Alice Randall's Black Bottom Saints reveals the "saints" of Detroit's Black Bottom

Rochelle Riley's office has kicked off a month of Black History Month events called Undefeated- Celebrating Detroit Art & Culture and its contributions to American excellence.

Earlier this week Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan interviewed Detroit native and New York Times best-selling author Alice Randall about her latest novel Black Bottom Saints, which looks at 61 "saints" that were part of or had an impact on Detroit's African American community. Alice Randall spent 7 years reading the Michigan Chronicle columns of Ziggy Johnson who was part of the Twenty Grand scene and researching the people that lived and visited here. It's a fascinating read!

Here's a link to the interview, or conversation between Mike Duggan and Alice Randall:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=441799050297672

This is an excellent and interesting book. While advertised as a novel, it
provides a great deal of factual information about Detroit and the national importance of the city's African American community before World War II.
I wish the author had written more about the historic significance of the
Gotham Hotel and how its patrons were linked to the post World War II civil rights movement. No city has played a larger role in the nation's civil rights movements than Detroit. Would it be appropriate to erect an
historical marker at Solidarity House since that is where Dr. King wrote
his "I Have a Dream" oration before the march that he and Walter Reuther led on Woodward in June, 1963