley, Pauline, 83 Motown, 161, 166, 217, 220–21, 268, 352n25, 356n106, 363n93, 386 Mount Olive Church of God in Christ, 85 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 226 Muhammad, Elijah, 217 Muhammad, Timothy “Pharaoh,” 264 Mumbles, Bobby, 176 Murphy, Bobby, 181 Murphy, Minnie, 384 Muskegon Chronicle, 183, 227, 331n7, 344n99, 352n49, 353n49, 359n24, 360n34, 366n48, 390 Muskegon Jubilee Singers, 42 Najwa I Um'Rani, 385. See also Pugh, Arnell Naka Nakane, 84 Nance, Susan, 95, 194, 344n81 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, ix, 25, 30, 32–33, 48, 53, 61, 63, 66, 84, 256 National Endowment for the Humanities Preserve America Grant, 283, 290, 293 National Enterprise Community, 294

National Historic Register Community, 294 National Idlewilders Club, 13, 131–33, 221, 258–59, 261, 297, 300, 302–3, 376n150 National Idlewild Lot Owners Association, 23, 259 National Park Service, 111, 290, 293, 303, 346n134 National Register of Historic Places, 289, 374n100, 374n108 Navarro, Gloria, 206–7 Nealy, Frances, 202 Negro Digest, 41, 330n15, 390 Negro Traveler's Green Book, 112, 131 Negro World, 50, 82, 84, 336n113, 336n128, 337nn139–40, 337n142, 342n37, 342nn39–42, 342n45, 342n49, 342nn51–52, 390 Nelson, America Elizabeth, 94, 109, 229 Nelson, Blanche Juanita Crawford, 94, 109, 229 Nelson, Lorenzo Raymond, 94, 109, 229 Nelson, Ruby, aka Ruby Nelson Chatman, 253, 368n90, 368n93; Ruby Nelson Legal Defense Fund, 253–54 Nelson, Vicki, 179 Newaygo County, 16, 26, 331nn7–8, 332n34 New Bethel Baptist Church, 178 New York Amsterdam News, 183, 189, 357n136, 361nn47–48, 362n72, 390 Page 403 → New York's London Chop House, 189–90 New York Times, 218, 344n93, 362n82, 366n50, 390 Nicodemus, Kansas, 52 Nixon, Bradley, 318, 380n211, 380n213 Nixon, Richard, 217 Nostalgia, 276–77, 305, 322, 372n64, 376n154, 386 Noteworthy Soul Band, 270, 272 Nyerere, Julius, 193 Oak's Bluff, 329n12. See also Martha's Vineyard Obama, Barack, Sr., 193–94

Oklahoma Eagle, 4, 174, 183, 354nn71–73, 361n51, 362n77, 390 O Jays, 232 O'Keefe Centre for the Performing Arts, 190–91 Opportunity, 14; development, 271, 280; discouraged, 172, 203, 212–13; investment, 40, 68–69, 77, 155; missed, 285–86, 305, 319, 324, 371n27; photographic, 244, 259; reacquaint, 263; reminisce spark, 265; squandered, 37 Orchid Room, 168, 175, 181, 185 Original Chicago Idlewilders, 131 Otis Harris' Shooting Gallery, 134 Owsley, Bill, 134, 139, 349n54, 349n63, 384 Pace, Junior, 156 Painter, Nell, 110 Palm, Kristin, 123, 347n16 Pan African Industrial Comb, 233; Picel Products, 233. See also Afro Pic comb Pan-Africanism, 192–93 Paradise Club, 11, 41, 110, 116, 129–30, 135, 149–50, 154–55, 157–59, 161–65, 167, 175–79, 187, 197, 208, 210, 215, 220–23, 230–31, 264–65, 298, 300, 323, 353n59, 360n40, 362n67, 363n96, 363n97, 385 Paradise Gardens, 1, 15, 24, 40–41, 43, 76, 93, 146, 163, 230; night life, 110, 176, 335n106; role of John Simmons, 91; Wilsons owned, 128, 293, 336n116, Paradise Hotel, 41, 146, 161, bulldozed, 230. See also Heartbreak Hotel Paradise Valley (in Detroit), 35, 119, 177–78, 346; demise of, 214; about Detroit's Paradise Valley, 156, 218, 351n16, 351n19, 363n83, 363n86, 386; at the Flame Show Bar, 181 Parks, Rosa, 151 Parris, Caute, 234 Patterson, James T., 364n4 Pattillo, Mary, 14, 276, 372n62 Patton, Venetria K., 12, 32, 333n61, 367n72, 388 Paul Bascomb's band, 157 Payton, Lawrence, 202 Pearl's Bar, 140 Pehyum, Wen, 5 Pellum, John (Jay) Calvin, 85, 343n61; The Life and Times of John ( Jay) Calvin Pellum, 343 62, 375n132, 391; Mother Pellum of Mount Olive Church of God, 85, 245

