Stateside Podcast: Detroit and Michigan Central Station's role in the Great Migration

PBS affiliates around Michigan are premiering a four part series with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. telling the story of the Great Migration, a period when historic numbers of African Americans from the rural South sought their fortunes in urban areas in the North, Midwest, and West.

Episode One catches the wheels of this mass movement in motion, driven by the catalyst of World War I. For the first time, the flow of European immigrants filling industrial jobs had stopped, opening up the possibility of Black Southerners to fill those roles.

The second episode of the series, titled Great Migrations: A People on the Move, heavily features Detroit and Michigan Central Station. According to Nailah Ife Sims, co-director of the series, focusing on the city, but especially the station, was important, given the station's role as a sort of Ellis Island for Black families finding their way to new lives.

"You know, to walk through this restored station that looked, almost exactly as it did for Black Southerners who walked that same path was very visceral," Sims said. "And it felt important that we filmed there."

Courtesy of PBS

To co-director Julia Marchesi, filming at the station held meaning because of Michigan Central's recent restoration. To experience the station as newcomers would have seen it presented a remarkable opportunity.

"This was like arriving in modernity. It was like time travel," Marchesi said. "They would have experienced the north for the first time."

Hear Julia Marchesi and Nailah Ife Sims' full conversation with April Baer on the Stateside podcast.

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GUESTS ON TODAY’S SHOW:

• Julia Marchesi, co-director of the PBS series Great Migrations: A People on the Move
• Nailah Ife Sims, co-director of the PBS series Great Migrations: A People on the Move