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.
The Arab American community has deep roots in the Flint area.
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
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."
University of Michigan-Flint