Cass Corridor's Native Communities

Context Statement

Native people in the Great Lakes region, including the Ojibwe (Chippewa), Odawa (Ottawa), and Wyandot (Huron) faced countless challenges in the 18th and 19th centuries. White farmers pushed further west on both sides of the now United States-Canada border, Indigenous nations were met with a stark choice: agree to land cession treaties that provided unfair compensation for the loss of their lands, or lose their lands anyway to the overwhelming numbers of unlawful White settlers. Many Native peoples eventually ended up confined to reservations and were faced with government policies that aimed to destroy Native identity and communities, such as removal acts and forced attendance at abusive boarding schools.

To survive damaging and traumatic government actions, and countless economic disadvantages, Native people in the Great Lakes region have chosen many different paths. In the 20th century, thousands of Great Lakes Natives moved to Detroit to seek better job opportunities than what could be found on reservations. According to a 1979-1980 survey of Native students, members of over forty different nations were present in Detroit, primarily from the Cherokee, Ojibwe, Odawa, and Mohawk nations. Unlike other ethnic minorities in Detroit, these Indigenous residents, consisting of many different nations, were never centralized in a single location. But like Detroit’s Chinese community, many Native people lived in the Michigan and Third Avenues neighborhood and migrated to the Cass Corridor following urban renewal construction projects.

Native residents of the Cass Corridor frequently faced poverty and discrimination. Various Native-run organizations arose in the Cass Corridor in the 1970s and 1980s to aid community members with employment, substance abuse, and other health problems, or to participate in the broader Pan-Indian cultural revival of the era through a reversal of the cultural loss created by boarding schools and other damaging government policies. (1)(4) Exploring the Native institutions in and around the Cass Corridor helps tell the story of the rise of Pan-Indianism amidst the Civil Rights movement, and of the resilience and “regeneration” of Great Lakes Native people in the late 20th-century.

Key Cass Corridor Locations

1

Cass Community Methodist Episcopal Church

The Cass Community Methodist Episcopal was an important location for the Cass Corridor Native community. In 1970, Frank Alberts, an Ojibwe, shifted congregations and met Louise Morales (Chippewa), Winona Arriaga (Chippewa), and Isabel Dockstader (Haudenosaunee), three women in the process of creating a new Native organization. Alberts joined the fledgling Associated Indians of Detroit (AID), led by Dockstader, as its vice president. Winona Arriaga’s daughter, Carleen Pedrotti, led the organization between 1972 and 1975.

During its five years of prominence, AID’s activities included GED support, food and clothing distribution, job services, and cultural classes on Native languages, history, and performing arts. But the involvement of some AID staff in national activism, such as the American Indian Movement, caused FBI scrutiny. The Cass Community Methodist Episcopal Church’s leadership, concerned about the political leanings of AID, pushed the organization out in 1975, leading to its decline. (1)(2) This church was also the location of a meeting attended by Fred Boyd, a prominent Cree civil rights activist involved in the repatriation of Native remains from museums. In a 1973 meeting, he and around thirty Native activists met to discuss an ongoing battle with the University of Michigan over a skeleton on display at the Fort Wayne Military Museum.

A sit-in was suggested, but other tactics for reclaiming their ancestors’ remains were ultimately chosen, including singing at the university museum and beating drums and chanting outside the University of Michigan’s administration building.

Though the anthropology department was opposed, university leadership ultimately relinquished some of the Native skeletons in their collection, allowing them to be reburied. (1)

2

Architects Building

Built in 1924, the Architects Building on 415 Brainard Street was named for the multiple architects who were among the original residents of its apartments.

In the 1970s, one of its residents was Dean George, (5) an Oneida who served in a leadership role for several Native organizations in Detroit. He became president of the local North American Indian Association (NAIA) in 1970, and his living room served as the starting location of the Detroit American Indian Center (DAIC) when it was formed in 1974. (1)

3

Salvation Army - Harbor Light Center

An important community center within the Cass Corridor, the Salvation Army Harbor Light at one point hosted the Detroit American Indian Center in addition to providing substance abuse treatment. Known as the “Place of New Beginnings,” the Harbor Light Center's free offerings included therapy sessions, meals, lodging, and employment aid. (1)

4

Clarence Burton Elementary School

Up through the 1970s, Native students at the Clarence Burton Elementary School often struggled in a classroom environment that wasn’t able to adjust to their learning needs. After the passage of the 1972 Indian Education act, Detroit’s Native community got a grant to try and improve educational conditions and achievement through an initiative called the Detroit Indian Educational and Cultural Center (DIECC). 

Burton Elementary was central to this project, as one of the locations rented out for programs by project coordinator Judy Mays. The education center’s programs included lessons in Native heritage, as well as remedial courses in various subjects, and targeted efforts to lower drop-out rates. (1) The DIECC also used Burton Elementary school as a site for events such as feasts and powwows. (4) Despite administrative and logistical issues, DIECC saw many successes in helping Detroit’s Native students.

