Detroit's Historic Fort Wayne Namesake--"Mad" Anthony Wayne

Portrait of Anthony Wayne painted by Thomas Pauley

 

Throughout the Midwestern states of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan the name Mad Anthony Wayne resonates in communities far and wide. Scores of towns, cities, counties, schools, parks, hospitals, streets, and businesses have been named after this Revolutionary War general.

General Anthony Wayne led his soldiers in essentially rear guard actions harassing the British behind their lines. In several successful skirmishes with the enemy, he ordered surprise "bayonet only" attacks at night that inflicted many casualties. He was known as a courageous general--decisive and quick to act.

The legend behind the sobriquet "Mad" Anthony Wayne owes little to the general's military achievements. It has more to do with a drunk and disorderly colonist--known as Jemmy, the Rover--who the general sometimes used as a spy. A constable arrested the man who began to drop the general's name. When the general heard this, he threatened Jemmy with "twenty-nine lashes well-laid-on if this happens again."

In disbelief, the now sober Jemmy replied, "He must be mad or else he would help me. Mad Anthony, that's what he is. Mad Anthony Wayne." The story made its way around town and became a favorite among the troops. The general's nickname had a rhythm and bravado that was repeated in the ranks until it stuck.

President George Washington called Major-General Wayne out of retirement to command the newly formed Legion of the United States. Wayne established the first basic training facility to prepare  regular army recruits into professional soldiers.

Wayne mustered and trained a fighting force of 1,350 American soldiers and led them to the Northwest Territory (Ohio and Michigan) where they won a decisive victory against British forces and the Indian Confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, just south of modern-day Toledo, Ohio. The war ended and Major-General Wayne negotiated the Treaty of Greenville between the tribal confederacy and the United States signed on August 3, 1795.

While returning to Pennsylvania after the conflict, Wayne died from complications of gout on December 15, 1796. He was buried at Fort Presque Isle. His body was disinterred in 1809 at the request of his family to be buried in a family plot. His bones make the journey to Radnor, Pennsylvania in saddlebags. For that grisly bit of history, consult the link below.

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Aerial View of Old Fort Wayne.

The star-shaped fort in Detroit, Michigan--which bears Anthony Wayne's name--began construction in 1842 at the Detroit River's narrowest point with Canada. Fear of a territorial war with British Canada prompted the fort's building. It was named to honor Major-General Wayne's defeat of the British at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. The victory resulted in the United States occupation of the Northwest Territories. Diplomats were able to settle territorial disputes, and the war with Canada never materialized. The new fort never fired a shot.

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Fort Wayne was first used by Michigan troops in 1861 at the outbreak of the Civil War. It became the primary induction center for Michigan troops for every field of American combat from the Civil War through Vietnam.

During World War II, every truck, Jeep, tank, tire, spare part, or war ordinance manufactured in Detroit went through the docks of Fort Wayne to the battlefronts. Also, Italian prisoners of war from the North Africa Campaign were housed at the fort. After Italy's surrender, Italian POWs were given the chance to return home. Many chose to settle in Detroit where there was an established Italian-American community and greater opportunities awaiting them.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Fort Wayne's grounds were open to assist and house homeless families. During the Cold War of the 1950s, Nike-Ajax missiles were installed to prepare for a nuclear war that never came. And during the Detroit riots in 1967, the fort was again used to house displaced families, the last families leaving the fort in 1971.

Today, the Detroit Recreation Department operates the fort with the help of the Historic Fort Wayne Coalition, the Friends of Fort Wayne, and the Detroit Historical Society. The grounds are the home of the Tuskegee Airmen Museum, the Great Lakes Indian Museum, and historic Civil War reenactments. Special events are held throughout the year.

Fort Wayne was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1958 and entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. The State of Michigan wants to upgrade the property into a multi-use facility while maintaining the fort's historical significance. Once the new International Transport Bridge is built in old Delray, the United States customs plaza will be located near the historic site. More information on restoration plans can be found in the Detroit News link below.

*** 

Bruce Wayne--Millionaire Industrialist

While researching, I discovered that Batman's alter ego--Bruce Wayne--was named after Scottish patriot Robert Bruce and Mad Anthony Wayne. In DC Comics, Bruce Wayne is said to be General Wayne's direct descendant, and stately Wayne Manor is built on ground given to General Wayne for his Revolutionary War service.

Another little known fact is that in 1930, stunt man and young actor Marion Michael Morrison was originally given the stage name of Anthony Wayne by director Raoul Walsh. Major-General Anthony Wayne was Walsh's favorite Revolutionary War general. Fox Studios decided to change his name to John Wayne because Anthony sounded too Italian.

***

For more information on preservation plans for Historic Fort Wayne:

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2015/03/10/detroit-fort-wayne/24743635/

The story of General Anthony Wayne's exhumation may be more noteworthy than his military achievements. For more details, check out this link: http://www.americanrevolution.org/wayne.php

Detroit's Movie Maven--Bill Kennedy

Bill Kennedy at the Movies with Sir Graves Ghastly. Sir Graves would riff on his monster movies and Bill would dish on Hollywood and the movie business.

Every Baby-Boomer from Detroit and Windsor remembers who gave us our extensive Hollywood movie education--Bill Kennedy. Bill started announcing on the radio professionally in the 1930s at WWJ - The Detroit News station. His deep voice resonated over the air waves.

In 1940, he embarked on a movie career and signed a contract with Warner Brothers Studios where he worked from 1941 until 1955. Bill had the voice but not the face. He didn't emote well on screen, so he was relegated to a series of flat supporting roles. He played mainly cops, bad guys, radio announcers (no stretch for Bill), newspaper men, and swindlers. In all, Bill Kennedy has 103 film credits.

In the post World War Two era, Kennedy appeared on numerous B-Western television shows including The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, and The Gene Autry Show. Kennedy always spoke kindly of Gene Autry. Bill was over six feet tall and many of Hollywood's leading men were short and didn't like doing fight scenes with him. Gene Autry was short, but always had a job for Bill when he needed it. Autry told him once, "I like beating up bad guys on screen who are bigger than me."

