Tagged: culture

Michigan Radio's Lindsey Smith hopped on a bus with community leaders from the Grand Rapids area this past Wednesday.

Their destination was Detroit. And their goal for the trip was "to build stronger bonds between Michigan’s two major population centers."

They left in the wee hours of the morning and arrived back in Grand Rapids around 2:30 a.m.

The trip organizers put this video together:

Borders Books started in Ann Arbor as a small independent book store.

Tom and Louis Borders opened it in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1971.

The first Borders bookstore was located at 209 State Street, north of the State Theater.

Eve Silberman was a graduate student in Ann Arbor when she got a job at the very first Borders Bookstore owned by the Borders brothers.

The company recently declared bankruptcy.

Silberman sat down to talk with public radio host Dick Gordon of The Story.

Silberman talked with Gordon about her memories of working at the first Borders bookstore (she described herself as "not a very good worker").

She recalled several things about the first Borders Bookstore:

• Joe Gable was the "shaper and caretaker" of the store (many thought Gable was a Borders).
• Gable saw the store as a "cathedral of books" and the workers were the "worshippers."
• Classical music played in the store.
• Potential employees had to take a test to get a job at the store.
• The store carried unique titles.
• The store's cash register was complex at the time.

Host Dick Gordon asked Silberman about the sense in Ann Arbor about the misfortunes of Borders.

The Southern Poverty Law Center released a report today on hate groups in the U.S.

They say there are now more than 1,000 such groups around the country, the first time the SPLC has seen the number of "hate groups" top 1,000 since it started counting them in the 1980s.

From the SPLC press release:

Several factors fueled the growth: resentment over the changing racial demographics of the country, frustration over the lagging economy, and the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and other demonizing propaganda aimed at minorities and the government.

A hate group is defined by the SPLC as a group that has "beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics."

The SPLC lists 35 "hate groups" in Michigan on their map.

Two Detroit arts organizations are one step closer to turning their artistic visions into reality.

Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), a national arts organization, awarded $50,000 to the Heidelberg Project in Detroit, and $100,000 to the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD).

Heidelberg will use the money to build an outdoor public art project on Detroit’s east side. MOCAD will use the money to create an outdoor space for art and community engagement.