What is Worth Preserving?

Today I contacted WILX and WLNS to find video archives for our I-496 project and the response I got was "absolutely not". WILX mentioned how they could go back to 1989-1990 but no further. This led to the discussion what gets preserved and Akikwe one of the many and talented students in our class mentioned on the Library of Congress is going to preserve the Twitter Archives. It was funny she mentioned this because I just found the link on The Drudge Report that linked to a Wired article.

Twitter and the Library of Congress

Blogging from Milwaukee

After spending hours upon hours at the State of Michigan Library I made the trek to Milwaukee. I could not believe how much we actually made it through at the library. While some sources had little to no relevance we still needed those to help guide our path. We all still had to take one book home for homework it could have been a lot worse. Their was now way I could ever conceive of getting through all of those volumes on my own.

Now, as I sit here at the Milwaukee Public Museum I just want to say what a great job they have done recreating items. I walk into the rain forest and the floor is simulated to look like the ground in the rain forest. The stone roads through the European villages section. The recreating of the rain forest, homes, businesses, and pretty much everything else was amazing. However, the layout troubled me. One moment I was in the rain forest and the next I was seeing stuff about biochemistry. The continents of the world blended together. They had too much going on. And the captions were another issue. Some were over labeled other exhibits lacked context. I had a hard time trying to understand how everything connected together. Overall, I had a very mixed experience at the Milwaukee Public.

Now I must go and take part in my favorite activity, shopping :)

I Think I see the Light

I'll know more tomorrow but I think I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel on the I-496 Project. I feel tomorrow will be a great day when a good chunk of the research team invades the Library of Michigan to hopefully find many of the loose ends that we are looking for.

Productivity

Today I went with an amazing group of classmates to the Library of Michigan to research our I-496 Project and boy we got a lot accomplished. I don't know how much of it was related to our GM connection but we found a lot of great resources in the forms of newspaper clippings. While it was a great experience to see many of the old headlines it was also great learning about Michigan. While I only got to see it through Lansing roads and Interstate 496 it was still an experience. I hope we found things that we can use but if not it was still great learning about the area.

General Motors and I-496: The First Post of Many

As you know we are building an exhibit on I-496 and I was placed on the Research Team. Within that team I was given a more specialized topic and that was General Motors (GM) role. Me being an Africanist I really had no background knowledge on General Motors or the automobile industry. The first book I read on the topic was Billy, Alfred, and General Motors written by William Pelfrey. This gave me great insight on not only the growth of GM but also the growth of the automobile industry. The free wheeling style of Billy Durant (who looks like a professor I had at MSU named Barry Stein) and the rigid Alfred Sloan. Both of these men made great strides in the automobile industry with Durant building GM and Sloan saving GM.

Stupid time to ask this question but...

I just drove the entire stretch of I-496 for the first time and guess what it goes a lot farther than the neighborhood we are discussing. A lot of land was used and why are we only focusing on this one neighborhood? I realize it was the largest black community in Lansing at the time but I-496 impacted so many more people. This leads me to a lot of questions about our exhibit. Why are we only including one neighborhood? Did the people in Eaton County get treated differently than in Ingham county? What was destroyed out past this community to build I-496? I know if we included everyone are exhibit would be to huge with too many focal points. However, with a narrow scope of the project I don't feel that we can tell an accurate complete story.

Stuart Dunnings II

Stuart Dunnings II passed away on Wednesday due to natural causes. He is one of the men interviewed in Matt Miller's article which is assisting us in our I-496 Project. He was the first Lansing's first black lawyer and an important part of the legal community. Below is the link to Christine Rook piece about him from the Lansing State Journal.

Report

Boy am I confused

As I sit hear reading this book Urban America by John McDonald(the book I was supposed to read) and trying to determine the usefulness of it I couldn't. I don't know how useful this book would be because I don't know what I'm looking for. Until I know the way our project is going to shape up I don't know if it is useful. The informatation is great and the book is informative but I do not know if we can use it. A full report will be up on by Friday :)

Connection to I-496 Project

As many of you know my class is currently working on a project showing the development of I-496 and the effect it had on the largest black community in Lansing at the time. On Thursday Lansing State Journal reporter Matt Miller came to speak to our class and he said that the Friendship Baptist Church of Lansing was one of his major sources to get information. However, in the latest Lansing City Pulse the Friendship Baptist Church is having some internal disputes. It might not connect to our actual project but it is very informative and hopefully will not provide a road block to our research. Below is the article by Neal McNamara.

Schism?

I-496 Research Project

We were asked to come up with three questions on why I-496 was built where it was. While there are many questions to be asked I thought these three were the most important.

1. Why was I-496 built in that specific location?
2. What impact did I-496 have on surrounding businesses?
3. What happened to the people that were relocated?

The first question is the one I believe is the most important. The why is always the most important. This allows us to delve into what truly happened. It will give us a better picture on what happened before I-496 was built and the need for it.