Bill Kennedy playing a newscaster in a Superman episode.

What many of us in Detroit know that most people don't is Bill's was the voice behind the opening credits of  The Adventures of Superman--one of the most iconic introductions in television history. Bill received a one-time check for $350. He regretted not asking for screen credit which might have benefited his career. The show has been continuously running in syndication since 1952. A link to the Superman program opening is below.

In 1956, Bill Kennedy returned to the Detroit area to host an afternoon movie program called Bill Kennedy's Showtime, for CKLW-TV across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario. The show became a big hit. Bill talked about his jaded experiences in Hollywood's heyday and how he worked with many of the top stars. His deadpan delivery and sarcastic wit won the loyalty of viewers. He had an avuncular, self-deprecating manner--especially if talking about a film he was in. If the movie was bad, he would tell his audience.

The show opened with a tight shot on a picture of a woman smoking a cigarette with Bill's theme song Just in Time playing in the background. The photograph was from a magazine. I can see the model in my mind's eye with her elbows on a table and a smoldering cigarette in her right hand. Bill chose Just In Time for his theme song because his professional life was at a low point when he got the job with CKLW.

Bill wearing a hat to cover up his hair transplant surgery.

In 1969, Bill took his show to WKBD which broadcast out of Southfield, Michigan. The show remained essentially the same with a title change to Bill Kennedy at the Movies. Bill would interview celebrities when they were in Detroit and he took on-air phone calls which were sometimes more interesting than the movies. I enjoyed the live TV commercial pitches of Abe Schroe for his furniture upholstery business.

Abe and Bill always had lively repartee like they knew each other well outside of work. These two got along so well on air that it strikes me Bill was probably part-owner or an investor in Artistic Upholstery. Bill would take a break and Abe would go into his pitch. Nobody else made live commercials on Bill's show--not Ollie Fretter--not even Mr. Belvedere (Detroit inside joke).

In 1983, Bill retired to Palm Beach, Florida. He died of emphysema on January 27, 1997, at the age of eighty-eight. Rest in peace "young, old-timer."

The Adventures of Superman introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2l4bz1FT8U

Bill Kennedy's theme song Just In Time by Frank Sinatra. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIcQ26arWAs

Hissoner Detroit Mayor Coleman Young

Coleman Young's identity, life, and career were closely intertwined with issues pertaining to the African American community in Detroit and the nation. As the city's chief executive officer for five full terms, more than any other Detroit mayor, Young served the city he loved for twenty years. 

Throughout his political career, the White establishment, representing suburban interests and their media mouthpieces, viewed Coleman Young's ascendency to Detroit's mayor as a social trespass upon their political turf. But the demographics of the city were favorable for Young's election.

The phenomonon known as White flight decimated the city's population and tax base leaving crippling poverty in its wake. White flight redefined the city, first with the G.I. Bill for World War II veterans who moved to the suburbs, and after 1967 when Detroit experienced one of the worst race riots in the history of the United States.

Both of these demographic shifts happened years before Young was elected mayor in 1974. Factor in the virtual collapse of the city's main employer, the automobile industry, due to the oil crisis in the Middle East. This was the situation Mayor Young faced as he entered office and soon became defined by every urban social problem Detroit was heir to. He was the man in the moment.

***

Coleman Young began his boyhood in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on May 24, 1918. His father William Coleman Young was a barber who sold a Black newspaper out of his shop. For this, the local KKK began a harrassment campaign prompting him and his growing family in 1924 to become part of what history notes as the Great Migration to the North in search of jobs in the automobile factories and steel mills. Impoverished Southerners, Black and White, poured into Detroit. The men competed for unskilled jobs on the assembly lines, steel mills, and iron foundries, while the women found work in the domestic services industry.

Coleman was five years old when his family moved to Detroit's Black Bottom neighborhood on Antietam Street between St. Aubin and the railroad tracks. He was the oldest of five children born to Ida Reese Young. As Coleman Young details in his autobiography Hard Stuff, he graduated from Eastern High School in 1935 during the depths of the Depression. To help support his family, he hustled to earn money doing small jobs. He recycled glass bottles, swept floors, delivered packages, and answered phones for Dr. Ossian Sweet.

Eventually, Young was hired as an autoworker for the Ford Motor Company. It was there where he joined the United Automobile Workers of America. After being fired from Fords for fighting, he went to work for the United States Postal Service before entering the service during World War II.

"My political consciousness was awakened at the neighborhood barber shop in Black Bottom where I shined shoes," Young wrote. "Local radicals educated me with dialogue that offered nothing about passivity or surrender but much about unity. As both a means and an end, unity has driven virtually every pursuit of my public life."

The two-chair, barber shop was owned and operated by Haywood Maben, "a self-educated Marxist and (political) pontificator." He and his customers would argue about trade unionism, dialectical materialism, and unity between the races which made for provocative conversation. Maben's barbershop was a left-wing caucus in the afternoon; at night, political meetings were held behind drawn curtains. 

These meetings did not go unnoticed by the FBI, which recorded names of participants and labeled them Communist sympathizers and socialists. Coleman Young's name was included on that list leading to the opening of a confidential dossier on him which followed him through his adult life. Time and again, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI interfered with Young's ability to hold onto a decent job or get fair treatment in the Army Air Corp. All it took was a well-placed phone call or a letter from the FBI and Young's opportunities vanished into thin air.

***

With the end of World War II, Detroit was on a collision course with history. The post-war economy began shrinking rapidly as government military contracts expired. The Arsenal of Democracy scrambled to transition back to a peacetime economy. Nowhere was this felt more than in Detroit. To compound Detroit's economic woes, the G.I. Bill and the Veterans' Administration provided low-cost, zero percent down home loans that sparked a dramatic exit from the city which became known as White flight, further devastating the city's population and tax base. 

