I’ve been to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History a few times, but one visit still stays with me.
We were there for a Leadership Detroit (Best Class Ever) session.
The Wright is humbling, awe-inspiring and painful. It forces you to celebrate and acknowledge at the same time.
There is a point in And Still We Rise where history stops feeling like something you are reading about and starts feeling like something you are moving through.
You pass through the story of the transatlantic slave trade. You move through an arch meant to evoke one of the last thresholds an enslaved African might have crossed before being forced onto a ship.
Then you walk into the hull.
The space changes.
The sounds change.
And you know what happened there.
It’s hard.
It should be.
Because we cannot celebrate where we are going without acknowledging where we have been.
That doesn’t mean turning Black history into an endless story of suffering. There is too much joy, brilliance, invention, resistance, faith, culture and achievement for that.
But we don’t have to pretend it was all roses either.
We have to be able to hold both.
That is why places like the Wright matter.
This November, voters in Wayne and Oakland counties will consider a regional millage intended to provide long-term operating support for the Wright and the Detroit Historical Society, while also helping smaller museums and historical organizations throughout both counties.
Supporters say the proposal would also expand free admission, student field trips, transportation, curriculum resources and teacher training.
On paper, that is a funding proposal.
But the bigger question is this:
Who pays to keep history alive?
For a long time, especially when it comes to Black history, preservation has been treated almost like charity.
Find a donor. Win a grant. Hold a fundraiser. Hope somebody with money understands why this particular collection, building, photograph or story matters.
Then do it again next year.
That is a strange way to care for something we routinely call priceless.
We fund libraries because books matter.
We maintain parks because public space matters.
We fund schools because education matters.
History should not be treated as something important only when someone can afford to save it.
That is especially true in Black communities, where so much has already been lost.
Neighborhoods disappeared.
Businesses disappeared.
Newspapers closed.
Buildings were demolished.
Photographs were lost.
Elders died.
Detroit knows this story.
Black Bottom is one of the clearest examples.
A thriving Black neighborhood was demolished through urban renewal and highway construction. Today, much of what we know about it has to be reconstructed through photographs, maps, directories, newspaper archives and the memories of people who were there.
By the time everyone agrees something should have been preserved, it is usually too late.
That is why preservation matters.
Not because we want to live in the past.
Because we want to understand it.
We say history repeats itself all the time, as though history has a mind of its own.
It doesn’t.
People repeat history when they no longer recognize it.
That is what institutions like the Wright give us: context, evidence and memory.
They let us see what happened, what was built, what was taken, what survived and what changed.
And then they leave us with the responsibility of deciding what we do with what we know.
That does not mean voters should approve public funding without asking questions.
They should know what the millage costs. They should know where the money goes. They should know how much reaches smaller institutions and how those dollars will be distributed.
Public money deserves public accountability.
But the principle matters too.
Someone decided years ago that people like me should be able to walk into the Wright and experience that history.
Someone preserved the objects.
Someone researched the stories.
Someone designed the exhibition.
Someone decided the uncomfortable parts should not be skipped.
Years later, I walked through it.
I celebrated.
I acknowledged.
I learned.
That is what preservation does.
We do not preserve the past because we want to stay there.
We preserve it because we intend to move forward with our eyes open.
You cannot honestly celebrate how far we’ve come if you’re unwilling to acknowledge where we started.
And you cannot recognize history repeating itself if you’ve forgotten what it looked like the first time.
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