LibGuides: Flint & Local History: Ethnic Groups

African American Community

Flint's ethnic diversity increased markedly with the labor demands of the auto industry. History of the substantial African-American community is documented well in the papers of Edgar Holt and Olive Beasley in the GHCC. Also of interest are the papers of Peter Jacquette and Roger Townsend and the scrapbooks of the Flint Urban League.

Edgar B. Holt Papers
Finding aid for the Edgar B. Holt Papers. Although there are a few items dating prior to this time span, such as two Southern Negro Youth Congress newsletters from 1941, most of the material dates from the 1960s and 1970s. The 1960s, of course, were a critical era in Afro-American history, and, as Edgar Holt was president of the largest state NAACP organization at probably its most significant period.
Olive Beasely Papers
Finding aid for the Olive Beasely Papers. The collection is divided into 17 series. Each consists of files produced in the course of Beasley's activity in various organizations. Most files, nevertheless, were generated in her capacity as Flint District Executive and as Director of the Public Service Division of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission.
Peter T. Jacquette Papers
Finding aid for the Peter T. Jacquette Papers. This collection consists primarily of financial records and minutes of various black organizations in Flint, Michigan, dating mainly from 1928 to 1942.
Flint's Urban League Scrapbooks
Library catalog record of the scrapbooks which contain newspaper clippings and miscellany concerning the organization's activities and issues facing blacks, as well as the League's newsletters. 1943 - 1975

Books

The Black Pioneer in Michigan, vol. 1: Flint and Genesee County by Melvin Banner
Call Number: E185.93.M5 B36 v. 1
Bronze Pillars: An oral history of African-Americans in Flint by Rhonda Sanders
Call Number: F 575 .N3 S3 1995
Telling our stories: Legacy of the civil rights movement in Flint by Ananthakrishnan Aiyer
Call Number: F 574 .F62 T45 2007
Compilation of stories, articles, letters and poems from Flint's African American community.
Through the melting pot and beyond: The St. John St. experience "Flint's international village" by Michael W. Evanoff
Call Number: F574.F6 E9 1979 v. 1 -2
A memoir of the multi-ethnic St. John Street area.

Newspapers: Collection 103 Genesee County Periodical collection

Society for Afro-American Police
NAACP Branch Newsletter
The Michigan Gazette
The Forum Magazine
The Flint Times
The Good News Journal
Flint Mirror
The Flint Spokesman
Community News
The Flint Herald-Examiner
Flint Downtown Ambassador
Afro-American News
The Flint Enquirer
The Flintstone Times
The Flint Editorial Weekly Newspaper
Concerned Pastors for Social Action Courier

Arab American Community

The Arab American community has deep roots in the Flint area.

Hani Bawardi Collection
Finding aid for the Hani Bawardi Collection which includes videotapes and transcriptions of interviews he conducted as well as photocopies of family papers and the records of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Flint.
Anthony Mansour Arab-American Collection
Finding aid for the Mansour Arab-American Collection. This collection consists primarily of interviews (on cassette tape, videotape, and DVD disks) Mansour conducted with members of the Flint-area Arab-American community.

Books

The peddler to merchant generation : our Arab American pioneers by Anthony J. Mansour
Call Number: F 574 .F62 M36 2004
Arab Immigrants in Flint, Michigan: The Case of Merchants in the Inner City by Hani J. Bawardi
Call Number: Online - restricted to UM users
Groceryman by Robert Lee Hamady
Call Number: F 570.25 .H36 G76 2013

Jewish Community

Archival

Esther Findeberg (1914-2000) discusses the industrial Avenue neighborhood, where her immigrant parents ran a bakery and their attitudes towards the site down strike. (Digital Archive - University of Michigan - Flint Labor History Project collection)

Collection 065 History Department collection – Student Family Histories, Oral History Project & Student papers

Books

150 Years of Jewish Life in Flint: 1850 - 2000 by Nancy Hanflik
Call Number: Online - restricted to UM users
Recounting Memory Project: lint-area Holocaust survivors and youth dialogue with history by Mara Jevera Fulmer
Call Number: D 804.195 .R43 2011
Jewish Life in the Industrial Promised Land, 1855-2005 by Nora Helen Faires; Nancy Hanflik
Call Number: F 575 .J5 F35 2005
ISBN: 0870137719

Newspapers: Collection 103 Genesee County Periodical collection

The Flint Jewish Reporter
Flint Jewish Reporter FJCC News
Operation MASADA
The Flint Jewish Community Council Reporter

Other Groups

The GHCC also has microfilm copies of naturalization records of Genesee County, c.1838-1959.

The large migration of whites from the Missouri Bootheel and neighboring Arkansas and Tennessee is discussed in Beynon's seminal article "The Southern White Laborer Migrates to Michigan."

"The Southern White Laborer Migrates to Michigan" by Erdmann Doane Beynon
American Sociological Review 3 (June 1938): 333-343