Then came a gut punch which sealed Black Detroit's fate. President Eisenhower pushed for an Interstate Highway System based on the Autobaun, which he had seen in Germany at war's end. His primary argument for such a highway was it allowed the military to deploy personnel and equipment quickly to virtually anywhere in the country on expressways. In Detroit, local politicians saw this as an opportunity to clear out the depressed Black Bottom and Paradise Valley neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal.

The Black population regarded the construction of I-375 as little more than Negro removal. Local politicians gave no regard to the people who would be displaced or the impact it was destined to have on the city. Impoverished Black residents were forced into other underfacilitated, overpopulated, segregated areas within Detroit. In short, a powder keg of human misery was created waiting only for a spark to ignite and engulf the area. Up to this point, Detroit's African American community had little or no political influence.

Although not the first American urban area in the 1960s to erupt in civil unrest, the Detroit Riot/Rebellion began on July 23, 1967. It became the most devasting race riot of the era. President Lyndon B. Johnson sanctioned a federal investigation in 1968 into its causes and of other urban civil disorders called The Kerner Commission. 

The Commission determined after an exhaustive study that the rioting in Detroit was a response to decades of "persausive discrimination and segregation." The siege mentality of the mostly White, aggressive, and combative Detroit Police Department was singled out in particular.

After the week-long rebellion, Detroit public opinion polls revealed that 75% of White respondents believed the rioting was caused by radicals guided by a foreign conspiracy to overthrow the American government and our way of life--specifically, Pinko Commies and Black Panthers. 

Conservative politicans disputed that the blame fell on White institutions or White society and took no ownership of the issue. Most White people were dismissive and believed that the rioters were criminals who were "let off the hook" by bleeding-heart liberals.

Refuting that popularly held suburban belief, the Kerner Commission determined that the insurrection was a revolt of underprivileged, overcrowded, and irritable citizens. During a blistering heatwave, they reacted against a provocative police raid that provided the spark igniting the week-long rebellion.

The Commission concluded that the root cause of the violence was institutional racism. American society in general is "deeply implicated in the ghetto," the report read. "White society created it. White society maintained it. And White society condoned it."

Ironically, President Johnson, who initiated the study, was unhappy with the result because the Commission's recommendations were all budget busters with no chance of passage in the United States Congress. Johnson was also a man from the South and knew there would be political repercussions if he threw the weight of the presidency behind the Committee's recommendations.

As cruel fate would have it, one month after the Kerner Report was published, Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated while standing on the Lorraine Motel balcony by James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee. America's best hope for pulling our nation out of this racial quagmire was cut down in his prime. Grief and anger broke out across the land and demonstrations occured in over one hundred American cities. The Kerner Report was back-shelved and conveniently forgotten.

In Detroit, a new wave of White flight made Detroit the Blackest city in the United States. African Americans were now in the political majority.The stage was set for a new generation of Black leaders who would struggle to lift Detroit out of its death spiral. The most visible among them--Coleman Young Jr.

***

Young began his political career coming from the left-wing branch of the American labor movement. He became a respresentative for the Public Workers Union and devoted himself to full-time union organizing. By 1946, Young won a leadership role as a director within the larger Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO). His election to the position was a major victory for the Black community, and he instantly became a spokesperson for Blacks across Detroit.

Earning a reputation as a devoted and hard-working labor organizer in the 1950s, Young was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives in 1960. He helped draft a new state constitution for Michigan, which in turn led him to run for State Senator in 1964, a position he held for ten years making a name for himself as an effective legislator.

In 1970, Wayne County Sheriff Roman Gribbs became mayor of the City of Detroit running on a law and order platform. Gribbs hired former New York Police Commissioner John Nichols. Together, they created a special police unit named STRESS, an acronym for Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets, to apprehend street thugs and patrol in primarily minority-isolated neighborhoods. The group became simply known as The Big Four by the city's Black residents. The special unit soon devolved into what amounted to agents of urban terror.

STRESS Police Unit

STRESS police cruisers consisted of a driver and three burly, usually White, plainclothed police detectives. The department had several such units. In less than three years, twenty-two Detroit citizens (twenty-one of them Black) were shot to death, hundreds of illegal arrests were made, and an estimated 400 warrantless police raids were conducted. Rather than protect the citizenry, The Big Four terrorized the city's Black residents.

In 1973, Roman Gribbs stepped down as mayor after a single term in office, throwing his support behind his police commissioner John Nichols, who ran on a law and order platform. Coleman Young saw this as an opportunity to leave the Michigan senate and run for Detroit mayor.  

Young campaigned against the abuses of the Detroit Police Department which Black residents identified as their number one issue. He also ran on a platform of reconstructing the inner city, creating sorely needed jobs for city residents, and hiring city employees to reflect a 50/50 racial balance.

 

On election day there were no surprises. In this hard fought election, White precincts voted for Police Commissioner Nichols, and Black precincts voted for Coleman Young Jr., making Young Detroit's first Black mayor by earning 52% of the vote to John Nichols' 48%.

In his inaugral speech, Young urged unity between the races, White and Black, the rich and poor, and the suburbs and the city. He also spoke about restoring law and order.

Young addressed Detroit's criminal element directly, "Dope pushers, rip-off artists, and muggers, it is time for you to leave Detroit. Hit Eight Mile Road. I don't give a damn if you're Black or White, or if you wear Superfly suits or blue uniforms with silver badges. Hit the road!" 

While Mayor Coleman Young's "New Sheriff in Town" speech resonated with many city residents, The White political establishment extrapulated it as an invitation for Detroit's Black criminals to prey upon the affluent White surburbs. The opposition's fear mongering was echoed and amplified by Detroit's media outlets. And thus, Coleman Young's new administration began.

Young's first political act was to disband the police STRESS units and move toward a community policing approach with mini stations located around the city. He also made good on his promise to hire more Black policemen. The percentage of Black officers went from 10% to 50% during his administration. The net effect was the reduction of police brutality complaints against the department by over 35%, improving police relations within Detroit's neighborhoods.