Pellum, Mother Elizabeth, 342n62 People's Association for Human Rights, ix, 254–55 Pere Marquette, 16, 25, 44, 67, 90 Petrillo, James C., 176 Pettiford, Cecil, 24–25, 41 Phil Giles, 119–21, 123, 129, 131, 133, 135, 137, 139, 143, 145–46 Phil Giles Enterprises, 119, 121, 125–26, 128, 131, 134, 146–47, 155 Phil Giles Flamingo Follies, 129 Philip Morris, 327 Pickens, William, 66, 340n212 Pierce, Bill, 176–78. See also Club El Sino Pittsburgh Courier, 4, 17, 62, 89–90, 338n169, 338n171, 338n173, 339n192, 339n196, 355n103, 390 Plank, Ray, 175–76 Poetry in the Woods, 263–64, 297 Pointer, Charles R., 335 Poitier, Sidney, 191, 193–94 Police brutality, 252, 255 Pollaski, Fred, 335 Polk, Flora Mae, 120 Polk, Nute, 133–34, 137, 139 Pore, Katherine, 274 Porter, Lee, 84 Portis, Judy, 288 Portis, Larry, 288 Possessed, The, 206–8, 210, 360n30 Poussaint, Alvin, 234 Powell, Maxine, 131–33 Powers, Jeanne, 303 Pratt, George, 244, 367n62, 384 Page 404 →

Prentiss, Peggy, 129 Presley, Elvis, 266 Price, Lloyd, 208, 215–16, 221, 362n71 Price, Priscilla, 268, 272 Prince, Frank, 255 Provident Hospital, 35, 37, 57, 335n90 Prysock, Arthur, 2, 157, 167, 187–88, 197–99, 202, 215 Pugh, Arnell, 385. See also Najwa I Um'Rani Pullman Porters, 24 Purifoy, Henry “Hank,” 184 Purple Palace, 17, 36, 39, 76, 120, 124 Quarker, Dorothy E., 185 Queen, JoAnne Branch, 384 Race, xi, 2, 4–5, 8, 26, 39, 54, 58, 65, 72, 82, 86, 92, 94, 96, 123, 132, 139–40, 142, 146, 148, 163, 322; Chicago race riot, 34–35; race improvement, 47, 49, 53, 62, 330n12, 333n68, 336n120, 341n5, n7, 343n57, 343n72, 347n17, 349n64, 350n82, 356n110, 372n62, 372n64, 386–88; race relations, 29–31, 33–34, 212, 231, 255, 257–58, 276–77; race riots in Detroit and New York, 35; race traitors, 45; Tulsa Race Riot, 19, 152, 350n3 Racial uplift, 4, 25, 29–30, 33–34, 36, 39, 43, 50, 53–54, 57, 69, 84, 92, 119–20, 276–78, 323 Racial uplift ideology, 4, 323 Racism, 1–2, 4, 7, 15, 19, 31, 33, 37, 49, 93–94, 100, 110, 119–20, 153, 168, 183–84, 227, 252, 277, 343n80, 368n89 Rainey, George R., 82 Rasberry, Ted, 156, 163 Ray, Faye, 202 Reagan, Ronald, 245 Red Rooster Lounge, 269, 288 Red Saunders Band, 157 Reed City Hospital, 110, 229 Reese, Anna, 45 Reese, Della, 2, 11, 122, 154, 157, 160–62, 164, 165, 167, 169–70, 172–76, 178–80, 185, 220–22, 224–25, 354n64, 354n72, 354n74, 354n86, 363n91, 363n97, 370n6 Reppetto, Thomas, 79, 154, 342n28, 351n13, 358n14

