CSS Associate Director Dr. Alford A Young, Jr., spoke with Erik Hoomis, host of the Lawyers, Guns & Money podcast, about Dr. Young's most recent book, From the Edge of the Ghetto: African Americans and the World of Work. 

"It is perhaps the archetypical 20th-century story of the American economy. The automobile industry represented great opportunity; it's what drove the city of Detroit. One could argue that for the first-third of the 20th-century, Detroit may have been the most important city in the United States of America—certainly amongst the most important two or three. And the neighborhoods that the communities around Detroit benefited, so that industry that couldn't fit in Detroit were located in Ypislanti, in Cadillac, MI, as far as Flint, MI—so those areas became the sort of thriving suburbs for this central automobile industry that emerged and blossomed in Detroit. And hence these other communities, Ypsilanti included, was a site of opportunity for African Americans, for others, that were leaving the South, that were leaving several rural regions, who had come to try to find success in a thriving industry sphere." 

Listen to Dr. Young's full remarks here.