Ypsilanti is a city rich in Black history. Lesser-known parts of that history have shaped it today.
Steam engine lubricator inventor Elijah McCoy’s family lived in Ypsilanti as sharecroppers at the Starkweather Farmhouse.
Bill Nickels is the president of the Ypsilanti Historical Society. He says the society has a recorded interview with McCoy’s sister, who shared how she saw her parents secretly feed runaway slaves baked treats and, under the cover of night, help transport them to Canada.
“She would get up in the morning, and there were no goodies. The Black family from the night before was gone, supporting evidence that Starkweather Farm along North Huron River Drive was an active Underground Railroad place.”
After the Civil War, Black families who migrated to Canada returned to the US and made Ypsilanti their home. Nickels says, a century later in 1967, the Ypsilanti City Council elected John Burton, who became Michigan’s first Black mayor.
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