Keith Owens (Facebook photo)
Keith Owens, top editor at the Michigan Chronicle, writes that he was talking with his sister-in-law in the hallway outside the Detroit Homecoming event Thursday, and she said black folks need their own homecoming.
"I found myself nodding along with her, both of us understanding that this was something that maybe really oughta happen," Owens writes.
The Detroit Homecoming is a three-day event, sponsored by Crain's Detroit Business, which brings expats back to Detroit for a conference to promote the city and generate investments. .
Owens writes:
One of the things I wanted to check out was whether or not there were many black folks attending this thing. Because if it was just white folks ‘coming home’ then that’s a problem. But there were a noticeable enough number of black folks in the crowd and on the stage during all the presentations, so that’s a good thing. Because when you see a program designed to set the pace for the rebuilding and re-imagining of the city in which we all live, we need to see that we (yes, I mean black people) are in that mix. We need to be at that table.
But we also need our own table. And I suspect we will always need our own table for awhile to come if current events are any indication. We need to have the kinds of discussions that I saw here today amongst ourselves as well as amongst everyone else. We need to make sure we get ourselves our fair share of this pie, because believe me when I tell you the pie is getting divvied up as we speak. That much is clear.
We need that insurance. History isn’t just for textbooks anymore.
