Alex Kotlowitz, author of The Other Side of the River (1998) ends his book with a quotation from one of the people he interviewed: "These are not cities on different sides of the world. We're just separated by the river" (p. 308). It is an ironic ending for a book about torn race relations between Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, Michigan. What really separates the two cities is not the river but a long history of racial strife and hatred and a series of ugly altercations dating back as far as 1931 when the lynching of an African-American is believed to have taken place. I grew up in Detroit, and except for size (Benton Harbor has 12,000 residents and Detroit has about one million) the two places are very similar. In Detroit the racial separation is with the surrounding white suburbs. Eight Mile Road separates them instead of a river. But the feelings and the problems are much the same. I believe that the various racial incidents that happened between Benton Harbor and St. Joseph could have happened almost anywhere in the United States.

             My great-grandparents on my mother's side came from Georgia to Detroit in 1942 to work in the factories. Blacks were not allowed to serve in the military, and with all the white men gone to war, the factories needed workers. Henry Ford offered good wages and built a community just for blacks, which he named "Inkster" (my grandmother says people were proud of being racist in those days). A similar situation occurred in Benton Harbor, according to the book, where workers were needed in the 1930s and 40s. Employers went down South and brought black people back by truckloads, promising them good-paying jobs. .

             My grandmother remembers when blacks could not eat in white restaurants in Detroit. They would put "Reserved" signs on all the tables so if a black person wanted to eat there, the waiter could say, "We don't have any tables. See?" and point to the signs.