A Place in the Sun: Black Placemaking in Pan African Detroit

Abstract

The article argues that a distinctive character of the Black city is revealed in its connections to African heritage preservation. The Africanized Black city is situated within the long foundations of Pan African thought. A main assertion is that Black dignity is (re)instilled through the reconstruction of Afrocentric identity and philosophy for the Black urbanite navigating the unresolved problem(s) of the color line. Pan African legacies in the African American encounter with the modern city erected the localization of “African Home,” where the spiritual citizenship inhabited by Pan African architects generated an agency of self-determination in Black placemaking. In this way, Black placemaking “refers to the ways that Black Americans create sites of endurance, belonging, and resistance through social interaction.”