- Detroiters Speak Winter 2025: Rethinking Education Justice
- Fall 2023 - Desti-Nations of Hip Hop
- Winter 2022: Making Labor Work - Organizing for Power in the 21st Century
- Winter 2021: Pandemic Politics - From Lockdown to Liberation (Virtual)
- Fall 2020 with General Baker Institute: Policing Black Power - From Watts to Detroit (Virtual)
- Fall 2020: Healing Justice (Virtual)
- Winter 2020: Detroit 2020 - People, Power, & Politics
- Fall 2019: Healing Justice Workshop Series
- Winter 2019: Whose Safety? Policing Minds, Bodies, and Borders in Detroit
- Fall 2018 Workshop Series: Healing Justice as Building Cultural Resilience
- Winter 2018: From "Two Societies" to a New Society
- Fall 2017: Reclaiming the Commons
- Summer 2017: Beyond '67 - The City-Wide Citizen's Action Committee
- Winter 2017: Toward Education Justice
- Detroiters Speak Archive
- Detroiters Speak Winter 2026: Transit Justice
Detroiters Speak returns for the Winter 2026 semester with a focus on "Transit Justice."
About the Series:
How we get around affects how we experience all that Detroit and Southeast Michigan have to offer. Considering transportation’s role in climate change, the economy, and the decisions we make about how (and where) we live, transit in the Motor City is a conversation for drivers and riders alike. This winter, Semester in Detroit teams up with some of the city’s leading advocates for transit justice to present Minding the Gaps: Detroiters Speak on Transit Justice.
Over six sessions, attendees will unpack the history of Detroit’s relationship to local and regional transit long before it was the Motor City, plus learn more about where the city is heading through topics such as accessibility, affordability, service improvements, environmental impact, funding and policy, labor and workers rights, safety, urban/rural planning, and more. Participants will also have the opportunity to participate in complimentary programming, including virtual Transit Tuesday talks with TRU, film screenings, a transit history tour with Baba Jamon Jordan, the Official Historian for the City of Detroit, and a special workshop on U-M’s transportation footprint from the university’s Planet Blue network.
Series Dates: February 12, 19, 26;
March 12, 19, 26
**Thursdays from 6:30-8:30pm
Light dinner served from 6:30-7:00pm
Class sessions run from 7:00-8:30pm
Free & open to the general public: Register here.
Series Collaborators: Detroiters Speak is a collaborative "community classroom" series that is open to everyone and anyone in Detroit and the greater Metro region. This series is being organized by the UM Semester in Detroit Program, the UM Detroit Center, the UM-Dearborn Office of Community-Engaged Learning (OCEL), and our anchor Detroit community partners: Transit Riders United, Detroit Disability Power and Detroit People's Platform. Special funding support for this series is provided by the Engage Detroit Workshop Program in the Office of the Vice Provost for Engaged Learning.
Find more specific information about each session (location, speakers, suggested readings) in the drop-down boxes below:
