There’s a wall in the Eight Mile-Wyoming neighborhood in Detroit that was once meant to separate white households from Black ones. It wasn’t literally meant to separate families, but it was a message, about who was welcome beyond the wall’s borders and why.
Kelly T. Shack grew up in the area near Detroit's Birwood Wall, which has been designated as a historic Michigan site.
He'd hang out in the area surrounding the half-mile and six-foot tall wall and see it regularly, but he didn't realize the significance of the wall until he was much older.
“It was just a big gray monolith that just, you know, wasn't attractive to the neighborhood,” he said.
He hopes it'll be different for children who get to see the concrete wall now covered in a multifaceted mural. The wall was officially recognized by the National Register of Historic Places in 2021. And after the state historic designation, it also has a new marker with a message letting everyone know why it was built and for who.
A white real estate developer wanted to build a separate white neighborhood, but the area was considered “high risk” because it was near Black people. So he built the wall in 1941 to separate the neighborhoods. The wall’s purpose was short-lived and Black families began to move into the white-only area by the 1950s.
Jamon Jordan is Detroit’s official historian.
“There would be people who would not believe you if you told them there was a segregation wall built in the United States, in the north, in the city of Detroit in 1941. They say, okay, I could understand this in South Africa or someplace like that, but not in the United States. Well, having this wall here helps to make that story clear,” Jordan said during a celebration of the wall’s historic designation.
Nearby residents as well as officials and people from across the city came to the official designation ceremony in October.
The wall is now covered in a mural featuring children blowing bubbles, the Detroit Tigers, and the activist Alfonso Wells, who the park surrounding the wall is named for.
“This mural tells the story of children who live and grew up in this community.” Jordan said. “It shows us Rosa Parks getting on the bus and Harriet Tubman leading people, freedom seekers to freedom. So it tells the story of an actual community that's here, not just the racist policy of the developer and the federal government.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan was there as the new sign was unveiled.
He said the wall was built because of a federal policy of redlining. He says the government wouldn't make guaranteed loans to developers building in neighborhoods that rented to people who weren't white.
Teresa Moon grew up in the Eight Mile-Wyoming neighborhood and remains an advocate for the neighborhood. She teaches young people who hang in the park about the significance of the wall.
“People come to Detroit and one of the first stops is to come to this wall,” Moon said. “And when I see people over here and I find out they're from somewhere else in the United States or somewhere else and, you know, in the world, and they say to me, we came to Detroit to come and see this wall. It boggles my mind. I mean, seriously, I don't get it. I do get it, but I don't get it because I've lived over here all my life.”
Shack said he felt proud to be there.
"We don't let it get whitewashed. We don't let it go away. We don't just say, 'hey, that was something that was this.' We're trying to preserve and maintain what that plot and what that wall and what this park has always meant. And that’s why I’m proud to come out here.
The Birwood Wall was officially recognized by the National Register of Historic Places in 2021. It joins hundreds of other Detroit sites that have the historic designation. They include the nation's first Black-owned TV studio, and a church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke and Aretha Franklin made some of her first recordings.
