Detroit Tour -- Sunday, March 6 at 10 am

 At long last our tour of Detroit is coming up on this Sunday, March 6.

Here are the details along with some readings that will help prepare you for the trip.

We'll leave campus at 10 am.  It takes 2 hours to drive to Detroit.  Look for a 12-passenger van on the drive in front of Hoben Hall.

Please confirm your attendance to obonfig@kzoo.edu.

Our first stop will be lunch at the American and Lafayette Coney Island shops downtown.  After lunch, we'll do an auto tour of some of the highlights of the city:  downtown, Woodward Ave., Belle Isle (landscaped by Olmstead), Eastern Market, Cass Corridor near Wayne State.

From 2-5 pm we'll meet at the Boggs Center on the Eastside of the city for a tour led by retired autoworker and author Richard Feldman (End of the Line:  Autoworkers and the American Dream -- http://www.amazon.com/End-Line-AUTOWORKERS-AMERICAN-DREAM/dp/0252061489/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1298901033&sr=8-4)

Richard's tour is based on the theme;  "From Growing our economy to growing our souls."  It includes the following site visits:

• Packard Plant- history of  auto industry, UAW, labor- 20th century, epoch of industrial age
• Poletown Plant- History of Poletown struggle, Mayor Coleman Young; 1967 (year of the riots or "the rebellion" depending on your perspective)- to Detroit Summer 1993 (beginning of the urban gardens movement)

• Earthworks of Freedom Freedom Growers- food security movement (one of the first urban gardens begun by a Capuchin monk)

• Peace Zones- at Hope District -- one of the urban gardens
• Heidelberg Art Project

Discussion with Grace Lee Boggs, activist and one of the founders of the Detroit urban gardens movement, at the Boggs Center. (Grace is 95 and our visit with her will depend on her health.)

Also, we will be guests of the Boggs Center along with Loyola University-Chicago students who are on an alternative spring break.

We'll leave Detroit at 5 pm at the conclusion of the tour and arrive in Kalamazoo about 7:20 pm.

There are some readings that Richard Feldman suggested we review as preparation for the trip but I can't attach them here.  Please look for them in a separate e-mail.