The nationwide recession of the mid-1970s hit Detroiters especially hard. Unemployment was at 25% increasing costs for public relief programs and reducing city income and property taxes. In 1974, Automobile production was at its lowest level since 1950, and the Middle Eastern oil embargo drove up inflation nationwide. 

As if German Volkswagen imports in the 1950s and 1960s were not enough of a nuisance, in the 1970s, Japanese imports caught Detroit's Big Three (Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler) flat-footed with an large inventory of high-cost, gas-guzzling, luxury and muscle cars gathering dust in storage lots.

To vent the frustrations of laid-off auto workers, the UAW hosted fundraisers around the city where workers, or anybody else with a few bucks, could take a sledge hammer to a Toyota Corolla for a dollar-a-whack. These displays of the area's collective blue-collar angst did nothing but provide the local media with dramatic made-for-television news moments. The sledgefests also proved how well these imports were built. Most drove off under their own power after an afternoon of pounding.

The fundamental problem rested with the automobile executives who did not take the small car trend seriously and frantically rushed to produce economical cars which were inferior to Japanese imports.

As Detroit sank deeper into financial crisis, Mayor Young's second, third, and fourth elections were focused on creating jobs for city residents. Young's mantra was "Jobs built Detroit, and only jobs will rebuild it." The automobile companies decentralized and moved much of their manufacturing to the suburbs or to the South where wages were lower. That left Detroit out in the cold. The city could no longer depend on the auto business to enrich its coffers and pay its bills. Something huge and dramatic needed to happen.

Young tossed the dice and decided that casino gambling was the answer to his city's woes, especially after Windsor, Ontario, across the Detroit River approved gambling on their waterfront. For his next three election campaigns, Young made casino-style gambling the centerpiece of his political platform, much to the dismay of his most ardent supporters, the ministerial alliance of Black churches.

Young's most strident political opponents, the suburban power elite and their media machine hammered away at Young on a daily basis in the city's major newspapers and local news programs. Each time Young promoted casino gambling, the ballot measures were soundly defeated by a 2 to 1 margin in expensive and dirty campaigns.

For Young's fifth and final campaign for mayor, he did not make casino gambling part of his political platform. It took his successor Mayor Dennis Archer to win approval for casino gambling within the city limits. 

With the State of Michigan running a daily and weekly lottery and Windsor's Caesar's Casino raking in a million dollars a week from Michigan residents, voters' attitudes about gambling softened. In 1996, the proposition narrowly passed. The creation of construction jobs, casino jobs, and vendor jobs did much to stablize Detroit's economy and help revitalize downtown.

Coleman Young decided not to run for a sixth term as mayor. His emphysema from a lifetime of smoking robbed him of his strength and energy. Twenty years serving the city he loved was enough. He fought long and hard to improve Detroit and left the city in better shape than when he entered office.

The Renaissance Center

During his tenure, the Renaissance Center was completed in 1977 creating jobs and increasing the city's tax base. The Hart Plaza, thirteen acres of people-friendly sidewalks and promenades along the bank of the Detroit River, humanized what was once a blighted area. It included an amphitheater hosting all manner of ethnic and music festivals bringing city and suburban audiences together.

Among many other large construction projects Young supported the People Mover, a light rail loop in the downtown area; Detroit Receiving Hospital; Riverfront Condominiums; and the FOX Theater restoration, looking out at what would become Comerica Park and Ford Field bringing the Tigers and the Lions downtown.

From the beginning of his political career, Coleman Young was accused by his critics of being corrupt. In a Freedom of Information Act investigation, Young discovered he had been under FBI surveillance since 1940 because of his reputed association with suspected Communists and his labor union activities. Surveillance continued through the 1980s.

After six federal investigations of his administration, Young was never indicted or charged with a crime. Claims that he was corrupt were malicious myths designed to tarnish the mayor's brass.

Young emerged from a left-leaning element but moderated his political view once in power. He allied himself closely with community leaders, business entrepreneurs, and bankers proving that rather than a socialist, Young was a devout capitalist committed to rebuilding Detroit and improving the lives of its residents. His vision for Detroit laid the foundation for much of the city's resurgence we see today.

Coleman Young Surveying His Legacy

At the age of seventy-nine, Coleman Alexander Young succumbed to lung disease on November 29, 1997. The mayor's body laid in state for two days under the Rotunda in the Hall of Ancestors at the Museum of African American History in Detroit's cultural district.

Funeral services were conducted on Friday, December 5th by Reverend Charles Butler at the New Calvary Baptist Church. Aretha Franklin sang at the ceremony with the combined chorus of Greater Grace Temple and the New Calvary Baptist Church. Coleman Young was buried in a private ceremony in Elmwood Cemetery where many of Detroit's distinguished citizens are interred.

Background on Casino Gambling in Detroit

Alex Karras’ Made-In-Detroit Movie—Jimmy B. and Andre (1979)

Alex Karras proves there is life after professional football.

When Alex Karras retired from the Detroit Lions in 1970, he left town for the bright lights of Hollywood. Alex first caught the acting bug as a senior at Emerson High School in Gary, Indiana when he performed in South Pacific. When he played college football at the University of Iowa, Karras wrestled professionally as villain George Brown donning a full mask and earning $50 a match. He relished playing the bad guy and acting crazy. It beat working in the steel mills.

After Karras was drafted by the Detroit Lions, he supplemented his ridiculously low NFL salary by wrestling in the off-season to help pay the bills for his growing family. He formed a tag team called Killer Karras and Krusher Konovski that performed to boos and sneers while winning all of their matches in the Midwest. While still a Detroit Lion, Karras played himself in the Hollywood film, Paper Lion. He garnered good reviews that led him to pursue an acting career.

Karras with Susan Clark in BABE.

Karras cut his teeth on several minor roles before he landed a co-star role in The Babe Didrikson Zaharias Story with actress Susan Clark, who won a best-actress Emmy for her excellent performance. They began performing regularly together and eventually married. In 1979, they jointly formed a Hollywood production company named Georgian Bay Productions.

