Community Calendar

Keith Wunderlich will discuss his book on the legacy of track coach D.L. Homes, the athletic director at Wayne State University from 1917-1958. Holmes fostered diversity and advocated for inclusion in sports during a time when segregation was the norm.

Detroit’s rich cultural identity and enduring small business legacy take center stage in Detroit Icon, a new six-part streaming series created by Jason Dean Waldron, owner of Time Warp Vintage in St. Clair Shores. Detroit Icon takes viewers into the heart of the City, spotlighting the small businesses that have weathered Detroit’s highs and lows and emerged as powerful forces in shaping its future.

Premiere Gala at the Detroit Historical Museum
To celebrate the launch, a special Detroit Icon Premiere will take place on May 1, from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM at the Detroit Historical Museum in the spectacular Allesee Gallery of Culture.
The evening will offer an immersive, vintage-inspired experience and include:
• A preview screening featuring highlights from Season One and exclusive sneak peeks of Season Two upcoming episodes
• A live panel discussion with featured Detroit business owners and creators
• Light appetizers and a curated mocktail experience
• A 1940s–50s themed atmosphere, complete with vintage-inspired service and presentation
Guests will enjoy all the Detroit Historical Museum has to offer, with full access to three floors of engaging exhibitions.
Panel participants (tentative) include:
• Jason Dean (Moderator)
• Joe Renkiewicz Sr. (Henry the Hatter)
• A representative from John King Rare & Used Books

Guests will park in the Museum’s lot off Kirby. Parking is first-come, first-served and costs $10 per car. Street parking is available and uses the City’s Park Detroit mobile app.

Two-hundred and fifty years ago, America famously proclaimed that “all men are created equal.” That same year, Pennsylvanians led by Benjamin Franklin declared that “all men are born equally free and independent.” This year, Americans are once again discussing issues of creational equality and birth equality—this time in the context of a great debate over the meaning of birthright citizenship. How will the Supreme Court decide this issue? How should it decide? What would Lincoln have thought about the current debate? Yale Law School Professor Akhil Reed Amar will examine these and related questions through the lens of his recent book, Born Equal: Remaking America's Constitution, 1840–1920.

As we reflect on 250 years of America's history, we invite you to join us for an impactful and important conversation with historian and author John Garrison Marks.

Marks will discuss his newest work, Thy Will Be Done: George Washington's Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory (2026), where he tells the story of Americans' long, fraught struggle to come to terms with Washington's legacy of slavery.

The program will lead with a question Americans have reflected on for nearly 250 years: How should we remember George Washington's entanglement in slavery?

Using research foundational to Thy Will Be Done, Marks will speak to Washington's ties to slavery, and how the actions seen in his life's work have shaped and reshaped Americans' collective memory of Washington and slavery — along with their understanding of the nation.

The program will include a discussion with Heather Bruegl (Oneida/Stockbridge-Munsee), Curator of Political and Civic Engagement at The Henry Ford, and be followed by a brief audience Q&A and book signing, with the opportunity to purchase a copy of Thy Will Be Done.

The Henry Ford is committed to being a welcoming place for curiosity, learning and the open exchange of ideas. Programs featuring guest speakers are intended to encourage thoughtful conversation and exploration. The views shared at these events do not necessarily reflect those of The Henry Ford.

Angela Oonk hosts a webinar series featuring topics in American history. This month, Clements Curator of Manuscripts joins in a discussion with Derek Kane O'Leary about creation of the first archives in the new United States.

Archives, the foundational resource for historical research, do not emerge from a vacuum. What materials are included in the archive, and why? Whose voices are preserved for posterity, and whose are silenced? In his book, Archival Communities: Constructing the Past in the Early United States, O’Leary takes up this crucial task for the era of the early United States, arguing that key components of America’s archives emerged from within an Atlantic world of circulating scholars, evidence, practices, and ideas. Sponsored by Doug Johnson.

Queen Elizabeth II met with President Ford at the White House – not to mention with four of his predecessors and eight of his successors. Indeed, she met with more U.S. presidents than any other person in history. What did she do with that unprecedented access? Quite a bit, journalist Susan Page discovered in her new book, being published at the 100th anniversary of Elizabeth’s birth. Her Majesty was more than a stoic figure in a colorful hat, waving from a balcony. She was a deft diplomat, a shrewd judge of character and, by the way, a skilled mimic. She was also the most effective force maintaining Great Britain’s voice in the world even as its empire declined. A look at how she did that during her long reign, and at her sunny encounter with Jerry and Betty Ford during the Bicentennial celebration.

A top 100 art fair in an amazing location. The fair is on the grass next to a lake at one of the regions most popular parks. Convenient parking, drive up loading. Kensington Metropark is on the border of Michigan's most prosperous counties and the neighbors do come to shop. Art under $2500 sells best. Fine art and craft only. no stage / distractions.

Palmer Park is a regional park along the primary road to Detroit's Northern Suburbs. A relaxed fair winding through the grass and under trees. The park is adjacent to affordable large historical homes / Detroit's wealthiest neighborhoods. The owners have money, desire and space for fine art. Drive up to load. Convenient parking.

Angela Oonk hosts this webinar series discussing history topics with guests. This month, historian Kellie Carter-Jackson joins the program to share her research that led to her book, We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance.

Jackson examines the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, beginning with the resistance of her own ancestors. Resistance through force and other vital means has played a pivotal part in securing freedom and justice for Black people since the days of the American and Haitian Revolutions.

Angela Oonk hosts this webinar series discussing history topics with guests. This month, historian and author of "Gettysburg Surgeons: Facing a Common Enemy in the Civil War's Deadliest Battle" Barbara Franco takes us to Gettysburg, the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. A thousand surgeons faced an unprecedented medical catastrophe: 25,000 wounded soldiers needing immediate care with only primitive tools and their own determination to save lives.

At Gettysburg's makeshift hospitals—set up in barns, churches, and blood-soaked fields—military and civilian surgeons from both North and South worked around the clock performing life-saving operations under fire. Drawing from a decade of meticulous research, Franco reveals how these courageous medical professionals revolutionized battlefield medicine and established principles still saving lives today.