Rest Haven Inn, 25 Revitalization, xi, 6, 8–9, 12, 14, 148, 246, 256, 260, 276, 278–79, 283, 291, 294, 299, 307, 322–24 Reynolds, Emma Ann, 38 Reynolds, John, 123 Reynolds, Pablo, 204, 206 Ricca, Paul, 80 Rifle, Robert, 369n1 Road Runners Variety Store, 269, 288 Roane, Irving, 156 Robert F. Williams, 233, 241, 252, 284, 368n94, 369n108 Roberts, Carl G., 19 Roberts, Pinkney, 157–58, 167, 176 Robert Sharber Defense Committee, 256 Roberts Show Lounge, 165, 169, 173, 185, 202, 212, 215–17, 354n75 Robinson, Jackie, 193–94 Robinson, Robert H., 185 Robinson, Sugar Ray, 323 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 341. See also Civilian Conservation Corps Rosanna Tavern, 94, 140, 230, 237–40, 243–44, 366n47 Rose, Buddy, 163 Rose, Dottie, 113, 118, 133, 384 Rose Room, 168, 173–75, 213, 217, 361n51, 362n77 Ross, Pam, 303 Ross, Willie, 282, 313, 320, 373n86, 379n194, 379n196, 380n210, 380n214, 380n217, 384 Roxborough, Elsie, 334n86; as associate editor, 60; as playwright, 36, 334n86 Roxborough, John (senator), 94 Roxborough, Lottie G., 90, 94 Roxborough, Sonny, 94, 140, 225, 230; interviewed by Rose Hammond, 364 Roy, Tommy, 5, 164, 166, 170, 174–75, 182, 189; former publicist, 221–22, 354nn77–78, 354n81, 357n153; Jackie Wilson, 209; Leon Escobar Dancers, 205; received telephone call from Braggs, 202, 359n16, remembers

Etta James, 363n94, 384 Rudwick, Elliott, 34, 334n81 Rugh, Susan Sessions, 3, 329n5, 348n45, 388 Rush, Bobby, 270 Samelow, Barry, 103 Sanchez, Sara Lilia, 206–7 Sanders, William E., 16 Scheinman, William X., 194 Page 405 → Schifman, Frank, 190 Scott, Charles, 60 Scully, Tim, 262, 264, 384 Seaton, Grace, 123 Second Baptist Church of Detroit, 23, 63, 86, 88, 340nn205–6 Second-class citizenship, 94 Segura, Felipe, 205, 360n26 Serieux, 272 Seventh Day Adventist Church, 85 Sha Rhon's Hair and More, 288 Shirley, James, 156 Simmons, John, 41–42, 60, 89, 91, 149, 157 Simmons, Leona B., 140, 242. See also Lee Jon's Gift Shop Simpkins, William, 89 Skidmore, Billy, 79, 81 Slade, Johnny, 384 Smart, Rueben, 163 Smith, Adam Daniel, 45 Smith, Christine, 61, 89, 94 Smith, Leonard, 45, 85

Smith, Little Willie, 130 Smith, Robert, 338n182 Smith, Vina Galloway, 83 Sneed, Sherman, 191 Snyder, Rick, 317 Solomon, Evelyn, 132, 348n49 Solomon, Harry, v, 13, 231, 237, 244, 246, 260, 289 Spellman, A. B., 233 Spence Twins, 176 Spinners, 2; aka the Detroit Spinners, 168, 221, 353n60, 353n93 Squires, Catherine, 33, 194 Stanley, Otis Eugene, 123, 347n15 State Historic Preservation Office, ix, 289, 293, 295, 346n134 Station, Dakota, 187 Steele, Larry, 181–82, 186, 189, 202–3, 210, 219, 221, 352n29 Stephens, Ronald J., 331n19, 335n107, 342n38, 346n130, 367n60, 367n72, 368n96, 369n110, 377n159 Stepin' Fetchit, 217 Stepto, Robert B., 53, 330n16 Stewart, George “Pappy,” 157 Stewart, William, 191 Stitt, Sonny, 154 Stone, Robin, 272 Strickland, William, 233–34 Strouse, Doris, 305, 315, 318, 377n159 Stuart, Kirk, 179 Stubbs, Clineice, 177, 188, 202, 352n30, 385 Stubbs, Levi, 184, 186, 200, 202 Sumlin, Benjamin, 48 Supremes, 232, 268