Their first full length movie project was Jimmy B. and Andre which debuted on CBS on March 19, 1980. It was based on the true story of Jimmy Butsicaris, co-owner with his brother Johnny of the popular Lindell AC (Athletic Club) sports bar. The Lindell AC was frequented by Detroit Lion and Tiger athletes, sports writers, and sports fans from every level of Detroit society. Alex wanted to make a made-for-TV movie about his friend Jimmy B. trying to adopt a nine-year-old, African-American street kid named Andre Reynolds.

Andre was an elementary school dropout who shined shoes at Jim’s barber shop next door to the Lindel AC to pick up some extra money. But an older, local bully named Billy began harassing Andre for his hard-earned cash. Jimmy Butsicaris rescued the ragged, nine-year-old Andre from a beating one afternoon, finding him in desperate need of a bath, a meal, and some guidance. Over a cheese burger, fries, and a Coke, Jimmy learned the boy’s story. Andre’s mother was a widow who was also a heroin addict in poor health. Much of the money Andre turned over to her ended up in her arm. There was also an older sister and brother in the household.

Jimmy took the kid under his wing and gave him work doing odd jobs and a place to stay in the basement storeroom of the bar. Johnny Butsicaris converted a photo darkroom into a safe place for Andre to stay. He lived there for nine years. After the death of Andre’s mother from an overdose, Jimmy tried to adopt Andre but ran into trouble with the boy’s aunt who wanted him and his siblings as dependents to earn extra welfare money.

Detroit Free Press - March 20, 1980.

Undeterred by the court’s decision to deny him guardianship, Jimmy became Andre’s foster father and treated him like a son. As Andre grew into manhood, he called Jimmy “Pop.” To show his appreciation, Andre had a shirt made that read “I Am a Black Greek.” Jimmy took Andre to Detroit Lion and Tiger games and introduced him everywhere as his son. Jimmy helped Andre get back in public school where he earned a high school diploma from Western High School when he was twenty years old.

In the meantime, Karras and Clark pitched their story idea to CBS and sold them on it. Karras portrayed his friend Jimmy Butsicaris as a gruff restaurant owner with a big heart, and Susan Clark played his long-suffering girlfriend Stevie. In the movie, Jimmy keeps finding reasons not to marry her. Karras’ son, Alex Karras Jr, played a cameo role as the bully who beats up the young Andre, the real Andre played a restaurant employee called Bubba, and local Detroit weatherman Sonny Eliot played a drunk in the movie.

The movie project was shot entirely in Detroit at the Lindell AC, Jim’s Barber Shop next door, the Greektown restaurant district downtown, Belle Isle Park, and the Renaissance Center. The film was notable because of the heart-rending performance of twelve-year-old Curtis Yates, a student at Country Day School in Birmingham, Michigan. The real Andre Reynolds said he cried every time he saw the movie about his life and his foster father Jimmy Butsicaris.

Johnny Butsicaris in front of the Lindell AC sports bar.

After Andre’s high school graduation, Jimmy urged him to attend Grand Rapids Community College where he played football for one semester, but at 5’ 9” and 185#, Andre wasn’t big enough for college ball, so he dropped out. When Andre returned to Detroit, he left the influence of his mentor and drifted into Detroit’s drug culture. When he was busted for possession and drug trafficking, Andre served his sentence in Marquette Branch Prison.

In a prison cell at Marquette Branch Prison in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on November 21, 1996, thirty-six-year-old Andre learned that his foster father and mentor Jimmy Butsicaris had died the evening before at the age of seventy-five from a massive heart attack. Reynolds wasn’t eligible for parole, so he couldn’t attend the funeral, but he agreed to be interviewed by Detroit News reporter Thomas BeVier.

Andre Reynolds at Lindell AC in 1979.

“(Jimmy) Butsicaris took me in when I was a nine-year-old, punk kid living in a drug infested environment. I had a few moments of fame when the movie Jimmy B. and Andre came out. I was nineteen and wanted to be an adult, but I didn’t know how to do that. I was paid $15,000 for my story, and I used it to buy two cars and go to Grand Rapids Community College. But along the way, I fell in with a rough crowd and was in and out of trouble most of my twenties. I’m ashamed of the life I’ve lived.”

Andre served his sentence and was released. A few days before Thanksgiving in 2000, Andre Reynolds was brutally attacked by an unknown person or persons who beat and stomped him mercilessly. Detroit Police posited that Andre ran afoul of a local drug gang, but no charges were ever brought in his murder. He spent his final days in a coma at Detroit’s Receiving Hospital before succumbing. His body was unidentified in the Wayne County Morgue for four days before he was buried. What seemed on screen like a promising future for Andre became a nightmare in real life.

 

Access Jimmy B. and Andre by name on YouTube!

Billy Martin's fight night at the Lindell AC

Detroit/Windsor Sock-Hop-Jock Robin Seymour

Robin Seymour at the height of his popularity.

Robin Henry Seymour began his career in radio as a child actor on The Lone Ranger show on WXYZ in Detroit. Eventually, he became one of the country's most popular disc-jockeys. During World War II, Seymour spent part of his enlistment as a DJ on Armed Forces Radio.

Seymour's civilian broadcasting career resumed in 1947 in Dearborn, Michigan at WKMH. The newly formed radio station played mainstream pop music with news, sports, and weather segments. Soon, Seymour became the station's top jock who appealed to many of Detroit and Windsor, Ontario listeners. Seymour championed early rock & roll artists and was one of America's first DJs to play doo-wop music and black rhythm & blues which was labeled race music in those days.

As his popularity grew, Seymour began live appearances with his "Original Rock-n-Roll Revue" at Detroit's legendary Fox Theater. Seymour's personal theme song "Bobbin' with the Robin" was recorded in 1956 by a group popular at the time--The Four Lads. They were accompanied by the Percy Faith Orchestra.

Canadian broadcaster CKLW hired Seymour to host a television teen dance show in 1963 entitled Teen Town, modeled on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. Clark's show was broadcast nationally, but Seymour's regional show was wildly popular in the greater Detroit area.