5

Kresge Administration Building

In 1971, the S.S. Kresge Company moved out of Detroit, gifting their building on 2727 Second Avenue to the Detroit Institute of Technology. (3) Three years later, the fledgling Detroit American Indian Center (DAIC) moved their operations from Dean George's living room to office space rented from the institute.

The DAIC had been formed by Dean George and other Native community leaders to serve as an established location for socialization, counseling, material aid, and cultural education.

One of its first accomplishments was a survey of the Cass Corridor’s American Indian population. This allowed the DAIC to communicate the community’s needs to local agencies, as well as work on its own solutions. (1)

6

Detroit American Indian Center

The DAIC began with a grant of $100,000 from the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) and three paid employees but would later have a sizable staff and an average annual budget of $700,000. To allow for growing operations, the organization moved to a much larger location on John R. Street.

Despite administrative challenges, the DAIC aided its community with many different initiatives over the years. When Congress passed the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) in 1973, the DAIC launched the Manpower Program, to provide training and employment services to un- or underemployed Natives.

In the late 1970s, the DAIC’s first floor was devoted to Project Good Start, a preschool program that aimed to set Native children and their families up for success in the education system.

The Indian child welfare program, meanwhile, was part of a larger push to prevent the frequent removals of Native children from their families. (1)

7

Downtown YWCA

The North American Indian Association (NAIA) of Detroit was founded in 1940 to re-center Detroit’s Native community away from the bars that had long served as gathering places, to provide aid, and to support cultural education and unity. Scott Peters, an Ojibwe founding member, was able to secure a rent-free spot for the new organization on the seventh floor of the downtown YWCA. Focusing initially on inter-nation recreational events, the NAIA expanded over time to educational work and poverty aid.

Responding to a need to reverse cultural erosion and foster inter-nation understanding, the NAIA also championed communication and cultural revitalization efforts. Starting off by participating in parades on St. Patrick’s Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, and Columbus Day, focus shifted over time to powwows, amidst the event’s growing national importance in the 1960s. The Downtown YWCA hosted the first NAIA powwow in 1959, featuring dancers visiting from Chicago, drumming, singing, food, and artist booths. The event had around five hundred attendees from across the Great Lakes region. Following this success, Detroit's first outdoor powwow, in 1969, had around three thousand attendees. (1)

8

Indian Free Clinic

Along with cultural, educational, and employment services, the DAIC location on John R. Street hosted the Indian Health Center. Due to a combination of factors such as poverty and a distrust of non-Native counselors, there was a widespread health crisis in Detroit’s Indigenous community. The Indian Health Center helped address endemic needs for services such as dental care and addiction counseling.

To more effectively care for residents of the Cass Corridor, a Free Clinic was opened on 120 Parsons Street. With a largely volunteer staff and aid from a variety of agencies, the clinic served 140 patients in a year at its peak. (1)

Dean George with Carleen Pedrotti, 1971 Credit: Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University

Some of these organizations, such as the American Indian Services (AIS), provided valuable social, cultural, health care, and economic services (1) before eventually closing their doors. The AIS was forced to end its services in 2020, after 49 years of operation. (6) But others, such as the North American Indian Center, continue to provide career training, educational programs, and other forms of care into the present day.

Land Acknowledgment

The Historic Designation Advisory Board office is located in Waawiyaataanong, part of the homeland of the sovereign Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, and Wyandot nations. We recognize their continuing connection to lands, waters, and communities and pay respect to the Native stewards and Elders of this land from time immemorial, present, and future. Discover what Native lands you are on at https://native-land.ca/. 

Sources

1. Danziger, Edmund Jefferson. Survival and Regeneration: Detroit’s American Indian Community. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2017.

2. Nugent, Tom. “Leave Us Alone: Detroit’s Indian Population Caught between 2 Worlds.” Detroit Free Press, February 20, 1972.

3. Poremba, David Lee. Detroit, a Motor City History. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003, 137.

4. Commonwealth Heritage Group's Intensive-Level Architectural and Historical Survey of the Cass Corridor, September 2021, prepared for the Historic Designation Advisory Board

5. Architects Building Report: Commonwealth Heritage Group's Intensive-Level Architectural and Historical Survey of the Cass Corridor, September 2021, prepared for the Historic Designation Advisory Board

6. Gupta, Meghanlata. “‘End of an Era’: American Indian Services Closes after 49 Years.” Bridge Michigan, June 29, 2020. https://www.bridgemi.com/children-families/end-era-american-indian-services-closes-after-49-years.

7. “Services.” North American Indian Association of Detroit. Accessed April 25, 2024.  https://naiadetroit.org/services/ .

Cass Corridor's Native Communities

Detroit City Council Historic Designation Advisory Board