Swain, Julian, 158, 205–6, 212–14, 385 Tabernacle A.M.E. Church, 343n62; aka Idlewild Community Church of Christ, 29, 61, 63, 76, 82, 85–88, 230, 339n197, 343n62 Talbert, Ted, 122, 347n12, 352n47 Talented Tenth, 8, 30, 32 Talley, Valaida, 161. See also Benson, Valaida Tatum, Reese “Goose,” 118 Tatum-Graves, Lottie “The Body,” 118, 385 Taylor, Albert Glen, 46, 48–50, 76, 82, 132, 173–75, 179, 180–81, 215, 233, 272, 336n121, 336n135, 342n47, 349n58, 354n73, 385 Taylor, Claude, 174, 354n73 Taylor, Council, 233 Taylor, Eugene, 179 Taylor, Herbert, 132 Taylor, Marilyn, 385 Taylor, Pat, 173, 180–81 Taylor, T. J. Hooker, 272 Tees, David, 319 Temptations, 221, 268 Terry, Trixie, 129 Thatcher, Margaret, 245 Thomas, Alfred, 231–32, 260, 274 Thomas, Maud, 67 Thomas, Tom, 45 Thompson, Elizabeth, 83 Thompson, Floyd, 348n49 Thompson, Helen, 83 Thompson, Luther, 128–29, 135–36 Thompson, Nathan, 78, 341n23 Thurman, Artrola, 128–29

Thweatt, H. H., 1, 50, 329n1, 337n145 Till, Emmett, 151 Timmons, Clyde, 64 Toronto Star, 191, 357n139 Tourism, 5, 9, 11, 14, 43, 111, 117, 120–21, 126, 128, 131, 258, 260–61, 265; niche tourism, 266–68, 277, 279–80, 283–86, 291, 293–94, 296, 320–21, 324–27, 346n134, 370n15, 370n20, 370nn22–24, 371n38, 380n5, 388 Page 406 → Townsend, Clineice, 161, 169, 186. See also Stubbs, Clineice Tricia Moore Quartet, 270, 272 Trinidad Lounge, 194. See also Basin Street South Trucks, Mary, v, 13, 265, 267, 271, 279, 282, 285–86, 290, 309, 370n19, 371n27, 371n44, 372n54, 373n81, 373n83, 373n95, 385 Trucks, Ray, 19, 27, 40, 86 Tucker and Son's Grill, 134–35, 349n55 Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, 19, 350n3, 386 Turner, James, 234 Turner, Mary L., 59 Tuskegee Institute, 86 Tyler, Willie, 202, 221 Tyus, Mary Ellen, 21 Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, ix, 25, 45–46, 336n118, 336nn120–22, 343n57 Urban League, 33, 80 U.S. Department of Agriculture, 279 U.S. Department of the Interior, 303 Utopian, 2, 7, 15–16, 19, 31–32, 107, 140, 219–20 Vaughn, Sarah, 161, 184, 203 Vaught, Phyllis, 202 Vowels, Robert, 234 Wachenhut Youth Correctional Facility, 280

Wahls, Myron H., 122; Michigan Court of Appeals judge, 347n12 Walker, George, 14; elected township supervisor, 271, 295, 298–99, 324; grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, 306;“King George” administration, 306–7, 310, 312–13, 315–16; lack of leadership and vision, 304; seeking second term but defeated in the primary, 377n161, 378n166, 378n177 Walker, Geraldine, 315–17, 320; lawsuit against township, 379n201 Walker, Lewis, 6, 33, 226, 319–20, 323, 330n18, 330n23, 331n5, 343n71, 363n95, 364n1, 370n16, 380n2 Walker, Madame C. J., v, 7, 36, 52, 337n150 Walker, T-Bone, Jr., 165, 174 Walker, T-Bone, Sr., 165, 173–74, 206 Wallace, Beatrice Green, 185 Wallace, Harold, 185, 356n115 Wallace, Randolph, 219 Walter Johnson's Hyde Park Villa, 136, 146, 227 Walters, Ann, 375n131 Ward, Esther, 267, 315–16 Ware, Jewel, 263, 288 Warner, Carrie, 51, 55–56 Warner, Devere J., 58, 388n182 Warner, Rose, 31, 54, 94, 338n182 Warren, Freddie, 364n11 Washington, Booker T., 29–30, 37, 39, 64 Washington, Dinah, 2, 168, 182, 197, 203, 215, 217–18, 221, 362n82, 363n82 Washington, Norma, 170–72 Wasserman, Morris, 160, 212 Waterford Park racetrack, 224 Watermill Bridge, 25 Watermill Lake, 23, 25, 28 Waters, Muddy, 182 Watts, Leon, 234 Watts Prophets, 232