With the help of rising Motown artists, the show gained popularity and was rebranded as Swingin' Time. Local teens would dance to Top 40 hits and two kids were chosen from the audience to rate new records with an "aye" or a "nay." National acts performing in Detroit or Windsor appeared on Swingin' Time to promote their live shows and records.

Seymour had the good fortune to feature virtually all the Motown artists--The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Little Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Martha and the Vandellas, and the list goes on. Many of them recorded on Gordy and Tamala records before the Motown label. Swingin' Time introduced white suburban teens to local black performers, helping bridge the racial divide in heavily segregated Detroit.

In addition to Motown artists, many local white rock group performers appeared on Seymour's show--people like Glenn Frey, Mitch Ryder, Ted Nugent, and Bob Seger. Because of technical limitations in those days, all of the performers lip-synced their records. The most frequently booked local group on his show was The Rationals--an Ann Arbor garage band. Seymour managed many of the early Detroit groups.

Robin Seymour shortly before his death.

When CKLW changed ownership in 1968, Robin Seymour was replaced by Tom Shannon, another popular Detroit DJ. America was undergoing drastic political and social turmoil and the music reflected that change. Ever try to dance to psychedelic music? The show dropped in the ratings and ended its run in 1969.

Robin Seymour passed away on April 17, 2020, at the age of ninety-four in San Antonio, Texas. He will be missed by thousands of Detroiters and Windsorites. Robin wrote an indie autobiography The DJ That Launched 1,000 Hits just before he died which is available on Amazon. It is a joy to read.

Robin Seymour's Bobbin' with the Robin theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJFyQuvGG8g

Early Bob Seger Swingin Time performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMUrxXwL-NM

 

The Story of Robin Seymour by Robin Seymour with Carolyn Rosenthal.

The Remarkable Mother Waddles--Patron Saint of Detroit's Poor

Mother Waddles Perpetual Mission eventually expanded to include her church, a kitchen/restaurant for the poor and downtrodden, a job training program, job placement services, and a health clinic.

Long before Mother Waddles became an institution in the city of Detroit, she was no stranger to adversity. Born Charleszetta Lena Campbell in St. Louis, Missouri, on October 7, 1912, she was the oldest of three children of seven who survived into adulthood, born to Henry Campbell and Ella Brown.

Her father Henry ran a successful barber shop which doubled as a popular meeting place for African American men in their local community, until he cut a customer's hair who had the contagious skin disease impetigo. Unknowingly, Henry Campbell cut other customers' hair with the same clippers, including some fellow church members who came down with the ailment.

Overnight, word spread throughout his community and congregation that Campbell's Barber Shop was the cause of the outbreak. Members of his congregation shunned him and his family. Campbell lost not only his business but also his self-respect.

Charleszetta was only twelve years old when she witnessed her father die a broken man. She never forgot his despair and the lack of empathy shown to him by their congregation. Miss Charleszetta Campbell quit school in eighth grade despite her love of school and good grades. She began working as a domestic servant to help support her mother and two younger sisters. At the tender age of fourteen, Charleszetta became pregnant by her twenty-four-year-old boyfriend who eventually left her to fend on her own. 

During the heart of the Great Depression, Charleszetta met and married a thirty-seven-year-old truck driver named Leroy Welsh. She was twenty-one. In 1936, the family moved to Detroit. Together, they had six children before she divorced him in 1945. She felt he had no ambition and was not doing his share to support her and her children.

Alone and with seven kids to feed, Charleszetta worked as a bar maid and a "numbers" (illegal lottery) collector to supplement her welfare and Aid to Dependent Children checks, and from a tub in front of the house, she sold barbequed ribs on the weekends to make ends meet. In life, circumstances determine actions, or so it seems. Charleszetta spent the next five years in a common-law marriage with Roosevelt Sturkey and bore him three children before he died unexpectedly.

Finally, with ten children in tow, she found Peyton Waddles and married him in 1950. Waddles worked for the Ford Motor Company and helped his wife in her quest to feed the hungry and clothe the poor. They remained married for thirty years until Peyton died in 1980.

***

In the mid 1940s, Charleszetta began studying the Bible and was ordained twice: initially in the First Pentecostal Church and later, after more study, in the International Association of Universal Truth. By the late 1940s, she began holding Bible readings and prayer meetings in her home with her neighbors and family members.

With the help and support of her new husband, Reverend Charleszetta Waddles founded the Helping Hand Restaurant offering good-tasting, home cooked, soul food meals for 35 cents a plate for Detroit's poor, all cooked by her in her own kitchen and served up in the living room. Nobody was turned away. Her mission ministered to homeless street people, unwed mothers, abused wives and children, the sick, the elderly, and anyone who was hungry and needed a helping hand.

At first, she and her kids did all the work, but soon neighbors and fellow churchgoers volunteered to help. Menu items included smoked rib ends, Southern fried chicken, and ham hocks with two sides of either boiled cabbage, black-eyed peas, rice, grits, baked beans, seasonal vegetables, or collard greens.

If anyone was hungry and did not have a quarter and a dime to pay, dinner was on the house. In the thirty-four years of its existence, the restaurant had several location but never increased the price of its meals. The kitchen/restaurant finally closed in 1984 after a fire destroyed it and everything in the building.

Mother Waddles believed in pragmatic Christianity specializing in emergency help. "The church should get beyond religious dogma and focus on the real needs of people. There is no fire and brimstone after death, but there is plenty of hell in Detroit," she said.

In 1963, Lonnie D. Moore came to her mission a wreck after his mother had died. He had nowhere else to turn. Reverend Waddles calmed him, "I'll be a mother to you." She provided Moore with a place to stay and fed him in exchange for volunteering as a dishwasher. He was the first person to call her Mother Waddles and the name stuck. Her nickname Mother Waddles became the branding her organization was lacking.

