Nearly 50 years after the racial tumult of 1967, state schools of choice policies are helping to create more racially segregated districts in metro Detroit and beyond.
Chastity Pratt
Chastity Pratt is a former reporter for Bridge.
Posted inUrban Affairs
Walking back segregation in Ferndale schools
Ferndale, an inner-ring suburb popular with Detroit students, is taking bold steps to desegregate its schools.
Posted inChildren & Families
Program busing Flint workers to distant jobs holds promise across state
More resources are being sought for transportation that recently doubled the number of Flint-area residents hired and bused to jobs in Livingston County.
Posted inTalent & Education
Detroit charter school profiled by Bridge fined $144,000 by state
A school run by former Detroit city councilwoman Sharon McPhail is fined after a Bridge investigation revealed she is unlicensed
Posted inUrban Affairs
For Detroit’s new school board, state still wields the power
Detroit’s school board will have power limits unlike other districts across Michigan. Some fear that those restrictions will scare off strong candidate
Posted inUrban Affairs
Real talk about race
We asked leaders around metro Detroit to talk frankly about racial attitudes in their lives and communities. These five answered the bell.
Posted inUrban Affairs
Monica Lewis-Patrick
Monica Lewis-Patrick, 50, president and CEO of We the People of Detroit, is African American and has lived in Detroit for the past decade. The group advocates for water rights, workers’ rights and housing rights, among other issues, and opposes the state’s controversial emergency manager law. Her family has lived in Detroit since 1952. Her […]
Posted inUrban Affairs
Adonis Flores
Adonis Flores, 28, is an immigrants rights organizer with Michigan United and a resident of Detroit. He said generations of his relatives found work in America under the Bracero Program, which allowed Mexican workers to come to America to help alleviate the labor shortage that occurred during World War II. Flores was born in Guanajuato, […]
Posted inUrban Affairs
Kenneth Reed
Kenneth Reed, 48, spokesman for the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, is African American and a resident of Detroit. This interview took place in the midst of the recent spate of police-involved killings nationwide — after police killed an African-American man in Baton Rouge and another in Minnesota and after a shooter in Dallas killed […]
Posted inUrban Affairs
Matthew Jaber Stiffler
Matthew Jaber Stiffler, 37, is research and content manager at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn. His father is white. His mother was born in America and is of Lebanese descent. Stiffler said he was raised as, and thought of himself as, a white child. Other than noting that he was once followed around […]