Watusi Wedding Ritual, 206 Wayne, John, 184, 216 Webb, Al, 318 Webb, Debra, 258 Webb, Gwen, 318 Webber Township, 280 Weepin Willie, 203 Weiss, Cora, 194 Wenger, Ernie, 145 Wenger, Shirley, 127, 385 Wenger Insurance, 127, 145–46 West Shore Community College, 1, 284 White, Clarice, 162 White, John, 154, 156–57, 163, 218–19, 223 White, Slappy, 203 White Cloud, Michigan, 17, 26–28, 91, 162 Wickens, Charles, 240, 253 Wiggins, Della, 129 Wilberforce University, 39, 59 Williams, Ada Blanche, 120 Williams, A. D., 44 Williams, Alphorns, 175 Williams, Carla, 129, 348n39 Williams, Daniel Hale, 7, 13, 23; died, 386; famous Negro surgeon, 117; practicing physician at Provident Hospital, 35–37, 40; president of the IIA, 128, 244, 293, 335n90, 335n100, 340n1, 375n132 Williams, Joe, 182 Williams, Mabel R., 233, 235–36, 242, 267, 385 Page 407 → Williams, Nero, 45 Williams, Robert Franklin, 255, 367n60, 368n96, 381, 388

Williams, Rosa, 110, 346n131 Williams, Virgil, 90 Williams Court, 288, 368n84 Willis, Deborah, 129, 348n39 Wilson, Barbara, 178, 354n89 Wilson, Ben C., 33, 164, 319, 343n71, 380n2 Wilson, Charles A., 332n39, 382 Wilson, Charles W., 45 Wilson, Eloise, 274 Wilson, Harrison, 221, 248–49 Wilson, Herman, Jr., 31, 385 Wilson, Herman O., 40, 42, 60, 88, 117, 128, 155, 293, 385 Wilson, James, 256 Wilson, Lela G., 4–5, 31; businesswoman, 84, 155; member of IRC excursion, 40; UNIA leader, 44–45 Wilson, A'Lelia Walker, 53 Wilson, Jackie, 2, 11, 154, 163–64, 183, 187; appearing on The Paradise Club: Summer of ’58, 363n97; in performance, 208–10, 221–22, 225, 360n34, 360n36 Wilson, Maryellen, 42, 133, 385 Wilson, Preacher, 156 Wilson, Sunnie, 8, 116, 126, 131, 160, 347n23, 348n49, 352n23, 363n95, 364n2, 381, 385 Wilson, Ted, 132, 156 Wilson, William Julius, 12, 228, 364n7 Winburn, Bernie (Ben), 247, 250, 260 Winehead Willie, 206 Wingate, Ed, 156, 163 Winsor, Carlton W., 86 Wonder, Stevie, 268, 323 Woodland Park, 25–26, 48, 162, 269, 272, 332n34, 384–85, 387 Wrice, Larry, 128, 136, 157, 173, 178, 180–81, 186 Wright, Alvin, 15

Wright, Edward Herbert, 19, 56 Wyatt, Leonard, 343n55, 385 X, Malcolm, 12, 193, 217, 231 Yates Township Dial-A-Ride, 248, 264, 284, 375n135 Yates Township Elementary School, 320 Yates Township Fire Department, 247, 310–11 Yates Township Library, 247 Yates Township Master Plan, 259, 308, 320, 369n111, 391 Yates Township Planning and Zoning Commission, 285–86 Zampty, John Charles, 44 Zaoala, Antonio, 203 Zaphiron, William, 214 Zibell, William F., 26 Zombie Lounge, 161