***

On her way to becoming a one-woman social-services agency in one of Detroit's most poverty-stricken neighborhoods, Mother Waddles and her Perpetual Mission had many setbacks. In the 1970s, when Detroit and the national economy were reeling from the Oil Crisis, Mother Waddles Perpetual Mission was there to provide services for unemployed autoworkers and their families. In February of 1970, her Mission was burglarized three times.

The first robbery was of typewriters the Mission used to train women how to type. The second time, the Mission's public address system used for Sunday services worth $1,500 disappeared. Then, at the end of the month, thieves took away the Mission's entire filing system that held the contact information for their referral services, emergency shelters, job centers, medical aid, social services agencies, and donor lists. Although police reports were filed, no concerted effort was made to discover who the robbers were or what their motives were beyond money.

Mother Waddles' charities always ran on a wing and a prayer. Dedicated volunteers helped run the kitchen and clothes distribution center, leaving her to concentrate on fundraising from private organizations and church groups, pledge drives, rummage sales, and talent shows, but never government funding. Waddles believed that government red tape and regulations were a fatal noose that wasted time and money.

In an effort to make money for her Mission, Mother Waddles self-published a thirty-six page booklet of her soul food recipes in October 1970. Fifty thousand copies were printed and hand-assembled by volunteers at the Mission. Each copy sold for $2 but only about five thousand sold the first month, prompting Mission spokesperson Maggie Kreischer to remark, "I just hope we can pay the printing bill." When I recently checked for copies of Mother Waddles' Soul Food Cookbook in September 2023, prices ranged from $200 to $450 for used copies.

On November 15, 1970, Lee Winfrey wrote an editorial in the Detroit Free Press titled "Debt-Ridden Mother Waddles to be Absorbed by 'System'." It read, "If Mother's God-intoxicated energies are black-coffeed into financial sobriety, something appealing will be lost." Translated into plain English it means, if the charity is to surive, it will need to be managed better. The Missions' recordkeeping was minimal at best and all but inscrutable. To save her charities, auditors were called in to see how bleak the situation was.

The following year brought more bad news. On February 3, 1971, a "religious fanatic and sick man" (Mother Waddles' own words) named Willie Green (51) entered the Mission ranting scripture and attacked two people in separate incidents, a man and a woman. While the police were in transit, Waddles tried to settle the man down and put him at ease but with little success. 

When two patrolmen arrived on the scene, Green pulled out a handgun. Officier Daniel G. Ellis (29), pushed his partner out of the line of fire and took two slugs in the chest and right leg. He was DOA before medics could get him to the hospital. 

Further investigation revealed that Willie Green had a long criminal record with fourteen convictions extending back twenty-eight years. At his trial nine months later, Green was found innocent by reason of insanity in the slaying of Officier Daniel G. Ellis.

In January of 1984, a warehouse fire destroyed 50% of the food and clothing donations for the needy, and in November, just before Thanksgiving, the Black Firefighters Association delivered a truckload of food and clothing to the Mission meant for distribution to the poor.

That evening or early the next morning, thieves described as neighborhood toughs snapped the locks from two of the warehouse's six doors and emptied the building. Trying to downplay the robbery, Mother Waddles told the press, "You know it hurts, but it doesn't bring me down."

***

But amid the setbacks the Perpetual Mission battled throughout its existence, bright moments shined through too. For Christmas in 1989, Detroit boxer Tommy Hearns brightened the holiday for many struggling Detroiters by donating $3,000 worth of frozen turkeys and toys to Mother Waddles Perteptual Mission. Hearns was eight years old when Mother Waddles' kitchen fed him and his family when they were hungry. Several Christmases later, Detroit rocker Ted Nugent contributed six hundred pounds of dressed, wrapped, and frozen venison (deer meat) and about 1,000 pounds of clothes for the shelter. 

The 1990s began badly for the Mission. Between January and April, their storage facility suffered nine break-ins. Mother Waddles told the press that the only way to prevent further break-ins was to install iron security bars on all the doors and windows. She mentioned in the newspaper article that the cost would be $3,500 which the Mission could not afford.

As had happened so many times before, Providence smiled upon Mother Waddles. Paul and Lynn Lieberman of Bloomfield Hills read in the local papers about the latest break-ins at the Mission and offered to pay for the installation of the security doors and windows. Once again, Mother Waddles' deep faith in the transcendent goodness of people shone through brightly on this occasion.

Mother Waddles' innercity Detroit charity work caught the attention of Michigan's outgoing governor George W. Romney, who was soon to become a cabinet member in the new President-elect Richard M. Nixon's administration. Romney believed Mother Waddles was the living embodiment of the "Black self-help" platform that Nixon campaigned on.

Romney wrangled an invitation for Dr. Charleszetta "Mother" Waddles to attend the 1969 Nixon Inauguration as part of the Michigan delegation. Included in the invitation were invitations to a tea for distinguished ladies, a Republican Governor's party, the vice-president's reception, the swearing-in ceremony for the President, and the Inaugaral Ball at the Smithsonian Institute. "I feel like a movie star, "Waddles remarked to the local Detroit press.

But what to wear?! To help Mother Waddles dress for the occasion, WXYZ-TV sponsored her wardrobe chosen from Lane Bryant women's store. For the swearing-in ceremony and the receptions, Waddles wore a velvet-trimmed knit suit. But for the Ball, she wore a floor-length, pink silk, caftan gown. Lane Bryant general manager Patti Hanes loaned Waddles her milk stole for the occasion. To chauffeur Reverend Waddles around Washington D.C., Thompson Chrysler Inc. loaned her a charcoal Chrysler Imperial and a driver.

What was a Cinderella-like experience for Mother Waddles was commemorated in a photograph of her decked out in the mink stole which ran in the society pages of the Detroit newspapers.

But in a Democrat town like Detroit, partying with the Republican elite did not sit well with some blue collar folks. Rumors began to circulate that Mother Waddles was getting rich on the backs of the people she purported to help. In a public response, Waddles skirted the issue, "I'm in the business of loving the hell out of folks. It's a joy, it really is."

As Mother Waddles' fame grew, she became honored with testimonial dinners from civic and service organizations for her "service to humanity." Corporate donations and foundation grants increased as Mother Waddles' charity work was celebrated publicly.

Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida began filming a documentary in 1990 about Reverend Charleszetta "Mother" Waddles, underwritten by a $175,000 grant from Warner-Lambery Company (Listerine mouthwash). Mother Waddles' charities were additionally pledged $100,000 over the next five years for Waddles' one-woman war on poverty. The documentary was titled You Done Good! It was widely televised on PBS stations across the country.

Most Detroiters today know Mother Waddles' name from billboards along the highways advertising her car donation program which began in 1992. A used car business was set up to accept running used cars in return for tax write-offs equalling Kelly Blue Book values.

After being cleaned up and minor repairs made, the cars were priced from $300 to $999 and sold from Mother Waddles' Used Car Lot. For its first full year of operation in 1993, car sales totalled 1.4 million dollars, allowing another location to open the following year. All the profits went back into the Mission. This program became the financial backbone of the Perpetual Mission.

Even at the age of eighty, Reverend "Mother" Waddles worked twelve-hour days. But on November 17, 1992, she was hospitalized and listed in serious condition in the cardiac unit of Michigan Health Center. Clifford Ford, acting as Mission spokesperson, told reporters, "(Mother Waddles') health issues are from attempting to stretch that which is virtually unstretchable." Her doctors recommended that she pass on the work of the Mission to others. What she needed most was some prolonged rest.

Almost nine years later on July 12, 2001, Mother Waddles died at the age of eighty-eight from cardiac arrest at her Detroit home. In her lifetime for service to the poor, Waddles received over 300 awards and honors including entry into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame. Public viewing was scheduled from 9:00 am until 9:00 pm on July 18th at the Swanson Funeral Home on E. Grand Boulevard.

Over 1,000 mourners gathered at Mother Waddles' funeral ceremony on Thursday, July 19th at the Greater Grace Temple on Schaefer Road. The all-day celebration was attended by politicians, pastors, the press, and many of her admirers.

Detroit Free Press reporter Alexa Capeloto described Mother Waddles' burial this way:

         Immediate family members wore white as a tribute to their famous relative who donned white at funerals because she considered funerals celebrations of life. Relatives carried flowers in her honor, black roses for her children and gold orchids for her grandchildren.

        After the service, a horse-drawn carriage transported Charleszetta Waddles' white and gold-trimmed casket to Elmwood Cemetery for burial. Ten white doves--one for each of her children--were released as a symbolic freeing of her spirit.

 

Martha Jean the Queen

Detroit Boxer Joe Louis' Place in American History

Joseph Louis Barrow was best known as the "Brown Bomber." He boxed from 1934 until 1951 and reigned as heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949. Joe was born in Chambers County, Alabama--the seventh of eight children. Both of his parents were children of former slaves.

Louis' family moved to Detroit after a brush with the Ku Klux Klan when Joe was twelve. The Louis family was part of the Great Migration after World War I. His family settled on 2700 Catherine Street in the now defunct neighborhood of Black Bottom. When old enough, Joe and his older brother worked at the Rouge Plant for the Ford Motor Company.

During the Great Depression, Joe spent time at a local youth recreation center at 637 Brewster Street in Detroit and made his boxing debut early in 1932 at the age of seventeen. In 1933, Louis won the Detroit-area Golden Gloves Novice Division. In 1934, he won the Chicago Golden Gloves championship and later that year became the United States Amateur Champion in a national AAU tournament in St. Louis, Missouri. By the summer of 1934, Joe had gone pro with a management team.

In 1936, Louis got a title shot versus world heavyweight champion Max Schmeling in Yankee Stadium. The German trained hard while Louis seemed more interested in his golf game--his new hobby. Schmeling knocked Louis out in the 12th round handing Joe his first professional loss. Schmeling became a national hero in Nazi Germany as an example of Aryan superiority.

Max Schmeling and Joe Louis rematch.

No path to a rematch was open to Louis until June 22, 1938. Louis and Schmeling met for a second time at Yankee Stadium before a crowd of 70,043. The fight was broadcast worldwide in English, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. It should be noted that Max Schmeling was not a Nazi, but the Nazi party propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels hyped the match proclaiming a Black man could not defeat Herr Schmeling.

The American press promoted the match as an epic battle between Nazi ideology and American democratic ideals. Louis became the embodiment of anti-Nazi sentiment. After the big media buildup, the fight lasted only two minutes and four seconds. Schmeling went down three times before his trainer threw in the towel ending the match. For the first time in American history, every Black person and White person in the country celebrated the same event at the same time. Not until the end of World War II would that happen again.

Joe Louis became the first African-American national hero. He reigned as heavyweight champion from 1937 until 1949--longer than anyone else. In 1951, Louis was beaten by Rocky Marciano and retired from the ring. The following year, he was responsible for breaking the color line integrating the game of golf. He appeared as a celebrity golfer under a sponsor's exemption at a PGA event in 1952. How many people know that?

Joe Louis and Max Schmeling

Joe Louis died on April 12, 1981 of cardiac arrest at the age of sixty-six in Desert Springs Hospital near Las Vegas after a public appearance at the Larry Holmes-Trevor Berbick heavyweight battle. President Ronald Reagan waived eligibility rules for Joe Louis to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors on April 21st. His funeral was paid for by his friend Max Schmeling, who also acted as a pallbearer.

In his professional boxing career, Joe Louis won virtually every boxing award there is and was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously in 1982. The City of Detroit honored Joe Louis with a monument on October 16, 1989. The sculpture was sponsored by Sports Illustrated magazine and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

 

When drivers look left at Woodward Avenue from eastbound Jefferson Avenue (now a No Left Turn), they are confronted with a colossal fist and forearm suspended from a triangular superstructure--a testament to the regard and respect Detroiters hold for their hometown hero.

Link to the Joe Louis/Max Schmeling 1937 heavyweight fight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LNzWHuygpw